From the stores of eldest matter, The deep-eyed flame, obedient water, Transparent air, all-feeding earth, He took the flower of all their worth, And, best with best in sweet consent, Combined a new temperament. REX The bard and mystic held me for their own, I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids, I took the friendly noble by the hand, I was the trustee of the hand-cart man, The brother of the fisher, porter, swain, And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld The service done to me as done to them. With the key of the secret he marches faster, From strength to strength, and for night brings day; While classes or tribes, too weak to master The flowing conditions of life, give way. SUUM CUIQUE Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill. If curses be the wage of love, Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove, Not to be named: It is clear Why the gods will not appear; They are ashamed. When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port, And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short. Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift, Sit still and Truth is near: Suddenly it will uplift Your eyelids to the sphere: Wait a little, you shall see The portraiture of things to be. The rules to men made evident By Him who built the day, The columns of the firmament Not firmer based than they. On bravely through the sunshine and the showers! Time hath his work to do and we have ours. THE BOHEMIAN HYMN In many forms we try To utter God's infinity, But the boundless hath no form, And the Universal Friend Doth as far transcend An angel as a worm. The great Idea baffles wit, Language falters under it, It leaves the learned in the lurch; Nor art, nor power, nor toil can find The measure of the eternal Mind, Nor hymn, nor prayer, nor church. GRACE How much, preventing God, how much I owe To the defences thou hast round me set; Example, custom, fear, occasion slow,-- These scorned bondmen were my parapet. I dare not peep over this parapet To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below, The depths of sin to which I had descended, Had not these me against myself defended. INSIGHT Power that by obedience grows, Knowledge which its source not knows, Wave which severs whom it bears From the things which he compares, Adding wings through things to range, To his own blood harsh and strange. PAN O what are heroes, prophets, men, But pipes through which the breath of Pan doth blow A momentary music. Being's tide Swells hitherward, and myriads of forms Live, robed with beauty, painted by the sun; Their dust, pervaded by the nerves of God, Throbs with an overmastering energy Knowing and doing. Ebbs the tide, they lie White hollow shells upon the desert shore, But not the less the eternal wave rolls on To animate new millions, and exhale Races and planets, its enchanted foam. MONADNOC FROM AFAR