often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly: so is a man's reason and his life. He first begins to perceive himself to see or taste, making little reflections upon his actions of sense, and can discourse of flies and dogs, shells and play, horses and liberty: but when he is strong enough to enter into arts and little institutions, he is at first entertained with trifles and impertinent things, not because he needs them, but because his understanding is no bigger, and little images of things are laid before him, like a cock-boat to a whale, only to play withal: but before a man comes to be wise, he is half dead with gouts and consumptions, with catarrhs and aches, with sore eyes and a worn-out body. So that if we must not reckon the life of a man but by the accounts of his reason, he is long before his soul be dressed; and he is not to be called a man without a wise and an adorned soul, a soul at least furnished with what is necessary towards his well-being: but by that time his soul is thus furnished, his body is decayed; and then you can hardly reckon him to be alive, when his body is possesssed by so many degrees of death.

For old age seizes upon most men while they still retain the minds of boys and vicious youth, doing actions from principles of great folly, and a mighty ignorance, admiring things useless and hurtful, and filling up all the dimensions of their abode with businesses of empty affairs, being at leisure to attend no virtue: they can not pray, because they are busy, and because they are passionate: they can not communicate, because they have quarrels and intrigues of perplexed causes, complicated hostilities, and things of the world; and therefore they can not attend to the things of God; little considering, that they must find a time to die in; when death comes, they must be at leisure for that. Such men are like sailors loosing from a port, and tossed immediately with a perpetual tempest,

lasting till their cordage crack, and either they sink or return back again to the same place: they did not make a voyage, though they were long at sea. The business and impertinent affairs of most men steal all their time, and they are restless in a foolish motion: but this is not the progress of a man; he is no farther advanced in the course of a life, though he reckon many years; for still his Soul is childish and trifling like an untaught boy. . . .

But if I shall describe a living man, a man that hath that life that distinguishes him from a fool or a bird, that which gives him a capacity next to Angels, we shall find that even a good man lives not long, because it is long before he is born to this life, and longer yet before he hath a man's growth. "He that can look upon death and see its face with the same countenance, with which he hears its story; that can endure all the labors of his life with his Soul supporting his body; that can equally despise riches when he hath them and when he hath them not; that is no sadder if they lie in his neighbors' trunks, nor more brag if they shine round about his own walls: he that is neither moved with good fortune coming to him, nor going from him; that can look upon another man's lands evenly and pleasedly as if they were his own, and yet look upon his own, and use them too, just as if they were another man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and like a fool, nor yet keeps them avariciously and like a wretch; that weighs not benefits by weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him that gives them: that never thinks his Charity expensive, if a worthy person be the receiver; he that does nothing for opinion's sake, but everything for conscience, being as curious of his thoughts as of his actings in markets and theatres, and is as much in awe of himself as of a whole assembly: he that knows God looks on, and contrives his secret affairs as in the

presence of God and His holy angels; that eats and drinks because he needs it, not that he may serve a lust or load his belly he that is bountiful and cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to forgive his enemies; that loves his country, and obeys his prince, and desires and endeavors nothing more than that he may do honor to God:" this person may reckon his life to be the life of a man, and compute his months, not by the course of the sun, but the zodiac and circle of his virtues; because these are such things which fools and children and birds and beasts can not have; these are therefore the actions of life because they are the seeds of immortality. That day in which we have done some excellent thing, we may as truly reckon to be added to our life as were the fifteen years to the days of Hezekiah.

THE LAND O' THE LEAL.

Caroline Oliphant, Lady Nairne.

I'm wearin' awa', John,

Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,

I'm wearin' awa'

To the land o' the leal.1

There's nae sorrow there, John,
There's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair

In the land o' the leal.

Our bonny bairn's there, John,

She was baith gude and fair, John,

And oh! we grudged her sair

To the land o' the leal.

1 leal, loyal, true; the land o' the leal, the place of the faithful.

But sorrow's sel' wears past, John,
And joy's a-comin' fast, John,
The joy that's aye to last

In the land o' the leal.

Sae dear that joy was bought, John,
Sae free the battle fought, John,
That sinfu' man e'er brought
To the land o' the leal.

Oh! dry your glist'ning e'e, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me

To the land o' the leal.

Oh! haud ye leal and true, John,

Your day it's wearin' through, John, And I'll welcome you

To the land o' the leal.

Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
This warld's cares are vain, John,

We'll meet, and we'll be fain,2

In the land o' the leal.

TO THE MUSES.

William Blake.

WHETHER On Ida's shady brow
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the Sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceased;
2 fain, joyful.

Whether in heaven ye wander fair

Or the green corners of the earth, Or the blue regions of the air,

Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,

Beneath the bosom of the sea Wandering in many a coral grove, Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move,
The sound is forced, the notes are few!

KUBLA KHAN.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.