Grave men there are by broad Santee,°
Grave men with hoary hairs;

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For them we wear these trusty arms,

LET me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat

The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!

The mild, the fierce, the stony face;

Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass to toil, to strife, to rest;
To halls in which the feast is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,

Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,

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With mute caresses shall declare

The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
Go'st thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
Ör melt the glittering spires in air?

Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleam again?
Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?

Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
The cold dark hours, how slow the light;
And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each, where his tasks or pleasures call,
They pass, and heed each other not.
There is who heeds, who holds them all,

In His large love and boundless thought.

These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end.°

THE SNOW-SHOWER

STAND here by my side and turn, I pray,
On the lake below thy gentle eyes;
The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
And dark and silent the water lies;
And out of that frozen mist the snow
In wavering flakes begins to flow;

Flake after flake

They sink in the dark and silent lake.

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See how in a living swarm they come

From the chambers beyond that misty veil;

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Some hover awhile in air, and some

Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.
All, dropping swiftly or settling slow,
Meet, and are still in the depths below;

Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd

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There broader and burlier masses fall;
The sullen water buries them all-

Flake after flake

All drowned in the dark and silent lake.

And some, as on tender wings they glide
From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,
Are joined in their fall, and, side by side,

Come clinging along their unsteady way;
As friend with friend, or husband with wife,
Makes hand in hand the passage of life;
Each mated flake

Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake.

Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste

Stream down the snows, till the air is white, As, myriads by myriads madly chased,

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They fling themselves from their shadowy height.

The fair, frail creatures of middle° sky,

What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;

Flake after flake,

To lie in the dark and silent lake!

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I see in thy gentle eyes a tear;

They turn to me in sorrowful thought;

Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear,
Who were for a time, and now are not;
Like these fair children of cloud and frost,
That glisten a moment and then are lost,
Flake after flake-
All lost in the dark and silent lake.

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Yet look again, for the clouds divide;
A gleam of blue on the water lies;
And far away, on the mountain-side,

A sunbeam falls from the opening skies,
But the hurrying host that flew between
The cloud and the water, no more is seen;
Flake after flake,

At rest in the dark and silent lake.

ROBERT OF LINCOLN°

MERRILY Swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,

Over the mountain-side or mead,

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers,
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest,

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Wearing a bright black wedding-coat;

White are his shoulders and white his crest

Hear him call in his merry note:

Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Look, what a nice new coat is mine.
Sure there was never a bird so fine.

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