knew no sentiment save lust for gold;
The bloated drunkard, sinking 'neath the weight
Of wassail inclination dissolute;
The youth, who, following his baleful steps,
Reeled for the first time from intemperance;
And she who had forgot her covenant,
In brazen infamy and unwept shame;--
The good, the bad, the impious and unjust,
The energetic and the indolent,
The adolescent and the venerable,
Passed by, pursuant of their various ways.

* * * * *

The aged and decrepit plodded by,
Whom one would think were ripe for any tomb,
Yet quailed at dissolution's very thought;
The crippled and deformed, with cane and crutch,
Came limping by, as eddies in the stream;
The mendicant, whose eyes might never see
The golden sunlight, felt his way along,
And though the world was dark, still shrank from death.
Some faces showed the trace of recent tears,
And some revealed the impress of despair;
Others endeavored with a careless smile
To hide a breast surcharged with hopelessness,
As one afflicted with a foul disease
Strives to avoid the scrutinizing gaze
By the assumption of indifference;
Some whose misfortunes and adversities
And oft repeated disappointments, dried
The fountain heads of kindness, and had turned
Life's sweetest joys to gall and bitterness.
Each face betrayed some sort or form of woe;
In more than one I read a tragedy.

* * * * *

How complex is existence! What a maze
Of complication and entanglement!
Each thread combining with the other threads
Fulfills its office in the labyrinth;
Each link concatenates the other links
Which constitute the vast and endless chain
Of human life, and human destiny,--
The strange phantasmagoria of fate.

* * * * *

So we, in life's procession, pass along
To the accompaniment of secret dirge,
Or laughter interspersed with tear and groan;
Nor pause a moment, nor retrace a step,
But march in Fate's spectacular review
In pageant to our common goal--
The Grave.

Nature's Lullaby.

A MOUNTAIN NOCTURNE

In forest shade my couch is made.
And there I calmly lie,
With thought confined in pensive mind,
And contemplate the sky;
I wonder if the frowning cliff,
The valley and the wood,
Or rugged freaks of mountain peaks,
Enjoy their solitude.

The heavens hold a sphere of gold,
A full and placid moon,
Suspended high, in cloudless sky,