After the burden, the blissful meed;
After the flight, the downy nest;
After the furrow, the waking seed
After the shadowy river—rest!
DEATH’S FINAL CONQUEST.
[Among the poetic legacies that will “never grow old, nor change, nor pass away,” is the noble dirge of Shirley, in his Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Doubtless it was by the fall, if not by the death, of Charles I., that the mind of the royalist poet was solemnized to the creation of these imperishable stanzas. Oliver Cromwell is said, on the recital of them, to have been seized with great terror and agitation of mind.]
The glories of our mortal state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings: