skilled roue;
And the splendid palace that you crave
Will make you Society's gilded slave.

"'Tis a weary road to political fame;
Its price you must often pay in shame;
And the world-known name for which you yearn
On a bulletin board or a funeral urn,
Is scarcely worth the toil and strife
Which poison the peaceful joys of life.

"For be you ever so wise and good,
By some you will be misunderstood,
And fame will bring you envious foes
To spoil for you many a night's repose;
And alas! as your pathway upward tends,
You will find self-interest in your friends!

"The loudest shout of the mob's applause
Will die out after a moment's pause;
And what is the greatest public praise
To one whose form in the earth decays?
The cruel world will always laugh
At the fulsome lie of an epitaph.

"But Spring recks not of Winter's snow,
And you will not believe, I know,
That all those boons that tempt your powers,
If gained, will be like fragile flowers,
Whose freshness wilts in the fevered hand,
Like roses dropped on the desert sand.

"And much of the work you deem sublime
Is like the grain of pink-hued lime
Which once was a coral insect's shell,
But now is a microscopic cell,
Entombed with countless billions more
In a lonely reef on an unknown shore!"

"Alas!" said the youth,--and his eyes were wet,--
"Is old age merely a vain regret,
The retrospect of wasted years,
Of false ideals and lost careers?
Advise me! What must I reject,
And what for my permanent good select?"

"Belovd youth," the old man said,
"All is not vain, be comforted!
Seek not thine own, but others' joy;
Ring true, like gold without alloy;
Waste not thy time in asking Why,
Or Whence, or Whither when we die;

"The actual world, the present hours
Will give enough to tax thy powers;
At no clear duty hesitate;
Serve well thy neighbor and the State;
So shalt thou add thy tiny form
To bind the reef that breasts the storm!"

SUNSET AT INTERLAKEN

The sun is low;
Yon peak of snow
Is reddening 'neath the sunset glow;
The rosy light
Makes richly bright
The Jungfrau's veil of snowy white.

From vales that sleep
Night's shadows creep
To take possession of the steep;
While, as they rise,
The western skies
Seem loath to leave so fair a prize.

The light of day
Still loves to stay
And round that pearly summit play;
How fair a sight
That realm of light,
Contended for by Day and Night!