“Her silvery voice was heard no more— She sang not, and her breathing late, Which never knew neglect before, Now lies alone—forgotten, mute! Or, if a passing strain she rang, So mournfully its numbers rose, That those who heard might deem she sang A lorn soul’s requiem to repose!”
On a lovely autumn evening, just as the sun was shedding its last rosy beams on the tops of the surrounding hills, Mary looked from her chamber window, and drank in, at a glance, the golden glories of expiring day, and thought how calm it would be for her to die as sweetly as the sun was sinking to rest behind the hills, so that her memory might live, like the beauteous twilight, long after her frail body had mouldered again to dust. She called her mother to her side, and told her that she was dying! At such a beautiful hour, when the day began to close, and shadows were no longer broad-cast from the clouds, but were stretched along the surface of the earth by the interception of a tree, or hill-side, Mary breathed her last!
As these precious but fleeting scenes pass like sober thoughts across the face of earth, or intermingle side by side with gay and brilliant passages of light of equal evanescence, making all tender and beautiful, which otherwise had been lustrous and sparkling, they call up within the heart the memory of the past; and by an association we can scarcely trace, characters reappear of friends who have passed away before us.
Thus ended the life of Mary Wilson. Struck down in the vigor and bloom of youth, this young maiden has left many friends to mourn her loss. She was much esteemed; so much so, that every personal defect was forgotten in the charms of her spirit, with which she imparted to her friends a look of kindness and a blessing.
“Yon willow shades a marble stone, On which the curious eye can tell That underneath there lieth one Who loved not wisely—but too well.”
Hah! for the tide of the blood’s hot gush— Hah! for the throng or proud thoughts that rush, Reckless and riotous—why should they be Iced by thy frown, Reality?
Give, give me back the early joy Of youth’s warm hopes, of vows believed— Again, again a dreaming boy Let me be happy—though deceived.
Friendship, they say, is but a name, And woman’s love a meteor flame, That feedeth upon fancy’s breath A little while, then perisheth. Out, out upon thee—out on thee! Thou hideous hag, Reality.