In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American. Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London, land, May 7, 1812, and died in Venice, Italy, Decemb 1889. UST for a handful of silver he left us; JUST Just for a riband to stick in his coat Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote. They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 1 Wordsworth. So much was theirs who so little allowed. How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us - they watch from their graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen! He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! We shall march prospering - not through his pres ence; Songs may inspirit us not from his lyre; Deeds will be done while he boasts his quiescence, Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gal lantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne! THANATOPSIS WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794, and died in New York City, June 12, 1878. T O him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours When thoughts Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim To mix for ever 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 The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good- All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 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, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes The flight of years began, have laid them down The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes So live, that when thy summons comes to join |