WILLIAM LEGGETT.

* * * * *

MY DAYS AMONG THE DEAD.

  My days among the dead are passed;
    Around me I behold,
  Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
    The mighty minds of old;
  My never-failing friends are they,
  With whom I converse day by day.

  With them I take delight in weal,
    And seek relief in woe;
  And while I understand and feel
    How much to them I owe,
  My cheeks have often been bedewed
  With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

  My thoughts are with the dead; with them
    I live in long-past years;
  Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
    Partake their hopes and fears,
  And from their lessons seek and find
  Instruction with an humble mind.

  My hopes are with the dead; anon
    My place with them will be. 
  And I with them shall travel on
    Through all futurity: 
  Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
  That will not perish in the dust.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

* * * * *

THE FUTURE LIFE.

  How 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
    If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
  Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
    In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

  Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? 
    That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given;
  My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
    And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

  In meadows fanned by heaven’s life-breathing wind,
    In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
  And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
    Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

  The love that lived through all the stormy past,
    And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
  And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last. 
    Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

  A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
    Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
  In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
    And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

  For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,
    Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;
  And wrath has left its scar—­that fire of hell
    Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

  Yet though thou wear’st the glory of the sky,
    Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
  The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
    Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same?

  Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
    The wisdom that I learned so ill in this—­
  The wisdom which is love—­till I become
    Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?