A Psalm of Life. ELL me not, in mournful numbers, TE Life is but an empty dream; For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem!" Life is real! Life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal: "Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Act, act in the living Present, Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time: THE DAY'S RATION. Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, Learn to labor and to wait. 231 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. Know Thyself. ΝΩΘΙ σεαυτόν ! And is this the prime ΓΝΩ And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time? Say, can'st thou make thyself? Learn first that trade: What hast thou, Man, that thou dost call thine own? A phantom dim, of past and future wrought, SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. The Day's Ration. WHEN I was born, WHE From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice, From my great arteries-nor less nor more." Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and disgust; And brims my little cup; heedless, alas! To-day, when friends approach, and every hour Why need I volumes, if one word suffice? Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught, Who cannot circumnavigate the sea Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn RALPH W. EMERSON. Extract. Y genial spirits fail; MY And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off It were a vain endeavor, Though I should gaze forever On that green light that lingers in the west, I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life whose fountains are within. SUN AND SHADOW. O Lady! we receive but what we give, And from the soul itself must there be sent 233 SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. Sun and Shadow. As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, To the billows of foam-crested blue, Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,- How little he cares if in shadow or sun They see him who gaze from the shore! He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, Thus drifting afar to the dim vaulted caves The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, Nor ask how we look from the shore! OLIVER W. HOLMES. Retribution. Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀτέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτά. GREEK POET. THO THE ABOVE PARAPHRASED. HOUGH the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small : Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. Careless seems the Great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word: Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim un known Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own! JAMES R. Lowell. |