All history is but the prophecy of our final
success,--and Milton has put the prophecy into words: "Go on, O Nation,
never to be disunited! Be the praise and the heroic song of all
posterity! Merit this, but seek only virtue, not to extend your limits,
(for what needs to win a fading triumphant laurel out of the tears of
wretched men?) but to settle the pure worship of God in his church, and
justice in the state. Then shall the hardest difficulties smooth out
themselves before thee; envy shall sink to hell, craft and malice be
confounded, whether it be home-bred mischief or outlandish cunning; yea,
other nations will then covet to serve thee, for lordship and victory
are but the pages of justice and virtue. Use thine invincible might to
do worthy and godlike deeds, and then he that seeks to break your union
a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations!"

* * * * *

ODE TO HAPPINESS.

I.

Spirit, that rarely comest now,
And only to contrast my gloom,
Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom
A moment on some autumn bough
Which, with the spurn of their farewell,
Sheds its last leaves,--thou once didst dwell
With me year-long, and make intense
To boyhood's wisely-vacant days
That fleet, but all-sufficing grace
Of trustful inexperience,
While yet the soul transfigured sense,
And thrilled, as with love's first caress,
At life's mere unexpectedness.

II.

Those were thy days, blithe spirit, those
When a June sunshine could fill up
The chalice of a buttercup
With such Falernian juice as flows
No longer,--for the vine is dead
Whence that inspiring drop was shed:
Days when my blood would leap and run,
As full of morning as a breeze,
Or spray tossed up by summer seas
That doubts if it be sea or sun;
Days that flew swiftly, like the band
That in the Grecian games had strife
And passed from eager hand to hand
The onward-dancing torch of life.

III.

Wing-footed! thou abid'st with him
Who asks it not; but he who hath
Watched o'er the waves thy fading path
Shall nevermore on ocean's rim,
At morn or eve, behold returning
Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearning!
Thou first reveal'st to us thy face
Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace,
A moment glimpsed, then seen no more,--
Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace
Away from every mortal door!

IV.

Nymph of the