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“Wisely and well, my son, thy words have proved A senior honour’d, and a friend beloved! Too true it is, deserted of my strength, These wither’d arms and limbs have fail’d at length. Oh! had I now that force I felt of yore, Known through Buprasium and the Pylian shore! Victorious then in every solemn game, Ordain’d to Amarynces’ mighty name; The brave Epeians gave my glory way, Ætolians, Pylians, all resign’d the day. I quell’d Clytomedes in fights of hand, And backward hurl’d Ancæus on the sand, Surpass’d Iphyclus in the swift career, Phyleus and Polydorus with the spear. The sons of Actor won the prize of horse, But won by numbers, not by art or force: For the famed twins, impatient to survey Prize after prize by Nestor borne away, Sprung to their car; and with united pains One lash’d the coursers, while one ruled the reins. Such once I was! Now to these tasks succeeds A younger race, that emulate our deeds: I yield, alas! (to age who must not yield?) Though once the foremost hero of the field. Go thou, my son! by generous friendship led, With martial honours decorate the dead: While pleased I take the gift thy hands present, (Pledge of benevolence, and kind intent,) Rejoiced, of all the numerous Greeks, to see Not one but honours sacred age and me: Those due distinctions thou so well canst pay, May the just gods return another day!”

He said; and pleased his passion to command, Resign’d the courser to Noemon’s hand, Friend of the youthful chief: himself content, The shining charger to his vessel sent. The golden talents Merion next obtain’d; The fifth reward, the double bowl, remain’d. Achilles this to reverend Nestor bears. And thus the purpose of his gift declares: “Accept thou this, O sacred sire! (he said) In dear memorial of Patroclus dead; Dead and for ever lost Patroclus lies, For ever snatch’d from our desiring eyes! Take thou this token of a grateful heart, Though ’tis not thine to hurl the distant dart, The quoit to toss, the ponderous mace to wield, Or urge the race, or wrestle on the field: Thy pristine vigour age has overthrown, But left the glory of the past thy own.”

“My line! my line? Gone?—gone? What means that little word?—What death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry. The harpoon, too!—toss over the litter there,—d’ye see it?—the forged iron, men, the white whale’s—no, no, no,—blistered fool! this hand did dart it!—’tis in the fish!—Aloft there! Keep him nailed—Quick!—all hands to the rigging of the boats—collect the oars—harpooneers! the irons, the irons!—hoist the royals higher—a pull on all the sheets!—helm there! steady, steady for your life! I’ll ten times girdle the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I’ll slay him yet!”

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men’s sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first spring morning, re-creating the world, and you meet him at some serene work, and see how his exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is not only an atmosphere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born instinct, and for a short hour the south hill-side echoes to no vulgar jest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his gnarled rind and try another year’s life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant. Even he has entered into the joy of his Lord. Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors,—why the judge does not dismis his case,—why the preacher does not dismiss his congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint which God gives them, nor accept the pardon which he freely offers to all.