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+Transcribed from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+                          [Picture: Book cover]
+
+
+
+
+
+                             SONNETS FROM THE
+                                PORTUGUESE
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+                                ELIZABETH
+                             BARRETT BROWNING
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+                      THE CARADOC PRESS BEDFORD PARK
+                   CHISWICK LONDON             MDCCCCVI
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF FIRST LINES
+
+          I  I thought once how Theocritus had sung
+         II  But only three in all God’s universe
+        III  Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
+         IV  Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor
+          V  I lift my heavy heart up solemnly
+         VI  Go from me.  Yet I feel that I shall stand
+        VII  The face of all the world is changed, I think
+       VIII  What can I give thee back, O liberal
+         IX  Can it be right to give what I can give?
+          X  Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
+         XI  And therefore if to love can be desert
+        XII  Indeed this very love which is my boast
+       XIII  And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
+        XIV  If thou must love me, let it be for nought
+         XV  Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
+        XVI  And yet, because thou overcomest so
+       XVII  My poet thou canst touch on all the notes
+      XVIII  I never gave a lock of hair away
+        XIX  The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize
+         XX  Beloved, my beloved, when I think
+        XXI  Say over again, and yet once over again
+       XXII  When our two souls stand up erect and strong
+      XXIII  Is it indeed so?  If I lay here dead
+       XXIV  Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife
+        XXV  A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
+       XXVI  I lived with visions for my company
+      XXVII  My own Beloved, who hast lifted me
+     XXVIII  My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
+       XXIX  I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
+        XXX  I see thine image through my tears to-night
+       XXXI  Thou comest! all is said without a word
+      XXXII  The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
+     XXXIII  Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
+      XXXIV  With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
+       XXXV  If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
+      XXXVI  When we met first and loved, I did not build
+     XXXVII  Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
+    XXXVIII  First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
+      XXXIX  Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace
+         XL  Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
+        XLI  I thank all who have loved me in their hearts
+       XLII  My future will not copy fair my past
+      XLIII  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways
+       XLIV  Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+   I thought once how Theocritus had sung
+   Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
+   Who each one in a gracious hand appears
+   To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
+   And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
+   I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
+   The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
+   Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
+   A shadow across me.  Straightway I was ’ware,
+   So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
+   Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
+   And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
+   “Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,
+   The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+   But only three in all God’s universe
+   Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
+   Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
+   One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse
+   So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
+   My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
+   The death-weights, placed there, would have signified
+   Less absolute exclusion.  “Nay” is worse
+   From God than from all others, O my friend!
+   Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
+   Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
+   Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
+   And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
+   We should but vow the faster for the stars.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+   Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
+   Unlike our uses and our destinies.
+   Our ministering two angels look surprise
+   On one another, as they strike athwart
+   Their wings in passing.  Thou, bethink thee, art
+   A guest for queens to social pageantries,
+   With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
+   Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
+   Of chief musician.  What hast thou to do
+   With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
+   A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
+   The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
+   The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
+   And Death must dig the level where these agree.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+   Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
+   Most gracious singer of high poems! where
+   The dancers will break footing, from the care
+   Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
+   And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor
+   For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
+   To let thy music drop here unaware
+   In folds of golden fulness at my door?
+   Look up and see the casement broken in,
+   The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
+   My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
+   Hush, call no echo up in further proof
+   Of desolation! there’s a voice within
+   That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+   I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
+   As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
+   And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn
+   The ashes at thy feet.  Behold and see
+   What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
+   And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
+   Through the ashen greyness.  If thy foot in scorn
+   Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
+   It might be well perhaps.  But if instead
+   Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
+   The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
+   O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so,
+   That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
+   The hair beneath.  Stand further off then! go!
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+   Go from me.  Yet I feel that I shall stand
+   Henceforward in thy shadow.  Nevermore
+   Alone upon the threshold of my door
+   Of individual life, I shall command
+   The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
+   Serenely in the sunshine as before,
+   Without the sense of that which I forbore—
+   Thy touch upon the palm.  The widest land
+   Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
+   With pulses that beat double.  What I do
+   And what I dream include thee, as the wine
+   Must taste of its own grapes.  And when I sue
+   God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
+   And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+   The face of all the world is changed, I think,
+   Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
+   Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
+   Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
+   Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
+   Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
+   Of life in a new rhythm.  The cup of dole
+   God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
+   And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
+   The names of country, heaven, are changed away
+   For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
+   And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,
+   (The singing angels know) are only dear
+   Because thy name moves right in what they say.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+   What can I give thee back, O liberal
+   And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
+   And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
+   And laid them on the outside of the wall
+   For such as I to take or leave withal,
+   In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
+   Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
+   High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
+   Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.
+   Ask God who knows.  For frequent tears have run
+   The colours from my life, and left so dead
+   And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
+   To give the same as pillow to thy head.
+   Go farther! let it serve to trample on.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+   Can it be right to give what I can give?
+   To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
+   As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
+   Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
+   Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
+   For all thy adjurations?  O my fears,
+   That this can scarce be right!  We are not peers
+   So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,
+   That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
+   Be counted with the ungenerous.  Out, alas!
+   I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
+   Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,
+   Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.
+   Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+   Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
+   And worthy of acceptation.  Fire is bright,
+   Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
+   Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
+   And love is fire.  And when I say at need
+   I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight
+   I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
+   With conscience of the new rays that proceed
+   Out of my face toward thine.  There’s nothing low
+   In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
+   Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
+   And what I feel, across the inferior features
+   Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
+   How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+   And therefore if to love can be desert,
+   I am not all unworthy.  Cheeks as pale
+   As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
+   To bear the burden of a heavy heart,—
+   This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
+   To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
+   To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale
+   A melancholy music,—why advert
+   To these things?  O Belovëd, it is plain
+   I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
+   And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
+   From that same love this vindicating grace
+   To live on still in love, and yet in vain,—
+   To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+   Indeed this very love which is my boast,
+   And which, when rising up from breast to brow,
+   Doth crown me with a ruby large enow
+   To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—
+   This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,
+   I should not love withal, unless that thou
+   Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
+   When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,
+   And love called love.  And thus, I cannot speak
+   Of love even, as a good thing of my own:
+   Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
+   And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—
+   And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
+   Is by thee only, whom I love alone.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+   And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
+   The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
+   And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
+   Between our faces, to cast light on each?—
+   I drop it at thy feet.  I cannot teach
+   My hand to hold my spirits so far off
+   From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof
+   In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
+   Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
+   Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—
+   Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,
+   And rend the garment of my life, in brief,
+   By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,
+   Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+   If thou must love me, let it be for nought
+   Except for love’s sake only.  Do not say
+   “I love her for her smile—her look—her way
+   Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
+   That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
+   A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
+   For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may
+   Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
+   May be unwrought so.  Neither love me for
+   Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
+   A creature might forget to weep, who bore
+   Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
+   But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
+   Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+   Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
+   Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
+   For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
+   With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
+   On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
+   As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
+   Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,
+   And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
+   Were most impossible failure, if I strove
+   To fail so.  But I look on thee—on thee—
+   Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
+   Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
+   As one who sits and gazes from above,
+   Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+   And yet, because thou overcomest so,
+   Because thou art more noble and like a king,
+   Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
+   Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
+   Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
+   How it shook when alone.  Why, conquering
+   May prove as lordly and complete a thing
+   In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
+   And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
+   To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
+   Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,
+   Here ends my strife.  If thou invite me forth,
+   I rise above abasement at the word.
+   Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+   My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
+   God set between His After and Before,
+   And strike up and strike off the general roar
+   Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
+   In a serene air purely.  Antidotes
+   Of medicated music, answering for
+   Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour
+   From thence into their ears.  God’s will devotes
+   Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
+   How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
+   A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
+   Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
+   A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?
+   A grave, on which to rest from singing?  Choose.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+   I never gave a lock of hair away
+   To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
+   Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
+   I ring out to the full brown length and say
+   “Take it.”  My day of youth went yesterday;
+   My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,
+   Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,
+   As girls do, any more: it only may
+   Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
+   Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
+   Through sorrow’s trick.  I thought the funeral-shears
+   Would take this first, but Love is justified,—
+   Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,
+   The kiss my mother left here when she died.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+   The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;
+   I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
+   And from my poet’s forehead to my heart
+   Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—
+   As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes
+   The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
+   The nine white Muse-brows.  For this counterpart, . . .
+   The bay crown’s shade, Belovëd, I surmise,
+   Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
+   Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
+   I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
+   And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
+   Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
+   No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+   Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think
+   That thou wast in the world a year ago,
+   What time I sat alone here in the snow
+   And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
+   No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,
+   Went counting all my chains as if that so
+   They never could fall off at any blow
+   Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink
+   Of life’s great cup of wonder!  Wonderful,
+   Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
+   With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull
+   Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
+   Thou sawest growing!  Atheists are as dull,
+   Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+   Say over again, and yet once over again,
+   That thou dost love me.  Though the word repeated
+   Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,
+   Remember, never to the hill or plain,
+   Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
+   Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
+   Belovëd, I, amid the darkness greeted
+   By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
+   Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!”  Who can fear
+   Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
+   Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
+   Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
+   The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
+   To love me also in silence with thy soul.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+   When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
+   Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
+   Until the lengthening wings break into fire
+   At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong
+   Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
+   Be here contented?  Think!  In mounting higher,
+   The angels would press on us and aspire
+   To drop some golden orb of perfect song
+   Into our deep, dear silence.  Let us stay
+   Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit
+   Contrarious moods of men recoil away
+   And isolate pure spirits, and permit
+   A place to stand and love in for a day,
+   With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+   Is it indeed so?  If I lay here dead,
+   Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
+   And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
+   Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
+   I marvelled, my Belovëd, when I read
+   Thy thought so in the letter.  I am thine—
+   But . . . so much to thee?  Can I pour thy wine
+   While my hands tremble?  Then my soul, instead
+   Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.
+   Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!
+   As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
+   For love, to give up acres and degree,
+   I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
+   My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+   Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife
+   Shut in upon itself and do no harm
+   In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
+   And let us hear no sound of human strife
+   After the click of the shutting.  Life to life—
+   I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
+   And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
+   Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
+   Are weak to injure.  Very whitely still
+   The lilies of our lives may reassure
+   Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
+   Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
+   Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.
+   God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+   A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne
+   From year to year until I saw thy face,
+   And sorrow after sorrow took the place
+   Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
+   As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
+   By a beating heart at dance-time.  Hopes apace
+   Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace
+   Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
+   My heavy heart.  Then thou didst bid me bring
+   And let it drop adown thy calmly great
+   Deep being!  Fast it sinketh, as a thing
+   Which its own nature does precipitate,
+   While thine doth close above it, mediating
+   Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+   I lived with visions for my company
+   Instead of men and women, years ago,
+   And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
+   A sweeter music than they played to me.
+   But soon their trailing purple was not free
+   Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
+   And I myself grew faint and blind below
+   Their vanishing eyes.  Then thou didst come—to be,
+   Belovëd, what they seemed.  Their shining fronts,
+   Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,
+   As river-water hallowed into fonts)
+   Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
+   My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
+   Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+   My own Belovëd, who hast lifted me
+   From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,
+   And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
+   A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
+   Shines out again, as all the angels see,
+   Before thy saving kiss!  My own, my own,
+   Who camest to me when the world was gone,
+   And I who looked for only God, found thee!
+   I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.
+   As one who stands in dewless asphodel,
+   Looks backward on the tedious time he had
+   In the upper life,—so I, with bosom-swell,
+   Make witness, here, between the good and bad,
+   That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+   My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
+   And yet they seem alive and quivering
+   Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
+   And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
+   This said,—he wished to have me in his sight
+   Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
+   To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
+   Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .
+   Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
+   As if God’s future thundered on my past.
+   This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
+   With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
+   And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
+   If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+   I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
+   About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
+   Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see
+   Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
+   Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
+   I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
+   Who art dearer, better!  Rather, instantly
+   Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
+   Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
+   And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,
+   Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!
+   Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
+   And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
+   I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+   I see thine image through my tears to-night,
+   And yet to-day I saw thee smiling.  How
+   Refer the cause?—Belovëd, is it thou
+   Or I, who makes me sad?  The acolyte
+   Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
+   May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
+   On the altar-stair.  I hear thy voice and vow,
+   Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
+   As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.
+   Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all
+   The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
+   Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
+   For my soul’s eyes?  Will that light come again,
+   As now these tears come—falling hot and real?
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+   Thou comest! all is said without a word.
+   I sit beneath thy looks, as children do
+   In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through
+   Their happy eyelids from an unaverred
+   Yet prodigal inward joy.  Behold, I erred
+   In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue
+   The sin most, but the occasion—that we two
+   Should for a moment stand unministered
+   By a mutual presence.  Ah, keep near and close,
+   Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise,
+   With thy broad heart serenely interpose:
+   Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies
+   These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,
+   Like callow birds left desert to the skies.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+   The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
+   To love me, I looked forward to the moon
+   To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
+   And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
+   Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
+   And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
+   For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune
+   Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
+   To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
+   Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
+   I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
+   A wrong on thee.  For perfect strains may float
+   ’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—
+   And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+   Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
+   The name I used to run at, when a child,
+   From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,
+   To glance up in some face that proved me dear
+   With the look of its eyes.  I miss the clear
+   Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
+   Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,
+   Call me no longer.  Silence on the bier,
+   While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouth
+   Be heir to those who are now exanimate.
+   Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
+   And catch the early love up in the late.
+   Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,
+   With the same heart, will answer and not wait.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+   With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
+   As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—
+   Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
+   Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?
+   When called before, I told how hastily
+   I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.
+   To run and answer with the smile that came
+   At play last moment, and went on with me
+   Through my obedience.  When I answer now,
+   I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;
+   Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—
+   Not as to a single good, but all my good!
+   Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
+   That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+   If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
+   And be all to me?  Shall I never miss
+   Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
+   That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
+   When I look up, to drop on a new range
+   Of walls and floors, another home than this?
+   Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
+   Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change
+   That’s hardest.  If to conquer love, has tried,
+   To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,
+   For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
+   Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
+   Yet love me—wilt thou?  Open thy heart wide,
+   And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+   When we met first and loved, I did not build
+   Upon the event with marble.  Could it mean
+   To last, a love set pendulous between
+   Sorrow and sorrow?  Nay, I rather thrilled,
+   Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
+   The onward path, and feared to overlean
+   A finger even.  And, though I have grown serene
+   And strong since then, I think that God has willed
+   A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .
+   Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold,
+   This mutual kiss drop down between us both
+   As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.
+   And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,
+   Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+   Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
+   Of all that strong divineness which I know
+   For thine and thee, an image only so
+   Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
+   It is that distant years which did not take
+   Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
+   Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
+   Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
+   Thy purity of likeness and distort
+   Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.
+   As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
+   His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
+   Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
+   And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+   First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
+   The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
+   And ever since, it grew more clean and white.
+   Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,”
+   When the angels speak.  A ring of amethyst
+   I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
+   Than that first kiss.  The second passed in height
+   The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
+   Half falling on the hair.  O beyond meed!
+   That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,
+   With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
+   The third upon my lips was folded down
+   In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
+   I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+   Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace
+   To look through and behind this mask of me,
+   (Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly,
+   With their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,
+   The dim and weary witness of life’s race,—
+   Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
+   Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,
+   The patient angel waiting for a place
+   In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,
+   Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood,
+   Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,
+   Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—
+   Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so
+   To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+   Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
+   I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:
+   I have heard love talked in my early youth,
+   And since, not so long back but that the flowers
+   Then gathered, smell still.  Mussulmans and Giaours
+   Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
+   For any weeping.  Polypheme’s white tooth
+   Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,
+   The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much
+   Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate
+   Or else to oblivion.  But thou art not such
+   A lover, my Belovëd! thou canst wait
+   Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,
+   And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+   I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,
+   With thanks and love from mine.  Deep thanks to all
+   Who paused a little near the prison-wall
+   To hear my music in its louder parts
+   Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s
+   Or temple’s occupation, beyond call.
+   But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall
+   When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s
+   Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot
+   To harken what I said between my tears, . . .
+   Instruct me how to thank thee!  Oh, to shoot
+   My soul’s full meaning into future years,
+   That they should lend it utterance, and salute
+   Love that endures, from life that disappears!
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+
+   My future will not copy fair my past—
+   I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
+   My ministering life-angel justified
+   The word by his appealing look upcast
+   To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
+   And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
+   To angels in thy soul!  Then I, long tried
+   By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
+   While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff
+   Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.
+   I seek no copy now of life’s first half:
+   Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
+   And write me new my future’s epigraph,
+   New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+
+   How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.
+   I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
+   My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
+   For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
+   I love thee to the level of everyday’s
+   Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
+   I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
+   I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
+   I love thee with the passion put to use
+   In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
+   I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
+   With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
+   Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
+   I shall but love thee better after death.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+
+   Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowers
+   Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,
+   And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
+   In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
+   So, in the like name of that love of ours,
+   Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
+   And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
+   From my heart’s ground.  Indeed, those beds and bowers
+   Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
+   And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
+   Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do
+   Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
+   Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
+   And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.
+
+
+

PG2003_text.txt

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+
+
+
+
+
+SPIRITS IN BONDAGE
+
+A CYCLE OF LYRICS
+
+By Clive Hamilton [C. S. Lewis]
+
+
+
+
+In Three Parts
+
+     I.    The Prison House
+     II.   Hesitation
+     III.The Escape
+
+
+          "The land where I shall never be
+          The love that I shall never see"
+
+
+
+
+Historical Background
+
+Published under the pseudonym, Clive Hamilton, Spirits in Bondage was C.
+S. Lewis' first book. Released in 1919 by Heinemann, it was reprinted in
+1984 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and included in Lewis' 1994 Collected
+Poems. It is the first of Lewis' major published works to enter the
+public domain in the United States. Readers should be aware that in
+other countries it may still be under copyright protection.
+
+Most of the poems appear to have been written between 1915 and 1918, a
+period during which Lewis was a student under W. T. Kirkpatrick, a
+military trainee at Oxford, and a soldier serving in the trenches of
+World War I. Their outlook varies from Romantic expressions of love for
+the beauty and simplicity of nature to cynical statements about the
+presence of evil in this world. In a September 12, 1918 letter to his
+friend Arthur Greeves, Lewis said that his book was, "mainly strung
+around the idea that I mentioned to you before--that nature is wholly
+diabolical & malevolent and that God, if he exists, is outside of and in
+opposition to the cosmic arrangements." In his cynical poems, Lewis is
+dealing with the same questions about evil in nature that Alfred Lord
+Tennyson explored from a position of troubled faith in "In Memoriam A.
+H." (Stanzas 54f). In a letter written perhaps to reassure his father,
+Lewis claimed, "You know who the God I blaspheme is and that it is not
+the God that you or I worship, or any other Christian."
+
+Whatever Lewis believed at that time, the attitude in many of these
+poems is quite different from the attitude he expressed in his many
+Christian books from the 1930s on. Attempts in movies and on stage plays
+to portray Lewis as a sheltered professor who knew little about pain
+until the death of his wife late in life, have to deal not only with the
+many tragedies he experienced from a boy on, but also with the
+disturbing issues he faced in many of these early poems.
+
+
+
+
+Prologue
+
+     As of old Phoenician men, to the Tin Isles sailing
+     Straight against the sunset and the edges of the earth,
+     Chaunted loud above the storm and the strange sea's wailing,
+     Legends of their people and the land that gave them birth--
+     Sang aloud to Baal-Peor, sang unto the horned maiden,
+     Sang how they should come again with the Brethon treasure laden,
+     Sang of all the pride and glory of their hardy enterprise,
+     How they found the outer islands, where the unknown stars arise;
+     And the rowers down below, rowing hard as they could row,
+     Toiling at the stroke and feather through the wet and weary weather,
+     Even they forgot their burden in the measure of a song,
+     And the merchants and the masters and the bondsmen all together,
+     Dreaming of the wondrous islands, brought the gallant ship along;
+     So in mighty deeps alone on the chainless breezes blown
+     In my coracle of verses I will sing of lands unknown,
+     Flying from the scarlet city where a Lord that knows no pity,
+     Mocks the broken people praying round his iron throne,
+     Sing about the Hidden Country fresh and full of quiet green.
+     Sailing over seas uncharted to a port that none has seen.
+
+
+
+
+Part I  The Prison House
+
+
+
+
+I. Satan Speaks
+
+     I am Nature, the Mighty Mother,
+     I am the law: ye have none other.
+
+     I am the flower and the dewdrop fresh,
+     I am the lust in your itching flesh.
+
+     I am the battle's filth and strain,
+     I am the widow's empty pain.
+
+     I am the sea to smother your breath,
+     I am the bomb, the falling death.
+
+     I am the fact and the crushing reason
+     To thwart your fantasy's new-born treason.
+
+     I am the spider making her net,
+     I am the beast with jaws blood-wet.
+
+     I am a wolf that follows the sun
+     And I will catch him ere day be done.
+
+
+
+
+II. French Nocturne (Monchy-Le-Preux)
+
+     Long leagues on either hand the trenches spread
+     And all is still; now even this gross line
+     Drinks in the frosty silences divine
+     The pale, green moon is riding overhead.
+
+     The jaws of a sacked village, stark and grim;
+     Out on the ridge have swallowed up the sun,
+     And in one angry streak his blood has run
+     To left and right along the horizon dim.
+
+     There comes a buzzing plane: and now, it seems
+     Flies straight into the moon. Lo! where he steers
+     Across the pallid globe and surely nears
+     In that white land some harbour of dear dreams!
+
+     False mocking fancy! Once I too could dream,
+     Who now can only see with vulgar eye
+     That he's no nearer to the moon than I
+     And she's a stone that catches the sun's beam.
+
+     What call have I to dream of anything?
+     I am a wolf. Back to the world again,
+     And speech of fellow-brutes that once were men
+     Our throats can bark for slaughter: cannot sing.
+
+
+
+
+III. The Satyr
+
+     When the flowery hands of spring
+     Forth their woodland riches fling,
+       Through the meadows, through the valleys
+     Goes the satyr carolling.
+
+     From the mountain and the moor,
+     Forest green and ocean shore
+       All the faerie kin he rallies
+     Making music evermore.
+
+     See! the shaggy pelt doth grow
+     On his twisted shanks below,
+       And his dreadful feet are cloven
+     Though his brow be white as snow--
+
+     Though his brow be clear and white
+     And beneath it fancies bright,
+       Wisdom and high thoughts are woven
+     And the musics of delight,
+
+     Though his temples too be fair
+     Yet two horns are growing there
+       Bursting forth to part asunder
+     All the riches of his hair.
+
+     Faerie maidens he may meet
+     Fly the horns and cloven feet,
+       But, his sad brown eyes with wonder
+     Seeing-stay from their retreat.
+
+
+
+
+IV. Victory
+
+     Roland is dead, Cuchulain's crest is low,
+     The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust,
+     And Helen's eyes and Iseult's lips are dust
+     And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.
+
+     The faerie people from our woods are gone,
+     No Dryads have I found in all our trees,
+     No Triton blows his horn about our seas
+     And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon.
+
+     The ancient songs they wither as the grass
+     And waste as doth a garment waxen old,
+     All poets have been fools who thought to mould
+     A monument more durable than brass.
+
+     For these decay: but not for that decays
+     The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man
+     That never rested yet since life began
+     From striving with red Nature and her ways.
+
+     Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout
+     Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft
+     Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft
+     That they who watch the ages may not doubt.
+
+     Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod,
+     Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed
+     Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head
+     And higher-till the beast become a god.
+
+
+
+
+V. Irish Nocturne
+
+     Now the grey mist comes creeping up
+     From the waste ocean's weedy strand
+     And fills the valley, as a cup
+     If filled of evil drink in a wizard's hand;
+     And the trees fade out of sight,
+     Like dreary ghosts unhealthily,
+     Into the damp, pale night,
+     Till you almost think that a clearer eye could see
+     Some shape come up of a demon seeking apart
+     His meat, as Grendel sought in Harte
+     The thanes that sat by the wintry log--
+     Grendel or the shadowy mass
+     Of Balor, or the man with the face of clay,
+     The grey, grey walker who used to pass
+     Over the rock-arch nightly to his prey.
+     But here at the dumb, slow stream where the willows hang,
+     With never a wind to blow the mists apart,
+     Bitter and bitter it is for thee. O my heart,
+     Looking upon this land, where poets sang,
+     Thus with the dreary shroud
+     Unwholesome, over it spread,
+     And knowing the fog and the cloud
+     In her people's heart and head
+     Even as it lies for ever upon her coasts
+     Making them dim and dreamy lest her sons should ever arise
+     And remember all their boasts;
+     For I know that the colourless skies
+     And the blurred horizons breed
+     Lonely desire and many words and brooding and never a deed.
+
+
+
+
+VI. Spooks
+
+     Last night I dreamed that I was come again
+     Unto the house where my beloved dwells
+     After long years of wandering and pain.
+
+     And I stood out beneath the drenching rain
+     And all the street was bare, and black with night,
+     But in my true love's house was warmth and light.
+
+     Yet I could not draw near nor enter in,
+     And long I wondered if some secret sin
+     Or old, unhappy anger held me fast;
+
+     Till suddenly it came into my head
+     That I was killed long since and lying dead--
+     Only a homeless wraith that way had passed.
+
+     So thus I found my true love's house again
+     And stood unseen amid the winter night
+     And the lamp burned within, a rosy light,
+     And the wet street was shining in the rain.
+
+
+
+
+VII. Apology
+
+     If men should ask, Despoina, why I tell
+     Of nothing glad nor noble in my verse
+     To lighten hearts beneath this present curse
+     And build a heaven of dreams in real hell,
+
+     Go you to them and speak among them thus:
+     "There were no greater grief than to recall,
+     Down in the rotting grave where the lithe worms crawl,
+     Green fields above that smiled so sweet to us."
+
+     Is it good to tell old tales of Troynovant
+     Or praises of dead heroes, tried and sage,
+     Or sing the queens of unforgotten age,
+     Brynhild and Maeve and virgin Bradamant?
+
+     How should I sing of them? Can it be good
+     To think of glory now, when all is done,
+     And all our labour underneath the sun
+     Has brought us this-and not the thing we would?
+
+     All these were rosy visions of the night,
+     The loveliness and wisdom feigned of old.
+     But now we wake. The East is pale and cold,
+     No hope is in the dawn, and no delight.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. Ode for New Year's Day
+
+     Woe unto you, ye sons of pain that are this day in earth,
+     Now cry for all your torment: now curse your hour of birth
+     And the fathers who begat you to a portion nothing worth.
+     And Thou, my own beloved, for as brave as ere thou art,
+     Bow down thine head, Despoina, clasp thy pale arms over it,
+     Lie low with fast-closed eyelids, clenched teeth, enduring heart,
+     For sorrow on sorrow is coming wherein all flesh has part.
+     The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God's hate cover it,
+     Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought,
+     Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought
+     Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm
+     That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught
+     Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform.
+
+     Thrice happy, O Despoina, were the men who were alive
+     In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran
+     On upward curve and easily, for them both maid and man
+     And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive.
+     But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars
+     And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back
+     Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track,
+     And madness is come over us and great and little wars.
+     He has not left one valley, one isle of fresh and green
+     Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck.
+     It's vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot check
+     The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been.
+
+     It's truth they tell, Despoina, none hears the heart's complaining
+     For Nature will not pity, nor the red God lend an ear,
+     Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining
+     And lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear
+     The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead.
+     But lo! I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts
+     Have made a phantom called the Good, while a few years have sped
+     Over a little planet. And what should the great Lord know of it
+     Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts?
+     Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it:
+     Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done.
+     And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun
+     And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill,
+     And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears
+     The wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill?
+     He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears,
+     And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears?
+
+     Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him! If you could flee away
+     Into some other country beyond the rosy West,
+     To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest
+     From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world's decay!
+
+
+
+
+IX. Night
+
+     After the fret and failure of this day,
+     And weariness of thought, O Mother Night,
+     Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away
+     And all our little tumults set to right;
+     Most pitiful of all death's kindred fair,
+     Riding above us through the curtained air
+     On thy dusk car, thou scatterest to the earth
+     Sweet dreams and drowsy charms of tender might
+     And lovers' dear delight before to-morrow's birth.
+     Thus art thou wont thy quiet lands to leave
+     And pillared courts beyond the Milky Way,
+     Wherein thou tarriest all our solar day
+     While unsubstantial dreams before thee weave
+     A foamy dance, and fluttering fancies play
+     About thy palace in the silver ray
+     Of some far, moony globe. But when the hour,
+     The long-expected comes, the ivory gates
+     Open on noiseless hinge before thy bower
+     Unbidden, and the jewelled chariot waits
+     With magic steeds. Thou from the fronting rim
+     Bending to urge them, whilst thy sea-dark hair
+     Falls in ambrosial ripples o'er each limb,
+     With beautiful pale arms, untrammelled, bare
+     For horsemanship, to those twin chargers fleet
+     Dost give full rein across the fires that glow
+     In the wide floor of heaven, from off their feet
+     Scattering the powdery star-dust as they go.
+     Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Night,
+     Fall through the shadow-country, O most kind,
+     Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light
+     For chains, wherewith thou still art used to bind
+     With tenderest love of careful leeches' art
+     The bruised and weary heart
+     In slumber blind.
+
+
+
+
+X. To Sleep
+
+     I will find out a place for thee, O Sleep--
+     A hidden wood among the hill-tops green,
+     Full of soft streams and little winds that creep
+       The murmuring boughs between.
+
+     A hollow cup above the ocean placed
+     Where nothing rough, nor loud, nor harsh shall be,
+     But woodland light and shadow interlaced
+       And summer sky and sea.
+
+     There in the fragrant twilight I will raise
+     A secret altar of the rich sea sod,
+     Whereat to offer sacrifice and praise
+       Unto my lonely god:
+
+     Due sacrifice of his own drowsy flowers,
+     The deadening poppies in an ocean shell
+     Round which through all forgotten days and hours
+       The great seas wove their spell.
+
+     So may he send me dreams of dear delight
+     And draughts of cool oblivion, quenching pain,
+     And sweet, half-wakeful moments in the night
+       To hear the falling rain.
+
+     And when he meets me at the dusk of day
+     To call me home for ever, this I ask--
+     That he may lead me friendly on that way
+       And wear no frightful mask.
+
+
+
+
+XI. In Prison
+
+     I cried out for the pain of man,
+     I cried out for my bitter wrath
+     Against the hopeless life that ran
+     For ever in a circling path
+     From death to death since all began;
+     Till on a summer night
+     I lost my way in the pale starlight
+     And saw our planet, far and small,
+     Through endless depths of nothing fall
+     A lonely pin-prick spark of light,
+     Upon the wide, enfolding night,
+     With leagues on leagues of stars above it,
+     And powdered dust of stars below--
+     Dead things that neither hate nor love it
+     Not even their own loveliness can know,
+     Being but cosmic dust and dead.
+     And if some tears be shed,
+     Some evil God have power,
+     Some crown of sorrow sit
+     Upon a little world for a little hour--
+     Who shall remember? Who shall care for it?
+
+
+
+
+XII. De Profundis
+
+     Come let us curse our Master ere we die,
+     For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.
