ble knowledge, great reflection,
and the imagination of a fertile as well as a precocious brain. It is a
stream which carries with it things new and old, and serves to stir the
mind of the onlooker with unwonted thoughts. Were it but one fourth as
long, it would still remain a favorite poem. Even now it has passed
through numerous editions, and been but lately republished in sumptuous
form after fifty years of life; and in the catalogue of higher
metaphysico-religious poetry it will long maintain an honorable place.
It is cited here among the books whose fame rather than whose importance
_demand_ recognition.

FROM 'FESTUS'

LIFE

_Festus_-- Men's callings all
Are mean and vain; their wishes more so: oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!

_Lucifer_--What men call accident is God's own part.
He lets ye work your will--it is his own:
But that ye mean not, know not, do not, he doth.

_Festus_--What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely harmonies which time
And nature change responsive, all writ out
By preconcertive hand which swells the strain
To divine fulness; feel the poetry,
The soothing rhythm of life's fore-ordered lay;
The sacredness of things?--for all things are
Sacred so far,--the worst of them, as seen
By the eye of God, they in the aspect bide
Of holiness: nor shall outlaw sin be slain,
Though rebel banned, within the sceptre's length;
But privileged even for service. Oh! to stand
Soul-raptured, on some lofty mountain-thought,
And feel the spirit expand into a view
Millennial, life-exalting, of a day
When earth shall have all leisure for high ends
Of social culture; ends a liberal law
And common peace of nations, blent with charge
Divine, shall win for man, were joy indeed:
Nor greatly less, to know what might be now,
Worked will for good with power, for one brief hour.
But look at these, these individual souls:
How sadly men show out of joint with man!
There are millions never think a noble thought;
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Throw but a false glare round them, and in shoals
They rush upon perdition: that's the race.
What charm is in this world-scene to suc