MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS.

Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

Content I live; this is my stay,-

I seek no more than may suffice.
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

I see how plenty surfeits oft,

And hasty climbers soonest fall; I see that such as sit aloft

Mishap doth threaten most of all. These get with toil, and keep with fear; Such cares my mind could never bear.

Some have too much, yet still they crave;
I little have, yet seek no more.

They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store.

They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I lend; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another's loss,

I grudge not at another's gain;
No worldly wave my mind can toss,
I brook that is another's bane.

I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread mine end.

133

I joy not in no earthly bliss,

I weigh not Croesus' wealth a straw; For care, I care not what it is;

I fear not fortune's fatal law; My mind is such as may not move For beauty bright, or force of love.

I wish but what I have at will;
I wander not to seek for more;
I like the plain, I climb no hill;

In greatest storms I sit on shore,
And laugh at them that toil in vain
To get what must be lost again.

I kiss not where I wish to kill;

I feign not love where most I hate;
I break no sleep to win my will;
I wait not at the mighty's gate.
I scorn no poor, I fear no rich;
I feel no want, nor have too much.

My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defence; I never seek by bribes to please,

Nor by desert to give offence. Thus do I live, thus will I die; Would all did so as well as I.

THE CYNIC.

135

XVI.

THE CYNIC.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

THE Cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

The Cynic puts all human actions into only two classes, openly bad, and secretly bad. All virtue, and generosity, and disinterestedness, are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing except for profit. The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear them, to send you away sour and morose.

His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing, like frost upon the flowers. If Mr. A. is pronounced a religious man, he will reply: yes, on Sundays. Mr. B. has just joined the church: certainly; the elections are coming on. The minister of the gospel is called an example of diligence: it is his trade. Such a man is generous: of other men's money. This man is obliging: to lull suspicion and cheat you. That man is upright: because he is green.

Thus his eye strains out every good quality, and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for fraud, virtue only a want of

opportunity, and undeniable purity asceticism. The live-long day he will coolly sit with sneering lip, transfixing every character that is presented.

It is impossible to indulge in such habitual severity of opinion upon our fellow-men, without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings. A man will be what his most cherished feelings are. If he encourage a noble generosity, every feeling will be enriched by it; if he nurse bitter and envenomed thoughts, his own spirit will absorb the poison, and he will crawl among men as a burnished adder, whose life is mischief and whose errand is death.

He who hunts for flowers will find flowers; and he who loves weeds may find weeds.

Let it be remembered that no man, who is not himself morally diseased, will have a relish for disease in others. Reject, then, the morbid ambition of the

Cynic, or cease to call yourself a man.

XVII.

THE LABORER.

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

STAND up-erect! Thou hast the form,
And likeness of thy God! - who more?
A soul as dauntless 'mid the storm

Of daily life, a heart as warm

And pure, as breast e'er wore.

What then?

THE LABORER.

Thou art as true a man
As moves the human mass along;
As much a part of the great plan
That with creation's dawn began,
As any of the throng.

Who is thine enemy?- the high
In station, or in wealth the chief?
The great, who coldly pass thee by,
With proud step and averted eye?
Nay! nurse not such belief.

If true unto thyself thou wast,

137

What were the proud one's scorn to thee? A feather, which thou mightest cast

Aside, as idly as the blast

The light leaf from the tree.

No! uncurbed passions, low desires,
Absence of noble self-respect,

Death, in the breast's consuming fires,
To that high nature which aspires
Forever, till thus checked.

They chain thee to thy lowly lot,

Thy labor and thy lot accursed.

Oh, stand erect and from them burst!
And longer suffer not.