+     The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.
+
+     Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought
+     Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought
+     New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught.
+
+     We built us joyful cities, strong and fair,
+     Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare.
+     And all this time you laughed upon our care,
+
+     And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,
+     Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,
+     The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.
+
+     Come then and curse the Lord. Over the earth
+     Gross darkness falls, and evil was our birth
+     And our few happy days of little worth.
+
+     Even if it be not all a dream in vain
+     The ancient hope that still will rise again--
+     Of a just God that cares for earthly pain,
+
+     Yet far away beyond our labouring night,
+     He wanders in the depths of endless light,
+     Singing alone his musics of delight;
+
+     Only the far, spent echo of his song
+     Our dungeons and deep cells can smite along,
+     And Thou art nearer. Thou art very strong.
+
+     O universal strength, I know it well,
+     It is but froth of folly to rebel;
+     For thou art Lord and hast the keys of Hell.
+
+     Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,
+     For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,
+     And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.
+
+     Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,
+     Our mercy and long seeking of the light,
+     Shall we change these for thy relentless might?
+
+     Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,
+     Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth--
+     Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.
+
+
+
+
+XIII. Satan Speaks
+
+     I am the Lord your God: even he that made
+     Material things, and all these signs arrayed
+     Above you and have set beneath the race
+     Of mankind, who forget their Father's face
+     And even while they drink my light of day
+     Dream of some other gods and disobey
+     My warnings, and despise my holy laws,
+     Even tho' their sin shall slay them. For which cause,
+     Dreams dreamed in vain, a never-filled desire
+     And in close flesh a spiritual fire,
+     A thirst for good their kind shall not attain,
+     A backward cleaving to the beast again.
+     A loathing for the life that I have given,
+     A haunted, twisted soul for ever riven
+     Between their will and mine-such lot I give
+     White still in my despite the vermin live.
+     They hate my world! Then let that other God
+     Come from the outer spaces glory-shod,
+     And from this castle I have built on Night
+     Steal forth my own thought's children into light,
+     If such an one there be. But far away
+     He walks the airy fields of endless day,
+     And my rebellious sons have called Him long
+     And vainly called. My order still is strong
+     And like to me nor second none I know.
+     Whither the mammoth went this creature too shall go.
+
+
+
+
+XIV. The Witch
+
+     Trapped amid the woods with guile
+     They've led her bound in fetters vile
+     To death, a deadlier sorceress
+     Than any born for earth's distress
+     Since first the winner of the fleece
+     Bore home the Colchian witch to Greece--
+     Seven months with snare and gin
+     They've sought the maid o'erwise within
+     The forest's labyrinthine shade.
+     The lonely woodman half afraid
+     Far off her ragged form has seen
+     Sauntering down the alleys green,
+     Or crouched in godless prayer alone
+     At eve before a Druid stone.
+     But now the bitter chase is won,
+     The quarry's caught, her magic's done,
+     The bishop's brought her strongest spell
+     To naught with candle, book, and bell;
+     With holy water splashed upon her,
+     She goes to burning and dishonour
+     Too deeply damned to feel her shame,
+     For, though beneath her hair of flame
+     Her thoughtful head be lowly bowed
+     It droops for meditation proud
+     Impenitent, and pondering yet
+     Things no memory can forget,
+     Starry wonders she has seen
+     Brooding in the wildwood green
+     With holiness. For who can say
+     In what strange crew she loved to play,
+     What demons or what gods of old
+     Deep mysteries unto her have told
+     At dead of night in worship bent
+     At ruined shrines magnificent,
+     Or how the quivering will she sent
+     Alone into the great alone
+     Where all is loved and all is known,
+     Who now lifts up her maiden eyes
+     And looks around with soft surprise
+     Upon the noisy, crowded square,
+     The city oafs that nod and stare,
+     The bishop's court that gathers there,
+     The faggots and the blackened stake
+     Where sinners die for justice' sake?
+     Now she is set upon the pile,
+     The mob grows still a little while,
+     Till lo! before the eager folk
+     Up curls a thin, blue line of smoke.
+     "Alas!" the full-fed burghers cry,
+     "That evil loveliness must die!"
+
+
+
+
+XV. Dungeon Grates
+
+     So piteously the lonely soul of man
+     Shudders before this universal plan,
+     So grievous is the burden and the pain,
+     So heavy weighs the long, material chain
+     From cause to cause, too merciless for hate,
+     The nightmare march of unrelenting fate,
+     I think that he must die thereof unless
+     Ever and again across the dreariness
+     There came a sudden glimpse of spirit faces,
+     A fragrant breath to tell of flowery places
+     And wider oceans, breaking on the shore
+     From which the hearts of men are always sore.
+     It lies beyond endeavour; neither prayer
+     Nor fasting, nor much wisdom winneth there,
+     Seeing how many prophets and wise men
+     Have sought for it and still returned again
+     With hope undone. But only the strange power
+     Of unsought Beauty in some casual hour
+     Can build a bridge of light or sound or form
+     To lead you out of all this strife and storm;
+     When of some beauty we are grown a part
+     Till from its very glory's midmost heart
+     Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light
+     Into our souls. All things are seen aright
+     Amid the blinding pillar of its gold,
+     Seven times more true than what for truth we hold
+     In vulgar hours. The miracle is done
+     And for one little moment we are one
+     With the eternal stream of loveliness
+     That flows so calm, aloft from all distress
+     Yet leaps and lives around us as a fire
+     Making us faint with overstrong desire
+     To sport and swim for ever in its deep--
+     Only a moment.
+                           O! but we shall keep
+     Our vision still. One moment was enough,
+     We know we are not made of mortal stuff.
+     And we can bear all trials that come after,
+     The hate of men and the fool's loud bestial laughter
+     And Nature's rule and cruelties unclean,
+     For we have seen the Glory-we have seen.
+
+
+
+
+XVI. The Philosopher
+
+     Who shall be our prophet then,
+     Chosen from all the sons of men
+     To lead his fellows on the way
+     Of hidden knowledge, delving deep
+     To nameless mysteries that keep
+     Their secret from the solar day!
+     Or who shall pierce with surer eye!
+     This shifting veil of bittersweet
+     And find the real things that lie
+     Beyond this turmoil, which we greet
+     With such a wasted wealth of tears?
+     Who shall cross over for us the bridge of fears
+     And pass in to the country where the ancient Mothers dwell?
+     Is it an elder, bent and hoar
+     Who, where the waste Atlantic swell
+     On lonely beaches makes its roar,
+     In his solitary tower
+     Through the long night hour by hour
+     Pores on old books with watery eye
+     When all his youth has passed him by,
+     And folly is schooled and love is dead
+     And frozen fancy laid abed,
+     While in his veins the gradual blood
+     Slackens to a marish flood?
+     For he rejoiceth not in the ocean's might,
+     Neither the sun giveth delight,
+     Nor the moon by night
+     Shall call his feet to wander in the haunted forest lawn.
+     He shall no more rise suddenly in the dawn
+     When mists are white and the dew lies pearly
+     Cold and cold on every meadow,
+     To take his joy of the season early,
+     The opening flower and the westward shadow,
+     And scarcely can he dream of laughter and love,
+     They lie so many leaden years behind.
+     Such eyes are dim and blind,
+     And the sad, aching head that nods above
+     His monstrous books can never know
+     The secret we would find.
+     But let our seer be young and kind
+     And fresh and beautiful of show,
+     And taken ere the lustyhead
+     And rapture of his youth be dead;
+     Ere the gnawing, peasant reason
+     School him over-deep in treason
+     To the ancient high estate
+     Of his fancy's principate,
+     That he may live a perfect whole,
+     A mask of the eternal soul,
+     And cross at last the shadowy bar
+     To where the ever-living are.
+
+
+
+
+XVII. The Ocean Strand
+
+     O leave the labouring roadways of the town,
+     The shifting faces and the changeful hue
+     Of markets, and broad echoing streets that drown
+     The heart's own silent music. Though they too
+     Sing in their proper rhythm, and still delight
+     The friendly ear that loves warm human kind,
+     Yet it is good to leave them all behind,
+     Now when from lily dawn to purple night
+     Summer is queen,
+     Summer is queen in all the happy land.
+     Far, far away among the valleys green
+     Let us go forth and wander hand in hand
+     Beyond those solemn hills that we have seen
+     So often welcome home the falling sun
+     Into their cloudy peaks when day was done--
+     Beyond them till we find the ocean strand
+     And hear the great waves run,
+     With the waste song whose melodies I'd follow
+     And weary not for many a summer day,
+     Born of the vaulted breakers arching hollow
+     Before they flash and scatter into spray,
+     On, if we should be weary of their play
+     Then I would lead you further into land
+     Where, with their ragged walls, the stately rocks
+     Shunt in smooth courts and paved with quiet sand
+     To silence dedicate. The sea-god's flocks
+     Have rested here, and mortal eyes have seen
+     By great adventure at the dead of noon
+     A lonely nereid drowsing half a-swoon
+     Buried beneath her dark and dripping locks.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII. Noon
+
+     Noon! and in the garden bower
+     The hot air quivers o'er the grass,
+     The little lake is smooth as glass
+     And still so heavily the hour
+     Drags, that scarce the proudest flower
+     Pressed upon its burning bed
+     Has strength to lift a languid head:--
+     Rose and fainting violet
+     By the water's margin set
+     Swoon and sink as they were dead
+     Though their weary leaves be fed
+     With the foam-drops of the pool
+     Where it trembles dark and cool
+     Wrinkled by the fountain spraying
+     O'er it. And the honey-bee
+     Hums his drowsy melody
+     And wanders in his course a-straying
+     Through the sweet and tangled glade
+     With his golden mead o'erladen,
+     Where beneath the pleasant shade
+     Of the darkling boughs a maiden--
+     Milky limb and fiery tress,
+     All at sweetest random laid--
+     Slumbers, drunken with the excess
+     Of the noontide's loveliness.
+
+
+
+
+XIX. Milton Read Again (In Surrey)
+
+     Three golden months while summer on us stole
+     I have read your joyful tale another time,
+     Breathing more freely in that larger clime
+     And learning wiselier to deserve the whole.
+
+     Your Spirit, Master, has been close at hand
+     And guided me, still pointing treasures rare,
+     Thick-sown where I before saw nothing fair
+     And finding waters in the barren land,
+
+     Barren once thought because my eyes were dim.
+     Like one I am grown to whom the common field
+     And often-wandered copse one morning yield
+     New pleasures suddenly; for over him
+
+     Falls the weird spirit of unexplained delight,
+     New mystery in every shady place,
+     In every whispering tree a nameless grace,
+     New rapture on the windy seaward height.
+
+     So may she come to me, teaching me well
+     To savour all these sweets that lie to hand
+     In wood and lane about this pleasant land
+     Though it be not the land where I would dwell.
+
+     .
+     XX. Sonnet
+
+     The stars come out; the fragrant shadows fall
+     About a dreaming garden still and sweet,
+     I hear the unseen bats above me bleat
+     Among the ghostly moths their hunting call,
+     And twinkling glow-worms all about me crawl.
+     Now for a chamber dim, a pillow meet
+     For slumbers deep as death, a faultless sheet,
+     Cool, white and smooth. So may I reach the hall
+     With poppies strewn where sleep that is so dear
+     With magic sponge can wipe away an hour
+     Or twelve and make them naught. Why not a year,
+     Why could a man not loiter in that bower
+     Until a thousand painless cycles wore,
+     And then-what if it held him evermore?
+
+
+
+
+XXI. The Autumn Morning
+
+     See! the pale autumn dawn
+     Is faint, upon the lawn
+       That lies in powdered white
+           Of hoar-frost dight
+
+     And now from tree to tree
+     The ghostly mist we see
+       Hung like a silver pall
+           To hallow all.
+
+     It wreathes the burdened air
+     So strangely everywhere
+       That I could almost fear
+           This silence drear
+
+     Where no one song-bird sings
+     And dream that wizard things
+       Mighty for hate or love
+           Were close above.
+
+     White as the fog and fair
+     Drifting through the middle air
+       In magic dances dread
+           Over my head.
+
+     Yet these should know me too
+     Lover and bondman true,
+       One that has honoured well
+           The mystic spell
+
+     Of earth's most solemn hours
+     Wherein the ancient powers
+       Of dryad, elf, or faun
+           Or leprechaun
+
+     Oft have their faces shown
+     To me that walked alone
+       Seashore or haunted fen
+           Or mountain glen
+
+     Wherefore I will not fear
+     To walk the woodlands sere
+       Into this autumn day
+           Far, far away.
+
+
+
+
+Part II  Hesitation
+
+     XXII. L'Apprenti Sorcier
+
+     Suddenly there came to me
+     The music of a mighty sea
+     That on a bare and iron shore
+     Thundered with a deeper roar
+     Than all the tides that leap and run
+     With us below the real sun:
+     Because the place was far away,
+     Above, beyond our homely day,
+     Neighbouring close the frozen clime
+     Where out of all the woods of time,
+     Amid the frightful seraphim
+     The fierce, cold eyes of Godhead gleam,
+     Revolving hate and misery
+     And wars and famines yet to be.
+     And in my dreams I stood alone
+     Upon a shelf of weedy stone,
+     And saw before my shrinking eyes
+     The dark, enormous breakers rise,
+     And hover and fall with deafening thunder
+     Of thwarted foam that echoed under
+     The ledge, through many a cavern drear,
+     With hollow sounds of wintry fear.
+     And through the waters waste and grey,
+     Thick-strown for many a league away,
+     Out of the toiling sea arose
+     Many a face and form of those
+     Thin, elemental people dear
+     Who live beyond our heavy sphere.
+     And all at once from far and near,
+     They all held out their arms to me,
+     Crying in their melody,
+     "Leap in! Leap in and take thy fill
+     Of all the cosmic good and ill,
+     Be as the Living ones that know
+     Enormous joy, enormous woe,
+     Pain beyond thought and fiery bliss:
+     For all thy study hunted this,
+     On wings of magic to arise,
+     And wash from off thy filmed eyes
+     The cloud of cold mortality,
+     To find the real life and be
+     As are the children of the deep!
+     Be bold and dare the glorious leap,
+     Or to thy shame, go, slink again
+     Back to the narrow ways of men."
+     So all these mocked me as I stood
+     Striving to wake because I feared the flood.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII. Alexandrines
+
+     There is a house that most of all on earth I hate.
+     Though I have passed through many sorrows and have been
+     In bloody fields, sad seas, and countries desolate,
+     Yet most I fear that empty house where the grasses green
+     Grow in the silent court the gaping flags between,
+     And down the moss-grown paths and terrace no man treads
+     Where the old, old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds.
+     Like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare
+     And I fear to cross the garden, I fear to linger there,
+     For in that house I know a little, silent room
+     Where Someone's always waiting, waiting in the gloom
+     To draw me with an evil eye, and hold me fast--
+     Yet thither doom will drive me and He will win at last.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV. In Praise of Solid People
+
+     Thank God that there are solid folk
+     Who water flowers and roll the lawn,
+     And sit an sew and talk and smoke,
+     And snore all through the summer dawn.
+
+     Who pass untroubled nights and days
+     Full-fed and sleepily content,
+     Rejoicing in each other's praise,
+     Respectable and innocent.
+
+     Who feel the things that all men feel,
+     And think in well-worn grooves of thought,
+     Whose honest spirits never reel
+     Before man's mystery, overwrought.
+
+     Yet not unfaithful nor unkind,
+     with work-day virtues surely staid,
+     Theirs is the sane and humble mind,
+     And dull affections undismayed.
+
+     O happy people! I have seen
+     No verse yet written in your praise,
+     And, truth to tell, the time has been
+     I would have scorned your easy ways.
+
+     But now thro' weariness and strife
+     I learn your worthiness indeed,
+     The world is better for such life
+     As stout suburban people lead.
+
+     Too often have I sat alone
+     When the wet night falls heavily,
+     And fretting winds around me moan,
+     And homeless longing vexes me
+
+     For lore that I shall never know,
+     And visions none can hope to see,
+     Till brooding works upon me so
+     A childish fear steals over me.
+
+     I look around the empty room,
+     The clock still ticking in its place,
+     And all else silent as the tomb,
+     Till suddenly, I think, a face
+
+     Grows from the darkness just beside.
+     I turn, and lo! it fades away,
+     And soon another phantom tide
+     Of shifting dreams begins to play,
+
+     And dusky galleys past me sail,
+     Full freighted on a faerie sea;
+     I hear the silken merchants hail
+     Across the ringing waves to me
+
+     --Then suddenly, again, the room,
+     Familiar books about me piled,
+     And I alone amid the gloom,
+     By one more mocking dream beguiled.
+
+     And still no neared to the Light,
+     And still no further from myself,
+     Alone and lost in clinging night--
+     (The clock's still ticking on the shelf).
+
+     Then do I envy solid folk
+     Who sit of evenings by the fire,
+     After their work and doze and smoke,
+     And are not fretted by desire.
+
+
+
+
+Part III  The Escape
+
+     XXV. Song of the Pilgrims
+
+     O Dwellers at the back of the North Wind,
+     What have we done to you? How have we sinned
+     Wandering the Earth from Orkney unto Ind?
+
+     With many deaths our fellowship is thinned,
+     Our flesh is withered in the parching wind,
+     Wandering the earth from Orkney unto Ind.
+
+     We have no rest. We cannot turn again
+     Back to the world and all her fruitless pain,
+     Having once sought the land where ye remain.
+
+     Some say ye are not. But, ah God! we know
+     That somewhere, somewhere past the Northern snow
+     Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow:
+
+     --The red-rose and the white-rose gardens blow
+     In the green Northern land to which we go,
+     Surely the ways are long and the years are slow.
+
+     We have forsaken all things sweet and fair,
+     We have found nothing worth a moment's care
+     Because the real flowers are blowing there.
+
+     Land of the Lotus fallen from the sun,
+     Land of the Lake from whence all rivers run,
+     Land where the hope of all our dreams is won!
+
+     Shall we not somewhere see at close of day
+     The green walls of that country far away,
+     And hear the music of her fountains play?
+
+     So long we have been wandering all this while
+     By many a perilous sea and drifting isle,
+     We scarce shall dare to look thereon and smile.
+
+     Yea, when we are drawing very near to thee,
+     And when at last the ivory port we see
+     Our hearts will faint with mere felicity:
+
+     But we shall wake again in gardens bright
+     Of green and gold for infinite delight,
+     Sleeping beneath the solemn mountains white,
+     While from the flowery copses still unseen
+     Sing out the crooning birds that ne'er have been
+     Touched by the hand of winter frore and lean;
+
+     And ever living queens that grow not old
+     And poets wise in robes of faerie gold
+     Whisper a wild, sweet song that first was told
+
+     Ere God sat down to make the Milky Way.
+     And in those gardens we shall sleep and play
+     For ever and for ever and a day.
+
+     Ah, Dwellers at the back of the North Wind,
+     What have we done to you? How have we sinned,
+     That yes should hide beyond the Northern wind?
+
+     Land of the Lotus, fallen from the Sun,
+     When shall your hidden, flowery vales be won
+     And all the travail of our way be done?
+
+     Very far we have searched; we have even seen
+     The Scythian waste that bears no soft nor green,
+     And near the Hideous Pass our feet have been.
+
+     We have heard Syrens singing all night long
+     Beneath the unknown stars their lonely song
+     In friendless seas beyond the Pillars strong.
+
+     Nor by the dragon-daughter of Hypocras
+     Nor the vale of the Devil's head we have feared to pass,
+     Yet is our labour lost and vain, alas!
+
+     Scouring the earth from Orkney unto Ind,
+     Tossed on the seas and withered in the wind,
+     We seek and seek your land. How have we sinned?
+
+     Or is it all a folly of the wise,
+     Bidding us walk these ways with blinded eyes
+     While all around us real flowers arise?
+
+     But, by the very God, we know, we know
+     That somewhere still, beyond the Northern snow
+     Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI. Song
+
+     Faeries must be in the woods
+     Or the satyrs' laughing broods--
+     Tritons in the summer sea,
+     Else how could the dead things be
+     Half so lovely as they are?
+     How could wealth of star on star
+     Dusted o'er the frosty night
+     Fill thy spirit with delight
+     And lead thee from this care of thine
+     Up among the dreams divine,
+     Were it not that each and all
+     Of them that walk the heavenly hall
+     Is in truth a happy isle,
+     Where eternal meadows smile,
+     And golden globes of fruit are seen
+     Twinkling through the orchards green;
+     Were the Other People go
+     On the bright sward to and fro?
+     Atoms dead could never thus
+     Stir the human heart of us
+     Unless the beauty that we see
+     The veil of endless beauty be,
+     Filled full of spirits that have trod
+     Far hence along the heavenly sod
+     And see the bright footprints of God.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII. The Ass
+
+     I woke and rose and slipt away
+     To the heathery hills in the morning grey.
+
+     In a field where the dew lay cold and deep
+     I met an ass, new-roused from sleep.
+
+     I stroked his nose and I tickled his ears,
+     And spoke soft words to quiet his fears.
+
+     His eyes stared into the eyes of me
+     And he kissed my hands of his courtesy.
+
+     "O big, brown brother out of the waste,
+     How do thistles for breakfast taste?
+
+     "And do you rejoice in the dawn divine
+     With a heart that is glad no less than mine?
+
+     "For, brother, the depth of your gentle eyes
+     Is strange and mystic as the skies:
+
+     "What are the thoughts that grope behind,
+     Down in the mist of a donkey mind?
+
+     "Can it be true, as the wise men tell,
+     That you are a mask of God as well,
+
+     "And, as in us, so in you no less
+     Speaks the eternal Loveliness,
+
+     "And words of the lips that all things know
+     Among the thoughts of a donkey go?
+
+     "However it be, O four-foot brother,
+     Fair to-day is the earth, our mother.
+
+     "God send you peace and delight thereof,
+     And all green meat of the waste you love,
+
+     "And guard you well from violent men
+     Who'd put you back in the shafts again."
+
+     But the ass had far too wise a head
+     To answer one of the things I said,
+
+     So he twitched his fair ears up and down
+     And turned to nuzzle his shoulder brown.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII. Ballade Mystique
+
+     The big, red-house is bare and lone
+     The stony garden waste and sere
+     With blight of breezes ocean blown
+     To pinch the wakening of the year;
+     My kindly friends with busy cheer
+     My wretchedness could plainly show.
+     They tell me I am lonely here--
+     What do they know? What do they know?
+
+     They think that while the gables moan
+     And easements creak in winter drear
+     I should be piteously alone
+     Without the speech of comrades dear;
+     And friendly for my sake they fear,
+     It grieves them thinking of me so
+     While all their happy life is near--
+     What do they know? What do they know?
+
+     That I have seen the Dagda's throne
+     In sunny lands without a tear
+     And found a forest all my own
+     To ward with magic shield and spear,
+     Where, through the stately towers I rear
+     For my desire, around me go
+     Immortal shapes of beauty clear:
+     They do not know, they do not know.
+
+     L'Envoi
+
+     The friends I have without a peer
+     Beyond the western ocean's glow,
+     Whither the faerie galleys steer,
+     They do not know: how should they know?
+
+
+
+
+XXIX. Night
+
+     I know a little Druid wood
+     Where I would slumber if I could
+     And have the murmuring of the stream
+     To mingle with a midnight dream,
+     And have the holy hazel trees
+     To play above me in the breeze,
+     And smell the thorny eglantine;
+     For there the white owls all night long
+     In the scented gloom divine
+     Hear the wild, strange, tuneless song
+     Of faerie voices, thin and high
+     As the bat's unearthly cry,
+     And the measure of their shoon
+     Dancing, dancing, under the moon,
+     Until, amid the pale of dawn
+     The wandering stars begin to swoon. . . .
+     Ah, leave the world and come away!
+
+     The windy folk are in the glade,
+     And men have seen their revels, laid
+     In secret on some flowery lawn
+     Underneath the beechen covers,
+     Kings of old, I've heard them say,
+     Here have found them faerie lovers
+     That charmed them out of life and kissed
+     Their lips with cold lips unafraid,
+     And such a spell around them made
+     That they have passed beyond the mist
+     And found the Country-under-wave. . . .
+
+     Kings of old, whom none could save!
+
+
+
+
+XXX. Oxford
+
+     It is well that there are palaces of peace
+     And discipline and dreaming and desire,
+     Lest we forget our heritage and cease
+     The Spirit's work-to hunger and aspire:
+
+     Lest we forget that we were born divine,
+     Now tangled in red battle's animal net,
+     Murder the work and lust the anodyne,
+     Pains of the beast 'gainst bestial solace set.
+
+     But this shall never be: to us remains
+     One city that has nothing of the beast,
+     That was not built for gross, material gains,
+     Sharp, wolfish power or empire's glutted feast.
+
+     We are not wholly brute. To us remains
+     A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams,
+     A place of visions and of loosening chains,
+     A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams.
+
+     She was not builded out of common stone
+     But out of all men's yearning and all prayer
+     That she might live, eternally our own,
+     The Spirit's stronghold-barred against despair.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI. Hymn (For Boys' Voices)
+
+     All the things magicians do
+     Could be done by me and you
+     Freely, if we only knew.
+
+     Human children every day
+     Could play at games the faeries play
+     If they were but shown the way.
+
+     Every man a God would be
+     Laughing through eternity
+     If as God's his eyes could see.
+
+     All the wizardries of God--
+     Slaying matter with a nod,
+     Charming spirits with his rod,
+
+     With the singing of his voice
+     Making lonely lands rejoice,
+     Leaving us no will nor choice,
+
+     Drawing headlong me and you
+     As the piping Orpheus drew
+     Man and beast the mountains through,
+
+     By the sweetness of his horn
+     Calling us from lands forlorn
+     Nearer to the widening morn--
+
+     All that loveliness of power
+     Could be man's peculiar dower,
+     Even mine, this very hour;
+
+     We should reach the Hidden Land
+     And grow immortal out of hand,
+     If we could but understand!
+
+     We could revel day and night
+     In all power and all delight
+     If we learn to think aright.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII. "Our Daily Bread"
+
+     We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell
+     To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet;
+     There have been men who sank down into Hell
+       In some suburban street,
+
+     And some there are that in their daily walks
+     Have met archangels fresh from sight of God,
+     Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks
+       Long files of faerie trod.
+
+     Often me too the Living voices call
+     In many a vulgar and habitual place,
+     I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall,
+       I see a strange god's face.
+
+     And some day this work will work upon me so
+     I shall arise and leave both friends and home
+     And over many lands a pilgrim go
+       Through alien woods and foam,
+
+     Seeking the last steep edges of the earth
+     Whence I may leap into that gulf of light
+     Wherein, before my narrowing Self had birth,
+       Part of me lived aright.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII. How He Saw Angus the God
+
+     I heard the swallow sing in the eaves and rose
+     All in a strange delight while others slept,
+     And down the creaking stair, alone, tip-toes,
+       So carefully I crept.
+
+     The house was dark with silly blinds yet drawn,
+     But outside the clean air was filled with light,
+     And underneath my feet the cold, wet lawn
+       With dew was twinkling bright.
+
+     The cobwebs hung from every branch and spray
+     Gleaming with pearly strands of laden thread,
+     And long and still the morning shadows lay
+       Across the meadows spread.
+
+     At that pure hour when yet no sound of man,
+     Stirs in the whiteness of the wakening earth,
+     Alone through innocent solitudes I ran
+       Singing aloud for mirth.
+
+     Till I had found the open mountain heath
+     Yellow with gorse, and rested there and stood
+     To gaze upon the misty sea beneath,
+       Or on the neighbouring wood,
+
+     --That little wood of hazel and tall pine
+     And youngling fir, where oft we have loved to see
+     The level beams of early morning shine
+       Freshly from tree to tree.
+
+     Through the denser wood there's many a pool
+     Of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet
+     Where the new-wakened flowers are damp and cool
+       And the long grass is wet.
+
+     In the sweet heather long I rested there
+     Looking upon the dappled, early sky,
+     When suddenly, from out the shining air
+       A god came flashing by.
+
+     Swift, naked, eager, pitilessly fair,
+     With a live crown of birds about his head,
+     Singing and fluttering, and his fiery hair,
+       Far out behind him spread,
+
+     Streamed like a rippling torch upon the breeze
+     Of his own glorious swiftness: in the grass
+     He bruised no feathery stalk, and through the trees
+       I saw his whiteness pass.
+
+     But when I followed him beyond the wood,
+     Lo! He was changed into a solemn bull
+     That there upon the open pasture stood
+       And browsed his lazy full.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV. The Roads
+
+     I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down
+     With all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town,
+     And ploughlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown.
+
+     And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line,
+     Where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine,
+     The rare roads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine.
+
+     I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend
+     From shadowy dell to windswept fell, and still to the West they wend,
+     And over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world's uttermost end.
+
+     And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my spirit has grown
+     To wander forth in the highways, 'twixt earth and sky alone,
+     And seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail has known:
+
+     For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning's birth,
+     Where the gods unseen in their valleys green are glad at the ends of the earth
+     And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV. Hesperus
+
+     Through the starry hollow
+     Of the summer night
+     I would follow, follow
+     Hesperus the bright,
+     To seek beyond the western wave
+     His garden of delight.
+
+     Hesperus the fairest
+     Of all gods that are,
+     Peace and dreams thou bearest
+     In thy shadowy car,
+     And often in my evening walks
+     I've blessed thee from afar.
+
+     Stars without number,
+     Dust the noon of night,
+     Thou the early slumber
+     And the still delight
+     Of the gentle twilit hours
+     Rulest in thy right.
+
+     When the pale skies shiver,
+     Seeing night is done,
+     Past the ocean-river,
+     Lightly thou dost run,
+     To look for pleasant, sleepy lands,
+     That never fear the sun.
+
+     Where, beyond the waters
+     Of the outer sea,
+     Thy triple crown of daughters
+     That guards the golden tree
+     Sing out across the lonely tide
+     A welcome home to thee.
+
+     And while the old, old dragon
+     For joy lifts up his head,
+     They bring thee forth a flagon
+     Of nectar foaming red,
+     And underneath the drowsy trees
+     Of poppies strew thy bed.
+
+     Ah! that I could follow
+     In thy footsteps bright,
+     Through the starry hollow
+     Of the summer night,
+     Sloping down the western ways
+     To find my heart's delight!
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI. The Star Bath
+
+     A place uplifted towards the midnight sky
+     Far, far away among the mountains old,
+     A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold,
+     Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighbouring by--
+     And in the midst a silent tarn there lay,
+     A narrow pool, cold as the tide that flows
+     Where monstrous bergs beyond Varanger stray,
+     Rising from sunless depths that no man knows;
+     Thither as clustering fireflies have I seen
+     At fixed seasons all the stars come down
+     To wash in that cold wave their brightness clean
+     And win the special fire wherewith they crown
+     The wintry heavens in frost. Even as a flock
+     Of falling birds, down to the pool they came.
