My name is on thy roll, and sure I must
Increase thy gloomy kingdom in the dust.
My soul at this no apprehension feels,

But trembles at thy swords, thy racks, thy wheels,
Thy scorching fevers, which distract the sense,
And snatch us raving, unprepared, from hence;
At thy contagious darts, that wound the heads
Of weeping friends who wait at dying beds.—
Spare these, and let thy time be when it will;
My office is to die, and thine to kill.
Gently thy fatal scepter on me lay,
And take to thy cold arms, insensibly, thy prey.
Anne Finch [? -1720]

THE GENIUS OF DEATH

WHAT is death? 'Tis to be free,

No more to love or hope or fear,

To join the great equality;

All, all alike are humbled there.
The mighty grave

Wraps lord and slave;

Nor pride nor poverty dares come
Within that refuge-house,-the tomb.

Spirit with the drooping wing

And the ever-weeping eye,

Thou of all earth's kings art king;
Empires at thy footstool lie;
Beneath thee strewed,

Their multitude

Sink like waves upon the shore;

Storms shall never raise them more.

What's the grandeur of the earth

To the grandeur round thy throne?

Riches, glory, beauty, birth,

To thy kingdom all have gone.

Before thee stand

The wondrous band,

d the Spirit be Proud?" 3197

5, sages, side by side,

ed nations when they died.

-sts, but thou canst show

illion for her one;

gates the mortal flow

ountless years rolled on.

m the tomb

has come,

till the last thunder's sound

prisoners be unbound.

George Croly [1780-1860]

D THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?"

spirit of mortal be proud? meteor, a fast-flying cloud, ing, a break of the wave, to his rest in the grave.

k and the willow shall fade,
, and together be laid;
he old, the low and the high,
st and together shall lie.

ther attended and loved, int's affection who proved,

nother and infant who blessed,—

to their dwellings of rest.

brow, on whose cheek, in whose eye, leasure, her triumphs are by; minds of the living erased

mortals who loved her and praised.

g, that the scepter hath borne;
est, that the mitre hath worn;
, and the heart of the brave,—
in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap;

The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same things our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we feel the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers did think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers did shrink;
To the life we are clinging our fathers did cling,
But it speeds from us all like the bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed,—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died,-ah! they died;-we, things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain:
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,

Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

Hour of Death

3199

n eye; 'tis the draught of a breath of health to the paleness of death, aloon to the bier and the shroud; he spirit of mortal be proud?

William Knox [1789-1825]

Thou art where billows foam;

Thou art where music melts upon the air;

Thou art around us in our peaceful home; And the world calls us forth-and thou art there.

Thou art where friend meets friend,

Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest;

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, And stars to set, but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Felicia Dorothea Hemans [1793-1835)

THE SLEEP

"He giveth his beloved sleep."-Psalm cxxvii. 2

Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward into souls afar,
Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace, surpassing this:
"He giveth his beloved-sleep"?

What would we give to our beloved?
The hero's heart to be unmoved,
The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep,
The patriot's voice to teach and rouse,
The monarch's crown, to light the brows?
He giveth his belovèd-sleep.

What do we give to our beloved?
A little faith all undisproved,

A little dust to overweep,

And bitter memories to make

The whole earth blasted for our sake:

He giveth his beloved-sleep.