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Show THE DEATH OF MISS BAYARD. The sudden death of Miss Kate Bayard, daughter of Secretary Bayard, as she was jnst leaving her home to assist Miss Cleveland at a reception, was sad in the extreme. To see one so young and for whom life was blooming so beautifully and bright, so suddenly struck down makes the heart swell and the eyes grow dim. Her death recalls Dr. Holmes' beautiful poem "Under the Violets :" Her hands are cold; her face is white; No more her pulses come and go; Her eyes are shut to life and light; Fold the white vesture, snow on sncw. And lay her where the violets blow. . But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; A 6lender cross of wood alone Shall say, that here a maiden lies In peace beneath the peaceful skies. And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall whirl their circling shadows round, To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound." When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, . And, ripening in the autumn sun, The acorns and the chesnuts fall, Donbt not that she will heed them all. For her the morning choir shall sing Its matins from the branohes high, And every minstrel-voice of spring, That trills beneath the April sky, Shall greet her with its earliest cry. When, turning round their dial-track, Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, Her little mourners, clad in black, -The crickets, sliding through the grass, Shall pipe for her an evening mass. - At last the rootlets of the trees Shall find the prison where she lies, And bear the buried dust they seize In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that wanned it rise ! If any, born'of kindlier blood, Should ask, What maiden lies below? Say only this : A tender bud, That tried to blossom in the snow, Lies withered where the violets blow. |