+     I saw them and I heard the icy shock
+     Of stars engulfed with hissing of faint flame--
+     Ages ago before the birth of men
+     Or earliest beast. Yet I was still the same
+     That now remember, knowing not where or when.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII. Tu Ne Quaesieris
+
+     For all the lore of Lodge and Myers
+     I cannot heal my torn desires,
+     Nor hope for all that man can speer
+     To make the riddling earth grow clear.
+     Though it were sure and proven well
+     That I shall prosper, as they tell,
+     In fields beneath a different sun
+     By shores where other oceans run,
+     When this live body that was I
+     Lies hidden from the cheerful sky,
+     Yet what were endless lives to me
+     If still my narrow self I be
+     And hope and fail and struggle still,
+     And break my will against God's will,
+     To play for stakes of pleasure and pain
+     And hope and fail and hope again,
+     Deluded, thwarted, striving elf
+     That through the window of my self
+     As through a dark glass scarce can see
+     A warped and masked reality?
+     But when this searching thought of mine
+     Is mingled in the large Divine,
+     And laughter that was in my mouth
+     Runs through the breezes of the South,
+     When glory I have built in dreams
+     Along some fiery sunset gleams,
+     And my dead sin and foolishness
+     Grow one with Nature's whole distress,
+     To perfect being I shall win,
+     And where I end will Life begin.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII. Lullaby
+
+     Lullaby! Lullaby!
+     There's a tower strong and high
+     Built of oak and brick and stone,
+     Stands before a wood alone.
+     The doors are of the oak so brown
+     As any ale in Oxford town,
+     The walls are builded warm and thick
+     Of the old red Roman brick,
+     The good grey stone is over all
+     In arch and floor of the tower tall.
+     And maidens three are living there
+     All in the upper chamber fair,
+     Hung with silver, hung with pall,
+     And stories painted on the wall.
+     And softly goes the whirring loom
+     In my ladies' upper room,
+     For they shall spin both night and day
+     Until the stars do pass away.
+     But every night at evening.
+     The window open wide they fling,
+     And one of them says a word they know
+     And out as three white swans they go,
+     And the murmuring of the woods is drowned
+     In the soft wings' whirring sound,
+     As they go flying round, around,
+     Singing in swans' voices high
+     A lonely, lovely lullaby.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX. World's Desire
+
+     Love, there is a castle built in a country desolate,
+     On a rock above a forest where the trees are grim and great,
+     Blasted with the lightning sharp-giant boulders strewn between,
+     And the mountains rise above, and the cold ravine
+     Echoes to the crushing roar and thunder of a mighty river
+     Raging down a cataract. Very tower and forest quiver
+     And the grey wolves are afraid and the call of birds is drowned,
+     And the thought and speech of man in the boiling water's sound.
+     But upon the further side of the barren, sharp ravine
+     With the sunlight on its turrets is the castle seen,
+     Calm and very wonderful, white above the green
+     Of the wet and waving forest, slanted all away,
+     Because the driving Northern wind will not rest by night or day.
+     Yet the towers are sure above, very mighty is the stead,
+     The gates are made of ivory, the roofs of copper red.
+
+     Round and round the warders grave walk upon the walls for ever
+     And the wakeful dragons couch in the ports of ivory,
+     Nothing is can trouble it, hate of the gods nor man's endeavour,
+     And it shall be a resting-place, dear heart, for you and me.
+
+     Through the wet and waving forest with an age-old sorrow laden
+     Singing of the world's regret wanders wild the faerie maiden,
+     Through the thistle and the brier, through the tangles of the thorn,
+     Till her eyes be dim with weeping and her homeless feet are torn.
+
+     Often to the castle gate up she looks with vain endeavour,
+     For her soulless loveliness to the castle winneth never.
+
+     But within the sacred court, hidden high upon the mountain,
+     Wandering in the castle gardens lovely folk enough there be,
+     Breathing in another air, drinking of a purer fountain
+     And among that folk, beloved, there's a place for you and me.
+
+
+
+
+XL. Death in Battle
+
+     Open the gates for me,
+     Open the gates of the peaceful castle, rosy in the West,
+     In the sweet dim Isle of Apples over the wide sea's breast,
+
+     Open the gates for me!
+
+     Sorely pressed have I been
+     And driven and hurt beyond bearing this summer day,
+     But the heat and the pain together suddenly fall away,
+     All's cool and green.
+
+     But a moment agone,
+     Among men cursing in fight and toiling, blinded I fought,
+     But the labour passed on a sudden even as a passing thought,
+
+     And now-alone!
+
+     Ah, to be ever alone,
+     In flowery valleys among the mountains and silent wastes untrod,
+     In the dewy upland places, in the garden of God,
+     This would atone!
+
+     I shall not see
+     The brutal, crowded faces around me, that in their toil have grown
+     Into the faces of devils-yea, even as my own--
+     When I find thee,
+
+     O Country of Dreams!
+     Beyond the tide of the ocean, hidden and sunk away,
+     Out of the sound of battles, near to the end of day,
+     Full of dim woods and streams.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        
+            *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPIRITS IN BONDAGE: A CYCLE OF LYRICS ***
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+

PG2004_text.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,409 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+“PIGS IS PIGS”
+
+By Ellis Parker Butler
+
+
+
+
+Mike Flannery, the Westcote agent of the Interurban Express Company,
+leaned over the counter of the express office and shook his fist.
+Mr. Morehouse, angry and red, stood on the other side of the counter,
+trembling with rage. The argument had been long and heated, and at last
+Mr. Morehouse had talked himself speechless. The cause of the trouble
+stood on the counter between the two men. It was a soap box across
+the top of which were nailed a number of strips, forming a rough but
+serviceable cage. In it two spotted guinea-pigs were greedily eating
+lettuce leaves.
+
+“Do as you loike, then!” shouted Flannery, “pay for thim an' take
+thim, or don't pay for thim and leave thim be. Rules is rules, Misther
+Morehouse, an' Mike Flannery's not goin' to be called down fer breakin'
+of thim.”
+
+“But, you everlastingly stupid idiot!” shouted Mr. Morehouse, madly
+shaking a flimsy printed book beneath the agent's nose, “can't you read
+it here-in your own plain printed rates? 'Pets, domestic, Franklin to
+Westcote, if properly boxed, twenty-five cents each.'” He threw the book
+on the counter in disgust. “What more do you want? Aren't they pets?
+Aren't they domestic? Aren't they properly boxed? What?”
+
+He turned and walked back and forth rapidly; frowning ferociously.
+
+Suddenly he turned to Flannery, and forcing his voice to an artificial
+calmness spoke slowly but with intense sarcasm.
+
+“Pets,” he said “P-e-t-s! Twenty-five cents each. There are two of them.
+One! Two! Two times twenty-five are fifty! Can you understand that? I
+offer you fifty cents.”
+
+Flannery reached for the book. He ran his hand through the pages and
+stopped at page sixty four.
+
+“An' I don't take fifty cints,” he whispered in mockery. “Here's the
+rule for ut. 'Whin the agint be in anny doubt regardin' which of two
+rates applies to a shipment, he shall charge the larger. The con-sign-ey
+may file a claim for the overcharge.' In this case, Misther Morehouse,
+I be in doubt. Pets thim animals may be, an' domestic they be, but pigs
+I'm blame sure they do be, an' me rules says plain as the nose on
+yer face, 'Pigs Franklin to Westcote, thirty cints each.' An' Mister
+Morehouse, by me arithmetical knowledge two times thurty comes to sixty
+cints.”
+
+Mr. Morehouse shook his head savagely. “Nonsense!” he shouted,
+“confounded nonsense, I tell you! Why, you poor ignorant foreigner, that
+rule means common pigs, domestic pigs, not guinea pigs!”
+
+Flannery was stubborn.
+
+“Pigs is pigs,” he declared firmly. “Guinea-pigs, or dago pigs or Irish
+pigs is all the same to the Interurban Express Company an' to Mike
+Flannery. Th' nationality of the pig creates no differentiality in the
+rate, Misther Morehouse! 'Twould be the same was they Dutch pigs or
+Rooshun pigs. Mike Flannery,” he added, “is here to tind to the expriss
+business and not to hould conversation wid dago pigs in sivinteen
+languages fer to discover be they Chinese or Tipperary by birth an'
+nativity.”
+
+Mr. Morehouse hesitated. He bit his lip and then flung out his arms
+wildly.
+
+“Very well!” he shouted, “you shall hear of this! Your president shall
+hear of this! It is an outrage! I have offered you fifty cents. You
+refuse it! Keep the pigs until you are ready to take the fifty cents,
+but, by George, sir, if one hair of those pigs' heads is harmed I will
+have the law on you!”
+
+He turned and stalked out, slamming the door. Flannery carefully lifted
+the soap box from the counter and placed it in a corner. He was not
+worried. He felt the peace that comes to a faithful servant who has done
+his duty and done it well.
+
+Mr. Morehouse went home raging. His boy, who had been awaiting the
+guinea-pigs, knew better than to ask him for them. He was a normal boy
+and therefore always had a guilty conscience when his father was
+angry. So the boy slipped quietly around the house. There is nothing so
+soothing to a guilty conscience as to be out of the path of the avenger.
+Mr. Morehouse stormed into the house. “Where's the ink?” he shouted at
+his wife as soon as his foot was across the doorsill.
+
+Mrs. Morehouse jumped, guiltily. She never used ink. She had not seen
+the ink, nor moved the ink, nor thought of the ink, but her husband's
+tone convicted her of the guilt of having borne and reared a boy, and
+she knew that whenever her husband wanted anything in a loud voice the
+boy had been at it.
+
+“I'll find Sammy,” she said meekly.
+
+When the ink was found Mr. Morehouse wrote rapidly, and he read the
+completed letter and smiled a triumphant smile.
+
+“That will settle that crazy Irishman!” he exclaimed. “When they get
+that letter he will hunt another job, all right!”
+
+A week later Mr. Morehouse received a long official envelope with the
+card of the Interurban Express Company in the upper left corner. He tore
+it open eagerly and drew out a sheet of paper. At the top it bore the
+number A6754. The letter was short. ��Subject--Rate on guinea-pigs,”
+ it said, “Dr. Sir--We are in receipt of your letter regarding rate on
+guinea-pigs between Franklin and Westcote addressed to the president
+of this company. All claims for overcharge should be addressed to the
+Claims Department.”
+
+Mr. Morehouse wrote to the Claims Department. He wrote six pages of
+choice sarcasm, vituperation and argument, and sent them to the Claims
+Department.
+
+A few weeks later he received a reply from the Claims Department.
+Attached to it was his last letter.
+
+“Dr. Sir,” said the reply. “Your letter of the 16th inst., addressed to
+this Department, subject rate on guinea-pigs from Franklin to Westcote,
+ree'd. We have taken up the matter with our agent at Westcote, and his
+reply is attached herewith. He informs us that you refused to receive
+the consignment or to pay the charges. You have therefore no claim
+against this company, and your letter regarding the proper rate on the
+consignment should be addressed to our Tariff Department.”
+
+Mr. Morehouse wrote to the Tariff Department. He stated his case
+clearly, and gave his arguments in full, quoting a page or two from the
+encyclopedia to prove that guinea-pigs were not common pigs.
+
+With the care that characterizes corporations when they are
+systematically conducted, Mr. Morehouse's letter was numbered, O.K'd,
+and started through the regular channels. Duplicate copies of the bill
+of lading, manifest, Flannery's receipt for the package and several
+other pertinent papers were pinned to the letter, and they were passed
+to the head of the Tariff Department.
+
+The head of the Tariff Department put his feet on his desk and yawned.
+He looked through the papers carelessly.
+
+“Miss Kane,” he said to his stenographer, “take this letter. 'Agent,
+Westcote, N. J. Please advise why consignment referred to in attached
+papers was refused domestic pet rates.”'
+
+Miss Kane made a series of curves and angles on her note book and waited
+with pencil poised. The head of the department looked at the papers
+again.
+
+“Huh! guinea-pigs!” he said. “Probably starved to death by this time!
+Add this to that letter: 'Give condition of consignment at present.'”
+
+He tossed the papers on to the stenographer's desk, took his feet from
+his own desk and went out to lunch.
+
+When Mike Flannery received the letter he scratched his head.
+
+“Give prisint condition,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Now what do thim
+clerks be wantin' to know, I wonder! 'Prisint condition, 'is ut? Thim
+pigs, praise St. Patrick, do be in good health, so far as I know, but I
+niver was no veternairy surgeon to dago pigs. Mebby thim clerks wants
+me to call in the pig docther an' have their pulses took. Wan thing I
+do know, howiver, which is they've glorious appytites for pigs of their
+soize. Ate? They'd ate the brass padlocks off of a barn door I If the
+paddy pig, by the same token, ate as hearty as these dago pigs do,
+there'd be a famine in Ireland.”
+
+To assure himself that his report would be up to date, Flannery went
+to the rear of the office and looked into the cage. The pigs had been
+transferred to a larger box--a dry goods box.
+
+“Wan, -- two, -- t'ree, -- four, -- five, -- six, -- sivin, -- eight!”
+ he counted. “Sivin spotted an' wan all black. All well an' hearty an'
+all eatin' loike ragin' hippypottymusses. He went back to his desk and
+wrote.
+
+“Mr. Morgan, Head of Tariff Department,” he wrote. “Why do I say dago
+pigs is pigs because they is pigs and will be til you say they ain't
+which is what the rule book says stop your jollying me you know it as
+well as I do. As to health they are all well and hoping you are the
+same. P. S. There are eight now the family increased all good eaters. P.
+S. I paid out so far two dollars for cabbage which they like shall I put
+in bill for same what?”
+
+Morgan, head of the Tariff Department, when he received this letter,
+laughed. He read it again and became serious.
+
+“By George!” he said, “Flannery is right, 'pigs is pigs.' I'll have to
+get authority on this thing. Meanwhile, Miss Kane, take this letter:
+Agent, Westcote, N. J. Regarding shipment guinea-pigs, File No. A6754.
+Rule 83, General Instruction to Agents, clearly states that agents
+shall collect from consignee all costs of provender, etc., etc.,
+required for live stock while in transit or storage. You will proceed to
+collect same from consignee.”
+
+Flannery received this letter next morning, and when he read it he
+grinned.
+
+“Proceed to collect,” he said softly. “How thim clerks do loike to be
+talkin'! Me proceed to collect two dollars and twinty-foive cints off
+Misther Morehouse! I wonder do thim clerks know Misther Morehouse?
+I'll git it! Oh, yes! 'Misther Morehouse, two an' a quarter, plaze.'
+'Cert'nly, me dear frind Flannery. Delighted!' Not!”
+
+Flannery drove the express wagon to Mr. Morehouse's door. Mr. Morehouse
+answered the bell.
+
+“Ah, ha!” he cried as soon as he saw it was Flannery. “So you've come to
+your senses at last, have you? I thought you would! Bring the box in.”
+
+“I hev no box,” said Flannery coldly. “I hev a bill agin Misther John
+C. Morehouse for two dollars and twinty-foive cints for kebbages aten by
+his dago pigs. Wud you wish to pay ut?”
+
+“Pay--Cabbages--!” gasped Mr. Morehouse. “Do you mean to say that two
+little guinea-pigs--”
+
+“Eight!” said Flannery. “Papa an' mamma an' the six childer. Eight!”
+
+For answer Mr. Morehouse slammed the door in Flannery's face. Flannery
+looked at the door reproachfully.
+
+“I take ut the con-sign-y don't want to pay for thim kebbages,” he said.
+“If I know signs of refusal, the con-sign-y refuses to pay for wan dang
+kebbage leaf an' be hanged to me!”
+
+Mr. Morgan, the head of the Tariff Department, consulted the president
+of the Interurban Express Company regarding guinea-pigs, as to whether
+they were pigs or not pigs. The president was inclined to treat the
+matter lightly.
+
+“What is the rate on pigs and on pets?” he asked.
+
+“Pigs thirty cents, pets twenty-five,” said Morgan.
+
+“Then of course guinea-pigs are pigs,” said the president.
+
+“Yes,” agreed Morgan, “I look at it that way, too. A thing that can come
+under two rates is naturally due to be classed as the higher. But are
+guinea-pigs, pigs? Aren't they rabbits?”
+
+“Come to think of it,” said the president, “I believe they are more like
+rabbits. Sort of half-way station between pig and rabbit. I think the
+question is this--are guinea-pigs of the domestic pig family? I'll ask
+professor Gordon. He is authority on such things. Leave the papers with
+me.”
+
+The president put the papers on his desk and wrote a letter to Professor
+Gordon. Unfortunately the Professor was in South America collecting
+zoological specimens, and the letter was forwarded to him by his wife.
+As the Professor was in the highest Andes, where no white man had ever
+penetrated, the letter was many months in reaching him. The president
+forgot the guinea-pigs, Morgan forgot them, Mr. Morehouse forgot them,
+but Flannery did not. One-half of his time he gave to the duties of
+his agency; the other half was devoted to the guinea-pigs. Long before
+Professor Gordon received the president's letter Morgan received one
+from Flannery.
+
+“About them dago pigs,” it said, “what shall I do they are great in
+family life, no race suicide for them, there are thirty-two now shall
+I sell them do you take this express office for a menagerie, answer
+quick.”
+
+Morgan reached for a telegraph blank and wrote:
+
+“Agent, Westcote. Don't sell pigs.”
+
+He then wrote Flannery a letter calling his attention to the fact that
+the pigs were not the property of the company but were merely being held
+during a settlement of a dispute regarding rates. He advised Flannery to
+take the best possible care of them.
+
+Flannery, letter in hand, looked at the pigs and sighed. The dry-goods
+box cage had become too small. He boarded up twenty feet of the rear
+of the express office to make a large and airy home for them, and went
+about his business. He worked with feverish intensity when out on his
+rounds, for the pigs required attention and took most of his time. Some
+months later, in desperation, he seized a sheet of paper and wrote
+“160” across it and mailed it to Morgan. Morgan returned it asking for
+explanation. Flannery replied:
+
+“There be now one hundred sixty of them dago pigs, for heavens sake let
+me sell off some, do you want me to go crazy, what.”
+
+“Sell no pigs,” Morgan wired.
+
+Not long after this the president of the express company received a
+letter from Professor Gordon. It was a long and scholarly letter, but
+the point was that the guinea-pig was the Cava aparoea while the common
+pig was the genius Sus of the family Suidae. He remarked that they were
+prolific and multiplied rapidly.
+
+“They are not pigs,” said the president, decidedly, to Morgan. “The
+twenty-five cent rate applies.”
+
+Morgan made the proper notation on the papers that had accumulated in
+File A6754, and turned them over to the Audit Department. The Audit
+Department took some time to look the matter up, and after the usual
+delay wrote Flannery that as he had on hand one hundred and sixty
+guinea-pigs, the property of consignee, he should deliver them and
+collect charges at the rate of twenty-five cents each.
+
+Flannery spent a day herding his charges through a narrow opening in
+their cage so that he might count them.
+
+“Audit Dept.” he wrote, when he had finished the count, “you are way off
+there may be was one hundred and sixty dago pigs once, but wake up don't
+be a back number. I've got even eight hundred, now shall I collect
+for eight hundred or what, how about sixty-four dollars I paid out for
+cabbages.”
+
+It required a great many letters back and forth before the Audit
+Department was able to understand why the error had been made of billing
+one hundred and sixty instead of eight hundred, and still more time for
+it to get the meaning of the “cabbages.”
+
+Flannery was crowded into a few feet at the extreme front of the
+office. The pigs had all the rest of the room and two boys were employed
+constantly attending to them. The day after Flannery had counted the
+guinea-pigs there were eight more added to his drove, and by the time
+the Audit Department gave him authority to collect for eight hundred
+Flannery had given up all attempts to attend to the receipt or the
+delivery of goods. He was hastily building galleries around the express
+office, tier above tier. He had four thousand and sixty-four guinea-pigs
+to care for! More were arriving daily.
+
+Immediately following its authorization the Audit Department sent
+another letter, but Flannery was too busy to open it. They wrote another
+and then they telegraphed:
+
+“Error in guinea-pig bill. Collect for two guinea-pigs, fifty cents.
+Deliver all to consignee.”
+
+Flannery read the telegram and cheered up. He wrote out a bill as
+rapidly as his pencil could travel over paper and ran all the way to the
+Morehouse home. At the gate he stopped suddenly. The house stared at
+him with vacant eyes. The windows were bare of curtains and he could see
+into the empty rooms. A sign on the porch said, “To Let.” Mr. Morehouse
+had moved! Flannery ran all the way back to the express office.
+Sixty-nine guinea-pigs had been born during his absence. He ran out
+again and made feverish inquiries in the village. Mr. Morehouse had not
+only moved, but he had left Westcote. Flannery returned to the express
+office and found that two hundred and six guinea-pigs had entered the
+world since he left it. He wrote a telegram to the Audit Department.
+
+“Can't collect fifty cents for two dago pigs consignee has left town
+address unknown what shall I do? Flannery.”
+
+The telegram was handed to one of the clerks in the Audit Department,
+and as he read it he laughed.
+
+“Flannery must be crazy. He ought to know that the thing to do is to
+return the consignment here,” said the clerk. He telegraphed Flannery to
+send the pigs to the main office of the company at Franklin.
+
+When Flannery received the telegram he set to work. The six boys he
+had engaged to help him also set to work. They worked with the haste of
+desperate men, making cages out of soap boxes, cracker boxes, and all
+kinds of boxes, and as fast as the cages were completed they filled them
+with guinea-pigs and expressed them to Franklin. Day after day the cages
+of guineapigs flowed in a steady stream from Westcote to Franklin,
+and still Flannery and his six helpers ripped and nailed and
+packed--relentlessly and feverishly. At the end of the week they had
+shipped two hundred and eighty cases of guinea-pigs, and there were in
+the express office seven hundred and four more pigs than when they began
+packing them.
+
+“Stop sending pigs. Warehouse full,” came a telegram to Flannery. He
+stopped packing only long enough to wire back, “Can't stop,” and kept
+on sending them. On the next train up from Franklin came one of
+the company's inspectors. He had instructions to stop the stream of
+guinea-pigs at all hazards. As his train drew up at Westcote station
+he saw a cattle car standing on the express company's siding. When he
+reached the express office he saw the express wagon backed up to the
+door. Six boys were carrying bushel baskets full of guinea-pigs from the
+office and dumping them into the wagon. Inside the room Flannery, with'
+his coat and vest off, was shoveling guinea-pigs into bushel baskets
+with a coal scoop. He was winding up the guinea-pig episode.
+
+He looked up at the inspector with a snort of anger.
+
+“Wan wagonload more an, I'll be quit of thim, an' niver will ye catch
+Flannery wid no more foreign pigs on his hands. No, sur! They near was
+the death o' me. Nixt toime I'll know that pigs of whaiver nationality
+is domistic pets--an' go at the lowest rate.”
+
+He began shoveling again rapidly, speaking quickly between breaths.
+
+“Rules may be rules, but you can't fool Mike Flannery twice wid the same
+thrick--whin ut comes to live stock, dang the rules. So long as Flannery
+runs this expriss office--pigs is pets--an' cows is pets--an' horses
+is pets--an' lions an' tigers an' Rocky Mountain goats is pets--an' the
+rate on thim is twinty-foive cints.”
+
+He paused long enough to let one of the boys put an empty basket in the
+place of the one he had just filled. There were only a few guinea-pigs
+left. As he noted their limited number his natural habit of looking on
+the bright side returned.
+
+“Well, annyhow,” he said cheerfully, “'tis not so bad as ut might be.
+What if thim dago pigs had been elephants!”
+
+
+
+

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+
+
+
+
+
+A FAIR PENITENT
+
+By Wilkie Collins
+
+
+
+
+About "A Fair Penitent"
+
+This story first appeared in Charles Dickens' magazine, "Household
+Words," volume 16, number 382, July 18, 1857. Published anonymously, as
+all contributions to the magazine were, it was attributed definitely
+to Wilkie Collins by Anne Lohrli in her analysis of the magazine's
+financial accounts.
+
+
+
+
+A FAIR PENITENT
+
+
+Charles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels,
+who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century. He
+prospered sufficiently well, as a literary man, to be made secretary to
+the French Academy, and to be allowed to succeed Voltaire in the
+office of historiographer of France. He has left behind him, in his
+own country, the reputation of a lively writer of the second class, who
+addressed the public of his day with fair success, and who, since his
+death, has not troubled posterity to take any particular notice of him.
+
+Among the papers left by Duclos, two manuscripts were found, which he
+probably intended to turn to some literary account. The first was a
+brief Memoir, written by himself, of a Frenchwoman, named Mademoiselle
+Gautier, who began life as an actress and who ended it as a Carmelite
+nun. The second manuscript was the lady's own account of the process
+of her conversion, and of the circumstances which attended her moral
+passage from the state of a sinner to the state of a saint. There are
+certain national peculiarities in the character of Mademoiselle Gautier
+and in the narrative of her conversion, which are perhaps interesting
+enough to be reproduced with some chance of pleasing the present day.
+
+It appears, from the account given of her by Duclos, that Mademoiselle
+Gautier made her appearance on the stage of the Théâtre François in
+the year seventeen hundred and sixteen. She is described as a handsome
+woman, with a fine figure, a fresh complexion, a lively disposition, and
+a violent temper. Besides possessing capacity as an actress, she could
+write very good verses, she was clever at painting in miniature, and,
+most remarkable quality of all, she was possessed of prodigious muscular
+strength. It is recorded of Mademoiselle, that she could roll up
+a silver plate with her hands, and that she covered herself with
+distinction in a trial of strength with no less a person than the famous
+soldier, Marshal Saxe.
+
+Nobody who is at all acquainted with the social history of the
+eighteenth century in France, need be told that Mademoiselle Gautier had
+a long list of lovers,--for the most part, persons of quality, marshals,
+counts, and so forth. The only man, however, who really attached her to
+him, was an actor at the Théâtre François, a famous player in his day,
+named Quinault Dufresne. Mademoiselle Gautier seems to have loved him
+with all the ardour of her naturally passionate disposition. At first,
+he returned her affection; but, as soon as she ventured to test the
+sincerity of his attachment by speaking of marriage, he cooled towards
+her immediately, and the connection between them was broken off. In all
+her former love-affairs, she had been noted for the high tone which she
+adopted towards her admirers, and for the despotic authority which she
+exercised over them even in her gayest moments. But the severance of
+her connection with Quinault Dufresne wounded her to her heart. She
+had loved the man so dearly, had made so many sacrifices for him, had
+counted so fondly on the devotion of her whole future life to him, that
+the first discovery of his coldness towards her broke her spirit at once
+and for ever. She fell into a condition of hopeless melancholy, looked
+back with remorse and horror at her past life, and abandoned the stage
+and the society in which she had lived, to end her days repentantly in
+the character of a Carmelite nun.
+
+So far, her history is the history of hundreds of other women before her
+time and after it. The prominent interest of her life, for the student
+of human nature, lies in the story of her conversion, as told by
+herself. The greater part of the narrative--every page of which is more
+or less characteristic of the Frenchwoman of the eighteenth century--may
+be given, with certain suppressions and abridgments, in her own words.
+The reader will observe, at the outset, one curious fact. Mademoiselle
+Gautier does not so much as hint at the influence which the loss of
+her lover had in disposing her mind to reflect on serious subjects.
+She describes her conversion as if it had taken its rise in a sudden
+inspiration from Heaven. Even the name of Quinault Dufresne is not once
+mentioned from one end of her narrative to the other.
+
+
+On the twenty-fifth of April, seventeen hundred and twenty-two
+(writes Mademoiselle Gautier), while I was still leading a life of
+pleasure--according to the pernicious ideas of pleasure which pass
+current in the world--I happen to awake, contrary to my usual custom,
+between eight and nine o'clock in the morning. I remember that it is my
+birthday; I ring for my people; and my maid answers the bell, alarmed by
+the idea that I am ill. I tell her to dress me that I may go to mass. I
+go to the Church of the Cordeliers, followed by my footman, and taking
+with me a little orphan whom I had adopted. The first part of the mass
+is celebrated without attracting my attention; but, at the second part
+the accusing voice of my conscience suddenly begins to speak. "What
+brings you here?" it says. "Do you come to reward God for making you the
+attractive person that you are, by mortally transgressing His laws
+every day of your life?" I hear that question, and I am unspeakably
+overwhelmed by it. I quit the chair on which I have hitherto been
+leaning carelessly, and I prostrate myself in an agony of remorse on the
+pavement of the church.
+
+The mass over, I send home the footman and the orphan, remaining behind
+myself, plunged in inconceivable perplexity. At last I rouse myself on
+a sudden; I go to the sacristy; I demand a mass for my own proper
+advantage every day; I determine to attend it regularly; and, after
+three hours of agitation, I return home, resolved to enter on the path
+that leads to justification.
+
+Six months passed. Every morning I went to my mass: every evening I
+spent in my customary dissipations.
+
+Some of my friends indulged in considerable merriment at my expense when
+they found out my constant attendance at mass. Accordingly, I disguised
+myself as a boy, when I went to church, to escape observation. My
+disguise was found out, and the jokes against me were redoubled. Upon
+this, I began to think of the words of the Gospel, which declare the
+impossibility of serving two masters. I determined to abandon the
+service of Mammon.
+
+The first vanity I gave up was the vanity of keeping a maid. By way of
+further accustoming myself to the retreat from the world which I now
+began to meditate, I declined all invitations to parties under the
+pretext of indisposition. But the nearer the Easter time approached at
+which I had settled in my own mind definitely to turn my back on worldly
+temptations and pleasures, the more violent became my internal struggles
+with myself. My health suffered under them to such an extent that I
+was troubled with perpetual attacks of retching and sickness, which,
+however, did not prevent me from writing my general confession,
+addressed to the vicar of Saint Sulpice, the parish in which I lived.
+
+Just Heaven! what did I not suffer some days afterwards, when I united
+around me at dinner, for the last time, all the friends who had been
+dearest to me in the days of my worldly life! What words can describe
+the tumult of my heart when one of my guests said to me, "You are giving
+us too good a dinner for a Wednesday in Passion Week;" and when another
+answered, jestingly, "You forget that this is her farewell dinner to her
+friends!" I felt ready to faint while they were talking, and rose
+from table pretexting as an excuse, that I had a payment to make that
+evening, which I could not in honour defer any longer. The company rose
+with me, and saw me to the door. I got into my carriage, and the company
+returned to table. My nerves were in such a state that I shrieked at the
+first crack of the coachman's whip; and the company came running down
+again to know what was the matter. One of my servants cleverly stopped
+them from all hurrying out to the carriage together, by declaring that
+the scream proceeded from my adopted orphan. Upon this they returned
+quietly enough to their wine, and I drove off with my general confession
+to the vicar of Saint Sulpice.
