Be patient! oh, be patient! Put your ear against the
Listen there how noiselessly the germ o' the seed has
How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way, Till it parts the scarcely broken ground, and the blade stands up in day.
Be patient! oh, be patient! The germs of mighty thought
Must have their silent undergrowth,-must underground be wrought;
But as sure as there's a Power that makes the grass
Our land shall be green with liberty, the blade-time shall be here.
Be patient! oh, be patient!-go and watch the wheat
So imperceptibly that we can mark nor change nor
Day after day, day after day, till the ear is fully grown; And then again day after day, till the ripened field is brown.
Be patient! oh, be patient!—though yet our hopes are
The harvest-fields of freedom shall be crowned with
Be ripening! be ripening!-mature your silent way, Till the whole broad land is tongued with fire on free. dom's harvest day.
R. C. Trench, England, 1807-.
The shortest life is longest, if 'tis best;
'Tis ours to work,—to God belongs the rest.
Our lives are measured by the deeds we do,
The thoughts we think, the objects we pursue.
A fair young life poured out upon the sod,
In the high cause of freedom and of God,
Though all too short his course and quickly run,
Is full and glorious as the orbéd sun;
While he who lives to hoary-headed age
Oft dies an infant,-dies and leaves no sign;
For he has writ no deed on history's page,
And unfulfilled is being's great design.
4. Passing Away.
I asked the stars in the pomp of night,
Gilding its blackness with crowns of light,
Bright with beauty and girt with power,
Whether eternity were not their dower;-
And dirge-like music stole from their spheres,
Bearing this message to mortal ears:—
"We have no light that hath not been given;
We have no strength but shall soon be riven;
We have no power wherein man may trust;
Like him are we,-things of time and dust,
And the legend we blazon with beam and ray,
And the song of our silence is 'Passing away.'
Maria J. Jewsbury, England, 1800-1833.
In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages that strike your mind,
And which, perhaps, you may have reason
To think on at another season,
Be not contented with the sight,
But take them down in black and white;
Such a respect is wisely shown
That makes another's sense one's own.
In conversation, when you meet
With persons cheerful and discreet,
That speak, or quote, in prose or rhyme,
Things or facetious or sublime,
Observe what passes, and anon,
When you come home think thereupon;
Write what occurs, forget it not,
A good thing saved 's a good thing got.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives longest;
Lives in one hour more than years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.
Life is but a means to an end,—that end,—
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,-God.
P. J. Bailey, England, 1816
7. Thought.
Companion, none is like
Unto the mind alone,
For many have been harmed by speech,-
Through thinking, few, or none.
Fear oftentimes restraineth words,
But makes not thoughts to cease;
And he speaks best that hath the skill
When for to hold his peace.
Our wealth leaves us at death,
Our kinsmen at the grave;
But virtues of the mind
Unto the heavens with us we have; Wherefore, for virtue's sake,
I can be well content,
The sweetest time of all my life
To deem in thinking spent.
Thomas Vaux, England, 1510-1557.
There's not a flower that decks the vale,
There's not a beam that lights the mountain,
There's not a shrub that scents the gale,
There's not a wind that stirs the fountain,
There's not a hue that paints the rose,
There's not a leaf around us lying,
But in its use or beauty shows
True love to us, and love undying.
Gerald Griffin, Ireland, 1803-1840.
Weeds grow unasked, and even some sweet flowers
Spontaneous give their fragrance to the air,
And bloom on hills, in vales, and everywhere,
As shines the sun, or fall the summer showers,—
But wither while our lips pronounce them fair!
Flowers of more worth repay alone the care,
The nurture, and the hopes of watchful hours;
While plants most cultured have most lasting powers.
So flowers of genius that will longest live,
Spring not in Mind's uncultured soil,
But are the birth of time and mental toil,
And all the culture Learning's hand can give.
Fancies, like wild flowers, in a night may grow;
But thoughts are plants whose stately growth is slow.
Mrs. E. C. Kinney, America—.
There is an evening twilight of the heart,
When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest,
And the eye sees life's fairy scenes depart,
As fades the day-beam in the rosy west.
'Tis with a nameless feeling of regret
We gaze upon them as they melt away,
And fondly would we bid them linger yet,
But Hope is round us with her angel lay,
Hailing afar some happier moonlight hour;
Dear are her whispers still, though lost their early
power.
F. G. Halleck, Conn., 1795-1867.
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