things towards some better tend, And long endurance nears at last its end; The ponderous cloud grows thin and pierced with bright, And its wild edge is fused in blinding light. p. 17Yet disappointment still with hope appears, And with desires that strengthen, strengthen fears, ’Tis the swift-sailing ship that dreads the rocks, The active foot must ’ware of stumbling-blocks. Alas! along the way towards social good, How many stones of dire offence lie strew’d. Whence frequent failure, many shrewd mishaps And dismal pause or helpless backward lapse. Such was the hard reverse that Milton mourn’d, An old man, when he saw the King returned With right divine, and that fantastic train Of banished fopperies come back again. Thus France, too wildly clutching happiness. Stumbled perplexed, and paid in long distress, In carnage, where the bloody conduit runs, And one whole generation of her sons Devoted to the Power of Fratricide For one great year, one eager onward stride. From all these stumbling-blocks that strew the way What wisest cautions may ensure us, say. Cling to the present good with steadfast grip, And for no fancied better let it slip, Whether thy fancy in the future live Or yearn to make the buried past revive. The past is dead,—let the dead have his dues, Remembrance of historian and of Muse; But try no lawless magic on the urn, It shocks to see the brightest past return. Some good things linger when their date is fled, These honour as you do the hoary head, And treat them tenderly for what they were, But dream not to detain them always there. The living good the present moments bring To this devote thyself and chiefly cling; p. 18And for the novel schemes that round thee rise, Watch them with hopeful and indulgent eyes, Treat them as children, love them, mark their ways, And blame their faults and dole out cautious praise, And give them space, yet limit them with rule, And hold them down and keep them long at school: Yet know in these is life most fresh and strong, And that to these at last shall all belong. Be proved and present good thy safe-guard still, And thy one quarrel be with present ill. Learn by degrees a steady onward stride With sleepless circumspection for thy guide. And since so thick the stumbling-blocks are placed, You are not safe but in renouncing haste; Permit not so your zeal to be repressed, But make the loss up by renouncing rest.

Think

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p. 18

p. 19WITCHCRAFT.

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