To chatter, frightened, to his clan As in the old poetic fame The gods are blind and lame, And the simular despite Betrays the more abounding might, So call not waste that barren cone Where forests starve: It is pure use; 350 355 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! Firm ensign of the fatal Being, 360 Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, Hither we bring Our insect miseries to thy rocks; 365 And the whole flight, with folded wing, 370 348. Fame, common story. 370. 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 Where flowers each stone rosette and metope brave; Still is the haughty pile erect Of the old building Intellect. Complement of human kind, O barren mound, thy plenties fill! Thou art silent and sedate. To myriad kinds and times one sense Thou, in our astronomy An opaker star, Seen haply from afar, Above the horizon's hoop, A moment, by the railway troop, As o'er some bolder height they speed, by the Turkish government, and a murmur in Greece after independence was obtained, that they should be restored. 390. 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. By circumspect ambition, By errant gain, By feasters and the frivolous, - And makest sane. Mute orator! well skilled to plead, The shortness of our days, And promise, on thy Founder's truth, 400 405 398. Circumspect ambition, errant (i. e., travelling), gain, feasters, and frivolous, - these are all part of the railway troop. 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 laboratory 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 insects. "When do you wish to begin?” he asked. "Now," I replied. This seemed to please him, and with an energetic "Very well," he reached from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol. "Take this fish," said he, " and look at it; we call it a Hæmulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen. With that he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit instructions as to the care of the object intrusted to me. "No man is fit to be a naturalist," said he, "who does not know how to take care of specimens." I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking care to replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days of ground glass stoppers, and elegantly shaped exhibition jars; all the old students will recall the huge, neckless glass bottles with their leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects and begrimed with cellar dust. Entomology was a cleaner science than ichthyology, but the example of the professor who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce the fish was infectious; and though this alcohol had " a very ancient and fish-like smell," I really dared not show any aversion within these sacred precincts, and treated the alcohol as though it were pure water. Still I was conscious of a passing feeling of disappointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an ardent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed, when they discovered that no amount of eau de cologne would drown the perfume which haunted me like a shadow. In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, and started in search of the professor, who had, however, left the museum; and when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed the fluid over the fish as if to recuscitate the beast from a fainting-fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of the normal, sloppy appearance. This little excitement over, nothing was to be done but return to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion. Half an hour passed, - an hour, another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face,- ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at a three quarters' view, just as ghastly. I was in despair; at an early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary; so, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free. On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at |