knew we must lose him,—though friendship may claim To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, ’Tis the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,— As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,— As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies! In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue! Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! * * * * * The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o’er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed When the dead summer’s jewels were trampled and crushed: The true Knight of Learning,—the world holds him dear,— Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career! The true Knight of Learning CHAPTER II I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being too precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring friend said the other day to one that was talking good things,—good enough to print? “Why,” said he, “you are wasting mechantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour.” The talker took him to the window and asked him to look out and tell what he saw. “Nothing but a very dusty street,” he said, “and a man driving a sprinkling-machine through it.” “Why don’t you tell the man he is wasting that water? What would be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our thought-sprinklers through them
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