fuse, in charity refrain;
Some depths of sorrow overwhelm the brain,
Some loads too great for human strength to bear.

I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.

I think when I stand in the presence of Death,
How futile is earthy endeavor,
If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath,
The tongue has been silenced forever.

For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
When clos-ed so languid and weary,
And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
In response to the agonized query!

We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
With a vague and insatiate yearning,
And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
With our vision of no discerning.

Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
From that shadowy strand uncertain;
But He who ordained the day and night,
Framed also Death's silent curtain.

Hope.

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
With lurid aberration, feverish,--
We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
Hope still pursues and soothes realities.

Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste,
Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair
Of gushing fountains which he may not taste,
Of streamlets cool depicted on the air;
With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds,
But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.

In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell,
The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat,
And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell
Responsive to each movement of his feet;
Yet through his grated window, he discerns
The star of hope which ever brightly burns.

A noble ship her ponderous anchor weighs,
Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight;
A young wife waves farewell. As many days
In passing turn her golden tresses white,
She scans the horizon through a mist of tears,
Hopes for that vanished sail which ne'er appears.

A galley slave in age and clime remote,
Chained to his seat, unwilling plies the oar;
Before his eyes fond dreams of freedom float,
He hopes amid the battle's crash and roar;
And as the waves the imprisoned wretches drown,
Hopes, as his fetters draw him swiftly down.

A mighty host in force of arms we see,
With march invasive, cross a boundary line;
At its approach no freemen turn and flee,
Each with his life defends his family shrine;
As burning homes illuminate the sky
With ghastly light, they