The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-06-18
THE CLAY oHERuB.

What is immortal? Dreamers speak or love
OUTLYING mortal breath -
nd conquering fate and circumstance ana
And wise men preach. and poets sing in
OF faith and fame which years can not dis
And hope which laughs at time.
And vet the veriest trifies oft outlast
All these, and leave them in the misty past
Proving how empty is their DoasL ABOVE
A eilken shred, a flower, or faded glove.
He took a piece of potter's earth one day
My friend, remembered still
And, with an artists ready craft and skill,
Fashioned for me a little eheru brace
''Alasl' 1 said. why make Of brittle clay
A thing OF so much grace,
SO beautiful and sweet ana ia nty 1alrf
Its lines will yield to the enaclng air
Their delicate curving, shield Il as may,
And dry and crumble, grain by grain, away
The brows were bent as in a wondering
Half Joy and half surprise;
The gentle lids closed over sleeping eyes;
The tender lips just parted IN smile
So sweet and life-ike, it would almost seem
IL would awaken, laughing, from its rest;
And quietly across the baby breast
Which slumbers lightest breathing seemed TO
Two angel wings were folded, soft and still.
He smiled, and touched the rounded cheek OF
And Eravely said to me:
'sIhis little face you prize so tenderly
Holds in itself no element Of change,
No germ of dissolution or decay;
And IL would not be strange
If. in so kind and loving hands as yours,
II lasts for years, and even stin endures
When much that you and /, dear child to-
Believe immortal, shall have passed away"
How truly did he speak, Deaths seal was
set
Even then upon his face,
Though love refused to see its fatal trace;
And, though the world was fair with light and
cam a. Dl w -, -..,. -, ss,. -.
There lay shade OF doom.
Long since their earnest depths forgot the
light;
But wrapped in happy sleep aud visions
Unchanged by time, unshadowed by regret,
The little cherubface is perfect yet.
The hand which lowered with life a marble
And caught marvellous ray
OF beauty in this worthless clay;
That wrought out power and passion from a
Called smiles from cold Carraras prisoning
BY skiiIfui touch alone;
Awakened lOveltest dimples in a cheek
Rock-hewn, and made the carved lip almost
Has now, oblivious of its lofty trust
Forgot its cunning, and returned to dust.
In the true heart that loved him, even yet
The wild and frantic grief
Which long rejected sOlace and relief,
Has only changed to fixed and silent pain;
And every spring-tlme, when the violet
w axes 10 the moving ram
While the glad birds build, and the new leaves
grow.
And the brooks sing-its blossom sweet and
low
Keeps vigil by his rest, with blue eye wet,
Like one who waits and never viii forget
What has it not outlived and put to shame,
Outlasting their decay,
The little fragment OF untempered clay2
Youth, love, and all that makes existence
dear:
LIES brightest dreams-an artists dawning
fame,
A woman's hope and fear
a childs sweet life, that promised to atone
For years OF toll and woe endured alone
Faiths strong reliance, friendships steadiest
flame
And yet the olay-wrought face remains the
same.
Wherefore It seems these tribes, which we
call
Mere nothings Of a day,
Last when our gOufs best treasures pass
away;
Beside the lifetime of a book-pressed flower.
Loves fond forever dwindles brief and
small
And fame Is for an hour;
Joys promise fades before roses red,
And clay endures when youth and hope are
dead;
Shadows Outlast our trust, as years befall,
But human sorrow long Outlives them all.
Elizabeth Akcgs, IN ". Y. Independent.