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And the poor grass shall plot and plan
What it will do when it is man.

Quickened so, will I unlock
Every crypt of every rock.

I thank the joyful juice
For all I know;-
Winds of remembering

Of the ancient being blow,

And seeming-solid walls of use

Open and flow.

Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine;
Retrieve the loss of me and mine!
Vine for vine be antidote,

And the grape requite the lote!
Haste to cure the old despair;-
Reason in Nature's lotus drenched,
The memory of ages quenched;
Give them again to shine;
Let wine repair what this undid;
And where the infection slid,
A dazzling memory revive;

Refresh the faded tints,

Recut the aged prints,

And write my old adventures with the pen

Which on the first day drew,

Upon the tablets blue,

The dancing Pleiads and eternal men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882]

THE PROBLEM

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl;

I love a prophet of the soul;

And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles:
Yet not for all his faith can see

Would I that cowlèd churchman be.

The Problem

should the vest on him allure, I could not on me endure?

rom a vain or shallow thought
wful Jove young Phidias brought;
- from lips of cunning fell
hrilling Delphic oracle;

rom the heart of nature rolled
burdens of the Bible old;

tanies of nations came, the volcano's tongue of flame, om the burning core below,― anticles of love and woe:

hand that rounded Peter's dome, groined the aisles of Christian Rome, ght in a sad sincerity;

elf from God he could not free; uilded better than he knew;

Conscious stone to beauty grew.

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'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest aves, and feathers from her breast?

ow the fish outbuilt her shell,

ing with morn each annual cell? ow the sacred pine-tree adds er old leaves new myriads? and so grew these holy piles, st love and terror laid the tiles. proudly wears the Parthenon, e best gem upon her zone, Morning opes with haste her lids, aze upon the Pyramids; England's abbeys bends the sky, its friends, with kindred eye; out of Thought's interior sphere, e wonders rose to upper air; Nature gladly gave them place, oted them into her race, granted them an equal date ■ 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 [1803-1882]

EVENING HYMN

SLOWLY by God's hand unfurled,
Down around the weary world
Falls the darkness; oh, how still
Is the working of Thy will!

Mighty Maker! Here am I,-
Work in me as silently,

The Higher Good

'eil the day's distracting sights,
how me heaven's eternal lights.

From the darkened sky come forth
Countless stars, a wondrous birth!
So may gleams of glory dart
Through the dim abyss, my heart;

Living worlds to view be brought,
In the boundless realms of thought,
High and infinite desires,
Burning like those upper fires.

Holy truth, eternal right,

Let them break upon my sight,
Let them shine unclouded, still,
And with light my being fill.

Thou art there. Oh, let me know,
Thou art here within me too;
Be the perfect peace of God
Here as there now shed abroad.

May my soul attuned be

To that perfect harmony,

Which, beyond the power of sound,

Fills the universe around.

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William Henry Furness [1802-1896]

THE HIGHER GOOD

I will not ask for wealth or fame, once they would have joyed my carnal sense: er not to bear a hated name,

; all wealth, myself my sole defense. me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth; sense that knows the eternal right; with pity filled, and gentlest ruth; faith that makes all darkness light:

Give me the power to labor for mankind;
Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak;
Eyes let me be to groping men and blind;

A conscience to the base; and to the weak

Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind; And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek. Theodore Parker [1810–1860]

THE IDLER

I IDLE stand that I may find employ,
Such as my Master when He comes will give;
I cannot find in mine own work my joy,
But wait, although in waiting I must live;
My body shall not turn which way it will,
But stand till I the appointed road can find,
And journeying so his messages fulfil,
And do at every step the work designed.

Enough for me, still day by day to wait

Till Thou who form'st me find'st me too a task,

A cripple lying at the rich man's gate,

Content for the few crumbs I get to ask,

A laborer but in heart, while bound my hands
Hang idly down still waiting thy commands.

Jones Very [1813-1880]

QUESTIONINGS

HATH this world, without me wrought,

Other substance than my thought?

Lives it by my sense alone,

Or by essence of its own?

Will its life, with mine begun,
Cease to be when that is done,
Or another consciousness
With the self-same forms impress?

Doth yon fire-ball, poised in air,
Hang by my permission there?

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