G Extreme Unction. O! leave me, Priest; my soul would be Far sadder eyes than thine will see This crumbling clay yield up its breath : These shriveled hands have deeper stains Than holy oil can cleanse away— Hands that have plucked the world's coarse gains, As erst they plucked the flowers of May. Call, if thou canst, to these gray eyes Some faith from youth's traditions wrung; This fruitless husk which dustward dries, Has been a heart once, has been young; On this bowed head the awful Past Once laid its consecrating hands; The Future in its purpose vast Paused, waiting my supreme commands. But look! whose shadows block the door? God bends from out the deep and says— Are not my earth and heaven at strife? I gave thee of my seed to sow, Bringest thou me my hundred-fold ?” Can I look up with face aglow, And answer, 66 Father, here is gold ?" EXTREME UNCTION. I have been innocent; God knows When first this wasted life began, When this fast-ebbing breath shall part? Christ still was wandering o'er the earth He shared my cup and broke my bread; Upon the hour when I was born, God said, "Another man shall be;" And the great Maker did not scorn As effortless as woodland nooks Send violets up and paint them blue. Yes, I who now, with angry tears, Have borne unquenched for fourscore years And to what end? How yield I back 381 Men think it is an awful sight To see a soul just set adrift On that drear voyage from whose night A helpless infant newly born, Mine held them once; I flung away But clutch the keys of darkness yet;— Into God's harvest; I, that might O glorious Youth, that once was mine! Ye enter at this ruined shrine Whence worship ne'er shall rise again; The bat and owl inhabit here, The snake nests in the altar-stone, The sacred vessels moulder near, The image of the God is gone. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. SONG OF THE SILENT LAND. 383 Lines Written in a Bible. WITHIN this awful volume lies W The mystery of mysteries: LORD BYRON, Song of the Silent Land. NTO the silent land! IN Ah! who shall lead us thither? Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, Thither, O thither! Into the silent land? Into the silent land! To you, ye boundless regions Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions and Shall bear hope's tender blossoms O land! O land! For all the broken-hearted, The mildest herald by our fate allotted To lead us with a gentle hand Into the land of the great departed- Into the silent land! (Translated by H. W. LONGFELLOW.) J. G. VON SALIS. The Future Life. WOW shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead, When all of thee that time could wither sleeps And perishes among the dust we tread? For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain, In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. Will not thy own meek heart demand me there! In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, The love that lived through all the stormy past, And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, |