O youth, warm youth, full of generous attentions,

O woman, self-forgetting woman, poetry of human life, And not less thou, O man, so often the disinterested brother,

Many a smile of love, many a tear of pity,

Many a word of comfort, many a deed of magnanimity, Many a stream of milk and honey pour ye freely on the earth,

And many a rosebud of love rejoiceth in the dew of your affection.

Neglect? O liberal world, for thine are many prizes: Neglect? O charitable world, where thousands feed on bounty;

Neglect? O just world, for thy judgments err not

often;

Neglect? O libel on a world where half that world is woman!

Where is the afflicted, whose voice, once heard, stirreth not a host of comforters?

Where is the sick untended, or in prison, and they visited him not?

The hungry is fed, and the thirsty satisfied, till ability set limits to the will,

And those who did it unto them, have done it unto God!

For human benevolence is large, though many matters dwarf it,

Prudence, ignorance, imposture, and the straitenings of circumstance and time.

And if to the body, so to the mind, the mass of men are generous;

Their estimate who know us best, is seldom seen to err; Be sure the fault is thine, as pride, or shallowness, or

vanity,

If all around thee, good and bad, neglect thy seeming

merit:

No man yet deserved, who found not some to love

him;

And he, that never kept a friend, need only blame himself:

Many for unworthiness will droop and die, but all are not unworthy;

It must indeed be cold clay soil, that killeth every seed.

Therefore, examine thy state, O self-accounted martyr of Neglect,

It may be, thy merit is a cubit, and thy measure thereof a furlong;

But grant it greater than thy thoughts, and grant that men thy fellows

For pleasure, business, or interest, misuse, forget, neglect thee,

Still be thou conqueror in this, the consciousness of high deservings;

Let it suffice thee to be worthy; faint not thou for praise;

For that thou art, be grateful; go humbly even in thy confidence ;

And set thy foot upon the neck of an enemy so harmless as Neglect.

of Contentment.

Codliness with Contentment,

felicity,

these be the pillars of

Jachin, wherewithal it is established, and Boaz, in the which is strength;

And upon their capitals is lily-work, the lotus fruit and

flower,

Those fair and fragrant types of holiness, innocence, and beauty;

Great gain pertaineth to the pillars, nets and chains of wreathen gold,

And they stand up straight in the temple porch, the house where Glory dwelleth.

The body craveth meats, and the spirit is athirst for peacefulness;

He that hath these, hath enough; for all beyond is vanity.

Surfeit vaulteth over pleasure, to light upon the hither side of pain;

And great store is great care, the rather if it mightily increaseth.

Albeit too little is a trouble, yet too much shall swell into an evil,

If wisdom stand not nigh to moderate the wishes : For covetousness never had enough, but moaneth at its wants for ever,

And rich men have commonly more need to be taught contentment than the poor.

That hungry chasm in their market-place gapeth still unsatisfied,

Yea, fling in all the wealth of Rome, it asketh higher

victims ;

-

So, when the miser's gold cannot fill the measure of his

lust,

Curtius must leap into the pit, and avarice shall close upon his life.

Behold Independence in his rags, all too easily contented,

Careful for nothing, thankful for much, and uncomplaining in his poverty:

Such an one have I somewhile seen earn his crust with gladness;

He is gatherer of simples, culling wild herbs upon the

hills;

And now, as he sitteth on the beach, with his motherless Ichild beside him,

To rest them in the cheerful sun, and sort their mints and hoarhound,

Tell me, can ye find upon his forchead the cloud of covetous anxiety,

Or note the dull unkindled eyes of sated sons of pleasure?

For there is more joy of life with that poor picker of the ditches,

Than among the multitude of wealthy who wed their gains to discontent.

have seen many rich, burdened with the fear of poverty,

I have seen many poor, buoyed with all the carelessness of wealth:

For the rich had the spirit of a pauper, and the moneyless a liberal heart;

The first enjoyeth not for having, and the latter hath nothing but enjoyment.

None is poor but the mean in mind, the timorous, the weak, and unbelieving;

None is wealthy but the affluent in soul, who is satisfied and floweth over.

The poor-rich is attenuate for fears, the rich-poor is fattened upon hopes;

Cheerfulness is one man's welcome, and the other warneth from him by his gloom.

Many poor have the pleasures of the rich, even in their own possessions;

And many rich miss the poor man's comforts, and yet feel all his cares.

Liberty is affluence, and the Helots of anxiety never can be counted wealthy;

But he that is disenthralled from fear, goeth for the time

a king;

He is royal, great, and opulent, living free of fortune,

And looking on the world as owner of its good, the Maker's child and heir:

Whereas, the covetous is slavish, a very Midas in his avarice,

Full of dismal dreams, and starved amongst his trea

sures :

The ceaseless spur of discontent goaded him with instant apprehension,

And his thirst for gold could never be quenched, for he drank with the throat of Crassus.

Vanity, and dreary disappointment, care, and weariness, and envy;

Vanity is graven upon all things; wisely spake the preacher.

For ambition is a burning mountain, thrown up amid the turbid sea,

A Stromboli in sullen pride above the hissing waves; And the statesman climbing there, forgetful of his patriot intentions,

Shall hate the strife of each rough step, or ever he hath toiled midway:

And every truant from his home, the happy home of duty,

Shall live to loathe his eminence of cares, that seething smoke and lava.

Contentment is the temperate repast, flowing with milk and honey;

Ambition is the drunken orgy, fed by liquid flames : A black and bitter frown is stamped upon the forehead of Ambition,

But fair Contentment's angel-face is rayed with winning smiles.

There was in Tyre a merchant, the favorite child of

fortune,

An opulent man with many ships, to trade in many

climes;