THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the under-world;
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square:
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret,-
O death in life, the days that are no more.
Alfred Tennyson, "The Princess."

LET HER SLIDE

Let the howlers howl, and the growlers growl, and the prowlers prowl, and the gee-gaws go it;

Behind the night there is plenty of light, and things are all

right and I know it.

Anonymous.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way.
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-trees' shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mold'ring heap.
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing morn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r.
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;

Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771.

LET SOMETHING GOOD BE SAID

When over the fair fame of friend or foe

The shadow of disgrace shall fall; instead
Of words of blame, or proof of so and so,
Let something good be said.

Forget not that no fellow-being yet

May fall so low but love may lift his head;
Even the cheek of shame with tears is wet,
If something good be said.

No generous heart may vainly turn aside
In ways of sympathy; no soul so dead
But may awaken strong and glorified,
If something good be said.

And so I charge ye, by the thorny crown,
And by the cross on which the Saviour bled,
And by your own soul's hope for fair renown,
Let something good be said.

James Whitcomb Riley.

HIS OLD FATHER SATISFIED

Twenty years ago a discouraged young doctor in one of our large cities was visited once by his old father, who came up from a rural district to look after his boy.

"Well, son," he said, "how are you getting along?"

"I'm not getting along at all," was the disheartened answer. "I'm not doing a thing."

The old man's countenance fell, but he spoke of courage and patience and perseverance. Later in the day he went with his son to the "Free Dispensary," where the young doctor had an unsalaried position, and where he spent an hour or more every day.

The father sat by, a silent but intensely interested spectator, while twenty-five poor unfortunates received help. The doctor forgot his visitor while he bent his skilled energies to this task; but hardly had the door closed on the last patient when the old man burst forth:

"I thought you told me that you were not doing anything! Why, if I had helped twenty-five people in a month as much as you have in one morning. I would thank God that my life counted for something."

"There isn't any money in it, though," explained the son, somewhat abashed.

"Money!" the old man shouted, still scornfully, "Money! What is money in comparison with being of use to your fellow-men? Never mind about money; you go right along at this work every day. I'll go back to the farm and gladly earn money enough to support you as long as I live-yes, and sleep soundly every night with the thought that I have helped you to help your fellow-men."

Chicago Advance.

THE MAN OF SCIENCE DID NOT BITE Miss Daisy Leiter has brought back from London a story about Charles Darwin:

"Two English boys," said Miss Leiter, "being friends of Darwin, thought one day that they would play a joke on him. They caught a butterfly, a grasshopper, a beetle and a centipede, and out of these creatures they made a strange, composite insect. They took the centipede's body. the butterfly's wings, the grasshopper's legs and the beetle's head, and they glued them together carefully. Then, with their new bug in a box, they knocked at Darwin's door.

"'We caught this bug in a field,' they said. 'Can you tell us what kind of a bug it is, sir?'