25. When that last hour shall come, thou wilt begin to have a far different opinion of thy whole life that is past, and be exceeding sorry thou hast been so careless and remiss.

AVOID OCCASION FOR REGRET AT THE END

26. O how wise and happy is he that now laboureth to be such an one in his life as he wisheth to be found at the hour of his death.

27. So live, that when thy summons comes to join

28.

The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon,

But sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

FEAR

29. Let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of WITHOUT the body as alien to him, and has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life, who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice and courage, and nobility, and truth.

30. Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.

31. He has outsoared the shadow of our night;

Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not, and torture not again.

T

32. From the contagion of the world's slow stain

33.

34.

35.

36.

He is secure.

O sane and sacred Death!

The sights of the open landscape, and the highspread sky are fitting,

And life, and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;

And the soul, turning to thee, O vast and wellveiled Death,

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Come lovely and soothing Death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, Arriving in the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Praised be the fathomless universe,

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;

And for love, sweet love; but praise, O praise and
praise,

For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding
Death.

37. Dark mother, always gliding near, with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest

welcome ?

Then I chant it for thee; I glorify thee above all; I bring thee a song, that when thou must indeed

come,

Come unfalteringly.

CHAPTER XCII

THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ABIDETH IN

GLORY EVERMORE

1. O that my lot might lead me in the path of holy innocence of thought and deed, the path which

YESTERDAY

FOREVER

TO-DAY AND august laws ordain,-laws which in the highest heaven had their birth, neither did the race of mortal men beget them, nor shall oblivion ever put them to sleep.

2. Possessions vanish, and opinions change,

And passions hold a fluctuating seat:

But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,

Duty exists.

3. It is no child of to-day's or yesterday's birth, but hath been, no man knoweth how long since.

4. Hither as to their fountain other stars

5.

Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.

If this fail,

The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.

6. The sense of Duty is to our humanity what gravitation is to the physical universe; and the solid natures

in which it masses itself restrain whatever is erratic, and discipline dependent minds to orderly movement.

7. Thou sayest," Well done,” and all a century kindles;
Again thou sayest, "Depart from sight of me,"
And all the light of face of all men dwindles,
And the age is as the broken glass of thee.
8. It will not be contemned of any one;

Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains;
The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss,
The hidden ill with pains.

9. It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true
Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs;
Times are as nought, to-morrow it will judge,
Or after many days.

10. Such is the Law which moves to Righteousness,
Which none at last can turn aside or stay;
The heart of it is Love, the end of it

Is Peace and Consummation sweet. Obey!

11. Why dost thou wonder, O man, at the height of the stars, or the depth of the sea; enter into thine own soul, and wonder there.

12. Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing awe and admiration; the star-lit heavens above, and the Moral Law within.

13. Mother of man's time-travelling generations,

Breath of his nostrils, heart-blood of his heart,
God above all gods worshipped of all nations,
Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.