True, a new mistress now I chase, Yet this inconstancy is such, As you, too, shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.-Richard Lovelace. CONSTANCY. OUT upon it! I have loved Time shall moult away his wings, In the whole wide world again But the spite on't is, no praise Is due at all to me; Love with me had made no stays Had it any been but she. Had it any been but she, And that very face, There had been at least ere this, A dozen in her place. Sir John Suckling, 1608-1641. RETROSPECTION. THERE are moments in life that are never forgot, And they shine on the gloom of the loneliest day! As the sun in the dawn of his glory appears, And the cloud weeps and glows with the rainbow in heaven. There are hours, there are minutes, which memory brings, Like blossoms of Eden to twine round the heart; And as Time rushes by on the might of his wings, They may darken awhile, but they never depart : Oh, these hallowed remembrances cannot decay; But they come on the soul with a magical thrill, And in days that are darkest, they kindly will stay, And the heart in its last throb will beat with them still. They come like the dawn in its loveliness now, And her melting hand shook as I dropped it for ever; Oh, that moment will always be hovering byLife may frown, but its light shall abandon me never! Percival (American). LABOUR. O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil, For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail Thomson's "Castle of Indolence." THE AGE OF WISDOM. Ho, pretty page, with dimpled chin, That never has known the barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin, Wait till you come to Forty Year. Curly gold-locks cover foolish brains, Once you have come to Forty Year! All good fellows whose beards are grey; Ever a month was passed away? The reddest lips that ever have kissed, Gillian is dead. God rest her bier! How I loved her twenty years syne! Marian is married, while I sit here, Alive and merry at Forty Year, Dipping my nose in Gascon wine !—Thackeray. FROM COLERIDGE'S "KHUBLA KHAN.' It was a miracle of rare device: A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! In a vision once I saw ; Her sympathy and song, To such deep delight 'twould win me, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! Her flashing eyes, her floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And drank the milk of Paradise. SPRING. As biting Winter flies, lo! Spring with sunny skies, And balmy airs; and barks long dry put out again from shore; Now the ox forsakes his byre, and the husbandman his fire, And daisy-dappled meadows bloom where winter frosts lay hoar. By Cytheria led, while the moon shines overhead, The Nymphs and Graces hand in hand with alternating feet Shake the ground, while swinking Vulcan strikes the sparkles fierce and red From the forges of the Cyclops, with reiterated beat. 'Tis the time with myrtle green to bind our glistening locks, Or with flowers, wherein the loosened earth herself hath newly dressed, And to sacrifice to Faunus in some glade amidst the rocks A yearling lamb, or else a kid, if such delight him best. Death comes alike to all-to the monarch's lordly hall, Or the hovel of the beggar, and his summons none shall stay. Thee soon shall night enshroud; and the manes' phantom crowd Horace (Trans. Theo. Martin). THE DIRGE. WHAT is the existence of man's life, Till death's cold hand signs his release. It is a storm-where the hot blood Which beats his bark with many a wave, It is a flower-which buds and grows Then shrinks into the fatal mould It is a dream-whose seeming truth It is a dial-which points out It is a weary interlude Which doth short joys, long woes include: Dr. Henry King. THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA. A kid, whose crescent brow Is sprouting, all for love and victory, In vain; his warm red blood so early stirred, Thy gelid stream shall dye, Child of the wanton herd. Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired, To ox with ploughing tired, And flocks that range afield. Thou too one day shall win proud eminence Crowning the cavern, whence Thy babbling wavelets spring. Horace (Trans. by Prof. Conington). |