THE PROBLEM

Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone,
And Morning opes with haste her lids
To gaze upon the Pyramids;

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For, out of Thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand

To the vast soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.

Ever the fiery Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.

25

One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

BRAHMA

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;

Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

TERMINUS

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!

27

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.

Fancy departs: no more invent;

Contract thy firmament

To compass of a tent.

There's not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while

Still plan and smile,

And, fault of novel germs,
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,

Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath

The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the Gladiators, halt and numb."

As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: "Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

MONTEREY

WE were not many

we who stood

Before the iron sleet that day

Yet many a gallant spirit would

Give half his years if he then could
Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed

In deadly drifts of fiery spray,

Yet not a single soldier quailed

When wounded comrades round them wailed

Their dying shout at Monterey.

DIVINA COMMEDIA

And on · still on our column kept

Through walls of flame its withering way; Where fell the dead, the living stept, Still charging on the guns which swept The slippery streets of Monterey.

The foe himself recoiled aghast,

When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey.

Our banners on those turrets wave,

And there our evening bugles play; Where orange boughs above their grave Keep green the memory of the brave Who fought and fell at Monterey.

We

We are not many we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest,
Than not have been at Monterey?

29

Charles Fenno Hoffman.

DIVINA COMMEDIA

OFT have I seen at some cathedral door
A laborer pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;

Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street

Become an indistinguishable roar.