I Was Looking a Long While.

I WAS LOOKING A LONG WHILE.

I WAS looking a long while for Intentions, For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for these
chants—and now I have found it, It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither
accept nor reject,) It is no more in the legends than in all else, It is in the present—it is this earth to-day, It is in Democracy—(the purport and aim of all the past,) It is the life of one man or one woman to-day—the average man
of to-day, It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts, It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, poli-
tics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of
nations, All for the modern—all for the average man of to-day.

Part of the cluster AUTUMN RIVULETS.