And Longing molds in clay what Life Carves in the marble Real; To let the new life in, we know, Desire must ope the portal; Perhaps the longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. Longing is God's fresh heavenward will With our poor earthward striving; We quench it that we may be still Content with merely living: But, would we learn that heart's full scope Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope And realize our longing. Ah! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons The moments when we tread His ways, But when the spirit beckons,-- That some slight good is also wrought Beyond self-satisfaction, When we are simply good in thought, Howe'er we fail in action. * * * * * THE FINDING OF THE LYRE There lay upon the ocean's shore What once a tortoise served to cover. A year and more, with rush and roar, The surf had rolled it over, Had played with it, and flung it by, As wind and weather might decide it, Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry Cheap burial might provide it. It rested there to bleach or tan, The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it; With many a ban the fisherman Had stumbled o'er and spurned it; And there the fisher-girl would stay, Conjecturing with her brother How in their play the poor estray Might serve some use or other. So there it lay, through wet and dry, As empty as the last new sonnet, Till by and by came Mercury, And, having mused upon it,