"Ah foole," (quod she,) "wist thou not what it is

When that I say, ocy, ocy, ywis? Then meané I that I would wonder faine

That all they were shamefully yslaine That meanen ought againé love amiss.

"And also I would that all tho were dede

That thinké not in love their life to lede,

For whoso that wol not the God of love serve,

I dare well say, he worthy is to sterve, And for that skill, ocy, ocy, I grede." CHAUCER.

To men as they are men within themselves.

How oft high service is performed within,

When all the external man is rude in show:

Not like a temple rich with pomp and gold,

But a mere mountain chapel that protects

Its simple worshippers from sun and shower!

Of these, said I, shall be my song; of these,

If future years mature me for the task, Will I record the praises, making verse Deal boldly with substantial things, in truth

And sanctity of passion speak of these, That justice may be done, obeisance paid

Where it is due. Thus haply shall I teach,

Inspire, through unadulterated ears Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope; my theme

No other than the very heart of man, As found among the best of those who live,

Not unexalted by religious faith, Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few,

In Nature's presence: thence may I select

Sorrow that is not sorrow, but

delight,

And miserable love that is not pain To hear of, for the glory that redounds

Therefrom to human kind, and what we are.

Be mine to follow with no timid step Where knowledge leads me; it shall be my pride

That I have dared to tread this holy ground,

Speaking no dream, but things oracu

lar,

Encouragement, and energy, and will; Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words,

As native passion dictates. Others, too,

There are, among the walks of homely life,

Still higher, men for contemplation framed;

Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase.

Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink

Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse.

Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power,

The thought, the image, and the silent joy:

Words are but under-agents in their souls;

When they are grasping with their greatest strength

They do not breathe among them; this I speak

In gratitude to God, who feeds our hearts

For his own service, knoweth, lov

eth us,

When we are unregarded by the world."

And vales of bliss; the Intellectual Power

Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,

And smiles; the passions gently soothed away,

Sink to divine repose, and love and joy Alone are waking; love and joy

serene

As airs that fan the summer. O attend,

Whoe'er thou art whom these delights can touch,

Whose candid bosom the refining love Of nature warms; O, listen to my

song,

And I will guide thee to her favorite walks,

And teach thy solitude her voice to

hear,

And point her loveliest features to thy view.

Amid the vast creation; why ordained

Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,

With thoughts beyond the limits of 'his frame,

But that the Omnipotent might send him forth

In sight of mortal and immortal powers,

As on a boundless theatre to run The great career of justice; to exalt His generous aim to all diviner deeds;

To chase each partial purpose from his breast;

And through the mists of passion and of sense,

And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,

To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice

Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent

Of nature, calls him to his high reward,

The applauding smile of heaven? else wherefore burns,

In mortal bosoms, this unquenched hope

That breathes from day to day sublimer things,

And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind,

With such resistless ardor to embrace Majestic forms; impatient to be free,

Spurning the gross control of wilful might;

Proud of the strong contention of

her toils;

To mark the windings of a scanty rill

That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul

Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing

Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth

And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft,

Through fields of air pursues the flying storm;

Rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens; Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast,

Sweeps the long track of day. Then high she soars

The blue profound, and hovering o'er the sun

Beholds him pouring the redundant stream

Of light: beholds the unrelenting sway

Bend the reluctant planets to absolve The fated rounds of time. Thence

far effused

She darts her swiftness up the long

career

Of devious comets; through its burning signs

Exulting circles the perennial wheel Of nature, and looks back on all the stars,

Whose blended light, as with a milky

zone,

Invests the orient. Now amazed she

views

The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,

Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;

And fields of radiance, whose unfading light

Has travelled the profound six thousand years,

Nor yet arrived in sight of mortal things.

Nature's care, to all her children

just,

With richer treasures and an ampler

state,

Endows at large whatever happy man Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp,

The rural honors his: whate'er adorns

Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.

Each passing Hour sheds tribute from her wings,

And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,

And loves unfelt attract him.

Look, then, abroad through Nature, to the range

Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,

Wheeling unshaken through the Void immense,

And speak, O man! does this capacious scene

With half that kindling majesty dilate

Thy strong conception, as when
Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's
fate,

Amid the crowd of patriots; and his

ULYSSES.

IT little profits that an idle king By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Through 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 honored 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 wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though 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