Page:Ainsworth's Magazine - Volume 1.djvu/40

By whom, or after whom, so called,
None living now can say;
Nor planted how long since; nor more,
Than that the name they bear, they bore
In a long distant day.

Memorial of a mortal three
Who set them where they stand,
Their pensile branches still to wave,
When long, long moulder'd in the grave,
Each planter sister's hand.

Unseulptured, fragile monument!
Who wills, may read in thee
(Reading with thoughtful heart and mind,
To dreamy questioning inclined,)
A touching mystery.

What were those sisters? Young or old,
Of high or humble birth?
Simple or wise, admired or scorn'd,
Loved and lamented, or unmourn'd,
Pass'd they away from earth?

Came they in joyous childhood here,
From sad fore-feeling free,
To set, by hands parental led,
The sapling trees, that overhead
Inarch so loftily?

Or hither, in short after time,
(Tears from their young eyes starting,)
Came they with sadden'd mien sedate,
And arms entwined, to consecrate
The eve of a first parting?

Each calling by a sister's name
The youngling ash then set;
And blessing, as she turn'd away,
The frail memorial of a day
It stands recording yet.

Or was it of the Sisters three,
When two were dead and gone,
That, all absorb'd in mournful thought,
This spot the sad survivor sought?
The last and only one!

This spot in childish joyance oft
Where they had played together,
Merry as blossoms on the bough,
Or birds, their fairy sports I trow
Scarce startled from the heather.

Two soundly sleep in distant graves,
And one stands all alone,
Fading and failing iast, with her
To perish, the last chronicler
Of those to dust gone down.

So thought she, reasoning with herself,
Perhaps, that thing forlorn!
And gazing sadly round, sigh'd on,
"Here all will look, when we are gone
As we had ne'er been born."