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Every wayfarer he meets

What himself declared repeats,
What himself confessed records,
Sentences him in his words;

The form is his own corporal form,
And his thought the penal worm.
Yet shine forever virgin minds,
Loved by stars and purest winds,
Which, o'er passion throned sedate,
Have not hazarded their state;
Disconcert the searching spy,
Rendering to a curious eye
The durance of a granite ledge.

To those who gaze from the sea's edge
It is there for benefit;

It is there for purging light;
There for purifying storms;
And its depths reflect all forms; '
It cannot parley with the mean,-
Pure by impure is not seen.
For there's no sequestered grot,
Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot,
But Justice, journeying in the sphere,
Daily stoops to harbor there.

IX

ÉTIENNE DE LA BOÉCE

I SERVE you not, if you I follow,
Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow;
And bend my fancy to your leading,
All too nimble for my treading.
When the pilgrimage is done,
And we've the landscape overrun,
I am bitter, vacant, thwarted,
And your heart is unsupported.
Vainly valiant, you have missed

The manhood that should yours resist,-
Its complement; but if I could,

In severe or cordial mood,

Lead you rightly to my altar,

Where the wisest Muses falter,

And worship that world-warming spark

Which dazzles me in midnight dark,

Equalizing small and large,

While the soul it doth surcharge,
Till the poor is wealthy grown,
And the hermit never alone, -
The traveller and the road seem one
With the errand to be done,-
That were a man's and lover's part,

That were Freedom's whitest chart.

COMPENSATION

WHY should I keep holiday

When other men have none?

Why but because, when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone?

And why, when mirth unseals all tongues,
Should mine alone be dumb?

Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,
And now their hour is come.

FORBEARANCE

HAST thou named all the birds without a gun? Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? And loved so well a high behavior,

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, Nobility more nobly to repay?

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

THE PARK

THE prosperous and beautiful
To me seem not to wear
The yoke of conscience masterful,
Which galls me everywhere.

I cannot shake off the god;

On my neck he makes his seat; I look at my face in the glass,My eyes his eyeballs meet.

Enchanters! Enchantresses!

Your gold makes you seem wise The morning mist within your grounds More proudly rolls, more softly lies.

Yet spake yon purple mountain,
Yet said yon ancient wood,

That Night or Day, that Love or Crime,
Leads all souls to the Good.

FORERUNNERS

LONG I followed happy guides,
I could never reach their sides;
Their step is forth, and, ere the day
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Keen my sense, my heart was young,
Right good-will my sinews strung,
But no speed of mine avails

To hunt upon their shining trails.

On and away, their hasting feet
Make the morning proud and sweet;

Flowers they strew, I catch the scent;

Or tone of silver instrument

Leaves on the wind melodious trace;

Yet I could never see their face.
On eastern hills I see their smokes,

Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
I met many travellers

Who the road had surely kept;

They saw not my fine revellers,

These had crossed them while they slept. Some had heard their fair report,

In the country or the court.

Fleetest couriers alive

Never yet could once arrive,

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