FROM PLUTARCH. Heaven being willing, even on an osier thou mayest sail. [Thus rhymed by the old translator of Plutarch: "Were it the will of heaven, an osier bough Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."] FROM SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. Honors and crowns of the tempest-footed Horses delight one; Others live in golden chambers; And some even are pleased traversing securely The swelling of the sea in a swift ship. FROM STOBÆUS. This I will say to thee: The lot of fair and pleasant things It behooves to show in public to all the people; But if any adverse calamity sent from heaven befall Men, this it becomes to bury in darkness. Pindar said of the physiologists, that they “plucked the unripe fruit of wisdom." Pindar said that "hopes were the dreams of those awake." FROM CLEMENS OF ALEXANDRIA. To Heaven it is possible from black And with cloud-blackening darkness to obscure First, indeed, the Fates brought the wise-counseling Uranian Themis, with golden horses, By the fountains of Ocean to the awful ascent To be the first spouse of Zeus the Deliverer. Equally tremble before God FROM ÆLIUS ARISTIDES. Pindar used such exaggerations [in praise of poetry] as to say that even the gods themselves, when at his marriage Zeus asked if they wanted anything, "asked him to make certain gods for them who should celebrate these great works and all his creation with speech and song." POEMS INSPIRATION IF with light head erect I sing, From my poor love of anything, The verse is weak and shallow as its source. But if with bended neck I grope, Listening behind me for my wit, With faith superior to hope, More anxious to keep back than forward it; Making my soul accomplice there Unto the flame my heart hath lit, Then will the verse forever wear, Time cannot bend the line which God has writ. I hearing get, who had but ears, And sight, who had but eyes before; I moments live, who lived but years, And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore. Now chiefly is my natal hour, And only now my prime of life; Of manhood's strength it is the flower, 'Tis peace's end, and war's beginning strife. It comes in summer's broadest noon, I will not doubt the love untold, Which not my worth nor want hath bought, Which wooed me young, and wooes me old, And to this evening hath me brought. PILGRIMS "HAVE you not seen, Pilgrims pass by With speech and with song?" "Ah, my good sir, I know not those ways: J Little my knowledge, "'T was a sweet music I could not tell To mortal before, A miracle seems." TO A STRAY FOWL POOR bird! destined to lead thy life From thy accustomed nest; Must thou fall back upon old instinct now, Well-nigh extinct under man's fickle care? Did Heaven bestow its quenchless inner light, |