A Psalm of Life. WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; 'Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Act, act in the living Present, Heart within, and God o'erhead. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footsteps on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, LONGFELLOW. Disappointment. Playful she turned that he might see His eyes met hers, that smile was gone; We part, -for ever part, - to-night! I knew, I knew it could not last, — "T was bright, 't was heavenly, but 't is past! Oh! ever thus, from childhood's hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never nursed a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well, And love me, it was sure to die." T. MOORE. The Rainbow. The evening was glorious and light through the trees Play'd the sunshine, the raindrops, the birds and the breeze; The landscape, outstretching, in loveliness lay On the lap of the year in the beauty of May. For the queen of the spring, as she passed down the vale, Left her robe on the trees, and her breath on the gale: And the smile of her promise gave joy to the hours, While rank in her footsteps sprang herbage and flowers. The skies, like a banner, in sunset unrolled, O'er the west threw their splendors of azure and gold; But one cloud at a distance, rose dense, and increased Till its margin of black touched the zenith and east. We gazed on the scenes, while around us they glowed, When a vision of beauty appeared on the cloud; "T was not like the sun, as at mid-day we view, Nor the moon, that rolls nightly through starlight and blue. Like a spirit it came in the van of the storm, O'er the river, the village, the fields and the wood; Not dreadful, as when in the whirlwind he pleads, When storms are his chariot, and lightning his steeds; The black clouds his banners of vengeance unfurled, And vultures and wolves are the graves of the slain. Whose arch was refraction, its keystone the sun; A pavilion it seemed, which the Deity graced, Like love o'er a death-couch, or hope o'er the tomb; |