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.
Buried was the bloody hatchet; Buried was the dreadful war-club; Buried were all warlike weapons, And the war-cry was forgotten. Then was peace among the nations.
In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face the face of one long dead Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Oh, what a glory doth this world put on, for him who with a fervent heart goes forth under the bright and glorious sky, and looks on duties well performed, and days well spent.