been tested by the fires of trial in the crucible of defeat.  The same is true of a nation.  The test of defeat is the test of its national worth.  Defeat shows whether it deserves success.  We may well be grateful and glad for our defeat of the 21st of July, if we wrest from it the secrets of our weakness, and are thrown back by it to the true sources of strength.  If it has done its work thoroughly, if we profit sufficiently by the advantages it has afforded us, we may be well content that so slight a harm has brought us so great a good.  But if not, then let us be ready for another and another defeat, till our souls shall be tempered and our forces disciplined for the worthy attainment of victory.  For victory we shall in good time have.  There is no need to fear or be doubtful of the issue.  As soon as we deserve it, victory will be ours; and were we to win it before, it would be but an empty and barren triumph.  All history is but the prophecy of our final success,—­and Milton has put the prophecy into words:  “Go on, O Nation, never to be disunited!  Be the praise and the heroic song of all posterity!  Merit this, but seek only virtue, not to extend your limits, (for what needs to win a fading triumphant laurel out of the tears of wretched men?) but to settle the pure worship of God in his church, and justice in the state.  Then shall the hardest difficulties smooth out themselves before thee; envy shall sink to hell, craft and malice be confounded, whether it be home-bred mischief or outlandish cunning; yea, other nations will then covet to serve thee, for lordship and victory are but the pages of justice and virtue.  Use thine invincible might to do worthy and godlike deeds, and then he that seeks to break your union a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations!”

* * * * *

ODE TO HAPPINESS.

  I.

  Spirit, that rarely comest now,
  And only to contrast my gloom,
  Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom
  A moment on some autumn bough
  Which, with the spurn of their farewell,
  Sheds its last leaves,—­thou once didst dwell
  With me year-long, and make intense
  To boyhood’s wisely-vacant days
  That fleet, but all-sufficing grace
  Of trustful inexperience,
  While yet the soul transfigured sense,
  And thrilled, as with love’s first caress,
  At life’s mere unexpectedness.

  II.

  Those were thy days, blithe spirit, those
  When a June sunshine could fill up
  The chalice of a buttercup
  With such Falernian juice as flows
  No longer,—­for the vine is dead
  Whence that inspiring drop was shed: 
  Days when my blood would leap and run,
  As full of morning as a breeze,
  Or spray tossed up by summer seas
  That doubts if it be sea or sun;
  Days that flew swiftly, like the band
  That in the Grecian games had strife
  And passed from eager hand to hand
  The onward-dancing torch of life.