XVI

LIFE LESSONS

Life

LIVES of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;-

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGfellow.

From the "Psalm of Life."

Life

In a Child's Album

Lessons Small service is true service while it lasts;

Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not

one;

The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dew-drop from the sun.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

The Noble Nature

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk doth make Man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night,—
It was the plant and flower of Light:
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON.

Forbearance

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse?
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?
And loved so well a high behavior,

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Life Lessons

Life

The Chambered Nautilus

Lessons This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their
streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unrest-
ing sea!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Life Lessons

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."

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.