worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life,--
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

LOVE AND DEATH.

Alas! that men must see
Love, before Death!
Else they content might be
With their short breath;
Aye, glad, when the pale sun
Showed restless day was done,
And endless Rest begun.

Glad, when with strong, cool hand
Death clasped their own,
And with a strange command
Hushed every moan;
Glad to have finished pain,
And labor wrought in vain,
Blurred by Sin's deepening stain.

But Love's insistent voice
Bids self to flee--
"Live that I may rejoice,
Live on, for me!"
So, for Love's cruel mind,
Men fear this Rest to find,
Nor know great Death is kind!

MARGARETTA WADE DELAND.

TO DEATH.

Methinks it were no pain to die
On such an eve, when such a sky
O'er-canopies the west;
To gaze my fill on yon calm deep,
And, like an infant, fall asleep
On Earth, my mother's breast.

There's peace and welcome in yon sea
Of endless blue tranquillity:
These clouds are living things;
I trace their veins of liquid gold,
I see them solemnly unfold
Their soft and fleecy wings.

These be the angels that convey
Us weary children of a day--
Life's tedious nothing o'er--
Where neither passions come, nor woes,
To vex the genius of repose
On Death's majestic shore.

No darkness there divides the sway
With startling dawn and dazzling day;
But gloriously serene
Are the interminable plains:
One fixed, eternal sunset reigns
O'er the wide silent scene.

I cannot doff all human fear;
I know thy greeting is severe
To this poor shell of clay:
Yet come, O Death! thy freezing kiss
Emancipates! thy rest is bliss!
I would I were away!

From the German of GLUCK.

ASLEEP, ASLEEP.

"And so saying, he fell asleep."

MARTYRDOM OF SAINT STEPHEN.

Asleep! asleep! men talk of "sleep,"
When all adown the silent deep
The shades of night are stealing;
When like a curtain, soft and vast,
The darkness over all is cast,
And sombre stillness comes at last,
To the mute heart appealing.

Asleep! asleep! when soft and low
The patient watchers come and go,
Their loving vigil keeping;
When from the dear eyes fades the light,
When pales the flush so strangely bright,
And the glad spirit takes its flight,
We speak of death as "sleeping."

Or whe