1344 FRAILTY. Grades of

FRAIL creatures are we all! To be the best,
Is but the fewest faults to have:
Look thou then to thyself, and leave the rest
To God, thy conscience, and the grave.
Coleridge.

1345. FRAILTY. Human

WEAK and irresolute is man ;

The purpose of to-day,

Woven with pains into his plan,

To-morrow rends away.

The bow well bent, and smart the spring,

Vice seems already slain;

But passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.

Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part;

Virtue engages his assent,

But pleasure wins his heart.

'Tis here the folly of the wise

Through all his art we view;

And while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.

Bound on a voyage of awful length
And dangers little known,

A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.-Cowper.

1346. FRATERNITY. Triumph of

'Tis coming up the steep of time,

And this old world is growing brighter; We may not see its dawn sublime,

Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter. We may be sleeping in the ground

When it awakes the world in wonder;
But we have felt it gathering round,
And heard its voice in living thunder-
'Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

'Tis coming now, the glorious time

Foretold by seers and sung in story: For which, when thinking was a crime,

Souls leapt to heaven from scaffolds gory! They pass'd, nor see the work they wrought; Now the crown'd hopes of centuries blossom! But the live lightning of their thought

And daring deeds doth pulse earth's bosom— 'Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Creeds, empires, systems rot with age,
But the great people's ever youthful!
And it shall write the future's page

To our humanity more truthful!
The gnarliest heart hath tender chords,
To waken at the name of 'brother;'
And time comes when brain-scorpion words
We shall not speak to sting each other-
'Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Fraternity! Love's other name!
Dear, heaven-connecting link of being!
Then shall we grasp thy golden dream,

As souls, full-statured, grow far-seeing;
Then shall unfold our better part,

And in our life-cup yield more honey;
Light up with joy the poor man's heart
And Love's own world with smiles more sunny-
'Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming.

Ay, it must come! The tyrant's throne
Is crumbling, with our hot tears rusted:
The sword earth's mighty ones have leant on
Is canker'd, with our heart's blood crusted.
Room! for the men of mind make way!
Ye robber rulers, pause no longer,

Ye cannot stay the opening day!

The world rolls on, the light grows stronger

The people's advent's coming!

1347. FREEDOM. Christian

Gerald Massey.

HE is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes confederate for his harm
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valley his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, 'My Father made them all!'
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eyes they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That plann'd and built, and still upholds, a world
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man?
Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good

In senseless riot; but ye will not find
In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeach'd
Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his Father's work,
And has a richer use of yours than you.
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth
Of no mean city, plann'd or e'er the hills
Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea
With all his roaring multitude of waves.
His freedom is the same in every state;
And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose every day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less.
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury can cripple or confine;

No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds
His body bound; but knows not what a range
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain;
And that to bind him is a vain attempt,
Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells.

Cowper.

1351. FREEDOM: from the passions.

WHERE honour or where conscience does not bind, No other tie shall shackle me;

Slave to myself I will not be ;

Nor shall my future actions be confined
By my own present mind.-Cowley.

Restraining others, yet himself not free;
Made impotent by power, debased by dignity.
Dryden.

1352. FREEDOM. Hope of

SLAVES who once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for ;-spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts,
The surest presage of the good they seek.

Wordsworth.

1353. FREEDOM: how it is to be won. HEREDITARY bondsmen! know ye not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow? Byron.

WHAT art thou, Freedom? Oh! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand, tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery!
Thou art Justice-ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold,
As laws are in England: thou
Shieldest alike high and low.
Thou art Peace-never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be,
As tyrants wasted them when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul!
Thou art Love: the rich have kist
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Given their substance to be free,
And through the world have follow'd thee.

1360. FREEDOM. Progress of

Shelley.

I WATCH the circle of the eternal years,
And read for ever in the storied page
One lengthen'd roll of blood, and wrong, and tears—
One onward step of truth from age to age.

The poor are crush'd, the tyrants link their chain;
The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates;
Man's hope lies quench'd ;-and, lo! with steadfast
gain

Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread,
Through dark ways underground be led;

Yet, if we will one Guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way,
Shall issue out in heavenly day;

And we, on divers shores now cast,
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father's house at last.

And ere thou leave him, say thou this,
Yet one word more they only miss,
The winning of that final bliss,

Who will not count it true, that Love,
Blessing, not cursing, rules above,
And that in it we live and move.

And one thing further make him know,
That to believe these things are so,
This firm faith never to forego,

Despite of all which seems at strife
With blessing, all with curses rife,
That this is blessing, this is life.-Trench.

1364 FREE-WILL. Discussions concerning OTHERS apart sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute; And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.

Milton.

1365. FREE-WILL: distinguishes man from the lower animals.

TH' Eternal when He did the world create

All other agents did necessitate;

So what He order'd they by nature do';

Thus light things mount, and heavy downward go:

Man only boasts an arbitrary state.-Dryden.

1366. FREE-WILL: essential to virtue.
OUR voluntary service He requires,
Not our necessitated; such with Him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose?-Milton.

Man shall be bless'd, as far as man permits.
Not man alone-all rationals, Heaven arms
With an illustrious, but tremendous power
To counteract its own most gracious ends;
And this, of strict necessity, not choice.
That power denied, men, angels, were no more
But passive engines, void of praise or blame.
A nature rational implies the power
Of being bless'd or wretched, as we please-
Else idle reason would have nought to do;
And he that would be barr'd capacity
Of pain, courts incapacity of bliss.
Heaven wills our happiness-allows our doom;
Invites us ardently, but not compels ;
Heaven but persuades-almighty man decrees.
Man is the maker of immortal fates. -Young.

