Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 34, Page 584-586
HYMNS OF LIFE. BY MRS HEMANS.
No. V.
EASTER-DAY IN A MOUNTAIN CHURCHYARD.
There is a wakening on the mighty hills,
A kindling with the spirit of the morn!
Bright gleams are scatter'd from the thousand rills,
And a soft visionary hue is born
On the young foliage, worn
By all the imbosom'd woods,—a silvery green,
Made up of spring and dew, harmoniously serene.
And lo! where floating through a glory, sings
The Lark, alone amidst a crystal sky!
Lo! where the darkness of his buoyant wings,
Against a soft and rosy cloud on high,
Trembles with melody!
While the far-echoing solitudes rejoice
To the rich laugh of music in that voice.
But purer light than of the early sun
Is on you cast, oh, mountains of the earth!
And for your dwellers nobler joy is won
Than the sweet echoes of the skylark's mirth,
By this glad morning's birth!
And gifts more precious by its breath are shed
Than music on the breeze, dew on the violet's head.
Gifts for the soul, from whose illumined eye
O'er nature's face the colouring glory flows;
Gifts from the fount of Immortality,
Which, fill'd with balm, unknown to human woes,
Lay hush'd in dark repose,
Till Thou, bright Dayspring! mad'st its waves our own,
By thine unsealing of the burial stone.
Sing, then, with all your choral strains, ye hills!
And let a full victorious tone be given
By rock and cavern to the wind which fills
Your urn-like depths with sound! The tomb is riven,
The radiant gate of Heaven
Unfolded—and the stern, dark shadow cast
By Death's o'ersweeping wing, from the earth's bosom past.
And you, ye graves! upon whose turf I stand,
Girt with the slumber of the hamlet's Dead,
Time with a soft and reconciling hand
The covering mantle of bright moss hath spread
O'er every narrow bed:
But not by time, and not by nature sown
Was the celestial seed, whence round you Peace hath grown.
Christ hath arisen! oh! not one cherish'd head
Hath, 'midst the flowery sods, been pillow'd here
Without a hope, (howe'er the heart hath bled
In its vain yearnings o'er the unconscious bier,)
A hope, upspringing clear
From those majestic tidings of the morn,
Which lit the living way to all of woman born.
