GIVE while thou canst, it is a godlike thing, Give what thou canst, thou shalt not find it loss, Yea, sell and give, much gain such barteries bring, Yea, all thou hast, and get fine gold for dross: Still, see thou scatter wisely; for to fling
Good seed on rocks, or sands, or thorny ground, Were not to copy Him, whose generous cross Hath this poor world with rich salvation crowned. And when thou lookest on woes and want around, Knowing that God hath lent thee all thy wealth,
That better it is to give than to receive, That riches cannot buy thee joy nor health, — Why hinder thine own welfare? thousands grieve, Whom if thy pitying hand will but relieve,
It shall for thine own wear the robe of gladness weave
WHERE vice is virtue, thou art still despised, O petty loathsome love of hoarded pelf; E'en in the pit where all things vile are prized, Still is there found in Lucifer himself
Spirit enough to hate thee, sordid thing:
Thank Heaven! I own in thee nor lot nor part; And though to many a sin and folly cling The worse weak fibres of my weedy hear Yet to thy withered lips and snake-like eye My warmest welcome is, Depart, depart, For to my sense so foul and base thou art, I would not stoop to thee to reach the sky: Aroint thee, filching hand, and heart of stone! Be this thy doom, with conscience left alone, Learn how like death thou art, unsated selfish one.
Mr sympathies are all with times of old, I cannot live with things of yesterday, Upstart and flippant, foolish, weak, and gay, Bat spirits cast in a severer mould,
Of solid worth, like elemental gold:
I love to wander o'er the shadowy past,
Dreaming of dynasties long swept away, And seem to find myself almost the last Of a time-honored race, decaying fast: For I can dote upon the rare antique,
Conjuring up what story it might tell, The bronze, or bead, or coin, or quaint relique; And in a desert could delight to dwell
Among vast ruins, Tadmor's stately halls,
Old Egypt's giant fanes, or Babel's mouldering walls
BEHOLD, I stand upon a speck of earth, To work the works allotted me, and die, Glad among toils to snatch a little mirth,
And, when I must, unmurmuring down to lie In the same soil that gave me food and birth: For all that went before me, what care I? The past, the future, -e are but a dream;
I want the tangible good of present worth, And heed not wisps of light that dance and gleam Over the marshes of the foolish past:
We are a race the best, because the last, Improving all, and happier day by day,
To think our chosen lot hath not been cast
In those old puerile times, discreetly swept away.
THROW me from this tall cliff,- my wings are strong,
The hurricane is raging fierce and high, My spirit pants, and all in heat I long To struggle upward to a purer sky,
And tread the clouds above me rolling by: Lo, thus into the buoyant air I leap,
Confident, and exulting, at a bound, Swifter than whirlwinds, happily to sweep
On fiery wing, the reeling world around: Off with my fetters! — who shall hold me back? My path lies there, the lightning's sudden track, O'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep, —
Thus can I spurn matter, and space, and time, Soaring above the universe sublime.
In the deep clay of yonder sluggish flood The huge behemoth makes his ancient lair, And with slow caution heavily wallows there, Moving above the stream, a mound of mud!
And near him, stretching to the river's edge, In dense dark grandeur, stands the silent wood, Whose unpierced jungles, choked with rotting sedge, Prison the damp air from the freshening breeze: Lo! the rhinoceros comes down this way, Thundering furiously on, and snorting sees The harmless monster at his awkward play, And rushes on him from the crashing trees, - A dreadful shock as when the Titans hurled
Against high Jove the Himalayan world.
O LIFE, O glorious! sister-twin of light, Essence of Godhead, energizing love, Hail, gentle conqueror of dead cold night, Hil, on the waters kindly-brooding dove
I feel thee near me, in me: thy strange might
Flies through my bones like fire, — my heart beats high With thy glad presence: pain, and fear, and care Hide from the lightning laughter of mine eye; No dark unseasonable terrors dare
Disturb me, revelling in the luxury,
The new-found luxury of life and health, This blithesome elasticity of limb,
This pleasure, in which all my senses swim, This deep outpouring of a creature's wealth!
GHASTLY and weak, O dreadful monarch, Death, With failing feet I near thy silent realm. Upon my brain strikes chill thine icy breath, My fluttering heart thy terrors overwhelm. Thou sullen pilot of life's crazy bark,
How treacherously thou puttest down the helm. Just where smooth eddies hide the sunken rock; While close behind follows the hungry shark Snuffing his meal from far, swift with black fin The foam dividing, -ha! that sudden shock Splits my frail skiff; upon the billows dark, A drowning wretch, awhile struggling I floa Till, just as I had hoped the wreck to win, I feel thy bony fingers clutch my throat.
THE EXCUSE OF AN UNFORTUNATE.
A STARLESS night, and bitter cold; The low dun clouds all wildly rolled, Scudding before the blast;
And cheerlessly the frozen sleet Adown the melancholy street
Swept onward thick and fast;
When, crouched at an unfriendly door, Faint, sick, and miserably poor,
A silent woman sate;
She might be young, and had been fan, But from her eye looked out despair All dim and desolate.
Was I to pass her coldly by, Leaving her there to pine and die,
The live-long freezing night?
The secret answer of my heart
Told me I had not done my part In flinging her a mite.
She looked her thanks, then drooped her heaa, "Have you no friend, no home?” I said: "Get up, poor creature, come,
You seem unhappy, faint, and weak, How can I serve or save you, — speak, Or whither help you home?"
"Alas, kind sir, poor Ellen Gray Has had no friend this many a day, And, but that you seem kind,
She has not found the face of late That looked on her in aught but hate, And still despairs to find
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