To sail through sunny ripples to the end,
Chatting of shipwrecks as pathetic tales;
All are not born to nurse the dainty pangs
That herald love’s completion, and behold
Their darlings flourish in the tempered air
Of comfort till themselves become the springs
Of a yet milder race:  all are not born
To touch majestic eminence and shine
Directing spirits in their nations’ sight
And radiate unformed posterity: 
But through transcendent mercy all are born
To enter on a nobler heritage
Than these, if each but wills to choose aright
In serving Duty, man’s prerogative: 
Which is far pleasanter than paths of flowers,
Than warmest clustering of household joys,
And prouder than the proudest shouts of fame
That follow action not in conscience wrought.

Fair Duty, most unlike the blight of death,
Whose dismal presence levels men to ruin,
Lifts up his nature into rarer life. 
Hers is a broad estate open to poor
And rich alike:  here rudest peasant may
Move as their equal with baronial lords,
And those who serve be great as those who rule: 
Here a smirched artisan who merely bolts
The plates of iron fortress, breathes the pride
Of that trained chieftain who commands its guns;
And one that points or fires a single piece
Claims honour with the mind who planned the war.

Fair Duty, hard and perilous to serve,
Exacts devotion that is absolute,
Ere she reveal the heaven of her smile;
And gnaws with misery the traitor slave
Who having known her countenance and moved
At her behest relapses into sloth,
Or drudges serf to his own base desires:—­
Sworn knight, and armed with mail and sword of proof,
But coaxing brutish ignorance with praise,
And with the wasted hearts of honest men
Gorging the monster he went forth to slay. 
But whoso faithfully reveres her law
As primal, and of every want supreme,
Making edged danger discipline his strength,
That changes hindrance into past delight,
Fair Duty dowers with her celestial love,
From which the mystic blessing glory grows: 
And glory born of Duty is a crown
Of light.

And all thus crowned illume their work
In splendour that no earthly eye may pierce,
And know that every seed they set, and stone
They fix, and truth they reach, unite to found
A well-planned city in a governed land
That rising babes high a Temple built
Firm in its centre to the praise of God. 
And each beholds his labours glorified,
Alike the toiler at the desk, a king
Upon his throne, or builder of the bridge: 
The desk in lustre shines a kingly throne,
The throne diffuses radiance like a sun,
The bridge spans death—­a pathway to the stars.

March, 1865.

NELLY DALE.

Ah, Nelly Dale, nigh fifty years
Since you and I set out together,
Joyful both, as the summer weather,
That swarmed our pathway to the meres
So rich with blossom, and opulent
Successive honeysuckle scent,
It smiled a golden garden, gay
With flutter of insects all the way!