THINGS GONE BY.

Some years go by so comfortably calm,
So like their fellows, that they all seem one;
Each answering each, as verses in a psalm,
We miss them not—until the psalm is done:

Until, above the mild responsive strain,
An alter’d note, a louder passage rolls,
Whose diapason of delight or pain
Ends once for all the sameness of our souls:

Until some year, with passionate bold hand,
Breaks up at length our languid liberty,
And changes for us, in one brief command,
Both all that was, and all that was to be.

Thenceforth, the New Year never comes unheard;
No noise of mirth, no lulling winter’s snow
Can hush the footsteps which are bringing word
Of things that make us other than we know.

Thenceforth, we differ from our former selves;
We have an insight new, a sharper sense
Of being; how unlike those thoughtless elves
Who wait no end, and watch no providence!

We watch, we wait, with not a star in view:
Content, if haply whilst we dwell alone
The memory of something live and true
Can keep our hearts from freezing into stone.

NO;
OR, THE LITTLE GOOSE-GIRL.A Tale Of The First Of May, 2099.

The little Goose-girl came singing
Along the fields, “Sweet May, oh! the long sweet day.”
That was her song,
Bringing about her, floating about
In and out through the long fair tresses
Of her hair; oh! a thousand thousand idlenesses,
Spreading away on May’s breath everywhere
“Idleness, sweet idleness.”

But this was a time,
Two thousand and ninety-nine,
When, singing of idleness even in Spring,
Or drinking wind-wine,
Or looking up into the blue heaven
Was counted a crime.
A time, harsh, not sublime,
One terrible sort of school-
Hour all the year through,
When everyone had to do something, and do it by rule.
Why, even the babies could calculate
Two and two at the least, mentally, without a slate,
Each calling itself an aggregate
Of molecules—
It was always school—schools,
All over the world as far as the sky could cover
It—dry land and sea.
High Priests said,
“Let matter be Z,
Thoroughly calculated and tried
To work our problems with, before all eyes—
Anything beside that might prove a dangerous guide:
X’s and Y’s,
Unknown quantities,
We hesitate not, at once to designate
Fit only, now and for ever to be laid aside.”
So, you see
Everything was made as plain as could be,
Not the ghost of a doubt even left to roam about free.
Everybody’s concern
Being just to learn, learn, learn,
In one way—but only in one way.