He that hath salved thee with his tongue shall now gnash upon

thee with his teeth,

Yea, he will be leader in the laugh,- silly one, to listen to thy loss, We scarce had hoped to lime and take another of the fools of flat

tery.

AT the last, have charity, young scholar, yea, to the sycophant convicted;

Be not a Brutus to thyself, nor stern in thine own cause.
Pardon exaggerated praise; for there is a natural impulse
Spurring on the nobler mind, to color facts by feelings:
Take an indulgent view of each man's interest in self,

Be large and liberal in excuses; is not that infirmity thine own?
Search thy soul and be humble; and mercy abideth with humility;
So that, yea, the insincere may find thee pitiful, and love thee.
Mildly put aside, without rudeness of repulse, the pampering hand
of Flattery,

For courtesy and kindness have gone beneath its guise, and ill shouldst thou rebuke them.

THOU art incapable of theft; but flowers in the garden of a friend Are thine to pluck with confidence, and it were unfriendliness to hesitate:

Thou abhorrest flattery; but a generous excess in praise

Is thine to yield with honest heart, and false were the charity to

doubt it:

The difference lieth in thine aim; kindliness and good are of charity, But selfish, harmful, vile, and bad, is flattery's evil end.

OF NEGLECT.

GENEROUS and righteous is thy grief, slighted child of sensibility; For kindliness enkindleth love, but the waters of indifference quench it;

Thy soul is athirst for sympathy, and hungereth to find affection, The tender scions of thy heart yearn for the sunshine of good feeling,

And it is an evil thing and bitter, when the cheerful face of Charity,
Going forth gayly in the morning to woo the world with smiles,
Is met by those wayfaring men with coldness, suspicion, and repulse,
And turneth into hard, dead stone at the Gorgon visage of Neglect.
O brother, warm and young, covetous of others' favor,

I see thee checked and chilled, sorrowing for censure or forgetful

ness;

Let coarse and common minds despise that wounding of thy vanity,

Alas! I note a sorer cause, the blighting of thy love;

Let the callous, sensual deride thee,- disappointed of thy praise,
Alas! thou hast a juster grief, defrauded of their kindness:
It is a theme for tears to feel the soft heart hardening,
The frozen breath of apathy sealing up the fountain of affection;
It is a pang keen only to the best, to be injured well-deserving,
And slumbering Neglect is injury, — could ye not watch one hour?
When God himself complained, it was that none regarded,

And indifference bowed to the rebuke, Thou gavest Me no kiss when
I came in.

MOREOVER, praise is good; honor is a treasure to be hoarded; A good man's praise foreshadoweth God's, and in His smile is heaven:

But men walk on in hardihood, steeling their sinfulness to censure, And where rebuke is ridiculed, the love of praise were an infirmity; The judge thou heedest not in fear, cannot have deep homage of thy hope,

And who then is the wise of this world, that will own he trembleth at his fellows?

Calm, careless, and insensible, he mocketh blame or calumny, Neither should his dignity be humbled to some pittance of their

praise:

The rather, let false pride affect to trample on the treasure Which evermore in secret strength unconquered Nature prizeth; Rather, shall he stifle now the rising bliss of triumph,

Lest after, in the world's Neglect, he must acknowledge bitterness.

FOR, lo! that world is wide, a huge and crowded continent,
Its brazen sun is mammon, and its iron soil is care,

A world full of men, where each man clingeth to his idol;

A world full of men, where each man cherisheth his sorrow;

A world full of men, multitude shoaling upon multitude,

A surging sea, where every wave is burdened with an argosy of self, A boundless beach, where every stone is a separate microscopic

world,

A forest of innumerable trees, where every root is independent.

WHAT, then, is the marvel or the shame, if units be lost among the million?

Canst thou reasonably murmur, if a leaf drop off unnoticed? Wondrous in architecture, intricate and beautiful, delicately tinged and scented,

Exquisite of feeling and mysterious in life, none cared for its growth, or its decay:

None? yea, ble

-no one of its fellows, -nor cedar, palm, nor bram

None? its twin-born brother scarcely missed it from the spray :
None?-if none indeed, then man's neglect were bitterness;
And life a land without a sun, a globe without a God!
Yea, flowers in the desert, there be that love your beauty,
Yea, jewels in the sea, there be that prize your brightness;
Children of unmerited oblivion, there be that watch and woo you,
And many tend your sweets, with gentle, ministering care:
Thronging spirits of the happy, and the ever-present Good One
Yearning seek those precious things man hath not heart to love,
Gems of the humblest or the highest, pure and patient in their
kind,

The souls unhardened by ill-usage, and uncorrupt by luxury.

