Ah, what is _Life_! a dream within a dream; A pilgrimage from peril rarely free; A bark that sails upon a changing sea, Now sunshine and now storm; a mountain stream Heard, but scarce seen ere to the dark deep gone; A wild star blazing with unsteady beam, Yet for a season fair to look upon. _Life_ is an infant on Affection’s knee, A youth now full of hope and transient glee, In manhood’s peerless noon, now bright, anon A time-worn ruin silvered o’er with years. _Life_ is a race where slippery steeps arise, Where discontent and sorrow are the prize, And where the goal appears the grave is won. _E. Moxon._ In deserts of the Holy Land I strayed, Where Christ once _lived_, but seems to _live_ no more, On Lebanon my lonely home I made, I heard the wind among the cedars roar, And saw, far off, the Great Sea’s solemn shore: “But ’tis a dreary wilderness,” I said, Now the prophetic spirit hence has fled: Then, from a convent in the vale, I heard, Slow-chanted forth, the everlasting Word, Saying “I am he that _liveth_, and was dead, And lo! I am _alive_ for evermore.” Then forth upon my pilgrimage I fare, Resolved to find and praise Him everywhere. _J. Gostick._ Tell me not, in mournful numbers, “_Life_ is but an empty dream!” For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. _Life_ is real! _Life_ is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; “Dust thou art, to dust returnest,” Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way, But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of _Life_, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,--act in the _living_ Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead! _Lives_ of great men all remind us We can make our _lives_ sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er _life’s_ solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate, Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait. _Longfellow._ LIGHT. And God said. Let there be _light_: and there was _light_. And God saw the _light_ that it was good: and God divided the _light_ from the darkness.