Shall we build to the purple of PrideThe trappings which dizen the proud? Alas! they are all laid aside; This is a place of gloom: where are the gloomy? THANATOPSIS. Unto Sorrow?-The dead cannot grieve; Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear, Which compassion itself could relieve! Ah! sweetly they slumber, nor hope, love, nor fear Peace, peace is the watchword, the only one here! Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow? Ah no! for his empire is known, And here there are trophies enow! 779 And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Beneath, the cold dead, and around, the dark Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down stone, Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown. The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, And look for the sleepers around us to rise; The second to Faith, that insures it fulfilled; And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when he rose to the skies. HERBERT KNOWLES. Thanatopsis. To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth to be resolved to earth again; With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,- Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,— So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love,- GEORGE ELIOT. Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible! Он, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's minds To vaster issues. So to live is heaven; For which we struggled, failed, and agonized, That watched to ease the burden of the world, Meditations of a Hindoo Prince and Skeptic. ALL the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and the steps of a God? Westward across the ocean and northward ayont the snow, Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know? Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm, Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops or the gusts of a gathering storm. In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen, Yet we all say: "Whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?” A million shrines stand open and ever the censer swings, As they bow to a mystic symbol or the figures of ancient kings; And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loath to die. For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a It is naught but the wide-world story, how the pass of the hills; earth and the heavens began, Above is the sky, and around us the sound and the How the gods are glad and angry, and Deity once shot that kills. Pushed by a Power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown, We pray to the trees for shelter and press our lips to a stone. was man. I had thought: "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell, The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock They have fathomed the depths we float on, or frowns hollow and grim, measured the unknown main." And the form and the nod of a demon are caught Sadly they turn from the venture and say that the in the twilight dim; And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain-crest, Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest? quest is vain. Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break? The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that faithful guide? is gathered and gone The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at mountain-side. Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death. Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first of an ancient name, Chiefs who were slain on the war-field and women who died in flame: They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard our race; Ever I watch and worship, they sit with a marble face. And the myriad idols around me and the legion of muttering priests, The revels and riots unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts, What have they wrung from the silence? Hath even a whisper come Of the secret-Whence and Whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb. Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the uttermost sea? "The secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?" morning are level and lone? Is there naught in the heaven above, whence the rain and the levin are hurled, But the wind that is swept round us by the rush of the rolling world? The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep, With the dirge and sounds of lamenting, and voices of women who weep. SIR ALFRED COMYNS LYALL. Over the River. OVER the river they beckon to me, Loved ones who 've crossed to the farther side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see, But their voices are lost in the rushing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold, And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue; He crossed in the twilight gray and cold, And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. We saw not the angels who met him there, The gates of the city we could not see: Over the river, over the river, My brother stands waiting to welcome me. |