Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

209
And as the thoughtless children laugh
To see him totter on his way,
He knew his destined hour was near.
And soon it came; and here he strives,
Outstretched upon his snow-white bier,
To reconcile the dread account--
How stands the balance, what the amount;
As we shall do with trembling fear
When our last hour arrives.
Come, let us kneel around his bed,
And pray unto his God and ours
For mercy on his servant here:
Oh, God be with the dying year!
And God be with the happy hours
That died before their sire lay dead!
And as the bells commingling ring
The New Year in, the Old Year out,
Muffled and sad, and now in peals
With which the quivering belfry reels,
Grateful and hopeful be the shout,
The King is dead!--Long live the King!
THE AWAKING.
A lady came to a snow-white bier,
Where a youth lay pale and dead:
She took the veil from her widowed head,
And, bending low, in his ear she said:
"Awaken! for I am here."
She pass'd with a smile to a wild wood near,
Where the boughs were barren and bare;
She tapp'd on the bark with her fingers fair,
And call'd to the leaves that were buried there:
"Awaken! for I am here."