kind
To stamp a lasting image of the mind!

With awe, around these silent walks I tread;
These are the lasting mansions of the dead:--
"The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply;
"These are the tombs of such as cannot die!
Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime,
And laugh at all the little strife of time."

Lo, all in silence, all in order stand,
And mighty folios first, a lordly band;
Then quartos their well-order'd ranks maintain,
And light octavos fill a spacious plain:
See yonder, ranged in more frequent rows,
A humbler band of duodecimos;
While undistinguished trifles swell the scene,
The last new play and fritter'd magazine.

Here all the rage of controversy ends,
And rival zealots rest like bosom friends:
An Athanasian here, in deep repose,
Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes;
Socinians here with Calvinists abide,
And thin partitions angry chiefs divide;
Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet,
And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet.
GEORGE CRABBE.

* * * * *

ETERNITY OF POETRY.

For deeds doe die, however noblie donne,
And thoughts do as themselves decay;
But wise words, taught in numbers for to runne
Recorded by the Muses, live for ay;
Ne may with storming showers be washt away,
Ne bitter breathing windes with harmful blast,
Nor age, nor envie, shall them ever wast.
SPENSER.

* * * * *

THE OLD BOOKS.

The old books, the old books, the books of long ago!
Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow?
We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den;
We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men.
The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze!
We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees,
They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into good;
A noble spirit from them breathed, the rest was understood.

The old books, the old books, the mother loves them best;
They leave no bitter taste behind to haunt the youthful breast:
They bid us hope, they bid us fill our hearts with visions fair;
They do not paralyze the will with problems of despair.
And as they lift from sloth and sense to follow loftier planes