Yea, lone, sad soul, thy heights must be thy home. Thou sweetest lover! love shall climb to thee, Like incense curling some cathedral dome From many distant vales. Yet thou shalt be, O grand, sweet singer, to the end alone. But murmur not. The moon, the mighty spheres, Spin on alone through all the soundless years; Alone man comes on earth; he lives alone; Alone he turns to front the dark Unknown. Then range thine upper world, nor stoop to wars. Walk thou the heights as walked the old Greeks when They talked to austere gods, nor turned to men. Teach thou the order of the singing stars. Behold, in mad disorder these are set, And yet they sing in ceaseless harmonies. They spill as jewels spilt through space. They fret The souls of men who measure melodies As they would measure slimy deeps of seas. Take comfort, O uncommon soul. Yet pray Lest ye grow proud in such exalted worth. Let no man reckon he excels. I say The laws of compensation compass earth, And no man gains without some equal loss: Each ladder round of fame becomes a rod, And he who lives must die upon a cross. The stars are far, but flowers bless the sod, And he who has the least of man has most of God. JOAQUIN MILLER. MADCAP VIOLET. BY WILLIAM BLACK. CHAPTER XLIV. JOY AND FEAR. Was this man mad, that he, an invalid, propped up in his chair, and scarcely able to move a wine-glass out of his way, should play pranks with the whole created order of things, tossing about solar systems as if they were no more than juggler's balls, and making universal systems of philosophy jump through hoops as if he were a lion tamer in a den? These poor women did not know where to catch him. Violet used to say that he was like a prism, taking the ordinary daylight of life and splitting it up into a thousand gay and glancing colors. That was all very well as a spectacular exhibition; but how when he was apparently instructing them in some serious matter? Was it fair to these tender creatures who had so lovingly nursed him, that he should assume the airs of a teacher, and gravely lead out his trusting disciples into the desert places of the earth, when his only object was to get them into a bog and then suddenly reveal himself as a will-o'-the-wisp, laughing at them with a fiendish joy?