The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, and traverse Barca's desert sands; Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings,--yet--the dead are there, And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep;--the dead reign there alone.-- So shalt thou rest--and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glides away, the sons of men The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man-- Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side, By those who in their turn shall follow them. So live that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, 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. W. C. Bryant. CCIX. THE AFRICAN CHIEF. Chained in the market-place he stood, A man of giant frame, Amid the gathering multitude That shrunk to hear his name,-- All stern of look and strong of limb, His dark eye on the ground; And silently they gazed on him, As on a lion bound.