? the way is long
To yonder hazy Headland's wave-worn base.
We wait in vain for favoring winds to blow,
'Tis yours to pull the oars. Row, bravely, row,
Keep even stroke, ye merry hearts, with song,
And lead the swift sea-birds a winning race.

The willing oarsmen heard the words, and bent
Them to the toil; but "Knowledge" had not heard,
And still he dreamed upon his trailing oar,
Until the barge had rounded to the shore
We scarce had left. In vain the labor spent.
The old man smiled again. The swift sea-bird

Such rivalry would never fear, said he,
"Knowledge" must pull with "Courage"; "Justice," too,
Must draw his stroke with "Patience," else your barge,
Despite your strength, will never leave the marge,
But still in weary revolutions be
A vanity of vanities to you.

These words to you in parting. O beware
In seeking heaven, lest you despise the earth;
Heaven is both what we are and where we go,
And we are heaven-builders here below;
Alike we take it and we find it there,
And heaven is worth to us what we are worth.

God hath the earth to heaven in marriage given,
See how the ocean yieldeth tenderly
The penciled shadow of the morning bars
Whereon, like notes of music, rest the stars.
Ah! listen, for the azure dome of heaven
Is echoing now the music of the sea.

Love wisely then the earth, and you shall love
The Holy City where the angels dwell.
The gentle light of love will never bring
The circling moth upon his dusty wing.
No thief will steal, no rust corrode above,
Nor in your heart--if love be there. Farewell.

III.--MANHOOD.

So to their oars my boatmen, cheerily,
Bent once again, and then, with steady stroke,
They drew upon the waters till the shore
Grew lower in the distance, and no more
Thro' the gray mist the mentor I could see,
But oft I thought upon the words he spoke.

And oft, O wise Experience, have I found
The lesson true you taught to me that day.
_No progress but by toil, and there must be
In heart and mind a vital unity._
Our days are else in vain, and ne'er will bound
The "Barge of Time" upon the heavenly way.

But soon the ripple of an adverse tide,--
Whose darkling bitter waters seemed to stay
The prow,--twined like a sea-weed growth the oars;
A tide that hies forever from the shores
I sought, and with its soft caresses, wide
And far, bears hapless wanderers away.

Yet gallant are the boats that drift along;
Proud are the hearts that float where flows the tide.
Th