The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be

dust,

Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly?

She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just,

To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer

sky:

Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.

A. Lord Tennyson

LXVII

THE MEN OF OLD

I know not that the men of old
Were better than men now,

Of heart more kind, of hand more bold,
Of more ingenuous brow:

I heed not those who pine for force
A ghost of Time to raise,

As if they thus could check the course
Of these appointed days.

To them was life a simple art
Of duties to be done,

A game where each man took his part,
A race where all must run;

A battle whose great scheme and scope
They little cared to know,
Content, as men at arms, to cope
Each with his fronting foe.

Man now his Virtue's diadem

Puts on and proudly wears,

Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them,
Like instincts, unawares:

Blending their souls' sublimest needs
With tasks of every day,

They went about their gravest deeds,

As noble boys at play.

R. M. (Milnes) Lord Houghton

LXVIII

MAGNA EST VERITAS

Here, in this little Bay,

Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,

The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.

For want of me the world's course will not fail;
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

C. Patmore

LXIX

THE SUN'S SHAME

Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught
From life; and mocking pulses that remain
When the soul's death of bodily death is fain;
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought

On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
And long'd-for woman longing all in vain

For lonely man with love's desire distraught;
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasant-

ness,

Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,

None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they :Beholding these things, I behold no less

The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
The shame that loads the intolerable day.

D. G. Rossetti

LXX

SIC ITUR

As, at a railway junction, men
Who came together, taking then
One the train up, one down, again

Meet never! Ah, much more as they
Who take one street's two sides, and say
Hard parting words, but walk one way:

Though moving other mates between,
While carts and coaches intervene,
Each to the other goes unseen;

Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack
Knowledge they walk not back to back,
But with an unity of track,

Where common dangers each attend,
And common hopes their guidance lend
To light them to the self-same end.

Whether he then shall cross to thee,
Or thou go thither, or it be
Some midway point, ye yet shall see

Each other, yet again shall meet.
Ah, joy! when with the closing street,
Forgivingly at last ye greet!

A. H. Clough

LXXI

NEXT OF KIN

The shadows gather round me, while you are in the

sun :

My day is almost ended, but yours is just begun :

The winds are singing to us both and the streams are

singing still,

And they fill your heart with music, but mine they cannot fill.

Your home is built in sunlight, mine in another day: Your home is close at hand, sweet friend, but mine is far away:

Your bark is in the haven where you fain would be:
I must launch out into the deep, across the unknown

sea.

You, white as dove or lily or spirit of the light:

I, stain'd and cold and glad to hide in the cold dark

night:

You, joy to many a loving heart and light to many

eyes:

I, lonely in the knowledge earth is full of vanities.

Yet when your day is over, as mine is nearly done, And when your race is finish'd, as mine is almost

run,

You, like me, shall cross your hands and bow your graceful head:

Yea, we twain shall sleep together in an equal bed.

C. G. Rossetti

LXXII

THE SPECTRE OF THE PAST

On the great day of my life-
On the memorable day—
Just as the long inward strife
Of the echoes died away,
Just as on my couch I lay
Thinking thought away;
Came a Man into my room,
Bringing with him gloom.

Midnight stood upon the clock,

And the street sound ceased to rise;
Suddenly, and with no knock,
Came that Man before my eyes:
Yet he seem'd not anywise
My heart to surprise,
And he sat down to abide
At my fireside.

But he stirr'd within my heart
Memories of the ancient days;
And strange visions seem'd to start
Vividly before my gaze,

Yea, from the most distant haze
Of forgotten ways:

And he look'd on me the while
With a most strange smile.

But my heart seem'd well to know

That his face the semblance had

Of my own face long ago

Ere the years had made it sad,
When my youthful looks were clad
In a smile half glad ;

To my heart he seem'd in truth
my vanish'd youth.

All

Then he named me by a name

Long since unfamiliar grown,

But remember'd for the same

That my childhood's ears had known ;
And his voice was like my own

In a sadder tone

Coming from the happy years
Choked, alas, with tears.

And, as though he nothing knew
Of that day's fair triumphing,
Or the Present were not true,
Or not worth remembering,
All the Past he seem'd to bring
As a piteous thing

Back upon my heart again,
Yea with a great pain: