We'll be calm

And know that, when indeed our Joves come down, We all turn stiller than we have ever been.

Aurora Leigh.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I have none,

O fret not after knowledge!

And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge! - I have none,
And yet the Evening listens.

From a Sonnet.

JOHN KEATS.

The threads our hands in blindness spin
No self-determined plan weaves in ;
The shuttle of the unseen powers

Works out a pattern not as ours.

Through wish, resolve, and act, our will
Is moved by undreamed forces still
And no man measures in advance
His strength with untried circumstance.

Overruled.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

XVI.

Patience.

The Poet.

Teach me your mood, O patient stars!
Who climb each night the ancient sky,
Leaving on space no shade, no scars,
No trace of age, no fear to die.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Rocked me to patience.Time, that aged nurse,

Endymion.

JOHN KEATS.

PATIENCE.

Morality.

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides:

But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain!
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.

To W. L. Garrison.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Endurance is the crowning quality,

And patience all the passion of great hearts;
These are their stay, and when the leaden world
Sets its hard face against their fateful thought,
And brute strength, like a scornful conqueror,
Clangs his huge mace down in the other scale,
The inspired soul but flings his patience in,
And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe.

Columbus.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

How life in truth was sharply set with ills;
A kernel cased in quarrels; yea, a sphere
Of stings, and hedge-hog round of mortal quills;
How most men itched to eat too soon i' the year,

And took but wounds and worries for their pains, Whereas the wise withheld their patient hands, Nor plucked green pleasures till the sun and rains And seasonable ripenings burst all bands And opened wide the liberal burrs of life. Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut.

SIDNEY LANIER.

O power to do; O baffled will!
O prayer and action! ye are one.
Who may not strive, may yet fulfil
The harder task of standing still,
And good but wished with God is done!

The Waiting.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest
They also serve who only stand and wait.

(On his Blindness.)

COMPENSATION.

How many an acorn falls to die
For one that makes a tree!
How many a heart must pass me by
For one that cleaves to me!

How many a suppliant wave of sound
Must still unheeded roll,

For one low utterance that found
An echo in my soul !

JOHN BANISTER TABB.