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FUNEREAL S K ETC H ES,— No. XXlIf. 

 THE QUEST HOUSE. 



Go learn of life when day by day 



Is heard of human woes : 

 The fell Destroyer's every way 



To find life's sudden close. 



The untrimmed lam'p that lights the place 



Is flickering into gloom. 

 And fear and paleness make their haunt 



Within that darksome room ; 



And only now and then a sob 



Disturbs the silent dread 

 While burghers at their mournful call 



Hold inquest on the dead. 



They sat on one whose life was bright 



In sin's deceitful ray, 

 A cloud came o'er it, and to-night 



She threw that life away. 



One hand reclined adown her side 



With fingers long and fair ; — 

 They had laid the other on her hear! 



As if the wound was there. 



And then it strayed — a raven curl 



Across her ivory brow ; — 

 She must have been a lovely girl 



To appear so lovely now. 



Tis good when Death hath found his way 



To titled Beauty's door 

 To think how oft his earliest prey 



Is Beauty in the poor. 



Eos. 



