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Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we who have known shame, we have found release there,

Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, Nought broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But only agony, and that has ending;

And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Brooke.

213

No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life-that in me has rest,

As I-undying Life-have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as wither'd weeds

Or idle froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thine infinity;

So surely anchor'd on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void :
Thou THOU art Being and Breath,

And what THOU art may never be destroyed.
Emily Brontë.

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ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ?
O sweet content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?
O punishment!

Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd
To add to golden numbers golden numbers ?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny-hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crispèd spring?
O sweet content!

Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears ?
O punishment!

Then he that patiently Want's burden bears

No burden bears, but is a king, a king!

O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;

Then hey nonny nonny-hey nonny nonny.

215

The Soul's Pilgrimage

GIVE me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,

Dekker.

My gown of glory, hope's true gage;
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body's balmer;
No other balm will there be given;
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of heaven;
Over the silver mountains,

Where spring the nectar fountains :
There will I kiss

The bowl of bliss,

And drink mine everlasting fill

Upon every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before;

But, after, it will thirst no more.

Raleigh.

216* The Character of a Happy Life

How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

scallop-shell] see No. 15.

balmer] embalmer.

scrip] almsbag. palmer] pilgrim.

gage] pledge.

Whose passions not his masters are ;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world with care

Of prince's love or vulgar breath. . .

Who hath his life from rumours freed;

Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make accusers great :

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend:

This man is free from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, he hath all.

Wotton.

217*

Constancy

WHO is the honest man?

He that doth still and strongly good pursue,
To God, his neighbour, and himself most true:
Whom neither force nor fawning can
Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due:

Whose honesty is not

So loose or easy,

that a ruffling wind

Can blow away, or glittering look it blind :

Who rides his sure and even trot,

While the world now rides by, now lags behind :

Who, when great trials come,

Nor seeks, nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay Till he the thing and the example weigh:

All being brought into a sum,

What place or person calls for, he doth pay :

Whom none can work or woo

To use in any thing a trick or sleight;
For above all things he abhors deceit :

His words and works and fashion too
All of a piece are, all are clear and straight :

Who never melts or thaws

At close temptations: when the day is done,
His goodness sets not, but in dark can run ;
The sun to others writeth laws,
And is their Virtue; Virtue is his Sun:

Who, when he is to treat

With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way: Whom others' faults do not defeat;

But though men fail him, yet his part doth play :

Whom nothing can procure,

When the wide world runs bias, from his will
To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill :-
This is the Marksman, safe and sure,
Who still is right, and prays to be so still.

218

Herbert.

Character of the Happy Warrior

WHO is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?

-It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

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