+
+My interview with the vicar lasted three hours. His joy at discovering
+that I was in a state of grace was extreme. My own emotions were quite
+indescribable. Late at night I returned to my own house, and found my
+guests all gone. I employed myself in writing farewell letters to
+the manager and company of the theatre, and in making the necessary
+arrangements for sending back my adopted orphan to his friends, with
+twenty pistoles. Finally, I directed the servants to say, if anybody
+enquired after me the next day, that I had gone out of town for some
+time; and after that, at five o'clock in the morning, I left my home in
+Paris never to return to it again.
+
+By this time I had thoroughly recovered my tranquillity. I was as easy
+in my mind at leaving my house as I am now when I quit my cell to sing
+in the choir. Such already was the happy result of my perpetual masses,
+my general confession, and my three hours' interview with the vicar of
+Saint Sulpice.
+
+Before taking leave of the world, I went to Versailles to say good-bye
+to my worthy patrons, Cardinal Fleury and the Duke de Gesvres. From
+them, I went to mass in the King's Chapel; and after that, I called on
+a lady of Versailles whom I had mortally offended, for the purpose of
+making my peace with her. She received me angrily enough. I told her I
+had not come to justify myself, but to ask her pardon. If she granted
+it, she would send me away happy. If she declined to be reconciled,
+Providence would probably be satisfied with my submission, but certainly
+not with her refusal. She felt the force of this argument; and we made
+it up on the spot.
+
+I left Versailles immediately afterwards, without taking anything to
+eat; the act of humility which I had just performed being as good as a
+meal to me.
+
+Towards evening, I entered the house of the Community of Saint Perpetua
+at Paris. I had ordered a little room to be furnished there for me,
+until the inventory of my worldly effects was completed, and until
+I could conclude my arrangements for entering a convent. On first
+installing myself, I began to feel hungry at last, and begged the
+Superior of the Community to give me for supper anything that remained
+from the dinner of the house. They had nothing but a little stewed
+carp, of which I eat with an excellent appetite. Marvellous to relate,
+although I had been able to keep nothing on my stomach for the past
+three months, although I had been dreadfully sick after a little rice
+soup on the evening before, the stewed carp of the sisterhood of
+Saint Perpetua, with some nuts afterwards for dessert, agreed with me
+charmingly, and I slept all through the night afterwards as peacefully
+as a child!
+
+When the news of my retirement became public, it occasioned great talk
+in Paris. Various people assigned various reasons for the strange course
+that I had taken. Nobody, however, believed that I had quitted the world
+in the prime of my life (I was then thirty-one years old), never to
+return to it again. Meanwhile, my inventory was finished and my goods
+were sold. One of my friends sent a letter, entreating me to reconsider
+my determination. My mind was made up, and I wrote to say so. When my
+goods had been all sold, I left Paris to go and live incognito as a
+parlour-boarder in the Convent of the Ursuline nuns of Pondevaux. Here
+I wished to try the mode of life for a little while before I assumed the
+serious responsibility of taking the veil. I knew my own character--I
+remembered my early horror of total seclusion, and my inveterate dislike
+to the company of women only; and, moved by these considerations, I
+resolved, now that I had taken the first important step, to proceed in
+the future with caution.
+
+The nuns of Pondevaux received me among them with great kindness. They
+gave me a large room, which I partitioned off into three small ones.
+I assisted at all the pious exercises of the place. Deceived by my
+fashionable appearance and my plump figure, the good nuns treated me
+as if I was a person of high distinction. This afflicted me, and I
+undeceived them. When they knew who I really was, they only behaved
+towards me with still greater kindness. I passed my time in reading and
+praying, and led the quietest, sweetest life it is possible to conceive.
+
+After ten months' sojourn at Pondevaux, I went to Lyons, and entered
+(still as parlour-boarder only) the House of Anticaille, occupied by the
+nuns of the Order of Saint Mary. Here, I enjoyed the advantage of having
+for director of my conscience that holy man, Father Deveaux. He belonged
+to the Order of the Jesuits; and he was good enough, when I first asked
+him for advice, to suggest that I should get up at eleven o'clock at
+night to say my prayers, and should remain absorbed in devotion until
+midnight. In obedience to the directions of this saintly person, I kept
+myself awake as well as I could till eleven o'clock. I then got on my
+knees with great fervour, and I blush to confess it, immediately fell as
+fast asleep as a dormouse. This went on for several nights, when Father
+Deveaux finding that my midnight devotions were rather too much for me,
+was so obliging as to prescribe another species of pious exercise, in
+a letter which he wrote to me with his own hand. The holy father, after
+deeply regretting my inability to keep awake, informed me that he had
+a new act of penitence to suggest to me by the performance of which I
+might still hope to expiate my sins. He then, in the plainest terms,
+advised me to have recourse to the discipline of flagellation, every
+Friday, using the cat-o'-nine-tails on my bare shoulders for the length
+of time that it would take to repeat a Miserere. In conclusion, he
+informed me that the nuns of Anticaille would probably lend me the
+necessary instrument of flagellation; but, if they made any difficulty
+about it, he was benevolently ready to furnish me with a new and special
+cat-o'-nine-tails of his own making.
+
+Never was woman more amazed or more angry than I, when I first read this
+letter. "What!" cried I to myself, "does this man seriously recommend me
+to lash my own shoulders? Just Heaven, what impertinence! And yet, is it
+not my duty to put up with it? Does not this apparent insolence proceed
+from the pen of a holy man? If he tells me to flog my wickedness out of
+me, is it not my bounden duty to lay on the scourge with all my might
+immediately? Sinner that I am! I am thinking remorsefully of my plump
+shoulders and the dimples on my back, when I ought to be thinking of
+nothing but the cat-o'-nine-tails and obedience to Father Deveaux?"
+
+These reflections soon gave me the resolution which I had wanted at
+first. I was ashamed to ask the nuns for an instrument of flagellation;
+so I made one for myself of stout cord, pitilessly knotted at very short
+intervals. This done, I shut myself up while the nuns were at prayer,
+uncovered my shoulders, and rained such a shower of lashes on them,
+in the first fervour of my newly-awakened zeal, that I fairly flogged
+myself down on the ground, flat on my nose, before I had repeated more
+of the Miserere than the first two or three lines.
+
+I burst out crying, shedding tears of spite against myself when I ought
+to have been shedding tears of devotional gratitude for the kindness of
+Father Deveaux. All through the night I never closed my eyes, and in the
+morning I found my poor shoulders (once so generally admired for their
+whiteness) striped with all the colours of the rainbow. The sight threw
+me into a passion, and I profanely said to myself while I was dressing,
+"The next time I see Father Deveaux, I will give my tongue full swing,
+and make the hair of that holy man stand on end with terror!" A few
+hours afterwards, he came to the convent, and all my resolution melted
+away at the sight of him. His imposing exterior had such an effect on
+me that I could only humbly entreat him to excuse me from indicting a
+second flagellation on myself. He smiled, benignantly, and granted my
+request with a saintly amiability. "Give me the cat-o'-nine-tails," he
+said, in conclusion, "and I will keep it for you till you ask me for it
+again. You are sure to ask for it again, dear child--to ask for it on
+your bended knees!"
+
+Pious and prophetic man! Before many days had passed his words came
+true. If he had persisted severely in ordering me to flog myself, I
+might have opposed him for months together; but, as it was, who could
+resist the amiable indulgence he showed towards my weakness? The
+very next day after my interview, I began to feel ashamed of my own
+cowardice; and the day after that I went down on my knees, exactly as
+he had predicted, and said, "Father Deveaux, give me back my
+cat-o'-nine-tails." From that time I cheerfully underwent the discipline
+of flagellation, learning the regular method of practising it from the
+sisterhood, and feeling, in a spiritual point of view, immensely the
+better for it.
+
+The nuns, finding that I cheerfully devoted myself to every act of
+self-sacrifice prescribed by the rules of their convent, wondered very
+much that I still hesitated about taking the veil. I begged them not to
+mention the subject to me till my mind was quite made up about it. They
+respected my wish, and said no more; but they lent me books to read
+which assisted in strengthening my wavering resolution. Among these
+books was the Life of Madame de Montmorenci, who, after the shocking
+death of her husband, entered the Order of St. Mary. The great example
+of this lady made me reflect seriously, and I communicated my thoughts,
+as a matter of course, to Father Deveaux. He assured me that the one
+last greatest sacrifice which remained for me to make was the sacrifice
+of my liberty. I had long known that this was my duty, and I now felt,
+for the first time, that I had courage and resolution enough boldly to
+face the idea of taking the veil.
+
+While I was in this happy frame of mind, I happened to meet with the
+history of the famous Rancé, founder, or rather reformer, of the Order
+of La Trappe. I found a strange similarity between my own worldly errors
+and those of this illustrious penitent. The discovery had such an effect
+on me, that I spurned all idea of entering a convent where the rules
+were comparatively easy, as was the case at Anticaille, and determined,
+when I did take the veil, to enter an Order whose discipline was as
+severe as the discipline of La Trappe itself. Father Deveaux informed me
+that I should find exactly what I wanted among the Carmelite nuns;
+and, by his advice, I immediately put myself in communication with
+the Archbishop of Villeroi. I opened my heart to this worthy prelate,
+convinced him of my sincerity, and gained from him a promise that he
+would get me admitted among the Carmelite nuns of Lyons. One thing I
+begged of him at parting, which was, that he would tell the whole truth
+about my former life and about the profession that I had exercised in
+the world. I was resolved to deceive nobody, and to enter no convent
+under false pretences of any sort.
+
+My wishes were scrupulously fulfilled; and the nuns were dreadfully
+frightened when they heard that I had been an actress at Paris. But the
+Archbishop promising to answer for me, and to take all their scruples
+on his own conscience, they consented to receive me. I could not trust
+myself to take formal leave of the nuns of Anticaille, who had been
+so kind to me, and towards whom I felt so gratefully. So I wrote my
+farewell to them after privately leaving their house, telling them
+frankly the motives which animated me, and asking their pardon for
+separating myself from them in secret.
+
+On the fourteenth of October, seventeen hundred and twenty-four, I
+entered the Carmelite convent at Lyons, eighteen months after my flight
+from the world, and my abandonment of my profession--to adopt which, I
+may say, in my own defence, that I was first led through sheer poverty.
+At the age of seventeen years, and possessing (if I may credit report)
+remarkable personal charms, I was left perfectly destitute through the
+spendthrift habits of my father. I was easily persuaded to go on the
+stage, and soon tempted, with my youth and inexperience, to lead an
+irregular life. I do not wish to assert that dissipation necessarily
+follows the choice of the actress's profession, for I have known many
+estimable women on the stage. I, unhappily, was not one of the number. I
+confess it to my shame, and, as the chief of sinners, I am only the more
+grateful to the mercy of Heaven which accomplished my conversion.
+
+When I entered the convent, I entreated the prioress to let me live in
+perfect obscurity, without corresponding with my friends, or even with
+my relations. She declined to grant this last request, thinking that
+my zeal was leading me too far. On the other hand, she complied with
+my wish to be employed at once, without the slightest preparatory
+indulgence or consideration, on any menial labour which the discipline
+of the convent might require from me. On the first day of my admission a
+broom was put into my hands. I was appointed also to wash up the dishes,
+to scour the saucepans, to draw water from a deep well, to carry each
+sister's pitcher to its proper place, and to scrub the tables in the
+refectory. From these occupations I got on in time to making rope
+shoes for the sisterhood, and to taking care of the great clock of the
+convent; this last employment requiring me to pull up three immensely
+heavy weights regularly every day. Seven years of my life passed in this
+hard work, and I can honestly say that I never murmured over it.
+
+To return, however, to the period of my admission into the convent.
+
+After three months of probation, I took the veil on the twentieth of
+January, seventeen hundred and twenty-five. The Archbishop did me the
+honour to preside at the ceremony; and, in spite of the rigour of the
+season, all Lyons poured into the church to see me take the vows. I was
+deeply affected; but I never faltered in my resolution. I pronounced the
+oaths with a firm voice, and with a tranquillity which astonished all
+the spectators,--a tranquillity which has never once failed me since
+that time.
+
+Such is the story of my conversion. Providence sent me into the
+world with an excellent nature, with a true heart, with a remarkable
+susceptibility to the influence of estimable sentiments. My parents
+neglected my education, and left me in the world, destitute of
+everything but youth, beauty, and a lively temperament. I tried hard to
+be virtuous; I vowed, before I was out of my teens, and when I happened
+to be struck down by a serious illness, to leave the stage, and to keep
+my reputation unblemished, if anybody would only give me two hundred
+livres a year to live upon. Nobody came forward to help me, and I fell.
+
+Heaven pardon the rich people of Paris who might have preserved my
+virtue at so small a cost! Heaven grant me courage to follow the better
+path into which its mercy has led me, and to persevere in a life of
+penitence and devotion to the end of my days!
+
+
+So this singular confession ends. Besides the little vanities and
+levities which appear here and there on its surface, there is surely a
+strong under-current of sincerity and frankness which fit it to appeal
+in some degree to the sympathy as well as the curiosity of the reader.
+It is impossible to read the narrative without feeling that there must
+have been something really genuine and hearty in Mademoiselle Gautier's
+nature; and it is a gratifying proof of the honest integrity of her
+purpose to know that she persevered to the last in the life of humility
+and seclusion which her conscience had convinced her was the best life
+that she could lead. Persons who knew her in the Carmelite convent,
+report that she lived and died in it, preserving to the last, all the
+better part of the youthful liveliness of her character. She always
+received visitors with pleasure, always talked to them with surprising
+cheerfulness, always assisted the poor, and always willingly wrote
+letters to her former patrons in Paris to help the interests of her
+needy friends. Towards the end of her life, she was afflicted with
+blindness; but she was a trouble to no one in consequence of this
+affliction, for she continued, in spite of it, to clean her own cell,
+to make her own bed, and to cook her own food just as usual. One little
+characteristic vanity--harmless enough, surely?--remained with her to
+the last. She never forgot her own handsome face, which all Paris had
+admired in the by-gone time; and she contrived to get a dispensation
+from the Pope which allowed her to receive visitors in the convent
+parlour without a veil.
+
+
+
+

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+
+
+
+
+
+THE DHAMMAPADA
+
+A Collection of Verses Being One of the Canonical Books of the Buddhists
+
+Translated from Pali by F. Max Muller
+
+
+From:
+
+     The Sacred Books of the East
+     Translated by Various Oriental Scholars
+     Edited by F. Max Muller
+     Volume X
+     Part I
+
+
+
+
+[Note: The introduction, notes and index have been omitted.]
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+     Chapter 1: The Twin Verses
+     Chapter 2: On Earnestness
+     Chapter 3: Thought
+     Chapter 4: Flowers
+     Chapter 5: The Fool
+     Chapter 6: The Wise Man (Pandita)
+     Chapter 7: The Venerable (Arhat)
+     Chapter 8: The Thousands
+     Chapter 9: Evil
+     Chapter 10: Punishment
+     Chapter 11: Old Age
+     Chapter 12: Self
+     Chapter 13: The World
+     Chapter 14: The Buddha (the Awakened)
+     Chapter 15: Happiness
+     Chapter 16: Pleasure
+     Chapter 17: Anger
+     Chapter 18: Impurity
+     Chapter 19: The Just
+     Chapter 20: The Way
+     Chapter 21: Miscellaneous
+     Chapter 22: The Downward Course
+     Chapter 23: The Elephant
+     Chapter 24: Thirst
+     Chapter 25: The Bhikshu (Mendicant)
+     Chapter 26 The Brahmana (Arhat)
+
+
+
+
+DHAMMAPADA
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I. The Twin-Verses
+
+1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded
+on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts
+with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of
+the ox that draws the carriage.
+
+2. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded
+on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts
+with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never
+leaves him.
+
+3. "He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,"--in those
+who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.
+
+4. "He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,"--in those
+who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.
+
+5. For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by
+love, this is an old rule.
+
+6. The world does not know that we must all come to an end here;--but
+those who know it, their quarrels cease at once.
+
+7. He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled,
+immoderate in his food, idle, and weak, Mara (the tempter) will
+certainly overthrow him, as the wind throws down a weak tree.
+
+8. He who lives without looking for pleasures, his senses well
+controlled, moderate in his food, faithful and strong, him Mara will
+certainly not overthrow, any more than the wind throws down a rocky
+mountain.
+
+9. He who wishes to put on the yellow dress without having cleansed
+himself from sin, who disregards temperance and truth, is unworthy of
+the yellow dress.
+
+10. But he who has cleansed himself from sin, is well grounded in all
+virtues, and regards also temperance and truth, he is indeed worthy of
+the yellow dress.
+
+11. They who imagine truth in untruth, and see untruth in truth, never
+arrive at truth, but follow vain desires.
+
+12. They who know truth in truth, and untruth in untruth, arrive at
+truth, and follow true desires.
+
+13. As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break
+through an unreflecting mind.
+
+14. As rain does not break through a well-thatched house, passion will
+not break through a well-reflecting mind.
+
+15. The evil-doer mourns in this world, and he mourns in the next; he
+mourns in both. He mourns and suffers when he sees the evil of his own
+work.
+
+16. The virtuous man delights in this world, and he delights in the
+next; he delights in both. He delights and rejoices, when he sees the
+purity of his own work.
+
+17. The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he
+suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he
+suffers more when going on the evil path.
+
+18. The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in the
+next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has
+done; he is still more happy when going on the good path.
+
+19. The thoughtless man, even if he can recite a large portion (of the
+law), but is not a doer of it, has no share in the priesthood, but is
+like a cowherd counting the cows of others.
+
+20. The follower of the law, even if he can recite only a small portion
+(of the law), but, having forsaken passion and hatred and foolishness,
+possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind, he, caring for nothing in
+this world or that to come, has indeed a share in the priesthood.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II. On Earnestness
+
+21. Earnestness is the path of immortality (Nirvana), thoughtlessness
+the path of death. Those who are in earnest do not die, those who are
+thoughtless are as if dead already.
+
+22. Those who are advanced in earnestness, having understood this
+clearly, delight in earnestness, and rejoice in the knowledge of the
+Ariyas (the elect).
+
+23. These wise people, meditative, steady, always possessed of strong
+powers, attain to Nirvana, the highest happiness.
+
+24. If an earnest person has roused himself, if he is not forgetful,
+if his deeds are pure, if he acts with consideration, if he restrains
+himself, and lives according to law,--then his glory will increase.
+
+25. By rousing himself, by earnestness, by restraint and control, the
+wise man may make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
+
+26. Fools follow after vanity, men of evil wisdom. The wise man keeps
+earnestness as his best jewel.
+
+27. Follow not after vanity, nor after the enjoyment of love and lust!
+He who is earnest and meditative, obtains ample joy.
+
+28. When the learned man drives away vanity by earnestness, he, the
+wise, climbing the terraced heights of wisdom, looks down upon the
+fools, serene he looks upon the toiling crowd, as one that stands on a
+mountain looks down upon them that stand upon the plain.
+
+29. Earnest among the thoughtless, awake among the sleepers, the wise
+man advances like a racer, leaving behind the hack.
+
+30. By earnestness did Maghavan (Indra) rise to the lordship of the
+gods. People praise earnestness; thoughtlessness is always blamed.
+
+31. A Bhikshu (mendicant) who delights in earnestness, who looks with
+fear on thoughtlessness, moves about like fire, burning all his fetters,
+small or large.
+
+32. A Bhikshu (mendicant) who delights in reflection, who looks with
+fear on thoughtlessness, cannot fall away (from his perfect state)--he
+is close upon Nirvana.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III. Thought
+
+33. As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight
+his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to guard,
+difficult to hold back.
+
+34. As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on dry ground, our
+thought trembles all over in order to escape the dominion of Mara (the
+tempter).
+
+35. It is good to tame the mind, which is difficult to hold in and
+flighty, rushing wherever it listeth; a tamed mind brings happiness.
+
+36. Let the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to
+perceive, very artful, and they rush wherever they list: thoughts well
+guarded bring happiness.
+
+37. Those who bridle their mind which travels far, moves about alone,
+is without a body, and hides in the chamber (of the heart), will be free
+from the bonds of Mara (the tempter).
+
+38. If a man's thoughts are unsteady, if he does not know the true law,
+if his peace of mind is troubled, his knowledge will never be perfect.
+
+39. If a man's thoughts are not dissipated, if his mind is not
+perplexed, if he has ceased to think of good or evil, then there is no
+fear for him while he is watchful.
+
+40. Knowing that this body is (fragile) like a jar, and making this
+thought firm like a fortress, one should attack Mara (the tempter) with
+the weapon of knowledge, one should watch him when conquered, and should
+never rest.
+
+41. Before long, alas! this body will lie on the earth, despised,
+without understanding, like a useless log.
+
+42. Whatever a hater may do to a hater, or an enemy to an enemy, a
+wrongly-directed mind will do us greater mischief.
+
+43. Not a mother, not a father will do so much, nor any other relative;
+a well-directed mind will do us greater service.
+
+
+Chapter IV. Flowers
+
+44. Who shall overcome this earth, and the world of Yama (the lord of
+the departed), and the world of the gods? Who shall find out the plainly
+shown path of virtue, as a clever man finds out the (right) flower?
+
+45. The disciple will overcome the earth, and the world of Yama, and the
+world of the gods. The disciple will find out the plainly shown path of
+virtue, as a clever man finds out the (right) flower.
+
+46. He who knows that this body is like froth, and has learnt that it
+is as unsubstantial as a mirage, will break the flower-pointed arrow of
+Mara, and never see the king of death.
+
+47. Death carries off a man who is gathering flowers and whose mind is
+distracted, as a flood carries off a sleeping village.
+
+48. Death subdues a man who is gathering flowers, and whose mind is
+distracted, before he is satiated in his pleasures.
+
+49. As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower,
+or its colour or scent, so let a sage dwell in his village.
+
+50. Not the perversities of others, not their sins of commission or
+omission, but his own misdeeds and negligences should a sage take notice
+of.
+
+51. Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are the
+fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.
+
+52. But, like a beautiful flower, full of colour and full of scent, are
+the fine and fruitful words of him who acts accordingly.
+
+53. As many kinds of wreaths can be made from a heap of flowers, so many
+good things may be achieved by a mortal when once he is born.
+
+54. The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind, nor (that
+of) sandal-wood, or of Tagara and Mallika flowers; but the odour of good
+people travels even against the wind; a good man pervades every place.
+
+55. Sandal-wood or Tagara, a lotus-flower, or a Vassiki, among these
+sorts of perfumes, the perfume of virtue is unsurpassed.
+
+56. Mean is the scent that comes from Tagara and sandal-wood;--the
+perfume of those who possess virtue rises up to the gods as the highest.
+
+57. Of the people who possess these virtues, who live without
+thoughtlessness, and who are emancipated through true knowledge, Mara,
+the tempter, never finds the way.
+
+58, 59. As on a heap of rubbish cast upon the highway the lily will
+grow full of sweet perfume and delight, thus the disciple of the truly
+enlightened Buddha shines forth by his knowledge among those who are
+like rubbish, among the people that walk in darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V. The Fool
+
+60. Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is
+tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.
+
+61. If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better, or
+his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no
+companionship with a fool.
+
+62. "These sons belong to me, and this wealth belongs to me," with such
+thoughts a fool is tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; how
+much less sons and wealth?
+
+63. The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a
+fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.
+
+64. If a fool be associated with a wise man even all his life, he will
+perceive the truth as little as a spoon perceives the taste of soup.
+
+65. If an intelligent man be associated for one minute only with a wise
+man, he will soon perceive the truth, as the tongue perceives the taste
+of soup.
+
+66. Fools of little understanding have themselves for their greatest
+enemies, for they do evil deeds which must bear bitter fruits.
+
+67. That deed is not well done of which a man must repent, and the
+reward of which he receives crying and with a tearful face.
+
+68. No, that deed is well done of which a man does not repent, and the
+reward of which he receives gladly and cheerfully.
+
+69. As long as the evil deed done does not bear fruit, the fool thinks
+it is like honey; but when it ripens, then the fool suffers grief.
+
+70. Let a fool month after month eat his food (like an ascetic) with the
+tip of a blade of Kusa grass, yet he is not worth the sixteenth particle
+of those who have well weighed the law.
+
+71. An evil deed, like newly-drawn milk, does not turn (suddenly);
+smouldering, like fire covered by ashes, it follows the fool.
+
+72. And when the evil deed, after it has become known, brings sorrow to
+the fool, then it destroys his bright lot, nay, it cleaves his head.
+
+73. Let the fool wish for a false reputation, for precedence among the
+Bhikshus, for lordship in the convents, for worship among other people!
+
+74. "May both the layman and he who has left the world think that this
+is done by me; may they be subject to me in everything which is to be
+done or is not to be done," thus is the mind of the fool, and his desire
+and pride increase.
+
+75. "One is the road that leads to wealth, another the road that leads
+to Nirvana;" if the Bhikshu, the disciple of Buddha, has learnt this,
+he will not yearn for honour, he will strive after separation from the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI. The Wise Man (Pandita)
+
+76. If you see an intelligent man who tells you where true treasures are
+to be found, who shows what is to be avoided, and administers reproofs,
+follow that wise man; it will be better, not worse, for those who follow
+him.
+
+77. Let him admonish, let him teach, let him forbid what is
+improper!--he will be beloved of the good, by the bad he will be hated.
+
+78. Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for
+friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of
+men.
+
+79. He who drinks in the law lives happily with a serene mind: the sage
+rejoices always in the law, as preached by the elect (Ariyas).
+
+80. Well-makers lead the water (wherever they like); fletchers bend the
+arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; wise people fashion themselves.
+
+81. As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, wise people falter not
+amidst blame and praise.
+
+82. Wise people, after they have listened to the laws, become serene,
+like a deep, smooth, and still lake.
+
+83. Good people walk on whatever befall, the good do not prattle,
+longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people
+never appear elated or depressed.
+
+84. If, whether for his own sake, or for the sake of others, a man
+wishes neither for a son, nor for wealth, nor for lordship, and if he
+does not wish for his own success by unfair means, then he is good,
+wise, and virtuous.
+
+85. Few are there among men who arrive at the other shore (become
+Arhats); the other people here run up and down the shore.
+
+86. But those who, when the law has been well preached to them, follow
+the law, will pass across the dominion of death, however difficult to
+overcome.
+
+87, 88. A wise man should leave the dark state (of ordinary life), and
+follow the bright state (of the Bhikshu). After going from his home to
+a homeless state, he should in his retirement look for enjoyment where
+there seemed to be no enjoyment. Leaving all pleasures behind, and
+calling nothing his own, the wise man should purge himself from all the
+troubles of the mind.
+
+89. Those whose mind is well grounded in the (seven) elements of
+knowledge, who without clinging to anything, rejoice in freedom from
+attachment, whose appetites have been conquered, and who are full of
+light, are free (even) in this world.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII. The Venerable (Arhat).
+
+90. There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and
+abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all
+fetters.
+
+91. They depart with their thoughts well-collected, they are not happy
+in their abode; like swans who have left their lake, they leave their
+house and home.
+
+92. Men who have no riches, who live on recognised food, who have
+perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana), their path is
+difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air.
+
+93. He whose appetites are stilled, who is not absorbed in enjoyment,
+who has perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana), his path is
+difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air.
+
+94. The gods even envy him whose senses, like horses well broken in by
+the driver, have been subdued, who is free from pride, and free from
+appetites.
+
+95. Such a one who does his duty is tolerant like the earth, like
+Indra's bolt; he is like a lake without mud; no new births are in store
+for him.
+
+96. His thought is quiet, quiet are his word and deed, when he has
+obtained freedom by true knowledge, when he has thus become a quiet man.
+
+97. The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has
+cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the
+greatest of men.
+
+98. In a hamlet or in a forest, in the deep water or on the dry land,
+wherever venerable persons (Arhanta) dwell, that place is delightful.
+
+99. Forests are delightful; where the world finds no delight, there the
+passionless will find delight, for they look not for pleasures.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII. The Thousands
+
+100. Even though a speech be a thousand (of words), but made up of
+senseless words, one word of sense is better, which if a man hears, he
+becomes quiet.
+
+101. Even though a Gatha (poem) be a thousand (of words), but made up of
+senseless words, one word of a Gatha is better, which if a man hears, he
+becomes quiet.
+
+102. Though a man recite a hundred Gathas made up of senseless words,
+one word of the law is better, which if a man hears, he becomes quiet.
+
+103. If one man conquer in battle a thousand times thousand men, and if
+another conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors.
+
+104, 105. One's own self conquered is better than all other people; not
+even a god, a Gandharva, not Mara with Brahman could change into defeat
+the victory of a man who has vanquished himself, and always lives under
+restraint.
+
+106. If a man for a hundred years sacrifice month after month with a
+thousand, and if he but for one moment pay homage to a man whose soul is
+grounded (in true knowledge), better is that homage than sacrifice for a
+hundred years.
+
+107. If a man for a hundred years worship Agni (fire) in the forest, and
+if he but for one moment pay homage to a man whose soul is grounded
+(in true knowledge), better is that homage than sacrifice for a hundred
+years.
+
+108. Whatever a man sacrifice in this world as an offering or as an
+oblation for a whole year in order to gain merit, the whole of it is
+not worth a quarter (a farthing); reverence shown to the righteous is
+better.
+
+109. He who always greets and constantly reveres the aged, four things
+will increase to him, viz. life, beauty, happiness, power.
+
+110. But he who lives a hundred years, vicious and unrestrained, a life
+of one day is better if a man is virtuous and reflecting.
+
+111. And he who lives a hundred years, ignorant and unrestrained, a life
+of one day is better if a man is wise and reflecting.
+
+112. And he who lives a hundred years, idle and weak, a life of one day
+is better if a man has attained firm strength.
+
+113. And he who lives a hundred years, not seeing beginning and end, a
+life of one day is better if a man sees beginning and end.
+
+114. And he who lives a hundred years, not seeing the immortal place, a
+life of one day is better if a man sees the immortal place.
+
+115. And he who lives a hundred years, not seeing the highest law, a
+life of one day is better if a man sees the highest law.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX. Evil
+
+116. If a man would hasten towards the good, he should keep his thought
+away from evil; if a man does what is good slothfully, his mind delights
+in evil.
+
+117. If a man commits a sin, let him not do it again; let him not
+delight in sin: pain is the outcome of evil.
+
+118. If a man does what is good, let him do it again; let him delight in
+it: happiness is the outcome of good.
+
+119. Even an evil-doer sees happiness as long as his evil deed has not
+ripened; but when his evil deed has ripened, then does the evil-doer see
+evil.
+
+120. Even a good man sees evil days, as long as his good deed has not
+ripened; but when his good deed has ripened, then does the good man see
+happy days.
+
+121. Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart, It will not
+come nigh unto me. Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is
+filled; the fool becomes full of evil, even if he gather it little by
+little.
