Poet and seer that question caught,

Above the din of life's fears and frets;

It marched with letters, it toiled with thought,
Through schools and creeds which the earth forgets.
And statesmen trifle, and priests deceive,
And traders barter our world away-

Yet hearts to that golden promise cleave,
And still at times, Is it come? they say.

The days of the nations bear no trace
Of all the sunshine so far foretold;
The cannon speaks in the teacher's place-
The age is weary with work and gold;
And high hopes wither, and memories wane;
On hearth and altars the fires are dead;
But that brave faith hath not lived in vain-
And this is all that our watcher said.

FRANCES BROWN.

A Song for the New Year.

HE sea sings the song of the ages;

THE

The mountain stands mutely sublime;

While the blank of Eternity's pages

Is filled by the fingers of Time. But Man robs the sea of its wonder,

Making syllabled speech of its roar;

He rendeth the mountain asunder,

And rolleth his wheels through its core;
He delveth deep down for earth's treasure,
And every locked secret unbars;

He scanneth the heavens at pleasure,
And writeth his name on the stars.

But purpose is weaker than passion,
And patience is dearer than blood;
And his face groweth withered and ashen
Ere he findeth and graspeth the good.

A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR.

He pursueth the phantom of beauty,

Or peddleth his valor for pelf;— Till the iron of merciless duty

Has crashed through the armor of self.
He soweth the life of his brother;

He wasteth the half of his soul;-
The harvest is reaped by another,
And Death dippeth deep for his toll.

So the march of triumphal procession,
That Science is fain to begin,
Is hindered with painful digression
Of ignorance, folly, and sin.
Through mazes of needless confusion.
The story of Freedom must bend;
And the grandest and simplest conclusion
Go stumbling along to its end.

Yet a year does not slide o'er the border
Of time, but some progress it shows;
And a lustrum proves prescience and order-
Thus the drama creeps on to its close.

If the blood that was weaker than water
Too thinly and sluggishly ran,
Lo! the wine of the vintage of slaughter
Giveth strength to the sinews of man ;
And the shout of a lusty young nation
Now greets his gray brothers with glee,
And the swell of its ringing vibration
Sweeps over the isles of the sea;
While Liberty looks for a morrow

That promiseth joyous increase,
As waneth her midnight of sorrow,
And waxeth her morning of peace!

EDWIN ROSSITER JOHNSON.

259

A Psalm of Life.

ELL me not, in mournful numbers,

TELL

'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 earnes !

And the grave is not its goal: "Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

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,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!

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,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

261

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 :
Haply thou may'st know what thyself had made.

What hast thou, Man, that thou dost call thine own?
What is there in thee, Man, that can be known?
Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,

A phantom dim, of past and future wrought,
Vain sister of the worm, life, death, soil, clod.
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.

The Day's Ration.

HEN I was born,

W1

From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice, Saying, "This be thy portion, child; this chalice, Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw

From my great arteries-nor less nor more."

All substances the cunning chemist Time
Melts down into that liquor of my life—

Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and disgust;
And whether I am angry or content,
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,
All he distills into sidereal wine,

And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!
Of all he sheds, how little it will hold,
How much rains over on the desert sands.

If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray,
And I uplift myself into its heaven,

The needs of the first sight absorb my blood,
And all the following hours of the day
Drag a ridiculous age.

To-day, when friends approach, and every hour
Brings book, or star-bright scroll of genius,
The little cup will hold not a bead more,
And all the costly liquor runs to waste;
Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond-drop,
So to be husbanded for future days.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught,
After the master's sketch, fills and o'erfills

My apprehension? Why seek Italy,

Who cannot circumnavigate the sea

Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn
The nearest matters for a thousand days?

RALPH W. EMERSON.

Extract.

Y genial spirits fail;

MY

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

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.