DEATH is the crown of life :

Were death denied, poor man would live in vain ; Were death denied, to live would not be life; Were death denied, even fools would wish to die. Death wounds to cure; we fall; we rise; we reign! Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies; Where blooming Eden withers in our sight: Death gives us more than was in Eden lost. This king of terrors is the prince of peace. When shall I die to vanity, pain, death? When shall I die?-When shall I live for ever? EDWARD YOUNG.

Night Thoughts: Night Third.

XXII.

ADDRESS NOT KNOWN.

(From "Quince.")

WHETHER I ought to die or not,

My Doctors cannot quite determine;

Its only clear that I shall rot,

And be, like Priam, food for vermin. My debts are paid :-but Nature's debt

Almost escaped my recollection; Tom!-we shall meet again;—and yet I cannot leave you my direction.

W. M. PRAED. Poems: Vol. II. (Ward, Lock, and Co.)

XXII.

PROSPICE.

FEAR death ?-to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go :

For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall,

Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and

forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worse turns the best to the brave, The black minute 's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!

ROBERT BROWNING.

Dramatis Persona: Poetical Works. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)

XXII. HEAVEN.

WEEP not for me ;

Be blithe as wont, nor tinge with gloom The stream of love that circles home,

Light hearts and free!

Joy in the gifts Heaven's bounty lends; Nor miss my face, dear friends.

He hath set in His heaven two lights,

Our Father on whom we cry,
For all the days have their nights,

And each hath his hour to die ;

These are the moon and the sun of life,
That brace men's hearts for the daily strife.

Our God hath given us sleep,
And given us surety of death,

To close the eyes that weep,
To ease the labouring breath;

Our God hath given these two great gifts,

To shed their light through the black cloud-rifts.
He gave us sleep at the first,

Ere bliss had any alloy,
Ere this sweet earth was curst;
For man grew faint with joy,

And the night breeze wooed his heart to rest,
As the red moon dipped in the mellow west.

And when man learned to mourn,
The dear God gave him death,
That each might look to a bourne,
And each might hope for a wreath,

A cool green wreath to bind his brows
So aching and hot with the world's carouse;

A sun to dispel the mists

That cumber the vale of life,
To shine on the weary lists
Where all night long in strife
The sons of God with fiends have striven,
When the life-long cloud by its light is riven.

XXII.

From the walls of the powerful, fortressed house, From the clasp of the knitted locks-from the keep of the well-closed doors,

Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;

With the key of softness unlock the locks-with a whisper,

Set ope the doors, O Soul !

Tenderly be not impatient!

(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh ! Strong is your hold, O love!)

XXII.

WALT WHITMAN.

DEATH'S CHANGED FACE. SWEET Saviour, since the time Thy human feet Trod thirty years our parched and dusty ways, How hath the wilderness of life grown sweet With flowers and warbled praise!

How hath the heavy mist that wrapt us round,
The weary mist of tears and hopeless sighs,
Lifted and bared to us the blue profound
Of God's far, quiet skies!

And, more than all, how hath a gracious change To poor scared men that slunk with flutter breath,

Passed o'er the face, that erst was stern & strange,

Of Thy strong angel, Death!

Lo, in the twilight of a tangled wood, Nowhither bound, we groped through

dim,

While shadow-like amid the shadows stood Old Death, the archer grim.