THE TABLES TURNED; AN EVENING SCENE, ON THE SAME SUBJECT. UP! up! my friend, and clear your looks, Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, The sun above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow, Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife, Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music; on my life There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! And he is no mean preacher; Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to blessSpontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by chearfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mishapes the beauteous forms of things; -We murder to dissect. Enough of science and of art; Close up these barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives. OLD MAN TRAVELLING; ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY A SKETCH. AND DECAY, The little hedge-row birds, That peck along the road, regard him not. His look and bending figure, all bespeak A man who does not move with pain, but moves With thought-He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet: he is one by whom All effort seems forgotten, one to whom Long patience has such mild composure given, That patience now doth seem a thing, of which He hath no need. He is by nature led To peace so perfect, that the young behold -I asked him whither he was bound, and what "Sir! I am going many miles to take "A last leave of my son, a mariner, "Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth, "And there is dying in an hospital." |