you will take down the big sign over the door, close the blinds, and
stand watching with grieved heart while your castle fades into the
air. There is nothing on earth, as you will see when you are old, that
is not something like these castles in Spain, and but One Thing, that
is not tainted with their evanescent life. God grant, little one, that
at the end of our lives, you and I may have clung to that one thing,
and that we may have so lived that the many mansions of our Father in
a fairer world may not be for us--castles in Spain.

FINIS.




(Envoy)

FOR A SOLDIER

(Henry C. Tinsley, Died August 21, 1902)


Not 'mid the din of battle long ago,
But in the lingering clutch of later pain
Death found him, whom we shall not see again
Lifting a fearless front to every foe.
Yet shall suns somewhere shine for him, and blow
The lilies and the roses without stain,
Who through the lengthened years in heart and brain
Knew most of storm and winter with its snow.