Only when the sun of love

Melts the scattered stars of thought; Only when we live above

What the dim-eyed world hath taught;

Only when our souls are fed

By the Fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led

Which they never drew from earth;

We, like parted drops of rain,
Swelling till they melt and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,

Melting, flowing into one.

C. P. CRANCH.

THE PROBLEM.

I

LIKE a church; I like a cowl;

I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith could see
Would I that cowled churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;

Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,

The canticles of love and woe;

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew ;

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?

Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads ?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids,
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For, out of Thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,

And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned;

And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.

Ever the fiery Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
. Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.

R. W. EMERSON.

"THALATTA!"

CRY OF THE TEN THOUSAND.

I

STAND upon

the summit of my years.

Behind, the toil, the camp, the march, the

strife,

The wandering and the desert; vast, afar,

Beyond this weary way, behold! the Sea!

The sea o'erswept by clouds and winds and wings,
By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath
Is freshness and whose mighty pulse is peace.
Palter no question of the dim Beyond;
Cut loose the bark; such voyage itself is rest;
Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,

A widening heaven, a current without care.
Eternity! - Deliverance, Promise, Course!
Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore.

BROWNLEE BROWN.

As

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

S ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried ;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
Ey each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so - but why the tale reveal

Of those, whom year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel, Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,

Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,

Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides — To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last!

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare, -
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

ARTHUR H. CLOUGH.