OF CHEERFULNESS.

TAKE courage, prisoner of time, for there be many comforts,
Cease thy labour in the pit, and bask awhile with truants in the sun;
Be cheerful, man of care, for great is the multitude of chances,
Burst thy fetters of anxiety, and walk among the citizens of ease.
Wherefore dost thou doubt? if present good is round thee,

It may be well to look for change, but to trust in a continuance is better ;
Whilst, at the crisis of adversity, to hope for some amends were wisdom,
And cheerfully to bear thy cross in patient strength is duty.
I speak of common troubles, and the petty plagues of life,
The phantom-spies of Unbelief, that lurk about his outposts:
Sharp suspicion, dull distrust, and sullen stern moroseness,
Are captains in that locust swarm to lead the cloudy host.

Thou hast need of fortitude and faith, for the adversaries come on thickly,
And he that fled hath added wings to his pursuing foes;

Fight them, and the cravens flee; thy boldness is their panic;

Fear them, and thy treacherous heart hath lent the ranks a legion :
Among their shouts of victory resoundeth the wail of Heraclitus,

While Democrite, confident and cheerful, hath plucked up the standard of their camp. (*)

Not few nor light are the burdens of life; then load it not with heaviness of spirit;

Sickness, and penury, and travail,-there be real ills enow:

We are wandering benighted, with a waning moon; plunge not rashly into jungles,

Where cold and poisonous damps will quench the torch of hope :
The tide is strong against us; good oarsmen pull or perish,―

If your arms be slack for fear, ye shall not stem the torrent.

A wise traveller goeth on cheerily, through fair weather or foul; He knoweth that his journey must be sped, so he carrieth his sunshine with him.

Colamities come not as a curse,-nor prosperity for other than a trial; Struggle-thou art better for the strife, and the very energy shall hearten thee.

Good is taught in a Spartan school,-hard lessons and a rough discipline,

But evil cometh idly of itself, in the luxury of Capuan holidays ;
And wisdom will go bravely forth to meet the chastening scourge,
Enduring with a thankful heart that punishment of Love.

'There be three chief rivers of despondency; sin, sorrow, fear;
Sin is the deepest, sorrow hath its shallows, and fear is a noisy rapid:
But even to the darkest holes in guilt's profoundest river

Hope can pierce with quickening ray, and all those depths are lightened.
So long as there is mercy in a God, hope is the privilege of creatures,
And so soon as there is penitence in creatures, that hope is exalted into

duty.

Verily, consider this for courage; that the fearful and the unbelieving
Are classed with idolaters and liars, because they trusted not in God:
For it is no other than selfish sin, a hard and proud ingratitude,
Where seeming repentance is herald of despair, instead of hope's fore-

runner.

Moreover, in thy day of Grief,-for friends, or fame, or fortune,

Well I wot the heart shall ache, and mind be numbed in torpor :

Let nature weep; leave her alone; the freshet of her sorrow must run off;
And sooner will the lake be clear, relieved of turbid floodings.
Yet see that her license hath a limit; with the novelty her agony is over;
Hasten in that earliest calm, to tie her in the leash with Reason.

For regrets are an enervating folly, and the season for energy is come,
Yea rather, that the future may repair with diligence the ruins of the past.

Again, for empty fears, the harassings of possible calamity;
Pray, and thou shalt prosper; trust in God, and tread them down.
Yield to the phantasy,—thou sinnest; resist it, He will aid thee.

Out of him there is no help, nor any sober courage.

Feeble is the comfort of the faithless, a man without a God;
Who dare counsel such an one to fling away his fears?

Fear is the heritage of him, a portion wise and merciful,

To drive the trembler into safety, if haply he may turn and flee:
Nevertheless, let him reckon if he will, that all he counteth casual
May as well be for him as against him: dice have many sides:
And, even as in ailments of the body, diseases follow closely upon dreads,
So, with infirmities of mind, is fear the pallid harbinger of failure.

It were wise to talk undaunted even in an accidental chaos,

For the brave man is at peace and free to get the mastery of circumstance
The stoutest armour of defence is that which is worn within the bosom,
And the weapon that no enemy can parry, is a bold and cheerful spirit:
Catapults in old war worked like Titans, crushing foes with rocks;
So doth a strong-springed heart throw back every load on its assailants.

I went heavily for cares, and fell into the trance of sorrow:
And behold, a vision in my trance, and my ministering angel brought it:
There stood a mountain huge and steep, the awful Rock of Ages;
The sun upon its summit, and storms midway, and deep ravines at foot;
And, as I looked, a dense black cloud, suddenly dropping from the thunder,
Filled, like a cataract, with yeasty foam, a narrow smiling valley:
Close and hard that vaporous mass seemed to press the ground,

And lamentable sounds came up, as of some that were smothering beneath.
Then, as I walked upon the mountain, clear in summer's noon,
For charity I called aloud, Ho! climb up hither to the sunshine.
And even like a stream of light my voice had pierced the mist :
I saw below two families of men, and knew their names of old:
Courage, struggling through the darkness, stout of heart and gladsome,
Ran up the shining ladder which the voice of hope had made;
And tripping lightly by his side, a sweet-eyed helpmate with him,
I looked upon her face to welcome pleasant Cheerfulness;
And a babe was cradled in her bosom, a laughing little prattler,

The child of Cheerfulness and Courage,-could his name be other than
Success?

