Sometimes ’mid cloudlets bright, The sunset splendors of a summer’s day, An instant thou’lt appear, then pass away From my entranced sight. Up in the blue heavens clear A never-setting star hast thou become, Pouring a silvery ray, from thy far home, Upon my pathway here. Where tears ne’er dim the eyes, Shall we not meet in some far blessed land? Shall we not walk together, hand in hand, In bowers of Paradise? My soul, though chained and pent, Sore of a future glorious career, In all its God-appointed labor here, Toils on in calm content. * * * * * ST. AGNES’ EVE. A CHIT-CHAT ABOUT KEATS. God bless you, Oliver, don’t think of such a thing! _I_ join the temperance society!—why, you old curmudgeon, would you murder me outright? Not that temperance societies haven’t done good—many a poor wife and weeping mother have they made happy—but, then, ever since I read Anacreon at college and shot buffalos at the Black Hills, I’ve had a fellow feeling for the good things of this life, especially for beef-steaks and port wine. I’m an Epicurean, sir—you needn’t talk to me of glory—I despise the whole cant about posthumous renown. The great end of life is happiness, and happiness is best secured by gratifying our physical as well as our intellectual nature. I go in, sir, for enjoying existence, and when I was in my prime, I flatter myself that few could beat me at a dinner or had a more delicate way of making love to the girls. But alas! we have fallen on troublous times. The wine of these days—I say it with tears in my eyes—isn’t the wine of my youth; and the girls—here’s a health to the sweet angels—have sadly deteriorated from what their grandmothers were. _Eheu! Eheu!_ The world is getting upside down, and I shouldn’t wonder if an earthquake or epidemic or some other calamity should overtake us yet to fill up the catalogue of our ills.