Sowed it far and wide

By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower."

Read my little fable:

He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people

Call it but a weed.

Alfred Tennyson (1809—1892)

STANZAS

OFTEN rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things that cannot be:

To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,

Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,

And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:

Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding; Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side. What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?

More glory and more grief than I can tell:

The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling Can center both the worlds of Heaven and Hell. Emily Bronte [1818-1848]

Lesson of the Water-Mill 2797

ESSON OF THE WATER-MILL

ISTEN to the Water-Mill; hrough the live-long day ow the clicking of its wheel Wears the hours away! anguidly the Autumn wind tirs the forest leaves,

rom the field the reapers sing,
inding up their sheaves;

And a proverb haunts my mind
As a spell is cast,

The mill cannot grind

With the water that is past."

Autumn winds revive no more
Leaves that once are shed,

And the sickle cannot reap
Corn once gathered;

Flows the ruffled streamlet on,

Tranquil, deep, and still,

Never gliding back again

To the water-mill;

Truly speaks the proverb old,

With a meaning vast,—

"The mill cannot grind

With the water that is past."

Take the lesson to thyself

True and loving heart;

Golden youth is fleeting by,

Summer hours depart;

Learn to make the most of life,

Lose no happy day,

Time will never bring thee back

Chances swept away!

Leave no tender word unsaid,

Love while love shall last;
"The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past."

Work while yet the daylight shines,

Man of strength and will!

Never does the streamlet glide

Useless by the mill;

Wait not till to-morrow's sun

Beams upon thy way,

All that thou canst call thine own

Lies in thy "to-day";

Power and intellect and health

May not always last,

"The mill cannot grind

With the water that is past."

O the wasted hours of life

That have drifted by!

O the good that might have been,

Lost, without a sigh!

Love, that we might once have saved

By a single word,

Thoughts conceived, but never penned,

Perishing unheard;—

Take the proverb to thine heart,

Take, and hold it fast,

"The mill cannot grind

With the water that is past."

Sarah Doudney [1843–

LIFE

I MADE a posy, while the day ran by:

Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie

My life within this band.

But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,

And withered in my

My hand was next to them, and then my heart;

I took, without more thinking, in good part

hand.

Time's gentle admonition;

To-day

so sweetly Death's sad taste convey, hy mind to smell my fatal day,

2799

Yet sugaring the suspicion.

dear flowers! sweetly your time ye spent, ye lived, for smell or ornament,

And after death for cures.

traight, without complaints or grief;

my scent be good, I care not if

It be as short as yours.

George Herbert [1593–1633]

BE TRUE

THOU must be true thyself,

If thou the truth wouldst teach;
Thy soul must overflow, if thou
Another's soul wouldst reach!
It needs the overflow of heart
To give the lips full speech.

Think truly, and thy thoughts

Shall the world's famine feed; Speak truly, and each word of thine

Shall be a fruitful seed;

Live truly, and thy life shall be

A great and noble creed.

Horatius Bonar [1808-1889]

TO-DAY

WHY fear to-morrow, timid heart?
Why tread the future's way?

We only need to do our part
To-day, dear child, to-day.

The past is written! Close the book

On pages sad and gay;

Within the future do not look,

But live to-day-to-day.

'Tis this one hour that God has given; His Now we must obey;

And it will make our earth his heaven

To live to-day-to-day.

Lydia Avery Coonley Ward [1845

THE VALLEY OF VAIN VERSES

THE grief that is but feigning,
And weeps melodious tears
Of delicate complaining
From self-indulgent years;
The mirth that is but madness,
And has no inward gladness
Beneath its laughter, straining
To capture thoughtless ears;

The love that is but passion
Of amber-scented lust;

The doubt that is but fashion;
The faith that has no trust;-
These Thamyris disperses,
In the Valley of Vain Verses
Below the Mount Parnassian,
And they crumble into dust.

Henry Van Dyke (1852

A THANKSGIVING

LORD, for the erring thought
Not unto evil wrought;
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still;
For the heart from itself kept:
Our Thanksgiving accept!

For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer;
For pain, death, sorrow sent
Unto our chastisement;

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