THE TOUCHSTONE.

A MAN there came, whence none could tell, Bearing a Touchstone in his hand, And tested all things in the land

By its unerring spell.

A thousand transformations rose From fair to foul, from foul to fair: The golden crown he did not spare,

Nor scorn the beggar's clothes.

Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, Were many changed to chips and clods; And even statues of the Gods

Crumbled beneath its touch.

Then angrily the people cried, "The loss outweighs the profit far; Our goods suffice us as they are:

We will not have them tried."

And, since they could not so avail To check his unrelenting quest, They seized him, saying, "Let him test

How real is our jail!"

But though they slew him with the sword, And in a fire his Touchstone burned, Its doings could not be o'erturned,

Its undoings restored.

And when, to stop all future harm, They strewed its ashes on the breeze, They little guessed each grain of these Conveyed the perfect charm.

THE HAPPY MAN.

FROM "THE WINTER WALK AT NOON:" "THE TASK," BOOK VI.

HE is the happy man whose life even now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace,

the fruit

Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.
The world o'erlooks him in her busy search
Of objects, more illustrious in her view;
And, occupied as earnestly as she,
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them
not;

He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain,
He cannot skim the ground like summer birds
Pursuing gilded flies; and such he deems
Her honors, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose power is such that whom she lifts from

earth

She makes familiar with a heaven unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be revealed.
Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed,
And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird
That flutters least is longest on the wing.

WILLIAM COWPER.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

ON HIS OWN BLINDNESS.

TO CYRIACK SKINNER.

CYRIACK, this three years' day, these eyes, though

clear,

To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man or woman, yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied
In Liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This thought might lead me through the world's

vain mask,

Content, though blind, had I no better guide.

MILTON.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew ; —
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon wood bird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids,
To gaze upon the Pyramids;

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For, out of Thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast Soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken ;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,
The Book itself before me lies, -
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

HAPPINESS.

FROM "AN ESSAY ON MAN," EPISTLE IV.

O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim ! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy

name:

That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,

For which we bear to live or dare to die,
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows?-
where grows it not? If vain

our toil,

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil: Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere ; 'T is nowhere to be found, or everywhere: 'T is never to be bought, but always free, And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.

Ask of the learned the way? The learned are blind;

This bids to serve, and that to shun, mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these;
Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain ;
Some, swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain ;
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in everything, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;

And, mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense and common ease.

ALEXANDER POPE

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are ;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame or private breath;

Dear solitude, the soul's best friend,

That man acquainted with himself dost make,

And all his Maker's wonders to intend,

With thee I here converse at will,

And would be glad to do so still,

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake.

How calm and quiet a delight

Is it, alone,

To read and meditate and write,

By none offended, and offending none ! To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease; And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

O my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,
And view thy silver stream,.
When gilded by a summer's beam!
And in it all thy wanton fry
Playing at liberty,

And with my angle upon them
The all of treachery

I ever learned, industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show,
The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po;
The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle-water, all, compared with thine;
And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine, much purer, to compare ;
The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine
Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoined, submit, And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

O my beloved rocks, that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies!
From some aspiring mountain's crown

How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure to look down,

And from the vales to view the noble heights

above!

O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat,

And all anxieties, my safe retreat ;

What safety, privacy, what true delight,
In the artificial night

Your gloomy entrails make,
Have I taken, do I take !

How oft, when grief has made me fly,

To hide me from society

E'en of my dearest friends, have I,

In your recesses' friendly shade,
All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy!