luminousness, and he rises at times almost to majesty. What he lacked was the heat which kindles the emotions and fires the imagination. The reason for this lay in the man himself. "He was reserved, and in no sense magnetic or responsive," says one who knew him well. "There was something in his manner of the New England hills among which he was born, a little stern and bleak and dry, although suffused with the tender and scentless splendor of the white laurel."

THANATOPSIS

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

When thoughts

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, under 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

5

ΙΟ

15

20

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 mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world with kings,

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

5

10

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

15

20

25

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

30

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 glides away, the sons of men—
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
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,

15

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.

THE FLOOD OF YEARS

A MIGHTY Hand, from an exhaustless Urn,
Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years,
Among the nations. How the rushing waves

On their foremost edge,

20

25

Bear all before them!

And there alone, is Life. The Present there!
Tosses and foams, and fills the air with roar
Of mingled noises. There are they who toil,
And they who strive, and they who feast, and they

30

is there,

Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy swain-
Woodman and delver with the spade-
And busy artisan beside his bench,
And pallid student with his written roll.
A moment on the mounting billow seen,
The floods sweep over them and they are gone.
There groups of revelers whose brows are twined
With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile,
And as they raise their flowing cups and touch
The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath
The waves and disappear. I hear the jar

Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth
From cannon, where the advancing billow sends
Up to the sight long files of armëd men,

That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke.
The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid,
Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam.
Down go the steed and rider, the plumed chief
Sinks with his followers; the head that wears
The imperial diadem goes down beside
The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek.
A funeral train — the torrent sweeps away
Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed
Of one who dies men gather sorrowing,
And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on;
The wail is stifled and the sobbing group
Borne under. Hark to that shrill, sudden shout,
The cry of an applauding multitude,
Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields
The living mass as if he were its soul!

The waters choke the shout and all is still.
Lo! next a kneeling crowd, and one who spreads
The hands in prayer the engulfing wave o'ertakes
And swallows them and him. A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows

To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed,
A painter stands, and sunshine at his touch
Gathers upon his canvas, and life glows;

A poet, as he paces to and fro,

Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride

The advancing billow, till its tossing crest

Strikes them and flings them under, while their tasks
Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile

On her young babe that smiles to her again;

The torrent wrests it from her arms; she shrieks
And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down.
A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray
To glistening pearls; two lovers, hand in hand,
Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look
Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood
Flings them apart: the youth goes down; the maid
With hands outstretched in vain, and streaming eyes,
Waits for the next high wave to follow him.
An aged man succeeds; his bending form
Sinks slowly. Mingling with the sullen stream
Gleam the white locks, and then are seen no more.
Lo! wider grows the stream- a sealike flood
Saps earth's walled cities; massive palaces
Crumble before it; fortresses and towers
Dissolved in the swift waters; populous realms
Swept by the torrent see their ancient tribes
Engulfed and lost; their very languages

5

10

15

20

25

Stifled, and never to be uttered more.

I pause and turn my eyes, and looking back Where that tumultuous flood has been, I see

30

Strewn with the wreck of fleets where mast and hull

Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls

Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand

35