Text: Richard H. Stoddard, “Miserrimus,” Daily Tribune (New York, NY), vol. IX, no. 172, October 27, 1849, supplement, p. 2, col. 1

MISERRIUMS. . . . For the Tribune.

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“Rest! perturbed spirit!”

———

BY R. H. STODDARD.

———

I.

HE has passed away,

From a world of strife,

Fighting the wars of Time and Life,

The leaves will fall, when the winds are loud,

And the snows of Winter weave his shroud,

But he will never, ah never know,

Anything more,

Of leaves and snow!

II.

The Summer tide

Of his life was past,

And his hopes were strewn like leaves on the blast;

His faults were many — his virtues few,

A tempest, with flecks of the Heaven’s blue!

He might have soared in the morning light,

But he built his nest

With the birds of Night!

III.

He glimmered apart

In a solemn gloom,

Like a dying lamp in a haunted tomb;

He touched his lute with a cunning spell,

But all its melodies breathed of Hell!

He summoned the Afrits and the Ghouls,

And the pallid ghosts

Of the damnéd souls!

IV.

But he lies in dust,

And the stone is rolled

Over his sepulcher dim and cold;

He has canceled all he has done or said,

And gone to the dear and holy dead!

Let us forget the path he trod,

And leave him now

To his Maker, God!

October 17, 1849.