Who knoweth? more distinctly titled, those eight dead had lived; But the censers were ranged in a circle, to mingle their sweets without a difference.
ART thou named of a common crowd, and sensible of high aspirings?
It is hard for thee to rise-yet strive: thou mayst be among them a
Musæus.*
Art thou named of a family, the same in successive generations?
It is open for thee still to earn for epithets, such a one, the good or great.
Art thou named foolishly? show that thou art wiser than thy fathers,
Live to shame their vanity or sin by dutiful devotion to thy sphere.
Art thou named discreetly? it is well, the course is free;
No competitor shall claim thy colours, neither fix his faults upon thee:
Hasten to the goal of fame between the posts of duty,
And win a blessing from the world, that men may love thy name;
Yea, that the unction of its praise, in fragrance well deserving,
May float adown the stream of time, like ambergris at sea;
So thy sons may tell their sons, and those may teach their children,
He died in goodness, as he lived; and left us his good name.
And more than these: there is a roll whereon thy name is written;
See that, on the Book of Doom, that name is fixed in light:
Then, safe within a better home, where time and its titles are not found,
God will give thee his new Name, and write it on thy heart:
A Name, better than of sons, a Name dearer than of daughters,
A Name of union, peace, and praise, as numbered in thy God.
ABSTRACTED from all substance, and flying with the feathered flock of thoughts,
The idea of a thing hath the nature of its Soul, a separate seeming essence; Intimately linked to the idea, suggesting many qualities,
The name of a thing hath the nature of its Mind, an intellectual recorder:
* Musæus is Virgil's tall prophet in the Elysian fields, mentioned Æn. vi. 667:
"Museum ante omnes; medium nam plurima turba
Hunc habet, atque humeris extantem suspicit altis."
And the matter of a thing, concrete, is a Body to the perfect creature,
Compacted three in one, as all things else within the Universe.
Nothing canst thou add to them, and nothing take away, for all have these
The thought, the word, the form, combining in the Thing: [proportions,
All separate, yet harmonizing well, and mingled each with other,
One whole in several parts, yet each part spreading to a whole :
The idea is a whole, and the meaning phrase that spake idea, a whole,
And the matter, as ye see it, is a whole; the mystery of true tri-unity :
Yea, there is even a deeper mystery-which none, I wot, can fathom,
Matter, different from properties whereby the solid substance is described.
For, size and weight, cohesion and the like, live distinct from matter,
Yet who can image matter, unendowed with size and weight?
As in the spiritual, so in the material, man must rest with patience,
And wait for other eyes wherewith to read the books of God.
MEN have talked learnedly of atoms, as if matter could be ever indivisible;
They talk, but ill are skilled to teach, and darken truth by fancies:
An atom by our grosser sense was never yet conceived,
And nothing can be thought so small, as not to be divided:
For an atom runneth to infinity, and never shall be caught in space, And a molecule is no more indivisible than Saturn's belted orb. Things intangible, multiplied by multitudes, never will amass to substance, Neither can a thing which may be touched, be made of impalpable proportions; [nothings,
The sum of indivisibles must needs be indivisible, as adding many And the building up of atoms into matter is but a silly sophism; Lucretius, and keen Anaximander, and many that have followed in their
(For error, hath a long, black shadow, dimming light for ages,) In the foolishness of men without a God fancied to fashion Matter Of intangibles, and therefore uncohering, indivisibles, and therefore Spirit.
THINGS breed thoughts; therefore, at Thebes and Heliopolis,
In hieroglyphic sculptures are the priestly secrets written;
Things breed thoughts; therefore, was the Athens of idolatry
Set with carved images, frequent as the trees of Academus;
Things breed thoughts; therefore, the Brahmin and the Burman.
With mythologic shapes adorn their coarse pantheon;
Things breed thoughts; therefore, the statue and the picture,
Relics, rosaries, and miracles in act, quicken the Papist in his worship;
Things breed thoughts; therefore, the lovers, at their parting,
Interchange with tearful smiles the dear reminding tokens;
Things breed thoughts; therefore, when the clansman met his foe,
The blood-stained claymore in his hand revived the memories of vengeance.
THINGS teach with double force; through the animal eye, and through the mind, [hour. And the eye catcheth in an instant what the ear shall not learn within an Thence is the potency of travel, the precious might of its advantages To compensate its dissipative harm, its toil, and cost, and danger. Ulysses, wandering to many shores, lived in many cities,
And thereby learnt the minds of men, and stored his own more richly:
Herodotus, the accurate and kindly, spake of that he saw,
And reaped his knowledge on the spot, in fertile fields of Egypt:
Lycurgus culled from every clime the golden fruits of justice;
And Plato roamed thro' foreign lands, to feed on truth in all. [mind;
For travel, conversant with Things, bringeth them in contact with the
We breathe the wholesome atmosphere about ungarbled truth:
Pictures of fact are painted on the eye, to decorate the house of intellect,
Rather than visions of fancy, filling all the chambers with a vapour.
