s he will be ready
for it, whatever it may be. The will of heaven is his happy fate. Even at
three-and-twenty, "he that believeth shall not make haste." Calm and
open-eyed, he works to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow.

At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness:

When I consider how my life is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he, returning, chide--
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent _foolishly._
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody
knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more
and more luminous as they are regarded.

The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly
the grandest of them. It is a little ode, written _to be set on a
clock-case_.

ON TIME.

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace,
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours--
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross:
So little is our loss!
So little is thy gain!
For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss; _that cannot be divided--
And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal._
When everything that is sincerely good,
And perfectly divine
With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne
Of him to whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then, all this earthy grossness quit,
Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time.

The next I give is likewise an ode--a more _beautiful_ one. Observe in
both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the
ode,