11. Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 12. But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, 13. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 14. Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quoth the raven, "Nevermore.” Is there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me tell me, I implore!" Quoth the raven, "Nevermore." 16. "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil ! `· By that heaven that bends above us-by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the raven, "Nevermore. 17. "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting "Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore! 18. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting Shall be lifted-nevermore! LESSON II. THE DIGNITY OF WORK. 1. THERE is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real desire to get work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations which are truth. 2. All true work is sacred: in all true work, were it but true hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms-up to that "agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine! Oh brother, if this is not "worship," then I say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky. 3. Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellowworkmen there, in God's eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving sacred band of the immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire of mind. Even in the weak human memory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; they alone surviving peopling, they alone, the immeasured solitudes of Time! To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind—as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, "WITH IT, MY SON, OR UPON IT!" Thou, too, shalt return home, in honor to thy far-distant home, in honor; doubt it not-if in the battle thou keep thy shield! Thou, in the eternities and deepest deathkingdoms, art not an alien; thou every where art a denizen! Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain. THOMAS CARLYLE. LESSON III. THE DUTY OF LABOR. 1. LABOR is man's great function. The earth and the atmosphere are his laboratory. With spade and plow, with mining shafts, and furnaces, and forges, with fire and steam, amid the noise and whirl of swift and bright machinery, and abroad in the silent fields, beneath the roofing sky, man was made to be ever working, ever experimenting. And while he and all his dwellings of care and toil are borne onward with the circling skies, and the shows of heaven are around him, and their infinite depths image and invite his thought, still in all the worlds of philosophy, in the universe of intellect, man must be a worker. He is nothing, he can be nothing, he can achieve nothing, fulfill nothing, without working. 2. Not only can he gain no lofty improvement without this, but without it he can gain no tolerable happiness. So that he who gives himself up to utter indolence finds it too hard for him, and is obliged in self-defense, unless he be an idiot, to do something. The miserable victims of idleness and ennui, driven at last from their chosen resort, are compelled to work, to do something; yes, to employ their wretched and worthless lives in-"killing_time." They must hunt down the hours as their prey. Yes, time, that mere abstraction, that sinks light as the air upon the eyelids of the busy and the weary, to the idle is an enemy, clothed with gigantic armor; and they must kill it, or themselves die. They can not live in mere idleness; and all the difference between them and others is, that they employ their activity to no useful end. They find, indeed, that the hardest work in the world' is to do nothing.—DEWEY. For the leader's eye is on us, Wide the trackless prairies round us, Smile the soft savannas green, 4. Bring your axes, woodmen true; 5. Of heaven's sunny eye looks through O'er the torrents fling your bridges, Coming after us, will find Surer, easier footing there; Heart to heart, and hand to hand, Scouts upon the mountain's peak- Of the country ye have scanned, LESSON VI.-GOD IS EVERY WHERE. 1. OH! show me where is He, The high and holy One, To whom thou bend'st the knee, And pray'st', "Thy will be done'!" I hear thy song of praise', And lo! no form' is near: But where doth God appear'? Oh! teach me who is' God, and where his glories shine', That I may kneel and pray, and call thy Father mine. |