Good-night! a word so often said,The heedless mind forgets its meaning;'Tis only when some heart lies deadOn which our own was leaning,We hear in maddening music rollThat lost 'good-night' along the soul.'Good-night'—in tones that never dieIt peals along the quickening ear;And tender gales of memoryFor ever waft it near,When stilled the voice—O crush of pain!—That ne'er shall breathe 'good-night' again.Good-night! it mocks us from the grave—It overleaps that strange world's boundFrom whence there flows no backward wave—It calls from out the ground,On every side, around, above,'Good-night,' 'good-night,' to life and love!Good-night! Oh, wherefore fades awayThe light that lived in that dear word?Why follows that good-night no day?Why are our souls so stirred?Oh, rather say, dull brain, once more,'Good-night!'—thy time of toil is o'er!Good-night!—Now cometh gentle sleep,And tears that fall like welcome rain.Good-night!—Oh, holy, blest, and deep,The rest that follows pain.How should we reach God's upper lightIf life's long day had no 'good-night?'
Good-night! a word so often said,The heedless mind forgets its meaning;'Tis only when some heart lies deadOn which our own was leaning,We hear in maddening music rollThat lost 'good-night' along the soul.
'Good-night'—in tones that never dieIt peals along the quickening ear;And tender gales of memoryFor ever waft it near,When stilled the voice—O crush of pain!—That ne'er shall breathe 'good-night' again.
Good-night! it mocks us from the grave—It overleaps that strange world's boundFrom whence there flows no backward wave—It calls from out the ground,On every side, around, above,'Good-night,' 'good-night,' to life and love!
Good-night! Oh, wherefore fades awayThe light that lived in that dear word?Why follows that good-night no day?Why are our souls so stirred?Oh, rather say, dull brain, once more,'Good-night!'—thy time of toil is o'er!
Good-night!—Now cometh gentle sleep,And tears that fall like welcome rain.Good-night!—Oh, holy, blest, and deep,The rest that follows pain.How should we reach God's upper lightIf life's long day had no 'good-night?'
O.
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Somebody—and we know not whom, for it is an old faded yellow manuscript scrap in our drawer—thus rebukes an Englishman's aspiration to be independent of foreigners: A French cook dresses his dinner for him, and a Swiss valet dresses him for his dinner. He hands down his lady, decked with pearls that never grew in the shell of a British oyster, and her waving plume of ostrich-feathers certainly never formed the tail of a barn-door fowl. The viands of his table are from all countries of the world; his wines are from the banks of the Rhine and the Rhone. In his conservatory, he regales his sight with the blossoms of South American flowers; in his smoking-room, he gratifies his scent with the weed of North America. His favourite horse is of Arabian blood, his pet dog of the St Bernard breed. His gallery is rich with pictures from the Flemish school and statues from Greece. For his amusement, he goes to hear Italian singers warble German music followed by a French ballet. The ermine that decorates his judges was never before on a British animal. His very mind is not English in its attainments—it is a mere picnic of foreign contributions. His poetry and philosophy are from ancient Greece and Rome, his geometry from Alexandria, his arithmetic from Arabia, and his religion from Palestine. In his cradle, in his infancy, he rubbed his gums with coral from Oriental oceans; and when he dies, he is buried in a coffin made from wood that grew on a foreign soil, and his monument will be sculptured in marble from the quarries of Carrara. A pretty sort of man this to talk of being independent of foreigners!—Harper's Magazine.
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