Closer and closer then we knit
Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit
In the coldest weather:
O! they wander wide, who roam,
For the joys of life, from home.
Nearer, dearer bands of love
Draw our souls in union,
To our Father's house above,
To the saints' communion;
Thither every hope ascend,
There may all our labours end.
How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the worldly care
Of public fame or private breath ;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And, having nothing, yet hath all.
In short measures Life may perfect be.
Ir is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing like an oak three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear :
A lily of a day
Although it fall and die that night-
It was the plant and flower of Light!
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Education the duty of the State.
O FOR the coming of that glorious time
When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth
And best protection, this imperial Realm,
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation, on her part, to teach
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself by statute to secure
For all the children whom her soil maintains
The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind with moral and religious truth,
Both understood and practised,-
However destitute, be left to droop
By timely culture unsustain'd; or run
Into a wild disorder; or be forced
To drudge through a weary life without the help
Of intellectual implements and tools;
A savage horde among the civilized,
A servile band among the lordly free!
This sacred right, the lisping babe proclaims
To be inherent in him, by Heaven's will,
For the protection of his innocence;
And the rude boy-who, having overpast
The sinless age, by conscience is enroll'd,
Yet mutinously knits his angry brow,
And lifts his wilful hand on mischief bent,
Or turns the godlike faculty of speech
Declares his due, while he makes known his need.
This sacred right is fruitlessly announced,
This universal plea in vain address'd,
To eyes and ears of parents who themselves
Did, in the time of their necessity,
Urge it in vain; and, therefore, like a prayer
That from the humblest floor ascends to Heaven,
It mounts to reach the State's parental ear;
Who, if indeed she owns a mother's heart,
And be not most unfeelingly devoid
Of gratitude to Providence, will grant
The unquestionable good-which, England, safe
From interference of external force,
May grant at leisure; without risk incurr'd
That what in wisdom for herself she doth,
Others shall e'er be able to undo.
WHAT then is taste, but these internal powers
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deform'd or disarranged, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of Heaven,
Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,
His rude expression and untutor❜d airs,
Beyond the power of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely! how commanding! But though heaven
In every breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain,
Without fair culture's kind parental aid,
Without enlivening suns, and genial showers
And shelter from the blast-in vain we hope
The tender plant should rear its blooming head,
Or yield the harvest promised in its spring.
Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller's labour; or attend
His will, obsequious, whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Different minds
Incline to different objects: one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires
The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground;
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky
Amid the mighty uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad
From some high cliff superior, and enjoys
The elemental war. But Waller longs
All on the margin of some flowery stream
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resound soft-warbling all the livelong day :
Consenting zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves,
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn:
Such and so various are the tastes of men!
How to build up the Palace of the Mind.
THE Swallow's nest of mud beneath the eaves
Holds not the white swan's golden feather'd brood.
If thou would'st make thy thought, O man, the home
Where other minds may 'habit, build it large.
Make its vast roof translucent to the skies,
And let the upper glory dawn thereon,
Till morn and evening, circling round, shall drop
Their jewell'd plumes of sun-flame and of stars.
Build thou that home upon a mountain top,
Where all the free winds shall have space to blow.
Open its casements to the East and West,
To North and South, to Greece and Palestine.
Let all sweet flowers bloom in its green retreats;
Let every wild-bird find sweet welcome there;
And every thing that shares the breathing joy
Of universal air and earth, be free
Of thy well-ordered empire; and inlay
With precious gems, with diamond and white pearl,
And blood-red ruby and green emerald,
The sumptuous pavement till it shines afar
Like the Apocalyptic shrine, whose walls
Of massive light from Earth and Sun received
All varying lustres, and diffused their beams.
Fresco its inner walls with all that Art
E'er pictured of the Beautiful, but still
Let Nature freely come to see that Art
Hath rightly drawn her perfect loveliness.
Fill the grand halls with statues of old time.
Let Gods and Demi-Gods and Heroes range
With Goddesses and Graces. Let the Saints
And Seers and Sages, and the valiant throng
Of modern Heroes, and the ever young
And ever tuneful Poets of all climes,
And Hierophants of all religions, have
Their place among them, some in silver carved,
Some in the Parian marble, some in gold;
Each symbolizing that interior truth
Or outward use he lived, taught, acted, sung,
Or sought to live, or act, or sing, that men,
Tired by that pure ideal, might become
Gods, and the Earth a new-born Paradise.
Gather all books within its Libraries.
Bid Greece awake through all her words of fire,
And Athens wear her violet crown again,
And the seven cities plead for Homer dead.
Let Marathon and Salamis come forth,
Leuctra and Thermopyle, with all
The hosts who fling their free lives on the pile
Of patriotic virtue, or who cast
The gage of battle to unnumber'd foes,
And then redeem'd it, giving to the earth
Their dust, their lives to the great mother-land,
Their Spirits to the Hero-halls above.
Chant thou thy Epic, Homer; tell the tale
Of Troy to modern hearts of living men.
Bid India from her Sanscrit speak; let all
The Vedas wide unroll their parchment gates.
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