Atlantic Monthly | Page 8

they
will all be yours. The grasshopper will become a burden, and desire
shall fail. The fire shall be smothered in your heart, and for passion you
shall have only peace. This is not pleasant. It is never pleasant to feel
the inevitable passing away of priceless possessions. If this were to be
the culmination of your fate, you might indeed take up the wail for your
lost youth. But this is only for a moment. The infirmities of age come
gradually. Gently we are led down into the valley. Slowly, and not
without a soft loveliness, the shadows lengthen. At the worst these
weaknesses are but the stepping-stones in the river, passing over which
you shall come to immortal vigor, immortal fire, immortal beauty. All
along the western sky flames and glows the auroral light of another life.
The banner of victory waves right over your dungeon of defeat. By the
golden gateway of the sunsetting,
"Through the dear might of Him who walked the waves,"
you shall pass into the "cloud-land, gorgeous land," whose splendor is
unveiled only to the eyes of the Immortals. Would you loiter to your
inheritance?
You are "getting into years." Yes, but the years are getting into
you,--the ripe, rich years, the genial, mellow years, the lusty, luscious
years. One by one the crudities of your youth are falling off from
you,--the vanity, the egotism, the isolation, the bewilderment, the
uncertainty. Nearer and nearer you are approaching yourself. You are
consolidating your forces. You are becoming master of the situation.
Every wrong road into which you have wandered has brought you, by
the knowledge of that mistake, so much closer to the truth. You no
longer draw your bow at a venture, but shoot straight at the mark. Your
possibilities concentrate, and your path is cleared. On the ruins of
shattered plans you find your vantage-ground. Your broken hopes, your
thwarted purposes, your defeated aspirations become a staff of strength
with which you mount to sublimer heights. With self-possession and
self-command return the possession and the command of all things.

The title-deed of creation, forfeited, is reclaimed. The king has come to
his own again. Earth and sea and sky pour out their largess of love. All
the past crowds down to lay its treasures at your feet. Patriotism stands
once more in the breach at Thermopylae,--bears down the serried hosts
of Bannockburn,--lays its calm hand in the fire, still, as if it felt the
pressure of a mother's lips,--gathers to its heart the points of opposing
spears, to make a way for the avenging feet behind. All that the ages
have of greatness and glory your hand may pluck, and every year adds
to the purple vintage. Every year comes laden with the riches of the
lives that were lavished on it. Every year brings to you softness and
sweetness and strength. Every year evokes order from confusion, till all
things find scope and adjustment. Every year sweeps a broader circle
for your horizon, grooves a deeper channel for your experience.
Through sun and shade and shower you ripen to a large and liberal life.
Yours is the deep joy, the unspoken fervor, the sacred fury of the fight.
Yours is the power to redress wrong, to defend the weak, to succor the
needy, to relieve the suffering, to confound the oppressor. While vigor
leaps in great tidal pulses along your veins, you stand in the thickest of
the fray, and broadsword and battle-axe come crashing down through
helmet and visor. When force has spent itself, you withdraw from the
field, your weapons pass into younger hands, you rest under your
laurels, and your works do follow you. Your badges are the scars of
your honorable wounds. Your life finds its vindication in the deeds
which you have wrought.
The possible to-morrow has become the secure yesterday. Above the
tumult and the turbulence, above the struggle and the doubt, you sit in
the serene evening, awaiting your promotion.
Come, then, O dreaded years! Your brows are awful, but not with
frowns. I hear your resonant tramp far off, but it is sweet as the
May-maidens' song. In your grave prophetic eyes I read a golden
promise. I know that you bear in your bosom the fulness of my life.
Veiled monarchs of the future, shining dim and beautiful, you shall
become my vassals, swift-footed to bear my messages, swift-handed to
work my will. Nourished by the nectar which you will pour in passing
from your crystal cups, Death shall have no dominion over me, but I
shall go on from strength to strength and from glory to glory.
* * * * *

THE PROMISE OF THE DAWN.
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
A winter's evening. Do you know how that comes here among the
edges