Is fame your aspiration?
Her path is steep and high ;
In vain he seeks her temple,
Content to gaze and sigh!
The shining throne is waiting,
But he alone can take it
Who says, with Roman firmness,
"I'll find a way, or make it!"
Is learning your ambition?
There is no royal road;
Alike the peer and peasant
Must climb to her abode;
Who feels the thirst of knowledge?
In Helicon may slake it,
If he has still the Roman will
Are riches worth the getting?
They must be bravely sought;
With wishing and with fretting
The boon cannot be bought:
To all the prize is open,
But only he can take it,
Who says, with Roman courage,
"I'll find a way, or make it!"
In Love's impassioned warfare
The tale has ever been,
That victory crowns the valiant,—
The brave are they who win:
Though strong is Beauty's castle,
A lover still may take it,
Who says, with Roman daring,
"I'll find a way, or make it!"
'OR Scotland's and for freedom's right,
The Bruce his part had played,
In five successive fields of fight,
Been conquered and dismayed:
Once more against the English host
His band he led, and once more lost
The meed for which he fought;
And now from battle, faint and worn,
The homeless fugitive forlorn
A hut's lone shelter sought.
And cheerless was that resting-place
For him who claimed a throne;
His canopy, devoid of grace,
The rude, rough beams alone;
The heather couch his only bed-
Yet well I ween had slumber fled
From couch of eider down!
Through darksome night till dawn of day,
Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay
Of Scotland and her crown.
The sun rose brightly, and its gleam
Fell on that hapless bed,
And tinged with light each shapeless beam
Which roofed the lowly shed;
Then looking up with wistful eye,
The Bruce beheld a spider try
His filmy thread to fling
From beam to beam of that rude cot;
And well the insect's toilsome lot
Taught Scotland's future king.
Six times his gossamery thread
The wary spider threw ;
In vain the filmy line was sped,
For powerless or untrue
Each aim appeared, and back recoiled
The patient insect, six times foiled,
And yet unconquered still;
And soon the Bruce with eager eye,
Saw him prepare once more to try
His courage, strength, and skill.
One effort more, his seventh and last!
The hero hailed the sign!
And on the wished-for beam hung fast
That slender, silken line;
Slight as it was, his spirit caught
The more than omen, for his thought
The lesson well could trace,
Which even "he who runs may read,"
That Perseverance gains its meed,
And patience wins the race.
NCE, in the flight of ages past,
Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.
Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown: His name has perished from the earth, This truth survives alone :
That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear,
Alternate triumph'd in his breast;
His bliss and woe-a smile, a tear!
Oblivion hides the rest.
The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.
He suffered-but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoyed-but his delights are fled;
Had friends-his friends are now no more;
And foes-his foes are dead.
He loved but whom he loved the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O she was fair! but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.
He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encountered all that troubles thee:
He was whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.
The rolling seasons, day and night,
Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life and light,
The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye That once their shades and glory threw, Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.
The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of him afford no other trace
Than this-there lived a man!
Secrets lost in dark oblivion,
Human tongue shall never tell;
Time, their keeper, little heeding,
Marches onward-onward still.
Dreams and echoes of the past,
Waken in us memory's thrill;
Showing, by their silent teaching,
Time is marching onward still.
LD Winter is a sturdy one,
And lasting stuff he's made of;
His flesh is firm as ironstone,
There's nothing he's afraid of.
He spreads his coat upon the heath,
Nor yet to warm it lingers;
He scouts the thought of aching teeth,
Or chilblains on his fingers.
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