Where had been
The test of Faith if the expanded arm
Of Heaven, in glory and in power display'd,
Had curb'd the freedom of the human will,
Nor left the scope of choice !-Hayes.

1367. FREE-WILL. Foreknowledge and

MAN (ingenious to contrive his woe, And rob himself of all that makes this vale

Of tears bloom comfort) cries, If God foresees
Our future actings, then the objects known
Must be determined, or the knowledge fail ;
Thus liberty's destroy'd, and all we do
Or suffer, by a fatal thread is spun.

Say, fool, with too much subtilty misled,
Who reasonest but to err, does Prescience change
The property of things? Is aught thou seest
Caused by thy vision, not thy vision caused
By forms that previously exist? To God
This mode of seeing future deeds extends,
And freedom with foreknowledge may exist.

Bally.

1368. FREE-WILL: implies the power to err.
FAULTLESS thou dropt from His unerring skill,
With the base power to sin, since free of will;
Yet charge not with thy guilt His bounteous love;
For who has power to walk, has power to rove.

Arbuthnot.

1369. FREE-WILL: in what it consists.

FOR what is freedom, but the unfetter'd use
Of all the powers which God for use had given?
But chiefly this, Him first, Him last to view
Through meaner powers and secondary things
Effulgent, as through clouds that veil His blaze.
Coleridge.

1370. FREE-WILL. Inference of

WE drive the furrow with the share of faith
Through the waste fields of life, and our own hands
Sow thick the seeds that spring to weeds or flowers;
And never strong necessity nor fate
Trammels the soul that firmly says I will!
Else are we playthings, and 'tis Satan's mock
To preach to us repentance and belief.-Alice Carey.

1371. FREE-WILL. Issues of

So from the heights of will Life's parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill,

Each widening torrent bends.

From the same cradle's side,

From the same mother's knee,

One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the peaceful sea!-Holmes.

1372. FREE-WILL: leaves man without excuse for his sins.

MAN seduced,
And flatter'd out of all, believing lies
Against his Maker: no decree of mine
Concurring to necessitate his fall.-Milton.

Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free,
Charge all their woes on absolute decree ;
All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,
And follies are miscall'd the crimes of fate.-Pope.

Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong,
Take it, and perish, but restrain your tongue;
Charge not, with light sufficient, and left free,
Your wilful suicide on God's decree.-Cowper.

1373- FREE-WILL: lost.

By original lapse, true liberty

Is lost, which always with right reason dwells, Twined, and from her hath no dividual being.

Milton. 1374. FREE-WILL: the basis of responsibility. GOD made thee perfect, not immutable, And good He made thee, but to persevere He left it in thy power; ordain'd thy will By nature free, not overruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity.-Milton.

Heaven made us agents, free to good or ill; And forced it not, though He foresaw the will: Freedom was first bestow'd on human race, And prescience only held the second place.

Dryden.

Placed for his trial on this bustling stage,
From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,
Free in his will to choose or to refuse,
Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;
Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,
Say to what bar amenable were man?

With nought in charge he could betray no trust;
And if he fell, would fall because he must;
If Love reward him, or if Vengeance strike,
His recompense in both unjust alike.—Cowper.

Each had his conscience, each his reason, will,
And understanding for himself to search,
To choose, reject, believe, consider, act;

The southern sash admits too strong a light,
You rise and drop the curtain-now 'tis night.
He shakes with cold-you stir the fire and strive
To make a blaze-that's roasting him alive.
Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish;
What, sole ?-that's just the sort he would not wish.
He takes what he at first profess'd to loathe,
And in due time feeds heartily on both;
Yet still, o'erclouded with a constant frown,
He does not swallow, but he gulps it down.
Your hope to please him vain on every plan,
Himself should work that wonder if he can-
Alas! his efforts double his distress,

He likes yours little, and his own still less.
Thus always teasing others, always teased,
His only pleasure is to be displeased.-Cowper.

1376. FRIEND. Confidence in a

RESERVE will wound it; and distrust destroy.
Deliberate on all things with thy friend.
But since friends grow not thick on every bough,
Nor every friend unrotten at the core,
First, on thy friend, deliberate with thyself:
Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing, fix:
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.
Well, for thy friend; but nobler far for thee:
How gallant danger for earth's highest prize!
A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
'Poor is the friendless master of a world :
A world in purchase for a friend is gain.'- Young.

1377. FRIEND. A Constant

WHEN adversities flow,
Then love ebbs: but friendship standeth stiffly
In storms. Time draweth wrinkles in a fair
Face, but addeth fresh colours to a fast
Friend, which neither heat, nor cold, nor misery,
Nor place, nor destiny, can alter or

Diminish. O friendship! of all things the
Most rare, and therefore most rare because most
Excellent; whose comforts in misery
Are always sweet, and whose counsels in
Prosperity are ever fortunate.

Vain love! that only coming near to friendship
In name, would seem to be the same, or better,
In nature.-Lilly.

1378. FRIEND. A Departed

ANOTHER hand is beckoning us,
Another call is given;

And glows once more with angel-steps
The path which reaches heaven.