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Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way:
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle:
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead PAST bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present,

Heart within, and GOD o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime; And, departing, leave behind us Foot-prints on the sands of time.

Foot-prints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour as to wait.

LONGFELLOW.

GOD'S ACRE.

I LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase which calls
The burial ground GOD's Acre! It is just:
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

GOD's Acre! yes; that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those who in the grave have sown
The seed that they have garnered in their hearts-
Their bread of love! alas! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the Archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers which ne'er bloomed on earth.

With thy rude plowshare, Death, turn up the sod, And spread thy furrow for the seed we sow : This is the field and Acre of our GOD;

This is the place where human harvests grow!

LONGFELLOW.

EXCELSIOR.

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore 'mid snow and ice
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath;

And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright :
Above the spectral glaciers shone;
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the pass," the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead; The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!"

This was the peasant's last good-night! A voice replied, far up the height, Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward,
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow, was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay;
And from the sky serene and far,
A voice fell like a falling star,
Excelsior!

LONGFELLOW.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

It was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter,

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day :

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
With his pipe all in his mouth,

And watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.

Then up

and spake an aged man,

Who sailed the Spanish main,

"I pray thee put into yonder port.

For I fear a hurricane.

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