Fair girl, whose eye hath caught the rustic penmanship of love,

Let thy bright brow and blushing cheek confess in this sweet hour,

Let thy full heart, poor guilty one, whom the scroll of pardon hath just reached,

Thy wet glad face, O mother, with news of a far-off child,

Thy strong and manly delight, pilgrim of other shores, When the dear voice of thy betrothed speaketh in the letter of affection,

Let the young poet, exulting in his lay, and kope (how false) of fame,

While watching at deep midnight, he buildeth up the

verse,

Let the calm child of genius, whose name shall never die,

For that the transcript of his mind hath made his thoughts immortal,

Let these, let all, with no faint praise, with no light gratitude, confess

The blessing poured upon the earth from the pen of a ready writer.

Moreover, their preciousness in absence is proved by the desire of their presence:

When the despairing lover waiteth day after day, Looking for a word in reply, one word writ by that hand, And cursing bitterly the morn ushered in by blank disappointment:

Or when the long-looked-for answer argueth a cooling friend,

And the mind is plied suspiciously with dark inexplicable doubts,

While thy wounded heart counteth its imaginary scars, And thou art the innocent and injured, that friend the capricious and in fault:

Or when the earnest petition, that craveth for thy needs,

Unheeded, yea, unopened, tortured with starving delay: Or when the silence of a son, who would have written of his welfare,

Racketh a father's bosom with sharp-cutting fears.
For a letter, timely writ, is a rivet to the chain of af-
fection,

And a letter, untimely delayed, is as rust to the solder.
The pen, flowing with love, or dipped black in hate,
Or tipped with delicate courtesies, or harshly edged
with censure,

Hath quickened more good than the sun, more evil than the sword,

More joy than woman's smile, more woe than frowning fortune;

And shouldst thou ask my judgment of that which hath most profit in the world,

For answer take thou this, The prudent penning of a letter.

Thou hast not lost an hour, whereof there is a record; A written thought at midnight shall redeem the live

long day,

Idea is as a shadow that departeth, speech is fleeting as the wind,

Reading is an unremembered pastime; but a writing is eternal:

For therein the dead heart liveth, the clay-cold tongue is eloquent,

And the quick eye of the reader is cleared by the reed of the scribe.

As a fossil in the rock, or a coin in the mortar of a ruin,
So the symbolled thoughts tell of a departed soul:
The plastic hand hath its witness in a statue, and ex-
actitude of vision in a picture,

And so, the mind that was among us, in its writings is embalmed.

9

of Wealth.

Prodigality hath a sister Meanness, his fixed antagonist heart-fellow,

Who often outliveth the short career of the brother she despiseth:

She hath lean lips and a sharp look, and her eyes are red and hungry;

But he sloucheth in his gait, and his mouth speaketh loosely and maudlin.

Let a spendthrift grow to be old, he will set his heart on saving,

And labor to build up by penury that which extravagance threw down:

Even so, with most men, do riches earn themselves a double curse;

They are ill-got by tight dealing: they are ill-spent by loose squandering.

Give me enough, saith Wisdom;

for more;

for he feareth to ask

And that by the sweat of my brow, addeth stout-hearted Independence:

Give me enough, and not less, for want is leagued with the temper;

Poverty shall make a man desperate, and hurry him ruthless into crime:

Give me enough, and not more, saving for the children of distress;

Wealth oft-times killeth, where want but hindered the budding:

There is green clad summer near the pole, though brief and after long winter,

But the burnt breasts of the torrid zone yield never kindly nourishment.

Wouldst thou be poor, scatter to the rich, tares of ingratitude:

Wouldst thou be rich, give unto the poor;

have thine own with usury:

For the secret hand of Providence prospereth the charitable all ways,

Good luck shall he have in his pursuits, and his heart shall be glad within him;

Yet perchance he never shall perceive, that even as to earthly gains,

The cause of his weal, as of his joy, hath been small givings to the poor.

In the plain of Benares is there found a root that fathereth a forest,

Where round the parent banean-tree drop its living scions;

Thirstily they strain to the earth, like stalactites in a

grotto,

And strike broad roots, and branch again, lengthening their cool arcades:

And the dervish madly danceth there, and the faquir is torturing his flesh,

And the calm brahmin worshippeth the sleek and pampered bull;

At the base lean jackalls coil, while from above depending With dull malignant stare watcheth the branch-like boa. Even so in man's heart is a sin that is the root of all

evil;

Whose fibres strangle the affections, whose branches overgrow the mind:

And oftenest beneath its shadow thou shalt meet distorted piety,

The clenched and rigid fist, with the eyes upturned to heaven,

Fanatic zeal with miserly severity, a mixture of gain with godliness,

And him, against whom passion hath no power, kneeling to a golden calf :

The hungry hounds of extortion are there, the bond, and the mortgage, and the writ,

While the appetite for gold, unslumbering, watcheth to glut its maw:

And the heart, so tenanted and shaded, is cold to all things else;

It seeth not the sunshine of heaven, nor is warmed by the light of charity.

For covetousness disbelieveth God, and laugheth at the rights of men;

Spurring unto theft and lying, and tempting to the poison and the knife;

It sundereth the bonds of love, and quickneth the flames of hate;

A curse that shall wither the brain, and case the heart with iron.

Content is the true riches, for without it there is no satisfying,

But a ravenous all-devouring hunger gnaweth the vitals of the soul.

The wise man knoweth where to stop, as he runneth in the race of fortune,

For experience of old hath taught him, that happiness fingereth mid-way;

And many in hot pursuit have hasted to the goal of wealth,

But have lost, as they ran, those apples of gold, — the the mind and power to enjoy it.

There is no greater evil among men than a testament framed with injustice:

Where caprice hath guided the boon, or dishonesty refused what was due.

Generous is the robber on the highway, in the open daring of his guilt,

To the secret coward, whose malice liveth and harmeth after him;