THE PARTING-POINT.

"Do you say, Venture not ? If you leave me, you are lost?' '0 public road ! ' I say back, 'I am not afraid to leave you—yet love you.' "—Warm. WHITMAN.

Thus far, then, side by side,

The self-same path we've plied—

Our hope, our prospect and horizon one— Now this new path I choose ; Yet blame not, nor accuse, But, parting, bid me in God's name go on.

For still by day or night, Through travail and delight, With men, or talking with the earth and sea, I find no written rule, No form of creed or school, But something that beats here is more to me.

'Tis bitter thus to part ; But Falsehood to the heart Shoots bitterer arrows barbed with self-disdain ; The beaten ways are sweet,

Worn with a thousand feet—

Not with old foot-prints must my path be plain

Think not the eternal Good Is measured by Man's rood,

His thoughts scanned, as the stars are, one by one—

No prophet, saint, or sage

Shall sum up Truth, or gauge

God's purpose ripening as the ages run.

In crocus and in rose, Though the same sunshine glows, One flower waves crimson, and one trembles gold- Dost thou alone claim sight?

Is love less free than light, Love's rays in human hearts less manifold ?

Nay, yet, thro' scorn and hate, We hail but one thing great, One power the universal heart approves. With Love's free sandals shod, Man's feet may find out God, Far from the world's great ways and echoing grooves.