Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning from the innumerable boughs The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast; Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'er-shadowing branches sweep the grass. The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moisten'd curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, And softly part his curtains to allow Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. Go,--but the circle of eternal change, Which is the life of nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the homesick mariner of the shore; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall dream He hears the rustling leaf and running stream. LVII.--DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.[M] THOMAS CARLYLE.--1795-1881. _From_ OLIVER CROMWELL'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES. And so we have now nothing more;--and Oliver has nothing more. His Speakings, and also his Actings, all his manifold Strugglings, more or less victorious, to utter the great God's-Message that was in him,--have here what we call ended. This Summer of 1658, likewise victorious after struggle, is his last in our World of Time. Thenceforth he enters the Eternities; and rests upon his arms _there_. Oliver's look was yet strong; and young for his years, which were Fifty-nine last April. The "Three-score and ten years," the Psalmist's limit, which probably was often in Oliver's thoughts and in those of others there, might have been anticipated for him: Ten Years more of Life;--which, we may compute, would have given another History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might observe, was but uncertain in late times; often "indisposed" the spring before last. His course of life had not been favorable to health! "A burden too heavy for man!" as he himself, with a sigh, would sometimes say. Incessant toil; inconceivable labor, of head and heart and hand; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near Twenty years now, had done their part: those robust life-energies, it afterwards appeared, had been gradually eaten out. Like a Tower strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined; which has not long to stand; the fall of which, on any shock, may be sudden.--