Keeps him yearning, ever burning for a tantalising goal—­
  Lures and lacerates his soul. 
  Sets a challenge for his spirit,
  Draws it higher when he’s near it—­
  Makes a jungle, that he clear it;
  Makes a desert, that he fear it
  And subdue it if he can—­
  So doth Nature make a man. 
  Then, to test his spirit’s wrath
  Hurls a mountain in his path—­
  Puts a bitter choice before him
  And relentless stands o’er him. 
  “Climb, or perish!” so she says.... 
  Watch her purpose, watch her ways!

  Nature’s plan is wondrous kind
  Could we understand her mind ... 
  Fools are they who call her blind. 
  When his feet are torn and bleeding
  Yet his spirit mounts unheeding,
  All his higher powers speeding
  Blazing newer paths and fine;
  When the force that is divine
  Leaps to challenge every failure and his ardor still is sweet
  And love and hope are burning in the presence of defeat.... 
  Lo, the crisis!  Lo, the shout
  That must call the leader out. 
  When the people need salvation
    Doth he come to lead the nation.... 
  Then doth Nature show her plan
  When the world has found—­a man!

Angela Morgan.

From “Forward, March!”

ORDER AND THE BEES

(FROM “HENRY V.”)

We often wish that we might do some other man’s work, occupy his social or political station.  But such an interchange is not easy.  The world is complex, and its adjustments have come from long years of experience.  Each man does well to perform the tasks for which nature and training have fitted him.  And instead of feeling envy toward other people, we should rejoice that all labor, however diverse, is to one great end—­it makes life richer and fuller.

  Therefore doth heaven divide
  The state of man in divers functions,
  Setting endeavor in continual motion;
  To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
  Obedience:  for so work the honey-bees,
  Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
  The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 
  They have a king and officers of sorts;
  Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
  Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
  Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
  Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds;
  Which pillage they with merry march bring home
  To the tent-royal of their emperor: 
  Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
  The singing masons building roofs of gold,
  The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
  The poor mechanic porters crowding in
  Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
  The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
  Delivering o’er to executors pale
  The lazy yawning drone.  I this infer,
  That many things, having full reference
  To one consent, may work contrariously.