Heaven is secure.

XENOPHANES

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave

One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,

One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,

One aspect to the desert and the lake.

It was her stern necessity: all things

Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower,

Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character,

Deceive us, seeming to be many things,

And are but one. Beheld far off, they differ

As God and devil; bring them to the mind,

They dull its edge with their monotony.

To know one element, explore another,

And in the second reappears the first.

The specious panorama of a year

But multiplies the image of a day, –

A belt of mirrors round a taper’s flame;

And universal Nature, through her vast

And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet,

Repeats one note.

THE DAY’S RATION

When I was born,

From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,

Saying, ‘This be thy portion, child; this chalice,

Less than a lily’s, thou shalt daily draw

From my great arteries, – nor less, nor more.’

All substances the cunning chemist Time

Melts down into that liquor of my life, –

Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and disgust.

And whether I am angry or content,

Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,

All he distils into sidereal wine

And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!

Of all he sheds how little it will hold,

How much runs over on the desert sands.

If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray,

And I uplift myself into its heaven,

The needs of the first sight absorb my blood,

And all the following hours of the day

Drag a ridiculous age.

To-day, when friends approach, and every hour

Brings book, or starbright scroll of genius,

The little cup will hold not a bead more,

And all the costly liquor runs to waste;

Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond drop

So to be husbanded for poorer days.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

Why need I galleries, when a pupil’s draught

After the master’s sketch fills and o’erfills

My apprehension? why seek Italy,

Who cannot circumnavigate the sea

Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn

The nearest matters for a thousand days?

BLIGHT

Give me truths;

For I am weary of the surfaces,

And die of inanition. If I knew

Only the herbs and simples of the wood,

Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain, and agrimony,

Blue-vetch, and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,

Milkweeds, and murky brakes, quaint pipes, and sundew,

And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods

Draw untold juices from the common earth,

Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell

Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply

By sweet affinities to human flesh,

Driving the foe and stablishing the friend, –

O, that were much, and I could be a part

Of the round day, related to the sun

And planted world, and full executor

Of their imperfect functions.

But these young scholars, who invade our hills,