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Colonist, Volume II, Issue 120, 14 December 1858, Page 4

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THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Saint Augustine ! Well hast thou said That of our vices we may frame A ladder, if we wi 1 but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shatno. All common things, each clays events That with the horn- begin and end; Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend The low desire—the base design, That makes another's virtue less ; The revel of the giddy wine And all occasions of excess! The longing for ignoble things, The strife for triumph more than truth, The hardening- of the heart that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth! All thoughts of ill—all evil deeds That have their root in thoughts of ill, Whatever hinders or impedes The action of the nobler will. All these must first be trampled down Beneath our feet, if we would gain In the bright field of Fair Renown The right of eminent domain. We have not wings—we cannot soar, But we have i'eet to scale and climb By slow degrees—by more and more The cloudy summits of our time. The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like aeave the desert airs, When nearer seen and better known Are but gigantic flights of stairs. The distant mountains that uprear Their frowning foreheads to the skies, Are caused by pathways that appear As we to higher levels rise. "The heights by great, men reached and kept . Were not attained by sudden flight; But they., while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. Standing on what too long we bore With shouldere bent and downcast eyes, We may discern—unseen before, A path to higher destinies. Nor deem the irrevocable past As wholly wasted, wholly v.dn, •If rising on its wrecks at last To something nobler we attain. H. W. LOXGFELLOW.