We listen—to our earnest cries
No answer is made known,
Save the “Resurgam”—I shall rise!
Carved on the burial stone.
O Grave! O Death! thou canst not keep
The spark of Life Divine;
They have no need of rest or sleep;
Nay, Death, they are not thine!
Where are they? O Creative Soul!
To whom no name is given,
Whose presence fills the boundless whole,
Whose love alone is heaven,
Through all the long, eternal hours
What toils do they pursue?
Are their great souls still linked with ours,
To suffer and to do?
Lo! how the viewless air around
With quickening life is stirred,
And from the silences profound
Leaps forth the answering word,
“We live—not in some distant sphere
Life’s mission to fulfill;
But, joined with faithful spirits here,
We love and labor still.
No laurel wreath, no waving palm,
No royal robes are ours,
But evermore, serene and calm,
We use life’s noblest powers.
Toil on in hope, and bravely bear
The burdens of your lot;
Great, earnest souls your labors share;
They will forsake you not.”
MR. DE SPLAE.
It may seem a strange question, good people, but say,
Did you never hear tell of one Mr. De Splae?
A man who made up for the lack of good sense
By a wondrous amount of mere show and pretense;
Puffed up with conceit like an airy balloon,
He was hard to approach as the “man in the moon,”
Save when for some purpose it came in his way,
And then, O how gracious was Mr. De Splae!
A sly politician, a popular man,
When all things went smoothly he marshaled the van;
But when there was aught like a failure to fear,
He quickly deserted or fell to the rear.
His speech for the people went “gayly and glib,”
While he drew his support from the National crib;
But when an assessment or tax was to pay,
O, how outraged and angry was Mr. De Splae!
He smoked, and he chewed, and he drank, and he swore;
But then every man whom the ladies adore,
Is prone to these failings—some more and some less,
Which are all overlooked in a man of address.
It also was whispered that he had betrayed
The too trusting faith of an innocent maid;
But the ladies all blamed her for going astray,
While they pardoned and petted—“dear Mr. De Splae.”
There was good Mr. Honest, who lived but next door,
He was true, and substantial, and sound to the core;
He had made it the rule of his life, from his youth,
To shun all evasions and speak the plain truth;
But the ladies—who always are judges, you know,
Declared him to be a detestable beau—
Not worthy of mention within the same day,
With that pink of perfection—“dear Mr. De Splae.”