I thought how quick the seal of nothingness
Is set on man's best glory—and how deep!
How soon the Greatest grovels with the Less,
And they who shouted bravest, bow to weep!
How quick the veriest triumph of our years,
Fulfill'd by a dim life of toil and pain,
Is chang'd to one sad festival of tears—
When Time is but a storm—and visions wane!
How quick Destruction can make classical
The crowded, golden ground, where her fell footsteps fall!
The ground that yesterday was consecrate
To the wild spirit-power of Gold and Gain—
Where riches, like some thing of worship sate,
And Worth of Wealth ask'd precedence in vain!
Where the hard hand was busy with the dust
With which it soon must mingle—though it gleam
Often with jewels—splendid, but accurst,
That make the trappings of this Life's poor dream!
And where, too, Bounty, like a fountain, sprung,
In streams, though not unfelt, in shadow, and unsung!
Alas! that pillar'd pile! how, as I gaz'd
Upon the blacken'd shafts, did I recall
The sculptur'd marble there, whose brow was rais'd
So like a god's, within that shadowy hall!
Immortal Hamilton!—though crumbled deep
In the red chaos of that billowy night,
It needs no chisel's memory to keep
Thy spirit's nobler outline vast and bright!
No Time—no element can mar the fame,
Gather'd, like fadeless sunlight, round thy spotless name!
COURTSHIP.
By Wm. L. McClintock.
After my sleighride, last winter, and the slippery trick I was served by Patty Bean, nobody would suspect me of hankering after the women again in a hurry. To hear me curse and swear and rail out against the whole feminine gender, you would have taken it for granted that I should never so much as look at one again, to all eternity—O, but I was wicked. "Darn and blast their eyes"—says I.—"Blame their skins—torment their hearts and darn them to darnation." Finally I took an oath and swore that if I ever meddled or had any dealings with them again (in the sparking line I mean) I wish I might be hung and choked.
But swearing off from women, and then going into a meeting house chock full of gals, all shining and glistening in their Sunday clothes and clean faces, is like swearing off from liquor and going into a grog shop. It's all smoke.
I held out and kept firm to my oath for three whole Sundays. Forenoons, a'ternoons and intermissions complete. On the fourth, there were strong symptoms of a change of weather. A chap, about my size was seen on the way to the meeting house, with a new patent hat on; his head hung by the ears upon a shirt collar; his cravat had a pudding in it and branched out in front, into a double bow knot. He carried a straight back and a stiff neck, as a man ought to, when he has his best clothes on; and every time he spit, he sprung his body forward, like a jack-knife, in order to shoot clear of the ruffles.