For lo! the days are hastening on

It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From Angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold; "Peace on the earth, good will to man From Heaven’s all gracious King."

Death is a stage in human progress, to be passed as we would pass from childhood to youth, or from youth to manhood, and with the same consciousness of an everlasting nature.

Calm on the listening ear of night Come Heaven’s melodious strains, Where wild Judea stretches far Her silver-mantled plains.

I look'd far back into the past, and lo! in bright array, I saw, as in a dream, the forms of ages pass'd away. It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls, And gardens with their broad green walks, where soft the footstep falls.

On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate... As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do …

Tho’ sickness yet a while forbears, Yet time destroys what sickness spares; Now Helen lives alone in fame And Cleopatra's but a name; Time must indent that heav'nly brow, And thou must be what they are now.