Park Benjamin, Sr.

Press on! If Fortune play thee false To-day, tomorrow she'll be true; Whom now she sinks she now exalts, Taking old gifts and granting new, The wisdom of the present hour Makes up the follies past and gone;

Press on! there's no such word as fail! Press nobly on! the goal is near,— Ascend the mountain! breast the gale! Look upward, onward,—never fear! Why shouldst thou faint? Heaven smiles above, Though storm and vapor intervene;

Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile Is mirrored on my dreams, Like evening's sunset-girded isle Upon her shadowed streams: And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats, Like melody of spring-bird, notes;

And, like some low and mournful spell, To whisper but one word—farewell!

He loved his kind, but sought the love of few, And valued old opinions more than new.

Great faith it needs, according to my view, To trust in that which never could be true.

The mountain rill Seeks with no surer flow the far bright sea, Than my unchang'd affections flow to thee.

Flowers are Love's truest language.

I'm king of the dead—and I make my throne On a monument slab of marble cold; And my scepter of rule is the spade I hold: Come they from cottage or come they from hall, Mankind are my subjects, all, all, all! Let them loiter in pleasure or …