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The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less;

The revel of the treacherous wine,

And all occasions of excess ;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,

That have their root in thoughts of ill;

Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will ;

All these must first be trampled down

Beneath our feet, if we would gain

In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,

The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

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And the ships that came from England

When the winter months were gone, Brought no tidings of this vessel,

Nor of Master Lamberton.

This put the people to praying

That the Lord would let them hear

What in his greater wisdom

He had done with friends so dear.

And at last their prayers were answered :---It was in the month of June,

An hour before the sunset

Of a windy afternoon,

When, steadily steering landward,

A ship was seen below,

And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,

Who sailed so long ago.

On she came, with a cloud of canvas,

Right against the wind that blew,

Until the eye could distinguish

The faces of the crew.

Then fell her straining topmasts,

Hanging tangled in the shrouds ;

And her sails were loosened and lifted,

And blown away like clouds.

And the masts, with all their rigging, Fell slowly, one by one;

And the hulk dilated and vanished,

As a sea-mist in the sun!

And the people who saw this marvel

Each said unto his friend,

That this was the mould of their vessel, And thus her tragic end.

And the pastor of the village
Gave thanks to God in prayer,

That, to quiet their troubled spirits,

He had sent this Ship of Air.

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