Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown

When Sappho writ,

How shocking must thy summons be, O death,
To him who is at ease in his possessions!
Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnish'd for that world to come!
BLAIR: Grave.

For me, my heart, that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,

That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose

Who giveth his beloved sleep.

MRS. BROWNING.

So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and
soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
BRYANT: Thanatopsis.

O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best!
Welcome the hour my aged limbs

Are laid with thee at rest!

If from society we learn to live,

BURNS.

ADDISON.

'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers: vanity can give

ADDISON.

That by like life and death, at last,

Before decay's effacing fingers

We may obtain like grace.

ASCHAM.

Be it what it may, or bliss or torment,
Annihilation, dark and endless rest,

Or some dread thing man's wildest range of thought

Hath never yet conceived, that change I'll dare Which makes me anything but what I am. JOANNA BAILLIE: Basil.

It goes against the mind of man

To be turn'd out from its warm wonted home Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill. JOANNA BAILLIE: Rayner.

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.

BYRON. Who with the weight of years would wish to bend, When youth itself survives young love and joy? Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend, Death has but little left him to destroy!

BYRON.

Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or

best;

Dissimulation always sets apart

A corner for herself; and therefore fiction

Is that which passes with least contradiction.

BYRON.