In majesty, and the complaining brooks

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

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, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
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,
And the speechless babe, and the gray-headed man

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 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.

L

THE CROWDED STREET

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

ET me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,

Amid the sound of steps that beat

The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!

The mild, the fierce, the stony face

Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass to toil, to strife, to rest,

To halls in which the feast is spread, To chambers where the funeral guest In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,

Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, With mute caresses shall declare

The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here, Shall shudder as they reach the door Where one who made their dwelling dear, Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye,
Go'st thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow,
Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
Or melt the glittering spires in air?

Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleam again?
Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?

Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold dark hours, how slow the light; And some, who flaunt amid the throng, Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each where his tasks or pleasures call, They pass, and heed each other not. There is Who heeds, Who holds them all In His large love and boundless thought.

R

These struggling tides of life, that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end.

TO A WATERFOWL

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

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 seen against 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.

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.

CATO ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

T must be so

IT

JOSEPH ADDISON

·Plato, thou reasonest well!

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror

Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?.
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;

"Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity! pleasing, dreadful thought!

Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes, must we pass!
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me,

But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.