Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu/185

Thou who in early years feelest awake

To finest impulses from nature's breath,

And in thy walk hearest such sounds of truth

As on the common ear strike without heed,

Beware of men around thee. Men are foul,

With avarice, ambition and deceit;

The worst of all, ambition. This is life

Spent in a feverish chase for selfish ends,

Which has no virtue to redeem its toil

But one long, stagnant hope to raise the self.

The miser's life to this seems sweet and fair;

Better to pile the glittering coin, than seek

To overtop our brothers and our loves.

Merit in this? Where lies it, though thy name

Ring over distant lands, meeting the wind

Even on the extremest verge of the wide world.

Merit in this? Better be hurled abroad

On the vast whirling tide, than in thyself

Concentred, feed upon thy own applause.

Thee shall the good man yield no reverence;

But, while the idle, dissolute crowd are loud

In voice to send thee flattery, shall rejoice

That he has scaped thy fatal doom, and known

How humble faith in the good soul of things

Provides amplest enjoyment. O my brother,

If the Past's counsel any honor claim

From thee, go read the history of those

Who a like path have trod, and see a fate

Wretched with fears, changing like leaves at noon,

When the new wind sings in the white birch wood.

Learn from the simple child the rule of life,

And from the movements of the unconscious tribes

Of animal nature, those that bend the wing

Or cleave the azure tide, content to be,

What the great frame provides,—freedom and grace.

Thee, simple child, do the swift winds obey,

And the white waterfalls with their bold leaps

Follow thy movements. Tenderly the light

Thee watches, girding with a zone of radiance,

And all the swinging herbs love thy soft steps.”

DESCRIPTION OF ANGELA, FROM “FESTUS.”

“	I loved her for that she was beautiful,
	And that to me she seemed to bo all nature