Ah! What would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending,--the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time.

The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

Nature paints not; In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven; With sunsets, and the lovely forms of clouds; And flying vapors.

What shall I say to you? What can I say Better than silence is?

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.