Pomp and wealth, and pride of office With their glitter and their shouting, May not pass through death's dark valley, May not thrill the ear that resteth Mid the silence of the grave-yard; But the deed that wrought in pity Mid the outcast and benighted, In the hovel or the prison, On the land or on the ocean, Shunning still the applause of mortals, Comes it not to His remembrance Who shall say amid the terrors Of the last Great Day of Judgment, "Inasmuch as ye have done it Unto one, the least, the lowest. It was done to Me, your Saviour." CANTO THIRD. I'll change my measure, and so end my lay, Too long already. I can't manage well The metre of that master of the lyre, Who Hiawatha, and our forest tribes Deftly described. Hexameters, I hate, And henceforth do eschew their company, For what is written irksomely, will be Read in like manner. What did I say last In my late canto? Something, I believe Of gratitude. Now this same gratitude Is a fine word to play on. Many a niche It fills in letters, and in billet-doux,-- Its adjective a graceful prefix makes To a well-written signature. It gleams A happy mirage in a sunny brain; But as a principle, is oft, I fear, Inoperative. Some satirist hath said That _gratitude is only a keen sense Of future favors_. As regards myself, Tis my misfortune, and perhaps, my fault, Yet I'm constrain'd to say, that where my gifts And efforts have been greatest, the return Has been in contrast. So that I have shrunk To grant myself the pleasure of great love Lest its reward might be indifference, Or smooth deceit. Others no doubt have been More fortunate. I trust 'tis often so: But this is my experience, on the scale Of three times twenty years, and somewhat more. * * * * *