THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 119 



ings of University Societies and Objects of Important Papers read at recent meet- 

 ings ; Notes on the Mineralogy of Missouri, by Prof. Alex. V. Leonhard, Wash- 

 ington University, St. Louis, Mo. 



SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY. 



THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 



BY DAVID ECOLES. 



Out on a boundless, surging sea, 

 With unknown port or destiny. 



Our feeble lives are thrown ; 

 Against life's breakers dark we toil 

 And struggle through the dread turmoil 



With many a weary groan. 



From whence we came, no man can say — 

 We know but this : we're here to-day 



A transient life to run ; 

 In vain we try to recollect 

 Our being's dreamy retrospect 



Beyond mind's horizon. 



Such as we've been, we yet must be, 

 Still changing through eternity 



And toiling to attain 

 A mirage happiness in view, 

 And which we franticly pursue 



O'er life's tempestuous main. 



Above, around, beneath, within. 

 We hear the surge's awful din 



In elemental strife ; 

 To seize the reins of ruling power — 

 This the vast problem of the hour — 



The problem of our life. 



For this we toil, for this we wait. 

 For this unite or segregate. 



Through life's tumultuous course ; 

 The moral laws we frame to bind 



