readers, into mere pitiful shadows of their proper selves. To rescue them, to cleanse their wounds and heal their bruises, and finally to trace their parentage, is all that is attempted here. It is the fate of almost every fugitive poem, as soon as it gains a certain celebrity, to be claimed by many people, with the most amusing and astonishing results. The question of authorship is one (among many) which the anthologist must decide, and the material upon which these articles are based was accumulated during the compilation of The Home Book of Verse. It has seemed worth while to gather it together in the hope that it will settle certain historic and more or less heated controversies once for all. THERE IS NO DEATH There is no death! The stars go down There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer showers To golden grain or mellow fruit Or rainbow-tinted flowers. The granite rocks disorganize To feed the hungry moss they bear; The forest leaves drink daily life From out the viewless air. There is no death! The leaves may fall, There is no death! An angel form He bears our best-loved things away, He leaves our hearts all desolate He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers; Transplanted into bliss, they now Adorn immortal bowers. The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones Made glad this scene of sin and strife, Sings now an everlasting song Amid the tree of life. Where'er He sees a smile too bright, Born unto that undying life, They leave us but to come again; With joy we welcome them—the same Except in sin and pain. And ever near us, though unseen, For all the boundless universe Is Life—there are no dead! John Luckey McCreery |