Page 57 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

Strewing the path of the village street
With choicest flowers for her dainty feet.
A joyful chime of the bells again,
T o proclaim the return of the bridal train;
A louder peal from the old church-tower

(A s the bride passes oil through the floral bower,
With the bridegroom happy, tender and gay),
And the echoes are carried away, a w a y ;
But they linger awhile o ’er the tombstones g ray;
A nd the sleeper awakes with a yearning cry—

“ Oh, to die ! oh, to die 1
God let me die on m y m other’s grave,
’ Tis all m y broken heart can cra v e ! ”
And she lays her head again on the stone,
With a long-drawn breath-and a sobbing moan;
W hile the bridal train (with many a thought
Unspoken of omens with evil fraught)

Sweeps down the path from the old church do01,
And the bells’ glad music is wafted once more
Over the moorland, over the heath—
But they wake her not, for her sleep is death !

W hy does the bridegroom's cheek turn pate?
W hy in his eyes such a look of bale?
W hy does he totter, then quicken his pacc
As he catches a glimpse o f the poor dead iace ?

Oh, woe betide,
That so fair a bride
A s she who steps with such grace by his side,
Should have faced grim death on her wedding-day!
Did this thought trouble the bridegroom uav,
And dash from his eye the glad light away ?
I wist n o t; for never a word he spoke,

A nd soon from his face the troubled look