Chapter V: Epigrams

SAYINGS.

1.

In life’s small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know’st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee, “I find thee worthy; do this deed for me”?

2.

A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind Thus spake a dervish: “Friend, the Eternal Judge Dooms not His work, but ours, the crooked mind.”

3.

Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern; Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars.

4.

“Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?” “Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged.”

INSCRIPTIONS.

FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

I call as fly the irrevocable hours,
Futile as air or strong as fate to make
Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers,
Even as men choose, they either give or take.

FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS.

The New World’s sons, from England’s breasts we drew
Such milk as bids remember whence we came;
Proud of her Past wherefrom our Present grew,
This window we inscribe with Raleigh’s name.

PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON.

To those who died for her on land and sea, That she might have a country great and free, Boston builds this: build ye her monument In lives like theirs, at duty’s summons spent.

A MISCONCEPTION.

B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, ’Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling, In office placed to serve the Commonwealth, Does himself all the good he can by stealing.

THE BOSS.

Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature’s hope, Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.

SUN-WORSHIP.

If I were the rose at your window, Happiest rose of its crew, Every blossom I bore would bend inward, _They’d_ know where the sunshine grew.

CHANGED PERSPECTIVE.

Full oft the pathway to her door I’ve measured by the selfsame track, Yet doubt the distance more and more, ’Tis so much longer coming back!

WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER.

We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, And I should hint sharp practice if I dared; For was not she beforehand sure to gain Who made the sunshine we together shared?

SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY.

As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, ’Neath every one a friend.