A little faith, in days of change, When life is stark and bare and strange; With tears of longing and regret. True it is that we cannot claim "A LITTLE WORK" From "Trilby " A LITTLE Work, a little play To keep us going-and so, good-day! A little warmth, a little light Of love's bestowing-and so, good-night! A little fun, to match the sorrow Unknown Of each day's growing—and so, good-morrow! A little trust that when we die We reap our sowing! And so-good-bye! George du Maurier [1834-1896] THE CONDUCT OF LIFE INTEGER VITÆ* THE man of life upright, Whose guiltless heart is free From all dishonest deeds, The man whose silent days That man needs neither towers Nor armor for defense, Nor secret vaults to fly From thunder's violence: He only can behold With unaffrighted eyes The horrors of the deep And terrors of the skies. Thus, scorning all the cares That fate or fortune brings, Good thoughts his only friends, And quiet pilgrimage. After Horace, by Thomas Campion [?-1619j *For the original of this poem see page 3578. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS From "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings— Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! A PSALM OF LIFE WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST TELL me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!— Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, In the world's broad field of battle, Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882] EXCELSIOR THE shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath, The accents of that unknown tongue, In happy homes he saw the light "Try not the Pass!" the old man said; "Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest |