I well believe such glowing zeal

Was good and dear to see,
Yet not for all those days reveal

Would I surrender thee!
My own age! my own age !

They say that thou art crude,
Ungrateful to the former time,

And wishing all renewed.
I do not spurn that former time,

But own it proud and free;
Yet not for its heroic prime

Would I surrender thee !
My own age! my own age !

And shall I tell thee why?
It is in thee that Heaven has cast

My lot to live and die.
And therefore, though each age before

Were rich as rich may be,
Oh, not for all its precious store
Would I surrender thee!

From “Politics for the People,” No. 2.

XXIX. THE WEAVER'S SONG. 6 THERE is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness in work. Were he ever so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Doubt, desire, sorrow, remorse, indignation, despair itself-all these, like hell-dogs, lie beleaguering the souls of the poor day-workers as of every man; but he bends himself with free valour against his task, and all these are stifled-all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves.”—Carlyle.

WEAVE, brothers, weave !-Swiftly throw

The shuttle athwart the loom ;
And show us how brightly your flowers grow

That have beauty, but not perfume :
Come, show us the rose with a hundred dyes,

The lily that hath no spot,
The violet deep as your true-love's eyes,
And the little forget-me-not.

Sing, sing, brothers ! weave and sing,

'Tis good both to sing and weave; 'Tis better to work than live idle,

"Tis better to sing than grieve.

Weave, brothers, weave !-Weave and bid

The colours of sunset glow!
Let grace in each gliding thread be hid,

Let beauty about ye blow:
Let your skein be long, and your silk be fine,

And your hands both firm and sure ;
And time nor chance shall your work untwine,
But all-like a truth-endure!

So, sing, brothers, &c.
Weave, brothers, weave !—Toil is ours;

But toil is the lot of man ;
One gathers the fruit, one gathers the flowers,

One soweth the seed again!
There is not a creature, from England's king

To the peasant that delves the soil,
That knows half the pleasure the seasons bring,
If he have not his share of toil.
So, sing, brothers, &c.

BARRY CORNWALL.

XXX. WORK. “For rational occupation, which is, in other words, for the very material of contented existence, there would be no place left, if either the things with which we had to do were absolutely impracticable to our endeavours, or if they were too obedient to our uses. A world, furnished with advantages on one side, and beset with difficulties, wants, and inconveniences on the other, is the proper abode of free, rational, and active natures, being the fittest to stimulate and exercise their faculties. The very refractoriness of the objects they have to deal with contributes to this purpose. A world in which nothing depended upon ourselves, however it might have suited an imaginary race of beings, would not have suited mankind. Their skill, prudence, industry; their various arts and their best attainments, from the application of which they draw, if not their highest, their most permanent gratifications, would be insignificant, if things could be either moulded by our volitions, or of their accord, conformed them selves to our views and wishes.”—Paley. Derivations. Etymology.

Syntax.
Tending. Reign.

Set.
Wrestle.

What, 1. 1.
Declines, Assigns. Tending. Crystallines. Curfew.
Curfew. Patience. Thee.

Others,

Tears. Assoil. Fructify.

Fructify.

Near, 1. 14.
What are we set on earth for? Say' to toil-
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines,
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines,
And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil.

God did anoint thee with his odorous oil,
To wrestle, not to reign; and He assigns
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines,
For younger fellow-workers of the soil
To wear for amulets. So others shall
Take patience, labour, to their heart and hands,
From thy hands, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer,
And God's grace fructify through thee to all.
The least flower, with a brimming? cup, may stand,
And share its dew-drop with another 3

BARRETT. 1. Give the full meaning of say, as 2. In what sense is brimming used ? used here?

3. Another what?

near.

XXXI. SONG AFTER LABOUR. “MAN goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. () Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.”—Ps. civ., 23 and 24 verses.

LABOUR's strong and merry children,

Comrades of the rising sun,
Let us sing some songs together,

Now our toil is done.
No desponding, no repining!

Leisure must by toil be bought;
Never yet was good accomplished

Without hand and thought.
Even God's all-holy labour

Framed the air, the stars, the sun,
Built our earth on deep foundation;
And the world was won.

BARRY CORNWALL.

XXXII. THE BUILDERS. “ NATURE is not fixed, but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it. The immobility or bruteness is the absence of spirit; to pure spirit, it is fluid, it is volatile, it is obedient. Every spirit builds itself a house ; and, beyond its house, a world ; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know, then, that the world exists for you; for you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Cæsar could, you have, and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth ; Cæsar called his house, Rome; you perhaps cali yours a cobbler's trade, a hundred acres of ploughed land, or a scholar's arret. Yet, line for line, and point for point, your dominion is as

eat as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your

cwn world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions.”-R. W. Emerson.

ALL are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low,

Each thing in its place is best ;
And what seems but idle show,

Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.
Truly shape and fashion these,

Leave no yawning gaps between :
Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.
In the elder days of art,

Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part,

For the gods are everywhere.
Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen ;
Make the house where gods may dwell

Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these wa

of time;
Broken stair-ways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base ;
And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

LONGFELLOW.

XXXIII. THE LABOURER. “ It is an encouraging circumstance that the respect for labour is increasing, or rather that the old prejudices against manual toil as degrading a man, or putting him in a lower sphere, are wearing away; and the cause of this change is full of promise : for it is to be found in the progress of intelligence, Christianity, and freedom, all of which cry aloud against the old barriers created between the different classes, and challenge especial sympathy and regard for those who bear the heaviest burdens and create most of the comforts of social life. The contempt of labour of which I have spoken, is a relic of the old aristocratic prejudices which formerly proscribed trade as unworthy of a gentleman, and must die out with other prejudices of the same low origin. And the results must be happy. It is hard for a class of men to respect themselves, who are denied respect by all around them. A vocation, looked on as degrading, will have a tendency to degrade those who follow it. Away, then, with the idea of something low in manual labour. There is something shocking to a religious man in the thought, that the employment which God has ordained for the vast majority of the human race, should be unworthy of any man, even of the highest. If, indeed, there were an employment which could not be dispensed with, and which yet tended to degrade such as might be devoted to it, I should say that it ought to be shared by the whole race, and thus neutralized by extreme division, instead of being laid, as the sole vocation, on one man or a few. Let no human being be broken in spirit, or trodden under foot, for the outward prosperity of the state. So far is manual labour from meriting contempt or slight, that it will probably be found, when united with true means of spiritual culture, to foster a sounder judgment, a keener observation, a more creative imagination, and a purer taste, than any other vocation. Man thinks of the few, God of the many; and the many will be found at length to have within their reach the most effectual means of progress.”— Channing.

STAND up-erect! Thou hast the form,

And likeness of thy God !—who more?
A soul as dauntless mid the storm
Of daily life, a heart as warm

And pure, as breast e'er wore.
What then?_Thou art as true a man

As moves the human mass among;
As much a part of the great plan
That with Creation's dawn began,

As any of the throng.
Who is thine enemy? the high

In station, or in wealth the chief ?
The great, who coldly pass thee by,
With proud step and averted eye?

Nay! nurse not such belief.