As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still

As the immortal freshness of that grace Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze.

A youth named Rhocus, wandering in the wood,

Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall,
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree,
He propped its gray trunk with admir-
ing care,

And with a thoughtless footstep loitered

on.

But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind

That murmured "Phocus!" "T was as if the leaves,

Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it,

And, while he paused bewildered, yet again

It murmured "Rhocus!" softer than a breeze.

He started and beheld with dizzy eyes What seemed the substance of a happy dream

Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow

Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak.

It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fair

To be a woman, and with eyes too meek For any that were wont to mate with gods.

All naked like a goddess stood she there,
And like a goddess all too beautiful
To feel the guilt-born earthliness of

shame.

satisfy

dice,

side.

The dice were rattling at the mer

riest,

And Rhocus, who had met but sorry luck,

Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw,

When through the room there hummed a yellow bee

That buzzed about his ear with downdropped legs

As if to light. And Rhocus laughed and said,

Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss,

"By Venus! does he take me for a rose?'

And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand.

But still the bee came back, and thrice again

Rhecus did beat him off with growing wrath.

Then through the window flew the wounded bee,

And Rhocus, tracking him with angry

eyes,

Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly Against the red disk of the setting sun, And instantly the blood sank from his heart,

As if its very walls had caved away. Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth,

Ran madly through the city and the gate, And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade,

By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim,

Darkened wellnigh unto the city's wall.

Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, And, listening fearfully, he heard once

more

The low voice murmur "Rhocus!" close at hand:

Whereat he looked around him, but could

see

Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak.

Then sighed the voice, "O Rhocus!

nevermore

The winds not better love to pilot
A cloud with molten gold o'errun,
Than him, a little burning islet,
A star above the coming sun.
For with a lark's heart he doth tower,
By a glorious upward instinct drawn ;
No bee nestles deeper in the flower

Than he in the bursting rose of dawn.
No harmless dove, no bird that singeth,
Shudders to see him overhead;
The rush of his fierce swooping bringeth
To innocent hearts no thrill of dread.
Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver,
For still between them and the sky
The falcon Truth hangs poised forever
And marks them with his vengeful eye.

to sever,

And for himself find out the way divine; He never knew the aspirer's glorious pains,

He never earned the struggle's priceless gains.

O, block by block, with sore and sharp endeavor,

Lifelong we build these human natures up

Into a temple fit for freedom's shrine, And Trial ever consecrates the cup Wher from we pour her sacrificial wine.

A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

WE see but half the causes of our deeds, Seeking them wholly in the outer life, And heedless of the encircling spiritworld,

Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows

in us

All germs of pure and world-wide pur

poses.

From one stage of our being to the next We pass unconscious o'er a slender bridge, The momentary work of unseen hands, Which crumbles down behind us; looking back,

We see the other shore, the gulf between, And, marvelling how we won to where we stand,

Content ourselves to call the builder Chance.

We trace the wisdom to the apple's fall, Not to the birth-throes of a mighty Truth

Which, for long ages in blank Chaos dumb,

Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had found

At last a spirit meet to be the womb From which it might be born to bless mankind,

Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all The hoarded thoughtfulness of earnest years,

And waiting but one ray of sunlight

more

To blossom fully.

But whence came that ray? We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought Rather to name our high successes so. Only the instincts of great souls are Fate,

things,

Except by leave of us, could never be.
For Destiny is but the breath of God
Still moving in us, the last fragment left
Of our unfallen nature, waking oft
Within our thought, to beckon us be-
yond

The narrow circle of the seen and known,
And always tending to a noble end,
As all things must that overrule the soul,
And for a space unseat the helmsman,
Will.

The fate of England and of freedom once Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man:

One step of his, and the great dial-hand, That marks the destined progress of the world

In the eternal round from wisdom on
To higher wisdom, had been made to

Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged

men, Looking to where a little craft lay moored,

Swayed by the lazy current of the Thames,

Which weltered by in muddy listlessness. Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thought

Had trampled out all softness from their brows,

And ploughed rough furrows there before their time,

For other crop than such as home bred Peace

Sows broadcast in the willing soil of Youth.

Care, not of self, but of the commonweal,

Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead

A look of patient power and iron will, And something fiercer, too, that gave

broad hint

Of the plain weapons girded at their sides.

waves

should be,