Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

For we are the same our fathers have been;

We see the same sights our fathers have seen;

We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,

And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;

From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;

To the life we are clinging they also would cling;

But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;

They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;