Yet once more, griever at Neglect, hear me to thy comfort, or rebuke: For, after all thy just complaint, the world is full of love. O heart of childhood, tender, trusting, and affectionate, O youth, warm youth, full of generous attentions, O woman, self-forgetting woman, poetry of human life, And not less thou, O man, so often the disinterested brother, Many a smile of love, many a tear of pity, Many a word of comfort, many a deed of magnanimity, Many a stream of milk and honey pour ye freely on the earth, And many a rosebud of love rejoiceth in the dew of your affection. Neglect? O liberal world, for thine are many prizes: Neglect? O charitable world, where thousands feed on bounty; Neglect? O just world, for thy judgments err not often; Neglect? O libel on a world where half that world is woman! Where is the afflicted, whose voice, once heard, stirreth not a host of comforters? Where is the sick untended, or in prison, and they visited him not? The hungry is fed, and the thirsty satisfied, till ability set limits to the will, And those who did it unto them, have done it unto God! For human benevolence is large, though many matters dwarf it, Prudence, ignorance, imposture, and the straitenings of circumstance and time. And if to the body, so to the mind, the mass of men are generous; Their estimate, who know us best, is seldom seen to err; Be sure the fault is thine, as pride, or shallowness, or vanity, If all around thee, good and bad, neglect thy seeming merit: No man yet deserved, who found not some to love him; And he, that never kept a friend, need only blame himself: Many for unworthiness will droop and die, but all are not unworthy; It must indeed be cold clay soil, that killeth every seed. Therefore, examine thy state, O self-accounted martyr of Neglect, It may be, thy merit is a cubit, and thy measure thereof a furlong; But grant it greater than thy thoughts, and grant that men thy fellows, For pleasure, business, or interest, misuse, forget, neglect thee,-- Still be thou conqueror in this, the consciousness of high deservings; Let it suffice thee to be worthy; faint not thou for praise; For that thou art, be grateful; go humbly even in thy confidence; And set thy foot upon the neck of an enemy so harmless as Neglect. [Illustration] OF CONTENTMENT. Godliness with Contentment,--these be the pillars of felicity, Jachin, wherewithal it is established, and Boaz, in the which is strength; And upon their capitals is lily-work, the lotus fruit and flower, Those fair and fragrant types of holiness, innocence, and beauty; Great gain pertaineth to the pillars, nets and chains of wreathen gold, And they stand up straight in the temple porch, the house where Glory dwelleth.