As from himself he fled, Possessed, insane, Tormenting demons drove him from the gate: Away he sped, Casting his woes behind, His joys to find, His better mind. 'Tis passing strange, The glorious change, The pleasing pain! Recovered, Himself again Over his threshold led, Peace fills his breast, He finds his rest; Expecting angels his arrival wait. If we cannot spin our tops briskly as boys do theirs, the wailers may chant their dirges over us. Enthusiasm is existence; earnestness, life's exceeding great reward. How busy then, and above criticism. Our cup runs over. But a parted activity, divorcing us from ourselves, degrades our noblest parts to the sway of the lowest and renders our task a drudgery and shame. For what avails, if while one's mind hovers about Olympus, his members flounder in Styx, and he is drawn asunder in the conflict? Let the days deify the days, the work the workman, giving the joyous task that leaves pleasant memories behind, and ennobles in the performance: Tasked days Above delays; Hours that borrow Speed of the morrow, Light from sorrow: Business bate not, Want nor wait not, Doubt nor date not; Life from limb forbid to sever, Recreate in rapt endeavor. We come as a muse to our toil and find amusement in it; to a taskmaster whose company never tires. 'Tis life, the partaking of immortality. A day lived so, glorifies all moments afterwards. Long postponed, perhaps, the hours wearisome, till broke this immortal morning with engagements that time can complete never, nor compel, and whose importunity outlasts the hours. Sleep, too, having the keys of life in its keeping. How we rise from its delectable divinations with eyes sovereign and anointed for the day's occupations. All our powers are touched with flame, all things are possible. But last night, the world had come to an end; the floods ebbed low, as if the fates were reversing the torch. How we blazed all the morning, to be cinders yesternight. Then came the god to re-kindle our faded embers, the Phoenix wings her way to meet the rising dawn and embrace the young world once more. Sleep took the sleep out of us. From forth the void there rises a roseate morn upon us. The flattering East her gates impearled, We hunt the morning round the world. Nor is a day lived if the dawn is left out of it, with the prospects it opens. Who speaks charmingly of nature or of mankind, like him who comes bibulous of sunrise and the fountains of waters? "Mornings are mysteries, the first world's youth, Man's resurrection, and the future's bud Shown in their birth; they make us happy, Make us rich."