And if a stitch perchance should drop, as life's frail stitches will,

How if we patient take it up, the work may prosper still.

Extract

FROM A POEM DELIVERED AT THE DEPARTURE OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF YALE COLLEGE, IN 1826.

BY N. P. WILLIS.

WE shall go forth together. There will come Alike the day of trial unto all,

And the rude world will buffet us alike.
Temptation hath a music for all ears;
And mad ambition trumpeteth to all;
And the ungovernable thought within
Will be in every bosom eloquent,-
But, when the silence and the calm come on,
And the high seal of character is set,
We shall not all be similar. The scale
Of being is a graduated thing;

And deeper than the vanities of power,
Or the vain pomp of glory, there is writ
Gradation, in its hidden character.

The pathway to the grave may be the same,
And the proud man shall tread it, and the low,
With his bowed head shall bear him company.
Decay will make no difference, and death
With his cold hand, shall make no difference;
And there will be no precedence of power,
In waking at the coming trump of God;
But in the temper of the invisible mind,
The godlike and undying intellect,

There are distinctions that will live in heaven,
When time is a forgotten circumstance!
The elevated brow of kings will lose
The impress of regalia; and the slave
Will wear his immortality as free,
Beside the crystal waters, but the depth
Of glory in the attributes of God,
Will measure the capacities of mind;
And as the angels differ, will the ken
Of gifted spirits glorify him more.
It is life's mystery. The soul of man
Createth its own destiny of power,
And as the trial is intenser here,

His being hath a nobler strength in heaven.

EXTRACT.

What is its earthly victory? Press on! For it hath tempted angels. Yet press on! For it shall make you mighty among men; And from the eyrie of your eagle thought, Ye shall look down on monarchs.

O,

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O, press on! For the high ones and powerful shall come To do you reverence; and the beautiful Will know the purer language of your brow, And read it like a talisman of love! Press on! for it is godlike to unloose The spirit, and forget yourself in thought; Bending a pinion for the deeper sky, And in the very fetters of your flesh, Mating with the pure essences of heaven! Press on for in the grave there is no work, And no device!-Press on! whilst yet ye may.

So lives the soul of man. It is the thirst
Of his immortal nature; and he rends
The rock for secret fountains, and pursues
The path of the illimitable wind

For mysteries, and this is human pride.
There is a gentler element, and man
May breathe it with a calm unruffled soul,
And drink its living waters till his heart
Is pure, and this is human happiness;

Its secret and its evidence are writ
In the broad book of Nature. 'Tis to have
Attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well-created things;
To love the voice of waters, and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds,
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine; reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf,

And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering tree;
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence
Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world!
It is to linger on “the magic face

Of human beauty," and from light and shade
Alike to draw a lesson; 'tis to love
The cadences of voices that are tuned
By majesty and purity of thought;
To gaze on woman's beauty, as a star
Whose purity and distance make it fair;
And in the gush of music to be still,
And feel that it has purified the heart!
It is to love all virtue for itself,

All Nature for its breathing evidence;

And, when the eye hath seen, and when the ear

EXTRACT.

Hath drunk the beautiful harmony of the world, It is to humble the imperfect mind,

And lean the broken spirit upon God!

Thus would I, at this parting hour, be true
To the great moral of a passing world.
Thus would I,—like a just departing child,
Who lingers on the threshold of his home,
Remember the best lesson of the lips

Whose accents shall be with us now, no more.
It is the gift of sorrow to be pure;

And I would press the lesson that when life
Hath half become a weariness, and hope
Thirsts for serener waters, go abroad
Upon the paths of Nature, and when all
Its voices whisper, and its silent things
Are breathing the deep beauty of the world,
Kneel at its simple altar, and the God
Who hath the living waters shall be there.

THE END.

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