THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,

That with the hour begin and end,

Our pleasures and our discontents,

Are rounds by which we may ascend.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;

But we have feet to scale and climb

By slow degrees, by more and more,

The cloudy summits of our time.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upwards in the night.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past,

As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.