soil;
      Yet mine those honors are.

"Mine they are called; they are a name which means,
  'This man had steady pulses, tranquil nerves:
Here, as in other fields, the most he gleans
      Who works and never swerves.

"We measure not his mind; we cannot tell
  What lieth under, over, or beside
The test we put him to; he doth excel,
    We know, where he is tried;

"But, if he boast some farther excellence—
  Mind to create as well as to attain;
To sway his peers by golden eloquence,
    As wind doth shift a fane;

"'To sing among the poets—we are nought:
  We cannot drop a line into that sea
And read its fathoms off, nor gauge a thought,
    Nor map a simile.

"'It may be of all voices sublunar
  The only one he echoes we did try;
We may have come upon the only star
    That twinkles in his sky,'

"And so it was with me."
                         O false my friend!
  False, false, a random charge, a blame undue;
Wrest not fair reasoning to a crooked end:
    False, false, as you are true!

But I read on: "And so it was with me;
  Your golden constellations lying apart
They neither hailed nor greeted heartily,
    Nor noted on their chart.

"And yet to you and not to me belong
  Those finer instincts that, like second sight
And hearing, catch creation's undersong,
      And see by inner light.

"You are a well, whereon I, gazing, see
  Reflections of the upper heavens—a well
From whence come deep, deep echoes up to me—
      Some underwave's low swell.

"I cannot soar into the heights you show,
  Nor dive among the deeps that you reveal;
But it is much that high things ARE to know,
      That deep things ARE to feel.

"'Tis yours, not mine, to pluck out of your breast
  Some human truth, whose workings recondite
Were unattired in words, and manifest
      And hold it forth to light

"And cry, 'Behold this thing that I have found,'
  And though they knew not of it till that day,
Nor should have done with no man to expound
      Its meaning, yet they say,

"'We do accept it: lower than the shoals
  We skim, this diver went, nor did create,
But find it for us deeper in our souls
      Than we can penetrate.'

"You were to me the world's interpreter,
  The man that taught me Nature's unknown tongue,
And to the notes of her wild dulcimer
      First set sweet words, and sung.

"And what am I to you? A steady hand
  To hold, a steadfast heart to trust withal;
Merely a man that loves you, and will stand
      By you, whatever befall.

"But need we praise his tendance tutelar
  Who feeds a flame that warms him? Yet 'tis true
I love you for the sake of what you are,
      And not of what you do:—

"As heaven's high twins, whereof in Tyrian blue
  The one revolveth: through his course immense
Might love his fellow of the damask hue,
      For like, and difference.

"For different pathways evermore decreed
  To intersect, but not to interfere;
For common goal, two aspects, and one speed,
      One centre and one year;

"For deep affinities, for drawings strong,
  That by their nature each must needs exert;
For loved alliance, and for union long,
      That stands before desert.

"And yet desert makes brighter not the less,
  For nearest his own star he shall not fail
To think those rays unmatched for nobleness,
      That distance counts but pale.

"Be pale afar, since still to me you shine,
  And must while Nature's eldest law shall hold;"—
Ah, there's the thought which makes his random line
      Dear as refinèd gold!

Then shall I drink this draft of oxymel,
  Part sweet, part sharp? Myself o'erprized to know
Is sharp; the cause is sweet, and truth to tell
      Few would that cause forego,

Which is, that this of all the men on earth
  Doth love me well enough to count me great—
To think my soul and his of equal girth—
      O liberal estimate!

And yet it is so; he is bound to me,
  For human love makes aliens near of kin;
By it I rise, there is equality:
      I rise to thee, my twin.

"Take courage"—courage! ay, my purple peer
  I will take courage; for thy Tyrian rays
Refresh me to the heart, and strangely dear
      And healing is thy praise.

"Take courage," quoth he, "and respect the mind
  Your Maker gave, for good your fate fulfil;
The fate round many hearts your own to wind."
      Twin soul, I will! I will!

[Illustration]

HONORS.—PART II.

(The Answer.)

As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste
  Because a chasm doth yawn across his way
Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced
      For climber to essay—

As such an one, being brought to sudden stand,
  Doubts all his foregone path if 'twere the true,
And turns to this and then to the other hand
      As knowing not what to do,—

So I, being checked, am with my path at strife
  Which led to such a chasm, and there doth end.
False path! it cost me priceless years of life,
      My well-beloved friend.

There fell a flute when Ganymede went up—
  The flute that he was wont to play upon:
It dropped beside the jonquil's milk-white cup,
      And freckled cowslips wan—

Dropped from his heedless hand when, dazed and mute,
  He sailed upon the eagle's quivering wing,
Aspiring, panting—aye, it dropped—the flute
      Erewhile a cherished thing.

Among the delicate grasses and the bells
  Of crocuses that spotted a rill side,
I picked up such a flute, and its clear swells
      To my young lips replied.

I played thereon, and its response was sweet;
  But lo, they took from me that solacing reed.
"O shame!" they said; "such music is not meet;
      Go up like Ganymede.

"Go up, despise these humble grassy things,
  Sit on the golden edge of yonder cloud."
Alas! though ne'er for me those eagle wings
      Stooped from their eyry proud.

My flute! and flung away its echoes sleep;
  But as for me, my life-pulse beateth low;
And like a last-year's leaf enshrouded deep
      Under the drifting snow,

Or like some vessel wrecked upon the sand
  Of torrid swamps, with all her merchandise,
And left to rot betwixt the sea and land,
      My helpless spirit lies.

Rueing, I think for what then was I made;
  What end appointed for—what