But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing,

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never—

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor man nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither-

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower-
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind :
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be ;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves!
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway;

I love the brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born day

Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears—

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Un Wordsworth

1. Appareled, benediction, thither, forebode, relinquished.

2 To what time does the first stanza refer? With nature the same, what "glory" has gone from earth? What is meant by "in our embers"? Why did the poet "raise the song of thanks"? To what does he turn for new strength?

XCII. ROME.

SARAH MARGARET FULLER (1810-1850), known as Marchesa d'Ossoli, was born in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. She read Latin when six years of age, and at fifteen was studying Greek, French, and Italian literature, and Scotch metaphysics, besides keeping a critical journal. After her father's death she taught in Boston and Providence, but soon began her "Conversations," which Emerson records. During a trip to Europe she married Marquis Ossoli, and for a time lived in Italy. She lost her life by shipwreck off Fire Island, near New York. An intellectual, sympathetic, noblehearted woman, she left an impress of power and culture on every page of her works. "Papers on Literature and Art," ""Woman in the Nineteenth Century," and "At Home and Abroad" are her best known books.

The genius of Rome displayed itself in Character, and scarcely needed an occasional wave of the torch of thought to show its lineaments, so marble strong they gleamed in every light. Who, that has lived with those men, but admires the plain force of fact, of thought passed into action? They take up things with their naked hands. There is just the man, and the block he casts before you,no divinity, no demon, no unfulfilled aim, but just the man

and Rome, and what he did for Rome. Everything turns your attention to what a man can become, not by yielding himself freely to impressions, not by letting nature play freely through him, but by a single thought, an earnest purpose, an indomitable will, by hardihood, self-command, and force of expression.

Architecture was the art in which Rome excelled, and this corresponds with the feelings these men of Rome excite. They did not grow, they built themselves up, or were built up by the fate of Rome, as a temple for Jupiter Stator. The ruined Roman sits among the ruins; he flies to no green garden; he does not look to heaven; if his intent is defeated, if he is less than he meant to be, he lives no more.

The names which end in "us" seem to speak with lyric cadence. That measured cadence,-that tramp and march,which are not stilted, because they indicate real force, yet which seem so when compared with any other language,make Latin a study in itself of mighty influence. The language alone, without the literature, would give one the thought of Rome. Man present in nature, commanding nature too sternly to be inspired by it, standing like the rock amid the sea, or moving like the fire over the land, either impassive or irresistible; knowing not the soft mediums or fine flights of life, but, by the force which he expresses, piercing to the center.

We are never better understood than when we speak of a "Roman virtue," "a Roman outline." There is somewhat indefinite, somewhat yet unfulfilled, in the thought of Greece, of Spain, of modern Italy; but ROME! it stands by itself, a clear Word. The power of Will, the dignity of a fixed purpose, is what it utters. Every Roman was an Emperor.

Nursed by this Roman wolf, man gains a different complexion from that which is fed by the Greek honey. He takes a noble bronze in camps and battlefields; the wrinkles of councils well beseem his brow, and the eye cuts its way like the sword. The Eagle should never have been used as a symbol by any other nation; it belonged to Rome.

The history of Rome abides in mind, of course, more than the literature. It was degeneracy for a Roman to use the pen; his life was in the day. The "vaunting" of Rome, like that of the North American Indians, is her proper literature. A man rises; he tells who he is, and what he has done; he speaks of his country and her brave men; he knows that a conquering god is there, whose agent is his own right hand; and he should end like the Indian, "I have no. more to say."

It never shocks us that the Roman is self-conscious. One wants no universal truths from him, no philosophy, no creation, but only his life, his Roman life, felt in every pulse, realized in every gesture. The universal heaven takes in the Roman only to make us feel his individuality the more. The Will, the Resolve of man!—it has been expressed!

I steadily loved this ideal in my childhood, and this is the cause, probably, why I have always felt that man must know how to stand firm on the ground, before he can fly. In vain for me are men more, if they are less, than Romans.

MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI).

1. Lineaments, indomitable, lyric, cadence, piercing, symbol. 2. Of what period in history does this treat? Are the people of Rome called "Romans" now? Do they speak Latin? Who was "Jupiter Stator"? What is the allusion in "Nursed by this Roman wolf"? The Romans did have a remarkable literature. Vergil, Horace, Cicero, Cæsar, and many others give evidence of Rome's literary greatness.