“His youth was innocent; his riper age

Marked with some act of goodness every day;
And, watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage,

Faded his late declining years away:
Meekly he gave his being up, and went
To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.
“That life was happy: every day he gave

Thanks for the fair existence that was his;
For a sick fancy made him not her slave,

To mock him with her phantom miseries;
No chronic tortures racked his aged limb,
For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him.
“And I am glad that he has lived thus long,

And glad that he has gone to his reward;
Nor can I deem that nature did him wrong,

Softly to disengage the vital cord;
For, when his hand grew palsied, and his eye
Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die."

Bryant.

From “ Thanatopsis.”
SO LIVE, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Bryant.

Blessed are They that Mourn.
OH, deem not they are blest alone

Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep!
The Power who pities man hath shown

A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again

The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain

Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night; And grief may bide an evening guest,

But joy shall come with early light. And thou who, o'er thy friend's low bier,

Dost shed the bitter drops like rain, Hope that a brighter, happier sphere

Will give him to thy arms again. Nor let the good man's trust depart,

Though life its common gifts deny,Though with a pierced and bleeding heart,

And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God hath marked each sorrowing day

And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.

William Cullen Bryant.

Here and There. HERE is the sorrow, the sighing,

Here are the cloud and the night; Here is the sickness, the dying,

There are the life and the light. Here is the fading, the wasting,

The foe that so watchfully waits ; There are the hills everlasting,

The city with beautiful gates. Here are the locks growing hoary,

The glass with the vanishing sands; There are the crown and the glory,

The house that is made not with hands. Here is the longing, the vision,

The hopes that so swiftly remove; There is the blessed fruition,

The feast, and the fulness of love. Here are the heart-strings a-tremble,

And here is the chastening rod; There is the song and the cymbal, And there is our Father and God.

Alice Cary.

I YIELD thee unto higher spheres,

I bend my head and say, “Thy will
Not mine be done,” though bitter tears

The while my eyelids fill.
I know thou hast escaped the blight

That wilts us here, and entered now
To perfect day,—though in the night

Bereft of thee we bow.
And yet thy little sunny life

Was beautiful as it was brief :
It was not vexed by pain or strife,

It knew but little grief.
The sunshine from our house is gone,

And from our hearts their peace and joy: We feel so terribly alone

Without thee, dearest boy! Thou mad'st us feel how very fair

God's earth could be, and taught us love; And in life's tapestry of care

A golden figure wove.

He asks, “And would you wish him back,

Whom I have taken to my joy,Drag downward to Life's narrow track

Your little spirit boy?”

'“No! no!” the spirit makes reply:

“Not back to earthly chance and pain.”
“Yet, ah!” the shattered senses cry,

“Would he were here again !
He was so meshed within our love

That all our heart-strings bleeding lie,
And all fond hopes we round him wove

Are now but agony.

Yet let us suffer : he is freed,

And on our tears a bridge of light
Is built by God, his steps to lead
To joys beyond our sight.

William W. Story.

The Two Mysteries.

[In the middle of the room, in its white coffin lay the dead child, nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl in his lap. The child looked curiously at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man's face. “You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?” said he. “We don't either.”]

We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still :
The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill;
The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call ;
The strange, white solitude of peace that settles over all.

We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain,-
This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again.
We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go;
Nor why we're left to wonder still; nor why we do not know.

But this we know: our loved and dead, if they should come this

day,Should come and ask us, “What is life?” not one of us could say. Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be ; Yet, oh, how sweet it is to us, this life we live and see!

Then might they say,— these vanished ones,- and blessed is the

thought! “So death is sweet to us, beloved, though we may tell you na!

We may not tell it to the quick, - this mystery of death,-
Ye may not tell us, if ye would, the mystery of breath.".

The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
So those who enter death must go as little children sent.
Nothing is known. But I believe that God is overhead;
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.

Mary Mapes Dodge

Auld Lang Syrie.

It singeth low in every heart,

We hear it each and all,
A song of those who answer not,

However we may call;
They throng the silence of the breast,

We see them as of yore, -
The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet,
Who walk with us no more.

'Tis hard to take the burden up,

When these have laid it down;
They brightened all the joy of life,

They softened every frown;
But, oh, 'tis good to think of them,

When we are troubled sore!
Thanks be to God that such have been,

Although they are no more!

More home-like seems the vast unknown,

Since they have entered there;
To follow them were not so hard,

Wherever they may fare;
They cannot be where God is not,

On any sea or shore;
Whate'er betides, Thy love abides,
Our God, for evermore.