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In all our leaf-hid Sybaris ;

The good old time, close-hidden here,
Persists a loyal cavalier,

While Roundheads prim, with point of fox,
Probe wainscot-chink and empty box;
Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast

Insults thy statues, royal Past;

Myself too prone the axe to wield,

I touch the silver side of the shield
With lance reversed, and challenge peace,
A willing convert of the trees.

How chanced it that so long I tost
A cable's length from this rich coast,
With foolish anchors hugging close
The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze,
Nor had the wit to wreck before
On this enchanted island's shore,
Whither the current of the sea,
With wiser drift, persuaded me?

Oh, might we but of such rare days
Build up the spirit's dwelling-place!
A temple of so Parian stone
Would brook a marble God alone,
The statue of a perfect life,

Far-shrined from earth's bestaining strife.
Alas! though such felicity

In our vext world here may not be,

Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut
Shows stones which old religion cut
With text inspired, or mystic sign
Of the Eternal and Divine,

Torn from the consecration deep
Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep,
So, from the ruins of this day
Crumbling in golden dust away,

The soul one gracious block may draw,
Carved from some fragment of the law,
Which, set in life's prosaic wall,
Old benedictions may recall,

And lure some nunlike thoughts to take
Their dwelling here for memory's sake.

The Beggar

A

BEGGAR through the world am I,—

From place to place I wander by.

Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,

For Christ's sweet sake and charity!

A little of thy steadfastness,

Rounded with leafy gracefulness.

Old oak, give me,—

That the world's blasts may round me blow,

And I yield gently to and fro,

While my stout-hearted trunk below

And firm-set roots unshaken be.

Some of thy stern, unyielding might,
Enduring still through day and night

Rude tempest-shock and withering blight,—
That I may keep at bay

The changeful April sky of chance

And the strong tide of circumstance,—
Give me, old granite gray,

Some of thy pensiveness serene,

Some of thy never-dying green,

Put in this scrip of mine,

That griefs may fall like snow-flakes light,
And deck me in a robe of white,
Ready to be an angel bright,-
O sweetly-mournful pine.

A little of thy merriment,
Of thy sparkling, light content,
Give me, my cheerful brook,—
That I may still be full of glee
And gladsomeness, where'er I be,
Though fickle fate hath prisoned me
In some neglected nook.

Ye have been very kind and good
To me, since I've been in the wood;
Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart;
But good-bye, kind friends, every one,

I've far to go ere set of sun;

Of all good things I would have part,
The day was high ere I could start,
And so my journey's scarce begun.

Heaven help me! how could I forget
To beg of thee, dear violet !
Some of thy modesty,

That blossoms here as well, unseen,
As if before the world thou'dst been,
O, give, to strengthen me.

The Simple Life

I

THOREAU

LEARNED this, at least by experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the licence of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will

not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Life in the Woods

I

WENT to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of a man here to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever. The

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