II

If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression, which characterize the great works of Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable. But what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect. All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them, inspiring, encouraging, consoling.

But who shall estimate her influence on private happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to engage; to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, and liberty in bondage, and health in sickness, and society in solitude? Her power is, indeed, manifested at the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain, wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep, there is exhibited in its noblest form the immortal influence of Athens.

The dervish in the Arabian tale did not hesitate to abandon to his comrade the camels with their load of

jewels and gold, while he retained the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be compared with that purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of its primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man.

Her freedom and her power have for more than twenty centuries been annihilated, her people have degenerated into timid slaves, her language into a barbarous jargon, her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And when those who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the scepter shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on some moldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idols over the ruined dome of our proudest temple; and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts; her influence and her glory will still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derived their origin and over which they exercise their control.

Greece and her foundations are

Built below the tide of war,
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.
Her citizens, imperial spirits,
Rule the present from the past;
On all the world of men inherits
Their seal is set.-SHELLEY

RECESSIONAL

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

Kipling is a British author. He was born in India, in 1865, and lived for a time in the United States. He is considered by some people the ablest writer of the day. He first won fame by his tales and poems about life in India. Among his best works are "The Jungle Books," about the life of the boy-wolf, Mowgli, among the jungle animals.

This, his best-known poem, was written on occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, in 1897.

God of our fathers, known of old-
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath Whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies-
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire,
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe Such boasting as the Gentiles use

Or lesser breeds without the law Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard
All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding calls not Thee to guard -
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord! Amen.

How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill.
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing yet hath all. — WOTTON