Page:Poems Cook.djvu/142

One wave of Passion's boiling flood
 May all the sea of Life disturb;
And steeds of good but fiery blood
 Will rush on death without a curb.

Think on the course ye fain would run,
 And moderate the wild desire;
There's many a one would drive the sun,
 Only to set the world on fire.

Slight not the one of honest worth,
 Because no star adorns his breast:
The lark soars highest from the earth,
 Yet ever leaves the lowest nest.

Heed but the bearing of a tree,
 And if it yield a wholesome fruit;
A shallow, envious fool is he,
 Who spurns it for its forest root.

Let fair humanity be thine,
 To fellow-man and meanest brute:
"Tis nobly taught—the code's divine—
 Mercy is God's chief attribute.

The coward wretch whose hand and heart
 Can bear to torture aught below,
Is ever first to quail and start
 From slightest pain or equal foe.

Be not too ready to condemn
 The wrong thy brothers may have done;
Ere ye too harshly censure them
 For human faults, ask—"Have I none?"

Live that thy young and glowing breast
 Can think of death without a sigh;
And be assured that life is best
 Which finds us least afraid to die.

126