Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory,
Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty
Superior to all its gaudy skirts.

And, that no day of life may lack romance,
The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down
A private beam into each several heart.
Daily the bending skies solicit man,
The seasons chariot him from this exile,
The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair,
The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along,
Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights
Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home.

With a vermilion pencil mark the day
When of our little fleet three cruising skiffs
Entering Big Tupper, bound for the foaming Falls
Of loud Bog River, suddenly confront

Two of our mates returning with swift oars.
One held a printed journal waving high

Caught from a late-arriving traveller,

Big with great news, and shouted the report

For which the world had waited, now firm fact,

Of the wire-cable laid beneath the sea,

And landed on our coast, and pulsating

With ductile fire. Loud, exulting cries

From boat to boat, and to the echoes round,

Greet the glad miracle. Thought's new-found path
Shall supplement henceforth all trodden ways,
Match God's equator with a zone of art,
And lift man's public action to a height

239. It will be remembered that it was in August, 1858, when the first Atlantic Cable was laid and the first message transmitted, proving the feasibility of the connection, though the cable was imperfect, and a second one became necessary.

Worthy the enormous cloud of witnesses,
When linked hemispheres attest his deed.
We have few moments in the longest life
Of such delight and wonder as there grew,
Nor yet unsuited to that solitude:

A burst of joy, as if we told the fact
To ears intelligent; as if gray rock

And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know
This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind;
As if we men were talking in a vein
Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs,
And a prime end of the most subtle element
Were fairly reached at last.

Bend nearer, faint day-moon!

Wake, echoing caves!
Yon thundertops,

Let them hear well! 'tis theirs as much as ours.

A spasm throbbing through the pedestals Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent, Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill

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260

To be a brain, or serve the brain of man.
The lightning has run masterless too long;

265

He must to school, and learn his verb and noun,
And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage,
Spelling with guided tongue man's messages
Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea.
And yet I marked, even in the manly joy
Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat,
(Perchance I erred,) a shade of discontent;
Or was it for mankind a generous shame,
As of a luck not quite legitimate,

Since fortune snatched from wit the lion's part?
Was it a college pique of town and gown,

As one within whose memory it burned
That not academicians, but some lout,

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275

Found ten years since the Californian gold?
And now, again, a hungry company

Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade,
Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools
Of science, not from the philosophers,
Had won the brightest laurel of all time.

'T was always thus, and will be; hand and head
Are ever rivals: but, though this be swift,
The other slow, this the Prometheus,
And that the Jove, yet, howsoever hid,
It was from Jove the other stole his fire,
And, without Jove, the good had never been.
It is not Iroquois or cannibals,

But ever the free race with front sublime,

And these instructed by their wisest too,

Who do the feat, and lift humanity.

Let not him mourn who best entitled was,
Nay, mourn not one: let him exult,

Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant,
And water it with wine, nor watch askance
Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit:
Enough that mankind eat, and are refreshed.

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285

290

295

300

305

We flee away from cities, but we bring The best of cities with us, these learned classifiers, Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts. We praise the guide, we praise the forest life : But will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore Of books and arts and trained experiment, Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz? Oh no, not we! Witness the shout that shook Wild Tupper Lake; witness the mute all-hail The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears

310

From a log-cabin stream Beethoven's notes
On the piano, played with master's hand.

320

Well done!' he cries: the bear is kept at bay, 315 The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire; All the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold, This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall, This wild plantation will suffice to chase. Now speed the gay celerities of art, What in the desert was impossible Within four walls is possible again, Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill, Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife Of keen competing youths, joined or alone To outdo each other and extort applause. Mind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep. Twirl the old wheels! Time takes fresh start again On for a thousand years of genius more.'

The holidays were fruitful, but must end;
One August evening had a cooler breath;
Into each mind intruding duties crept;
Under the cinders burned the fires of home;
Nay, letters found us in our paradise:
So in the gladness of the new event

We struck our camp, and left the happy hills.
The fortunate star that rose on us sank not;
The prodigal sunshine rested on the land,
The rivers gambolled onward to the sea,
And Nature, the inscrutable and mute,
Permitted on her infinite repose

Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons,

As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed.

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330

335

340

343. The Sphinx in classical mythology was a monster having a human head, a lion's body, and sometimes fabled as winged.

THE TITMOUSE.

You shall not be overbold

When you deal with arctic cold,
As late I found my lukewarm blood
Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.
How should I fight? my foeman fine
Has million arms to one of mine:
East, west, for aid I looked in vain,

5

East, west, north, south, are his domain.
Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
Must borrow his winds who there would come. 10
Up and away for life! be fleet! -
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
And hems in life with narrowing fence.
Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-
The punctual stars will vigil keep,
Embalmed by purifying cold;

The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
The snow is no ignoble shroud,

The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.

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20

It used to propose a question to the Thebans and murder all who could not guess it. The riddle was,

"What goes on four feet, on two feet, and three,

But the more feet it goes on the weaker it be?"

Edipus gave the answer that it was man, going on four feet as a child, and when old using a staff which made the third foot. But the Sphinx's riddle in the old poetry and in the serious modern acceptation is nothing less than the whole problem of human life.