The incident on which this poem is founded was related to the author
while in Europe, in a letter from an English lady. A child died in the
south of Italy, and when they went to bury it they found it revived and
playing with the flowers which, after the manner of that country, had
been brought to grace his funeral.
Page 184.
_'Tis said, when Schiller's death drew nigh,
The wish possessed his mighty mind,
To wander forth wherever lie
The homes and haunts of humankind._
Shortly before the death of Schiller, he was seized with a strong desire
to travel in foreign countries, as if his spirit had a presentiment of
its approaching enlargement, and already longed to expatiate in a wider
and more varied sphere of existence.
Page 185.
_The flower
Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem
The red drops fell like blood._
The _Sanguinaria Canadensis_, or blood-root, as it is commonly called,
bears a delicate white flower of a musky scent, the stem of which breaks
easily, and distils a juice of a bright-red color.
Page 191.
_The shad-bush, white with flowers,
Brightened the glens._
The small tree, named by the botanists _Aronia Botyrapium_, is called,
in some parts of our country, the shad-bush, from the circumstance that
it flowers about the time that the shad ascend the rivers in early
spring. Its delicate sprays, covered with white blossoms before the
trees are yet in leaf, have a singularly beautiful appearance in the
woods.
Page 192.
_"There hast thou," said my friend, "a fitting type
Of human life."_
I remember hearing an aged man, in the country, compare the slow
movement of time in early life, and its swift flight as it approaches
old age, to the drumming of a partridge or ruffed grouse in the
woods--the strokes falling slow and distinct at first, and following
each other more and more rapidly, till they end at last in a whirring
sound.
Page 194.