Nor is a day lived if the dawn is left out of it, with the prospects it opens. Who speaks charmingly of nature or of mankind, like him who comes bibulous of sunrise and the fountains of waters?
"Mornings are mysteries, the first world's youth, Man's resurrection, and the future's bud Shown in their birth; they make us happy, Make us rich."
Rise in the morning, rise While yet the streaming tide Flames o'er the blue acclivities, And pours its splendors wide; Kindling its high intent Along the firmament, Silence and sleep to break, Imaginations wake, Ideas insphere And bring them here. Loiter nor play In soft delay; Speed glad thy course along The orbs and globes among, And as yon toiling sun Attain thy high meridian: Radiant and round thy day;— Speed, speed thee on thy way.
"Every day is a festival, and that which makes it the more splendid is gladness. For as the world is a spacious and beautiful temple, so is life the most perfect institution that introduces us into it. And it is but just that it should be full of cheerfulness and tranquillity." Our dispositions are the atmosphere we breathe, and we carry our climate and world in ourselves. Good humor, gay spirits are the liberators, the sure cure for spleen and melancholy. Deeper than tears, these irradiate the tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting imps into angels by the alchymy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight of these redeemers. And he who smiles never is beyond redemption. Once clothed in a suit of light we may cast aside forever our sables. Our best economist of this flowing estate is good temper, without whose presidency life is a perplexity and disaster. Luck is bad luck and ourselves a disappointment and vexation. Victims of our humors, we victimize everybody. How the swift repulsions play: our atoms all insular, insulating; demonized, demonizing, from heel to crown; at the mercy of a glance, a gesture, a word, and ourselves overthrown. Equanimity is the gem in Virtue's chaplet and St. Sweetness the loveliest in her calendar. "On beholding thyself, fear," says the oracle. Only the saints are sane and wholesome.
"That which makes us have no need Of physic, that's physic indeed. Hark, hither, reader, wilt thou see Nature her own physician be? Wilt see a man all his own wealth, His own music, his own health,— A man whose sober soul can tell How to wear her garments well: Her garments that upon her sit, As garments should do, close and fit; A well-clothed soul that's not oppressed, Nor choked with what she should be dressed; A soul sheathed in a crystal shrine, Through which all her bright features shine, As when a piece of wanton lawn, A thin, aerial veil is drawn O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide, More sweetly shows the blushing bride: A soul, whose intellectual beams No mists do mask, no lazy streams: A happy soul that all the way To heaven rides in a summer's day? Wouldst see a man whose well-warmed blood Bathes him in a genuine flood,— A man whose tuned humors be A seat of rarest harmony? Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile Age; wouldst see December smile? Wouldst see nests of new roses grow In a bed of reverend snow? Warm thought, free spirits flattering Winter's self into a spring? In sum, wouldst see a man that can Live to be old, and still a man Whose latest and most leaden hours Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers; And when life's sweet fable ends, Soul and body part like friends; No quarrels, murmurs, no delay, A kiss, a sigh,—and so away,— This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see? Hark within, and thyself be he."
