A FLOWER GARDEN

269

THE SCULPTOR

Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy
With a marble block before him.
His face lit up with a smile of joy
As an angel dream passed o'er him.
He carved that dream on the yielding stone
With many a sharp incision.

In heaven's own light the image shone,-
He had caught that angel vision.

Sculptors of life are we as we stand
With our lives uncarved before us,
Waiting the hour when at God's command
Our life-dream passes o'er us.

Let us carve that dream on the yielding stone
With many a sharp incision,-

Its heavenly beauty shall be our own,

Our lives that angel vision.

-GEORGE W. DOANE.

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
-LONGFELLOW.

TRUE GREATNESS

The fairest action of our human life
Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife
His adversary's heart to him doth tie;
And 'tis a firmer conquest, truly said,
To win the heart than overthrow the head.

If we a worthy enemy do find,

To yield to worth, it must be nobly done:But if of baser metal be his mind,

In base revenge there is no honor won. Who would a worthy courage overthrow?

And who would wrestle with a worthless foe?

-SELECTED.

REST

Rest is not quitting

The busy career;

Rest is the fitting

Of self to one's sphere.

'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear without strife;
Fleeting to ocean,
After its life.

'Tis loving and serving
The highest and best;
'Tis onward, unswerving,
And this is true rest.

-GOETHE.

A FLOWER GARDEN

271

DUTY

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man;

When Duty whispers low, "Thou must,"

The youth replies, "I can."

-EMERSON.

TO DUTY

Light of dim mornings; shield from heat and cold;
Balm for all ailments; substitute for praise;
Comrade for those who plod in lonely ways
(Ways that grow lonelier as the years wax old);
Tonic for fears; check to the overbold;

Nurse, whose calm hand its strong restriction lays,
Kind, but resistless, on our wayward days;
Mart, where high wisdom at vast price is sold:
Gardener, whose touch bids the rose petals fall,
The thorns endure; surgeon, who human hearts
Searchest with probes, though the death would be given;
Spell that knits friends, but yearning lovers parts;
Tyrant relentless o'er our blisses all-

O, can it be thine other name is Heaven?

-THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.

THE FIRST VIRTUE

The first virtue, sone, if thou wilt lerne
Is to restraine and keepen well thy tongue.

Loke who that is most virtuous alway,
Prive and apart, and most intendeth ay
To do the gentil dedes that he can,
And take him for the gretest gentilman.
-GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

A FAREWELL

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.

-CHARLES KINGSLEY.

We

TRUE GREATNESS

e say our hearts are great, and cannot yield; Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor; Great hearts are tasked beyond their power but seld! weakest lion will the loudest roar.

Tru is school for certain does this same allow,
Hign-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow.
-LADY E. CAREW.

THE LITTLE CARES THAT FRETTED ME

The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday

Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds at play;
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees;
Among the singing of the birds,

The humming of the bees.

The foolish fears of what might happen-

I cast them all away

Among the clover-scented grass,

Among the new-mown hay;

A FLOWER GARDEN

Among the husking of the corn,

Where drowsy poppies nod,

Where ill thoughts die and good are born

Out in the fields with God.

273

-MRS. BROWNING.

THE DAY WELL SPENT

If

you sit down at set of sun

And count the deeds that you have done,

And, counting, find

One self-denying act, one word that eased the heart of him that heard;

One glance most kind, which felt like sunshine where it

went,

Then you may count that day well spent.

But if through all the live-long day
You've eased no heart by yea and nay,

If through it all you've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face,

No act most small that helped some soul and nothing cost, Then count that day as worse than lost.

-SELECTED.

WE ALWAYS MAY BE WHAT WE MIGHT

HAVE BEEN

Have we not all, amid life's petty strife,

Some pure ideal of a nobler life,

That once seemed possible?

We have, and yet

We lost it in the daily jar and fret,

And now live idle in a vain regret;

But still our place is kept, and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star is ever lost we once have seen;

We always may be what we might have been.

-ADELAIDE PROCTER.