Press on! press on! proud of your high estate,— Leave drones and upstarts to their sorry fate.

But ere we bring this rustic sketch to end,
The scholar's task our muse may well attend;
For he who delves for knowledge, digs for gold,
And all gold-diggers bear the lab'rer's mould.
The student, then, deny it he who can,
Is well and truly styled a lab'ring man;-
A worker of the soil-why is he not,
Since daily cultivation is his lot?

Wrought not by muscle, like the toiling swain,
But that far nobler labor-of the brain,
Without whose aid the muscles toil in vain.
His fields are boundless, he must needs explore,
So be he reaps, or delves for precious ore,
In all the various regions that present
Fair promise to the eye on gain intent;
Nor will he fail a harvest to enjoy,

Who thus his time and talents doth employ.
But this plain fact e'er let him bear in mind,
The seeds he sows will yield their fruit in kind,
And happy he who thus himself prepares
To gather naught but grain, unmixed with tares.
The student, too, may justly claim to be
A good mechanic, all will sure agree.
Is't not his wont, by true ambition fired,
To fashion well the implements required
In life's fierce battles, when, his school-days past,
He enters boldly on life's stage at last?
And then, again, as doubtless you're aware,
He's famed for-building castles in the air!
An undertaking which he would not start
Were he not trained in the mechanic art.
Thus have we shown how it doth come to pass
That students form an active working class.

Now, of the ladies may I say a word?

Of those, I mean, of whom we've sometimes heard,
Who vainly boast, would you believe? oh, fie!
They never made a bed nor baked a pie!
Nor boiled a pot, nor made a batch of bread,
Nor swept a room, nor combed a baby's head!
My goodness! Can it be that such there are?
Are any such in market? Oh, beware!
Young men love playthings, but not such as these
To keep; be sure of this, they're hard to please,
When in good earnest to select a wife-

A partner, helpmeet, counsellor for life.

Thus may we see, through all life's varied scenes,
That work brings wealth and wealth supplies the means
To make life easy and secure content

In what alone concerns a life well spent.

CHAPTER II.

LIFE.

O LIFE! what mystery thy birth enshrouds!
For ages past hath man in vain essayed
This mystery to solve-thy origin to learn.

O Soul! my Soul! speak out and tell me clear,
Whence came thou here? whence thy deep yearning for
Immortal life? Methinks I hear thee say,

"Be still and trust. In God we live, and move,

And have our being; more we cannot know."
Ah, true! but this great truth, full well I know,
Thy restless spirit ne'er will satisfy.

In One all-ruling Power we must, we do
Believe. No revelation, save what all

May read in Nature's open book, need we
To prove that this is so. When we recall
The countless wonders of the Universe,
From merest atom to the glorious sun,
And stars, and planets, in their order, all
In perfect harmony upborne,-and earth,

So fraught with beauty, grandeur, light, and life,-
All, all proclaim One over-ruling Hand.

But this, does this assurance give that we,
The vale of death once passed, shall live again?
That in a higher, purer sphere, our souls
Shall mingle in communion sweet, and know,
As we, in this life present, one another know?
Momentous questions these, that ever rise

And constant audience seek. "T is true, the words
Of revelation come belief to claim-

All doubt dispel; yet few, methinks, are there

Who do not crave more light. Whence shall this come?
Whither to end all doubt, seek we for proof?

Not, surely, in the grovelling passions of
The carnal heart, that drag to lowest depths
And darkness dire; but upward, upward, where
The mental vision scope may take afar,
Without obstruction from the earth below.
We can ascend. United by the bonds.
Of love, and taking for our guide the rule-
The Golden Rule that never leads astray-
Our souls may rise to regions clear, so full
Of heavenly light that 'twixt eternal life
And this, no barrier appears.

CHAPTER III.

POETRY AN INSPIRATION: MR. STODDARD'S RATHER STARTLING ASSERTION TO THE CONTRARY.

WHOEVER has read Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of the World" will doubtless have observed that, in his introduction to it, Richard Henry Stoddard makes the rather startling assertion that what has heretofore been generally received as an admitted fact, that real poetry is an inspiration, is, after all, in his estimation, only “a delusion which was fostered by immature rhymesters to palliate their shortcomings and impart dignity to their trivialities." This would appear to be taking direct issue with the author of the oft-repeated epigram that "poets are born, not made," and he adds that poetry "is now as universally recog nized to be an art as painting, sculpture, or music, and the rules to which it conforms have been gathered from the practice of the masters and formulated into a system of critical laws, which not to know is to know nothing of poetry." Undoubtedly, what passes for good poetry, so far as sense and rhythm are concerned, may be composed without any special inspiration, but I am inclined to believe that in order to the production of the most perfect spirituelle character of poetry, the author himself must be inspired above any help from art or "system of critical laws," just, for instance, as a mere mechanical performer on a musical instrument, with little or no ear for harmony of sound, may touch every note correctly without the ability to thrill the listener like an Ole Bull or a Bischoff. Says Cicero, "Nascimur poetæ, fimus oratores." We are born poets; by education we may become orators.

Let us hear also what the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" says of his experience:

"A lyric conception hits like a bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine; then a gasp and a great jump of the heart; then a sudden flush, and a beating of the vessels of the head; then a long sigh, and the poem is written. . . . I said written, but did not say copied. Every such poem has a soul and a body, and it is the body of it, or the copy, that men read and publishers pay for. The soul of it is born in an instant in the poet's soul. It comes to him a thought tangled in the meshes of a few sweet words-words that have loved each other from the cradle of the language, but have never been wedded until now. . . . No wonder the ancients made the poetical impulse wholly external-goddess, muse, divine afflatus, something outside always. I never wrote any verses worth reading. I can't. I am too stupid. If ever I copied any that were worth reading, I was only a medium."

Undoubtedly the art of poetry may be acquired, but without that inspiration which comes to the aid of every true poet, what is produced is little, if any, better than rhymed prose. Emerson calls it "that dream power which every night shows thee is thy own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity."

As an appropriate conclusion to these hasty comments let us turn to Sir Edwin Arnold's proem preceding his beautiful poem:

"The Sovereign Voice spoke once more in my ear:
'Write, now, a song unstained by any tear!'

'What shall I write?' I said. The Voice replied,

'Write what We tell thee of the Crucified!'

'How shall I write,' I said, 'who am not meet

One word of that sweet speaking to repeat?'

'It shall be given unto thee! Do this thing!'
Answered the Voice: 'Wash thy lips clean and sing!'"

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 10, 1891.