Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth unto the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air
Comes a still voice:

Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements;

To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon.

The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place

nor couldst thou wish

Shalt thou retire alone,
Couch more magnificent.
With patriarchs of the infant

Thou shalt lie down

The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,

Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, -

1 the young, that is, the ancient world

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings, yet the dead are there.
And millions in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep; the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off-

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, 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.

TO A WATERFOWL

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly limned 1 upon the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

1 outlined

2 adj. empty, vacant; compare Gray
*And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart :

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

HERE, in the quiet earth, they laid apart
No man of iron mold and bloody hands,
Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands
The passions that consumed his restless heart:
But one of tender spirit and delicate frame,
Gentlest, in mien and mind,

Of gentle womankind,

Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame :
One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made
Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May,
Yet, at the thought of others' pain, a shade

Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away.

From "The Conqueror's Grave"

CARLYLE

1795-1881

THOMAS CARLYLE was born in Scotland in 1795, and died in London February 5, 1881. He was the son of a Dumfriesshire farmer. He studied at Edinburgh University, and is said to have intended to enter the ministry, but abandoned the purpose. His first essays in literature consisted of contributions to several magazines. Next he translated Goethe's

"Wilhelm

Meister," and in his labors acquired a warm and lasting love for German literature. "Sartor Resartus," in which he laid the first substantial foundation of his fame, was published in book form in 1834. It is a characteristic composition, exhibiting the originality and brilliancy of his thought, and the peculiarities and force of his style, in full relief. Three years later appeared his "History of the French Revolution." Among his later works are “Past and Present," "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," Lives of Schiller and Sterling, and "The Life of Frederick the Great."