Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 345=425.= "regret."
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Softly Death touched her, and she passed away, Out of this glad, bright world she made more fair; Sweet as the apple blossoms, when in May, The orchards flush, of summer grown aware.
All that fresh delicate beauty gone from sight, That gentle, gracious presence felt no more! How must the house be emptied of delight! What shadows on the threshold she passed o'er!
She loved me. Surely I was grateful, yet I could not give her back all she gave me,— Ever I think of it with vain regret, Musing upon a summer by the sea:
Remembering troops of merry girls who pressed About me, clinging arms and tender eyes, And love, light scent of roses. With the rest She came to fill my heart with new surprise.
The day I left them all and sailed away, While o'er the calm sea, 'neath the soft gray sky They waved farewell, she followed me to say Yet once again her wistful, sweet "good by."
At the boat's bow she drooped; her light green dress Swept o'er the skiff in many a graceful fold, Her glowing face, bright with a mute caress, Crowned with her lovely hair of shadowy gold:
And tears she dropped into the crystal brine For me, unworthy, as we slowly swung Free of the mooring. Her last look was mine, Seeking me still the motley crowd among.
O tender memory of the dead I hold So precious through the fret and change of years! Were I to live till Time itself grew old, The sad sea would be sadder for those tears.
[Footnote 100: A native of New Hampshire; long resident on the Isles of Shoals, and remarkable for her vivid pictures of ocean life, in both prose and verse.]
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=Theophilus H. Hill.[101] 1836-.=
From "The Song of the Butterfly."
=426.=
When the shades of evening fall, Like the foldings of a pall,— When the dew is on the flowers, And the mute, unconscious hours, Still pursue their noiseless flight Through the dreamy realms of night, In the shut or open rose Ah, how sweetly I repose!
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And Diana's starry train, Sweetly scintillant again, Never sleep while I repose On the petals of the rose. Sweeter couch hath who than I? Quoth the brilliant Butterfly.
Life is but a summer day, Gliding languidly away; Winter comes, alas! too soon,— Would it were forever June! Yet though brief my flight may be, Fun and frolic still for me! When the summer leaves and flowers, Now so beautiful and gay, In the cold autumnal showers, Droop and fade, and pine away, Who would not prefer to die? What were life to such as I? Quoth the flaunting Butterfly.
[Footnote 101: Born in North Carolina; in the intervals of his law practice has published a volume of poems.]
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=Thomas Hailey Aldrich.[102] 1836-.=
From his "Poems."