Grown wiser for the lesson given,
I fear no longer, for I know
That where the share is deepest driven
The best fruits grow.
The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone,--
These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.
O backward-looking son of time!
The new is old, the old is new,
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.
So wisely taught the Indian seer;
Destroying Seva, forming Brahm,
Who wake by turn Earth's love and fear,
Are one, the same.
Idly as thou, in that old day
Thou mournest, did thy sire repine;
So, in his time, thy child grown gray
Shall sigh for thine.
But life shall on and upward go;
The eternal step of Progress beats
To that great anthem, calm and slow,
Which God repeats.
Take heart!--the Waster builds again,--
A charmed life old Goodness hath;
The tares may perish,--but the grain
Is not for death.
God works in all things; all obey
His first propulsion from the night:
Wake thou and watch!--the world is gray
With morning light!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
* * * * *
FREEDOM OF THE MIND.
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