Nor in your heart--if love be there. Farewell.



III.--MANHOOD.


So to their oars my boatmen, cheerily,
Bent once again, and then, with steady stroke,
They drew upon the waters till the shore
Grew lower in the distance, and no more
Thro' the gray mist the mentor I could see,
But oft I thought upon the words he spoke.

And oft, O wise Experience, have I found
The lesson true you taught to me that day.
_No progress but by toil, and there must be
In heart and mind a vital unity._
Our days are else in vain, and ne'er will bound
The "Barge of Time" upon the heavenly way.

But soon the ripple of an adverse tide,--
Whose darkling bitter waters seemed to stay
The prow,--twined like a sea-weed growth the oars;
A tide that hies forever from the shores
I sought, and with its soft caresses, wide
And far, bears hapless wanderers away.

Yet gallant are the boats that drift along;
Proud are the hearts that float where flows the tide.