JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

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THE LIVING TEMPLE.

  Nor in the world of light alone,
  Where God has built his blazing throne,
  Nor yet alone in earth below,
  With belted seas that come and go,
  And endless isles of sunlit green,
  Is all thy Maker’s glory seen: 
  Look in upon thy wondrous frame,—­
  Eternal wisdom still the same!

  The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
  Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
  Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
  Fired with a new and livelier blush,
  While all their burden of decay
  The ebbing current steals away,
  And red with Nature’s flame they start
  From the warm fountains of the heart.

  No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
  Forever quivering o’er his task,
  While far and wide a crimson jet
  Leaps forth to fill the woven net
  Which in unnumbered crossing tides
  The flood of burning life divides,
  Then, kindling each decaying part,
  Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

  But warmed with that unchanging flame
  Behold the outward moving frame,
  Its living marbles jointed strong
  With glistening band and silvery thong,
  And linked to reason’s guiding reins
  By myriad rings in trembling chains,
  Each graven with the threaded zone
  Which claims it as the Master’s own.

  See how yon beam of seeming white
  Is braided out of seven-hued light,
  Yet in those lucid globes no ray
  By any chance shall break astray. 
  Hark, how the rolling surge of sound,
  Arches and spirals circling round,
  Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
  With music it is heaven to hear.

  Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
  All thought in its mysterious folds,
  That feels sensation’s faintest thrill,
  And flashes forth the sovereign will;
  Think on the stormy world that dwells
  Locked in its dim and clustering cells! 
  The lightning gleams of power it sheds
  Along its hollow glassy threads!

  O Father! grant thy love divine
  To make these mystic temples thine! 
  When wasting age and wearying strife
  Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
  When darkness gathers over all,
  And the last tottering pillars-fall,
  Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
  And mould it into heavenly forms!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

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OF HYM THAT TOGYDER WYLL SERVE TWO MAYSTERS.

  A Fole he is and voyde of reason
  Whiche with one hounde tendyth to take
  Two harys in one instant and season;
  Rightso is he that wolde undertake
  Hym to two lordes a servaunt to make;
  For whether that he be lefe or lothe,
  The one he shall displease, or els bothe.