importunate companion to one of their *magnificent temples, where he gladly consigned him to the instructions of the priesthood. 5. The emotion which the stranger had betrayed when he received the first idea of death, was yet slight in comparison with that which he experienced as soon as he gathered, from the discourses of the priests, some notions of immortality, and of the alternative of happiness or misery in a future state. But this agony of mind was exchanged for transport, when he learned that, by the performance of certain conditions before death, the state of happiness might be secured. His eagerness to learn the nature of these terms, excited the surprise and even the contempt of his sacred teachers. They advised him to remain satisfied, for the present, with the instructions he had received, and defer the remainder of the discussion till to-morrow. "How!" ex claimed the novice, "say ye not that death may come at any hour? May it not come this hour? And what if it should come, before I have performed these conditions? Oh! withhold not the excellent knowledge from me a single moment!" 6. The priests, suppressing a smile at his simplicity, proceeded to explain their theology to their attentive auditor. But who can describe the tecstasy of his happiness, when he was given to understand the required conditions were, generally, of easy and pleasant performance, and the occasional difficulties, which might attend them, would entirely cease with the short term of his earthly existence. "If, then, I understand you rightly," said he to his instructors, "this event which you call death, and which seems in itself strangely terrible, is most desirable and blissful. What a favor is this which is granted to me, in being sent to inhabit a planet in which I can die!" 7. The priests again exchanged smiles with each other; but their ridicule was wholly lost on the enraptured stranger. When the first transports of his emotion had subsided, he began to reflect with more uneasiness on the time he had already lost since his arrival. "Alas! what have I been doing?" exclaimed he. "This gold which I have been collecting, tell me, reverend priests, will it avail me any thing when the thirty or forty years are expired, which you say I may possibly *sojourn in your planet?" "Nay," replied the priests, "but verily you will find it of excellent use so long as you remain in it." "A very little of it will suffice me," replied he; "for consider how soon this period will be past. What avails it what my condition may be for so short a season? I will betake myself from this hour, to the grand concerns of which you have so charitably informed me.” 8. Accordingly, from that period, continues the legend, the stranger devoted himself to the performance of those conditions on which, he was told, his future welfare depended; but, in so doing, he had an opposition to encounter wholly unexpected, and for which he was at a loss even to account. By thus devoting his chief attention to his chief interests, he excited the surprise, the contempt, and even the enmity of most of the inhabitants of the city; and they rarely mentioned him but with a term of reproach, which has been variously rendered in all the modern languages. 9. Nothing could equal the stranger's surprise at this circumstance; as well as that of his fellow-citizens' appearing, generally, so extremely indifferent as they did, to their own interest. That they should have so little prudence and forethought, as to provide only for their *necessities and pleasures, for that short part of their existence in which they were to remain on this planet, he could but consider as the effect of disordered intellect; so that he even returned their incivilities to himself with affectionate expostulation, accompanied by lively emotions of compassion and amazement. 10. If ever he was tempted for a moment to violate any of the conditions of his future happiness, he bewailed his own madness with *agonizing emotions; and to all the invitations he received from others to do any thing inconsistent with his real interest, he had but one answer—“ “Oh," he would say, "I am to die: I am to die!" LXXVII.-A PSALM OF LIFE. FROM LONGfellow. 1. TELL me not, in mournful numbers, 2. Life is real! Life is earnest! 3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 4. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. 5. In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 6. Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act-act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead. 7. Lives of great men all remind us 8. Foot-prints, that perhaps another, 9. Let us, then, be up and doing, LXXVIII. THE DREAM OF CLARENCE. CLARENCE, prisoner in the Tower of London. Enter BRAKENBURY. Brakenbury. WHY looks your grace so heavily to-day? Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me. Clar. Methought that I had broken from the Tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Gloster; Upon the thatches; whence we looked toward England, During the wars of York and Lancaster, Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, O then, methought, what pain it was to drown! All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's sculls; and, in those holes And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. To Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony? Clar. O no; my dream was lengthened after life! I passed, methought, the melancholy flood, The first that there did greet my stranger soul, Then came wandering by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Brak. No marvel, my lord, that it affrighted you; Clar. O Brakenbury, I have done those things, O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children! My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. Brak. I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest! [CLARENCE reposes himself on a chair. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noontide night. |