So, from his happy wife, when they both stood beside me on the mountain, The fond father took that babe, and set him on his shoulder in the sunshine.

Again I peered into the valley, for I heard a gasping moan,

A desolate weak cry, as muffled in the vapours.

So down that crystal shaft into the poisonous mine

I sped for charity to seek and save, and those I sought fled from me.

At length, I spied far distant, a trembling withered dwarf,

Who crouched beneath the cloak of a tall and spectral mourner;
Then I knew Cowardice and Gloom, and followed them on in darkness,
Guided by their rustling robes and moans and muffled cries,

Until in a suffocating pit the wretched pair had perished,—

And lo, their whitening bones were shaping out an epitaph of Failure.

So I saw that despondency was death, and flung my burdens from me,
And, lightened by that effort, I was raised above the world;

Yea, in the strangeness of my vision, I seemed to soar on wings,
And the names they called my wings were Cheerfulness and Wisdom.

OF YESTERDAY.

SPEAK, poor almsman of to-day, whom none can assure of a to-morrow,
Tell out, with honest heart, the price thou settest upon yesterday.
Is it then a writing in the dust, traced by the finger of idleness,
Which Industry, clean housewife, can wipe away for ever?
Is it as a furrow on the sand, fashioned by the toying waves,
Quickly to be trampled then again by the feet of the returning tide?
Is it as the pale blue smoke, rising from a peasant's hovel,
That melteth into limpid air, before it topped the larches?

Is it but a vision, unstable and unreal, which wise men soon forget?
Is it as the stranger of the night,-gone, we heed not whither?
Alas! thou foolish heart, whose thoughts are but as these,
Alas! deluded soul, that hopeth thus of Yesterday.

For, behold, those temples of Ellora, the Brahmin's rock-built shrine,
Behold,―yon granite cliff, which the North Sea buffeteth in vain,-
That stout old forest fir,-these waking verities of life,—
This guest abiding ever, not strange, nor a servant, but a son,—
Such, O man, are vanity and dreams, transient as a rainbow on the cloud,
Weighed against that solid fact, thine ill-remembered Yesterday.

Come, let me show thee an ensample, where Nature shall instruct us;
Luxuriantly the arguments for truth spring native in her gardens.
Seek we yonder woodman of the plain; he is measuring his axe to the elm,
And anon the sturdy strokes ring upon the wintry air:
Eagerly the village schoolboys cluster on the tightened rope,
Shouting, and bending to the pull, or lifted from the ground elastic ;
The huge tree boweth like Sisera, boweth to its foes with faintness,-
Its sinews crack,-deep groans declare the reeling anguish of Goliath,

The wedge is driven home,—and the saw is at its heart,—and lo, with

solemn slowness,

The shuddering monarch riseth from his throne, toppled with a crash,— and is fallen!

Now, shall the mangled stump teach proud man a lesson;

Now, can we from that elm-tree's sap distill the wine of Truth.
Heed ye those hundred rings, concentric from the core,
Eddying in various waves to the red bark's shore-like rim ?

These be the gathering of yesterdays, present all to-day,

This is the tree's judgment, self-history that cannot be gainsaid:

Seven years agone there was a drought, and the seventh ring is nar

rowed;

The fifth from hence was half a deluge,-the fifth is cellular and broad. Thus, Man, thou art a result, the growth of many yesterdays,

That stamp thy secret soul with marks of weal or woe:

Thou art an almanac of self, the living record of thy deeds;

Spirit hath its scars as well as body, sore and aching in their season :

Here is a knot,--it was a crime; there is a canker,-selfishness;

Lo, here, the heart-wood rotten; lo, there, perchance, the sap-wood sound. Nature teacheth not in vain; thy works are in thee, of thee;

Some present evil bent hath grown of older errors;

And what if thou be walking now uprightly? Salve not thy wounds

with poison,

As if a petty goodness of to-day hath blotted out the sin of yesterdav: It is well, thou hast life and light; and the Hewer showeth mercy, Dressing the root, pruning the branch, and looking for thy tardy fruits; But, even here, as thou standest, cheerful belike and careless,

The stains of ancient evil are upon thee, the record of thy wrong is in

thee:

For, a curse of many yesterdays is thine, many yesterdays of sin,
That, haply little heeded now, shall blast thy many morrows.

Shall then a man reck nothing, but hurl mad defiance at his Judge, Knowing that less than an omnipotent cannot make the has been, not been? He ought,—so Satan spake; he must,—so Atheism urgeth;

He may, it was the libertine's thought; he doth,—the bad world said it. But thou of humbler heart, thou student wiser for simplicity,

While nature warneth thee betimes, heed the loving counsel of Religion.