Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,-
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,-
Well-beloved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
OR all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear
When you are the hammer, strike.
From "The Gates of Paradise, and Other Poems,"
Doubleday, Page & Co.
"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a."
Shakespeare's lilting stanza conveys a great truth-the power of cheerfulness to give impetus and endurance. The a at the end of lines is merely an addition in singing; the word hent means take.
HE cynics say that every rose
Is guarded by a thorn which grows
To spoil our posies;
But I no pleasure therefore lack;
I keep my hands behind my back
When smelling roses.
Though outwardly a gloomy shroud
The inner half of every cloud
Is bright and shining:
I therefore turn my clouds about,
And always wear them inside out
To show the lining.
My modus operandi this
To take no heed of what's amiss;
And not a bad one;
Because, as Shakespeare used to say,
A merry heart goes twice the way
That tires a sad one.
Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.
(The Honorable Mrs. Alfred Felkin.)
Permission of the Author.
From "Verses Wise and Otherwise,"
Cassell & Co.
An American traveler in Italy stood watching a lumberman who, as the logs floated down a swift mountain stream, jabbed his hook in an occasional one and drew it carefully aside. "Why do you pick out those few?" the traveler asked. "They all look alike.' "But they are not alike, seignior. The logs I let pass have grown on the side of a mountain, where they have been protected all their lives. Their grain is coarse; they are good only for lumber. But these logs, seignior, grew on the top of the mountain. From the time they were sprouts and saplings they were lashed and buffeted by the winds, and so they grew strong with fine grain. We save them for choice work; they are not 'lumber,' seignior."
WHEN you're up against a trouble,
Meet it squarely, face to face;
Lift your chin and set your shoulders,
Plant your feet and take a brace.
When it's vain to try to dodge it,
Do the best that you can do;
You may fail, but you may conquer,
See it through!
Black may be the clouds about you
And your future may seem grim,
But don't let your nerve desert you;
Keep yourself in fighting trim.
If the worse is bound to happen,
Spite of all that you can do,
Running from it will not save you,
See it through!
Even hope may seem but futile,
When with troubles you're beset,
But remember you are facing
Just what other men have met.
You may fail, but fall still fighting;
Don't give up, whate'er you do;
Eyes front, head high to the finish.
See it through!
From "Just Folks,"
The Reilly & Lee Co.
If January I is an ideal time for renewed consecration, December 31 is an ideal time for thankful reminiscence. The year has not brought us everything we might have hoped, but neither has it involved us in everything we might have feared. Many are the perils, the failures, the miseries we have escaped, and life to us is still gracious and wholesome and filled to the brim with satisfaction.
EST day of all the year, since I
May see thee pass and know
That if thou dost not leave me high
Thou hast not found me low,
And since, as I behold thee die,
Thou leavest me the right to say
That I to-morrow still may vie
With them that keep the upward way.
Best day of all the year to me,
Since I may stand and gaze
Across the grayish past and see
So many crooked ways
That might have led to misery,
Or might have ended at Disgrace-
Best day since thou dost leave me free
To look the future in the face.
Best day of all days of the year,
That was so kind, so good,
Since thou dost leave me still the dear
Old faith in brotherhood-
Best day since I, still striving here,
May view the past with small regret,
And, undisturbed by doubts or fear,
Seeks paths that are untrod as yet.
Permission of
S. E. Kiser.
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