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Littell's Living Age/Volume 131/Issue 1687/Nicholas St. John Green

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1593714Littell's Living Age, Volume 131, Issue 1687 — Nicholas St. John GreenGeorge Sennott

NICHOLAS ST. JOHN GREEN.

Died Sept. 8, 1876.

I.

Dear friend! the ancient elegiac strain
For death — was death itself and dark despair;
Each word a sob — the vain lament in vain
Fell on the careless air!

II.

Better our teaching, though they teach as well,
How deathless atoms in eternal flow
Compose the mortal bodies where we dwell,
And all things high and low.

III.

Can senseless atoms live? forever live?
Aild that which animates them ever die?
Can we — together brought, without our leave,
Then forc'd apart to fly —

IV.

Be worse for immortality? Our loss
Cannot be lasting while He lasts to tell
What glory shines behind His better cross,
Who doeth "all things" well!

Advertiser.George Sennott.