We lay us down to sleep;

Our weary eyes we close: Whether to wake and weep,

Or wake no more, He knows.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

IN MEMORIAM

As the wind at play with a spark
Of fire that glows through the night,
As the speed of the soaring lark

That wings to the sky his flight,
So swiftly thy soul has sped

On its upward, wonderful way, Like the lark, when the dawn is red, In search of the shining day.

Thou art not with the frozen dead
Whom earth in the earth we lay,
While the bearers softly tread,

And the mourners kneel and pray;

ΤΟ

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

ON THE DEATH OF LOWELL

DEAR singer of our fathers' day,

Who lingerest in the sunset glow,
Our grateful hearts all bid thee stay;
Bend hitherward and do not go.
Gracious thine age, thy youth was strong,
For Freedom touched thy tongue with
fire:

To sing the right and fight the wrong.
Thine equal hand held bow or lyre.
O linger, linger long,
Singer of song.

We beg thee stay; thy comrade star
Which later rose is earlier set;
What music and what battle-scar

When side by side the fray ye met!
Thy trumpet and his drum and fife
Gave saucy challenge to the foe
In Liberty's heroic strife;

We mourn for him, thou must not go!
Yet linger, linger long,
Singer of song.

We cannot yield thee; only thou
Art left to us, and one beside
Whose silvered wisdom still can show
How smiles and tears together bide.
And we would bring our boys to thee,
And bid them hold in memory crowned
That they our saintliest bard did see,
The Galahad of our table round.
Then linger, linger long,
Singer of song.

The night is dark; three radiant beams
Are gone that crossed the zenith sky;
For one the water-fowl, ineseems,

For two the Elmwood herons cry. Ye twain that early rose and still

Skirt low the level west along, Sink when ye must, to rise and fill The morrow's east with light and song. But linger, linger long, Singers of song.

THE NEW CASTALIA

OUT of a cavern on Parnassus' side,
Flows Castaly; and with the flood outblown

From its deep heart of ice, the mountain's breath Tempers the ardor of the Delphian vale. Beside the stream from the black mould upsprings

Narcissus, robed in snow, with ruby crowned.

Long ranks of crocus, humble servitors,
But clad in purple, mark his downcast face.
The sward, moist from the flood, is pied
with flowers,

Lily and vetch, lupine and melilot,
The hyacinth, cowslip, and gay marigold,
While, on the border of the copse, sweet
herbs,

Anise and thyme, breathe incense to the bay
And myrtle. Here thy home, fair Muse!
How soft

Thy step falls on the grass whose morning drops

Bedew thy feet! The blossoms bend but break

Not, and thy fingers pluck the eglantine,
The privet and the bilberry; or frame
A rustic whistle from a fresh-cut reed.
Here is thy home, dear Muse, fed on these
airs;

The hills, the founts, the woods, the sky are thine!

MY NEW WORLD

My prow is tending toward the west,
Old voices growing faint, dear faces dim,
And all that I have loved the best
Far back upon the waste of memory swim.
My old world disappears:

Few hopes and many fears
Accompany me.

But from the distance fair

AT SHAKESPEARE'S GRAVE

(IGNATIUS DONNELLY LOQ.) DISMISS your apprehension, pseudo bard, For no one wishes to disturb these stones, Nor cares if here or in the outer yard They stow your impudent, deceitful bones.

Your foolish-colored bust upon the wall, With its preposterous expanse of brow.

skies,

And cheats no cultured Boston people

Grim-browed and bald, Tis-sa-nck broods
Above these white-robed solitudes.
A mute, awe-stricken mortal stands
Upon the fragment of a world,

And, when the rifted clouds are curled,
Sees far below the steadfast lands.

DON JUAN

DON JUAN has ever the grand old air,
As he greets me with courtly grace;
Like a crown of glory the snow-white hair
That halos his swarthy face;

And he says, with a courtesy rare and fine,
As he ushers me in at the door,
“Panchita mia will bring us the wine,
And the casa is yours, señor."

His fourscore years have a tranquil cast,
For Time has tempered his heart and hand;
Though the seething tide of his blood ran
fast

When he ruled like a lord in the land.
In the wild rodeo and mad stampede
He rode, I am told,