et men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most?
Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood;
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling--one great thought--one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days,
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most--feels the noblest--acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end--that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things--God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth's empires up, nears Death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no! the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country's arms for more--their country's heart.
Give then the dead their due: it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep--the fall, the gulph,
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change,
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out, thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lamps upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that's left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth--or heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become like scrolls, unreadable,
Through dust and mold. Can they be cleaned and read?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons?

_Lucifer_--The eye dims, and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limbs stiffen, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither; still,
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
Risin