Every wayfarer he meets

What himself declared repeats,
What himself confessed records,
Sentences him in his words;

The form is his own corporal form,
And his own thought the penal worm.

Yet shine forever virgin minds,
Loved by stars and purest winds,
Which, o'er passion throned sedate,
Have not hazarded their state;
Disconcert the searching spy,

Rendering to a curious eye
The durance of a granite ledge

To those who gaze from the sea's edge.
It is there for benefit;

It is there for purging light;
There for purifying storms;
And its depths reflect all forms;
It cannot parley with the mean, -
Pure by impure is not seen.
For there's no sequestered grot,
Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot,
But Justice, journeying in the sphere,
Daily stoops to harbor there.

ETIENNE DE LA BOECE.

I SERVE you not, if you I follow,
Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow;
And bend my fancy to your leading,
All too nimble for my treading.
When the pilgrimage is done,
And we've the landscape overrun,
I am bitter, vacant, thwarted,
And your heart is unsupported.
Vainly valiant, you have missed
The manhood that should yours resist,
Its complement; but if I could,
In severe or cordial mood,

Lead you rightly to my altar,

Where the wisest Muses falter,

And worship that world-warming spark Which dazzles me in midnight dark,

Equalizing small and large,

While the soul it doth surcharge,
That the poor is wealthy grown,
And the hermit never alone,

The traveller and the road seem one
With the errand to be done,

That were a man's and lover's part,
That were Freedom's whitest chart.

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!

LETTERS.

EVERY day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.

SURSUM CORDA.

SEEK not the spirit, if it hide

Inexorable to thy zeal:

Trembler, do not whine and chide :

Art thou not also real?

Why shouldst thou stoop to poor excuse?
Turn on the accuser roundly; say,

'Here am I, here will I abide

Forever to myself soothfast;

Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay! Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,

For only it can absolutely deal.