hall be but dust and ashes!

Oh! blame not boys for so soon forgetting one another--in absence or in
death. Yet forgetting is not just the very word; call it rather a
reconcilement to doom and destiny--in thus obeying a benign law of
nature that soon streams sunshine over the shadows of the grave. Not
otherwise could all the ongoings of this world be continued. The nascent
spirit outgrows much in which it once found all delight; and thoughts
delightful still, thoughts of the faces and the voices of the dead,
perish not, lying sometimes in slumber--sometimes in sleep. It belongs
not to the blessed season and genius of youth, to hug to its heart
useless and unavailing griefs. Images of the well-beloved, when they
themselves are in the mould, come and go, no unfrequent visitants,
through the meditative hush of solitude. But our main business--our
prime joys and our prime sorrows--ought to be, must be, with the living.
Duty demands it; and Love, who would pine to death over the bones of the
dead, soon fastens upon other objects with eyes and voices to smile and
whisper an answer to all his vows. So was it with us. Ere the midsummer
sun had withered the flowers that spring had sprinkled over our
Godfrey's grave, youth vindicated its own right to happiness; and we
felt that we did wrong to visit too often that corner in the kirkyard.
No fears had we of any too oblivious tendencies; in our dreams we saw
him--most often all alive as ever--sometimes a phantom away from that
grave! If the morning light was frequently hard to be endured, bursting
suddenly upon us along with the feeling that he was dead, it more
frequently cheered and gladdened us with resignation, and sent us forth
a fit playmate to the dawn that rang with all sounds of joy. Again we
found ourselves angling down the river, or along the loch--once more
following the flight of the Falcon along the woods--eying the Eagle on
the Echo-cliff. Days passed by, without so much as one thought of
Emilius Godfrey--pursuing our pastime with all our passion, reading our
books intently--just as if he had never been! But often and often, too,
we thought we saw his figure coming down the hill straight towards
us--his very figure--we could not be deceived; but the love-raised ghost
disappeared on a sudden--the grief-woven spectre melted into the mist.
The strength, that formerly had come from his counsels, now began to
grow up of itself within our own unassisted being. The world of