none; for none was worth my strife.

1 and, next to Nature, Art;

h hands before the fire of life;

I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

DEATH

ands above me, whispering low

not what into my ear; ange language all I know

re is not a word of fear.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

LIFE

ow not what thou art,

that thou and I must part;

or how, or where we met, e's a secret yet.

know, when thou art fled,

hey lay these limbs, this head,

valueless shall be

then remains of me.

O whither, whither dost thou fly?
Where bend unseen thy trackless course?
And in this strange divorce,

Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame

From whence thy essence came

Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,

Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say, what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee?

Life! we have 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!

Anna Letitia Barbauld [1743-1825]

DYING HYMN

EARTH, with its dark and dreadful ills,
Recedes, and fades away;
Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills;
Ye gates of death, give way!

My soul is full of whispered song,

My blindness is my sight;
The shadows that I feared so long

Are all alive with light.

The while my pulses faintly beat,
My faith doth so abound,
I feel grow firm beneath my feet
The green immortal ground.

I know it is over, over,

I know it is over at last!

Down sail! the sheathed anchor uncover,

For the stress of the voyage has passed:
Life, like a tempest of ocean,

Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast:
There's but a faint sobbing to seaward,
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward;
And behold! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses throbbed through the river,
Those lights in the harbor at last,

The heavenly harbor at last!

Paul Hamilton Hayne [1830-1886]

THE LAST INVOCATION

Ar the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful, fortressed house,

From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the

well-closed doors,

Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;

With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper Set ope the doors, O soul!

Tenderly-be not impatient!

(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!

Strong is your hold, O love!)

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

"DAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL"

DAREST thou now, O soul,

Walk out with me toward the unknown region,

Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,

Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that

land.

oul! prepared for them,

O joy! O fruit of all!), them to fulfill,

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

WAITING

my hands and wait, wind, nor tide, nor sea; › 'gainst time or fate, own shall come to me.

te, I make delays,

ails this eager pace?

he eternal ways,

; mine shall know my face.

, by night or day,

I seek are seeking me; drive my bark astray, the tide of destiny.

if I stand alone?

joy the coming years; ll reap where it hath sown, up its fruit of tears.

now their own and draw

that springs in yonder heights;

good with equal law

oul of pure delights.