I have not looked upon you nigh,

Since that dear soul hath fallen asleep. Great Nature is more wise than I:

I will not tell you not to weep.

And though my own eyes fill with dew, Drawn from the spirit through the brain,

I will not even preach to you,

Vain solace! Memory, standing near,

Cast down her eyes, and in her throat Her voice seemed distant, and a tear Dropt on the letters as I wrote.

I wrote I know not what. In truth,

How should I soothe you anyway, Who miss the brother of your youth? Yet something I did wish to say.

For he too was a friend to me:

Both are my friends, and my true breast

Bleedeth for both; yet it may be

That only silence suiteth best.

Words weaker than your grief would make

Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease,

Although myself could almost take

The place of him that sleeps in peace.

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace:
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,

While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.
Nothing comes to thee new or strange.

Sleep full of rest from head to feet;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

Tennyson.

He who Died at Azim.

HE who died at Azim sends
This to comfort all his friends:

Faithful friends! it lies, I know,
Pale and white and cold as snow;
And ye say, "Abdallah's dead!"
Weeping at the feet and head.
I can see your falling tears,

I can hear your sighs and prayers;
Yet I smile and whisper this,—
"I am not the thing you kiss:
Cease your tears and let it lie:
It was mine, it is not I."

Sweet friends! what the women lave,

For the last sleep of the grave,
Is a hut which I am quitting,
Is a garment no more fitting,
Is a cage from which at last,
Like a bird, my soul hath passed.
Love the inmate, not the room,—
The wearer, not the garb,- the plume

Of the eagle, not the bars

That kept him from those splendid stars.

Loving friends! be wise, 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 has 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
That treasure of his treasury,

A mind that loved him; let it lie!
Let the shard be earth's 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 ye weep, my foolish friends,
While the man whom ye call dead,
In unspoken bliss, instead,
Lives and loves you,-lost, 'tis true,
For the light that shines for you;
But in the light ye cannot see
Of undisturbed felicity,—,

In a perfect paradise,

And a life that never dies.

Farewell, friends! But not farewell:

Where I am, ye, too, shall dwell.

I am gone before your face

A moment's worth, a little space.

Kiss her and leave her, thy love is clay."

They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;

With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet, thin lips that had secrets to tell;

And over her bosom they crossed her hands,"Come away," they said, "God understands."

But he who loved her too well to dread
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,

He lit his lamp, and took the key,

And turned it. Alone again,- he and she.

Then he said, "Cold lips and breast without breath,

Is there no voice, no language of death?

"See now, I listen with soul, not ear: What was the secret of dying, dear?

"O perfect dead! O dead most dear! I hold the breath of my soul to hear.

"There must be pleasure in dying, sweet, To make you so placid from head to feet!

"I would tell you, darling, if I were dead,
And 'twere your hot tears upon my brow shed.

"You should not ask vainly with streaming eyes, Which of all death's was the chief surprise?"

Who will believe what he heard her say,
With a sweet soft voice, in the dear old way?

"The utmost wonder is this: I hear,
And see you, and love you, and kiss you, dear;

"And am your angel, who was your bride,
And know that, though dead, I have never died."

Edwin Arnold.

Night and Death.

MYSTERIOUS night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet, 'neath the curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,

And, lo! creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find,
While leaf and fly and insect lay revealed,

That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind!
Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

OH 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

For miserable aims that end with self,

Blanco White.

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search

To vaster issues. So to live is heaven:

To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order, that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious