Its burning showed us Italy, And all the hopes she had to keep.

This light is out in Italy,

Her eyes shall seek for it in vain ! For her sweet sake it spent itself,

Too early flickering to its wane, Too long blown over by her pain. Bow down and weep, O Italy, Thou canst not kindle it again! LAURA C. REDDEN (Howard Glyndon).

God-fearing, learned in life's hard-taught school;
By long obedience lessoned how to rule;
Through many an early struggle led to find
That crown of prosperous fortune, - to be kind.
Lay on his breast these English daisies sweet!
Good rest to the gray head and the tired feet
That walked this world for seventy steadfast

years!

Bury him with fond blessings and few tears,
Or only of remembrance, not regret.
On his full life the eternal seal is set,
Unbroken till the resurrection day.
So let his children's children go their way,
Go and do likewise, leaving 'neath this sod
An honest man,
"the noblest work of God."

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK.

JOHN CHARLES FREMONT.

THY error, Fremont, simply was to act
A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact,
And, taking counsel but of common sense,
To strike at cause as well as consequence.
O, never yet since Roland wound his horn
At Roncesvalles has a blast been blown
Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own,
Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn!
It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,
To flatter treason, and avoid offence

To that Dark Power whose underlying crime
Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence.
But, if thine be the fate of all who break

The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their

THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ.

MAY 28, 1857.

It was fifty years ago,

In the pleasant month of May, In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, A child in its cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, "Here is a story-book

Thy Father has written for thee."

"Come, wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God."

And he wandered away and away

With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day

The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,
Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreams
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, "Hark! For his voice I listen and yearn:

It is growing late and dark,

And my boy does not return!"

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.

On the isle of Penikese,
Ringed about by sapphire seas,
Fanned by breezes salt and cool,
Stood the Master with his school.
Over sails that not in vain
Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,
Line of coast that low and far
Stretched its undulating bar,
Wings aslant along the rim

Of the waves they stooped to skim,
Rock and isle and glistening bay,
Fell the beautiful white day.

Said the Master to the youth:
"We have come in search of truth,
Trying with uncertain key
Door by door of mystery;

We are reaching, through His laws,
To the garment-hem of Cause,
Him, the endless, unbegun,
The Unnameable, the One,
Light of all our light the Source,
Life of life, and Force of force.
As with fingers of the blind,
We are groping here to find
What the hieroglyphics mean
Of the Unseen in the seen,

What the Thought which underlies
Nature's masking and disguise,
What it is that hides beneath

Blight and bloom and birth and death.
By past efforts unavailing,
Doubt and error, loss and failing,
Of our weakness made aware,
On the threshold of our task
Let us light and guidance ask,
Let us pause in silent prayer!"

Then the Master in his place
Bowed his head a little space,
And the leaves by soft airs stirred,
Lapse of wave and cry of bird,
Left the solemn hush unbroken
Of that wordless prayer unspoken,
While its wish, on earth unsaid,
Rose to heaven interpreted.
As in life's best hours we hear
By the spirit's finer ear
His low voice within us, thus

The All-Father heareth us;
And his holy ear we pain
With our noisy words and vain.
Not for him our violence,
Storming at the gates of sense,
His the primal language, his
The eternal silences !

Even the careless heart was moved,
And the doubting gave assent,
With a gesture reverent,

To the Master well-beloved.
As thin mists are glorified
By the light they cannot hide,
All who gazed upon him saw,
Through its veil of tender awe,
How his face was still uplit
By the old sweet look of it,
Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,
And the love that casts out fear.
Who the secret may declare
Of that brief, unuttered prayer?
Did the shade before him come
Of the inevitable doom,
Of the end of earth so near,
And Eternity's new year?

In the lap of sheltering seas
Rests the isle of Penikese ;
But the lord of the domain
Comes not to his own again :
Where the eyes that follow fail,
On a vaster sea his sail

Drifts beyond our beck and hail !
Other lips within its bound
Shall the laws of life expound;
Other eyes from rock and shell
Read the world's old riddles well;
But when breezes light and bland
Blow from Summer's blossomed land,
When the air is glad with wings,
And the blithe song-sparrow sings,
Many an eye with his still face
Shall the living ones displace,
Many an ear the word shall seek
He alone could fitly speak.
And one name forevermore
Shall be uttered o'er and o'er
By the waves that kiss the shore,
By the curlew's whistle, sent
Down the cool, sea-scented air;
In all voices known to her
Nature own her worshipper,
Half in triumph, half lament.
Thither love shall tearful turn,
Friendship pause uncovered there,
And the wisest reverence learn
From the Master's silent prayer.

JOHN Greenleaf WHITTIER,

Fair City by the Sea! upraise

His veil with reverent hands; And mingle with thy own the praise And pride of other lands.

Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe
Above her hero-urns ;

And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe
The flower he culled for Burns.

O, stately stand thy palace walls,
Thy tall ships ride the seas;
To-day thy poet's name recalls
A prouder thought than these.

Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat,
Nor less thy tall fleets swim,
That shaded square and dusty street
Are classic ground through him.

Alive, he loved, like all who sing,
The echoes of his song;
Too late the tardy meed we bring,
The praise delayed so long.

Too late, alas ! - Of all who knew
The living man, to-day
Before his unveiled face, how few

Make bare their locks of gray!

Our lips of praise must soon be dumb,
Our grateful eyes be dim;

O, brothers of the days to come,
Take tender charge of him!

New hands the wires of song may sweep,
New voices challenge fame ;
But let no moss of years o'ercreep
The lines of Halleck's name.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THE DUKE OF GLOSTER.

I, that am rudely stamped and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun.
King Richard III., Act i. Sc. 1.

GALILEO.

The starry Galileo, with his woes.

Childe Harold, Cant. iv.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

SHAKESPEARE.

BYRON.

FRAGMENTS.

CHAUCER.

As that renowmèd poet them compyled With warlike numbers and heroicke sound, Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.

THE EARL OF WARWICK.

Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick!
Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings.
King Henry VI., Part III. Act iii. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.

LORD BACON.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind! Essay on Man, Epistle IV.

POPE.