Or talked of that mysterious love

That comes like fate to every soul, And vowed to hold our lives above,

Perchance its sorrowful control. Alas, the very vow we made,

To keep our lives from passion free, To wiser hearts well had betrayed

Some future love's intensity.

A Fleet set sail upon a summer sea:

'Tis now so long ago, I look no more to see my ships come home; But in that fleet sailed all 'twas dear to me. Ships never bore such precious freight as these,

Please God, to any woe.
His world is wide, and they may ride the foam,
Secure from danger, in some unknown seas.
But they have left me bankrupt on life's change;

And daily I bestow
Regretful tears upon the blank account,
And with myself my losses re-arrange.
Oh, mystic wind of fate, dost hold my dower

Where I may never know?
Of all my treasure ventured what amount
Will the sea send me in my parting hour!

How well that youthful vow was kept,

Is written on a deathless pageVain all regrets, vain tears we've wept,

The record lives from age to age. But one who “doeth all things well,”

Who made us differ from the throng, Has it within his heart to quell

This torturing pain of thirst, ere long.

RIVER.

And you, whose soul is all aglow

With fire Prometheus brought from heaven, Shall in some future surely know

Joys for which high desires are given. Not always in a restless pain

Shall beat your heart, or throb your brow; Not always shall you sigh in vain

For hope's fruition, hidden now.

Through deep ravine, through burning, barren

plain, Through wild and rocky strait, Through forest dark, and mountain rent in twain, Toward the sunset gate.

-Sunset at Mouth of Columbia River,

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

RAPHAEL.

QUOTATIONS.

Raphael is not dead; He doth but sleep; for how can he be dead Who lives immortal in the hearts of men ? He only drank the precious wine of youth, The outbreak of the grapes, before the vintage Was trodden to bitterness by the feet of men.

TENNYSON.

Poet, I come to touch thy lance with mine;

Not as a knight who on the listed field
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield

In token of defiance, but in sign
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,

In English song; nor will I keep concealed,
And voiceless as a rivulet frost congealed,

My admiration for thy verse divine,
Not of the howling dervishers of song,

Who craze the brain with their delirious dance

Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,

To thee our love and our allegiance,
For thy allegiance to the poet's art.

— Wapentake. AGE.

Decide not rashly. The decision made
Can never be recalled. The gods implore not,
Plead not, solicit not; which once being passed
Return no more.

– Ibid.

RESPECT.

He that respects himself is safe from others; He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

- Ibid.

THOUGHT.

I need them not. I have within myself
All that my heart desires; the ideal beauty
Which the creative faculty of mind
Fashions and follows in a thousand shapes
More lovely than the real. My own thoughts
Are my companions; my designs and labors
And aspirations are my only friends.

-Ibid.

Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cæsar!
Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village,
Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right
when he said it.

-Ibid.
SYMPATHY.
O little feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,

Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside Inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road!

- Weariness.

FORTUNE.
Fortune comes well to all that comes not late.

- The Spanish Student.

NECESSITY.
Something the heart must have to cherish,

Must love and joy and sorrow learn,
Something with passion clasp, or perish,
And in itself to ashes burn.

- Forsaken. PERSEVERANCE. The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

The Ladder of St. Augustine.

SLEEP

Ye sentinels of sleep,

It is in vain ye keep Your drowsy watch before the Ivory Gate:

Though closed the portal seems,

The airy feet of dreams Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate.

-Ibid. TEMPTATION.

HONOR.

Satan desires us, great and small,
As wheat to sift us, and we all

Are tempted;
Not one, however rich or great,
Is by his station or estate

Exempted.

- The Sifting of Peter.

Honor and blessings on his head
While living, good report when dead,
Who, not too eager for renown,
Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown!

- Tales of a Wayside Inn.

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.

-Ibid. BEAUTY.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

-Ibid.

SOLITUDE.

Alas! to-day I would give everything
To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it.

- Judas Maccabæus.

Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,
Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.

So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one another's motions,
When the first descends, the others
Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise
Round their victim, sick and wounded,
First a shadow, then a sorrow,
Till the air is dark with anguish.

-Ibid.

FORTITUDE.

O fear not in a world like this

And thou shalt know ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong.

- The Light of Stars.

DESTINY.

ART.

Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face,
Her aspect and her attitude,
All her majestic loveliness
Chastened and softened and subdued
Into a more attractive grace,
And with a human sense imbued.
He is the greatest artist, then,
Whether a pencil or a pen,
Who follows Nature. Never man,
As artist or as artisan,
Pursuing his own fantasies,
Can touch the human heart, or please
Or satisfy our nobler needs,
As he who sets his willing feet
In Nature's footprints, light and fleet
And follows fearless where she leads.

-Keramos.

--Ibid.

ANTICIPATION.

It is a mystery of the unknown

That fascinates us; we are children still,

Wayward and wistful; with one hand we cling To the familiar things we call our own,

And with the other, resolute of will,
Grope in the dark for what the day will bring.

- The Two Rivers.

Love.

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,

But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

-Endymion.

Love.

There is no Death! What seems so is tran

sition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

- Resignation

TEARS. For there are moments in life, when the heart is so

full of emotion, That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths

like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its se

cret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.

— The Courtship of Miles Standish.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;

Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

-- lbid.

FAME.

Pride goeth forth on horseback grand and gay,
But cometh back on foot, and begs its way;
Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds,
Of flowers of chivalry and not of weeds!

– Tales of a Wayside Inn.

SUN.

JUNE

Mine is the month of Roses; yes, and mine

The month of Marriages! All pleasant sights And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,

The foliage of the valleys and the heights; Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;

The mower's scythe makes music to my ear; I am the mother of all dear delights; I am the fairest daughter of the year.

– The Poet's Calendar.

Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of

purple and scarlet, Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his gar

ments resplendent, Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his

forehead, Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and

pomegranates: Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor

beneath him Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet was a laver!

- Ibid.
MISERY.
O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!

- The Goblet of Life.

NIGHT.

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wasted downward From an eagle in his flight.

– The Day is Done.