THE GOLDEN YEAR. WELL, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote: It was last summer on a tour in Wales : Old James was with me: we that day had been Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there, He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore To which "They call me what they will," he said : But I was born too late the fair-new forms, That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caught Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. But if you care indeed to listen, hear These measured words, my work of yestermorn. "We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move; The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; And human things returning on themselves Move onward, leading up the golden year. 66 Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore And slow and sure comes up the golden year. "When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, But smit with frëer light shall slowly melt In many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Thro' all the season of the golden year. "Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle. Happy days Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 66 Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing havenward With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, "But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon “Ah, folly !” in mimic cadence answer'd James— 66 Ah, folly for it lies so far away, Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'Tis like the second world to us that live, 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year.' With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it,-James,-you know him,-old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back,— The more fools they,-we forward: dreamers both : You most, that in an age, when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he works, He spoke; and, high above us, I heard them blast ULYSSES. Ir little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those |