Volume 5 — Original. Mary's Dirge. By Carolus.

"Manibus date lilia plenis." O THOU, whose awful mandate goes Throughout a wondering world of woes, Mysterious, still the same, In moments such as this, we feel, When grief is boundless, we must kneel And bless THY holy name. Ah, MARY! what avails thee now Thy radiant eyes, thy classic brow, And form of queenly mould; The charms of polished culture's art, Thy trusting, noble woman's heart, Now pulseless, senseless, cold? What now avails it to have stood, In mind's keen conquest of the good, Peerless among thy mates? Or that a widowed mother wound, Like NIOBE, her arms around Her last, whom death awaits?

Alas! when heaven such gifts bestows, It would, to earth-stained souls, disclose A gleam of its own light, But ere we learn how dear the prize, All fades before our longing eyes, Save sorrow, dreams, and night. But where can friends so stricken find A solace for the anguished mind, Except in Him who sends The grief that clouds, the joy that cheers, The course of checkered, fleeting years. And whilst he smites befriends? As now I stand beside thy form, So late in youth and beauty warm, And sad, hushed vigil keep, The eye would be as rayless grown, As tearless, MARY, as thine own, Could see—and could not weep. Behold that lovely ruined shrine, That marble waste where thought divine Still seems to sit enthroned; Those pallid lips whose every word, Like sweet aëolian music heard, A hymn to nature toned. In pity, strew the virgin flower, By virgin hands, in tender shower Upon her virgin breast; There sleeps she, purity's picked rose— An angel snatched from earthly woes To calm, eternal rest. Though death's resistless, ruthless might Sweeps beauty's loveliest forms from sight, The soul retains her love, And MARY'S spirit, ever near The friends her young life cherished here, Will lead their thoughts above. Pittsburg, Jan. 21, 1867.