The wind is sweeping o'er the hill;
It hath a mournful sound,
As if it felt the difference
Its weary wing hath found.
A little while that wandering wind
Swept over leaf and flower;
For there was green for every tree,
And bloom for every hour.
It wandered through the pleasant wood,
And caught the dove's lone song;
And by the garden-beds, and bore
The rose's breath along.
But hoarse and sullenly it sweeps;
No rose is opening now--
No music, for the wood-dove's nest
Is vacant on the bough.
Oh, human heart and wandering wind,
Go look upon the past;
The likeness is the same with each--
Their summer did not last.
Each mourns above the things it loved--
One o'er a flower and leaf;
The other over hopes and joys,
Whose beauty was as brief.
We congratulate the editor and the public on the past success of the
_Amulet_, especially as it proves that a pious feeling co-exists with a
taste for refined amusement, and that advantageously. There is nothing
austere in any page of the _Amulet_, nor anything so frivolous and light
as to be objectionable; but it steers in the medium, and consequently
must be acceptable to every well-regulated mind. Indeed, many of the
pieces in the present volume may be read and re-read with increased
advantage; whilst two only are unequal to the names attached to them.
* * * * *