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Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

H. W. Longfellow.

XXVIII.

PRAYER.

FT had I prayed, believing prayed,

Yet nothing could obtain ;
And in my folly, oft I said,

Lord, is thy promise vain ?

I prayed in youth, that I might win
The race of youthful pride;

Though hope burned like a fire within
My heart, it was denied.

I prayed for power, I prayed for wealth;
Nor wealth nor power was mine—
In lingering pain I prayed for health,
And felt my strength decline.

At the last, Wisdom spoke-' My Son,
Christ's kingdom is of Heaven;

Ask heavenly things-they shall be done'—
I asked, and it was given.

S. Hinds.

XXIX.

IL PENSEROSO.*

ENCE vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly, without father bred!
How little you bestead,+

Or fill the fixéd mind with all your toys!

Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,
Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!

Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,

And therefore to our weaker view

O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue:
Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauty's praise above

The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended;

Yet thou art higher far descended;

* Il Penseroso, the Thoughtful or Pensive Man.

+ Bestead, avail.

Starr'd Ethiop Queen. Cassiopeia, a legendary Queen of Ethiopia, and thence translated amongst the constellations.

Thee bright-haired Vesta,* long of yore
To solitary Saturn + bore;

His daughter she; in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain:
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypres lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step and musing gait,
And looks commércing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till

With a sad leaden downward cast,

Thou fix them on the earth as fast;

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
And add to these retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplatión;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel§ will deign a song

* Vesta, Genius.

+ Saturn, Sorrow. Stole, a veil.

'Pensiveness is the daughter of Scrrow and Genius.' Philomel, the nightingale.

E

*

In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia* checks her dragon yoke,

Gently o'er the accustomed oak;

-Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy ;

Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen,
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering Moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off Curfeu sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar.

Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still, removéd place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,

Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's + drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen on some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere

The spirit of Plato, to unfold

Cynthia, the moon: her chariot is drawn by dragons in ancient representations.

+ Bellman, the watchman, who muttered blessings as he passed.

↑ Hermes, called Trismegistus, an Egyptian Philosopher.

What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptered pall* come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes,† or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,

Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined§ stage.

But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musæus|| from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek!
Or call up him that left half-told ¶
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canacé to wife

That owned the virtuous ring and glass;
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards ** beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of tourneys, and of trophies hung,

* Pall, the robe Palla.

Thebes, &c., subjects of Athenian tragedy, 'Seven before Thebes' of Æschylus.

Pelops' line, the 'Electra' of Sophocles.

§ Buskined, tragic. The buskin (cothurnus) was worn by tragedians, the sock (soccus) by comedians.

Musæus, an ancient Greek poet.

Him that left half told, Chaucer in his incomplete Squire's Tale. **. Great bards, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser.

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