Toppling in fragments meaningless. What is-
What will be—must be-pooh ! they wait the key
Of that which is not yet ; all other keys
Are made of our conjectures, take their sense
From humours fooled by hope, or by despair.
Know what is good ? O God, we know not yet
If bliss itself is not young misery
With fangs swift growing.

-0

Life's a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Panting in unchanged strength though waves are

changing

Truth, to us, is like a living child Born of two parents : if the parents part And will divide the child, how shall it live? Or, I will rather say : Two angels guide The path of man, both aged and yet young, As angels are, ripening through endless years. On one he leans : some call her Memory, And some, Tradition ; and her voice is sweet, With deep mysterious accords : the other, Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams A light divine and searching on the earth, Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew

Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
But for Tradition ; we walk evermore

l To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp.

Storms will lay The fairest trees and leave the withered stumps.

Thought
Has joys apart, even in blackest woe,
And seizing some fine thread of verity
Knows momentary godhead.

-0--

Prediction is contingent, of effects
Where causes and concomitants are mixed
To seeming wealth of possibilities
Beyond our reckoning. Who will pretend
To tell the adventures of each single fish
Within the Syrian Sea ? Show me a fish,
I'll weigh him, tell his kind, what he devoured,
What would have devoured him—but for one Blas
Who netted him instead ; nay, could I tell
That had Blas missed him, he would not have died
Of poisonous mud, and so made carrion,
Swept off at last by some sea-scavenger ?

Wise books For half the truths they hold are honoured tombs.

Man thinks Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his : Can we divine their world ?—the hidden life That mirrors us as hideous shapeless power, Cruel supremacy of sharp-edged death, Or fate that leaves a bleeding mother robbed ? Oh, they have long tradition and swift speech, Can tell with touches and sharp darting cries Whole histories of timid races taught To breathe in terror by red-handed man.

My lord, I will be frank; there's no such thing
As naked manhood. If the stars look down
On any mortal of our shape, whose strength
Is to judge all things without preference,
He is a monster, not a faithful man.
While my heart beats, it shall wear livery.

a

-O

Nay, they are virtues for you warriors-
Hawking and hunting! You are merciful
When you leave killing men to kill the brutes.

But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose
To know the mind that stirs between the wings
Of bees and building wasps, or fills the woods
With myriad murmurs of responsive sense
And true-aimed impulse, rather than to know
The thoughts of warriors.

-0

If conscience has two courts With differing verdicts, where shall lie the appeal ? Our law must be without us or within. The Highest speaks through all our people's voice, Custom, tradition, and old sanctities; Or he reveals himself by new decrees Of inward certitude.

Though Death were king, And Cruelty his right-hand minister, Pity insurgent in some human breasts Makes spiritual empire, reigns supreme As persecuted faith in faithful hearts. Your small physician, weighing ninety pounds, A petty morsel for a healthy shark, Will worship mercy throned within his soul Though all the luminous angels of the stars Burst into cruel chorus on his ear,

Singing, 'We know no mercy.' He would cry-
'I know it,' still, and soothe the frightened bird
And feed the child a-hungered, walk abreast
Of persecuted men, and keep most hate
For rational torturers. There I stand firm.

I read a record deeper than the skin.
What! Shall the trick of nostrils and of lips
Descend through generations, and the soul
That moves within our frame like God in worlds-
Convulsing, urging, melting, withering--
Imprint no record, leave no documents,
Of her great history ? Shall men bequeath
The fancies of their palate to their sons,
And shall the shudder of restraining awe,
The slow-wept tears of contrite memory,
Faith's prayerful labour, and the food divine
Of fasts ecstatic/shall these pass away
Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly ?
Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain,
And god-enshrining symbols leave no trace
Of tremors reverent ?- The Prior.

-0

The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd ;
They walk by averaged precepts : sovereign men,
Seeing by God's light, see the general