THE WORLD'S TRIUMPHS. So far as I conceive the world's rebuke To him address'd who would recast her new, Not from herself her fame of strength she took, But from their weakness, who would work her rue. 'Behold,' she cries, 'so many rages lull'd, Thou too, when thou against my crimes wouldst cry, Hast thou so rare a poison?-let me be GROWING OLD. WHAT is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath ?— Yes, but not this alone! Is it to feel our strength Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more weakly strung? Yes, this, and more! but not, Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dream'd 'twould be! 'Tis not to have our life Mellow'd and soften'd as with sunset-glow, A golden day's decline! 'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirr'd; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more! It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young! It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain. It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion-none ! It is last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man. DESPONDENCY. HE thoughts that rain their steady glow THE Like stars on life's cold sea, Which others know, or say they know They never shone for me! Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit's sky, But they will not remain; They light me once, they hurry by, And never come again. SELF-DECEPTION. AY, what blinds us, that we claim the glory SAY, Of possessing powers not our share?— Since man woke on earth, he knows his story, Long, long since, undower'd yet, our spirit Then, as now, this tremulous, eager being Then, as now, a power beyond our seeing Staved us back, and gave our choice the law. Ah, whose hand that day through Heaven guided Man's new spirit, since it was not we? Ah, who sway'd our choice, and who decided What our gifts, and what our wants should be? |