He paused; and, blowing softly from the sea, The fresh wind stirred the ilex, shaking down Through chinks of sunny leaves blue gems of sky; And lying in the shadow, all his mind O'ershadowed by our grief, once more he spoke: "Let not your hearts be troubled! All my days Hath all my care been fixed on this vast blue, So still above us; now my days are done, Let it have care of me! Be patient, meek, Not puffed with doctrine! Nothing can be known; Naught grasped for certain: sense is circumscribed; The intellect is weak, and life is short!" He ceased, and mused a little while we wept. "And yet be nowise downcast; seek, pursue! The lover's rapture and the sage's gain Less in attainment lie than in approach. Look forward to the time which is to come! All things are mutable, and change alone Unchangeable. But knowledge grows! The gods Are drifting from the earth like morning mist; The days are surely at the doors when men Shall see but human actions in the world! Yea, even these hills of Lampsacus shall be The isles of some new sea, if time fail not!" And now the reverend fathers of our town Had heard the master's end was very near, And come to do him homage at the close, And ask what wish of his they might fulfil. But he, divining that they thought his heart Might yearn to Athens for a resting-place, Said gently, "Nay; from everywhere the way To that dark land you wot of is the same. I feel no care; I have no wish. The Greeks Will never quite forget my Pericles, And when they think of him will say of me, 'Twas Anaxagoras taught him!" Loath to go, No kindly office done, yet once again The reverend fathers pressed him for a wish. Then laughed the master: "Nay, if still you urge, And since 'twere churlish to reject good-will, I pray you, every year, when time brings back The day on which I left you, let the boys-- All boys and girls in this your happy town-- Be free of task and school for that one day." He lay back smiling, and the reverend men Departed, heavy at heart. He spoke no more, But, haply musing on his truant days, Passed from us, and was smiling when he died. --WILLIAM CANTON, in The Contemporary Review. The teachings of Anaxagoras were destined to attain to wide-spread power over the Grecian mind. As auguries, omens, and prodigies exercised a great influence on the public affairs of Greece, a philosophical explanation of natural phenomena had a tendency to diminish respect for the popular religion in the eyes of the multitude, and to leave the minds of rulers and statesmen open to the influences of reason, and to the rejection of the follies of superstition. The doctrines taught by Anaxagoras were the commencement of the contest between the old philosophy and the new; and the varying phases of the struggle appear throughout all subsequent Grecian history. THE SOPHISTS.