8. Robert Schumann, 1810. He holds on firmly to some thread of life Which runs across some vast distracting orb His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. 9. Napoleon III. died, 1873. AN EPISTLE. And why should I be sad, or lorn of hope? 10. Laud beheaded, 1645. PARACELSUS. No 't is ungainly work, the ruling men, at best: The graceful instinct's right; 't is women stand confessed Auxiliary, the gain that never goes away, Takes nothing and gives all. FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 11. Bayard Taylor, 1825. Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good Is silent - you hear each petty injury – None of his daily virtues. PIPPA PASSES. 12. John Winthrop, 1588. Is not God now i' the world His power first made? Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 13. S. P. Chase, 1808. Why fell not things out so nor otherwise? - slur The line o' the painter just where paint leaves off And life begins, put ice into the ode O' the poet while he cries "Next stanza - fire!" Inscribes all human effort with one word, Artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete! THE RING AND THE BOOK. 14. Bishop Berkeley died, 1753. He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance This Present, thou, forsooth, would'st fain arrest ; Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. RABBI BEN EZRA. 15. Molière, 1622. Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better perchance is this your comfort to me? To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be. 16. Richard Savage, 1697. ABT VOGLER. No, be man and nothing more Man who, as man conceiving, hopes and fears, And craves and deprecates, and loves, and loathes, And bids God help him, till death touch his eyes And show God granted most, denying all. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. 17. Benjamin Franklin, 1706. For don't you mark? We're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; And so they are better painted — better to us, Which is the same thing Art was given for that! God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out. FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 18. Daniel Webster, 1782. Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray "Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!” Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may do battle and have praise! THE RING AND THE BOOK. 19. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809. Anyhow, 't is the nature of the soul To seek a show of durability, Nor, changing, plainly be the slave of change. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY. 20. Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1807. Youth, with its Beauty and Grace, would seem bestowed on us for some such reason as to make us partly endurable till we have time for really becoming so of ourselves, without their aid, when they leave us. A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 21. John Charles Frémont, 1813. Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. RABBI BEN EZRA. 22. Bacon, 1561; Byron, 1788. Consider well! Were knowledge all thy faculty, then God Must be ignored; love gains Him by first leap. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. 23. William Page, 1811. Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes, FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. 24. Frederick the Great, 1712. Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. RABBI BEN EZRA. |