In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf,
And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering tree;
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence
Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world!
It is to linger on "the magic face
Of human beauty," and from light and shade
Alike to draw a lesson; 'tis to know
The cadences of voices that are tuned
By majesty and purity of thought;
To gaze on woman's beauty, as a star
Whose purity and distance make it fair;
And from the spell of music to awake,
And feel that it has purified the heart!
It is to love all virtue, like the light,
Dear to the soul as sunshine to the
And when the senses and the mind are fill'd
Like wells from these involuntary springs,
It is to calm the trembling depths with prayer,
That it may be but a reflected Heaven.
Thus would I, at this parting hour, be true To teachings which to me have priceless been. Thus would I—like a just-departing child,
Who lingers on the threshold of his home,
Strive, with vague murmurings and lingering looks,
To store up what were sweetest to recall.
And oh be this remember'd!-that when life
Shall have become a weariness, and hope
Thirsts for serener waters, we may go
Forth to God's wild-wood temples, and while all
Its choirs breathe music and its leafy aisles,
Are solemn with the beauty of the world,
Kneel at its unwrought altar, and the cup
That holds the living waters" will be near.
DELIVERED AT BROWN UNIVERSITY, SEPT. 6, 1831
IF, in the eyes that rest upon me now,
I see the light of an immortal fire-
If, in the awe of concentrated thought,
The solemn presence of a multitude
Breathing together, the instinctive mind
Acknowledges aright a type of God—
Then is the ruling spirit of this hour
Compell'd from Heaven; and if the soaring minds
Usher'd this day upon an untried flight
Stoop not their courses, we are met to cheer
Spirits of light sprung freshly on their way.
But, what a mystery-this erring mind?
It wakes within a frame of various powers,
A stranger in a new and wondrous world.
It brings an instinct from some other sphere,
For its fine senses are familiar all,
And, with th' unconscious habit of a dream,
It calls, and they obey. The priceless sight
Springs to its curious organ, and the ear
Learns strangely to detect th' articulate air
In its unseen divisions, and the tongue
Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest,
And in the midst of an obedient throng
Of well-trained ministers, the mind goes forth
To search the secrets of a new-found home.
Its infancy is full of hope and joy.
Knowledge is sweet, and Nature is a nurse
Gentle and holy; and the light and air,
And all things common, warm it like the sun,
And ripen the eternal seed within.
And so its youth glides on; and still it seems
A heavenward spirit, straying oftentimes,
But never widely; and if Death might come
And ravish it from earth, as it is now,
We could almost believe that it would mount,
Spotless and radiant, from the very grave.
But manhood comes, and in its bosom sits
Another spirit. Stranger as it seems,
It is familiar there, for it has grown
In the unsearch'd recesses all unseen,—
Or if its shadow darken'd the bright doors,
'Twas smiled upon and gently driven in ;
And as the spider and the honey-bee
Feed on the same bright flowers, this mocking soul
Fed with its purer brother, and grew strong,
Till now, in semblance of the soul itself,
With its own mien and sceptre, and a voice
Sweet as an angel's and as full of power,
It sits, a bold usurper on the throne.
What is its nature? "Tis a child of clay,
And born of human passions. In its train
Follow all things unholy-Love of Gold,
Ambition, Pleasure, Pride of place or name,
All that we worship for itself alone,
All that we may not carry through the grave.
We have made idols of these perishing things
Till they have grown time-honour'd on their shrines,
And all men bow to them. Yet what are they?
What is AMBITION? 'Tis a glorious cheat!
Angels of light walk not so dazzlingly
The sapphire walls of Heaven. The unsearch'd mine Hath not such gems. Earth's constellated thrones
Have not such pomp of purple and of gold.
It hath no features. In its face is set
A mirror, and the gazer sees his own.
It looks a god, but it is like himself!
It hath a mien majestical, and smiles
Bewilderingly sweet-but how like him!
It follows not with fortune. It is seen
Rarely or never in the rich man's hall.
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