LXXXII.—SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

1. Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.

2. By the bedside, on the stair,
At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a mendicant it waits;

3. Waits, and will not go away;
Waits, and will not be gainsaid;
By the cares of yesterday

Each to-day is heavier made;

4. Till at length the burden seems
Greater than our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams,
Pressing on us everywhere.

5. And we stand from day to day,
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,

On their shoulders held the sky.

LXXXIII. THE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE.

ORMSBY M. MITCHEL.

1. Light traverses space at the rate of twelve million miles a minute, yet the light from the nearest star requires ten years to reach the earth, and Herschel's telescope revealed stars two thousand three hundred times further distant. The great telescope of Lord Ross pursued these creations of God still deeper into space, and having resolved the

nebulæ of the Milky Way into stars, discovered other systems of stars-beautiful diamond points, glittering through the black darkness beyond. When he beheld this amazing abyss-when he saw these systems scattered profusely throughout space—when he reflected upon their immense distances, their enormous magnitude, and the countless millions of worlds that belonged to them, it seemed to him as though the wild dream of the German poet was more than realized.

2. God called man in dreams into the vestibule of heaven, saying, "Come up hither, and I will show thee the glory of my house." And to his angels who stood about his throne, he said, "Take him, strip him of his robes of flesh; cleanse his affections; put a new breath into his nostrils ; but touch not his human heart-the heart that fears and hopes and trembles." A moment, and it was done, and the man stood ready for his unknown voyage. Under the guidance of a mighty angel, with sound of flying pinions, they sped away from the battlements of heaven. Some time on the mighty angel's wings they fled through Saharas of darkness, wilderness of death.

3. At length, from a distance not counted save in the arithmetic of heaven, light beamed upon them-a sleepy flame as seen through a hazy cloud. They sped on in their terrible speed to meet the light; the light with lesser speed came to meet them. In a moment the blazing of suns around them—a moment the wheeling of planets; then came long eternities of twilight; then again on the right hand and the left appeared other constellations. At last the man sank down, crying, "Angel, I can go no further; let me lie down in the grave and hide myself from the infinitude of the universe, for end there is none." "End is there none ?" demanded the angel. And from the glittering stais that shone around there came a choral shout-"End there is none !" "End there is none ?" demanded the angel again; "and is it this that awes thy soul? I answer, end there is none to the universe of God! Lo, also, there is no beginning !"

1. Her hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light ;—
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

2. But not beneath a graven stone,

To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone

Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.

3. And gray old trees of hugest limb

Shall wheel their circling shadows round
To make the scorching sunlight dim

That drinks the greenness from the ground,
And drop their dead leaves on her mound.

4. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run,
And through their leaves the robins call,
And, ripening in the autumn sun,

The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
Doubt not that she will heed them all.

5. For her the morning choir shall sing
Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel-voice of spring,
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.

6. When, turning round their dial-track,
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners, clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass.

7. At last the rootlets of the trees

Shall find the prison where she lies,
And bear the buried dust they seize
In leaves and blossoms to the skies.
So may the soul that warmed it rise!

8. If any, born of kindlier blood,

Should ask, What maiden lies below?
Say only this: A tender bud,

That tried to blossom in the snow,
Lies withered where the violets blow.

LXXXV.-THE POET AND THE ALCHEMIST

ANONYMOUS.

1. Authors of modern date are wealthy fellows;—
'Tis but to snip his locks they follow
Now the golden-haired Apollo.—
Invoking Plutus to puff up the bellows
Of inspiration, they distil

The rhymes and novels which cajole us,
Not from the Heliconian rill,

But from the waters of Pactolus.

2. Before this golden age of writers,
A Grub street Garreteer existed,

One of the regular inditers

Of odes and poems to be twisted
Into encomiastic verses,

For patrons who have heavy purses.-
Besides the Bellman's rhymes, he had
Others to let, both gay and sad,

All ticketed from A to Izzard;
And, living by his wits, I need not add,
The rogue was lean as any lizard.
Like a ropemaker's were his ways;
For still one line upon another

He spun, and like his hempen brother,
Kept going backwards all his days.

3. Hard by his attic lived a chemist,
Or alchemist, who had a mighty
Faith in the Elixir Vitæ ;

And though unflattered by the dimmest
Glimpse of success, he still kept groping
And grubbing in his dark vocation,
Stupidly hoping

To find the art of changing metals,
And guineas coin from pans and kettles,
By mystery of transmutation.

4. Our starving poet took occasion To seek this conjuror's abode,

Not with encomiastic ode,

Or laudatory dedication,

But with an offer to impart,

For twenty pounds, the secret art
Which should procure, without the pain
Of metals, chemistry, and fire,
What he so long had sought in vain,
And gratify his heart's desire.

5. The money paid, our bard was hurried
To the philosopher's sanctorum,
Who, somewhat sublimized and flurried
Out of his chemical decorum,

Crowed, capered, giggled, seemed to spurn his
Crucibles, retort, and furnace,

And cried, as he secured the door

And carefully put to the shutter, "Now, now, the secret I implore;

Out with it-speak-discover-utter!"

5. With grave and solemn look, the poet
Cried-"List-O, list! for thus I show it:
Let this plain truth those ingrates strike,
Who still, though blessed, new blessings crave,
That we may all have what we like,
Simply by liking what we have."