The keen sword flashed and severed Nehushta's neck and found its sheath
in her lover's heart; and they fell down dead together.

II

SOLEMN, REVERENTIAL, SUBLIME

CENTENNIAL HYMN[21]

JOHN G. WHITTIER

Our father's God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

Here where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth, our guests we call.

Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

Thou, who hast here in concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,
Beneath the Western skies fulfill
The Orient's mission of good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.

For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood never bought nor sold!

Oh, make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law;
And, cast in some diviner mold,
Let the new cycle shame the old!

FOOTNOTE:

[21] By permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin &
Co., authorized publishers of this author's works.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS[22]

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings,
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies re