Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

THE TABLES TURNED;

AN EVENING SCENE, ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

UP! up! my friend, and clear your looks,
Why all this toil and trouble?

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double.

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;

[ocr errors]

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
May teach you more of man;

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.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression; every limb,

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
With envy, what the old man hardly feels.

-I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied

"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."

« AnkstesnisTęsti »