* 82 *

THE BUILDERS.

ALL are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled:

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these ;

Leave no yawning gaps between : Think not, because no man sees, Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute 1 and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere.

1 minute', very small or little.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen,

Make the house, where Gods may dwell.
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base; «
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

* 83 *

THE NOBLY BORN.

WHO counts himself as nobly born
Is noble in despite of place;

And honors are but brands to one

Who wears them not with nature's grace.

The prince may sit with clown or churl,
Nor feel himself disgraced thereby ;

But he who has but small esteem
Husbands that little carefully.

Then, be thou peasant, be thou peer, Count it still more thou art thine own: Stand on a larger heraldry 1

Than that of nation or of zone.2

What though not bid to knightly halls? Those halls have missed a courtly guest; That mansion is not privileged,3

Which is not open to the best.

Give honor due when custom asks,
Nor wrangle for this lesser claim;
It is not to be destitute,

To have the thing without the name.

Then dost thou come of gentle blood,
Disgrace not thy good company;

If lowly born, so bear thyself

That gentle blood may come of thee.

Strive not with pain to scale the height
Of some fair garden's petty wall,
But climb the open mountain side,
Whose summit rises over all.

E. S. H.

1 that is, be a true man, free from narrow prejudices.

2 zone, a great division of the earth's surface.

s privileged, granted some benefit.

* 84 *

DIVINE CARE.

THE insect that with puny wing
Just shoots along the summer ray,
The floweret which the breath of spring
Wakes into life for half a day,
The smallest mote, the slenderest hair,
All feel our common Father's care.

E'en from the glories of his throne

He bends to view this wandering ball; Sees all, as if that all were one;

Loves one, as if that one were all; Rolls the swift planets in their spheres, And counts the sinner's lonely tears.

* 85 *

THE CORAL GROVE.

DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,
Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove;
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.

The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift;
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs where the tides and billows flow.

The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there;

And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water;
And the crimson leaf of the dulse 1 is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter.
There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful Spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.

And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of Ocean roar ;
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore,
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
While the waters murmur tranquilly

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

J. G. PERCIVAL.

1 dulse, a sea-weed of a reddish-brown color.