At Corfu, the narrative of Thucydides brought to his mind the thought which he worked out in the sermon on "The Individuality of the Soul," published six years later; and in which he says: "All who have ever gained a name in the world, all the mighty men of war that ever were, all the great statesmen, all the crafty counsellors, all the scheming aspirants, all the reckless adventurers, all the covetous traders, all the proud voluptuaries, are still in being, though helpless and unprofitable. Balaam, Saul, Joab, Ahitophel, good and bad, wise and ignorant, rich and poor, each has his separate place, each dwells by himself in that sphere of light or darkness which he has provided for himself here. What a view this sheds upon history! We are accustomed to read it as a tale or a fiction, and we forget that it concerns immortal beings who cannot be swept away, who are what they were, however this earth may change." The germ of that sermon is contained in the lines headed "Corcyra," January 7th, 1833.
The Lyra contains some beautiful and well-known lines:
"Did we but see,
When life first open'd, how our journey lay
Between its earliest and its closing day.
Or view ourselves as we one day shall be,
Who strive for the high prize, such sight would break
The youthful spirit, though bold for Jesus' sake.
"But thou, dear Lord!
While I traced out bright scenes which were to come,
Isaac's pure blessings, and a verdant home,
Didst spare me, and withhold thy fearful word;
Willing me year by year, till I am found
A pilgrim pale, with Paul's sad girdle bound."
They are headed, "Our Future. What I do, thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." It gives them a new interest to find that they were composed at Tre Fontane, the spot of the martyrdom of St. Paul.
The verses called "Day Laborers," composed while waiting at Palermo for a passage home, (as is described in the Apologia,) show the author's deep sense of having a work to do. They are headed, "And He said. It is finished:"
"One only, of God's messengers to man,
Finished the work of grace which he began;
......
List, Christian warrior! thou whose soul is fain
To rid thy mother of her present chain;—
Christ will avenge his bride; yea, even now
Begins the work, and thou
Shalt spend in it thy strength; but, ere he save,
Thy lot shall be the grave."
We have insisted on the peculiar value of the poems written during this short tour, (the only one of the kind in which the illustrious author has ever indulged himself,) because it adds a new and special interest to compositions which, even when published without any such interest, attained a wide and deserved celebrity. He seems at the time to have felt that that tour was to be the only distraction of the kind in a life of toil; and that he was enriching himself with images of beauty (worthy, as he says, in itself rather of angelic than mortal eyes) which were to last him for many a long year:
"Store them in heart! Thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears.
As the third heaven once nerved a saint
For fourteen trial years."
That the remembrance has been fresh and keen, we see in the lines on "Heathen Greece" written in 1856, and first published in that exquisite volume Calista: