accompany him to the temporary studio of Mr. Swayne, the sculptor, who was making a bust of him at the Treasury Department. While he was sitting for the bust I was suddenly reminded of the poem, and said to him that THEN would be a good time to dictate it to me. He complied, and sitting upon some books at his feet, as nearly as I can remember, I wrote the lines down, one by one, as they fell from his lips. With great regard, very truly yours, F. B. CARPENTER. O why should the Spirit of Mortal be O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?- The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, And the young and the old, and the low and the high, The child, that a mother attended and loved; The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, on whose eye, And the memory of those that loved her and praised, The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne, The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, The saint, that enjoyed the communion of heaven, So the multitude goes-like the flowers and the weed, So the multitude comes-even those we behold, For we are the same things our fathers have been; The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink; To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling— They loved-but their story we cannot unfold; They died-ay, they died—and we, things that are now, Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain, 'Tis the twink of the eye,—'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death; From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud ;— O why should the spirit of mortal be proud! [The author of the above poem was WILLIAM KNOX, a young Scottish poet, who died in 1825.] |