Part 59 (1/2)

WHATEVER I do, and whatever I say, Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way; When she was a girl (forty summers ago) Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.

Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice!

But I like my own way, and I find it so nice And besides, I forget half the things I am told; But they all will come back to me--when I am old.

If a youth pa.s.ses by, it may happen, no doubt, He may chance to look in as I chance to look out; She would never endure an impertinent stare,-- It is horrid, she says, and I must n't sit there.

A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone; So I take a lad's arm,--just for safety, you know,-- But Aunt Tabitha tells me they did n't do so.

How wicked we are, and how good they were then!

They kept at arm's length those detestable men; What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay-- Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?

If the men were so wicked, I 'll ask my papa How he dared to propose to my darling mamma; Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows?

And what shall I say, if a wretch should propose?

I am thinking if Aunt knew so little of sin, What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!

And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!

A martyr will save us, and nothing else can; Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man!

Though when to the altar a victim I go, Aunt Tabitha 'll tell me she never did so.

WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS

FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM

I.

AMBITION

ANOTHER clouded night; the stars are hid, The orb that waits my search is hid with them.

Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, To plant my ladder and to gain the round That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won?

Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust; But the fair garland whose undying green Not time can change, nor wrath of G.o.ds or men!

With quickened heart-beats I shall hear tongues That speak my praise; but better far the sense That in the unshaped ages, buried deep In the dark mines of unaccomplished time Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die And coined in golden days,--in those dim years I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade.

Then, as they call the roll of s.h.i.+ning worlds, Sages of race unborn in accents new Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old, Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky Here glows the G.o.d of Battles; this recalls The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name To the dim planet with the wondrous rings; Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp, And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove; But this, unseen through all earth's ions past, A youth who watched beneath the western star Sought in the darkness, found, and shewed to men; Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore So shall that name be syllabled anew In all the tongues of all the tribes of men: I that have been through immemorial years Dust in the dust of my forgotten time Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath, Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born In s.h.i.+ning stone, in undecaying bronze, And stand on high, and look serenely down On the new race that calls the earth its own.

Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul, Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays Blend in soft white,--a cloud that, born of earth, Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven?

Must every coral-insect leave his sign On each poor grain he lent to build the reef, As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay, Or deem his patient service all in vain?

What if another sit beneath the shade Of the broad elm I planted by the way,-- What if another heed the beacon light I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel,-- Have I not done my task and served my kind?

Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown, And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, Joined with some truth he stumbled blindly o'er, Or coupled with some single s.h.i.+ning deed That in the great account of all his days Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven.

The n.o.blest service comes from nameless hands, And the best servant does his work unseen.

Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot, Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame?

Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone, And shaped the moulded metal to his need?

Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel, And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round?