AND ye, poor desolates unsunned, toilers in the dark, damp mine,
Wearied daughters of oppression, crushed beneath the car of avarice,
There be that count your tears, He hath numbered the hairs of
thy head,-

There be that can forgive your ill with kind, considerate pity:
Count ye this for comfort, Justice hath her balances,

And yet another world can compensate for all :

The daily martyrdom of patience shall not be wanting of reward; Duty is a prickly shrub, but its flower will be happiness and glory.

YE, too, the friendless, yet dependent, that find nor home nor lover,
Sad, imprisoned hearts, captive to the net of circumstance,
And ye, too harshly judged, noble, unappreciated intellects

Who, capable of highest, lowlier fix your just ambition in con

tent,

And chiefest, ye, famished infants of the poor, toiling for your parents' bread,

Tired, and sore, and uncomforted the while, for want of love and learning,

Who struggle with the pitiless machine in dull, continuous conflict, Tasked by iron men, who care for nothing but your labor,

Be ye long-suffering and courageous; abide the will of Heaven; God is on your side; all things are tenderly remembered:

His servants here shall help you; and where those fail you through Neglect,

His kingdom still hath time and space for ample, discriminative Justice:

Yea, though utterly on this bad earth ye lose both right and mercy, The tears that we forgat to note our God shall wipe away.

NEVERTHELESS, kind spirit, susceptible and guileless, —
Meek, uncherished dove, in a carrion flock of fowls,

Sensitive mimosa, shrinking from the winds that help to root the fir,
Fragile nautilus, shipwrecked in the gale whereat the conch is glad,
Thy sharp, peculiar grief is uncomforted by hope of compensation,
For it is a delicate and spiritual wound, which the probe of pity
bruiseth;

Yet hear how many thoughts extenuate its pain;

Even while a kindred heart can sorrow for its presence.
For the sting of neglect is in this,

get us,

that such as we are, all for

That men and women, kith and kin, so lightly heed of other: Sympathy is lacking from the guilty such as we, even where angels

minister,

And souls of fine accord must prize a fellow-sinner's love;

For the worst love those who love them, and the best claim heart

for heart,

And it is a holy thirst to long for love's requital:

Hard it will be, hard and sad, to love and be unloved,

And many a thorn is thrust into the side of him that is forgotten.
The oppressive silence of reserve, the frost of failing friendship,
Affection blighted by repulse, or chilled by shallow courtesy,
The unaided struggle, the unconsidered grief, the unesteemed self-
sacrifice,

The gift, dear evidence of kindness, long due, but never offered, The glance estranged, the letter flung aside, the greeting ill received,

The services of unobtrusive care unthanked, perchance unheeded,· These things, which hard men mock at, rend the feelings of the

tender,

For the delicate tissue of a spiritual mind is torn by those sharp

barbs;

The coldness of a trusted friend, a plenitude ending in vacuity,

Is as if the stable world had burst a hollow bubble.

BUT, consider, child of sensibility; the lot of men is labor,

Labor for the mouth, or labor in the spirit, labor stern and indi

vidual.

Worldly cares and worldly hopes exact the thoughts of all,

And there is a necessary selfishness rooted in each mortal breast. The plans of prudence, or the whisperings of pride, or all-absorbing reveries of love,

Ambition, grief, or fear, or joy, set each man for himself:

Therefore the centre of a cycle, whereunto all the universe convergeth,

Is seen in fallen solitude, the naked, selfish heart:

Stripped of conventional deceptions, untrammelled from the har

ness of society,

We all may read one little word engraved on all we do;
Other men, what are they unto us? the age,

the mass,

the mil

We segregate, distinct from generalities, that isolated particle, a

self:

It is the very law of our life, a law for soul and body,

An earthly law for earthly men, toiling in responsible probation; For each is the all unto himself, disguise it as we may,

Each infinite, each most precious; yet even as a nothing to his neighbor.

O, consider, we be crowding up an avenue, trapped in the decoy of time,

Behind us the irrevocable past, before us the illimitable future;
What wonder is there, if the traveller, wayworn, hopeful, fearful,
Burdened himself, so lightly heed the burden of his brother?
How shouldst thou marvel and be sad that the pilgrims trouble not
to learn thee,