There is no Death! What seems so is transition.

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

NOVEMBER FOURTH

Earthly desires and sensual lust

Are passions springing from the dust,—
They fade and die;

But, in the life beyond the tomb,

They seal the immortal spirit's doom
Eternally!

Resignation

Coplas de Manrique

NOVEMBER FIFTH

Think of this, O Hiawatha!
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and forever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden the souls of the departed
In the Islands of the Blessed.

The Song of Hiawatha

NOVEMBER SIXTH

Clear fount of light! my native land on high
Bright with a glory that shall never fade!
Mansion of truth! without a veil or shade,
Thy holy quiet meets the spirit's eye.

There dwells the soul in its ethereal essence,
Gasping no longer for life's feeble breath;
But, sentinelled in heaven, its glorious presence
With pitying eye beholds, yet fears not, death.
The Native Land

NOVEMBER SEVENTH

Beloved country! banished from thy shore,
A stranger in this prison-house of clay,
The exiled spirit weeps and sighs for thee!
Heavenward the bright perfections I adore
Direct, and the sure promise cheers the way,
That, whither love aspires, there shall my dwell-
ing be.

The Native Land

NOVEMBER EIGHTH

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Haunted Houses

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

Haunted Houses

NOVEMBER TENTH

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,–

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Haunted Houses

NOVEMBER ELEVENTH

As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies,

Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa,

So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings

of evil,

Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.

NOVEMBER TWELFTH

Evangeline

O gentle spirit! Thou didst bear unmoved
Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate!
But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee
Melts thee to tears! O, let thy weary heart
Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,
Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted
And filled with my affection.

NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH

The Spanish Student

Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow,

We will stand by each other, however it blow.

Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain, Shall be to our true love as links to the chain. Annie of Tharaw

NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH

As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall, The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall,

So love in our hearts shall grow mighty and strong, Through crosses, through sorrows, through manifold wrong.

Annie of Tharaw

Ah, how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,
And he who followeth Love's behest
Far exceedeth all the rest!

The Building of the Ship

NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH

Alas! the world is full of peril!

The path that runs through the fairest meads,
On the sunniest side of the valley, leads
Into a region bleak and sterile!
Alike in the high-born and the lowly,
The will is feeble, and passion strong.
We cannot sever right from wrong;
Some falsehood mingles with all truth;
Nor is it strange the heart of youth
Should waver and comprehend but slowly
The things that are holy and unholy !

The Golden Legend

NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH

Hereafter?—And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book

To find her failings, faults, and errors?
Ah, you will then have other cares,
In your own short-comings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors !

In the Churchyard at Cambridge