by their gallant husbands, as they are tossed by the gale upon the waves, and both are happy. Perhaps, if we listen, we, too, might hear on this desert world of ours some whisper borne from afar to remind us that there is a heaven and a home; and when we sing the hymn upon earth, perhaps we shall hear its echo breaking in the music upon the sands of time, and cheering the hearts of those that are pilgrims and strangers, and look for a city that hath foundation.

LIFE'S PARTING.

Wordsworth read less and praised less the writings of other poets, than any one of his contemporaries. This gives an especial interest to the following stanza by Mrs. Barbauld, which he learned by heart, and which he used to ask his sister to repeat to him. Once, while walking in his sitting-room at Rydal, with his hands behind him, his friend, Henry Crabb Robinson heard him say: "I am not in the habit of grudging people their good things; but I wish I had written those lines:

Life! we've been long together,

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
"Tis hard to part when friends are dear,

Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not good night, but in some brighter clime

Bid me good-morning."

DESTINY.

Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down
Each with its loveliness as with a crown,

Drooped in a florist's window in a town.

The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,

Like snow on snow, that night, on beauty's breast.

The secord rose, as virginal and fair,

Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair.

The third, a widow, with new grief made wild,
Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.

SYMPATHY.

Talfourd says in his Ion:

"It is little:

But in these sharp extremities of fortune,

The blessings which the weak and poor can scatter
Have their own season. 'Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain'd by fever'd lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
It is a little thing to speak a phrase
Of common comfort, which, by daily use,
Has almost lost its sense; yet, on the ear
Of him who thought to die unmourn'd, 'twill fall
Like choicest music; fill the gazing eye
With gentle tears; relax the knotted hand
To know the bonds of fellowship again;
And shed on the departing soul a sense,
More precious than the benison of friends
About the honored death-bed of the rich,
To him who else were lonely, that another
Of the great family is near and feels."

AFTER.

After the shower, the tranquil sun;
After the snow, the emerald leaves;
Silver stars when the day is done;
After the harvest, golden sheaves.

After the clouds, the violet sky;
After the tempest, the lull of waves;
Quiet woods when the winds go by;
After the battle, peaceful graves.

After the knell, the wedding bells;
After the bud, the radiant rose;
Joyful greetings from sad farewells;

After our weeping, sweet repose.

After the burden, the blissful meed,

After the flight, the downy nest;
After the furrow, the waking seed
After the shadowy river-rest!

DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST.

[Among the poetic legacies that will "never grow old, nor change, nor pass away," is the noble dirge of Shirley, in his Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Doubtless it was by the fall, if not by the death, of Charles I., that the mind of the royalist poet was solemnized to the creation of these imperishable stanzas. Oliver Cromwell is said, on the recital of them, to have been seized with great terror and agitation of mind.]

There is

The glories of our mortal state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings:

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late,

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

Upon death's purple altar now,

See where the victor-victim bleeds:
Your heads must come

To the cold tomb:

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

THE COMMON HERITAGE.

There is no death: what seems so is transition:

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian

Whose portal we call Death.-LONGFELLOW.

says the author of Euthanasy-no universal night in this earth, and for us in the universe there is no death. What to us here is night coming on, is, on the other side of the earth, night ending, and day begun. And so what we call death, the angels may regard as immortal birth.

We are born-says another writer-with the principles of dissolution in our frame, which continue to operate from our birth to our death; so that in this sense we may be said to "die daily." Death is not so much a laying aside our old bodies (for this we have been doing all our lives) as ceasing

to assume new ones.

"Say," said one who was about entering the Dark Valley, to his amanuensis, "that I am still in the land of the living, but expect soon to be numbered with the dead." But, after a moment's reflection, he added, "Stop! say that I am still in the land of the dying, but expect to be soon in the land of the living."

Says old Jeremy Collier, The more we sink into the infirmities of age, the nearer we are to immortal youth. Al! people are young in the other world. That state is an eternal spring, ever fresh and flourishing. Now, to pass from midnight into noon on the sudden, to be decrepit one minute, and all spirit and activity the next, must be an entertaining change. To call this dying is an abuse of language.

The day of our decease-says Mountford-will be that of our coming of age; and with our last breath we shall become free of the universe. And in some region of infinity, and from among its splendors, this earth will be looked back upon like a lowly home, and this life of ours be remembered like a short apprenticeship to Duty.

MORS MORTIS MORTI MORTEM NISI MORTE DEDISSET,
ETERNE VITE JANUA CLAUSA FORET.

INDEX.