GRADATIM

I count this thing to be grandly true:
That a noble deed is a step toward God,
Lifting the soul from the common clod

To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by the things that are under feet;

By what we have mastered of good and gain; By the pride deposed and the passion slain, And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,

When the morning calls us to life and light, But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night, Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,

And we think that we mount the air on wings
Beyond the recall of sensual things,

While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.

Wings for the angels, but feet for men!

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We may borrow the wings to find the way We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray; But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; But the dreams depart, and the vision falls, And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;

But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit, round by round. Josiah Gilbert Holland.

PRAXITELES AND PHRYNE

A THOUSAND silent years ago,

The twilight faint and pale Was drawing o'er the sunset glow Its soft and shadowy veil;

When from his work the Sculptor stayed
His hand, and, turned to one

Who stood beside him, half in shade,
Said, with a sigh, ""T is done.

"Thus much is saved from chance and change, That waits for me and thee;

Thus much how little!

Of Death and Destiny.

- from the range

"Phryne, thy human lips shall pale,
Thy rounded limbs decay,

Nor love nor prayers can aught avail
To bid thy beauty stay;

"But there thy smile for centuries

On marble lips shall live,

For Art can grant what Love denies,

And fix the fugitive.

"Sad thought! nor age nor death shall fade

The youth of this cold bust;

When this quick brain and hand that made, And thou and I are dust!

"When all our hopes and fears are dead, And both our hearts are cold,

ON A BUST OF DANTE

And love is like a tune that's played,
And life a tale that's told,

"This senseless stone, so coldly fair,
That love nor life can warm,
The same enchanting look shall wear,
The same enchanting form.

"Its peace no sorrow shall destroy;
Its beauty age shall spare
The bitterness of vanished joy,
The wearing waste of care.

"And there upon that silent face
Shall unborn ages see
Perennial youth, perennial grace,
And sealed serenity.

"And strangers, when we sleep in peace,

Shall say, not quite unmoved,

'So smiled upon Praxiteles

The Phryne whom he loved!""

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William Wetmore Story.

ON A BUST OF DANTE

SEE, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim,
The father was of Tuscan song:
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care, and scorn, abide -
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,

No dream his life was but a fight;
Could any Beatrice see

A lover in that anchorite?

To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight
Who could have guessed the visions came
Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,
In circles of eternal flame?

The lips as Cumae's cavern close,
The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,

Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look
When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,
With no companion save his book,
To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid
His palm upon the convent's guest,
The single boon for which he prayed
Was peace, that pilgrim's one request.

Peace dwells not here

this rugged face

Betrays no spirit of repose;

The sullen warrior sole we trace,
The marble man of many woes.

Such was his mien when first arose

The thought of that strange tale divine

DIRGE

When hell he peopled with his foes,
Dread scourge of many a guilty line.

War to the last he waged with all
The tyrant canker-worms of earth;
Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;
He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor, old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now.
Before his name the nations bow;
His words are parcel of mankind,
Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.

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Thomas William Parsons.

DIRGE

FOR ONE WHO FELL IN BATTLE

ROOM for a soldier! lay him in the clover;

He loved the fields, and they shall be his cover;

Make his mound with hers who called him once her

lover:

Where the rain may rain upon it,
Where the sun may shine upon it,
Where the lamb hath lain upon it,

And the bee will dine upon it.