ss leaves:

And as, in life, the waving kerchief speaks
The words of friends departing which the heart
Is all too full to utter e're we part
For ever, so the sorrowing daughter seeks

In thought one recollection more to wave
To one long dead; and asks in speechless woe
Primrose and snowdrop on the mound below
To bear love's messages beyond the grave!

And in the golden sunshine children come
With prattling tongue and winsome, rosy face--
Like blossoms flowering in a lonely place--
And lay their tributes o'er each narrow home

Where lies the helpless beacon of their lives
In darkness quencht--gone ere their infant thought
Could realise the loss which Death had wrought--
The stab the stern Destroying Angel gives.

And o'er each silent grave Love's tributes fall--
The primrose, cowslip, gentle daffodil--
The snow-drop, and the tender daisy--till
God's acre sleeps beneath a flowery pall.

And now the sun in all its glory came
And lit the world up with a light divine,
Casting fresh beauty o'er each sacred shrine:
Breathing on all things an inspiring flame.

As if the God of Light had bade it be,
In sweet reward for pious rite performed;
As if, with human love and fondness charmed,
The Lord had smiled with love's benignity.

For not to this old churchyard where I stand
Is audience of the dead, through flow'rs, confined
A nation's heart--a nation's love--combined,
Make it the sweet observance of the land.

In humble cot--in proud patrician halls,
The Floral Festival fills every breast;
And o'er the grass, where'er the loved ones rest,
The lowly flow'r with choice exotic falls.

And as they fall upon the sacred spot,
Sacred to every heart that strews them there,
They seem to sing in voices low and clear:
"Though gone for evermore--forgotten not!

"Though never more--still evermore--above
"Eternal will their deathless spirits reign.
"No more until above to meet again:
"Till then send up sweet messages of love."

So sang the blossoms with their odorous breath--
Or so in fancy sang they unto me;
"No more--yet evermore, eternally!
"Though lost, alas! remembered still in death!"

ELEGY

ON THE LATE CRAWSHAY BAILEY, ESQ.,

"THE IRON KING."

PRIZE POEM:

ABERGAVENNY EISTEDDFOD, 1874.

The programme opened with a competition for the best English Elegy