+
+122. Let no man think lightly of good, saying in his heart, It will not
+come nigh unto me. Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is
+filled; the wise man becomes full of good, even if he gather it little
+by little.
+
+123. Let a man avoid evil deeds, as a merchant, if he has few companions
+and carries much wealth, avoids a dangerous road; as a man who loves
+life avoids poison.
+
+124. He who has no wound on his hand, may touch poison with his hand;
+poison does not affect one who has no wound; nor is there evil for one
+who does not commit evil.
+
+125. If a man offend a harmless, pure, and innocent person, the evil
+falls back upon that fool, like light dust thrown up against the wind.
+
+126. Some people are born again; evil-doers go to hell; righteous
+people go to heaven; those who are free from all worldly desires attain
+Nirvana.
+
+127. Not in the sky, not in the midst of the sea, not if we enter into
+the clefts of the mountains, is there known a spot in the whole world
+where death could not overcome (the mortal).
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X. Punishment
+
+129. All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remember that
+you are like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.
+
+130. All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remember that
+thou art like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.
+
+131. He who seeking his own happiness punishes or kills beings who also
+long for happiness, will not find happiness after death.
+
+132. He who seeking his own happiness does not punish or kill beings who
+also long for happiness, will find happiness after death.
+
+133. Do not speak harshly to anybody; those who are spoken to will
+answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful, blows for blows
+will touch thee.
+
+134. If, like a shattered metal plate (gong), thou utter not, then thou
+hast reached Nirvana; contention is not known to thee.
+
+135. As a cowherd with his staff drives his cows into the stable, so do
+Age and Death drive the life of men.
+
+136. A fool does not know when he commits his evil deeds: but the wicked
+man burns by his own deeds, as if burnt by fire.
+
+137. He who inflicts pain on innocent and harmless persons, will soon
+come to one of these ten states:
+
+138. He will have cruel suffering, loss, injury of the body, heavy
+affliction, or loss of mind,
+
+139. Or a misfortune coming from the king, or a fearful accusation, or
+loss of relations, or destruction of treasures,
+
+140. Or lightning-fire will burn his houses; and when his body is
+destroyed, the fool will go to hell.
+
+141. Not nakedness, not platted hair, not dirt, not fasting, or lying on
+the earth, not rubbing with dust, not sitting motionless, can purify a
+mortal who has not overcome desires.
+
+142. He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquillity, is
+quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to find fault with
+all other beings, he indeed is a Brahmana, an ascetic (sramana), a friar
+(bhikshu).
+
+143. Is there in this world any man so restrained by humility that he
+does not mind reproof, as a well-trained horse the whip?
+
+144. Like a well-trained horse when touched by the whip, be ye active
+and lively, and by faith, by virtue, by energy, by meditation, by
+discernment of the law you will overcome this great pain (of reproof),
+perfect in knowledge and in behaviour, and never forgetful.
+
+145. Well-makers lead the water (wherever they like); fletchers bend the
+arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; good people fashion themselves.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI. Old Age
+
+146. How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always
+burning? Why do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness?
+
+147. Look at this dressed-up lump, covered with wounds, joined together,
+sickly, full of many thoughts, which has no strength, no hold!
+
+148. This body is wasted, full of sickness, and frail; this heap of
+corruption breaks to pieces, life indeed ends in death.
+
+149. Those white bones, like gourds thrown away in the autumn, what
+pleasure is there in looking at them?
+
+150. After a stronghold has been made of the bones, it is covered with
+flesh and blood, and there dwell in it old age and death, pride and
+deceit.
+
+151. The brilliant chariots of kings are destroyed, the body also
+approaches destruction, but the virtue of good people never approaches
+destruction,--thus do the good say to the good.
+
+152. A man who has learnt little, grows old like an ox; his flesh grows,
+but his knowledge does not grow.
+
+153, 154. Looking for the maker of this tabernacle, I shall have to run
+through a course of many births, so long as I do not find (him); and
+painful is birth again and again. But now, maker of the tabernacle, thou
+hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again. All thy
+rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind, approaching
+the Eternal (visankhara, nirvana), has attained to the extinction of all
+desires.
+
+155. Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained
+treasure in their youth, perish like old herons in a lake without fish.
+
+156. Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained
+treasure in their youth, lie, like broken bows, sighing after the past.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII. Self
+
+157. If a man hold himself dear, let him watch himself carefully; during
+one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful.
+
+158. Let each man direct himself first to what is proper, then let him
+teach others; thus a wise man will not suffer.
+
+159. If a man make himself as he teaches others to be, then, being
+himself well subdued, he may subdue (others); one's own self is indeed
+difficult to subdue.
+
+160. Self is the lord of self, who else could be the lord? With self
+well subdued, a man finds a lord such as few can find.
+
+161. The evil done by oneself, self-begotten, self-bred, crushes the
+foolish, as a diamond breaks a precious stone.
+
+162. He whose wickedness is very great brings himself down to that state
+where his enemy wishes him to be, as a creeper does with the tree which
+it surrounds.
+
+163. Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is
+beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.
+
+164. The foolish man who scorns the rule of the venerable (Arahat), of
+the elect (Ariya), of the virtuous, and follows false doctrine, he bears
+fruit to his own destruction, like the fruits of the Katthaka reed.
+
+165. By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself
+evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity
+belong to oneself, no one can purify another.
+
+166. Let no one forget his own duty for the sake of another's, however
+great; let a man, after he has discerned his own duty, be always
+attentive to his duty.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII. The World
+
+167. Do not follow the evil law! Do not live on in thoughtlessness! Do
+not follow false doctrine! Be not a friend of the world.
+
+168. Rouse thyself! do not be idle! Follow the law of virtue! The
+virtuous rests in bliss in this world and in the next.
+
+169. Follow the law of virtue; do not follow that of sin. The virtuous
+rests in bliss in this world and in the next.
+
+170. Look upon the world as a bubble, look upon it as a mirage: the king
+of death does not see him who thus looks down upon the world.
+
+171. Come, look at this glittering world, like unto a royal chariot; the
+foolish are immersed in it, but the wise do not touch it.
+
+172. He who formerly was reckless and afterwards became sober, brightens
+up this world, like the moon when freed from clouds.
+
+173. He whose evil deeds are covered by good deeds, brightens up this
+world, like the moon when freed from clouds.
+
+174. This world is dark, few only can see here; a few only go to heaven,
+like birds escaped from the net.
+
+175. The swans go on the path of the sun, they go through the ether by
+means of their miraculous power; the wise are led out of this world,
+when they have conquered Mara and his train.
+
+176. If a man has transgressed one law, and speaks lies, and scoffs at
+another world, there is no evil he will not do.
+
+177. The uncharitable do not go to the world of the gods; fools only do
+not praise liberality; a wise man rejoices in liberality, and through it
+becomes blessed in the other world.
+
+178. Better than sovereignty over the earth, better than going to
+heaven, better than lordship over all worlds, is the reward of the first
+step in holiness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV. The Buddha (The Awakened)
+
+179. He whose conquest is not conquered again, into whose conquest no
+one in this world enters, by what track can you lead him, the Awakened,
+the Omniscient, the trackless?
+
+180. He whom no desire with its snares and poisons can lead astray,
+by what track can you lead him, the Awakened, the Omniscient, the
+trackless?
+
+181. Even the gods envy those who are awakened and not forgetful, who
+are given to meditation, who are wise, and who delight in the repose of
+retirement (from the world).
+
+182. Difficult (to obtain) is the conception of men, difficult is the
+life of mortals, difficult is the hearing of the True Law, difficult is
+the birth of the Awakened (the attainment of Buddhahood).
+
+183. Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's mind, that
+is the teaching of (all) the Awakened.
+
+184. The Awakened call patience the highest penance, long-suffering the
+highest Nirvana; for he is not an anchorite (pravragita) who strikes
+others, he is not an ascetic (sramana) who insults others.
+
+185. Not to blame, not to strike, to live restrained under the law,
+to be moderate in eating, to sleep and sit alone, and to dwell on the
+highest thoughts,--this is the teaching of the Awakened.
+
+186. There is no satisfying lusts, even by a shower of gold pieces; he
+who knows that lusts have a short taste and cause pain, he is wise;
+
+187. Even in heavenly pleasures he finds no satisfaction, the disciple
+who is fully awakened delights only in the destruction of all desires.
+
+188. Men, driven by fear, go to many a refuge, to mountains and forests,
+to groves and sacred trees.
+
+189. But that is not a safe refuge, that is not the best refuge; a man
+is not delivered from all pains after having gone to that refuge.
+
+190. He who takes refuge with Buddha, the Law, and the Church; he who,
+with clear understanding, sees the four holy truths:--
+
+191. Viz. pain, the origin of pain, the destruction of pain, and the
+eightfold holy way that leads to the quieting of pain;--
+
+192. That is the safe refuge, that is the best refuge; having gone to
+that refuge, a man is delivered from all pain.
+
+193. A supernatural person (a Buddha) is not easily found, he is not
+born everywhere. Wherever such a sage is born, that race prospers.
+
+194. Happy is the arising of the awakened, happy is the teaching of the
+True Law, happy is peace in the church, happy is the devotion of those
+who are at peace.
+
+195, 196. He who pays homage to those who deserve homage, whether the
+awakened (Buddha) or their disciples, those who have overcome the host
+(of evils), and crossed the flood of sorrow, he who pays homage to
+such as have found deliverance and know no fear, his merit can never be
+measured by anybody.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV. Happiness
+
+197. Let us live happily then, not hating those who hate us! among men
+who hate us let us dwell free from hatred!
+
+198. Let us live happily then, free from ailments among the ailing!
+among men who are ailing let us dwell free from ailments!
+
+199. Let us live happily then, free from greed among the greedy! among
+men who are greedy let us dwell free from greed!
+
+200. Let us live happily then, though we call nothing our own! We shall
+be like the bright gods, feeding on happiness!
+
+201. Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy. He who has
+given up both victory and defeat, he, the contented, is happy.
+
+202. There is no fire like passion; there is no losing throw like
+hatred; there is no pain like this body; there is no happiness higher
+than rest.
+
+203. Hunger is the worst of diseases, the body the greatest of pains; if
+one knows this truly, that is Nirvana, the highest happiness.
+
+204. Health is the greatest of gifts, contentedness the best riches;
+trust is the best of relationships, Nirvana the highest happiness.
+
+205. He who has tasted the sweetness of solitude and tranquillity,
+is free from fear and free from sin, while he tastes the sweetness of
+drinking in the law.
+
+206. The sight of the elect (Arya) is good, to live with them is always
+happiness; if a man does not see fools, he will be truly happy.
+
+207. He who walks in the company of fools suffers a long way; company
+with fools, as with an enemy, is always painful; company with the wise
+is pleasure, like meeting with kinsfolk.
+
+208. Therefore, one ought to follow the wise, the intelligent, the
+learned, the much enduring, the dutiful, the elect; one ought to follow
+a good and wise man, as the moon follows the path of the stars.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI. Pleasure
+
+209. He who gives himself to vanity, and does not give himself to
+meditation, forgetting the real aim (of life) and grasping at pleasure,
+will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation.
+
+210. Let no man ever look for what is pleasant, or what is unpleasant.
+Not to see what is pleasant is pain, and it is pain to see what is
+unpleasant.
+
+211. Let, therefore, no man love anything; loss of the beloved is evil.
+Those who love nothing and hate nothing, have no fetters.
+
+212. From pleasure comes grief, from pleasure comes fear; he who is free
+from pleasure knows neither grief nor fear.
+
+213. From affection comes grief, from affection comes fear; he who is
+free from affection knows neither grief nor fear.
+
+214. From lust comes grief, from lust comes fear; he who is free from
+lust knows neither grief nor fear.
+
+215. From love comes grief, from love comes fear; he who is free from
+love knows neither grief nor fear.
+
+216. From greed comes grief, from greed comes fear; he who is free from
+greed knows neither grief nor fear.
+
+217. He who possesses virtue and intelligence, who is just, speaks the
+truth, and does what is his own business, him the world will hold dear.
+
+218. He in whom a desire for the Ineffable (Nirvana) has sprung up, who
+is satisfied in his mind, and whose thoughts are not bewildered by love,
+he is called urdhvamsrotas (carried upwards by the stream).
+
+219. Kinsmen, friends, and lovers salute a man who has been long away,
+and returns safe from afar.
+
+220. In like manner his good works receive him who has done good, and
+has gone from this world to the other;--as kinsmen receive a friend on
+his return.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII. Anger
+
+221. Let a man leave anger, let him forsake pride, let him overcome all
+bondage! No sufferings befall the man who is not attached to name and
+form, and who calls nothing his own.
+
+222. He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a
+real driver; other people are but holding the reins.
+
+223. Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good;
+let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth!
+
+224. Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for
+little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
+
+225. The sages who injure nobody, and who always control their body,
+they will go to the unchangeable place (Nirvana), where, if they have
+gone, they will suffer no more.
+
+226. Those who are ever watchful, who study day and night, and who
+strive after Nirvana, their passions will come to an end.
+
+227. This is an old saying, O Atula, this is not only of to-day: `They
+blame him who sits silent, they blame him who speaks much, they also
+blame him who says little; there is no one on earth who is not blamed.'
+
+228. There never was, there never will be, nor is there now, a man who
+is always blamed, or a man who is always praised.
+
+229, 230. But he whom those who discriminate praise continually day
+after day, as without blemish, wise, rich in knowledge and virtue, who
+would dare to blame him, like a coin made of gold from the Gambu river?
+Even the gods praise him, he is praised even by Brahman.
+
+231. Beware of bodily anger, and control thy body! Leave the sins of the
+body, and with thy body practise virtue!
+
+232. Beware of the anger of the tongue, and control thy tongue! Leave
+the sins of the tongue, and practise virtue with thy tongue!
+
+233. Beware of the anger of the mind, and control thy mind! Leave the
+sins of the mind, and practise virtue with thy mind!
+
+234. The wise who control their body, who control their tongue, the wise
+who control their mind, are indeed well controlled.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII. Impurity
+
+235. Thou art now like a sear leaf, the messengers of death (Yama) have
+come near to thee; thou standest at the door of thy departure, and thou
+hast no provision for thy journey.
+
+236. Make thyself an island, work hard, be wise! When thy impurities
+are blown away, and thou art free from guilt, thou wilt enter into the
+heavenly world of the elect (Ariya).
+
+237. Thy life has come to an end, thou art come near to death (Yama),
+there is no resting-place for thee on the road, and thou hast no
+provision for thy journey.
+
+238. Make thyself an island, work hard, be wise! When thy impurities are
+blown away, and thou art free from guilt, thou wilt not enter again into
+birth and decay.
+
+239. Let a wise man blow off the impurities of his self, as a smith
+blows off the impurities of silver one by one, little by little, and
+from time to time.
+
+240. As the impurity which springs from the iron, when it springs from
+it, destroys it; thus do a transgressor's own works lead him to the evil
+path.
+
+241. The taint of prayers is non-repetition; the taint of houses,
+non-repair; the taint of the body is sloth; the taint of a watchman,
+thoughtlessness.
+
+242. Bad conduct is the taint of woman, greediness the taint of a
+benefactor; tainted are all evil ways in this world and in the next.
+
+243. But there is a taint worse than all taints,--ignorance is
+the greatest taint. O mendicants! throw off that taint, and become
+taintless!
+
+244. Life is easy to live for a man who is without shame, a crow hero, a
+mischief-maker, an insulting, bold, and wretched fellow.
+
+245. But life is hard to live for a modest man, who always looks for
+what is pure, who is disinterested, quiet, spotless, and intelligent.
+
+246. He who destroys life, who speaks untruth, who in this world takes
+what is not given him, who goes to another man's wife;
+
+247. And the man who gives himself to drinking intoxicating liquors, he,
+even in this world, digs up his own root.
+
+248. O man, know this, that the unrestrained are in a bad state; take
+care that greediness and vice do not bring thee to grief for a long
+time!
+
+249. The world gives according to their faith or according to their
+pleasure: if a man frets about the food and the drink given to others,
+he will find no rest either by day or by night.
+
+250. He in whom that feeling is destroyed, and taken out with the very
+root, finds rest by day and by night.
+
+251. There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there
+is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
+
+252. The fault of others is easily perceived, but that of oneself is
+difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbour's faults like chaff,
+but his own fault he hides, as a cheat hides the bad die from the
+gambler.
+
+253. If a man looks after the faults of others, and is always inclined
+to be offended, his own passions will grow, and he is far from the
+destruction of passions.
+
+254. There is no path through the air, a man is not a Samana by outward
+acts. The world delights in vanity, the Tathagatas (the Buddhas) are
+free from vanity.
+
+255. There is no path through the air, a man is not a Samana by outward
+acts. No creatures are eternal; but the awakened (Buddha) are never
+shaken.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX. The Just
+
+256, 257. A man is not just if he carries a matter by violence; no, he
+who distinguishes both right and wrong, who is learned and leads others,
+not by violence, but by law and equity, and who is guarded by the law
+and intelligent, he is called just.
+
+258. A man is not learned because he talks much; he who is patient, free
+from hatred and fear, he is called learned.
+
+259. A man is not a supporter of the law because he talks much; even if
+a man has learnt little, but sees the law bodily, he is a supporter of
+the law, a man who never neglects the law.
+
+260. A man is not an elder because his head is grey; his age may be
+ripe, but he is called `Old-in-vain.'
+
+261. He in whom there is truth, virtue, love, restraint, moderation, he
+who is free from impurity and is wise, he is called an elder.
+
+262. An envious greedy, dishonest man does not become respectable by
+means of much talking only, or by the beauty of his complexion.
+
+263. He in whom all this is destroyed, and taken out with the very root,
+he, when freed from hatred and wise, is called respectable.
+
+264. Not by tonsure does an undisciplined man who speaks falsehood
+become a Samana; can a man be a Samana who is still held captive by
+desire and greediness?
+
+265. He who always quiets the evil, whether small or large, he is called
+a Samana (a quiet man), because he has quieted all evil.
+
+266. A man is not a mendicant (Bhikshu) simply because he asks others
+for alms; he who adopts the whole law is a Bhikshu, not he who only
+begs.
+
+267. He who is above good and evil, who is chaste, who with knowledge
+passes through the world, he indeed is called a Bhikshu.
+
+268, 269. A man is not a Muni because he observes silence (mona, i.e.
+mauna), if he is foolish and ignorant; but the wise who, taking the
+balance, chooses the good and avoids evil, he is a Muni, and is a Muni
+thereby; he who in this world weighs both sides is called a Muni.
+
+270. A man is not an elect (Ariya) because he injures living creatures;
+because he has pity on all living creatures, therefore is a man called
+Ariya.
+
+271, 272. Not only by discipline and vows, not only by much learning,
+not by entering into a trance, not by sleeping alone, do I earn the
+happiness of release which no worldling can know. Bhikshu, be not
+confident as long as thou hast not attained the extinction of desires.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX. The Way
+
+273. The best of ways is the eightfold; the best of truths the four
+words; the best of virtues passionlessness; the best of men he who has
+eyes to see.
+
+274. This is the way, there is no other that leads to the purifying of
+intelligence. Go on this way! Everything else is the deceit of Mara (the
+tempter).
+
+275. If you go on this way, you will make an end of pain! The way was
+preached by me, when I had understood the removal of the thorns (in the
+flesh).
+
+276. You yourself must make an effort. The Tathagatas (Buddhas) are only
+preachers. The thoughtful who enter the way are freed from the bondage
+of Mara.
+
+277. `All created things perish,' he who knows and sees this becomes
+passive in pain; this is the way to purity.
+
+278. `All created things are grief and pain,' he who knows and sees this
+becomes passive in pain; this is the way that leads to purity.
+
+279. `All forms are unreal,' he who knows and sees this becomes passive
+in pain; this is the way that leads to purity.
+
+280. He who does not rouse himself when it is time to rise, who, though
+young and strong, is full of sloth, whose will and thought are weak,
+that lazy and idle man will never find the way to knowledge.
+
+281. Watching his speech, well restrained in mind, let a man never
+commit any wrong with his body! Let a man but keep these three roads of
+action clear, and he will achieve the way which is taught by the wise.
+
+282. Through zeal knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal knowledge is
+lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place
+himself that knowledge may grow.
+
+283. Cut down the whole forest (of lust), not a tree only! Danger comes
+out of the forest (of lust). When you have cut down both the forest (of
+lust) and its undergrowth, then, Bhikshus, you will be rid of the forest
+and free!
+
+284. So long as the love of man towards women, even the smallest, is not
+destroyed, so long is his mind in bondage, as the calf that drinks milk
+is to its mother.
+
+285. Cut out the love of self, like an autumn lotus, with thy hand!
+Cherish the road of peace. Nirvana has been shown by Sugata (Buddha).
+
+286. `Here I shall dwell in the rain, here in winter and summer,' thus
+the fool meditates, and does not think of his death.
+
+287. Death comes and carries off that man, praised for his children and
+flocks, his mind distracted, as a flood carries off a sleeping village.
+
+288. Sons are no help, nor a father, nor relations; there is no help
+from kinsfolk for one whom death has seized.
+
+289. A wise and good man who knows the meaning of this, should quickly
+clear the way that leads to Nirvana.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI. Miscellaneous
+
+290. If by leaving a small pleasure one sees a great pleasure, let a
+wise man leave the small pleasure, and look to the great.
+
+291. He who, by causing pain to others, wishes to obtain pleasure for
+himself, he, entangled in the bonds of hatred, will never be free from
+hatred.
+
+292. What ought to be done is neglected, what ought not to be done is
+done; the desires of unruly, thoughtless people are always increasing.
+
+293. But they whose whole watchfulness is always directed to their body,
+who do not follow what ought not to be done, and who steadfastly do what
+ought to be done, the desires of such watchful and wise people will come
+to an end.
+
+294. A true Brahmana goes scatheless, though he have killed father and
+mother, and two valiant kings, though he has destroyed a kingdom with
+all its subjects.
+
+295. A true Brahmana goes scatheless, though he have killed father and
+mother, and two holy kings, and an eminent man besides.
+
+296. The disciples of Gotama (Buddha) are always well awake, and their
+thoughts day and night are always set on Buddha.
+
+297. The disciples of Gotama are always well awake, and their thoughts
+day and night are always set on the law.
+
+298. The disciples of Gotama are always well awake, and their thoughts
+day and night are always set on the church.
+
+299. The disciples of Gotama are always well awake, and their thoughts
+day and night are always set on their body.
+
+300. The disciples of Gotama are always well awake, and their mind day
+and night always delights in compassion.
+
+301. The disciples of Gotama are always well awake, and their mind day
+and night always delights in meditation.
+
+302. It is hard to leave the world (to become a friar), it is hard to
+enjoy the world; hard is the monastery, painful are the houses; painful
+it is to dwell with equals (to share everything in common) and the
+itinerant mendicant is beset with pain. Therefore let no man be an
+itinerant mendicant and he will not be beset with pain.
+
+303. Whatever place a faithful, virtuous, celebrated, and wealthy man
+chooses, there he is respected.
+
+304. Good people shine from afar, like the snowy mountains; bad people
+are not seen, like arrows shot by night.
+
+305. He alone who, without ceasing, practises the duty of sitting
+alone and sleeping alone, he, subduing himself, will rejoice in the
+destruction of all desires alone, as if living in a forest.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII. The Downward Course
+
+306. He who says what is not, goes to hell; he also who, having done a
+thing, says I have not done it. After death both are equal, they are men
+with evil deeds in the next world.
+
+307. Many men whose shoulders are covered with the yellow gown are
+ill-conditioned and unrestrained; such evil-doers by their evil deeds go
+to hell.
+
+308. Better it would be to swallow a heated iron ball, like flaring
+fire, than that a bad unrestrained fellow should live on the charity of
+the land.
+
+309. Four things does a wreckless man gain who covets his neighbour's
+wife,--a bad reputation, an uncomfortable bed, thirdly, punishment, and
+lastly, hell.
+
+310. There is bad reputation, and the evil way (to hell), there is the
+short pleasure of the frightened in the arms of the frightened, and
+the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore let no man think of his
+neighbour's wife.
+
+311. As a grass-blade, if badly grasped, cuts the arm, badly-practised
+asceticism leads to hell.
+
+312. An act carelessly performed, a broken vow, and hesitating obedience
+to discipline, all this brings no great reward.
+
+313. If anything is to be done, let a man do it, let him attack it
+vigorously! A careless pilgrim only scatters the dust of his passions
+more widely.
+
+314. An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it
+afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not
+repent.
+
+315. Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and
+without, so let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for
+they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in
+hell.
+
+316. They who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed of, and
+are not ashamed of what they ought to be ashamed of, such men, embracing
+false doctrines enter the evil path.
+
+317. They who fear when they ought not to fear, and fear not when they
+ought to fear, such men, embracing false doctrines, enter the evil path.
+
+318. They who forbid when there is nothing to be forbidden, and forbid
+not when there is something to be forbidden, such men, embracing false
+doctrines, enter the evil path.
+
+319. They who know what is forbidden as forbidden, and what is not
+forbidden as not forbidden, such men, embracing the true doctrine, enter
+the good path.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII. The Elephant
+
+320. Silently shall I endure abuse as the elephant in battle endures the
+arrow sent from the bow: for the world is ill-natured.
+
+321. They lead a tamed elephant to battle, the king mounts a tamed
+elephant; the tamed is the best among men, he who silently endures
+abuse.
+
+322. Mules are good, if tamed, and noble Sindhu horses, and elephants
+with large tusks; but he who tames himself is better still.
+
+323. For with these animals does no man reach the untrodden country
+(Nirvana), where a tamed man goes on a tamed animal, viz. on his own
+well-tamed self.
+
+324. The elephant called Dhanapalaka, his temples running with sap, and
+difficult to hold, does not eat a morsel when bound; the elephant longs
+for the elephant grove.
+
+325. If a man becomes fat and a great eater, if he is sleepy and rolls
+himself about, that fool, like a hog fed on wash, is born again and
+again.
+
+326. This mind of mine went formerly wandering about as it liked, as
+it listed, as it pleased; but I shall now hold it in thoroughly, as the
+rider who holds the hook holds in the furious elephant.
+
+327. Be not thoughtless, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the
+evil way, like an elephant sunk in mud.
+
+328. If a man find a prudent companion who walks with him, is wise, and
+lives soberly, he may walk with him, overcoming all dangers, happy, but
+considerate.
+
+329. If a man find no prudent companion who walks with him, is wise,
+and lives soberly, let him walk alone, like a king who has left his
+conquered country behind,--like an elephant in the forest.
+
+330. It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool;
+let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an
+elephant in the forest.
+
+331. If an occasion arises, friends are pleasant; enjoyment is pleasant,
+whatever be the cause; a good work is pleasant in the hour of death; the
+giving up of all grief is pleasant.
+
+332. Pleasant in the world is the state of a mother, pleasant the state
+of a father, pleasant the state of a Samana, pleasant the state of a
+Brahmana.
+
+333. Pleasant is virtue lasting to old age, pleasant is a faith firmly
+rooted; pleasant is attainment of intelligence, pleasant is avoiding of
+sins.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV. Thirst
+
+334. The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper; he runs from
+life to life, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest.
+
+335. Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, full of poison, in this
+world, his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass.
+
+336. He who overcomes this fierce thirst, difficult to be conquered in
+this world, sufferings fall off from him, like water-drops from a lotus
+leaf.
+
+337. This salutary word I tell you, `Do ye, as many as are here
+assembled, dig up the root of thirst, as he who wants the sweet-scented
+Usira root must dig up the Birana grass, that Mara (the tempter) may not
+crush you again and again, as the stream crushes the reeds.'
+
+338. As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its
+root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are
+destroyed, the pain (of life) will return again and again.
+
+339. He whose thirst running towards pleasure is exceeding strong in the
+thirty-six channels, the waves will carry away that misguided man, viz.
+his desires which are set on passion.
+
+340. The channels run everywhere, the creeper (of passion) stands
+sprouting; if you see the creeper springing up, cut its root by means of
+knowledge.
+
+341. A creature's pleasures are extravagant and luxurious; sunk in lust
+and looking for pleasure, men undergo (again and again) birth and decay.
+
+342. Men, driven on by thirst, run about like a snared hare; held in
+fetters and bonds, they undergo pain for a long time, again and again.
+
+343. Men, driven on by thirst, run about like a snared hare;
+let therefore the mendicant drive out thirst, by striving after
+passionlessness for himself.
+
+344. He who having got rid of the forest (of lust) (i.e. after having
+reached Nirvana) gives himself over to forest-life (i.e. to lust), and
+who, when removed from the forest (i.e. from lust), runs to the forest
+(i.e. to lust), look at that man! though free, he runs into bondage.
+
+345. Wise people do not call that a strong fetter which is made of iron,
+wood, or hemp; far stronger is the care for precious stones and rings,
+for sons and a wife.
+
+346. That fetter wise people call strong which drags down, yields, but
+is difficult to undo; after having cut this at last, people leave the
+world, free from cares, and leaving desires and pleasures behind.
+
+347. Those who are slaves to passions, run down with the stream (of
+desires), as a spider runs down the web which he has made himself;
+when they have cut this, at last, wise people leave the world free from
+cares, leaving all affection behind.
+
+348. Give up what is before, give up what is behind, give up what is in
+the middle, when thou goest to the other shore of existence; if thy mind
+is altogether free, thou wilt not again enter into birth and decay.
+
+349. If a man is tossed about by doubts, full of strong passions, and
+yearning only for what is delightful, his thirst will grow more and
+more, and he will indeed make his fetters strong.
+
+350. If a man delights in quieting doubts, and, always reflecting,
+dwells on what is not delightful (the impurity of the body, &c.), he
+certainly will remove, nay, he will cut the fetter of Mara.
+
+351. He who has reached the consummation, who does not tremble, who is
+without thirst and without sin, he has broken all the thorns of life:
+this will be his last body.
+
+352. He who is without thirst and without affection, who understands the
+words and their interpretation, who knows the order of letters (those
+which are before and which are after), he has received his last body, he
+is called the great sage, the great man.
+
+353. `I have conquered all, I know all, in all conditions of life I am
+free from taint; I have left all, and through the destruction of thirst
+I am free; having learnt myself, whom shall I teach?'
+
+354. The gift of the law exceeds all gifts; the sweetness of the law
+exceeds all sweetness; the delight in the law exceeds all delights; the
+extinction of thirst overcomes all pain.
+
+355. Pleasures destroy the foolish, if they look not for the other
+shore; the foolish by his thirst for pleasures destroys himself, as if
+he were his own enemy.
+
+356. The fields are damaged by weeds, mankind is damaged by passion:
+therefore a gift bestowed on the passionless brings great reward.
+
+357. The fields are damaged by weeds, mankind is damaged by hatred:
+therefore a gift bestowed on those who do not hate brings great reward.
