QUATRAINS AND FRAGMENTS.

FROM R. W. EMERSON.
NORTHMAN.

THE gale that wrecked you on the sand,
It helped my rowers to row;
The storm is my best galley-hand,
And drives me where I go.

POET.

To clothe the fiery thought

In simple words succeeds, For still the craft of genius is To mask a king in weeds.

JUSTICE.

WHOEVER fights, whoever falls,
Justice conquers evermore,
Justice after as before,

And he who battles on her side,
God, though he were ten times slain,
Crowns him victor glorified, -

Victor over death and pain,
Forever.

HEROISM.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

THE SEA.

BEHOLD the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July: Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men ; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Washing out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not. Rich are the sea-gods: - who gives gifts but they? They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. For every wave is wealth to Dædalus, Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find,

O waves !

A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, Strewing my bed, and, in another age, Rebuild a continent of better men. Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out The exodus of nations: I disperse

Men to all shores that front the hoary main.

BORROWING.

FROM THE FRENCH.

SOME of your hurts you have cured,

And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived!

HERI, CRAS, HODIE.

SHINES the last age, the next with hope is seen, To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between ; Future or Past no richer secret folds,

O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.

LINES AND COUPLETS.

FROM POPE.

WHAT, and how great the virtue and the art, To live on little with a cheerful heart.

Between excess and famine lies a mean,
Plain, but not sordid, though not splendid, clean.

Its proper power to hurt each creature feels: Bulls aim their horns, and asses kick their heels.

Here Wisdom calls, "Seek virtue first, be bold; As gold to silver, virtue is to gold."

Let lands and houses have what lords they will, Let us be fixed and our own masters still.

'Tis the first virtue vices to abhor,
And the first wisdom to be fool no more.

Long as to him who works for debt, the day.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk, at least, before they dance.

True, conscious honor is to feel no sin; He's armed without that's innocent within.

For virtue's self may too much zeal be had, The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

If wealth alone can make and keep us blest, Still, still be getting; never, never rest.

That God of nature who within us still Inclines our actions, not constrains our will.

It is not poetry, but prose run mad.

Pretty in amber to observe the forms
Of hair, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms:
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the mischief they got there!

FANCY.

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. TELL me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply.

"

It is engendered in the eyes, With gazing fed; and Fancy dies In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring Fancy's knell; I'll begin it, — Ding, dong, bell. Ding, dong, bell.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE REALM OF FANCY.

EVER let the Fancy roam! Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let wingéd Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She 'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipped fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear fagot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the plough-boy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.

Sit thee there, and send abroad
With a mind self-overawed

Fancy, high-commissioned;
She has vassals to attend her;
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May
From dewy sward or thorny spray!
All the heapéd autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth;
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

send her!

And thou shalt quaff it ;· thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reapéd corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn;
And in the same moment - hark!
"T is the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf and every flower
Pearléd with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celléd sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the beehive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

O sweet Fancy let her loose; Everything is spoilt by use: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid