And they remember, With piercing, untold anguish, The proud boasting of their youth. And they feel how Nature was fair. And the mists of delusion, And the scales of habit, Fall away from their eyes; And they see, for a moment, Stretching out like the desert In its weary, unprofitable length, Their faded, ignoble lives. While the locks are yet brown on thy head, While the soul still looks through thine eyes, While the heart still pours The mantling blood to thy cheek, Sink, O youth, in thy soul! Yearn to the greatness of Nature; Rally the good in the depths of thyself! _PALLADIUM._ Set where the upper streams of Simois flow, Was the Palladium, high ’mid rock and wood; And Hector was in Ilium, far below, And fought, and saw it not; but there it stood! It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight Round Troy; but while this stood, Troy could not fall. So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll: We visit it by moments, ah, too rare! Men will renew the battle in the plain To-morrow: red with blood will Xanthus be; Hector and Ajax will be there again, Helen will come upon the wall to see. Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, And fluctuate ’twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, And fancy that we put forth all our life, And never know how with the soul it fares. Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, Upon our life a ruling effluence send; And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; And, while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. _PROGRESS._ The Master stood upon the mount, and taught. He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes; “The old law,” they said, “is wholly come to naught: Behold the new world rise!” “Was it,” the Lord then said, “with scorn ye saw The old law observed by scribes and Pharisees? I say unto you, see ye keep that law More faithfully than these! “Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas! Think not that I to annul the law have willed: No jot, no tittle, from the law shall pass Till all have been fulfilled.” So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago. And what, then, shall be said to those to-day, Who cry aloud to lay the old world low To clear the new world’s way? “Religious fervors! ardor misapplied! Hence, hence!” they cry, “ye do but keep man blind! But keep him self-immersed, pre-occupied, And lame the active mind.” Ah! from the old world let some one answer give: “Scorn ye this world, their tears, their inward cares? I say unto you, see that _your_ souls live A deeper life than theirs!