+
+358. The fields are damaged by weeds, mankind is damaged by vanity:
+therefore a gift bestowed on those who are free from vanity brings great
+reward.
+
+359. The fields are damaged by weeds, mankind is damaged by lust:
+therefore a gift bestowed on those who are free from lust brings great
+reward.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV. The Bhikshu (Mendicant)
+
+360. Restraint in the eye is good, good is restraint in the ear, in the
+nose restraint is good, good is restraint in the tongue.
+
+361. In the body restraint is good, good is restraint in speech, in
+thought restraint is good, good is restraint in all things. A Bhikshu,
+restrained in all things, is freed from all pain.
+
+362. He who controls his hand, he who controls his feet, he who controls
+his speech, he who is well controlled, he who delights inwardly, who is
+collected, who is solitary and content, him they call Bhikshu.
+
+363. The Bhikshu who controls his mouth, who speaks wisely and calmly,
+who teaches the meaning and the law, his word is sweet.
+
+364. He who dwells in the law, delights in the law, meditates on the
+law, follows the law, that Bhikshu will never fall away from the true
+law.
+
+365. Let him not despise what he has received, nor ever envy others: a
+mendicant who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.
+
+366. A Bhikshu who, though he receives little, does not despise what he
+has received, even the gods will praise him, if his life is pure, and if
+he is not slothful.
+
+367. He who never identifies himself with name and form, and does not
+grieve over what is no more, he indeed is called a Bhikshu.
+
+368. The Bhikshu who acts with kindness, who is calm in the doctrine
+of Buddha, will reach the quiet place (Nirvana), cessation of natural
+desires, and happiness.
+
+369. O Bhikshu, empty this boat! if emptied, it will go quickly; having
+cut off passion and hatred thou wilt go to Nirvana.
+
+370. Cut off the five (senses), leave the five, rise above the five. A
+Bhikshu, who has escaped from the five fetters, he is called Oghatinna,
+`saved from the flood.'
+
+371. Meditate, O Bhikshu, and be not heedless! Do not direct thy thought
+to what gives pleasure that thou mayest not for thy heedlessness have to
+swallow the iron ball (in hell), and that thou mayest not cry out when
+burning, `This is pain.'
+
+372. Without knowledge there is no meditation, without meditation
+there is no knowledge: he who has knowledge and meditation is near unto
+Nirvana.
+
+373. A Bhikshu who has entered his empty house, and whose mind is
+tranquil, feels a more than human delight when he sees the law clearly.
+
+374. As soon as he has considered the origin and destruction of the
+elements (khandha) of the body, he finds happiness and joy which belong
+to those who know the immortal (Nirvana).
+
+375. And this is the beginning here for a wise Bhikshu: watchfulness
+over the senses, contentedness, restraint under the law; keep noble
+friends whose life is pure, and who are not slothful.
+
+376. Let him live in charity, let him be perfect in his duties; then in
+the fulness of delight he will make an end of suffering.
+
+377. As the Vassika plant sheds its withered flowers, men should shed
+passion and hatred, O ye Bhikshus!
+
+378. The Bhikshu whose body and tongue and mind are quieted, who is
+collected, and has rejected the baits of the world, he is called quiet.
+
+379. Rouse thyself by thyself, examine thyself by thyself, thus
+self-protected and attentive wilt thou live happily, O Bhikshu!
+
+380. For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore
+curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.
+
+381. The Bhikshu, full of delight, who is calm in the doctrine of Buddha
+will reach the quiet place (Nirvana), cessation of natural desires, and
+happiness.
+
+382. He who, even as a young Bhikshu, applies himself to the doctrine of
+Buddha, brightens up this world, like the moon when free from clouds.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI. The Brahmana (Arhat)
+
+383. Stop the stream valiantly, drive away the desires, O Brahmana!
+When you have understood the destruction of all that was made, you will
+understand that which was not made.
+
+384. If the Brahmana has reached the other shore in both laws (in
+restraint and contemplation), all bonds vanish from him who has obtained
+knowledge.
+
+385. He for whom there is neither this nor that shore, nor both, him,
+the fearless and unshackled, I call indeed a Brahmana.
+
+386. He who is thoughtful, blameless, settled, dutiful, without
+passions, and who has attained the highest end, him I call indeed a
+Brahmana.
+
+387. The sun is bright by day, the moon shines by night, the warrior
+is bright in his armour, the Brahmana is bright in his meditation; but
+Buddha, the Awakened, is bright with splendour day and night.
+
+388. Because a man is rid of evil, therefore he is called Brahmana;
+because he walks quietly, therefore he is called Samana; because he
+has sent away his own impurities, therefore he is called Pravragita
+(Pabbagita, a pilgrim).
+
+389. No one should attack a Brahmana, but no Brahmana (if attacked)
+should let himself fly at his aggressor! Woe to him who strikes a
+Brahmana, more woe to him who flies at his aggressor!
+
+390. It advantages a Brahmana not a little if he holds his mind back
+from the pleasures of life; when all wish to injure has vanished, pain
+will cease.
+
+391. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who does not offend by body, word, or
+thought, and is controlled on these three points.
+
+392. After a man has once understood the law as taught by the
+Well-awakened (Buddha), let him worship it carefully, as the Brahmana
+worships the sacrificial fire.
+
+393. A man does not become a Brahmana by his platted hair, by his
+family, or by birth; in whom there is truth and righteousness, he is
+blessed, he is a Brahmana.
+
+394. What is the use of platted hair, O fool! what of the raiment of
+goat-skins? Within thee there is ravening, but the outside thou makest
+clean.
+
+395. The man who wears dirty raiments, who is emaciated and covered with
+veins, who lives alone in the forest, and meditates, him I call indeed a
+Brahmana.
+
+396. I do not call a man a Brahmana because of his origin or of his
+mother. He is indeed arrogant, and he is wealthy: but the poor, who is
+free from all attachments, him I call indeed a Brahmana.
+
+397. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who has cut all fetters, who never
+trembles, is independent and unshackled.
+
+398. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who has cut the strap and the thong,
+the chain with all that pertains to it, who has burst the bar, and is
+awakened.
+
+399. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, though he has committed no
+offence, endures reproach, bonds, and stripes, who has endurance for his
+force, and strength for his army.
+
+400. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who is free from anger, dutiful,
+virtuous, without appetite, who is subdued, and has received his last
+body.
+
+401. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who does not cling to pleasures, like
+water on a lotus leaf, like a mustard seed on the point of a needle.
+
+402. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, even here, knows the end of his
+suffering, has put down his burden, and is unshackled.
+
+403. Him I call indeed a Brahmana whose knowledge is deep, who possesses
+wisdom, who knows the right way and the wrong, and has attained the
+highest end.
+
+404. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who keeps aloof both from laymen and
+from mendicants, who frequents no houses, and has but few desires.
+
+405. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who finds no fault with other beings,
+whether feeble or strong, and does not kill nor cause slaughter.
+
+406. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who is tolerant with the intolerant,
+mild with fault-finders, and free from passion among the passionate.
+
+407. Him I call indeed a Brahmana from whom anger and hatred, pride and
+envy have dropt like a mustard seed from the point of a needle.
+
+408. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who utters true speech, instructive
+and free from harshness, so that he offend no one.
+
+409. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who takes nothing in the world that is
+not given him, be it long or short, small or large, good or bad.
+
+410. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who fosters no desires for this world
+or for the next, has no inclinations, and is unshackled.
+
+411. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who has no interests, and when he has
+understood (the truth), does not say How, how? and who has reached the
+depth of the Immortal.
+
+412. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who in this world is above good and
+evil, above the bondage of both, free from grief from sin, and from
+impurity.
+
+413. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who is bright like the moon, pure,
+serene, undisturbed, and in whom all gaiety is extinct.
+
+414. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who has traversed this miry road, the
+impassable world and its vanity, who has gone through, and reached
+the other shore, is thoughtful, guileless, free from doubts, free from
+attachment, and content.
+
+415. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who in this world, leaving all
+desires, travels about without a home, and in whom all concupiscence is
+extinct.
+
+416. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, leaving all longings, travels
+about without a home, and in whom all covetousness is extinct.
+
+417. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, after leaving all bondage to men,
+has risen above all bondage to the gods, and is free from all and every
+bondage.
+
+418. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who has left what gives pleasure and
+what gives pain, who is cold, and free from all germs (of renewed life),
+the hero who has conquered all the worlds.
+
+419. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who knows the destruction and the
+return of beings everywhere, who is free from bondage, welfaring
+(Sugata), and awakened (Buddha).
+
+420. Him I call indeed a Brahmana whose path the gods do not know, nor
+spirits (Gandharvas), nor men, whose passions are extinct, and who is an
+Arhat (venerable).
+
+421. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who calls nothing his own, whether it
+be before, behind, or between, who is poor, and free from the love of
+the world.
+
+422. Him I call indeed a Brahmana, the manly, the noble, the hero,
+the great sage, the conqueror, the impassible, the accomplished, the
+awakened.
+
+423. Him I call indeed a Brahmana who knows his former abodes, who sees
+heaven and hell, has reached the end of births, is perfect in knowledge,
+a sage, and whose perfections are all perfect.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        
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PG2039_text.txt

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+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Evangeline.
+
+  A Tale of Acadie.
+
+
+  by
+
+  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
+
+
+
+
+    THIS is the forest primeval.  The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
+  Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
+  Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
+  Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
+  Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
+  Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
+
+    This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
+  Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
+  Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
+  Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
+  Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
+  Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
+  Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
+  Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean.
+  Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.
+
+    Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
+  Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
+  List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
+  List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
+
+
+
+
+
+  PART THE FIRST.
+
+
+
+
+  I
+
+
+    IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
+  Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
+  Lay in the fruitful valley.  Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
+  Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
+  Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
+  Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
+  Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
+  West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
+  Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
+  Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
+  Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
+  Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended.
+  There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
+  Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,
+  Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
+  Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
+  Over the basement below protected and shaded the door-way.
+  There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
+  Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
+  Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
+  Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
+  Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
+  Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.
+  Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
+  Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
+  Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
+  Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
+  Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank
+  Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed.  Anon from the belfry
+  Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
+  Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
+  Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
+  Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,--
+  Dwelt in the love of God and of man.  Alike were they free from
+  Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
+  Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
+  But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;
+  There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.
+
+    Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,
+  Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,
+  Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household,
+  Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.
+  Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;
+  Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;
+  White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.
+  Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
+  Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,
+  Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!
+  Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.
+  When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
+  Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden.
+  Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret
+  Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
+  Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
+  Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal,
+  Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,
+  Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
+  Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
+  But a celestial brightness--a more ethereal beauty--
+  Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,
+  Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.
+  When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
+
+    Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer
+  Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and a shady
+  Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it.
+  Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a footpath
+  Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow.
+  Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a penthouse,
+  Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside,
+  Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of Mary.
+  Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown
+  Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.
+  Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farm-yard,
+  There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and the harrows;
+  There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio,
+  Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame
+  Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.
+  Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village.  In each one
+  Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase,
+  Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft.
+  There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates
+  Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes
+  Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation.
+
+    Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of Grand-Pré
+  Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household.
+  Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal,
+  Fixed his eyes upon her, as the saint of his deepest devotion;
+  Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment!
+  Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,
+  And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps,
+  Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron;
+  Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village,
+  Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered
+  Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music.
+  But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome;
+  Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith,
+  Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men;
+  For, since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations,
+  Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.
+  Basil was Benedict's friend.  Their children from earliest childhood
+  Grew up together as brother and sister; and Father Felician,
+  Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their letters
+  Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plain-song.
+  But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed,
+  Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith.
+  There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him
+  Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything,
+  Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cart-wheel
+  Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders.
+  Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness
+  Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice,
+  Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows,
+  And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes,
+  Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel.
+  Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle,
+  Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the meadow.
+  Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,
+  Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow
+  Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings;
+  Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow!
+  Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children.
+  He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of the morning,
+  Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened through into action.
+  She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a woman.
+  "Sunshine of Saint Eulalie" was she called; for that was the sunshine
+  Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with apples;
+  She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and abundance,
+  Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children.
+
+
+
+  II.
+
+
+    NOW had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer,
+  And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.
+  Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound,
+  Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands.
+  Harvests were gathered in; and wild with the winds of September
+  Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel.
+  All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement.
+  Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded their honey
+  Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian hunters asserted
+  Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the foxes.
+  Such was the advent of autumn.  Then followed that beautiful season,
+  Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All-Saints!
+  Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
+  Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.
+  Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of the ocean
+  Was for a moment consoled.  All sounds were in harmony blended.
+  Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the farm-yards,
+  Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of pigeons,
+  All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and the great sun
+  Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapors around him;
+  While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and yellow,
+  Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree of the forest
+  Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with mantles and jewels.
+
+    Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and stillness.
+  Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending
+  Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead.
+  Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,
+  And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.
+  Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer,
+  Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,
+  Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.
+  Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside,
+  Where was their favorite pasture.  Behind them followed the watch-dog,
+  Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,
+  Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly
+  Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers;
+  Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector,
+  When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled.
+  Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes,
+  Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor.
+  Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks,
+  While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles,
+  Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,
+  Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.
+  Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders
+  Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence
+  Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.
+  Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard,
+  Echoed back by the barns.  Anon they sank into stillness;
+  Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors,
+  Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.
+
+    In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer
+  Sat in his elbow-chair; and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths
+  Struggled together like foe in a burning city.  Behind him,
+  Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,
+  Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness.
+  Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair
+  Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser
+  Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.
+  Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas,
+  Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him
+  Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian vineyards.
+  Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline seated,
+  Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in the corner behind her.
+  Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent shuttle,
+  While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone of a bagpipe,
+  Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments together.
+  As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases,
+  Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar,
+  So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked.
+
+    Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, suddenly lifted,
+  Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its hinges.
+  Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,
+  And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with him.
+  "Welcome!" the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps paused on the threshold,
+  "Welcome, Basil, my friend!  Come, take thy place on the settle
+  Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without thee;
+  Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of tobacco;
+  Never so much thyself art thou as when through the curling
+  Smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly and jovial face gleams
+  Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of the marshes."
+  Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the blacksmith,
+  Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fireside:--
+  "Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thy ballad!
+  Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are filled with
+  Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before them.
+  Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe."
+  Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline brought him,
+  And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly continued:--
+  "Four days now are passed since the English ships at their anchors
+  Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon pointed against us,
+  What their design may be is unknown; but all are commanded
+  On the morrow to meet in the church, where his Majesty's mandate
+  Will be proclaimed as law in the land.  Alas! in the mean time
+  Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people."
+  Then made answer the farmer:--"Perhaps some friendlier purpose
+  Brings these ships to our shores.  Perhaps the harvests in England
+  By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been blighted,
+  And from our bursting barns they would feed their cattle and children."
+  "Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said, warmly, the blacksmith,
+  Shaking his head, as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh, he continued:--
+  "Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Séjour, nor Port Royal.
+  Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts,
+  Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow.
+  Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds;
+  Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe of the mower."
+  Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer:--
+  "Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our cornfields,
+  Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the ocean,
+  Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's cannon.
+  Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow of sorrow
+  Fall on this house and hearth; for this is the night of the contract.
+  Built are the house and the barn.  The merry lads of the village
+  Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe round about them,
+  Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a twelvemonth.
+  René Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and inkhorn.
+  Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our children?"
+  As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lover's,
+  Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had spoken,
+  And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered.
+
+
+
+  III.
+
+
+    BENT like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,
+  Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public;
+  Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung
+  Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows
+  Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal.
+  Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred
+  Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.
+  Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive,
+  Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English.
+  Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion,
+  Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.
+  He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children;
+  For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest,
+  And of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses,
+  And of the white Létiche, the ghost of a child who unchristened
+  Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers of children;
+  And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the stable,
+  And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a nutshell,
+  And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horseshoes,
+  With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village.
+  Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the blacksmith,
+  Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his right hand,
+  "Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, "thou hast heard the talk in the village,
+  And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships and their errand."
+  Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary public:--
+  "Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never the wiser;
+  And what their errand may be I know not better than others.
+  Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil intention
+  Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why then molest us?"
+  "God's name!" shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible blacksmith;
+  "Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore?
+  Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the strongest!"
+  But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary public:--
+  "Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice
+  Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often consoled me,
+  When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port Royal."
+  This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to repeat it
+  When his neighbors complained that any injustice was done them.
+  "Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember,
+  Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice
+  Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,
+  And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided
+  Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people.
+  Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,
+  Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.
+  But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
+  Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty
+  Ruled with an iron rod.  Then it chanced in a nobleman's palace
+  That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion
+  Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household.
+  She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,
+  Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.
+  As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,
+  Lo! o'er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder
+  Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand
+  Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,
+  And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,
+  Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven."
+  Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith
+  Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language;
+  All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, as the vapors
+  Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter.
+
+    Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the table,
+  Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with home-brewed
+  Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the village of Grand-Pré;
+  While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn,
+  Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties,
+  Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in cattle.
+  Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were completed,
+  And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the margin.
+  Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table
+  Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver;
+  And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom,
+  Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare.
+  Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed,
+  While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside,
+  Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its corner.
+  Soon was the game begun.  In friendly contention the old men
+  Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuver,
+  Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was made in the king-row.
+  Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's embrasure,
+  Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the moon rise
+  Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows.
+  Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
+  Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
+
+    Thus passed the evening away.  Anon the bell from the belfry
+  Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and straightway
+  Rose the guests and departed; and silence reigned in the household.
+  Many a farewell word and sweet good night on the door-step
+  Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with gladness.
+  Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed on the hearth-stone;
+  And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the farmer.
+  Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline followed.
+  Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the darkness,
+  Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the maiden.
+  Silent she passed the hall, and entered the door of her chamber.
+  Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, and its clothes-press
+  Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully folded
+  Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline woven.
+  This was the precious dower she would bring to her husband in marriage,
+  Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill as a housewife.
+  Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and radiant moonlight
+  Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, till the heart of the maiden
+  Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides of the ocean.
+  Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she stood with
+  Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her chamber!
+  Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the orchard,
+  Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her lamp and her shadow.
+  Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling of sadness
+  Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in the moonlight
+  Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a moment.
+  And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely the moon pass
+  Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow her footsteps,
+  As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered with Hagar!
+
+
+
+  IV.
+
+
+    PLEASANTLY rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand-Pré.
+  Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of Minas,
+  Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at anchor.
+  Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labor
+  Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning.
+  Now from the country around, from the farms and neighboring hamlets,
+  Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants.
+  Many a glad good morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk
+  Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous meadows,
+  Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in the greensward,
+  Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the highway.
+  Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were silenced.
+  Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy groups at the house-doors
+  Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped together,
+  Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and feasted;
+  For with this simple people, who lived like brothers together,
+  All things were held in common, and what one had was another's.
+  Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more abundant:
+  For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father;
+  Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome and gladness
+  Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she gave it.
+
+    Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard,
+  Bending with golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal.
+  There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the notary seated;
+  There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.
+  Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the beehives,
+  Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of waistcoats.
+  Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his snow-white
+  Hair, as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the fiddler
+  Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the embers.
+  Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle,
+  Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunkerque,
+  And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music.
+  Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances
+  Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;
+  Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them.
+  Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's daughter!
+  Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith!
+
+    So passed the morning away.  And lo! with a summons sonorous
+  Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat.
+  Thronged erelong was the church with men.  Without, in the churchyard,
+  Waited the women.  They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones
+  Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest.
+  Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them
+  Entered the sacred portal.  With loud and dissonant clangor
+  Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement,--
+  Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal
+  Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the soldiers.
+  Then uprose their commander, and spake from the steps of the altar,
+  Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission.
+  "You are convened this day," he said, "by his Majesty's orders.
+  Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered his kindness,
+  Let your own hearts reply!  To my natural make and my temper
+  Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous.
+  Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch;
+  Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all kinds
+  Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this province
+  Be transported to other lands.  God grant you may dwell there
+  Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people!
+  Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty's pleasure!"
+  As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer,
+  Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones
+  Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters his windows,
+  Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the house-roofs,
+  Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures;
+  So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker.
+  Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then rose
+  Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger,
+  And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the door-way.
+  Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce imprecations
+  Rang through the house of prayer; and high o'er the heads of the others
+  Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the blacksmith,
+  As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows.
+  Flushed was his face and distorted with passion; and wildly he shouted,--
+  "Down with the tyrants of England!  we never have sworn them allegiance!
+  Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes and our harvests!"
+  More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of a soldier
+  Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to the pavement.
+
+    In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention,
+  Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician
+  Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of the altar.
+  Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed into silence
+  All that clamorous throng; and thus he spake to his people;
+  Deep were his tones and solemn; in accents measured and mournful
+  Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the clock strikes.
+  "What is this that ye do, my children? what madness has seized you?
+  Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and taught you,
+  Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another!
+  Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations?
+  Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness?
+  This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane it
+  Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred?
+  Lo! where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you!
+  See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion!
+  Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, 'O Father, forgive them!'
+  Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked assail us,
+  Let us repeat it now, and say, 'O Father, forgive them!'"
+  Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of his people
+  Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate outbreak,
+  And they repeated his prayer, and said, "O Father, forgive them!"
+
+    Then came the evening service.  The tapers gleamed from the altar.
+  Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the people responded,
+  Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the Ave Maria
+  Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, with devotion translated,
+  Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to heaven.
+
+    Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, and on all sides
+  Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women and children.
+  Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her right hand
+  Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, that, descending,
+  Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, and roofed each
+  Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned its windows.
+  Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the table;
+  There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with wild-flowers;
+  There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought from the dairy,
+  And, at the head of the board, the great arm-chair of the farmer.
+  Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the sunset
+  Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambrosial meadows.
+  Ah! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen,
+  And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial ascended,--
+  Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!
+  Then, all-forgetful of self, she wandered into the village,
+  Cheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts of the women,
+  As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they departed,
+  Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their children.
+  Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors
+  Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.
+  Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus sounded.
+
+    Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered.
+  All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the windows
+  Stood she, and listened and looked, till, overcome by emotion,
+  "Gabriel!" cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no answer
+  Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the living.
+  Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her father.
+  Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board stood the supper untasted,
+  Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of terror.
+  Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber.
+  In the dead of the night she heard the whispering rain fall
+  Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window.
+  Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing thunder
+  Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world he created!
+  Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice of Heaven;
+  Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered till morning.
+
+
+
+  V.
+
+
+    FOUR times the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day
+  Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house.
+  Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession,
+  Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,
+  Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,
+  Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,
+  Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland.
+  Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen,
+  While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of playthings.
+
+    Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and there on the sea-beach
+  Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants.
+  All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply;
+  All day long the wains came laboring down from the village.
+  Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting,
+  Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard.
+  Thither the women and children thronged.  On a sudden the church-doors
+  Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy procession
+  Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian farmers.
+  Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their country,
+  Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and wayworn,
+  So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended
+  Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their daughters.
+  Foremost the young men came; and, raising together their voices,
+  Sang they with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions:--
+  "Sacred heart of the Saviour!  O inexhaustible fountain!
+  Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience!"
+  Then the old men, as they marched, and the women that stood by the wayside
+  Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above them
+  Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed.
+
+    Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in silence,
+  Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of affliction,--
+  Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession approached her,
+  And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion.
+  Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him,
+  Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder and whispered,--
+  "Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we love one another,
+  Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen!"
+  Smiling she spake these words; then suddenly paused, for her father
+  Saw she slowly advancing.  Alas! how changed was his aspect!
+  Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and his footstep
+  Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart in his bosom.
+  But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him,
+  Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.
+  Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mournful procession.
+
+    There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking.
+  Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion
+  Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children
+  Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties.
+  So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried,
+  While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father.
+  Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and the twilight
+  Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the refluent ocean
+  Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach
+  Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed.
+  Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the wagons,
+  Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle,
+  All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them,
+  Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers.
+  Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,
+  Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving
+  Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors.
+  Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from their pastures;
+  Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk from their udders;
+  Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars of the farm-yard,--
+  Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand of the milkmaid.
+  Silence reigned in the streets; from the church no Angelus sounded,
+  Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from the windows.
+
+    But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had been kindled,
+  Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from wrecks in the tempest.
+  Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were gathered,
+  Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying of children.
+  Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in his parish,
+  Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and cheering,
+  Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea-shore.
+  Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with her father,
+  And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man,
+  Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion,
+  E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken.
+  Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer him,
+  Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not, he looked not, he spake not,
+  But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering fire-light.
+  "Benedicite!" murmured the priest; in tones of compassion.
+  More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his accents
+  Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on a threshold,
+  Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow.
+  Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden,
+  Raising his eyes full of tears to the silent stars that above them
+  Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of mortals.
+  Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in silence.
+
+    Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the blood-red
+  Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the horizon
+  Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,
+  Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together.
+  Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village,
+  Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead.
+  Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were
+  Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr.
+  Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,
+  Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops
+  Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.
+
+    These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard.
+  Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish,
+  "We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pré!"
+  Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm-yards,
+  Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle
+  Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted.
+  Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments
+  Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the Nebraska,
+  When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,
+  Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river.
+  Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the horses
+  Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o'er the meadows.
+
+    Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the priest and the maiden
+  Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened before them;
+  And as they turned at length to speak to their silent companion,
+  Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on the sea-shore
+  Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed.
+  Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden
+  Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her terror.
+  Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on his bosom.
+  Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious slumber;
+  And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a multitude near her.
+  Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing upon her,
+  Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest compassion.
+  Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the landscape,
+  Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces around her,
+  And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses.
+  Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people,--
+  "Let us bury him here by the sea.  When a happier season
+  Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our exile,
+  Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard."
+  Such were the words of the priest.  And there in haste by the seaside,
+  Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches,
+  But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pré.
+  And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,
+  Lo! with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,
+  Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.
+  'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean,
+  With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward.
+  Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of embarking;
+  And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the harbor,
+  Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins.
+
+
+
+
+
+  PART THE SECOND.
+
+
+
+
+  I.
+
+
+    MANY a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pré,
+  When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,
+  Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile,
+  Exile without an end, and without an example in story.
+  Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed;
+  Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the northeast
+  Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland.
+  Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city,
+  From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas,--
+  From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters
+  Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean,
+  Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth.
+  Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heart-broken,
+  Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside.
+  Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards.
+  Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wandered,
+  Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things.
+  Fair was she and young; but, alas! before her extended,
+  Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its pathway
+  Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and suffered before her,
+  Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and abandoned,
+  As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by
+  Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine.
+  Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished;
+  As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine,
+  Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended
+  Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen.
+  Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the fever within her,
+  Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of the spirit,
+  She would commence again her endless search and endeavor;
+  Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones,
+  Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom
+  He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.
+  Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,
+  Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward.
+  Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him,
+  But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten.
+  "Gabriel Lajeunesse!" they said; "O yes! we have seen him.
+  He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone to the prairies;
+  Coureurs-des-Bois are they, and famous hunters and trappers,"
+  "Gabriel Lajeunesse!" said others; "O yes! we have seen him.
+  He is a Voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana."
+  Then would they say: "Dear child! why dream and wait for him longer?
+  Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel? others
+  Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as loyal?
+  Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has loved thee
+  Many a tedious year; come, give him thy hand and be happy!
+  Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's tresses."
+  Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, "I cannot!
+  Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere.
+  For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,
+  Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness."
+  Thereupon the priest, her friend and father-confessor,
+  Said, with a smile, "O daughter! thy God thus speaketh within thee!
+  Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;
+  If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning
+  Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;
+  That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
+  Patience; accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of affection!
+  Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
+  Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made godlike,
+  Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of heaven!"
+  Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored and waited.
+  Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the ocean,
+  But with its sound there was mingled a voice that whispered, "Despair not!"
+  Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless discomfort,
+  Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of existence.
+  Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wanderer's footsteps;--
+  Not through each devious path, each changeful year of existence;
+  But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through the valley:
+  Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of its water
+  Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals only;
+  Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms that conceal it,
+  Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous murmur;
+  Happy, at length, if he find the spot where it reaches an outlet.
+
+
+
+  II.
+
+
+    IT was the month of May.  Far down the Beautiful River,
+  Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash,
+  Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi,
+  Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen.
+  It was a band of exiles: a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked
+  Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together,
+  Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune;
+  Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay,
+  Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers
+  On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas.
+  With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician.
+  Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness somber with forests,
+  Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river;
+  Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders.
+  Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike
+  Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the current,
+  Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars
+  Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their margin,
+  Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded.
+  Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river,
+  Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens,
+  Stood the houses of planters, with negro-cabins and dove-cots.
+  They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer,
+  Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron,
+  Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward.
+  They, too, swerved from their course; and, entering the Bayou of Plaquemine,
+  Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters,
+  Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction.
+  Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress
+  Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid-air
+  Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.
+  Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons
+  Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset,
+  Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter.
+  Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water,
+  Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches,
+  Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a ruin.
+  Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around them;
+  And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and sadness,--
+  Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed.
+  As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies,
+  Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa,
+  So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil,
+  Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.
+  But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that faintly
+  Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through the moonlight.
+  It was the thought of her brain that assumed the shape of a phantom.
+  Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered before her,
+  And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer and nearer.
+
+    Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one of the oarsmen,
+  And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure
+  Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast on his bugle.
+  Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the blast rang,
+  Breaking the seal of silence, and giving tongues to the forest.
+  Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to the music.
+  Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance,
+  Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches;
+  But not a voice replied; no answer came from the darkness;
+  And, when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence.
+  Then Evangeline slept; but the boatmen rowed through the midnight,
+  Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat-songs,
+  Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers,
+  And through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the desert,
+  Far off,--indistinct,--as of wave or wind in the forest,
+  Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim alligator.
+
+    Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; and before them
+  Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya.
+  Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations
+  Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus
+  Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen.
+  Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms,
+  And with the heat of noon; and numberless sylvan islands,
+  Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses,
+  Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber.
+  Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended.
+  Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin,
+  Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the greensward,
+  Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered.
+  Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar.
+  Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grape-vine
+  Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob,
+  On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending,
+  Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blossom to blossom.
+  Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it.
+  Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening heaven
+  Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial.
+
+    Nearer and ever nearer, among the numberless islands,
+  Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the water,
+  Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and trappers.
+  Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the bison and beaver.
+  At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful and care-worn.
+  Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and a sadness
+  Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written.
+  Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and restless,
+  Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow.
+  Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the island,
+  But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos,
+  So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the willows,
+  And undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the sleepers,
+  Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden.
+  Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie.
+  After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance,
+  As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden
+  Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "O Father Felician!
+  Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders.
+  Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition?
+  Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit?"
+  Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my credulous fancy!
+  Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning."
+  But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered,--
+  "Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me without meaning.
+  Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface
+  Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.
+  Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.
+  Gabriel truly is near thee; for not far away to the southward,
+  On the banks of the Têche are the towns of St. Maur and St. Martin.
+  There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bridegroom,
+  There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold.
+  Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit-trees;
+  Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens
+  Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.
+  They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana."
+
+    With these words of cheer they arose and continued their journey.
+  Softly the evening came.  The sun from the western horizon
+  Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape;
+  Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest
+  Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
+  Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver,
+  Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water.
+  Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness.
+  Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling
+  Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her.
+  Then from a neighboring thicket the mockingbird, wildest of singers,
+  Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water,
+  Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,
+  That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.
+  Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness
+  Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes.
+  Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation;
+  Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,
+  As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree tops
+  Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.
+  With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion,
+  Slowly they entered the Têche, where it flows through the green Opelousas,
+  And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland,
+  Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring dwelling;--
+  Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle.
+
+
+
+  III.
+
+
+    NEAR to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks, from whose branches
+  Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted,
+  Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at Yule-tide,
+  Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman.  A garden
+  Girdled it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms,
+  Filling the air with fragrance.  The house itself was of timbers
+  Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted together.
