All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy wine,
And all occasions of excess ;
The longing for ignoble things;
The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler will :
All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.2
We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.
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.
1 renown-high reputation, fame.
2 domain-possessorship, or rule.
Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern-unseen before-
A path to higher destinies.
Nor deem the irrevocable past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
An American poet, born in 1807. From 1829 to 1835 he was Professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin College, Brunswick; and from 1835 to 1855 he occupied the chair of Modern Languages and Belles-lettres at Harvard University. Mr. Longfellow is the most popular of American poets, and is almost as well known in Europe as in America.
REVENGE OF INJURIES.
THE fairest action of our human life
Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie.
And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.
If we a worthy enemy do find,
To yield to worth it must be nobly done;
But if of baser metal be his mind,
In base revenge there is no honour won.
Who would a worthy courage overthrow,
And who would wrestle with a worthless foe?
We say our hearts are great, and cannot yield
Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor:
Great hearts are tasked beyond their power but seld;1
The weakest lion will the loudest roar.
Truth's school for certain doth this same allow,
High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow.
A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn,
To scorn to owe a duty overlong;
To scorn to be for benefits forborne ;1
To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong;
To scorn to bear an injury in mind;
To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind.
But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have,
Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind;
Do we his body from our fury save,
And let our hate prevail against our mind?
What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be,
Than make his foe more worthy far than he?
The above verses are part of a chorus in the tragedy of Mariam, the fair Queen of Jewry, which appeared in 1613, and is attributed to Lady Carew.
ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.
HIGHER, higher will we climb
Up the mount of glory,
That our names may live through time
In our country's story;
Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls.
Deeper, deeper let us toil
In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and Learning's spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.
Onward, onward may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty:
Minds are of celestial birth,
Make we then a heaven of earth.
Closer, closer, let us knit
Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside-comforts sit
In the wildest weather;
O, they wander wide who roam
For the joys of life from home!
James Montgomery: 1771-1854.
The Author of The Wanderer in Switzerland, Greenland, the Pelican Island, and many other works, all distinguished by deep feeling, generous and enlightened morality, and picturesque language.
(From "The Church Porch.")
THOU, whose sweet youth and early hopes enhance1
Thy rate and price, and mark thee for a treasure,
Hearken unto a verser, who may chance
Rhyme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure:
A verse may find him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
The cheapest sins most dearly punished are,
Because to shun them also is so cheap ; 2
For we have wit to mark them, and to spare.
O crumble not away thy soul's fair heap!
If thou wilt die, the gates of hell are broad:
Pride and full sins have made the way a road.
Lie not; but let thy heart be true to God,
Thy mouth to it, thine actions to them both:
Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod;
The stormy working soul spits lies and froth.
Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie:
A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.
When thou dost purpose aught within thy power,
Be sure to do it, though it be but small:
Constancy knits the bones and makes us stour 1
When wanton pleasures beckon us to thrall.2
Who breaks his own bond forfeiteth himself:
What Nature made a ship, he makes a shelf.3
Be thrifty, but not covetous: therefore give
Thy need, thine honour, and thy friend his due.
Never was scraper brave man. Get to live;
Then live, and use it; else it is not true
That thou hast gotten. Surely use alone
Makes money not a contemptible stone.
By no means run in debt: take thine own measure—
Who cannot live on twenty pound a year,
Cannot on forty: he's a man of pleasure-
A kind of thing that's for itself too dear.
The curious unthrift makes his cloth too wide,
And spares himself, but would his tailor chide.
Pick out of mirth, like stones out of thy ground,
Profaneness, filthiness, abusiveness :
These are the scum with which coarse wits abound.
The fine may spare these well, yet not go less.
All things are big with jest: nothing that's plain
But may be witty, if thou hast the vein.5
Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
Why should I feel another man's mistakes
More than his fickleness or poverty?
In love I should: but anger is not love,
Nor wisdom neither: therefore gently move."
Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects' high;
So shalt thou humble and magnanimous 8 be;
Sink not in spirit: who aimeth at the sky
Shoots higher much than he that means a tree.
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