Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS. WHEN the hours of day are numbered, Ere the evening lamps are lighted, Then the forms of the departed Come to visit me once more; He, the young and strong, who cherished By the roadside fell and perished, They, the holy ones and weakly, Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly, Spake with us on earth no more! And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven. With a slow and noiseless footstep And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies. Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit's voiceless prayer, Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, Breathing from her lips of air. Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died. THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. "SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest! Comest to daunt me! Why dost thou haunt me?" Then from those cavernous eyes Gleam in December; And, like the water's flow From the heart's chamber. "I was a Viking old! My deeds, though manifold, "Far in the Northern Land, By the wild Baltic's strand, I, with my childish hand, Tamed the gerfalcon ; And, with my skates fast-bound, "Oft to his frozen lair Tracked I the grisly bear, While from my path the hare Oft through the forest dark Followed the were-wolf's bark, Until the soaring lark Sang from the meadow. "But when I older grew, |