For, in ideas, the great mind will exaggerate, and the lesser extenuate
truth:
But in Things the one is chastened, and the other quickened to equality;
And in Names-tho' a property be told, rather than an arbitrary accident,
Still shall the thought be vague or false, if none hath seen the Thing;
For in Things the property with accident standeth in a mass concrete;
These cannot cheat the sense, nor elude the vigilance of spirit.
Travel is a ceaseless fount of surface education,
But its wisdom will be simply superficial, if thou add not thoughts to things:
Yet, aided by the varnish of society, things may serve for thoughts,
Till many dullards that have seen the world shall pass for scholars:
Because one single glance will conquer all descriptions,
Tho' graphic, these left some unsaid; tho' true, these tended to some error,
And the most witless eye that saw, had a juster notion of its object,
Than the shrewdest mind that heard and shaped its gathered thoughts of
CONFIDENCE was bearer of the palm; for it looked like conviction of desert:
And where the strong is well assured, the weaker soon allow it.
Majesty and beauty are commingled, in moving with immutable decision,
And well may charm the coward hearts that turn and hide for fear.
Faith, firmness, confidence, consistency-these are well allied;
Yea, let a man press on in aught, he shall not lack of honour:
For such a one seemeth as superior to the native instability of creatures;
That he doeth, he doeth as a god, and men will marvel at his courage.
Even in crimes, a partial praise cannot be denied to daring,
And many fearless chiefs have won the friendship of a foe.
CONFIDENCE is conqueror of men; victorious both over them and in them;
The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail:
A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle,
And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled:
The tenderest child, unconscious of a fear, will shame the man to danger,
And when he dared it, danger died, and faith had vanquished fear.
Boldness is akin to power: yea, because ignorance is weakness,
Knowledge with unshrinking might will nerve the vigorous hand:
Boldness hath a startling strength; the mouse may fright a lion,
And often-times the horned herd is scared by some brave cur.
Courage hath analogy with faith, for it standeth both in animal and moral;
The true is mindful of a God, the false is stout in self:
But true or false, the twain are faith; and faith worketh wonders:
Never was a marvel done upon the earth, but it had sprung of faith;
Nothing noble, generous, or great, but faith was the root of the achieve-
Nothing comely, nothing famous, but its praise is faith,
Leonidas fought in human faith, as Joshua in divine:
Xenophon trusted to his skill, and the sons of Mattathias to their cause:*
In faith Columbus found a path across those untried waters:
The heroines of Arc and Saragossa fought in earthly faith:
"Sons of Mattathias," &c.] John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, who liberated Israel from the domination of the Greeks, about B. C. 160, and who were known by the general name of the Maccabees, from the initial Hebrew letters of the first four words from Ex. xv. 11, being inscribed on their standard.
Tell was strong, and Alfred great, and Luther wise, by faith: [people:
Margaret by faith was valiant for her son, and Wallace mighty for his
Faith in his reason made Socrates sublime, as faith in his science Gallileo:
Ambassadors in faith are bold, and unreproved for boldness;
Faith urged Fabius to delays, and sent forth Hannibal to Cannæ;
Cæsar at the Rubicon, Miltiades at Marathon; both were sped by faith.
I set not all in equal spheres: I number not the martyr with the patriot;
I class not the hero with his horse, because the twain have courage;
But only for ensample and instruction, that all things stand by faith;
Albeit faith of divers kinds, and varying in degrees.
There is a faith towards men, and there is a faith towards God; [metal:
The latter is the gold and the former is the brass; but both are sturdy
And the brass mingled with the gold floweth into rich Corinthian;
A substance bright, and hard, and keen, to point Achilles' spear:
So shalt thou stop the way against the foes that hem thee;
Trust in God, to strengthen man-be bold, for He doth help.
YET more: for confidence in man, even to the worst and meanest,
Hath power to overcome his ill, by charitable good.
Fling thine unreserving trust even on the conscience of a culprit,
Soon wilt thou shame him by thy faith, and he will melt and mend:
The nest of thieves will harm thee not, if thou dost bear thee boldly;
Boldly, yea, and kindly, as relying on their honour:
For the hand so stout against aggression, is quite disarmed by charity;
And that warm sun will thaw the heart case-hardened by long frost.
Treat men gently, trust them strongly, if thou wish their weal;
Or cautious doubts and bitter thoughts will tempt the best to foil thee.
Believe the well in sanguine hope, and thou shalt reap the better;
But if thou deal with men so ill, thy dealings make them worse.
Despair not of some gleams of good still lingering in the darkest,
And among veterans in crime, plead thou as with their children:
So, astonished at humanities, the bad heart long estranged,
Shall even weep to feel himself so little worth thy love;
In wholesome sorrow will be bless thee; yea, and in that spirit may repent;
Thus wilt thou gain a soul, in mercy given to thy faith.
Look aside to lack of faith, the mass of ills it bringeth;
All things treacherous, base, and vile, dissolving the brotherhood of men. Bonds break; the cement hath lost its hold; and each is separate from
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