"Vain-vain-my brain is turning

With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs came fast and thick,
And I am freezing-burning-

Dying! Oh, God! if I might only live!
My phial-Ha! it thrills me-I revive.

"Aye-were not man to die,

He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here-
Could he but train his eye-

Might he but wait the mystic word and hour-
Only his maker would transcend his power!

"This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slacken at the living stream-
To live, Oh, God! that life is but a dream!
And death--Aha! I reel-

Dim-dim-I faint, darkness comes o'er my eye-
Cover me! save me !--God of heaven!

I die!"

'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th' expression wore
Of his death struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples, thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan

And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.

The storm was raging still. The shutter swung,
Creaking as harshly in the fitful wind,
And all without went on-as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.

The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of the mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th' Alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at his master's will.

And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire-a sun-bent eagle stricken,
From his high soaring, down-an instrument
Broken with its own compass Oh how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea ambition.wrecked-
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.

-N. P. Willis.

O, I have watched with fondest care To see my opening flow'ret blow, And felt the joy which parents shareThe pride which fathers only know.

And I have sat the long, long night,

And marked that tender flower decay; Not torn abruptly from the sight,

But slowly, sadly, waste away!

The spoiler came, yet paused, as though
So meek a victim checked his arm;
Half gave and half withheld the blow,
As forced to strike, yet loath to harm.

We saw that fair cheek's fading bloom
The ceaseless canker-worm consume,

And gazed on hopelessly,

Till the mute suffering pictured there
Wrung from the father's lip a prayer,
O God! the prayer his child might die.

Ay, from his lip-the doting heart
E'en then refused to bear its part.

But the sad conflict's past—'tis o'er ; That gentle bosom throbs no more! The spirit's freed-through realms of light Faith's eagle glance pursues her flight To other worlds, to happier skies; Hope dries the tear which sorrow weepeth, No mortal sound, the voice which cries, "The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth!" -Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby).

When the soft green buds are bursting out,
And up on the south wind comes a shout

Of village boys and girls at play

In the mild spring evening gray.

Taken away,

Sturdy of heart and stout of limb,

From eyes that drew half their right from him,

And put low, low underneath the clay,
In his spring-on this spring day.

Passes away

All the pride of boy-life begun,

All the hope of life yet to run;

Who dares to question when One saith "Nay." Murmur not only pray.

Enters to-day

Another body in churchyard sod,
Another soul on the life in God.
His Christ was buried-and lives alway;
Trust Him, and go your way.

-Dinah Muloch Craik,

WE

E mourn for those whose laurels fade,
Whose greatness in the grave is laid;
Whose memory few will care to keep,
Whose names, forgotten, soon shall sleep;
We mourn life's vainness, as we bow
O'er folded hands and icy brow.

Wan is the grief of those whose faith
Is bounded by the shores of death;
From out whose mists of doubt and gloom
No rainbow arches o'er the tomb,
Where love's last tribute of a tear
Lies with dead flowers upon the bier.

O thou revered, beioved! - nor yet,
With sob of beils, with eyes tear-wet,
With faltering pulses, do we lay
Thy greatness in the grave away;
Not Auburn's consecrated ground

Can hold the life that wraps thee round.

Still shall thy gentle presence prove
Its ministry of hope and love;
Thy tender tones be heard within
The story of Evangeline;
And by the fireside, midst the rest,
Thou oft shalt be a welcome guest.

I

LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase which calls The burial ground God's Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts

Comfort to those who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast.

In the sure faith that we shall rise again

At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume
With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth.
With thy rude plowshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,
This is the place where human harvests grow!
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Sweet friends, what the women lave

For the last sleep of the grave
Is but a tent which I am quitting,
Is a garment no more fitting;
Is a cage from which, at last,
Like a bird, my soul has passed.
Love the inmate, not the room;
The wearer, not the garb-the plume
Of the eagle, not the bars

That kept him from the splendid stars.

Loving friends, O rise and dry
Straightway every weeping eye!
What ye lift upon the bier
Is not worth a single tear.
'Tis an empty sea shell-one
Out of which the pearl is gone.
The shell is broken, it lies there;

The pearl, the all, the soul is here.
'Tis an earthen jar whose lid
Allah sealed, the while it hid
The treasure of his treasury-
A mind that loved him, let it lie,
Let the shards be earth once more,
Since the gold is in his store.
Allah. glorious! Allah, good!
Now thy world is understood-
Now the long, long wonder ends;
Yet we weep, my foolish friends,
While the man whom you call dead
In unbroken bliss instead
Lives and loves you-lost, 'tis true,
In the light that shines for you;
But in the light you cannot see,

In undisturbed felicity

In a perfect paradise,

And a life that never dies.

Farewell, friends, yet not farewell,
Where I go, you too shall dwell,
I am gone before your face-
A moment's worth, a little space.
When you come where I have stept,
Ye will wonder why ye wept;
Ye will know, by true love taught,
That here is all and there is naught.
Weep awhile if ye are fain-
Sunshine still must follow rain;