His senses are subdued and serve the soul.

He feels no void, for every faculty

Is used, and the fine balance of desire

Is perfect, and strains evenly, and on.
Content dwells with him, for his mind is fed,
And Temperance has driven out unrest.
He heaps no gold. It cannot buy him more
Of any thing he needs. The air of Heaven
Visits no freshlier the rich man's brow;
He has his portion of each silver star
Sent to his eye as freely, and the light
Of the blest sun pours on his book as clear
As on the golden missal of a king.

The spicy flowers are free to him; the sward,
And tender moss, and matted forest leaves
Are as elastic to his weary feet;

The pictures in the fountains, and beneath
The spreading trees, fine pencilings of light,
Stay while he gazes on them; the bright birds
Know not that he is poor; and as he comes
From his low roof at morn, up goes the lark
Mounting and singing to the gate of Heaven,
And merrily away the little brook
Trips with its feet of silver, and a voice

Almost articulate, of perfect joy.

Air to his forehead, water to his lips,

Heat to his blood, come just as faithfully,
And his own faculties as freely play.

Love fills his voice with music, and the tear
Springs at as light a bidding to his eye ;
And his free limbs obey him, and his sight
Flies on its wondrous errands every where.

What does he need? Next to the works of God

His friends are the rapt sages of old time;
And they impart their wisdom to his soul
In lavish fulness, when and where he will.
He sits in his mean dwelling and communes
With Socrates and Plato, and the shades
Of all great men and holy, and the words
Written in fire by Milton, and the King
Of Israel, and the troop of glorious bards,
Ravish and steal his soul up to the sky-
And what is it to him, if these come in
And visit him, that at his humble door
There are no pillars with rich capitals
And walls of curious workmanship within?

I stand not here in Wisdom's sacred stole. My lips have not been touch'd with holy fire. An humbler office than a counsellor

Of human duties, and an humbler place

Would better grace my knowledge and my years.
I would not seem presuming. Yet have I
Mingled a little in this earnest world,

And staked upon its chances, and have learned
Truths that I never gather'd from my books.
And though the lessons they have taught me seem
Things of the wayside to the practised man,
It is a wisdom by much wandering learned;
And if but one young spirit bend its wing
More in the eye of Heaven because it knew
The erring courses that bewildered mine,
I have not suffered, nor shall teach in vain.

It is a lesson oftener learned than loved-
All knowledge is not nourishment. The mind
May pine upon its food. In reckless thirst
The scholar sometimes kneels beside the stream
Polluted by the lepers of the mind.

The sceptic, with his doubts of all things good
And faith in all things evil, has been there;
And, as the stream was mingled, he has strown
The shore with all bright flowers to tempt the eye,
And sloped the banks down gently for the feet;
And Genius, like a fallen child of light,
Has filled the place with magic, and compell❜d
Most beautiful creations into forms

And images of license, and they come
And tempt you with bewildering grace to kneel
And drink of the wild waters; and behind
Stand the strong Passions, pleading to go in;
And the approving world looks silent on;
Till the pleased mind conspires against itself,
And finds a subtle reason why 'tis good.
We are deceived, though, even as we drink,
We taste the evil. In his sweetest tone
The lying Tempter whispers in our ear,

"Tho' it may stain,'twill strengthen your proud wings;" And in the wild ambition of the soul

We drink anew, and dream like Lucifer

To mount upon our daring draught to Heaven.

I need not follow the similitude.

Health is vitality, and if the mind
Is fed on poison, it must lose its power.
The vision that forever strains to err
Soon finds its task a habit; and the taste
That will own nothing true or beautiful
Soon finds the world distorted as itself;
And the loose mind, that feeds an appetite
For the enticements of licentious thought,
Contracts a leprosy that oversteals

Its senses, like a palsy, chill, and fast.

The soul must be in health to keep its powers.. It must lie open to the influences

Of all things pure and simple. Like a flower
Within a stifled chamber, it will droop

If hidden from the pleasant sun and air ;
And
every delicate fibre must have room

To quicken and extend, and more than all,
The stream that gives it moisture must be pure.

Another lesson with my manhood came.

I have unlearned contempt. It is the sin
That is engender'd earliest in the soul,
And doth beset it like a poison-worm,
Feeding on all its beauty. As it steals
Into the bosom you may see the light
Of the clear, heavenly eye grow cold and dim,
And the fine, upright glory of the brow
Cloud with mistrust, and the unfetter'd lip,
That was as free and changeful as the wind,
Even in sadness redolent of love,

Curl'd with the iciness of a constant scorn.
It eats into the mind till it pollutes
All its pure fountains. Feeling, reason, taste
Breathe of its chill corruption. Every sense
That could convey a pleasure is benumb'd,
And the bright human being, that was made