Speak, poor almsman of to-day, whom none can assure of a to-morrow, Tell out, with honest heart, the price thou settest upon yesterday. Is it then a writing in the dust, traced by the finger of idleness, Which Industry, clean housewife, can wipe away for ever? Is it as a furrow on the sand, fashioned by the toying waves, Quickly to be trampled then again by the feet of the returning tide? Is it as the pale blue smoke, rising from a peasant's hovel, That melted into limpid air, before it topped the larches? Is it but a vision, unstable and unreal, which wise men soon forget? Is it as the stranger of a night,--gone, we heed not whither? Alas! thou foolish heart, whose thoughts are but as these, Alas! deluded soul, that hopeth thus of Yesterday. For, behold,--those temples of Ellora, the Brahmin's rock-built shrine, Behold--yon granite cliff, which the North Sea buffeteth in vain,-- That stout old forest fir,--these waking verities of life, This guest abiding ever, not strange, nor a servant, but a son,-- Such, O man, are vanity and dreams, transient as a rainbow on the cloud, Weighed against that solid fact, thine ill-remembered Yesterday. Come, let me show thee an ensample, where Nature shall instruct us; Luxuriantly the arguments for truth spring native in her gardens. Seek we yonder woodman of the plain; he is measuring his axe to the elm, And anon the sturdy strokes ring upon the wintry air: Eagerly the village school-boys cluster on the tightened rope, Shouting, and bending to the pull, or lifted from the ground elastic; The huge tree boweth like Sisera, boweth to its foes with faintness,-- Its sinews crack,--deep groans declare the reeling anguish of Goliath, The wedge is driven home,--and the saw is at its heart,--and lo, with solemn slowness, The shuddering monarch riseth from his throne,--toppled with a crash,--and is fallen! [Illustration]