Heated and feverish, then he closed his tome,
    And went to wander by the ocean-side,
  Where the cool breeze at evening loved to come,
    Murmuring responsive to the murmuring tide;
    And as Augustine o’er its margent wide
  Strayed, deeply pondering the puzzling theme,
    A little child before him he espied: 
  In earnest labor did the urchin seem,
  Working with heart intent close by the sounding stream.

  He looked, and saw the child a hole had scooped,
    Shallow and narrow in the shining sand,
  O’er which at work the laboring infant stooped,
    Still pouring water in with busy hand. 
    The saint addressed the child in accents bland: 
  “Fair boy,” quoth he, “I pray what toil is thine? 
    Let me its end and purpose understand.” 
  The boy replied:  “An easy task is mine,
  To sweep into this hole all the wide ocean’s brine.”

  “O foolish boy!” the saint exclaimed, “to hope
    That the broad ocean in that hole should lie!”
  “O foolish saint!” exclaimed the boy; “thy scope
    Is still more hopeless than the toil I ply,
    Who think’st to comprehend God’s nature high
  In the small compass of thine human wit! 
  Sooner, Augustine, sooner far, shall I
  Confine the ocean in this tiny pit,
  Than finite minds conceive God’s nature infinite!”

ANONYMOUS.

* * * * *

MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU PRINCE.

  All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod,
  Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God? 
  Westward across the ocean, and Northward across the snow,
  Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know?

  Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm
  Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm;
  In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen,
  Yet we all say, “Whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?”

  A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings,
  As they bow to a mystic symbol, or the figures of ancient kings;
  And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry
  Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loth to die.

  For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a pass of the hills;
  Above is the sky and around us the sound of the shot that kills;
  Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,
  We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone.

  The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim,
  And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight dim;
  And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest,—­
  Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest?

  The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide? 
  The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side,
  Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath
  Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death.