Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/78

THE CREED OF THE FUTURE.

"I don't believe in either God or Man.
Conscious Automata, we nothing can,
Save as our atoms feel tyrannic chance;
All is heredity and circumstance.
Conscience, — Freewill, — absurd! And if you ask
How on these terms fulfil life's daily task?
What motives? And what conduct? — look at me:
One more respectable you'll scarcely see.
As family-man, friend, citizen, professor.
Be you, or public judgment, my assessor."

"Good, my dear sir! — but we must wait, I doubt.
To notice how your grandchildren turn out,
Born in the doctrine, reared upon the plan,
Of total disbelief in God and Man.
Let this experiment be fairly made.
Nor Science mourn, by her high priests betray'd;
Oh, let her teach them, from their tenderest youth.
The Truth, the whole Truth, nothing but the Truth —
Material Atoms, and Mechanic Force;
And send the boys and girls rejoicing on their course!"

⁠Fraser's Magazine.

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HORTUS SICCUS.

Gone, with their laughter and their silent sorrow;
⁠Gone, with their weeping and their summer smiles;
Never to them will come a glad to-morrow,
⁠Sweet with the dreams that many a day beguiled.

Gayness or sadness in their voices ringing.
⁠Making one love them for the sounds they gave;
Sunlight or shadow in their pathway mingling —
⁠All is now swept into the silent grave.

Nought but their shadowy memory remaineth,
⁠Dim and uncertain through the lapse of years;
Nought their clear image in the mind retaineth,
⁠Saving love's chain cemented by our tears.

Chain that is forged in furnace of our sorrows.
⁠Links knit together by long-cherished hopes,
Infinite strength and beauty thus it borrows,
⁠Strength and endurance with which nought can cope.

Through the soft gleam of many-tinted fancies.
⁠O'er their sweet memory such light is thrown.
Sadness divine and tenderness enhancing,
⁠Darkening all other sunshine by its own.

Chambers' Journal.⁠

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ON SEEING A PICTURE CALLED "A
WINTER GALE IN THE CHANNEL."

I.

I love this ocean-picture's pale reserve:
⁠No tints unnatural of purpling grain,
⁠Azure or opal, mar the rough, grey main.
The sweep, the swing, the long froth-churning curve.
The shore-ward working and confusèd swerve
⁠Of yellowing water: white blooms wear such stain.
⁠All dashed and muddied with the April rain.
No poor ambition did the painter serve!
Well that no laboured ship or sun-burst broke
⁠The strong monotony of that sky and surge;
Leave, only leave, the line of stormy smoke,
⁠The sea-birds dashed upon the nearer verge, —
Brave in its truth, this ocean-piece shall be
The type for us of Homer's harvestless sea.

II.

Not only this — lesson of more than art!
⁠Who dares, strong in simplicity, despise
⁠The evanescent beauties that arise
Before his gaze, and in true thought apart.
Look on straight forward to life's very heart;
⁠Who dares, by gift supernal rendered wise,
⁠Deem truth more beautiful for all true eyes
Than garish things made merely for the mart:
Whether he paint, or write, or live his thought,
⁠To that which he produces shall be lent
⁠An immortality of ravishment.
One day it shall be own'd divinely wrought;
And all the sternness of its strength shall be
Like the grave beauty of this pictured sea.

William Derry and Raphoe.⁠

⁠Lenton Hall, May 10.

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DARKENED SPRING.

He will not rise, though all the world's awake;
⁠No bird will bring him warning of the spring,
⁠Nor warm winds stir him with their whispering,
Nor any cry his folded silence break,
Though we, who welcomed summer for his sake.
⁠Mar spring's soft rapture with our murmuring.
⁠How can we turn to hear the glad birds sing.
How joy from blossom or from sunlight take.
While he sleeps on unheeding and at rest?
Yet God, who keeps him cradled, knoweth best.
Without his flower-sweet face the spring is vain.
And gives our little one to us again.
Granting a tender vision to our sight,
To wander through the dream-ways of the night.

Caroline North⁠

⁠Sunday Magazine.