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THE SCHOLAR'S MISSION.

159

forbid a life of mere scholarship or literary pursuits to the great majority of those who go out from our colleges. However it may have been in other times and other lands, here and now but few of our educated men are privileged

"From the loopholes of retreat

To look upon the world, to hear the sound
Of the great Babel, and not feel its stir."

Society has work for us, and we must go forth to do it. Full early and hastily we must gird on the manly gown, gather up the loose leaves and scanty fragments of our youthful lore, and go out among men, to act with them and for them. It is a practical age; and our wisdom, such as it is, "must strive and cry, and utter her voice in the streets, standing in the places of the paths, crying in the chief place of concourse, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors."

This state of things, though not suited to the tastes and qualities of all, is not, on the whole, to be regretted by educated men as such. It is not in literary production only, or chiefly, that educated mind finds fit expression, and fulfils its mission in honor and beneficence. In the great theatre of the world's affairs there is a worthy and a sufficient sphere. Society needs the well-trained, enlarged, and cultivated intellect of the scholar in its midst; needs it and welcomes it, and gives it a place, or, by its own capacity, it will take a place of honor, influence, and power.

The youthful scholar has no occasion to deplore the fate that is soon to tear him from his studies, and cast him into the swelling tide of life and action. None of his disciplinary and enriching culture will be lost, or useless, even there. Every hour of study, every truth he has reached, and the toilsome process by which he reached it; the heightened grace, or vigor of thought or speech he has acquired,―all shall tell fully, nobly, if he will give heed to the conditions. And one condition—the prime one—is, that he be a true man, and recognize the obligation of a man, and go forth with heart, and will, and every gift and acquirement dedicated,

lovingly and resolutely, to the true and the right. These are the terms: and apart from these there is no success, no influence to be had, which an ingenuous mind can desire, or which a sound and far-seeing mind would dare to ask.

Indeed, it is not an easy thing, nay, it is not a possible thing, to obtain a substantial success and an abiding influence, except on these terms. A factitious popularity, a transient notoriety, or, in the case of shining talents, the doom of a damning fame, may fall to bad men. But an honored name, enduring influence, a sun brightening on through its circuit, more and more, even to its serene setting-this boon of a true success goes never to intellectual qualities alone. It gravitates slowly, but surely, to weight of character, to intellectual ability rooted in principle.

CLAUDE MELNOTTE'S APOLOGY AND DE

FENCE.

LORD LYTTON.

PAULINE, by pride

Angels have fallen ere thy time: by pride-
That sole alloy of thy most lovely mould-
The evil spirit of a bitter love

And a revengeful heart, had power upon thee.
From my first years my soul was filled with thee:
I saw thee midst the flowers the lowly boy
Tended, unmarked by thee -a spirit of bloom,
And joy and freshness, as spring itself
Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape!
I saw thee, and the passionate heart of man
Enter'd the breast of the wild-dreaming boy;
And from that hour I grew-what to the last
I shall be-thine adorer! Well, this love,
Vain, frantic-guilty, if thou wilt, became
A fountain of ambition and bright hope;
I thought of tales that by the winter hearth

Old gossips tell-how maidens sprung from kings

Have stoop'd from their high sphere; how Love, like Death,

CLAUDE MELNOTTE'S APOLOGY AND DEFENCE. 161

Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook
Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home
In the soft palace of a fairy Future!
My father died; and I, the peasant-born,
Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise
Out of the prison of my mean estate;

And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
Brings from the caves of Knowledge, buy my ransom
From those twin jailers of the daring heart-
Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image,
Glass'd in my soul, took all the hues of glory,
And lured me on to those inspiring toils
By which man masters men! For thee, I grew
A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages!
For thee, I sought to borrow from each Grace,
And every Muse, such attributes as lend
Ideal charms to Love. I thought of thee,
And passion taught me poesy,—of thee,
And on the painter's canvas grew the life
Of beauty!-Art became the shadow

Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes!
Men called me vain-some, mad-I heeded not;
But still toil'd on-hoped on,-for it was sweet,
If not to win, to feel more worthy, thee!

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At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour
The thoughts that burst their channels into song,
And sent them to thee-such a tribute, lady,
As beauty rarely scorns-even from the meanest.
The name-appended by the burning heart
That long'd to show its idol what bright things
It had created-yea, the enthusiast's name,
That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn!
That very hour-when passion, turn'd to wrath,
Resembled hatred most--when thy disdain
Made my whole soul a chaos-in that hour
The tempters found me a revengeful tool

For their revenge! Thou hadst tran pled on the worm-
It turned, and stung thee!

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.

SAMUEL FERGUSSON, Q. o.

COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 'tis at a white heat now; The billows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's

brow

The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound
And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round,
All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare;
Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle-chains, the black mound heaves below,

And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe;
It rises, roars, rends all outright—0, Vulcan, what a glow !
'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright, the high sun shines not so !
The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show;
The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row
Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe;
As quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow
Sinks on the anvil-all about the faces fiery grow-

"Hurrah!" they shout, leap out-leap out:" bang, bang, the sledges go;

Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low;

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow;

The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strow
The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow;
And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant

"Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!
Let's forge a goodly anchor, a bower, thick and broad;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,
And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road;

The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured
From stem to stern, sea after sea, the mainmast by the board;
The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains,
But courage still, brave mariners, the bower still remains,

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.

163

And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing-here am I!"

Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time,
Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime!
But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be,
The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we;
Strike in, strike in, the sparks begin to dull their rustling red!
Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped;
Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array,
For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay;
Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here,
For the Yeo-heave-o, and the Heave-away, and the sighing seaman's

cheer;

When weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home, And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last.

A shapely one he is, and strong as e'er from cat was cast.
A trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,
What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!
O, deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?
The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks what joy 'twere now
To go plump plunging down amid the assembly of the whales,
And feel the churn'd sea round me boil beneath their scourging
tails!

Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn,
And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn;

To leave the subtle sworder-fish, of bony blade forlorn,
And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn;
To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles
He lies, a lubber anchorage, for sudden shallowed miles;

Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls,
Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far-astonished shoals
Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or haply in a cove,
Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love,
To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard-by icy lands,
To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.

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