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,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,

But at last silence comes;

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame,

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American.

THE LOST LEADER 1

ROBERT BROWNING

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;

in his

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,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name, then record one lost soul more,

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devils' triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins; let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again!

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.

O him who in the love of Nature holds

T°

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
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

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
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 sepulchre. 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

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; traverse Barca's desert sands,
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 sweet 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,