ting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor could'st thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods--rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.

* * * * * *

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

NATURE'S MINISTRY OF BEAUTY.

[From _Nature_.]

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not
see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun
illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the
heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward
senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the
spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with
heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of
nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.
Nature says, He is my creature, and mauger all his impertinent griefs,
he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every
hou