The low desire, the base design, That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy 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 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 The heights by great men reached and kept But they, while their companions slept, 11* Standing on what too long we bore With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, Nor deem the irrevocable Past, To something nobler we attain. THE PHANTOM SHIP. IN Mather's Magnalia Christi, May be found in prose the legend A ship sailed from New Haven, That filled her sails at parting, Were heavy with good men's prayers. Thus prayed the old divine"To bury our friends in the ocean, Take them, for they are thine!" But Master Lamberton muttered, 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. |