"The deep reverence taught of old,
          The homage of man's heart to death."

Even Nature's cheerful air, and sun, and birdvoices only serve to remind me that there are those beneath who have looked on the same green leaves and sunshine, felt the same soft breeze upon their cheeks, and listened to the same wild music of the woods for the last time. Then, too, comes the saddening reflection, to which so many have given expression, that these trees will put forth their leaves, the slant sunshine still fall upon green meadows and banks of flowers, and the song of the birds and the ripple of waters still be heard after our eyes and ears have closed forever. It is hard for us to realize this. We are so accustomed to look upon these things as a part of our life environment that it seems strange that they should survive us. Tennyson, in his exquisite metaphysical poem of the Two Voices, has given utterance to this sentiment:—

         "Alas! though I should die, I know
          That all about the thorn will blow
          In tufts of rosy-tinted snow.

         "Not less the bee will range her cells,
          The furzy prickle fire the dells,
          The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

"The pleasures of the tombs!" Undoubtedly, in the language of the Idumean, seer, there are many who "rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave;" who long for it "as the servant earnestly desireth the shadow." Rest, rest to the sick heart and the weary brain, to the long afflicted and the hopeless,—rest on the calm bosom of our common mother. Welcome to the tired ear, stunned and confused with life's jarring discords, the everlasting silence; grateful to the weary eyes which "have seen evil, and not good," t