VI.

Progress.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting

sea.

The Chambered Nautilus.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

PROGRESS.

HYMN.

Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight
Through present wrong the eternal right;
And step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man,-

That all of good the past hath had
Remains to make our own time glad,
Our common, daily life divine,
And every land a Palestine.

Through the harsh noises of our day
A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,
A light is breaking calm and clear.

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
For olden time and holier shore :

God's love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here and everywhere.
Selected Stanzas from "The Chapel of the Hermits."

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892).

I count this thing to be grandly true,
That a noble deed is a step toward God,
Lifting the soul from the common clod
To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by the things that are under our feet,
By what we have mastered of good and gain ;
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

Heaven is not reached by a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit, round by round.

Gradatim.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We may discern, unseen before,

A path to higher destinies.

The Ladder of Saint Augustine. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Progress is

The law of life, man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star dispels
The darkness, here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,

Equal in full-blown powers- then, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy.

Paracelsus.

ROBERT BROWNING.

CONSIDER THE LILIES, HOW THEY GROW.

He hides within the lily

A strong and tender care,

That wins the earth-born atoms

To glory of the air;

He weaves the shining garments
Unceasingly and still,
Along the quiet waters,

In niches of the hill.

We linger at the vigil

With him, who bent the knee
To watch the old-time lilies
In distant Galilee ;

And still the worship deepens
And quickens into new,
As brightening down the ages
God's secret thrilleth through.

O Toiler of the lily,

Thy touch is in the man!
No leaf that dawns to petal
But hints the angel-plan:

The flower-horizons open,

The blossom vaster shows!
We hear thy wide worlds echo,-
See how the lily grows!

Shy yearnings of the savage,
Unfolding thought by thought,

To holy lives are lifted,

To visions fair are wrought;
The races rise and cluster,
And evils fade and fall,

Till chaos blooms to beauty,

Thy purpose crowning all!

WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT.

HYMN.

Our God, our God, thou shinest here;
Thine own this latter day;

To us thy radiant steps appear,
Here goes thy glorious way.