The placid gleam of sunset after storm!

"The statesman's brain that sway'd the past Is feebler than his knees;

The passive sailor wrecks at last
In ever-silent seas;

The warrior hath forgot his arms,
The learned all his lore;

The changing market frets or charms
The merchant's hope no more:
The prophet's beacon burn'd in vain,
And now is lost in cloud;

The plowman passes, bent with pain,
To mix with what he plow'd;
The poet whom his age would quote
As heir of endless fame -

He knows not even the book he wrote,
Not even his own name.
For man has overlived his day,

And, darkening in the light,
Scarce feels the senses break away
To mix with ancient Night."

140

150

The shell must break before the bird can fly.

"The years that when my youth began Had set the lily and rose

By all my ways where'er they ran,
Have ended mortal foes;

My rose of love for ever gone,
My lily of truth and trust

They made her lily and rose in one,
And changed her into dust.

O rose-tree planted in my grief,
And growing on her tomb,
Her dust is greening in your leaf,
Her blood is in your bloom.

O slender lily waving there,
And laughing back the light,
In vain you tell me Earth is fair'
When all is dark as night."