Year after year beheld the silent toil
    That spread his lustrous coil;
    Still, as the spiral grew,
  He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
  Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
    Built up its idle door,
  Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

  Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
    Child of the wandering sea,
    Cast from her lap, forlorn! 
  From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
  Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 
    While on mine ear it rings,
  Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—­

  Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
    As the swift seasons roll! 
    Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
  Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
  Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
    Till thou at length art free,
  Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

* * * * *

BERANGER.

Beranger is certainly the most popular poet there has ever been in France; there was convincing proof of it at the time of and after his death.  He had not printed anything since 1833, the epoch when he published the last collection of his poems; when he died, then, on the 16th of July, 1857, he had been silent twenty-four years.  He had, it is true, appeared for a moment in the National Assembly, after the Revolution of February, 1848; but it was only to withdraw again almost immediately and to resign his seat.  In spite of this long silence and this retirement, in which he seemed a little forgotten, no sooner did the news of his last illness spread and it was known that his life was in danger, than the interest, or we should rather say the anxiety, of the public was awakened.  In the ranks of the people, in the most humble classes of society, everybody began inquiring about him and asking day by day for news; his house was besieged by visitors; and as the danger increased, the crowd gathered, restless, as if listening for his last sigh.  The government, in charging itself with his obsequies and declaring that his funeral should be celebrated at the cost of the State, may have been taking a wise precaution to prevent all pretext for disturbance; but it responded also to a public and popular sentiment.  At sight of the honors paid to this simple poet, with as much distinction as if he had been a Marshal of France,—­at sight of that extraordinary military pomp, (and in France military pomp is the great sign of respectability, and has its place whenever it is desired to bestow special honor,) no one among the laboring population was surprised, and it seemed to all that Beranger received only what was his due.