So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,

Who madest him thy chosen, that he seemed

To his great heart none other than a God!

I asked thee, "Give me immortality."

Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,

Like wealthy men who care not how they give,

But thy strong Hours indignant worked their wills,

And beat me down and marred and wasted me,

And though they could not end me, left me maimed

To dwell in presence of immortal youth,

Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. Can thy

Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,

Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,

While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

Yet hold me not forever in thine
East:

How can my nature longer mix with thine?

Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold

Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet

Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam

Floats up from those dim fields about the homes

Of happy men that have the power to die,

And grassy barrows of the happier dead.

Release me, and restore me to the ground;

Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:

Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by

morn:

I earth in earth forget these empty courts,

And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

TENNYSON.

COME MORIR.

HE leaves the earth, and says, enough and more

Unto thee have I given, oh Earth. — For all

With hand free and ungrudging gave I up,

But now I leave thy pale hopes and dear pains,

The rude fields where so many years I've tilled.

And where no other feeling gave me strength,

Save that from them my home was aye in view,

For only transient clouds could hide from me

My spirit's home, whence it came, where should go;Enough, more than enough, now let

me rest.

MORAL,

THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL..

YE sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled,

His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky,

In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled,

Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie,

And leaves the smile of his departure spread

O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head.

Why weep ye then for him, who, having won

The bound of man's appointed years, at last,

Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done,

Serenely to his final rest has passed;

While the soft memory of his virtues yet

Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set?

But the shadows of eve that encompass with gloom

The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb.

Shall we build to Ambition? Ah, no!
Affrighted, he shrinketh away,
For see, they would pin him below
In a dark narrow cave, and, begirt
with cold clay,

To the meanest of reptiles a fear and a prey.

To Beauty? Ah, no! she forgets The charms which she wielded before,

Nor knows the foul worm that he frets

The skin that but yesterday fools could adore,

For the smoothness it held, or the tint which it wore.

Shall we build to the purple of Pride, The trappings which dizen the proud?

Alas! they are all laid aside,

And here's neither dress nor adornment allowed,

Save the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud.

To Riches? Alas, 'tis in vain; Who hide in their turns have been hid;

The treasures are squandered again; And here in the grave are all metals forbid,

Save the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin lid.

To the pleasures which Mirth can afford,

The revel, the laugh and the jeer?
Ah! here is a plentiful board!
But the guests are all mute at their
pitiful cheer,

And none but the worm is a reveller here.

Shall we build to Affection and Love? Ah, no! They have withered and died,

Or fled with the spirit above: Friends, brothers, and sisters, are laid side by side,

Yet none have saluted, and none have replied.