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For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild up

roar.

The lover watched his graceful maid,
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed;

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;
The gay enchantment was undone-

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat

I leave it behind with the games of youth." As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine-cones, acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole-

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

THE SOUL'S ERRAND. O, Soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best;

The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie.

Say to the Court it glows

And shines like rotten wood; Say to the Church it shows What's good, and does no good. If Church and Court reply, Then give them both the lie.

Tell Potentates they live

Acting by others' action; Not loved unless they give,

Not strong but by affection. If Potentates reply, Give Potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition, That manage the Estate, Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate. And if they once reply, Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending; Who in their greatest cost

Like nothing but commending. And if they make reply, Then tell them all they lie.

Tell Zeal it wants devotion; Tell Love it is but lust; Tell Time it is but motion; Tell Flesh it is but dust. And wish them not reply, For thou must give the lie.

Tell Age it daily wasteth;

Tell Honor how it alters; Tell Beauty how she blasteth; Tell Favor how it falters. And as they shall reply, Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness; Tell Wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness. And when they do reply Straight give them both the lie.

Tell Physic of her boldness; Tell Skill it is pretension; Tell charity of coldness;

Tell Law it is contention. And as they do reply, So give them all the lie.

Tell Fortune of her blindness;
Tell Nature of decay;
Tell Friendship of unkindness;
Tell Justice of delay.

And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell Arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell Schools they want profoundness,
And stand so much on seeming.
If Arts and Schools reply,
Give Arts and Schools the lie.

Tell Faith it's fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell Manhood shakes off pity;
Tell Virtue least preferreth.
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing,
Because to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing,
Stab at thee who that will,
No stab the soul can kill.
(Attributed to) SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

THE HEREAFTER.

(From "An Essay on Man.")

JOPE humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed;
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates on a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or Milky Way,
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler

heaven;

Some safer world in depth of wood embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.

To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire,
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
ALEXANDER POPE.

LITTLE AT FIRST, BUT GREAT

A

AT LAST.

TRAVELER through a dusty road Strewed acorns on the lea, And one took root, and sprouted up,

And grew into a tree.

Love sought its shade at evening time,
To breathe its early vows,

And Age was pleased, at heat of noon,
To bask beneath its boughs;
The dormouse loved its dangling twigs,
The birds sweet music bore;
It stood a glory in its place,
A blessing evermore.

A little spring had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern;
A passing stranger scooped a well
Where weary men might turn;
He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle at the brink;

He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that toil might drink;
He passed again, and lo! the well,
By summers never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues,
And saved a life beside!

A dreamer dropped a random thought; 'Twas old, and yet 'twas new; A simple fancy of the brain,

Yet strong in being true; It shone upon a genial mind, And lo! its light became A lamp of life, a beacon ray,

A monitory flame!

The thought was small, its issue great;
A watch-fire on the hill,

It shed its radiance far adown,
And cheers the valley still.

A nameless man, amid the crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of Hope and Love,
Unstudied, from the heart;

A whisper, on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath,

It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.

O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.

CHARLES MACKAY.

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HE Greek wordeòquia, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it; a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things," as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all too little, most happily calls them in his "Battle of the Books," "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light." The supurs, I say, is the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the àquýs, on the other hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritual significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection; and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smattering of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of our education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

SOMEBODY.

SOMEBODY thinks the world all wrong

And never has a word in its praise; Somebody sings the whole day long, Likes the world and all its ways; Somebody says it's a queer old place,

Where none of the people do as they should;

Then somebody thinks it full of grace

And wouldn't change the folks if he could.

Somebody calls it cruel and cold,

Full of sin and sorrow and pain, Where life is but a search for gold,

And souls are lost in selfish gain. Somebody merrily laughs-and cries, "Hurrah for such a dear old earth! Success shall crown the man who tries To make his mark by honest worth." Somebody groans and shakes his head, Calls his lot a wretched one; Somebody wishes that he were dead, 'Cause somebody else has all the fun. But still I fancy you're sure to find, Tho' good or evil, or pain or care, One certain fact-so make up your mind That-Somebody always gets his share. ANONYMOUS.

EVERY DAY.

OH, trifling task so often done,

Yet ever to be done anew;

Oh, cares which come with every sun,
Morn after morn, the long years through!
We shrink beneath their paltry sway-
The irksome calls of every day.

The restless sense of wasted power,
The tiresome round of little things,
Are hard to bear, as hour by hour
Its tedious iteration brings;
Who shall evade or who delay
The small demands of every day?

The boulder in the torrent's course

By tide and tempest lashed in vain, Obeys the wave-whirled pebble's force, And yields its substance grain by grain; So crumble strongest lives away Beneath the wear of every day.

Who finds the lion in his lair,

Who tracks the tiger for his life,

May wound them ere they are aware,

Or conquer them in desperate strife, Yet powerless he to scathe or slay The vexing gnats of every day.

The steady strain that never stops,
Is mightier than the fiercest shock;
The constant fall of water-drops

Will groove the adamantine rock;
We feel our noblest powers decay
In feeble wars with every day.

We rise to meet a heavy blow-
Our souls a sudden bravery fills—
But we endure not always so

The drop-by-drop of little ills;
We still deplore and still obey
The hard behests of every day.

The heart which boldly faces death
Upon the battle-field, and dares
Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath

The needle-points of fret and cares; The stoutest spirits they dismayThe tiny stings of every day.

And even saints of holy fames,
Whose souls by faith have overcome,
Who wore amid the cruel flame

The molten crown of martyrdom,
Bore not without complaint alway
The petty pains of every day.

Ah, more than martyr's aureole,

And more than hero's heart of fire, We need the humble strength of soul

Which daily toils and ills require— Sweet Patience! grant us, if you may, An added grace for every day!

ANONYMOUS.

WHO BIDES HIS TIME. HO bides his time, day by day Faces defeat, full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay, However poor his fortunes beHe will not fail in any qualm

Of poverty-the paltry dime, It will grow golden in his palm, Who bides his time.

Who bides his time, he tastes the sweet
Of honey in the saltest tear;
And, though he fares with slowest feet,
Joy runs to meet him drawing near;

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