“What is there left? what shall my verse Within those ancient halls rehearse?” Deep in his heart my plaint the minstrel weighed, And a subtle answer made: “The world that is, the ways of men, Not yet are glassed within their ken. Their foster-mother holds them long,— Long, long to youth,—short, short to age, appear The rounds of her Olympic Year,— Their ears are quickened for the trumpet-call. Sing to them one true song, Ere from the Happy Vale they turn, Of all the Abyssinian craved to learn, And dared his fate, and scaled the mountain-wall To join the ranks without, and meet what might befall.” III. VESTIGIA RETRORSUM. Gone the Arcadian age, When, from his hillside hermitage Sent forth, the gentle scholar strode At ease upon a royal road, And found the outer regions all they seem In Youth’s prophetic dream. The graduate took his station then By right, a ruler among men: Courtly the three estates, and sure; The bar, the bench, the pulpit, pure; No cosmic doubts arose, to vex The preacher’s heart, his faith perplex. Content in ancient paths he trod, Nor searched beyond his Book for God. Great virtue lurked in many a saw And in the doctor’s Latin lay; Men thought, lived, died, in the appointed way. Yet eloquence was slave to law, And law to right: the statesman sought A patriot’s fame, and served his land, unbought, And bore erect his front, and held his oath in awe. IV. ÆREA PROLES.