I say not, compromise the right, I would not have thee countenance the wrong, But hear with charitable heart the reasons of an honest judgment; WHILES a man liveth he may mend: count not thy brother reprobate; And an ill move bringeth loss, and a pawn may insure victory. Neither shalt thou easily unlearn it, though charity ply thee with her preaching; Yet look thou well for reasons, or ever mistrust hath marred thee, Or fear curdled thy blood, or jealousy goaded thee to madness: For a look, or a word, or an act, may be taken well or ill, As construed by the latitude of love, or the closeness of cold suspicion. BETTER is the wrong with sincerity, rather than the right with falsehood: But himself is chief among the fools, if he look for admiration from them. Its necessary difference of error is the character it most esteemeth: The tost sand darkeneth the waves; and clear had been the pages of truth. In all things consider thine own ignorance, and gladly take occasion to be taught; But suffer not excess of liberality to neutralize thy mental independence. The faults and follies of most men make their deaths a gain; But thou also art a man, full of faults and follies; Therefore sorrow for the dead, or none shall weep for thee, For the measure of charity thou dealest, shall be poured into thine own bosom. That which vexeth thee now, provoking thee to hate thy brother, Thou canst not shape another's mind to suit thine own body, God will not love thee less because men love thee more OF SORROW. I SAID, I will seek out sorrow, and minister the balm of pity: So I turned to the cabin of the poor, where famine dwelt with disease; labour. So I stopped, and mused within myself, to remember where sorrow dwelt, I went to the prison, but penitence was there, and promise of better times; His infancy wanted not guilt; his life was continued evil: He drew in pride with his mother's milk, and a father's lips taught him cursing. I marked him as the wayward boy; I traced the dissolute youth: I saw him betray the innocent, and sacrifice affection to his lust. I saw him the companion of knaves, and a squanderer of ill-got gain, I heard him curse his own misery, while he hugged the chains that gall ed him : For well had experience declared the bitterness of guilty pleasure, But habit, with its iron net, involved him in its folds. Behind him lowered the thunder-storm, which the caldron of his wicked ness had brewed; Before him was the smooth steep cliff, whose base is ruin and despair. So he madly rushed on, and tried to forget his being : The noisy revel and the low debauch, and fierce excitement of play, istence: Memory was to him as a foe, so he flew for false solace to the wine-cup, And stunned his enemy at even, but she rent him as a giant in the morning. I TURNED aside to weep; 1 lost him a little while: I looked, and years had past: he was hoar with the winter of his age. And I said, this is sorrow; but pity cannot reach it. This is to be wretched indeed, to be guilty without repentance. OF JOY. My soul was sickened within me, so I sought the dwelling-place of Joy : And I met it not in laughter; I found it not in wealth or power; But I saw it in the pleasant home, where religion smiled upon content, His thoughts are of calm delight, and none can know his blessedness: death, Yet never have I noted on his brow the cloud of desponding sorrow. He hath knelt beside his cradle; his mother's hymn lulled him to sleep: In childhood he hath loved holiness, and drank from that fountain-head of peace. Wisdom took him for her scholar, guiding his steps in purity: He lived unpolluted by the world; and his young heart hated sin. But he owned not the spurious religion engendered of faction and mo roseness, Neither were the sproutings of his soul seared by the brand of super stition. His love is pure and single, sincere, and knoweth not change: For his manhood hath been blest with the pleasant choice of his youth: Behold his one beloved, she leaneth on his arm, And he looketh on the years that are past, to review the dawn of her affection. Memory is sweet unto him as a perfect landscape to the sight; Each object is lovely in itself, but the whole is the harmony of nature. |