+  Large and low was the roof; and on slender columns supported,
+  Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious veranda,
+  Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it.
+  At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the garden,
+  Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual symbol,
+  Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals.
+  Silence reigned o'er the place.  The line of shadow and sunshine
+  Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow,
+  And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding
+  Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose.
+  In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway
+  Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limitless prairie,
+  Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending.
+  Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas
+  Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics,
+  Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grape-vines.
+
+    Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the prairie,
+  Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and stirrups,
+  Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of deerskin.
+  Broad and brown was the face that from under the Spanish sombrero
+  Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of its master.
+  Round about him were numberless herds of kine, that were grazing
+  Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory freshness
+  That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the landscape.
+  Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and expanding
+  Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that resounded
+  Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air of the evening.
+  Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the cattle
+  Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of ocean.
+  Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed o'er the prairie,
+  And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the distance.
+  Then as the herdsman turned to the house, through the gate of the garden
+  Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden advancing to meet him.
+  Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amazement, and forward
+  Rushed with extended arms and exclamations of wonder;
+  When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the blacksmith.
+  Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the garden.
+  There in an arbor of roses with endless question and answer
+  Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their friendly embraces,
+  Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and thoughtful.
+  Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark doubts and misgivings
+  Stole o'er the maiden's heart; and Basil, somewhat embarrassed,
+  Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the Atchafalaya,
+  How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's boat on the bayous?"
+  Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade passed.
+  Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a tremulous accent,
+  "Gone? is Gabriel gone?" and, concealing her face on his shoulder,
+  All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept and lamented.
+  Then the good Basil said,--and his voice grew blithe as he said it,--
+  "Be of good cheer, my child; it is only to-day he departed.
+  Foolish boy! he has left me alone with my herds and my horses.
+  Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his spirit
+  Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet existence.
+  Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever,
+  Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles,
+  He at length had become so tedious to men and to maidens,
+  Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and sent him
+  Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards.
+  Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,
+  Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the beaver.
+  Therefore be of good cheer; we will follow the fugitive lover;
+  He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the streams are against him.
+  Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of the morning
+  We will follow him fast and bring him back to his prison."
+
+    Then glad voices were heard, and up from the banks of the river,
+  Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the fiddler.
+  Long under Basil's roof had he lived like a god on Olympus,
+  Having no other care than dispensing music to mortals.
+  Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his fiddle.
+  "Long live Michael," they cried, "our brave Acadian minstrel!"
+  As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession; and straightway
+  Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting the old man
+  Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, enraptured,
+  Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gossips,
+  Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and daughters.
+  Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant blacksmith,
+  All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal demeanor;
+  Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and the climate,
+  And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his who would take them;
+  Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go and do likewise.
+  Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the airy veranda,
+  Entered the hall of the house, where already the supper of Basil
+  Waited his late return; and they rested and feasted together.
+
+    Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness descended.
+  All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape with silver,
+  Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars; but within doors,
+  Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the glimmering lamplight.
+  Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, the herdsman
+  Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless profusion.
+  Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchitoches tobacco,
+  Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled as they listened:--
+  "Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been friendless and homeless,
+  Welcome once more to a home, that is better perchance than the old one!
+  Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the rivers;
+  Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the farmer.
+  Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a keel through the water.
+  All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom; and grass grows
+  More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer.
+  Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed in the prairies;
+  Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and forests of timber
+  With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed into houses.
+  After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow with harvests,
+  No King George of England shall drive you away from your homesteads,
+  Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms and your cattle."
+  Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his nostrils,
+  While his huge, brown hand came thundering down on the table,
+  So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, astounded,
+  Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff halfway to his nostrils.
+  But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were milder and gayer:
+  "Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the fever!
+  For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,
+  Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a nutshell!"
+  Then there were voices heard at the door, and footsteps approaching
+  Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy veranda.
+  It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian planters,
+  Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the Herdsman.
+  Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and neighbors:
+  Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who before were as strangers,
+  Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each other,
+  Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together.
+  But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, proceeding
+  From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious fiddle,
+  Broke up all further speech.  Away, like children delighted,
+  All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to the maddening
+  Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to the music,
+  Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering garments.
+
+    Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest and the herdsman
+  Sat, conversing together of past and present and future;
+  While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within her
+  Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the music
+  Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness
+  Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into the garden.
+  Beautiful was the night.  Behind the black wall of the forest,
+  Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon.  On the river
+  Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,
+  Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.
+  Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden
+  Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions
+  Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.
+  Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,
+  Hung the heart of the maiden.  The calm and the magical moonlight
+  Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings,
+  As, through the garden gate, beneath the shade of the oak-trees,
+  Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.
+  Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and the fire-flies
+  Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers.
+  Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,
+  Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship,
+  Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,
+  As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, "Upharsin."
+  And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fire-flies,
+  Wandered alone, and she cried, "O Gabriel!  O my beloved!
+  Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee?
+  Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?
+  Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie!
+  Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!
+  Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,
+  Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy slumbers!
+  When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?"
+  Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoorwill sounded
+  Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighboring thickets,
+  Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence.
+  "Patience!" whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness;
+  And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, "To-morrow!"
+
+    Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers of the garden
+  Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tresses
+  With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal.
+  "Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy threshold;
+  "See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting and famine,
+  And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bridegroom was coming."
+  "Farewell!" answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descended
+  Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already were waiting.
+  Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, and gladness,
+  Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,
+  Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the desert.
+  Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded,
+  Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or river,
+  Nor, after many days, had they found him; but vague and uncertain
+  Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and desolate country;
+  Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes,
+  Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the garrulous landlord,
+  That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions,
+  Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the prairies.
+
+
+
+  IV.
+
+
+    FAR in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains
+  Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.
+  Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway,
+  Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon,
+  Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee.
+  Eastward, with devious course, among the Windriver Mountains,
+  Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska;
+  And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras,
+  Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,
+  Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,
+  Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibrations.
+  Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, beautiful prairies,
+  Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,
+  Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas.
+  Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck;
+  Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of riderless horses;
+  Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel;
+  Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children,
+  Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trails
+  Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,
+  Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle,
+  By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens.
+  Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders;
+  Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers;
+  And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert,
+  Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brookside,
+  And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven,
+  Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them.
+
+    Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark Mountains,
+  Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers behind him.
+  Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden and Basil
+  Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to o'ertake him.
+  Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke of his camp-fire
+  Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at nightfall,
+  When they had reached the place, they found only embers and ashes.
+  And, though their hearts were sad at times and their bodies were weary,
+  Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana
+  Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and vanished before them.
+
+    Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently entered
+  Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features
+  Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as her sorrow.
+  She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her people,
+  From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Camanches,
+  Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur-des-Bois, had been murdered.
+  Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest and friendliest welcome
+  Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and feasted among them
+  On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the embers.
+  But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his companions,
+  Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the deer and the bison,
+  Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the quivering fire-light
+  Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their blankets,
+  Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and repeated
+  Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent,
+  All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and reverses.
+  Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that another
+  Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been disappointed.
+  Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's compassion,
+  Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her,
+  She in turn related her love and all its disasters.
+  Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had ended
+  Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror
+  Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the tale of the Mowis;
+  Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded a maiden,
+  But, when the morning came, arose and passed from the wigwam,
+  Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sunshine,
+  Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far into the forest.
+  Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird incantation,
+  Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed by a phantom,
+  That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the hush of the twilight,
+  Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to the maiden,
+  Till she followed his green and waving plume through the forest,
+  And never more returned, nor was seen again by her people.
+  Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened
+  To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around her
+  Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the enchantress.
+  Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose,
+  Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendor
+  Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland.
+  With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches
+  Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers.
+  Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's heart, but a secret,
+  Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror,
+  As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow.
+  It was no earthly fear.  A breath from the region of spirits
+  Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment
+  That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phantom.
+  With this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom had vanished.
+
+    Early upon the morrow the march was resumed; and the Shawnee
+  Said, as they journeyed along, "On the western slope of these mountains
+  Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the Mission.
+  Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus;
+  Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as they hear him."
+  Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline answered,
+  "Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!"
+  Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur of the mountains,
+  Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices,
+  And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river,
+  Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission.
+  Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the village,
+  Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children.  A crucifix fastened
+  High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by grape-vines,
+  Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it.
+  This was their rural chapel.  Aloft, through the intricate arches
+  Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers,
+  Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.
+  Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer approaching,
+  Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening devotions.
+  But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen
+  Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower,
+  Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers and bade them
+  Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with benignant expression,
+  Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the forest,
+  And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his wigwam.
+  There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes of the maize-ear
+  Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the teacher.
+  Soon was their story told; and the priest with solemnity answered:--
+  "Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated
+  On this mat by my side, where now the maiden reposes,
+  Told me this same sad tale; then arose and continued his journey!"
+  Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an accent of kindness;
+  But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter the snow-flakes
+  Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have departed.
+  "Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest; "but in autumn,
+  When the chase is done, will return again to the Mission."
+  Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and submissive,
+  "Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and afflicted."
+  So seemed it wise and well unto all; and betimes on the morrow,
+  Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides and companions,
+  Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at the Mission.
+
+    Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each other,--
+  Days and weeks and months; and the fields of maize that were springing
+  Green from the ground when a stranger she came, now waving above her,
+  Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, and forming
+  Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged by squirrels.
+  Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, and the maidens
+  Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a lover,
+  But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in the cornfield.
+  Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her lover.
+  "Patience!" the priest would say; "have faith, and thy prayer will be answered!
+  Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow,
+  See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the magnet;
+  This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has suspended
+  Here on its fragile stock, to direct the traveller's journey
+  Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert.
+  Such in the soul of man is faith.  The blossoms of passion,
+  Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of fragrance,
+  But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.
+  Only this humble plant can guide us here, and hereafter
+  Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the dews of nepenthe."
+
+    So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter,--yet Gabriel came not;
+  Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bluebird
+  Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not.
+  But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was wafted
+  Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom.
+  Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests,
+  Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw river.
+  And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of St. Lawrence,
+  Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mission.
+  When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches,
+  She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan forests,
+  Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to ruin!
+
+    Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons and places
+  Divers and distant far was seen the wandering maiden;--
+  Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian Missions,
+  Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the army,
+  Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous cities.
+  Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremembered.
+  Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey;
+  Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.
+  Each succeeding year stole something away from her beauty.
+  Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and the shadow.
+  Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray o'er her forehead,
+  Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly horizon,
+  As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the morning.
+
+
+
+  V.
+
+
+    IN that delightful land, which is washed by the Delaware's waters,
+  Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle.
+  Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.
+  There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty,
+  And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest,
+  As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.
+  There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile,
+  Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.
+  There old René Leblanc had died; and when he departed,
+  Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants.
+  Something at least there was in the friendly streets of the city,
+  Something that spake to her heart, and made her no longer a stranger;
+  And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers,
+  For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,
+  Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters.
+  So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor,
+  Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining,
+  Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her footsteps.
+  As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning
+  Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us,
+  Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets,
+  So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far below her,
+  Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the pathway
+  Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the distance.
+  Gabriel was not forgotten.  Within her heart was his image,
+  Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she beheld him,
+  Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and absence.
+  Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not.
+  Over him years had no power; he was not changed, but transfigured;
+  He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and not absent;
+  Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others,
+  This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her.
+  So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous spices,
+  Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with aroma.
+  Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow
+  Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour.
+  Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy; frequenting
+  Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city,
+  Where distress and want concealed themselves from the sunlight,
+  Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected.
+  Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the watchman repeated
+  Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city,
+  High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper.
+  Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow through the suburbs
+  Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits for the market,
+  Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its watchings.
+
+    Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city,
+  Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons,
+  Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws but an acorn.
+  And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September,
+  Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the meadow,
+  So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural margin,
+  Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of existence.
+  Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor;
+  But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger;--
+  Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants,
+  Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless.
+  Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands;--
+  Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway and wicket
+  Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo
+  Softly the words of the Lord:--"The poor ye always have with you."
+  Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Mercy.  The dying
+  Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there
+  Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor,
+  Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and apostles,
+  Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance.
+  Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial,
+  Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would enter.
+
+    Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and silent,
+  Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse.
+  Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden;
+  And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them,
+  That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and beauty.
+  Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east wind,
+  Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church,
+  While, intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted
+  Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their church at Wicaco.
+  Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit;
+  Something within her said, "At length thy trials are ended";
+  And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness.
+  Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants,
+  Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and in silence
+  Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces,
+  Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the roadside.
+  Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,
+  Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her presence
+  Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison.
+  And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler,
+  Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
+  Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night-time;
+  Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.
+
+    Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,
+  Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder
+  Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers,
+  And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning.
+  Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,
+  That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows.
+  On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man.
+  Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his temples;
+  But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment
+  Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood;
+  So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying.
+  Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever,
+  As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals,
+  That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over.
+  Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted
+  Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness,
+  Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking.
+  Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,
+  Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded
+  Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,
+  "Gabriel!  O my beloved!" and died away into silence.
+  Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood;
+  Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,
+  Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow,
+  As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision.
+  Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,
+  Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.
+  Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered
+  Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.
+  Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,
+  Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.
+  Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,
+  As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.
+
+    All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,
+  All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,
+  All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!
+  And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,
+  Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee!"
+
+
+    STILL stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,
+  Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
+  Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
+  In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed.
+  Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
+  Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,
+  Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,
+  Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors,
+  Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!
+
+    Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches
+  Dwells another race, with other customs and language.
+  Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic
+  Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile
+  Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.
+  In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy;
+  Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,
+  And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story.
+  While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean
+  Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

PG2051_text.txt

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+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed form the 1889 George Bell and Sons edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+DICKORY CRONKE
+
+
+THE
+DUMB PHILOSOPHER,
+OR,
+GREAT BRITAIN'S WONDER;
+CONTAINING:
+
+I.  A faithful and very surprising Account how Dickory Cronke, a Tinner's
+son, in the County of Cornwall, was born Dumb, and continued so for Fifty-
+eight years; and how, some days before he died, he came to his Speech;
+with Memoirs of his Life, and the Manner of his Death.
+
+II.  A Declaration of his Faith and Principles in Religion; with a
+Collection of Select Meditations, composed in his Retirement.
+
+III.  His Prophetical Observations upon the Affairs of Europe, more
+particularly of Great Britain, from 1720 to 1729.  The whole extracted
+from his Original Papers, and confirmed by unquestionable Authority.
+
+TO WHICH IS ANNEXED HIS ELEGY,
+WRITTEN BY A YOUNG CORNISH GENTLEMAN, OF
+EXETER COLLEGE IN OXFORD.
+
+WITH
+
+AN EPITAPH BY ANOTHER HAND.
+
+   "Non quis, sed quid."
+
+LONDON:
+Printed for and Sold by THOMAS BICKERTON, at
+the Crown, in Paternoster Row.  1719.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The formality of a preface to this little book might have been very well
+omitted, if it were not to gratify the curiosity of some inquisitive
+people, who, I foresee, will be apt to make objections against the
+reality of the narrative.
+
+Indeed the public has too often been imposed upon by fictitious stories,
+and some of a very late date, so that I think myself obliged by the usual
+respect which is paid to candid and impartial readers, to acquaint them,
+by way of introduction, with what they are to expect, and what they may
+depend upon, and yet with this caution too, that it is an indication of
+ill nature or ill manners, if not both, to pry into a secret that is
+industriously concealed.
+
+However, that there may be nothing wanting on my part, I do hereby assure
+the reader, that the papers from whence the following sheets were
+extracted, are now in town, in the custody of a person of unquestionable
+reputation, who, I will be bold to say, will not only be ready, but
+proud, to produce them upon a good occasion, and that I think is as much
+satisfaction as the nature of this case requires.
+
+As to the performance, it can signify little now to make an apology upon
+that account, any farther than this, that if the reader pleases he may
+take notice that what he has now before him was collected from a large
+bundle of papers, most of which were writ in shorthand, and very
+ill-digested.  However, this may be relied upon, that though the language
+is something altered, and now and then a word thrown in to help the
+expression, yet strict care has been taken to speak the author's mind,
+and keep as close as possible to the meaning of the original.  For the
+design, I think there is nothing need be said in vindication of that.
+Here is a dumb philosopher introduced to a wicked and degenerate
+generation, as a proper emblem of virtue and morality; and if the world
+could be persuaded to look upon him with candour and impartiality, and
+then to copy after him, the editor has gained his end, and would think
+himself sufficiently recompensed for his present trouble.
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+Among the many strange and surprising events that help to fill the
+accounts of this last century, I know none that merit more an entire
+credit, or are more fit to be preserved and handed to posterity than
+those I am now going to lay before the public.
+
+Dickory Cronke, the subject of the following narrative, was born at a
+little hamlet, near St. Columb, in Cornwall, on the 29th of May, 1660,
+being the day and year in which King Charles the Second was restored.  His
+parents were of mean extraction, but honest, industrious people, and well
+beloved in their neighbourhood.  His father's chief business was to work
+at the tin mines; his mother stayed at home to look after the children,
+of which they had several living at the same time.  Our Dickory was the
+youngest, and being but a sickly child, had always a double portion of
+her care and tenderness.
+
+It was upwards of three years before it was discovered that he was born
+dumb, the knowledge of which at first gave his mother great uneasiness,
+but finding soon after that he had his hearing, and all his other senses
+to the greatest perfection, her grief began to abate, and she resolved to
+have him brought up as well as their circumstances and his capacity would
+permit.
+
+As he grew, notwithstanding his want of speech, he every day gave some
+instance of a ready genius, and a genius much superior to the country
+children, insomuch that several gentlemen in the neighbourhood took
+particular notice of him, and would often call him Restoration Dick, and
+give him money, &c.
+
+When he came to be eight years of age, his mother agreed with a person in
+the next village, to teach him to read and write, both which, in a very
+short time, he acquired to such perfection, especially the latter, that
+he not only taught his own brothers and sisters, but likewise several
+young men and women in the neighbourhood, which often brought him in
+small sums, which he always laid out in such necessaries as he stood most
+in need of.
+
+In this state he continued till he was about twenty, and then he began to
+reflect how scandalous it was for a young man of his age and
+circumstances to live idle at home, and so resolves to go with his father
+to the mines, to try if he could get something towards the support of
+himself and the family; but being of a tender constitution, and often
+sick, he soon perceived that sort of business was too hard for him, so
+was forced to return home and continue in his former station; upon which
+he grew exceeding melancholy, which his mother observing, she comforted
+him in the best manner she could, telling him that if it should please
+God to take her away, she had something left in store for him, which
+would preserve him against public want.
+
+This kind assurance from a mother whom he so dearly loved gave him some,
+though not an entire satisfaction; however, he resolves to acquiesce
+under it till Providence should order something for him more to his
+content and advantage, which, in a short time happened according to his
+wish.  The manner was thus:--
+
+One Mr. Owen Parry, a Welsh gentleman of good repute, coming from Bristol
+to Padstow, a little seaport in the county of Cornwall, near the place
+where Dickory dwelt, and hearing much of this dumb man's perfections,
+would needs have him sent for; and finding, by his significant gestures
+and all outward appearances that he much exceeded the character that the
+country gave of him, took a mighty liking to him, insomuch that he told
+him, if he would go with him into Pembrokeshire, he would be kind to him,
+and take care of him as long as he lived.
+
+This kind and unexpected offer was so welcome to poor Dickory, that
+without any farther consideration, he got a pen and ink and writ a note,
+and in a very handsome and submissive manner returned him thanks for his
+favour, assuring him he would do his best to continue and improve it; and
+that he would be ready to wait upon him whenever he should be pleased to
+command.
+
+To shorten the account as much as possible, all things were concluded to
+their mutual satisfaction, and in about a fortnight's time they set
+forward for Wales, where Dickory, notwithstanding his dumbness, behaved
+himself with so much diligence and affability, that he not only gained
+the love of the family where he lived, but of everybody round him.
+
+In this station he continued till the death of his master, which happened
+about twenty years afterwards; in all which time, as has been confirmed
+by several of the family, he was never observed to be any ways disguised
+by drinking, or to be guilty of any of the follies and irregularities
+incident to servants in gentlemen's houses.  On the contrary, when he had
+any spare time, his constant custom was to retire with some good book
+into a private place within call, and there employ himself in reading,
+and then writing down his observations upon what he read.
+
+After the death of his master, whose loss afflicted him to the last
+degree, one Mrs. Mary Mordant, a gentlewoman of great virtue and piety,
+and a very good fortune, took him into her service, and carried him with
+her, first to Bath, and then to Bristol, where, after a lingering
+distemper, which continued for about four years, she died likewise.
+
+Upon the loss of his mistress, Dickory grew again exceeding melancholy
+and disconsolate; at length, reflecting that death is but a common debt
+which all mortals owe to nature, and must be paid sooner or later, he
+became a little better satisfied, and so determines to get together what
+he had saved in his service, and then to return to his native country,
+and there finish his life in privacy and retirement.
+
+Having been, as has been mentioned, about twenty-four years a servant,
+and having, in the interim, received two legacies, viz., one of thirty
+pounds, left him by his master, and another of fifteen pounds by his
+mistress, and being always very frugal, he had got by him in the whole
+upwards of sixty pounds.  This, thinks he, with prudent management, will
+be enough to support me as long as I live, and so I'll e'en lay aside all
+thoughts of future business, and make the best of my way to Cornwall, and
+there find out some safe and solitary retreat, where I may have liberty
+to meditate and make my melancholy observations upon the several
+occurrences of human life.
+
+This resolution prevailed so far, that no time was let slip to get
+everything in readiness to go with the first ship.  As to his money, he
+always kept that locked up by him, unless he sometimes lent it to a
+friend without interest, for he had a mortal hatred to all sorts of usury
+or extortion.  His books, of which he had a considerable quantity, and
+some of them very good ones, together with his other equipage, he got
+packed up, that nothing might be wanting against the first opportunity.
+
+In a few days he heard of a vessel bound to Padstow, the very port he
+wished to go to, being within four or five miles of the place where he
+was born.  When he came thither, which was in less than a week, his first
+business was to inquire after the state of his family.  It was some time
+before he could get any information of them, until an old man that knew
+his father and mother, and remembered they had a son was born dumb,
+recollected him, and after a great deal of difficulty, made him
+understand that all his family except his youngest sister were dead, and
+that she was a widow, and lived at a little town called St. Helen's,
+about ten miles farther in the country.
+
+This doleful news, we must imagine, must be extremely shocking, and add a
+new sting to his former affliction; and here it was that he began to
+exercise the philosopher, and to demonstrate himself both a wise and a
+good man.  All these things, thinks he, are the will of Providence, and
+must not be disputed; and so he bore up under them with an entire
+resignation, resolving that, as soon as he could find a place where he
+might deposit his trunk and boxes with safety, he would go to St. Helen's
+in quest of his sister.
+
+How his sister and he met, and how transported they were to see each
+other after so long an interval, I think is not very material.  It is
+enough for the present purpose that Dickory soon recollected his sister,
+and she him; and after a great many endearing tokens of love and
+tenderness, he wrote to her, telling her that he believed Providence had
+bestowed on him as much as would support him as long as he lived, and
+that if she thought proper he would come and spend the remainder of his
+days with her.
+
+The good woman no sooner read his proposal than she accepted it, adding,
+withal, that she could wish her entertainment was better; but if he would
+accept of it as it was, she would do her best to make everything easy,
+and that he should be welcome upon his own terms, to stay with her as
+long as he pleased.
+
+This affair being so happily settled to his full satisfaction, he returns
+to Padstow to fetch the things he had left behind him, and the next day
+came back to St. Helen's, where, according to his own proposal, he
+continued to the day of his death, which happened upon the 29th of May,
+1718, about the same hour in which he was born.
+
+Having thus given a short detail of the several periods of his life,
+extracted chiefly from the papers which he left behind him, I come in the
+next place to make a few observations how he managed himself and spent
+his time toward the latter part of it.
+
+His constant practice, both winter and summer, was to rise and set with
+the sun; and if the weather would permit, he never failed to walk in some
+unfrequented place, for three hours, both morning and evening, and there
+it is supposed he composed the following meditations.  The chief part of
+his sustenance was milk, with a little bread boiled in it, of which in
+the morning, after his walk, he would eat the quantity of a pint, and
+sometimes more.  Dinners he never eat any; and at night he would only
+have a pretty large piece of bread, and drink a draught of good spring
+water; and after this method he lived during the whole time he was at St.
+Helen's.  It is observed of him that he never slept out of a bed, nor
+never lay awake in one; which I take to be an argument, not only of a
+strong and healthful constitution, but of a mind composed and calm, and
+entirely free from the ordinary disturbances of human life.  He never
+gave the least signs of complaint or dissatisfaction at anything, unless
+it was when he heard the tinners swear, or saw them drunk; and then, too,
+he would get out of the way as soon as he had let them see, by some
+significant signs, how scandalous and ridiculous they made themselves;
+and against the next time he met them, would be sure to have a paper
+ready written, wherein he would represent the folly of drunkenness, and
+the dangerous consequences that generally attended it.
+
+Idleness was his utter aversion, and if at any time he had finished the
+business of the day, and was grown weary of reading and writing, in which
+he daily spent six hours at least, he would certainly find something
+either within doors or without, to employ himself.
+
+Much might be said both with regard to the wise and regular management,
+and the prudent methods he took to spend his time well towards the
+declension of his life; but, as his history may perhaps be shortly
+published at large by a better hand, I shall only observe in the general,
+that he was a person of great wisdom and sagacity.  He understood nature
+beyond the ordinary capacity, and, if he had had a competency of learning
+suitable to his genius, neither this nor the former ages would have
+produced a better philosopher or a greater man.
+
+I come next to speak of the manner of his death and the consequences
+thereof, which are, indeed, very surprising, and, perhaps, not altogether
+unworthy a general observation.  I shall relate them as briefly as I can,
+and leave every one to believe or disbelieve as he thinks proper.
+
+Upon the 26th of May, 1718, according to his usual method, about four in
+the afternoon, he went out to take his evening walk; but before he could
+reach the place he intended, he was siezed with an apoplectic fit, which
+only gave him liberty to sit down under a tree, where, in an instant, he
+was deprived of all manner of sense and motion, and so he continued, as
+appears by his own confession afterwards, for more than fourteen hours.
+
+His sister, who knew how exact he was in all his methods, finding him
+stay a considerable time beyond the usual hour, concludes that some
+misfortune must needs have happened to him, or he would certainly have
+been at home before.  In short, she went immediately to all the places he
+was wont to frequent, but nothing could be heard or seen of him till the
+next morning, when a young man, as he was going to work, discovered him,
+and went home and told his sister that her brother lay in such a place,
+under a tree, and, as he believed had been robbed and murdered.
+
+The poor woman, who had all night been under the most dreadful
+apprehensions, was now frightened and confounded to the last degree.
+However, recollecting herself, and finding there was no remedy, she got
+two or three of her neighbours to bear her company, and so hastened with
+the young man to the tree, where she found her brother lying in the same
+posture that he had described.
+
+The dismal object at first view startled and surprised everybody present,
+and filled them full of different notions and conjectures.  But some of
+the company going nearer to him, and finding that he had lost nothing,
+and that there were no marks of any violence to be discovered about him,
+they conclude that it must be an apoplectic or some other sudden fit that
+had surprised him in his walk, upon which his sister and the rest began
+to feel his hands and face, and observing that he was still warm, and
+that there were some symptoms of life yet remaining, they conclude that
+the best way was to carry him home to bed, which was accordingly done
+with the utmost expedition.
+
+When they had got him into the bed, nothing was omitted that they could
+think of to bring him to himself, but still he continued utterly
+insensible for about six hours.  At the sixth hour's end he began to move
+a little, and in a very short time was so far recovered, to the great
+astonishment of everybody about him, that he was able to look up, and to
+make a sign to his sister to bring him a cup of water.
+
+After he had drunk the water he soon perceived that all his faculties
+were returned to their former stations, and though his strength was very
+much abated by the length and rigour of the fit, yet his intellects were
+as strong and vigorous as ever.
+
+His sister observing him to look earnestly upon the company, as if he had
+something extraordinary to communicate to them, fetched him a pen and ink
+and a sheet of paper, which, after a short pause, he took, and wrote as
+follows:--
+
+   "Dear sister,
+
+   "I have now no need of pen, ink, and paper, to tell you my meaning.  I
+   find the strings that bound up my tongue, and hindered me from
+   speaking, are unloosed, and I have words to express myself as freely
+   and distinctly as any other person.  From whence this strange and
+   unexpected event should proceed, I must not pretend to say, any
+   farther than this, that it is doubtless the hand of Providence that
+   has done it, and in that I ought to acquiesce.  Pray let me be alone
+   for two or three hours, that I may be at liberty to compose myself,
+   and put my thoughts in the best order I can before I leave them behind
+   me."
+
+The poor woman, though extremely startled at what her brother had
+written, yet took care to conceal it from the neighbours, who, she knew,
+as well as she, must be mightily surprised at a thing so utterly
+unexpected.  Says she, my brother desires to be alone; I believe he may
+have something in his mind that disturbs him.  Upon which the neighbours
+took their leave and returned home, and his sister shut the door, and
+left him alone to his private contemplations.
+
+After the company were withdrawn he fell into a sound sleep, which lasted
+from two till six, and his sister, being apprehensive of the return of
+his fit, came to the bedside, and, asking softly if he wanted anything,
+he turned about to her and spoke to this effect: Dear sister, you see me
+not only recovered out of a terrible fit, but likewise that I have the
+liberty of speech, a blessing that I have been deprived of almost sixty
+years, and I am satisfied you are sincerely joyful to find me in the
+state I now am in; but, alas! it is but a mistaken kindness.  These are
+things but of short duration, and if they were to continue for a hundred
+years longer, I can't see how I should be anyways the better.
+
+I know the world too well to be fond of it, and am fully satisfied that
+the difference between a long and a short life is insignificant,
+especially when I consider the accidents and company I am to encounter.
+Do but look seriously and impartially upon the astonishing notion of time
+and eternity, what an immense deal has run out already, and how infinite
+it is still in the future; do but seriously and deliberately consider
+this, and you will find, upon the whole, that three days and three ages
+of life come much to the same measure and reckoning.
+
+As soon as he had ended his discourse upon the vanity and uncertainty of
+human life, he looked steadfastly upon her.  Sister, says he, I conjure
+you not to be disturbed at what I am going to tell you, which you will
+undoubtedly find to be true in every particular.  I perceive my glass is
+run, and I have now no more to do in this world but to take my leave of
+it; for to-morrow about this time my speech will be again taken from me,
+and, in a short time, my fit will return; and the next day, which I
+understand is the day on which I came into this troublesome world, I
+shall exchange it for another, where, for the future, I shall for ever be
+free from all manner of sin and sufferings.
+
+The good woman would have made him a reply, but he prevented her by
+telling her he had no time to hearken to unnecessary complaints or
+animadversions.  I have a great many things in my mind, says he, that
+require a speedy and serious consideration.  The time I have to stay is
+but short, and I have a great deal of important business to do in it.
+Time and death are both in my view, and seem both to call aloud to me to
+make no delay.  I beg of you, therefore, not to disquiet yourself or me.
+What must be, must be.  The decrees of Providence are eternal and
+unalterable; why, then, should we torment ourselves about that which we
+cannot remedy?
