A

Head and hand where'er thou foot it,
And stout heart, are still at home.
In each land the sun does visit

We are gay, whate’er betide :
To give room for wandering is it
That the world was made so wide.

Goethe: Carlyle's Translation.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

S ships, becalmed at eve, that lay,
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail, at dawn of day,

Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried:
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied;
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side;
E'en so-but why the tale reveal

Of those whom, year by year unchanged,
Brief absence joined anew, to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged! At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered; Ah, neither blame, for neither willed

Or wist what first with dawn appeared. To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks! In light, in darkness too! Through winds and tides one compass guides,— To that and your own selves be true.

THE BURied life.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas!
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,-
One purpose hold, where'er they fare;
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,

At last, at last, unite them there!

NEW VOICES.

195

A. H. Clough.

EW voices come to me where'er I roam;

ΝΕ

My heart, too, widens with its widening home: The former songs seem little; yet no more

Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore,
Tell what the earth is saying unto me:

The secret is too great.

George Eliot.

Ο

THE BURIED LIFE.

NLY-but this is rare

When a beloved hand is laid in ours,

When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,

Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear

Is by the tones of a lov'd voice caress'd,

A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again :

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,

And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we

know,

A man becomes aware of his life's flow,

And hears its winding murmur, and he sees

The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race

Wherein he doth forever chase

That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,

And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows

The Hills where his life rose,

And the Sea where it goes.

Matthew Arnold.

THE GOLDEN SUNSET.

'HE golden sea its mirror spreads

TH

Beneath the golden skies,

And but a narrow strip between

Of land and shadow lies.

The cloud-like rocks, the rock-like clouds,

Dissolved in glory, float;

And midway of the radiant flood

Hangs silently the boat.

The sea is but another sky,

The sky a sea as well;

And which is earth, and which the heavens,

The eye can scarcely tell.

FROM "ULYSSES.”

So when for us life's evening hour,
Soft passing, shall descend,
May glory born of earth and heaven
The earth and heavens blend;

Flooded with peace the spirit float,

With silent rapture glow,

Till where earth ends, and heaven begins,

The soul shall scarcely know!

197

Samuel Longfellow.

D

FROM "ULYSSES."

EATH closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and, sitting well in order, smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down ;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and, though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are we

are,

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Tennyson.

NEARING THE SNOW-LINE.

LOW toiling upward from the misty vale,

SLOW

I leave the bright enamelled zones below ;

No more for me their beauteous bloom shall glow, Their lingering sweetness load the morning gale; Few are the slender flowerets, scentless, pale,

That on their ice-clad stems all trembling blow Along the margin of unmelting snow. Yet with unsaddened voice thy verge I hail,

White realm of peace above the flowering line; Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky spires!

O'er thee undimmed the moon-girt planets shine, On thy majestic altars fade the fires

That filled the air with smoke of vain desires,
And all the unclouded blue of heaven is thine!

O. W. Holmes.

FROM "TERMINUS."

S the bird trims her to the gale,

AS

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime :

Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed."

Emerson.