HINK upon Death, 'tis good to think of Death,

TH

But better far to think upon the Dead.
Death is a spectre with a bony head,

Or the mere mortal body without breath,
The state foredoom'd of every son of Seth,
Decomposition dust, or dreamless sleep.
But the dear Dead are they for whom we weep,
For whom credit all the Bible saith.

Dead is my father, dead is my good mother,
And what on earth have I to do but die?
But if by grace I reach the blessed sky,

I fain would see the same, and not another;
The very father that I used to see,

The mother that has nursed me on her knee.

L

OVE, dearest Lady, such as I would speak,

Lives not within the humour of the

Not being but an outward phantasy,

eye;—

That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,

Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,

As if the rose made summer,—and so lie

Amongst the perishable things that die,
Unlike the love that I would give and seek:
Whose health is of no hue-to feel decay
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.
Love is its own great loveliness alway,
And takes new lustre from the touch of time;
Its bough owns no December and no May,
But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.

WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKESPEARE

H

Ow bravely Autumn paints upon the sky

The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled! Hues of all flowers, that in their ashes lie,

Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed,—
Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red,—
Like exhalations from the leafy mould,
Look here how honour glorifies the dead,

And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold!
Such is the memory of poets old,

Who on Parnassus' hill have bloom'd elate;

Now they are laid under their marbles cold,

And turn'd to clay, whereof they were create;

But God Apollo hath them all enroll'd,
And blazon'd on the very clouds of fate!

DEATH

T is not death, that—sometime-in a sigh

This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That-sometime—these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night:

That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below;

It is not death to know this,--but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go

So duly and so oft,-and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.

Phone

MATTHEW ARNOLD

SHAKESPEARE

Ο

THERS abide our question-Thou art free.
We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge! For the loftiest hill
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of Mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure,
Didst walk on earth unguess'd at.-Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.