The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,-
Are hidden and lost 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.

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 our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we see 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 dwelling a transient abode,

Meet the things that 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, and the song and the dirge,

Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

"T is the wink of an eye; 't is the draught of a breath
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud;
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

BY CHARLES LAMB

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her,-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

BY HENRY WADSWORTH

LONGFELLOW

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Between the dark and the daylight, When night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the children's hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence,

Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall,

By three doors left unguarded,
They enter my castle wall.

They climb up into my turret,

O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me: They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me intwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine.

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away.

GOD'S-ACRE

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts

Comfort to those who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.