THE yesterday doth never smile, To-day goes drudging through the while, Yet in the name of Godhead, I The morrow front and can defy; Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid. Ah me! it was my childhood’s thought, If He should make my web a blot On life’s fair picture of delight, My heart’s content would find it right. But O, these waves and leaves,-- When happy, stoic Nature grieves,-- No human speech so beautiful As their murmurs mine to lull. On this altar God hath built I lay my vanity and guilt; Nor me can Hope or Passion urge, Hearing as now the lofty dirge Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn, Nature’s funeral high and dim,-- Sable pageantry of clouds, Mourning summer laid in shrouds. Many a day shall dawn and die, Many an angel wander by, And passing, light my sunken turf, Moist perhaps by ocean surf, Forgotten amid splendid tombs, Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms. On earth I dream;--I die to be: Time! shake not thy bald head at me. I challenge thee to hurry past, Or for my turn to fly too fast. [LUCY PERCY, Countess of Carlisle, the friend of Strafford and of Pym, is thus described by Sir Toby Matthews:] “She is of too high a mind and dignity not only to seek, but almost to wish, the friendship of any creature. They whom she is pleased to choose are such as are of the most eminent condition both for power and employment,--not with any design towards her own particular, either of advantage or curiosity, but her nature values fortunate persons. She prefers the conversation of men to that of women; not but she can talk on the fashions with her female friends, but she is too soon sensible that she can set them as she wills; that pre-eminence shortens all equality. She converses with those who are most distinguished for their conversational powers. Of Love freely will she discourse, listen to all its faults and mark its power: and will take a deep interest for persons of celebrity.” MARY MOODY EMERSON.[14] I WISH to meet the invitation with which the ladies have honored me by offering them a portrait of real life. It is a representative life, such as could hardly have appeared out of New England; of an age now past, and of which I think no types survive. Perhaps I deceive myself and overestimate its interest. It has to me a value like that which many readers find in Madame Guyon, in Rahel, in Eugénie de Guérin, but it is purely original and hardly admits of a duplicate. Then it is a fruit of Calvinism and New England, and marks the precise time when the power of the old creed yielded to the influence of modern science and humanity.