+
+I must confess, my dear sister, I owe you many obligations for your
+exemplary fondness to me, and do solemnly assure you I shall retain the
+sense of them to the last moment.  All that I have to request of you is,
+that I may be alone for this night.  I have it in my thoughts to leave
+some short observations behind me, and likewise to discover some things
+of great weight which have been revealed to me, which may perhaps be of
+some use hereafter to you and your friends.  What credit they may meet
+with I cannot say, but depend the consequence, according to their
+respective periods, will account for them, and vindicate them against the
+supposition of falsity and mere suggestion.
+
+Upon this, his sister left him till about four in the morning, when
+coming to his bedside to know if he wanted anything, and how he had
+rested, he made her this answer; I have been taking a cursory view of my
+life, and though I find myself exceedingly deficient in several
+particulars, yet I bless God I cannot find I have any just grounds to
+suspect my pardon.  In short, says he, I have spent this night with more
+inward pleasure and true satisfaction than ever I spent a night through
+the whole course of my life.
+
+After he had concluded what he had to say upon the satisfaction that
+attended an innocent and well-spent life, and observed what a mighty
+consolation it was to persons, not only under the apprehension, but even
+in the very agonies of death itself, he desired her to bring him his
+usual cup of water, and then to help him on with his clothes, that he
+might sit up, and so be in a better posture to take his leave of her and
+her friends.
+
+When she had taken him up, and placed him at a table where he usually
+sat, he desired her to bring him his box of papers, and after he had
+collected those he intended should be preserved, he ordered her to bring
+a candle, that he might see the rest burnt.  The good woman seemed at
+first to oppose the burning of his papers, till he told her they were
+only useless trifles, some unfinished observations which he had made in
+his youthful days, and were not fit to be seen by her, or anybody that
+should come after him.
+
+After he had seen his papers burnt, and placed the rest in their proper
+order, and had likewise settled all his other affairs, which was only fit
+to be done between himself and his sister, he desired her to call two or
+three of the most reputable neighbours, not only to be witnesses of his
+will, but likewise to hear what he had farther to communicate before the
+return of his fit, which he expected very speedily.
+
+His sister, who had beforehand acquainted two or three of her confidants
+with all that had happened, was very much rejoiced to hear her brother
+make so unexpected a concession; and accordingly, without any delay or
+hesitation, went directly into the neighbourhood, and brought home her
+two select friends, upon whose secrecy and sincerity she knew she might
+depend upon all accounts.
+
+In her absence he felt several symptoms of the approach of his fit, which
+made him a little uneasy, lest it should entirely seize him before he had
+perfected his will, but that apprehension was quickly removed by her
+speedy return.  After she had introduced her friends into his chamber, he
+proceeded to express himself in the following manner; Dear sister, you
+now see your brother upon the brink of eternity; and as the words of
+dying persons are commonly the most regarded, and make deepest
+impressions, I cannot suspect but you will suffer the few I am about to
+say to have always some place in your thoughts, that they may be ready
+for you to make use of upon any occasion.
+
+Do not be fond of anything on this side of eternity, or suffer your
+interest to incline you to break your word, quit your modesty, or to do
+anything that will not bear the light, and look the world in the face.
+For be assured of this; the person that values the virtue of his mind and
+the dignity of his reason, is always easy and well fortified both against
+death and misfortune, and is perfectly indifferent about the length or
+shortness of his life.  Such a one is solicitous about nothing but his
+own conduct, and for fear he should be deficient in the duties of
+religion, and the respective functions of reason and prudence.
+
+Always go the nearest way to work.  Now, the nearest way through all the
+business of human life, are the paths of religion and honesty, and
+keeping those as directly as you can, you avoid all the dangerous
+precipices that often lie in the road, and sometimes block up the passage
+entirely.
+
+Remember that life was but lent at first, and that the remainder is more
+than you have reason to expect, and consequently ought to be managed with
+more than ordinary diligence.  A wise man spends every day as if it were
+his last; his hourglass is always in his hand, and he is never guilty of
+sluggishness or insincerity.
+
+He was about to proceed, when a sudden symptom of the return of his fit
+put him in mind that it was time to get his will witnessed, which was no
+sooner done but he took it up and gave it to his sister, telling her that
+though all he had was hers of right, yet he thought it proper, to prevent
+even a possibility of a dispute, to write down his mind in the nature of
+a will, wherein I have given you, says he, the little that I have left,
+except my books and papers, which, as soon as I am dead, I desire may be
+delivered to Mr. Anthony Barlow, a near relation of my worthy master, Mr.
+Owen Parry.
+
+This Mr. Anthony Barlow was an old contemplative Welsh gentleman, who,
+being under some difficulties in his own country, was forced to come into
+Cornwall and take sanctuary among the tinners.  Dickory, though he kept
+himself as retired as possible, happened to meet him one day upon his
+walks, and presently remembered that he was the very person that used
+frequently to come to visit his master while he lived in Pembrokeshire,
+and so went to him, and by signs made him understand who he was.
+
+The old gentleman, though at first surprised at this unexpected
+interview, soon recollected that he had formerly seen at Mr. Parry's a
+dumb man, whom they used to call the dumb philosopher, so concludes
+immediately that consequently this must be he.  In short, they soon made
+themselves known to each other; and from that time contracted a strict
+friendship and a correspondence by letters, which for the future they
+mutually managed with the greatest exactness and familiarity.
+
+But to leave this as a matter not much material, and to return to our
+narrative.  By this time Dickory's speech began to falter, which his
+sister observing, put him in mind that he would do well to make some
+declaration of his faith and principles of religion, because some
+reflections had been made upon him upon the account of his neglect, or
+rather his refusal, to appear at any place of public worship.
+
+   "Dear sister," says he, "you observe very well, and I wish the
+   continuance of my speech for a few moments, that I might make an ample
+   declaration upon that account.  But I find that cannot be; my speech
+   is leaving me so fast that I can only tell you that I have always
+   lived, and now die, an unworthy member of the ancient catholic and
+   apostolic church; and as to my faith and principles, I refer you to my
+   papers, which, I hope, will in some measure vindicate me against the
+   reflections you mention."
+
+He had hardly finished his discourse to his sister and her two friends,
+and given some short directions relating to his burial, but his speech
+left him; and what makes the thing the more remarkable, it went away, in
+all appearance, without giving him any sort of pain or uneasiness.
+
+When he perceived that his speech was entirely vanished, and that he was
+again in his original state of dumbness, he took his pen as formerly and
+wrote to his sister, signifying that whereas the sudden loss of his
+speech had deprived him of the opportunity to speak to her and her
+friends what he intended, he would leave it for them in writing, and so
+desired he might not be disturbed till the return of his fit, which he
+expected in six hours at farthest.  According to his desire they all left
+him, and then, with the greatest resignation imaginable, he wrote down
+the meditations following:
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+An Abstract of his Faith, and the Principles of his Religion &c., which
+begins thus:
+
+Dear Sister; I thank you for putting me in mind to make a declaration of
+my faith, and the principles of my religion.  I find, as you very well
+observe, I have been under some reflections upon that account, and
+therefore I think it highly requisite that I set that matter right in the
+first place.  To begin, therefore, with my faith, in which I intend to be
+as short and as comprehensive as I can:
+
+1.  I most firmly believe that it was the eternal will of God, and the
+result of his infinite wisdom, to create a world, and for the glory of
+his majesty to make several sorts of creatures in order and degree one
+after another; that is to say, angels, or pure immortal spirits; men,
+consisting of immortal spirits and matter, having rational and sensitive
+souls; brutes, having mortal and sensitive souls; and mere vegetatives,
+such as trees, plants, &c.; and these creatures so made do, as it were,
+clasp the higher and lower world together.
+
+2.  I believe the holy Scriptures, and everything therein contained, to
+be the pure and essential word of God; and that, according to these
+sacred writings, man, the lord and prince of the creation, by his
+disobedience in Paradise, forfeited his innocence and the dignity of his
+nature, and subjected himself and all his posterity to sin and misery.
+
+3.  I believe and am fully and entirely satisfied, that God the Father,
+out of his infinite goodness and compassion to mankind, was pleased to
+send his only Son, the second person in the holy and undivided Trinity,
+to meditate for him, and to procure his redemption and eternal salvation.
+
+4.  I believe that God the Son, out of his infinite love, and for the
+glory of the Deity, was pleased voluntarily and freely to descend from
+heaven, and to take our nature upon him, and to lead an exemplary life of
+purity, holiness, and perfect obedience, and at last to suffer an
+ignominious death upon the cross, for the sins of the whole world, and to
+rise again the third day for our justification.
+
+5.  I believe that the Holy Ghost out of his infinite goodness was
+pleased to undertake the office of sanctifying us with his divine grace,
+and thereby assisting us with faith to believe, will to desire, and power
+to do all those things that are required of us in this world, in order to
+entitle us to the blessings of just men made perfect in the world to
+come.
+
+6.  I believe that these three persons are of equal power, majesty, and
+duration, and that the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
+Ghost is all one, and that they are equally uncreate, incomprehensible,
+eternal, and almighty; and that none is greater or less than the other,
+but that every one hath one and the same divine nature and perfections.
+
+These, sister, are the doctrines which have been received and practised
+by the best men of every age, from the beginning of the Christian
+religion to this day, and it is upon this I ground my faith and hopes of
+salvation, not doubting but, if my life and practice have been answerable
+to them, that I shall be quickly translated out of this kingdom of
+darkness, out of this world of sorrow, vexation and confusion, into that
+blessed kingdom, where I shall cease to grieve and to suffer, and shall
+be happy to all eternity.
+
+As to my principles in religion, to be as brief as I can, I declare
+myself to be a member of Christ's church, which I take to be a universal
+society of all Christian people, distributed under lawful governors and
+pastors into particular churches, holding communion with each other in
+all the essentials of the Christian faith, worship, and discipline; and
+among these I look upon the Church of England to be the chief and best
+constituted.
+
+The Church of England is doubtless the great bulwark of the ancient
+Catholic or Apostolic faith all over the world; a church that has all the
+spiritual advantages that the nature of a church is capable of.  From the
+doctrine and principles of the Church of England, we are taught loyalty
+to our prince, fidelity to our country, and justice to all mankind; and
+therefore, as I look upon this to be one of the most excellent branches
+of the Church Universal, and stands, as it were, between superstition and
+hypocrisy, I therefore declare, for the satisfaction of you and your
+friends, as I have always lived so I now die, a true and sincere, though
+a most unworthy member of it.  And as to my discontinuance of my
+attendance at the public worship, I refer you to my papers, which I have
+left with my worthy friend, Mr. Barlow.  And thus, my dear sister, I have
+given you a short account of my faith, and the principles of my religion.
+I come, in the next place, to lay before you a few meditations and
+observations I have at several times collected together, more
+particularly those since my retirement to St. Helen's.
+
+
+
+Meditations and Observations relating to the Conduct of Human Life in
+general.
+
+
+1.  Remember how often you have neglected the great duties of religion
+and virtue, and slighted the opportunities that Providence has put into
+your hands; and, withal, that you have a set period assigned you for the
+management of the affairs of human life; and then reflect seriously that,
+unless you resolve immediately to improve the little remains, the whole
+must necessarily slip away insensibly, and then you are lost beyond
+recovery.
+
+2.  Let an unaffected gravity, freedom, justice, and sincerity shine
+through all your actions, and let no fancies and chimeras give the least
+check to those excellent qualities.  This is an easy task, if you will
+but suppose everything you do to be your last, and if you can keep your
+passions and appetites from crossing your reason.  Stand clear of
+rashness, and have nothing of insincerity or self-love to infect you.
+
+3.  Manage all your thoughts and actions with such prudence and
+circumspection as if you were sensible you were just going to step into
+the grave.  A little thinking will show a man the vanity and uncertainty
+of all sublunary things, and enable him to examine maturely the manner of
+dying; which, if duly abstracted from the terror of the idea, will appear
+nothing more than an unavoidable appendix of life itself, and a pure
+natural action.
+
+4.  Consider that ill-usage from some sort of people is in a manner
+necessary, and therefore do not be disquieted about it, but rather
+conclude that you and your enemy are both marching off the stage
+together, and that in a little time your very memories will be
+extinguished.
+
+5.  Among your principal observations upon human life, let it be always
+one to take notice what a great deal both of time and ease that man gains
+who is not troubled with the spirit of curiosity, who lets his
+neighbours' affairs alone, and confines his inspections to himself, and
+only takes care of honesty and a good conscience.
+
+6.  If you would live at your ease, and as much as possible be free from
+the incumbrances of life, manage but a few things at once, and let those,
+too, be such as are absolutely necessary.  By this rule you will draw the
+bulk of your business into a narrow compass, and have the double pleasure
+of making your actions good, and few into the bargain.
+
+7.  He that torments himself because things do not happen just as he
+would have them, is but a sort of ulcer in the world; and he that is
+selfish, narrow-souled, and sets up for a separate interest, is a kind of
+voluntary outlaw, and disincorporates himself from mankind.
+
+8.  Never think anything below you which reason and your own
+circumstances require, and never suffer yourself to be deterred by the
+ill-grounded notions of censure and reproach; but when honesty and
+conscience prompt you to say or do anything, do it boldly; never balk
+your resolution or start at the consequence.
+
+9.  If a man does me an injury, what is that to me?  It is his own
+action, and let him account for it.  As for me, I am in my proper
+station, and only doing the business that Providence has allotted; and
+withal, I ought to consider that the best way to revenge, is not to
+imitate the injury.
+
+10.  When you happen to be ruffled and put out of humour by any cross
+accident, retire immediately into your reason, and do not suffer your
+passion to overrule you a moment; for the sooner you recover yourself
+now, the better you will be able to guard yourself for the future.
+
+11.  Do not be like those ill-natured people that, though they do not
+love to give a good word to their contemporaries, yet are mighty fond of
+their own commendations.  This argues a perverse and unjust temper, and
+often exposes the authors to scorn and contempt.
+
+12.  If any one convinces you of an error, change your opinion and thank
+him for it: truth and information are your business, and can never hurt
+anybody.  On the contrary, he that is proud and stubborn, and wilfully
+continues in a mistake, it is he that receives the mischief.
+
+13.  Because you see a thing difficult, do not instantly conclude it to
+be impossible to master it.  Diligence and industry are seldom defeated.
+Look, therefore, narrowly into the thing itself, and what you observe
+proper and practicable in another, conclude likewise within your own
+power.
+
+14.  The principal business of human life is run through within the short
+compass of twenty-four hours; and when you have taken a deliberate view
+of the present age, you have seen as much as if you had begun with the
+world, the rest being nothing else but an endless round of the same thing
+over and over again.
+
+15.  Bring your will to your fate, and suit your mind to your
+circumstances.  Love your friends and forgive your enemies, and do
+justice to all mankind, and you will be secure to make your passage easy,
+and enjoy most of the comforts human life is capable to afford you.
+
+16.  When you have a mind to entertain yourself in your retirements, let
+it be with the good qualifications of your friends and acquaintance.
+Think with pleasure and satisfaction upon the honour and bravery of one,
+the modesty of another, the generosity of a third, and so on; there being
+nothing more pleasant and diverting than the lively images and the
+advantages of those we love and converse with.
+
+17.  As nothing can deprive you of the privileges of your nature, or
+compel you to act counter to your reason, so nothing can happen to you
+but what comes from Providence, and consists with the interest of the
+universe.
+
+18.  Let people's tongues and actions be what they will, your business is
+to have honour and honesty in your view.  Let them rail, revile, censure,
+and condemn, or make you the subject of their scorn and ridicule, what
+does it all signify?  You have one certain remedy against all their
+malice and folly, and that is, to live so that nobody shall believe them.
+
+19.  Alas, poor mortals! did we rightly consider our own state and
+condition, we should find it would not be long before we have forgot all
+the world, and to be even, that all the world will have forgot us
+likewise.
+
+20.  He that would recommend himself to the public, let him do it by the
+candour and modesty of his behaviour, and by a generous indifference to
+external advantages.  Let him love mankind, and resign to Providence, and
+then his works will follow him, and his good actions will praise him in
+the gate.
+
+21.  When you hear a discourse, let your understanding, as far as
+possible, keep pace with it, and lead you forward to those things which
+fall most within the compass of your own observations.
+
+22.  When vice and treachery shall be rewarded, and virtue and ability
+slighted and discountenanced; when ministers of state shall rather fear
+man than God, and to screen themselves run into parties and factions;
+when noise and clamour, and scandalous reports shall carry everything
+before them, it is natural to conclude that a nation in such a state of
+infatuation stands upon the brink of destruction, and without the
+intervention of some unforeseen accident, must be inevitably ruined.
+
+23.  When a prince is guarded by wise and honest men, and when all public
+officers are sure to be rewarded if they do well, and punished if they do
+evil, the consequence is plain; justice and honesty will flourish, and
+men will be always contriving, not for themselves, but for the honour and
+interest of their king and country.
+
+24.  Wicked men may sometimes go unpunished in this world, but wicked
+nations never do; because this world is the only place of punishment of
+wicked nations, though not for private and particular persons.
+
+25.  An administration that is merely founded upon human policy must be
+always subject to human chance; but that which is founded on the divine
+wisdom can no more miscarry than the government of heaven.  To govern by
+parties and factions is the advice of an atheist, and sets up a
+government by the spirit of Satan.  In such a government the prince can
+never be secure under the greatest promises, since, as men's interest
+changes, so will their duty and affections likewise.
+
+26.  It is a very ancient observation, and a very true one, that people
+generally despise where they flatter, and cringe to those they design to
+betray; so that truth and ceremony are, and always will be, two distinct
+things.
+
+27.  When you find your friend in an error, undeceive him with secrecy
+and civility, and let him see his oversight first by hints and glances;
+and if you cannot convince him, leave him with respect, and lay the fault
+upon your own management.
+
+28.  When you are under the greatest vexations, then consider that human
+life lasts but for a moment; and do not forget but that you are like the
+rest of the world, and faulty yourself in many instances; and withal,
+remember that anger and impatience often prove more mischievous than the
+provocation.
+
+29.  Gentleness and good humour are invincible, provided they are without
+hypocrisy and design; they disarm the most barbarous and savage tempers,
+and make even malice ashamed of itself.
+
+30.  In all the actions of life let it be your first and principal care
+to guard against anger on the one hand, and flattery on the other, for
+they are both unserviceable qualities, and do a great deal of mischief in
+the government of human life.
+
+31.  When a man turns knave or libertine, and gives way to fear,
+jealousy, and fits of the spleen; when his mind complains of his fortune,
+and he quits the station in which Providence has placed him, he acts
+perfectly counter to humanity, deserts his own nature, and, as it were,
+runs away from himself.
+
+32.  Be not heavy in business, disturbed in conversation, nor impertinent
+in your thoughts.  Let your judgment be right, your actions friendly, and
+your mind contented; let them curse you, threaten you, or despise you;
+let them go on; they can never injure your reason or your virtue, and
+then all the rest that they can do to you signifies nothing.
+
+33.  The only pleasure of human life is doing the business of the
+creation; and which way is that to be compassed very easily?  Most
+certainly by the practice of general kindness, by rejecting the
+importunity of our senses, by distinguishing truth from falsehood, and by
+contemplating the works of the Almighty.
+
+34.  Be sure to mind that which lies before you, whether it be thought,
+word, or action; and never postpone an opportunity, or make virtue wait
+for you till to-morrow.
+
+35.  Whatever tends neither to the improvement of your reason nor the
+benefit of society, think it below you; and when you have done any
+considerable service to mankind, do not lessen it by your folly in gaping
+after reputation and requital.
+
+36.  When you find yourself sleepy in a morning, rouse yourself, and
+consider that you are born to business, and that in doing good in your
+generation, you answer your character and act like a man; whereas sleep
+and idleness do but degrade you, and sink you down to a brute.
+
+37.  A mind that has nothing of hope, or fear, or aversion, or desire, to
+weaken and disturb it, is the most impregnable security.  Hither we may
+with safety retire and defy our enemies; and he that sees not this
+advantage must be extremely ignorant, and he that forgets it unhappy.
+
+38.  Do not disturb yourself about the faults of other people, but let
+everybody's crimes be at their own door.  Have always this great maxim in
+your remembrance, that to play the knave is to rebel against religion;
+all sorts of injustice being no less than high treason against Heaven
+itself.
+
+39.  Do not contemn death, but meet it with a decent and religious
+fortitude, and look upon it as one of those things which Providence has
+ordered.  If you want a cordial to make the apprehensions of dying go
+down a little the more easily, consider what sort of world and what sort
+of company you will part with.  To conclude, do but look seriously into
+the world, and there you will see multitudes of people preparing for
+funerals, and mourning for their friends and acquaintances; and look out
+again a little afterwards, and you will see others doing the very same
+thing for them.
+
+40.  In short, men are but poor transitory things.  To-day they are busy
+and harassed with the affairs of human life; and to-morrow life itself is
+taken from them, and they are returned to their original dust and ashes.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+Containing prophetic observations relating to the affairs of Europe and
+of Great Britain, more particularly from 1720 to 1729.
+
+1.  In the latter end of 1720, an eminent old lady shall bring forth five
+sons at a birth; the youngest shall live and grow up to maturity, but the
+four eldest shall either die in the nursery, or be all carried off by one
+sudden and unexpected accident.
+
+2.  About this time a man with a double head shall arrive in Britain from
+the south.  One of these heads shall deliver messages of great importance
+to the governing party, and the other to the party that is opposite to
+them.  The first shall believe the monster, but the last shall discover
+the impostor, and so happily disengage themselves from a snare that was
+laid to destroy them and their posterity.  After this the two heads shall
+unite, and the monster shall appear in his proper shape.
+
+3.  In the year 1721, a philosopher from Lower Germany shall come, first
+to Amsterdam in Holland, and afterwards to London.  He will bring with
+him a world of curiosities, and among them a pretended secret for the
+transmutation of metals.  Under the umbrage of this mighty secret he
+shall pass upon the world for some time; but at length he shall be
+detected, and proved to be nothing but an empiric and a cheat, and so
+forced to sneak off, and leave the people he has deluded, either to
+bemoan their loss, or laugh at their own folly.  N.B.--This will be the
+last of his sect that will ever venture in this part of the world upon
+the same errand.
+
+4.  In this year great endeavours will be used for procuring a general
+peace, which shall be so near a conclusion that public rejoicings shall
+be made at the courts of several great potentates upon that account; but
+just in the critical juncture, a certain neighbouring prince shall come
+to a violent death, which shall occasion new war and commotion all over
+Europe; but these shall continue but for a short time, and at last
+terminate in the utter destruction of the first aggressors.
+
+5.  Towards the close of this year of mysteries, a person that was born
+blind shall have his sight restored, and shall see ravens perch upon the
+heads of traitors, among which the head of a notorious prelate shall
+stand upon the highest pole.
+
+6.  In the year 1722, there shall be a grand congress, and new overtures
+of peace offered by most of the principal parties concerned in the war,
+which shall have so good effect that a cessation of arms shall be agreed
+upon for six months, which shall be kept inviolable till a certain
+general, either through treachery or inadvertency, shall begin
+hostilities before the expiration of the term; upon which the injured
+prince shall draw his sword, and throw the scabbard into the sea, vowing
+never to return it till he shall obtain satisfaction for himself, and
+done justice to all that were oppressed.
+
+7.  At the close of this year, a famous bridge shall be broken down, and
+the water that runs under it shall be tinctured with the blood of two
+notorious malefactors, whose unexpected death shall make mighty
+alterations in the present state of affairs, and put a stop to the ruin
+of a nation, which must otherwise have been unavoidable.
+
+8.  1723 begins with plots, conspiracies, and intestine commotions in
+several countries; nor shall Great Britain itself be free from the
+calamity.  These shall continue till a certain young prince shall take
+the reins of government into his own hands; and after that, a marriage
+shall be proposed, and an alliance concluded between two great
+potentates, who shall join their forces, and endeavour, in good earnest,
+to set all matters upon a right foundation.
+
+9.  This year several cardinals and prelates shall be publicly censured
+for heretical principles, and shall narrowly escape from being torn to
+pieces by the common people, who still look upon them as the grand
+disturbers of public tranquillity, perfect incendiaries, and the chief
+promoters of their former, present, and future calamities.
+
+10.  In 1724-5 there will be many treaties and negociations, and Great
+Britain, particularly, will be crowded with foreign ministers and
+ambassadors from remote princes and states.  Trade and commerce will
+begin to flourish and revive, and everything will have a comfortable
+prospect, until some desperadoes, assisted by a monster with many heads,
+shall start new difficulties, and put the world again into a flame; but
+these shall be but of short duration.
+
+11.  Before the expiration of 1725, an eagle from the north shall fly
+directly to the south, and perch upon the palace of a prince, and first
+unravel the bloody projects and designs of a wicked set of people, and
+then publicly discover the murder of a great king, and the intended
+assassination of another greater than he.
+
+12.  In 1726, three princes will be born that will grow up to be men, and
+inherit the crowns of three of the greatest monarchies in Europe.
+
+13.  About this time the pope will die, and after a great many intrigues
+and struggles, a Spanish cardinal shall be elected, who shall decline the
+dignity, and declare his marriage with a great lady, heiress of one of
+the chief principalities in Italy, which may occasion new troubles in
+Europe, if not timely prevented.
+
+14.  In 1727, new troubles shall break out in the north, occasioned by
+the sudden death of a certain prince, and the avarice and ambition of
+another.  Poor Poland seems to be pointed at; but the princes of the
+south shall enter into a confederacy to preserve her, and shall at length
+restore her peace, and prevent the perpetual ruin of her constitution.
+
+15.  Great endeavours will be used about this time for a comprehension in
+religion, supported by crafty and designing men, and a party of mistaken
+zealots, which they shall artfully draw in to join with them; but as the
+project is ill-concerted, and will be worse managed, it will come to
+nothing; and soon afterwards an effectual mode will be taken to prevent
+the like attempt for the future.
+
+16. 1728 will be a year of inquiry and retrospection.  Many exorbitant
+grants will be reassumed, and several persons who thought themselves
+secure will be called before the senate, and compelled to disgorge what
+they have unjustly pillaged either from the crown or the public.
+
+17.  About this time a new scaffold will be erected upon the confines of
+a certain great city, where an old count of a new extraction, that has
+been of all parties and true to none, will be doomed by his peers to make
+his first appearance.  After this an old lady who has often been exposed
+to danger and disgrace, and sometimes brought to the very brink of
+destruction, will be brought to bed of three daughters at once, which
+they shall call Plenty, Peace, and Union; and these three shall live and
+grow up together, be the glory of their mother, and the comfort of
+posterity for many generations.
+
+* * * * *
+
+This is the substance of what he either writ or extracted from his papers
+in the interval between the loss of his speech and the return of his fit,
+which happened exactly at the time he had computed.
+
+Upon the approach of his fit, he made signs to be put to bed, which was
+no sooner done but he was seized with extreme agonies, which he bore up
+under with the greatest steadfastness, and after a severe conflict, that
+lasted near eight hours, he expired.
+
+Thus lived and thus died this extraordinary person; a person, though of
+mean extraction and obscure life, yet when his character comes to be
+fully and truly known, it will be read with pleasure, profit, and
+admiration.
+
+His perfections at large would be the work of a volume, and inconsistent
+with the intention of these papers.  I will, therefore, only add, for a
+conclusion, that he was a man of uncommon thought and judgment, and
+always kept his appetites and inclinations within their just limits.
+
+His reason was strong and manly, his understanding sound and active, and
+his temper so easy, equal, and complaisant, that he never fell out,
+either with men or accidents.  He bore all things with the highest
+affability, and computed justly upon their value and consequence, and
+then applied them to their proper uses.
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER FROM OXFORD
+
+
+Sir,
+
+Being informed that you speedily intend to publish some memoirs relating
+to our dumb countryman, Dickory Cronke, I send you herewith a few lines,
+in the nature of an elegy, which I leave you to dispose of as you think
+fit.  I knew and admired the man; and if I were capable, his character
+should be the first thing I would attempt.
+
+Yours. &c.
+
+
+
+AN ELEGY,
+IN MEMORY OF DICKORY CRONKE,
+THE DUMB PHILOSOPHER.
+
+
+   Vitiis nemo sine nascitur; optimus ille est,
+   Qui minimus urgetur.--HORACE.
+
+If virtuous actions emulation raise,
+Then this good man deserves immortal praise.
+When nature such extensive wisdom lent,
+She sure designed him for our precedent.
+Such great endowments in a man unknown,
+Declare the blessings were not all his own;
+But rather granted for a time to show
+What the wise hand of Providence can do.
+In him we may a bright example see
+Of nature, justice, and morality;
+A mind not subject to the frowns of fate,
+But calm and easy in a servile state.
+He always kept a guard upon his will
+And feared no harm because he knew no ill.
+A decent posture and an humble mien,
+In every action of his life were seen.
+Through all the different stages that he went,
+He still appeared both wise and diligent:
+Firm to his word, and punctual to his trust,
+Sagacious, frugal, arable, and just.
+No gainful views his bounded hopes could sway,
+No wanton thought led his chaste soul astray.
+In short, his thoughts and actions both declare,
+Nature designed him her philosopher;
+That all mankind, by his example taught,
+Might learn to live, and manage every thought.
+Oh! could my muse the wondrous subject grace,
+And, from his youth, his virtuous actions trace;
+Could I in just and equal numbers tell
+How well he lived, and how devoutly fell,
+I boldly might your strict attention claim,
+And bid you learn, and copy out the man.
+
+J. P.
+
+Exeter College, August 25th, 1719.
+
+
+
+
+EPITAPH
+
+
+The occasion of this epitaph was briefly thus:--A gentleman, who had
+heard much in commendation of this dumb man, going accidentally to the
+churchyard where he was buried, and finding his grave without a
+tombstone, or any manner of memorandum of his death, he pulled out his
+pencil, and writ as follows:--
+
+   PAUPER UBIQUE JACET.
+
+   Near to this lonely unfrequented place,
+   Mixed with the common dust, neglected lies
+   The man that every muse should strive to grace,
+   And all the world should for his virtue prize.
+   Stop, gentle passenger, and drop a tear,
+   Truth, justice, wisdom, all lie buried here.
+
+   What, though he wants a monumental stone,
+   The common pomp of every fool or knave,
+   Those virtues which through all his actions shone
+   Proclaim his worth, and praise him in the grave.
+   His merits will a bright example give,
+   Which shall both time and envy too outlive.
+
+   Oh, had I power but equal to my mind,
+   A decent tomb should soon this place adorn,
+   With this inscription: Lo, here lies confined
+   A wondrous man, although obscurely born;
+   A man, though dumb, yet he was nature's care,
+   Who marked him out her own philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+        
+            *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICKORY CRONKE: THE DUMB PHILOSOPHER, OR, GREAT BRITAIN'S WONDER ***
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