Our birth is but a starting place, Life is the running of the race,
And death the goal;
There all our steps at last are brought, That path alone, of all unsought,
Say then, how poor and little worth Are all those glittering toys of earth That lure us here;
My hermit thus. "I know thy soul believes,
'Tis hard vice triumphs, and that virtue grieves;
Yet oft affliction purifies the mind,
Kind benefits oft flow from means unkind.
Were the whole known, that we uncouth suppose,
Doubtless, would beauteous symmetry disclose.
The naked cliff, that singly rough remains,
In prospect dignifies the fertile plains;
Lead-coloured clouds, in scattering fragments seen,
Show, though in broken views, the blue serene.
Severe distresses industry inspire;
Thus captive oft excelling arts acquire,
And boldly struggle through a state of shame,
To life, ease, plenty, liberty and fame.
Sword-law has often Europe's balance gain'd,
And one red victory years of peace maintain`d.
We pass through want to wealth, through dismal
strife
To calm content, through death to endless life.
Lybia thou nam'st-let Afric's wastes appear
Cursed by those heats that fructify the year;
Yet the same suns her orange groves befriend,
Where clustering globes in shining rows depend.
Here when fierce beams o'er withering plants are
roll'd,
There the green fruit seems ripen'd into gold.
Ev'n scenes that strike with terrible surprise,
Still prove a God, just, merciful and wise.
Sad wintery blasts, that strip the autumn, bring
The milder beauties of a flowery spring.
Ye sulphurous fires in jaggy lightnings break!
Ye thunders rattle, and ye nations shake!
Ye storms of riving flame the forest tear!
Deep crack the rocks! rent trees be whirl'd in air!
Reft at a stroke, some stately fane we'll mourn;
Her tombs wide-shattered, and her dead up-torn;
Were noxious spirits not from caverns drawn,
Rack'd earth would soon in gulfs enormous yawn:
Then all were lost!-Or would we floating view
The baleful cloud, there would destruction brew-
Plague, fever, frenzy, close engendering lie,
Till these red ruptures clear the sullied sky."
Now a field opens to enlarge my thought, In parcell'd tracts to various uses wrought;
Here hardening ripeness the first blooms behold,
There the last blossoms spring-like pride unfold;
Here swelling pease on leafy stalks are seen,
Mix'd flowers of red and azure shine between;
Whose waving beauties heighten'd by the sun,
In colour'd lanes along the furrows run;
There the next produce of a genial shower,
The bean's fresh-blossoms in a speckled flower;
Whose morning dews, when to the sun resigned,
With undulating sweets embalm the wind.
Now daisy plats of clover square the plain,
And part the bearded from the beardless grain;
There fibrous flax with verdure binds the field,
Which on the loom shall art-spun labors yield.
The mulberry, in fair summer-green array'd,
Full in the midst starts up a silky shade;
For human taste the rich-stain'd fruitage bleeds;
The leaf the silk-emitting reptile feeds.
As swans their down, as flocks their fleeces leave,
Here worms for man their glossy entrails weave.
Hence to adorn the fair, in texture gay,
Sprigs, fruits and flowers on figur'd vestments play
But industry prepares them oft to please
The guilty pride of vain, luxuriant ease.
Now frequent, dusty gales offensive blow, And o'er my sight a transient blindness throw. Windward we shift. Near down th' ethereal steep, The lamp of day hangs hovering o'er the deep, Dun shades, in rocky shapes up æther roll'd, Project long shaggy points; deep-ting'd with gold. Others take faint th' unripen'd cherry's dye, And paint amusing landscapes on the eye; Their blue-veiled yellow, through a sky serene, In swelling mixture forms a floating green. Streak'd through white clouds a mild vermillion
And the breeze freshens, as the heat declines.
Yon crooked sunny roads change rising views
From brown to sandy red and chalky hues.
One mingled scene another quick succeeds,
Men, chariots, teams, yok'd steers, and prancing
steeds,
Which climb, descend, and, as loud whips resound,
Stretch, sweat, and smoke along unequal ground,
On winding Thames, reflecting radiant beams,
When boats, ships, barges mark the roughened
streams,
This way, and that, they different points pursue;
So mix the motions and so shifts the view,
While thus we throw around our gladden'd eyes,
The gifts of heaven in gay profusion rise;
Trees rich with gums, and fruits; with jewels, rocks;
Plains with flowers, herbs, and plants, and beeves,
and flocks,
Mountains with mines; with oak and cedar, woods;
Quarries with marble, and with fish the floods.
In darkening spots, mid fields with various dyes,
Tilth new manur'd, or naked fallow lies.
Near uplands fertile, pride inclos'd, display The green grass, yellowing into scentful hay; And thick-set hedges fence the full-ear'd corn, And berries blacken on the virid thorn.
Mark in yon heath oppos'd the cultured scene,
Wild thyme, pale box, and firs of darker green.
The native strawberry red-ripening grows,
By nettles guarded, as by thorns the rose.
There nightingales in unprun'd copses build,
In shaggy furzes lies the hare conceal'd.
Twixt ferns and thistles, unsown flowers amuse,
And form a lucid chase of various hues;
Many half-gray with dust: confused they lie,
Scent the rich year and lead the wandering eye.
Contemplative, we tread the flowery plain,
The muse preceding with her heavenly train:
When, lo! the mendicant, so late behind,
Strange view! now journeying in our front we find!
And yet a view more strange our heed demands;
Touch'd by the muse's wand transformed he stands,
O'er skin once wrinkled, instant beauty spreads;
The late-dimned eye a vivid lustre sheds;
Hairs, once so thin, now graceful locks decline;
And rags now changed in regal vestments shine.
