Happy their end Who vanish down life's evening stream Placid as swans that drift in dream Round the next river-bend! Happy long life, with honor at the close, Friends' painless tears, the softened thought of foes! And yet, like him, to spend All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure From mid-life's doubt and eld's contentment poor, What more could Fortune send? Right in the van, On the red rampart's slippery swell, With heart that beat a charge, he fell Forward, as fits a man: But the high soul burns on to light men's feet Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet; His life her crescent's span Orbs full with share in their undarkening days Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise Since valor's praise began. III. His life's expense Hath won for him coeval youth With the immaculate prime of Truth; While we, who make pretence At living on, and wake and eat and sleep, And life's stale trick by repetition keep, Our fickle permanence (A poor leaf-shadow on a brook, whose play Of busy idlesse ceases with our day) Is the mere cheat of sense. We bide our chance, Unhappy, and make terms with Fate A little more to let us wait: He leads for aye the advance, Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood; Our wall of circumstance Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight, A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right And steel each wavering glance. I write of one, While with dim eyes I think of three: Who weeps not others fair and brave as he? Ah, when the fight is won, Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn, (Thee! from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn!) How nobler shall the sun Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air, That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare And die as thine have done! * * * * * MY BOOK.