Ye delicate! who nothing can support, And other worlds sends odors, sauce and song, Not made for feeble man! who call aloud I What is Time. ASKED an aged man, with hoary hairs, From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed; I asked the Seasons in their annual round, Which beautify or desolate the ground; And they replied (no oracle more wise), That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak. Consulted, and it made me this reply:- I asked my Bible, and methinks it said, I asked old Father Time himself at last; My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my handForgive this foolish tear, But let that old oak stand! My heart-strings round thee cling, Close as thy bark, old friend! Here shall the wild bird sing, And still thy branches bend. -George Perkins Morris. IF If Woman Could Be Fair. [From Byrd's "Songs and Sonnets," 1588,] F woman could be fair and never fond, I would not marvel though they made men bond, But when I see how frail these creatures are I laugh that men forget themselves so far. To mark what choice they make, and how they change; How, leaving best, the worst they choose out still, And how like haggards, wild about they range, Yet for our sport we fawn and flatter both, To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them on to yield, by subtle oath, The sweet content that gives such humor cease, And then we say, when we their follies try, To play with fools, O, what a fool was I ! -Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford. H The Present Condition of Man Vindicated. EAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state; from brutes what men, from men what spirits know, Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last he crops the flowery food, And licks the hands just raised to shed his blood. O blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall; Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly, then, with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher, death, and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Yet simple nature to his hope has given, A A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever. THING of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing; Of noble natures of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways Made for our searching; yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in ; and clear rills 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake ETHINKS I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessei, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain-the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now driven in fury below the raging tempest, on the high and giddy wave. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed, at last, after a few months passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth-weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. |