For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station, Are most select and generous, chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee.

Wm. Shakspeare, England, 1564-1616.

61. A Sunset.

I saw a glory in the ethereal deep;

A glory such as from the higher heavens Must have descended. Earth does never keep

In its embrace such beauty. Clouds were driven, As by God's breath, into unearthly forms,

And then did glow, and burn with living flames, And hues so bright, so wonderful and rare,

That human language cannot give them names; And light and shadow strangely linked their arms In loveliness; and all continual were

In change; and with each change came new charms.
Nor orient pearls, nor flowers in glittering dew,
Nor golden tinctures, nor the insect's wings,
Nor purple splendors for imperial view,
Nor all that art or earth to mortals brings,

Can e'er compare with what the skies unfurled.

These are the wings of angels, I exclaimed,
Spread in their mystic beauty o'er the world.
Be ceaseless thanks to God that, in His love,
He gives such glimpses of the world above,
That we, poor pilgrims, on this darkling sphere,
Beyond its shadows may our hopes uprear.

Thomas Cole, England, 1697—.

62. Exertion Essential.

By ceaseless action all that is subsists.
Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel
That Nature rides upon, maintains her health,
Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads

An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves:
Its own revolvency upholds the world.

Winds from all quarters agitate the air,

And fit the limpid element for use,

Else noxious, oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams,
All feel the freshening impulse, and are cleansed
By restless undulation. E'en the oak

Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm:
He seems indeed indignant, and to feel
The impression of the blast with proud disdain,
Frowning, as if in his unconscious arm

He held the thunder; but the monarch owes
His firm stability to what he scorns,

More fixed below, the more disturbed above.
The law, by which all creatures else are bound,
Binds man, the lord of all.

Wm. Cowper, England, 1731-1800.

63. Truth.

Truth is eternal, but her effluence,

With endless change, is fitted to the hour;
Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect
The promise of the future, not the past.
He who would win the name of truly great
Must understand his own age and the next,
And make the present ready to fulfill
Its prophecy, and with the future merge
Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave.
The future works out great men's destinies;
The present is enough for common souls,
Who, never looking forward, are indeed
Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age
Are petrified for ever; better those
Who lead the blind old giant by the hand
From out the pathless desert where he gropes,
And set him onward in his darksome way.
I do not fear to follow out the truth,

Albeit along the precipice's edge.

Let us speak plain: there is more force in names
Than most men dream of, and a lie may keep
Its throne a whole age longer if it skulk
Behind the shield of some fair-seeming name.
Let us call tyrants tyrants, and maintain
That only freedom comes by grace of God,
And all that comes not by His grace must fall;
For men in earnest have no time to waste
In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.

J. Russell Lowell, Mass., 1819-.

64. Life.

When sanguine youth the plain of life surveys,
It does not calculate on rainy days;

Some, as they enter on the unknown way,
Expect large troubles at a distant day,—
The loss of wealth, or friends they fondly prize;
But reckon not on ills of smaller size,—
Those nameless, trifling ills, that intervene,
And people life, infesting every scene;
And these, with silent, unavowed success,
Wear off the keener edge of happiness:
Those tearing swarms, that buzz about our joys
More potent than the whirlwind that destroys;
Potent with heavenly teaching, to attest
Life is a pilgrimage, and not a rest.
That lesson learned aright is valued more
Than all Experience ever taught before;
For this her choicest secret, timely given,
Is wisdom, virtue, happiness, and heaven.
Long is religion viewed, by many an eye,
As wanted more for safety by-and-by,
A thing for times of danger and distress,
Than needful for our present happiness.
But after fruitless, wearisome assays
To find repose and peace in other ways,
The sickened soul,-when Heaven imparts its

grace,

Returns to seek its only resting place;

And sweet Experience proves as years increase, That Wisdom's ways are pleasantness and peace.

Jane Taylor, England, 1783-1824.

65. The Mountains.

Howe'er the wheels of Time go round,
We cannot wholly be discrowned.

We bind, in form, and hue and height,
The Finite to the Infinite,

And, lifted on our shoulders bare,
The races breathe an ampler air.

The arms that clasped, the lips that kissed,
Have vanished from the morning mist;
The dainty shapes that flashed and passed
In spray the plunging torrent cast,

Or danced through woven gleam and shade,
The vapors and the sunbeam's braid,
Grow thin and pale: each holy haunt
Of gods or spirits ministrant

Hath something lost of ancient awe;
Yet from the stooping heavens we draw
A beauty, mystery, and might,

Time cannot change nor worship slight.
The gold of dawn and sunset sheds
Unearthly glory on our heads;
The secret of the skies we keep;
And whispers, round each lonely sleep,
Allure and promise, yet withhold,
What bard and prophet never told.
While Man's slow ages come and go
Our dateless chronicles of snow
Their changeless old inscription show,
And men therein for ever see

The unread speech of Deity.