And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
    Come, from the village sent,
  Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
    With fairy laughter blent? 
  And what if, in the evening light,
  Betrothed lovers walk in sight
    Of my low monument? 
  I would the lovely scene around
  Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

  I know, I know I should not see
    The season’s glorious show,
  Nor would its brightness shine for me;
    Nor its wild music flow;

  But if, around my place of sleep,
  The friends I love should come to weep,
    They might not haste to go. 
  Soft airs and song, and light and bloom,
  Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

  These to their soften’d hearts should bear
    The thought of what has been,
  And speak of one who cannot share
    The gladness of the scene;
  Whose part in all the pomp that fills
  The circuit of the summer hills,
    Is—­that his grave is green;
  And deeply would their hearts rejoice
  To hear again his living voice.

The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous—­nothing could be more melodious.  The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner.  The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the poet’s cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul—­while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill.  The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness.  And if, in the remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty.  It is, nevertheless,

  A feeling of sadness and longing
    That is not akin to pain,
  And resembles sorrow only
    As the mist resembles the rain.

The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full of brilliancy and spirit as “The Health” of Edward Coote Pinkney: 

  I fill this cup to one made up
    Of loveliness alone,
  A woman, of her gentle sex
    The seeming paragon;
  To whom the better elements
    And kindly stars have given
  A form so fair, that like the air,
    ’Tis less of earth than heaven.

  Her every tone is music’s own,
    Like those of morning birds,
  And something more than melody
    Dwells ever in her words;
  The coinage of her heart are they,
    And from her lips each flows
  As one may see the burden’d bee
    Forth issue from the rose.

  Affections are as thoughts to her,
    The measures of her hours;
  Her feelings have the fragrancy,
    The freshness of young flowers;
  And lovely passions, changing oft,
    So fill her, she appears
  The image of themselves by turns,—­
    The idol of past years!