Page:The Century Of Life.pdf/28

 THE BEAUTY OF GIVING

Be not a miser of thy strength and store;

Oft in a wounded grace more beauty is. The jewel which the careful gravers score;

The sweet fair girl-wife broken with bridal bliss, The rut-worn tusker, the autumnal stream

With its long beaches dry and slender flood; The hero wreathed with victory’s diadem,

Adorned with wounds and glorious with his blood; The moon’s last disc; rich men of their bright dross, By gifts disburdened, fairer shine by loss.

CIRCUMSTANCE

There is no absoluteness in objects. See This indigent man aspire as to a prize To handfuls of mere barley-bread! yet he A few days past, fed full with luxuries, Held for a trifle earth and all her skies. Not in themselves are objects great or small, But circumstance works on the elastic mind, To widen or contract. The view is all, And by our inner state the world’s defined.