And then conceive it possible, and then reflect on it as done, And use, by little and little, thyself to regard thyself a villain, Not long will crime be absent from the voice that doth invoke him to thy heart, And bitterly wilt thou grieve, that the buds have ripened into poison. A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world; For a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth: The walking this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening, Hath saved life, and destroyed it, hath cast down and built up fortunes. Commit thy trifles unto God, for to him is nothing trivial; And it is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle. All things are infinite in parts, and the moral is as the material, Neither is any thing vast, but it is compacted of atoms. Thou art wise, and shalt find comfort, if thou study thy pleasure in trifles, For slender joys, often repeated, fall as sunshine on the heart: Thou art wise, if thou beat off petty troubles, nor suffer their stinging to fret thee; Thrust not thine hand among the thorns, but with a leathern glove. And the saint that feareth not the fire, may perish the victim of a thought. And the cable of a furlong is lost through an ill-wrought inch. If an avalanche roll from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of Providence; Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar?— A thing is great or little only to a mortal's thinking, But abstracted from the body, all things are alike important: The Ancient of Days noteth in his book the idle converse of a creature, And happy and wise is the man to whose thought existeth not a trifle. OF RECREATION. To join advantage to amusement, to gather profit with pleasure, Is the wise man's necessary aim, when he lieth in the shade of recreation For he cannot fling aside his mind, nor bar up the floodgates of his wis dom; Yea, though he strain after folly, his mental monitor shall check him: isfaction. The soul may not safely dwell too long with the deep things of futurity; The mind may not always be bent back, like the Parthian, straining at the past: (16) And, if thou art wearied with wrestling on the broad arena of science, Leave awhile thy friendly foe, half vanquished in the dust, Refresh thy jaded limbs, return with vigour to the strife,— Thou shalt easier find thyself his master, for the vacant interval of leisure. THAT which may profit and amuse is gathered from the volume of creation, For every chapter therein teemeth with the playfulness of wisdom. The elements of all things are the same, though nature hath mixed them with a difference, And Learning delighteth to discover the affinity of seeming opposites: So out of great things and small draweth he the secrets of the universe, moor, The cayman, basking on a mud-bank, and the walrus anchored to an ice berg, The dog at his master's feet, and the milk-kine lowing in the meadow; To learn a use in the beetle, and more than a beauty in the butterfly; Each distant shining world, a kingdom for one of the redeemed; To read the antique history of earth, stamped upon those medals in the rocks, Which Design hath rescued from decay, to tell of the green infancy of time; To gather from the unconsidered shingle mottled starlike agates, Full of unstoried flowers in the bubbling bloom-chalcedony : Or gay and curious shells, fretted with microscopic carving, Corallines, and fresh seaweeds, spreading forth their delicate branches. To study the chemistry of Nature, her grand, but simple secrets. In all itis wise happiness to see the well-ordained laws of Jehovah, The harmony that filleth all his mind, the justice that tempereth his bounty, The wonderful all-prevalent analogy that testifieth one Creator, The broad arrow of the Great King, carved on all the stores of his arsenal. But beware, O worshipper of God, thou forget not him in his dealings, Though the bright emanations of his power hide him in created glory; For if, on the sea of knowledge, thou regardest not the pole-star of religion, Thy bark will miss her port, and run upon the sand-bar of folly: And if, enamoured of the means, thou considerest not the scope to which they tend, Wherein art thou wiser than the child, that is pleased with toys and bau bles? Verily, a trifling scholar, thou heedest but the letter of instruction: For as motive is spirit unto action, as memory endeareth place, MAN hath found out inventions, to cheat him of the weariness of life, And hand joineth hand to help in the toil of amusement, While the secret aching heart is vacant of all but disappointment. The cheapest pleasures are the best; and nothing is more costly than sin; Yet we mortgage futurity, counting it but little loss: Neither can a man delight in that which breedeth sorrow, Yet do we hunt for joy even in the fires that consume it. Whoso would find gladness may meet her in the hovel of poverty, Where benevolence hath scattered around the gleanings of the horn of plenty; Whoso would sun himself in peace, may be seen of her in deeds of mercy, When the pale lean cheek of the destitute is wet with grateful tears |