Still it is true, and over true,

That I delight to close

This book of life, self-wise and new,
And let my thoughts repose
On all that humble happiness
The world has since foregone,
The daylight of contentedness
That on those faces shone!

With rights, though not too closely scanned, Enjoyed as far as known,

With will by no reverse unmanned,

With pulse of even tone,

They from to-day and from to-night

Expected nothing more

Than yesterday and yesternight

Had proffered them before,

To them was life a simple art
Of duties to be done,

A game where each man took his part,
A race where all must run;

A battle whose great scheme and scope
They little cared to know,

Content, as men-at-arms, to cope

Each with his fronting foe.

Man now his virtue's diadem

Puts on and proudly wears;

Great thoughts, great feelings, came tɔ them,

Like instincts, unawares :

Blending their souls' sublimest needs

With tasks of every day,

They went about their gravest deeds

As noble boys at play.

226

THE WORTH OF HOURS.

And what if Nature's fearful wound
They did not probe and bare,

For that their spirits never swooned
To watch the misery there, -

For that their love but flowed more fast,

Their charities more free,

Not conscious what mere drops they cast
Into the evil sea.

A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet;

It is the distant and the dim

That we are sick to greet:

For flowers that grow our hands beneath,

We struggle and aspire,

Our hearts must die, except they breathe
The air of fresh Desire.

Yet, Brothers, who up Reason's hill
Advance with hopeful cheer,

O, loiter not! those heights are chill, —
As chill as they are clear;

And still restrain your haughty gaze,
The loftier that ye go,

Remembering distance leaves a haze
On all that lies below.

THE WORTH OF HOURS. — Milnes.

BELIEVE not that your inner eye
Can ever in just measure try

The worth of Hours as they go by:

For every man's weak self, alas!

Makes him to see them, while they pass,
As through a dim or tinted glass:

But if in earnest care you would
Mete out to each its part of good,
Trust rather to your after-mood.

Those surely are not fairly spent,
That leave your spirit bowed and bent
In sad unrest and ill-content:

And more, though free from seeming harm, You rest from toil of mind or arm,

Or slow retire from Pleasure's charm,

If then a painful sense comes on
Of something wholly lost and gone,
Vainly enjoyed, or vainly done,

Of something from your being's chain
Broke off, nor to be linked again
By all mere Memory can retain,

Upon your heart this truth
may rise,-
Nothing that altogether dies
Suffices Man's just destinies :

So should we live, that every Hour
May die as dies the natural flower,
A self-reviving thing of power;

That every Thought and every Deed
May hold within itself the seed
Of future good and future need;

Esteeming Sorrow, whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren Joy.

228

THE VIOLET-GIRL.

ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL. - Leigh Hunt.

ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold;
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised his head, And, with a look made all of sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. 66

Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.”
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again with great awakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

THE VIOLET-GIRL.-Milnes.

WHEN Fancy will continually rehearse
Some painful scene once present to the eye,
'T is well to mould it into gentle verse,
That it may lighter on the spirit lie.

Home yestern eve I wearily returned,

Though bright my morning mood and short my way,

But sad experience, in one moment earned,

Can crush the heaped enjoyments of the day.

Passing the corner of a populous street,
I marked a girl whose wont it was to stand,
With pallid cheek, torn gown, and naked feet,
And bunches of fresh violets in each hand.

There her small commerce, in the chill March weather,
She plied with accents miserably mild;

It was a frightful thought to set together
Those blooming blossoms and that fading child: --

Those luxuries and largess of the earth,
Beauty and pleasure to the sense of man,
And this poor sorry weed, cast loosely forth
On life's wild waste, to struggle as it can!

To me that odorous purple ministers
Hope-bearing memories and inspiring glee;
While meanest images alone are hers, —
The sordid wants of base humanity.

Think, after all this lapse of hungry hours
In the disfurnished chamber of dim cold,
How she must loathe the very scented flowers
That on the squalid table lie unsold!

Rest on your woodland banks and wither there,
Sweet preluders of spring! far better so
Than live misused to fill the grasp of care,
And serve the piteous purposes of woe.

FROM ELEONORA. - Dryden.

As precious gums are not for lasting fire,
They but perfume the temple, and expire;
So was she soon exhaled, and vanished hence;
A short, sweet odor, of a vast expense.