Volume 32 — A FUNERAL THOUGHT.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

When the pale Genius, to whose hollow tramp Echo the startled chambers of the soul, Waves his inverted torch o'er that wan camp Where the archangel's marshaling trumpets roll, I would not meet him in the chamber dim, Hushed, and o'erburthened with a nameless fear, When the breath flutters, and the senses swim, And the dread hour is near! Though Love's dear arms might clasp me fondly then, As if to keep the Summoner at bay, And woman's wo and the calm grief of men Hallow at last the still, unbreathing clay— These are Earth's fetters, and the soul would shrink, Thus bound, from Darkness and the dread Unknown, Stretching its arms from Death's eternal brink, Which it must dare alone! But in the awful silence of the sky, Upon some mountain summit, never trod Through the bright ether would I climb, to die Afar from mortals, and alone with God! To the pure keeping of the stainless air Would I resign my feeble, failing breath, And with the rapture of an answered prayer Welcome the kiss of Death! The soul, which wrestled with that doom of pain, Prometheus-like, its lingering portion here, Would there forget the vulture and the chain, And leap to freedom from its mountain-bier! All that it ever knew, of noble thought, Would guide it upward to the glorious track, Nor the keen pangs by parting anguish wrought, Turn its bright glances back! Then to the elements my frame would turn; No worms should riot on my coffined clay, But the cold limbs, from that sepulchral urn, In the slow storms of ages waste away! Loud winds, and thunder's diapason high, Should be my requiem through the coming time, And the white summit, fading in the sky, My monument sublime!