Courage is cowed at the portal: wisdom is widowed of utterance; COME, I will tell thee of a joy, which the parasites of pleasure have not known, Though earth and air and sea have gorged all the appetites of sense. That glorious burst of winged words!-how bound they from his tongue gument, The rush of native eloquence, resistless as Niagara, The keen demand, the clear reply, the fine poetic image, The nice analogy, the clenching fact, the metaphor bold and free, The grasp of concentrated intellect wielding the omnipotence of truth, Champion of the right,-patriot, or priest, or pleader of the innocen cause, Upon whose lips the mystic bee hath dropped the honey of persuasion, (21) Whose heart and tongue have been touched, as of old, by the live coal from the altar, How wide the spreading of thy peace, how deep the draught of thy pleasures! To hold the multitude as one, breathing in measured cadence, They breathe but in thy breath, their minds are passive unto thine, pose, And all, in sympathy with thee, tremble with tumultuous emotions. Verily, O man, with truth for thy theme, eloquence shall throne thee with archangels OF READING. ONE drachma for a good book, and a thousand talents for a true friend :So standeth the market where scarce is ever costly: Yea, were the diamonds of Golconda common as shingles on the shore, A ripe apple would ransom kings before a shining stone: And so, were a wholesome book as rare as an honest friend, To choose the book be mine: the friend let another take. For altered looks and jealousies and fears have none entrance there: To draw thee out of self, thy petty plans and cautions, To teach thee what thou lackest, to tell thee how largely thou art blest, To lure thy thought from sorrow, to feed thy famished mind, To graft another's wisdom on thee, pruning thine own folly, Choose discreetly, and well digest the volume most suited to thy case, Touching not religion with levity, nor deep things when thou art wearied Thy mind is freshened by morning air, grapple with science and philosophy; Noon hath unnerved thy thoughts, dream for a while on fictions; O books, ye monuments of mind, concrete wisdom of the wisest; • Trees yielding all fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, Groves of knowledge, where all may eat, nor fear a flaming sword; Gentle comrades, kind advisers; friends, comforts, treasures: Helps, governments, diversities of tongues; who can weigh your worth ?— To walk no longer with the just; to be driven from the porch of science; To bid long adieu to those intimate ones, poets, philosophers, and teachers; To see no record of the sympathies which bind thee in communion with the good; To be thrust from the feet of Him, who spake as never man spake ; To have no avenue to heaven but the dim aisle of superstition; To live as an Esquimaux, in lethargy; to die as the Mohawk, in ignorance: O what were life, but a blank? what were death, but a terror? What were man, but a burden to himself? what were mind, but misery? Yea, let another Omar burn the full library of knowledge, (22) And the broad world may perish in the flames, offered on the ashes of its wisdom! OF WRITING. THE pen of a ready writer, whereunto shall it be likened ? Ask of the scholar, he shall know,-to the chains that bind a Proteus. Ask of the poet, he shall say,—to the sun, the lamp of heaven ; Ask of thy neighbour, he can answer, to the friend that telleth my thought: The merchant considereth it well, as a ship freighted with wares; The divine holdeth it a miracle, giving utterance to the dumb. It fixeth, expoundeth, and disseminateth sentiment; Chaining up a thought, clearing it of mystery, and sending it bright into the world. To think rightly, is of knowledge; to speak fluently, is of nature; For to write is to speak beyond hearing, and none stand by to explain. And a written prayer is a prayer of faith; special, sure, and to bʊ answered. Hast thou a thought upon thy brain, catch it while thou canst; Dr other thoughts shall settle there, and this shall soon take wing: Thine uncompounded unity of soul, which argueth and maketh it immortal, Yieldeth up its momentary self to every single thought; Therefore, to husband thine ideas, and give them stability and substance, Write often for thy secret eye: so shalt thou grow wiser. The commonest mind is full of thoughts; some worthy of the rarest ; And could it see them fairly writ, would wonder at its wealth. |