Is faith as vague as all unsweet :

The fame is quenched that I foresaw, Eternal form shall still divide

The head hath missed an earthly wreath : The eternal soul from all beside ;

I curse not nature, no, nor death; And I shall know him when we meet :

For nothing is that errs from law. And we shall sit at endless feast,

We pass; the path that each man trod Enjoying each the other's good :

Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds : What vaster dream can hit the mood

What fame is left for human deeds Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least

In endless age? It rests with God. Upon the last and sharpest height,

O hollow wraith of dying fame, Before the spirits fade away,

Fade wholly, while the soul exults, Some landing-place to clasp and say, .

And self-enfolds the large results “Farewell! We lose ourselves in light."

Of force that would have forged a name. SPIRITUAL COMPANIONSHIP.

THE POET'S TRIBUTE.
Do we indeed desire the dead

What hope is here for modern rhyme
Should still be near us at our side ?
Is there no baseness we would hide ?

To him who turns a musing eye

On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie No inner vileness that we dread ?

Foreshortened in the tract of time?
Shall he for whose applause I strove,
I had such reverence for his blame,

These mortal lullabies of pain
See with clear eye some hidden shame,

May bind a book, may line a box, And I be lessened in his love ?

May serve to curl a maiden's locks :

Or when a thousand moons shall wane
I wrong the grave with fears untrue : .
Shall love be blamed for want of faith ? A man upon a stall may find,

There must be wisdom with great Death : And, passing, turn the page that tells The dead shall look me through and through. A grief, then changed to something else, Be near us when we climb or fall :

Sung by a long-forgotten mind. Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours

But what of that? My darkened ways With larger other eyes than ours,

Shall ring with music all the same; To make allowance for us all.

To breathe my loss is more than fame, MOONLIGHT MUSINGS.

To utter love more sweet than praise.

ALFRED TENNYSON. WHEN on my bed the moonlight falls,

I know that in thy place of rest,
By that broad water of the west,

THEY ARE ALL GONE.
There comes a glory on the walls ;
Thy marble bright in dark appears,

They are all gone into the world of light,
As slowly steals a silver flame

And I alone sit lingering here ! Along the letters of thy name,

Their very memory is fair and bright, And o'er the number of thy years.

And my sad thoughts doth clear ; The mystic glory swims away;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, From off my bed the moonlight dies : Like stars upon some gloomy grove, — And, closing eaves of wearied eyes,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray :

After the sun's remove. And then I know the mist is drawn

I see them walking in an air of glory, A lucid veil from coast to coast,

Whose light doth trample on my days, – And in the dark church, like a ghost, My days which are at best but dull and hoary, Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.

Mere glimmering and decays.
DEATH IN LIFE'S PRIME.

O holy hope ! and high humility, —
So many worlds, so much to do,

High as the heavens above ! So little done, such things to be,

These are your walks, and you have showed themi How know I what had need of thee,

me For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? ! To kindle my cold love.

0, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The Reaper came that day ; 'T was an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Lord of the living and the dead,

Our Saviour dear !
We lay in silence at thy feet.

This sad, sad year.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

"ONLY A YEAR.”

MY CHILD.
One year ago, - a ringing voice,

I CANNOT make him dead !
A clear blue eye,

His fair sunshiny head
And clustering curls of sunny hair,

Is ever bounding round my study chair ;
Too fair to die.

Yet when my eyes, now dim

With tears, I turn to him,
Only a year, — no voice, no smile,

The vision vanishes, — he is not there !
No glance of eye,
No clustering curls of golden hair,

I walk my parlor floor,
Fair but to die !

And, through the open door,

I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
One year ago, — what loves, what schemes I'm stepping toward the hall
Far into life!

To give the boy a call ;
What joyous hopes, what high resolves, And then bethink me that he is not there!
What generous strife !

I thread the crowded street;
The silent picture on the wall,

A satchelled lad I meet,
The burial-stone,

With the same beaming eyes and colored hair ; Of all that beauty, life, and joy

And, as he's running by, Remain alone!

Follow him with my eye,

Scarcely believing that — he is not there !
One year, — one year, -- one little year,
And so much gone !

I know his face is hid
Ånd yet the even flow of life

Under the coffin lid; Moves calmly on.

Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair ; The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair,

My hand that marble felt; Above that head ;

O'er it in prayer I knelt ; No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray

| Yet my heart whispers that -- he is not there! Says he is dead.

I cannot make him dead ! No pause or hush of merry birds,

When passing by the bed, That sing above,

So long watched over with parental care, Tells us how coldly sleeps below

My spirit and my eye The form we love.

Seek him inquiringly,

Before the thought comes that – he is not there! Where hast thou been this year, beloved ? What hast thou seen,

When, at the cool gray break What visions fair, what glorious life?

Of day, from sleep I wake, Where thou hast been ?

With my first breathing of the morning air

My soul goes up, with joy, The veil ! the veil ! so thin, so strong!

To Him who gave my boy; 'Twixt us and thee;

Then comes the sad thought that he is not there! The mystic veil! when shall it fall, That we may see?

When at the day's calm close,

Before we seek repose, Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone, I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer; But present still,

Whate'er I may be saying, And waiting for the coming hour

I am in spirit praying Of God's sweet will.

| For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there !

Not there ! -- Where, then, is he?

The sun sets, the shadow flies, The form I used to see

The gourd consumes, – and man he dies ! Was but the raiment that he used to wear. The grave, that now doth press

Like to the grass that's newly sprung, Upon that cast-off dress,

Or like a tale that's new begun,
Is but his wardrobe locked ;- he is not there! Or like the bird that's here to-day,

Or like the pearléd dew of May,
He lives ! — In all the past

Or like an hour, or like a span, He lives ; nor, to the last,

Or like the singing of a swan, — Of seeing him again will I despair ;

E'en such is man ; — who lives by breath, In dreams I see him now;

Is here, now there, in life and death. — And, on his angel brow,

The grass withers, the tale is ended,
I see it written, “Thou shalt see me there ! The bird is flown, the dew 's ascended.

The hour is short, the span is long,
Yes, we all live to God!

The swan 's near death, - man's life is done! Father, thy chastening rod

SIMON WASTELL So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,

That, in the spirit land,

Meeting at thy right hand, i 'T will be our heaven to find that he is there !

| IF THOU WILT EASE THINE HEART. JOHN PIERPONT.

DIRGE.
If thou wilt ease thine heart

Of love, and all its smart, —
SWEET DAY.

Then sleep, dear, sleep!

And not a sorrow Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

Hang any tear on your eyelashes ; The bridall of the earth and skie:

Lie still and deep, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes For thou must die.

The rim o'.the sun to-morrow,
Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave

In eastern sky.
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is eyer in its grave,

But wilt thou cure thine heart
And thou must die.

Of love, and all its smart,

Then die, dear, die ! Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,

'T is deeper, sweeter, A box where sweets compacted lie,

Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming My musick shows ye have your closes,

With folded eye ;
And all must die.

And then alone, amid the beaming

Of love's stars, thou 'lt meet her
Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,

In eastern sky.
Like seasoned timber, never gives ;
But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES.

GEORGE HERBERT.

DEATH.

THE GIAOUR.

MAN'S MORTALITY.

LIKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had, -
E'en such is man ;- whose thread is spun,

Drawn out, and cut, and so is done. -
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,

He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose, that's there,
The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And — but for that sad shrouded eye,