NOW.

THE venerable Past-is past;

"Tis dark, and shines not in the ray:
'Twas good, no doubt 't is gone at last―
There dawns another day.

Why should we sit where ivies creep,
And shroud ourselves in charnels deep;
Or the world's yesterdays deplore,

Mid crumbling ruins' mossy hoar?

Why should we see with dead men's eyes,
Looking at WAS from morn to night,

When the beauteous Now, the divine To BE,

Woo with their charms our living sight?

Why should we hear but echoes dull

When the world of sound, so beautiful,

Will give us music of our own? Why in the darkness will we grope, When the sun, in heaven's resplendent cope,

Shines as bright as ever it shone?

Abraham saw no brighter stars

Than those which burn for thee and me. When Homer heard the lark's sweet song, Or night-bird's lovelier melody,

They were such sounds as Shakspere heard,
Or Chaucer, when he blessed the bird;

Such lovely sounds as we can hear.
Great Plato saw the vernal year

Send forth its tender flowers and shoots,
And luscious autumn pour its fruits;

And we can see the lilies blow,

The corn-fields wave, the rivers flow:
For us all bounties of the earth,
For us its wisdom, love, and mirth,
If we daily walk in the sight of God,
And prize the gifts He has bestowed.

We will not dwell amid the graves,
Nor in dim twilights sit alone,
To gaze at moulder'd architraves,

Or plinths and columns overthrown;

We will not only see the light

Through painted windows, cobwebb'd o'er,

Nor know the beauty of the night

Save by the moonbeam on the floor:

NOW.

But in the presence of the sun,

Or moon, or stars, our hearts shall glow; We'll look at nature face to face,

And we shall LOVE because we KNOW.

The present needs us. Every age

Bequeaths the next for heritage
No lazy luxury or delight—

But strenuous labour for the right;
For Now, the child and sire of Time
Demands the deeds of earnest men

To make it better than the past,

And stretch the circle of its ken.

Now is a fact that men deplore,
Though it might bless them evermore,
Would they but fashion it aright:

'Tis ever new, 'tis ever bright.

Time, nor Eternity, hath seen

A repetition of delight

In all its phases: ne'er hath been. For men or angels that which is ;

And that which is hath ceased to be

Ere we have breathed it, and its place

Is lost in the Eternity.

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But Now is ever good and fair,

Of the Infinitude the heir,

And we of it. So let us live

That from the Past we may receive Light for the Now-from Now a joy That Fate nor Time shall e'er destroy.

THE VISION OF MOCKERY.

ALL happy things are earnest. Once I roamed
In England, or in Dreamland, through the streets
Of a huge, buzzing, dense, metropolis.

Slowly, in teeming thoroughfares, I walked
One of the people, hearing with their ears,
Beholding with their eyes, and in their thought
Divining, till my soul was filled with grief
At all that I beheld, and felt, and knew.

It was a gibing, laughing, sneering crowd,
Devoid of truth, faith, love, and earnestness,
Except a horrid earnestness for gain;

Fierce love of lucre, which, if one had not,
He was despised and trodden down of men':
Which, if one had, he was adored of all,

Placed on a pinnacle to be admired,

Flattered, and filled with other rich men's gifts;

His overflowing fulness made more full,

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