And my midsummer snow; I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding: 330 Of the bullet of the earth Whereon ye sail, Tumbling steep In the uncontinented deep.' He looks on that, and he turns pale. 335 'Tis even so, this treacherous kite, Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere, Thoughtless of its anxious freight, Plunges eyeless on forever; And he, poor parasite, 340 Cooped in a ship he cannot steer, Who is the captain he knows not, Port or pilot trows not, Risk or ruin he must share. I scowl on him with my cloud, Then, at last, I let him down Once more into his dapper town, 329. The small-souled man whom the mountain is jeering 18 bidden scan the horizon and see the immensity of the universe in which his little earth is rolling. The petty soul trembles before this vastness as the looked for mighty one was to comprehend and weigh all in his balances. The contrast is between the blind animal-man, overpowered by nature, and the god-like Boul-man serenely ruling nature. 350 To chatter, frightened, to his clan, And forget me if he can. As in the old poetic fame The gods are blind and lame, 355 Betrays the more abounding might, So call not waste that barren cone Where forests starve: It is pure use; 360 What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse? Ages are thy days, Thou grand affirmer of the present tense, And type of permanence! 365 Firm ensign of the fatal Being, Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, Hither we bring Our insect miseries to thy rocks; 370 And the whole flight, with folded wing, 375 Replacing frieze and architrave; Yet flowers each stone rosette and metope brave; 352. Fame, common story. 374. In remote allusion to the removal to England of the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon at Athens; there was much discussion as to the right of England to these spoils, which were granted by the Turkish government, and a murmur in Greece after independence was obtained, that they should be restored. Still is the haughty pile erect Complement of human kind, O barren mound, thy plenties fill ! Thou art silent and sedate. 385 To myriad kinds and times one sense In shifting form the formless mind, 395 Thou, in our astronomy Seen haply from afar, Above the horizon's hoop, A moment, by the railway troop, 400 As o'er some bolder height they speed,— By circumspect ambition, By errant gain, By feasters and the frivolous, Recallest us, 405 And makest sane. 393. The mountain is but the image of the stable good: that good is the invisible substance, of which the mountain is the visible shadow. The good is ever shifting to us, but the type of good is fixed. 401. Circumspect ambition, errant, e., travelling gain, feast srs, and frivolous, - these are all part of the railway troop. Mute orator! well skilled to plead, And send conviction without phrase, The shortness of our days, 410 And promise, on thy Founder's truth, Long morrow to this mortal youth. 29 APPENDIX. [LOWELL'S poem on Agassiz presents many aspects of that remarkable man. The stimulus which he gave in this country to scientific research was followed by results in other departments of human learning, for the method employed in scientific study finds an application in history and literature also. In the study of literature the first lesson is in the power of seeing what lies before the student on the printed page, and the following sketch, which was published shortly after Agassiz's death, is given here, both because it is so entertaining an account of a student's experience, and because it points so clearly to the secret of all success in study, both of science and of literature.] IN THE LABORATORY WITH AGASSIZ. BY A FORMER PUPIL. IT was more than fifteen years ago that I entered the laborary of Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in the scientific school as a student of natural history. He asked me a few questions about my object in coming, my antecedents generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I might acquire, and finally, whether I wished to study any special branch. To the latter I replied that while I wished to be well grounded in all departments of zoology, I purposed to devote myself specially to in. sects. |