The shutters are shut, no light may pass | I loved you, Evelyn, all the while; Save two long rays through the hinge's My heart seemed full as it could hold, There was place and to spare for the frank young smile And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold. So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep, See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. There, that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand. RABBI BEN EZRA. GROW old along with me! The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Not that, amassing flowers, It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Not for such hopes and fears, Poor vaunt of life indeed, Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? Rejoice we are allied To That which doth provide Who gives, than of his tribes that take, ROBERT BROWNING. Then, welcome each rebuff Be our joys three parts pain! For thence- a paradox Which comforts while it mocks Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: 205 Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. And I shall thereupon A brute I might have been, but would Take rest, ere I be gone not sink i' the scale. What is he but a brute Whose flesh hath soul to suit, Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs What weapons to select, what armor to want play? To man, propose this test, Thy body at its best, indue. Youth ended, I shall try How far can that project thy soul on its My gain or loss thereby; lone way? Be the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. For note, when evening shuts. Should not the heart beat once, "How A certain moment cuts So, still within this life, Though lifted o'er its strife, I trust what Let me discern, compare, pronounce at Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns rest: Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold for last, "This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: we did best! Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught All men ignored in me, found made; So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age; wait death nor be afraid! Enough now, if the Right This I was worth to God, whose wheel Ay, note that Potter's wheel, Why time spins fast, why passive lies our Thou, to whom fools propound, Be named here, as thou callest thy hand When the wine makes its round, thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" From fools that crowded youth, nor let Fool! All that is, at all, thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, Announced to each his station in the That was, is, and shall be: Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. Right? Let age speak the truth and He fixed thee mid this dance give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Shun what I follow, slight what I re- Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently ceive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me we all surmise, impressed. What though the earlier grooves They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall Which ran the laughing loves Look not thou down, but up! Found straightway to its mind, could To uses of a cup, value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, The festal board, lamp's flash, and trum- The new wine's foaming flow, Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what That weighed not as his work, yet swelled But I need, now as then, Fancies that broke through language and With shapes and colors rife, escaped; All I could never be, Bound dizzily mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: We shall march prospering, not through Still bidding crouch whom the rest Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 207 There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part, — the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him, strike gallantly, Aim at our heart ere we pierce through his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne! HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. [U. S. A.] PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear Hardly a man is now alive He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, One, if by land, and two, if by sea; For the country folk to be up and to Then he said, "Good night!" and with Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, One task more declined, one more foot-Across the moon like a prison bar, path untrod, One more triumph for devils, and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins; let him never come back to us! And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and Now he patted his horse's side, But mostly he watched with eager search But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. He heard the crowing of the cock, It was one by the village clock, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, It was two by the village clock |