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

And death——Aha! I reel,—

Dim,—dim,—I faint, darkness comes o’er my eye,—

Cover me! save me!——God of heaven! I die!”

’Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.

No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,

Open and ashy pale, th’ expression wore

Of his death struggle. His long silvery hair

Lay on his hollow temples, thin and wild,

His frame was wasted, and his features wan

And haggard as with want, and in his palm