I fear to die. And were it in my power,
By suffering of the keenest racking pains,
To keep upon me still these weeds of nature,
I could such things endure, that thou wouldst
marvel,

And cross thyself to see such coward bravery.
For oh! it goes against the mind of man
To be turn'd out from its warm wonted home,
Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill.

Joanna Baillie's Rayner.

O thou most terrible, most dreaded power,
In whatsoever power thou meet'st the eye!
Whether thou bidd'st thy sudden arrow fly
In the dread silence of the midnight hour;
Or whether, hovering o'er the lingering wretch,
Thy sad cold javelin hangs suspended long,
While round the couch the weeping kindred throng
With hope and fear alternately on stretch;
Oh, say for me what horrors are prepared?
Am I now doom'd to meet thy fatal arm?
Or wilt thou first from life steal every charm,
And bear away each good my soul would guard?
That thus, deprived of all it loved, my heart
From life itself contentedly may part.

-

Death to the happy thou art terrible,
But how the wretched love to think of thee,
O thou true comforter, the friend of all
Who have no friend beside!

Southey's Joan of Arc.
Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame
Forsake its languid melancholy frame!
Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close,
Welcome the dreamless night of long repose;
Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourn
Where, lull'd to slumber, grief forgets to mourn!
Campbell.

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades,
Like the fair flow'r dishevell'd in the wind;
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;
The man we celebrate must find a tomb,
And we that worship him, ignoble graves.
Cowper's Task.
Hush'd were his Gertrude's lips! but still their
bland

And beautiful expression seem'd to melt
With love that could not die! and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more that felt.
Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt, -
Of them that stood encircling his despair,
He heard some friendly words; but knew not what
they were.

Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.

Can this be death? there's bloom upon her cheek,
But now I see it is no living hue,

But a strange hectic-like the unnatural red
Which autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf.
It is the same! Oh God! that I should dread
To look upon the same- - Astarte !

Byron's Manfred
I know no evil death can show, which life
Has not already shown to those who live
Embodied longest. If there be indeed
A shore, where mind survives, 't will be as mino
All unincorporate: or if there flits

A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay,
Which stalks, methinks, between our sous and

heaven,

And fetters us to earth—at least the phantom, Whate'er it have to fear, will not fear death. Byron's Sardanapalus

Of death, although I know not what it is,
Yet it seems horrible. I have look'd out
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequer'd
By the far flashing of the cherubs' swords,
I watch'd for what I thought his coming; for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 't was which shook us all-but nothing came,
And then I turn'd my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden paradise,
Up to the lights above us, in the azure,
Which are so beautiful:-shall they, too, die?
Byron's Cain.

He died too in the battle broil,
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Allah all he made.

Byron's Giaour.

Can this be death? then what is life or death?
"Speak!" but he spoke not: "wake!" but still he
slept:

But yesterday, and who had mightier breath?
A thousand warriors by his word were kept
In awe: he said, as the centurion saith,
"Go," and he goeth; "come," and forth he stepp'd.
The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb,
And now nought left him but the muffled drum.

Byron.

Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last,
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance to show
A parting pang, the spirit from her past:
And they who watch'd her nearest could not know
The very instant, till the change that cast
Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,
Glazed o'er her eyes- the beautiful, the black-
Oh! to possess such lustre—and then lack!

Byron.
"Whom the gods love die young" was said of yore,
And many deaths do they escape by this:
The death of friends, and that which slays even

more,

The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,
Except mere breath; and since the silent shore
Awaits at last even those who longest miss
The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave
Which men weep over may be meant to save.
Byron.

Happy they!

Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold
The long year link'd with heavy day on day,
And all which must be borne, and never told.

Byron.

Thus lived-thus died she;-never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth.

Byron

Perchance she died in youth; it may be, bow'd
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
Heaven gives its favourites-early death.
Byron's Childe Harold.

O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best!
Welcome the hour, my aged limbs
Are laid with thee at rest!

The fools who flock'd to swell or see the show,
Who cared about the corpse? The funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe.
Byron's Vision of Judgment.
Hark! to the hurried question of despair:
"Where is my child ?" an echo answers "where?"
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
What recks it, though that corpse shall lie
Within a living grave?

The bird that tears that prostrate form
Hath only robb'd the meaner worm.

Byron's Bride of Abydos.
Peace to thy broken heart and virgin grave!
Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst!
That grief-though deep-though fatal-was my
first!

Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force
Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse!
Byron's Bride of Abydos.
And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,
But where he died his grave was dug as deep!
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd the
mound.
Byron's Lara.
And grieve what may above thy senseless bier,
And earth nor sky will yield a single tear;
Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall,

Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all;
But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,
And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil.

Byron's Lara.

Can that man be dead Whose spiritual influence is upon his kind? He lives in glory; and his speaking dust Has more of life than half its breathing mould. Miss Landon

Let music make less terrible

The silence of the dead;
I care not, so my spirit last
Long after life has fled.

Miss Lanaon.

We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand

Bailey's Festus

Death is another life.

Bailey.

Death, thou art infinite; - 't is Life is little.

Bailey.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet-song and dance and wine;
And thou art terrible — the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier;
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.

Halleck's Marco Bozzaris.

Death should come

Gently to one of gentle mould, like thec,

DEBTS.

Oh, how you wrong our friendship, valiant youth!
With friends there is not such a word as debt:
Where amity is ty'd with band of truth,
All benefits are there in common set.

Lady Carew's Mariam.
Dost think, friend,

The sense of all my debts could shake me thus ?
I know 't would come, and in my fears examin'd
The mischief they present; 't is not their weight
Affrights me: let the vultures whet their talons;
And creditors, with hearts more stubborn than
The metal they adore, double their malice;
Had I a pile of debts upon me, more
Heavy than all the world, it could not, but with
The pressure, keep this piece of earth beneath 'em:
My soul would be at large, and feel no burthen.
Shirley's Example.

You have outrun your fortune;

I blame you not that you would be a beggar;

That, being beggar'd, you should win false moneys Out of that crucible call'd DEBT !

Mrs. Norton.

O. W. Holmes.