The hermit thus: "In him the BARD behold,
Once seen by midnight's lamp in winter's cold;
The BARD, whose want so multiplied his woes,
He sunk a mortal, and a seraph rose.
See!-where those stately yew-trees darkling grow,
And, waving o'er yon graves, brown shadows throw,
Scornful he points-there, o'er his sacred dust,
Arise the sculptur'd tomb, and labour'd bust.
Vain pomp! bestowed by ostentatious pride,
Who to a life of want relief deny'd.
A GERNON C. SWINBURNE-" ATALANTA IN CALYDON."
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance, fallen from heaven, And madness, risen from hell; Strength, without hands to smite; Love, that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and drift of the sea,
And dust of the labouring earth;
From the winds of the north and the south
They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein
A time for labour and thought,
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him a light in his ways,
And love, and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.
ENJOY THE PRESENT HOUR.
HORACE "TWENTY-NINTH ODE."
Enjoy the present smiling hour,
And put it out of Fortune's power:
The tide of business, like the running stream,
Is sometimes high and sometimes low,
A quiet ebb or a tempestuous flow,
And always in extreme.
Now with a noiseless gentle course
It keeps within the middle bed;
Anon it lifts aloft the head,
And bears down all before it with impetuous force;
And trunks of trees come rolling down;
Sheep and their folds together drown:
Both house and homestead into seas are borne;
And rocks are from their old foundations torn;
And woods made thin with winds, their scattered
honours mourn.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day.
Be fair or foul, or rain or shine,
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
Fortune, that with malicious joy,
Does man, her slave, oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleased to bless:
Still various, and inconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a lottery of life.
I can enjoy her while she's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes her wings, and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away:
The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned: Content with poverty my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
What is't to me, Who never sail in her unfaithful sea, If storms arise, and clouds grow black; If the mast split and threaten wreck?
Then let the greedy merchant fear
For his ill-gotten gain;
And pray to gods that will not hear,
While the debating winds and billows bear
His wealth into the main.
For me, secure from fortune's blows,
Secure of what I cannot lose,
In my small pinnace I can sail,
Contemning all the blustering roar;
And running with a merry gale,
With friendly stars my safety seek,
Within some little winding creek,
And see the storm ashore.
Hear the sledges with the bells—
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight
From the molten-golden notes!
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells.
Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, new, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation to the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now-row to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon,
Oh, the bells, bells, bells,!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
And the people-ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls!
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pean of the bells,
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells-
Of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he kneels, kneels, kneels,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the tolling of the bells
Of the belis, bells, bells
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
And humbled thy heart with penitence-
If Nature's voices have spoken to thee
With her holy meanings eloquently-
If every creature hath won thy love,
From the creeping worm to the brooding dove-
If never a sad, low-spoken word
Hath plead with thy human heart unheard-
Then, when the night steals on, as now,
It will bring relief to thine aching brow,
And, with joy and peace at the thought of rest,
Thou wilt sink to sleep on thy mother's breast.
THE AGED MINSTREL.
SIR WALTER SCOTT-"LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.'
The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the bards was he
Who sung of Border chivalry;
For, well-aday! their date was fled;
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He carolled, light as lark at morn;
No longer, courted and caressed,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He poured, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:
Old times were changed, old manners gone;
A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;
The bigots of the iron time
Had called his harmless art a crime.
A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.
There will come an eve to a longer day,
That will find thee tired—but not of play!
And thou wilt lean, as thou leanest now,
With drooping limbs and aching brow,
And wish the shadows would faster creep,
And long to go to thy quiet sleep.
Well were it then if thine aching brow
Were as free from sin and shame as now!
Well for thee, if thy lip could tell
A tale like this, of a day spent well.
If thine open hand hath relieved distress-
If thy pity hath sprung to wretchedness-
If thou hast forgiven the sore offence,
Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Drink with me, and drink as I;
Freely welcome to my cup,
Couldst thou sip and sip it up.
Make the most of life you may;
Life is short and wears away.
Both alike are mine and thine,
Hastening quick to their decline:
Thine's a summer, mine no more,
Though repeated to threescore:
Threescore summers, when they're gone,
Will appear as short as one.
Oh! weep not for the dead? Rather, oh, rather, give the tear To those who darkly linger here, When all besides are fled:
Weep for the spirit withering
In its cold, cheerless sorrowing;
Weep for the young and lovely one
That ruin darkly revels on;
But never be a tear-drop shed
For them, the pure enfranchised dead.
-M. E. Brooks.
Alas! the love of woman! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
And say, without our hopes, without our fears,
Without the home that blighted love endears,
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh! what were man?—a world without a sun.
-Campbell.
Who to a woman trusts his peace of mind,
Trusts a frail bark with a tempestuous wind.
-Granville.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
-Byron.
Words are the soul's embassadors, who go
Abroad upon her errands to and fro;
They are the sole expounders of the mind,
And correspondence keep 'twixt all mankind.
They are those airy keys that ope (and wrest
Sometimes) the locks and hinges of the breast.
By them the heart makes sallies; wit and sense
Belong to them; they are the quintessence
Of those ideas which the thoughts distil,
And so calcine and melt again, until
They drop forth into accents; in whom lies
The salt of fancy, and all faculties.
Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative Wisdom, as if aught was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
-Thomson.
Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of heaven; a happiness
That even above the smiles and frowns of fate
Exalis great Nature's favorites; a wealth
That ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr'd.
-Armstrong.
Self-flatter'd, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer, and streamers gay, We cut our cable, launch into the world,
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend. -Young.
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