THE TOUCHSTONE.

A MAN there came, whence none could tell, Bearing a Touchstone in his hand, And tested all things in the land

By its unerring spell.

A thousand transformations rose From fair to foul, from foul to fair: The golden crown he did not spare, Nor scorn the beggar's clothes.

Of heirloom jewels, prized so much, Were many changed to chips and clods; And even statues of the Gods

Crumbled beneath its touch.

Then angrily the people cried, "The loss outweighs the profit far; Our goods suffice us as they are :

We will not have them tried."

And, since they could not so avail To check his unrelenting quest, They seized him, saying, "Let him test

How real is our jail!"

But though they slew him with the sword, And in a fire his Touchstone burned, Its doings could not be o'erturned,

Its undoings restored.

And when, to stop all future harm, They strewed its ashes on the breeze, They little guessed each grain of these Conveyed the perfect charm.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

THE HAPPY MAN.

FROM "THE WINTER WALK AT NOON:
"THE TASK,” BOOK VI.

He is the happy man whose life even now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace,

the fruit

Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.
The world o'erlooks him in her busy search
Of objects, more illustrious in her view;
And, occupied as earnestly as she,
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them
not;

He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain,
He cannot skim the ground like summer birds
Pursuing gilded flies; and such he deems
Her honors, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose power is such that whom she lifts from

earth

She makes familiar with a heaven unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be revealed.
Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed,
And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird
That flutters least is longest on the wing.

WILLIAM COWPER.

ON HIS OWN BLINDNESS.

TO CYRIACK SKINNER.

CYRIACK, this three years' day, these eyes, though

clear,

To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot :
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man or woman, yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied
In Liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This thought might lead me through the world's

vain mask,

Content, though blind, had I no better guide.

MILTON.

THE PROBLEM.

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl;

I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles ;
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowlèd churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle : Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below, – The canticles of love and woe.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew ;
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads ?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids,
To gaze upon the Pyramids;

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For, out of Thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass ;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast Soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,

For which we bear to live or dare to die,
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows ? where grows it not? If vain
our toil,

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:
Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere ;

'T is nowhere to be found, or everywhere:
'T is never to be bought, but always free,
And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with
thee.

Ask of the learned the way? The learned are

blind;

This bids to serve, and that to shun, mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these;
Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain ;
Some, swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain;
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in everything, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell ; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;

And, mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense and common ease.

ALEXANDER POPE.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame or private breath ;