167 



The agitation of the surface talvcs 



The forra of circular, concentric waives, 



Say, rhythmic lorinkies, rippling on and on. 



Till, by and by, the expansive force is gone. 



Fainter and fainter grow the rings, and then 



The last gives up the ghost — and stillness reigns again. 



So was it, when, one day, 5'our summons fell 



Ou the still bosom of my mental well, 



To percli in your commodious travelling cage, 



The song-bird of a mountain pilgrimage ; 



The watery rhymes forthwith began to run — 



But courage! — AVhat in time has once begun 



(To us may Heaven a good deliverance send!), 



In time (so science shows) will surely have an end.— 



Tlie rifle ball revolves awhile, they say. 

 Ere from the gun it speeds its fatal way. 

 And I remember well — one frosty morning — 

 The tinkling engine bell had given its warning; — 

 The locomotive wheels slid round and round 

 Some moments, yet had gained no inch of ground. 



Does not the sun himself take time to rise. 

 While a precursive glow lights up the skies? 

 And Ocean's gradual deepening floods begin 

 With shoals in which a child may wade and swim. 

 This means that Nature maJces no sudden leaps. 

 And Art, in this, faithful to Nature keeps. 



The wary general, when he sits him down, 

 Prepared with patience to besiege a town, 

 With slow approach his parallels draws in. 

 Till Prudence says : now let the assault begin! 



Shakspere exclaims, Shall then this wooden O 



(Meaning the play-house called the Globe, you know) 



Contain within its small circumference 



The crowded camps of England and of France, 



And fields with terrible helmets bristling o'er 



That did affright the air at Agincourt? 



But did he not a greater wonder know — 



The mighty mystery of that bony — 



That more contracted space that can contain 



Within the walls that fence the human brain 



The very globe of earth itself and all 



That doth inhabit this terraqueous ball? 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN. IX 12 



