upon you soon again.

The sun has hid its rays
These many days;
Will dreary hours never leave the earth?
O doubting heart!
The stormy clouds on high
Veil the same sunny sky
That soon, for spring is nigh,
Shall wake the summer into golden mirth.

Fair hope is dead, and light
Is quenched in night;
What sound can break the silence of despair?
O doubting heart!
The sky is overcast,
Yet stars shall rise at last,
Brighter for darkness past;
And angels' silver voices stir the air.

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.

THE VOICELESS.

We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,
But o'er their silent sister's breast
The wild-flowers who will stoop to number?
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them:
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Nay grieve not for the dead alone
Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,--
Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory!
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep
O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his longed-for wine
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,--
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

A LAMENT.

O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more,--O nevermore!

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more,--O nevermore!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

"WHAT CAN AN OLD MAN DO BUT DIE?"

Spring it is cheery,
Winter is dreary,
Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly;
When he's forsaken,
Withered and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?

Love will not clip him,
Maids will not lip him,
Maud and Marian pass him by;
Youth it is sunny,
Age has no honey,--
What can an old man do but die?

June it was jolly,
O for its folly!
A dancing leg and a laughing eye!
Youth may be silly,
Wisdom is chilly,--
What can an old man do but die?