We find within these souls of ours

Some wild germs of a higher birth, Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers Whose fragrance fills the earth.

Within the hearts of all men lie

These promises of wider bliss, Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, In sunny hours like this.

All that hath been majestical

In life or death, since time began,

Is native in the simple heart of all,
The angel heart of man.

And thus, among the untaught poor, Great deeds and feelings find a home, That cast in shadow all the golden lore Of classic Greece and Rome.

O, mighty brother-soul of man,
Where'er thou art, in low or high,

Thy skyey arches with exulting span
O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole :

In his broad breast the feeling deep

That struggled on the many's tongue, Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap O'er the weak thrones of wrong.

All thought begins in feeling, wide

In the great mass its base is hid,

And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,

A moveless pyramid.

Nor is he far astray who deems

That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of God.

God wills, man hopes: in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefined,
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls
A blessing to his kind.

Never did Poesy appear

So full of heaven to me, as when

I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear

To the lives of coarsest men.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight

Once in a century;

But better far it is to speak

One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men;

To write some earnest verse or line,
Which, seeking not the praise of art,

Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine

In the untutored heart.

He who doth this, in verse or prose,

May be forgotten in his day,

But surely shall be crowned at last with those

Who live and speak for aye.

1842.

RHECUS.

GOD sends his teachers unto every age,
Το

every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth

And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race :

Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed
The life of man, and given it to grasp
The master-key of knowledge, reverence,
Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right;
Else never had the eager soul, which loathes
The slothful down of pampered ignorance,
Found in it even a moment's fitful rest.