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النشر الإلكتروني

XXVI

NIGHT

WILLIAM HABINGTON

WILLIAM HABINGTON (1605–1654) belonged to an ancient Catholic family of England. His father narrowly escaped death on a false charge of having been connected with the Gunpowder Plot. The poet was educated by the Jesuits in France. Aubrey de Vere says: "Habington writes ever like a Christian and a gentleman, as well as like a poet: and few circumstances should teach us more to distrust the award of popular opinion than the obscurity in which his writings have so long remained."

When I survey the bright
Celestial sphere,

So rich with jewels hung, that night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear;

My soul her wings doth spread,
And heavenward flies,

The Almighty's mysteries to read
In the large volumes of the skies.

For the bright firmament
Shoots forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent

In speaking the Creator's name.

No unregarded star

Contracts its light

Into so small a character,

Removed far from our human sight,

Ethiop: meaning here, Eastern, bedecked with ornaments.

But if we steadfast look,
We shall discern

In it, as in some holy book,

How man may heavenly knowledge learn.

It tells the Conqueror,

That far stretch'd power

Which his proud danger traffics for,

Is but the triumph of an hour.

That from the farthest North

Some nation may

Yet undiscover'd issue forth,

And o'er his new-got conquest sway.

Some nation yet shut in

With hills of ice,

May be let out to scourge his sin,

Till they shall equal him in vice.

And then they likewise shall
Their ruin have;

For as yourselves your Empires fall,
And every Kingdom hath a grave.

Thus those celestial fires,

Though seeming mute, The fallacy of our desires

And all the pride of life confute.

For they have watch'd since first
The World had birth:

And found sin in itself accursed,
And nothing permanent on earth.

XXVII

THE JOY OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE

THOMAS À KEMPIS

The glory and privilege of a good man consists in the testimony of his own mind; for this is a perpetual feast and triumph. It sets him above the power of fortune, and makes the sharpest afflictions not only an exercise of his invincible patience, but a matter of undisturbed joy to him. Whereas, even prosperity itself cannot procure ease and content to a guilty and selfcondemning breast. Wouldst thou enjoy a sweet and uninterrupted tranquillity? Keep all at peace within, and give thine own thoughts no cause to reproach thee. All the satisfaction we take or promise ourselves is vain and dangerous, except that only which proceeds from a sense of having done our duty. The men thou seest so gay, so seemingly full of delight, are galled and stung within; they have no inward, no true contentment; and, notwithstanding their most industrious pursuit of pleasure, that sentence of God is irreversible, and the sad effects of it hang over their hearts, that "there is no peace to the wicked."

A pure and quiet conscience does above all things dispose a man to rest contented with his condition; and

particularly with regard to the opinion of the world it is highly reasonable that he should do so. For what is any one really the better or the worse for what other people say of him? Their commendations add nothing to his virtue, nor does their dispraise and scandal take one whit from it. The man is still the same: what his own actions and the judgment of God make him. This is the standard of our worth and happiness; neither more nor less belongs to us than will be found to do so at the last great account, and that will depend, not upon what we were said or supposed to be, but upon what in very deed we were in this world. The more respect, therefore, we bear to the condition of our own minds, the less impression will the characters and reports of men make upon us. For God seeth not as men see: they observe the face and outward appearance, but he searcheth and understandeth the heart. They look upon the action, and form a judgment from thence; he sees our intentions, and condemns or acquits us according to our honesty and sincerity.

And when we are not anxiously concerned for the credit and testimony of men, then may we truly be said to have resigned ourselves to God, and to depend upon him, with that steadfast and holy confidence which becomes us. "Not he that commendeth himself " (no, nor he whom others commend)" is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth."

XXVIII

EVANGELINE

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

[graphic]

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was born in Portland, Maine, in 1827. He was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1845, along with Hawthorne. A year afterward he was offered the chair of modern languages at Bowdoin. After qualifying himself by three years' study in Europe, he occupied this chair for six years, when he succeeded George Ticknor in the chair of modern languages at Harvard. He resigned in 1854 and was succeeded by James Russell Lowell. He made Cambridge his home till his death, in 1882. Longfellow's simplicity and clearness, his graceful and musical verse, have made him perhaps the most popular of American poets. Among his long poems are "Evangeline," "Hiawatha," and "Tales of a Wayside Inn." He translated Dante's "Divina Commedia."

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,

Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.

Grand-Pré: large meadow. Now part of the township of Horton.

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