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or disdain, that rear their sculptured heads above the forms of those who were. How long ere I shall be with them? And will any one drop a tear on my grave, or plant a flower in the sod which covers all of me that can die? 'Tis sweet to think that, when the vigorous form sinks to the parent earth, some gentle being, with soul all purity and love, will kneel on the lowly mound, and breathe devoted prayers for the soul of him whose form is mouldering beneath. . . A walk among the tombs! Voiceless communion with the shadowy past! Face to face with the coffin and the shroud-the mouldering bones of the rich and the poor, the high and the low, with feeble infancy, with giant manhood and tottering age, with the conquering warrior and the timorous maiden-may well call up reflections not of earth-reflections having their spring beneath the feet, but their course in futurity. Here families, in life, perchance passion-sundered and hostile, dwell peacefully together, "each in his narrow cell for ever laid." Here stands the monument of one whose eloquence fell like the "still, small voice" upon the ear, and wove around his spell-bound auditors a chain of wondering silence. Alas! the brilliant peroration no longer falls from the lips of Emmet, for they are lastingly joined by the seal of death. There, in its garniture of sword and shield, "and discord's dire emblazonry," rises the monument of the fearless warrior-chief, Montgomery, whose breath once fanned the flame of war, and whose path to fame was over a causeway of corpses.

Further on, the ostentatious marble points out the restingplace of that eccentric and mercurial man, and talented actor, George Frederick Cooke-erected by Edmund Kean, the undisputed lord of the sock and buskin. "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a fast-flitting meteor, a wind-driven cloud
Like a flash of the lightning, a break of the wave —
He passes from life to his rest in the grave!
'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis 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:
Then why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?”

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Farewell, city of the dead! The setting sunbeams fade cold and palely over your spectral spires-the great-voiced organ peals a requiem for the day, as my lingering feet pass the iron portal, and mingle with the living-the present.

NIL DESPERANDUM.

WHAT though the dark clouds for a moment may lower,
And pall us in saddening gloom and despair?

As the earth smileth sweeter just after the shower,
So will Hope from the storm shine more joyfully fair.

'Tis the gloomiest moment that ushers the dawn,
'Tis the weightiest sorrow that's nearest relief,
And the deepest despair that a mortal hath known

Hath changed in a moment the current of grief.

Then sigh not, my dearest, though Fate interpose,
And chill for a moment the pleasures of hope:
Life's cup is a mixture; its joys and its woes

Must be drained from the foam to the death-giving drop.

Were the sky but one concave of dazzling blue,

Were the earth but one prospect of summer's deep green, We should sigh for the clouds where the thunderbolt flew, We should pine in the sameness of starlight and sheen.

Ask the tar from his home on the wide-spreading ocean,
To choose 'twixt the tempest by lightning made warm,
And the dead, breathless calm, without ripple or motion.
How quickly he'll covet the dangers of storm!

For the calm, though secure, brings no prospect of home;
The eyes of the loved ones are watching in vain;
Thus, thus it is ever, where'er we may roam-
'Tis the tempest o'ercome makes us happy again.

Then smile on the dangers that threaten thy path

Still hope for the best, and still baffle despair: And the clouds that have gathered in darkness and wrath Will reveal the far future all spotless and fair!

POVERTY versus GENIUS.

Он, what a weary lot is poverty! How many hopes of high and noble aim have vainly fluttered with their feet fast riveted to its mountainous weight! How many souls, wearied with its continual cares and toils, have, like the afflicted patriarch, cursed the day of their arrival on the

shores of Time! Yet, with all its privations, its unsatisfied longings, its strugglings to escape, there is consolation in the knowledge that contentment, love, virtue, and even fame, have had their brightest dwellings in the cottagethat the noblest names on the record of glory, the first in the Book of Life, the purest in the list of the world's benefactors, are found in "the short and simple annals of the poor." Whatever the misfortunes of to-day, the sun may shine to-morrow. And hope, the faithful angel, still sustains the drooping spirit. It is a cheering picture to a young man, without friends or fortune, to look back through the long vista of the past, and learn that the brightest jewels in the crown of immortality are the souls of the poor and friendless. Moses-priest, prophet, philosopher, historian, legislator, and warrior-had neither friends nor fortune. David, the royal minstrel, was a shepherd boy. The Savior of the world, Son of the eternal God, maker of all created existence, was poor and lowly, and "had not where to lay his head." The philosophers of Greece-the orators, poets, and warriors, of Romewere poor. The deathless names that have adorned and eternized English literature, are synonymous with want, suffering, and despair. Who hears of Croesus, but to call him illustrious fool? Who reads Virgil, and Livy, and Cicero, but to drink beauty from the poetry of the first, to be grateful for the noble history of the second, or to pant for the eloquence of the Roman Demosthenes ? "Some have their greatness thrust upon them," and death seals

for ever their breath and their fame. The self-made man

dies his body returns to its mother dust; but his fame dwells on every tongue, as if his soul, bursting from its prison, had suddenly diffused itself through all space, and gave tone to all speech under the whole heaven! Where are the Shylocks, the Croesuses, of the Elizabethan age ? There were such: they died—and all their gold could not purchase one moment's reprieve from oblivion. Had the historian aided them no more than they did him— had he refused their petty acts a place on his page as firmly as they refused him a seat at their tables, their very names would have perished from the memory of their own children. The penniless lamplighter in a London theatre also died and now, canonized in the temple of every mind, he is the idol of an admiring world-the sun of the intellectual firmament; and his soul, displayed in "words that burn" on his undying pages, proclaims him the most perfect man, next to the all-perfect God-man, who "spake as never man spake." The apostles, the early fathers, the giant reformers of all times, were self-made men men who rose by the energy of their own souls, aided by the favor of God, and forced from a reluctant world the homage which mind will ever wring from matter. Then why should the humble despair? "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." It is easier for poverty to command the homage of the world, than for gold to purchase one hour's posthumous fame.

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