what splendid service came of his art; from his life what a trumpetcall to doing out the duty!—

"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail,

Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,

Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair."

And in reading the title Essay this fact is brought home to us; many have been the discourses on Death, from the great Emperor's down to our own day, but no one of them all ever approached "the Shadow unbeheld" with such courageous humanism; here forsooth his heart beat highest: Æs Triplex was rightly named.

So passes one of the lords of life. "O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end, for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." Barely seven years ago! And yet the world of men and women and

little children who loved him cannot make the Master dead. Surely

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'some late lark is singing" there for him who travelled hence, even as for those who now move toward that rest for each and all men born.

"Sleep sweetly, tender heart in peace; Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,

While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll.

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet,

Nothing comes to thee new or strange,

Sleep, full of rest from head to feet,
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change."

March, 1902.

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies

And from the west,

Where the sun, his day's work ended,

Lingers as in content,

There falls on the old, gray city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.

The smoke ascends

In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine, and are changed. In the valley

Shadows rise.

The lark sings on.

Closing his benediction,

Sinks and the darkening air

The sun,

Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night

Night, with her train of stars

And her great gift of sleep.

So be my passing!

My task accomplished and the long day done,

My wages taken, and in my heart

Some late lark singing.

Let me be gathered to the quiet west,

The sundown splendid and serene,

Death.

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

ES TRIPLEX

"An unconscionable time

a-dying there is the picture ('I am afraid, gentlemen') of your life and of mine. The sands run out, and the hours are numbered and imputed,' and the days go by; and when the last of these finds us, we have been a long time dying, and what else? The very length is something, if we reach that hour of separation undishonoured; and to have lived at all is doubtless (in the soldierly expression) to have served."

A CHRISTMAS Sermon.