Only those are crowned and sainted In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning, Shall it, then, be unavailing, All this toil for human culture? Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing Must they see above them sailing O'er life's barren crags the vulture? Such a fate as this was Dante's, By defeat and exile maddened; Thus were Milton and Cervantes, Nature's priests and Corybantes, By affliction touched and saddened. But the glories so transcendent That around their memories cluster, And, on all their steps attendant, All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chanted; Thoughts in attitudes imperious, Voices soft, and deep, and serious, Words that whispered, songs that haunted! All the soul in rapt suspension, Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling! Though to all there is not given Strength for such sublime endeavor, Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted Hold aloft their torches lighted, Gleaming through the realms benighted, THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE SAT AINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things, each day's events, The low desire, the base design, That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine, And all occasions of excess; The longing for ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes The action of the nobler will ; All these must first be trampled down Beneath our feet, if we would gain In the bright fields of fair renown We have not wings, we cannot soar ; The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs. The distant mountains, that uprear The heights by great men reached and kept Standing on what too long we bore With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, We may discern unseen before A path to higher destinies. Nor deem the irrevocable Past, As wholly wasted, wholly vain, THE PHANTOM SHIP N Mather's Magnalia Christi, IN Of the old colonial time, May be found in prose the legend That is here set down in rhyme. A ship sailed from New Haven, That filled her sails at parting, Were heavy with good men's prayers. "O Lord! if it be thy pleasure" Thus prayed the old divine"To bury our friends in the ocean, Take them, for they are thine!" But Master Lamberton muttered, |