"Would you not tire there?". . no, not I.
Acids that melt the richest pearl
Are envy, pride, satiety,
My mild and modest country girl!
Power, office, title. . up they fly
Against one light and sunny curl,
That plays above thine azure eye,
My mild and modest country girl.
Knighthood's new spur the squire would try,
And viscount be emblazon'd earl :
Content is only seated by
My mild and modest country girl.
Possession kings must fortify
With moat and barbican and merl:
Thine dwells in free security,
My mild and modest country girl!
Great riches, great authority
Turn the best-tempered to a churl;
With health and thee no crosses lie,
My mild and modest country girl!
Tho' Fame and Glory to the sky
Ambition's wind-worn flag unfurl,
With thee I'd live, for thee I'd die,
My mild and modest country girl;
Thus round and round thee busily
Teaching my tinkling rhymes to twirl,
I did not well hear thy reply,
My mild and modest country girl! *
You hate amid the pomp of prayer
The incense. So then Beauty hates
What warms for her the cruder air,
Awakes the Graces, soothes the Fates!
It rises with soft clouds about it,
It sinks, and melts itself away;
Prayers are of little use without it,
And with it few men vainly pray.
If the reader has any curiosity to know the origin of these trifling verses, they were composed on the remark of a scholar, that puella in its cases ended many in Latin, and that girl ended none in ours, from the impossibility of finding such a rhyme as would suit the subject.
The wisest of us all, when woe
Darkens our narrow path below,
Are childish to the last degree,
And think what is must always be.
It rains, and there is gloom around,
Slippery and sullen is the ground,
And slow the step; within our sight
Nothing is cheerful, nothing bright.
Meanwhile the sun on high, altho'
We will not think it can be so,
Is shining at this very hour
In all his glory, all his power,
And when the cloud is past, again
Will dry up every drop of rain.
The burden of an ancient rhyme
Is, "By the forelock seize on Time."
Time in some corner heard it said;
Pricking his ears, away he fled;
And, seeing me upon the road,
A hearty curse on me bestow'd.
"What if I do the same by thee?
How wouldst thou like it?" thunder'd he,
And, without answer thereupon,
Seizing my forelock . . it
Will mortals never know each other's station
Without the herald? O abomination!
Milton, even Milton, rankt with living men!
Over the highest Alps of mind he marches,
And far below him spring the baseless arches
Of Iris, colouring dimly lake and fen.
Remind me not, thou grace of serious mien !
That thy fresh beauties are but frail as flowers;
Eloquent lip, and lucid eye, and all
That our fond senses vainly seize upon
And can not hold; those undulating lights
Baffling our aspirations, casting down
Our venturous sight, and almost our desires.
Religion too comes in: she claims a right
Of audience; she reproves the worshipper
Of earthly image; such she calls even thee.
I bend my head before her, nor deny
Her potency of argument, yet gaze
Incredulous awhile, and only say:
"Pardon, O thou from heaven! who knowest best!
Stars, if composed of earth, yet still are stars,
And must be lookt at with uplifted eyes.
Tell me, perverse young year!
Why is the morn so drear?
Is there no flower to twine?
Away, thou churl, away! "Tis Rose's natal day,
Reserve thy frown for mine.
ON RECEIVING A BOOK TO WRITE IN.
Tost in what corner hast thou lain?
And why art thou come back again?
I should as soon have thought to see
One risen from the dead as thee.
I have survived my glory now
Three years; but just the same art thou;
I am not quite; and three years hence
I may have lept that ugly fence,
Which men attempt to shirk in vain,
And never can leap back again.
But welcome, welcome! thou art sent
I know on generous thoughts intent;
And therefore thy pale cheeks I'll kiss
Before I scribble more than this.
A SEA-SHELL SPEAKS.
Of late among the rocks I lay,
But just behind the fretful spray,
When suddenly a step drew near,
And a man's voice, distinct and clear,
Convey'd this solace . .
Thou little outcast of the sea!
Often I have heard it said
That her lips are ruby-red.
Little heed I what they say,
I have seen as red as they.
Ere she smiled on other men,
Real rubies were they then.
When she kist me once in play,
Rubies were less bright than they,
And less bright were those which shone
In the palace of the Sun.
Will they be as bright again?
Not if kist by other men.
In spring and summer winds may blow,
And rains fall after, hard and fast;
The tender leaves, if beaten low,
Shine but the more for shower and blast.
But when their fated hour arrives,
When reapers long have left the field,
When maidens rifle turn'd-up hives,
And their last juice fresh apples yield,
A leaf perhaps may still remain
Upon some solitary tree,
Spite of the wind and of the rain .
A thing you heed not if you see
At last it falls. Who cares? not one:
And yet no power on earth can ever
Replace the fallen leaf upon
Its spray, so easy to dissever.
If such be love I dare not say,
Friendship is such, too well I know;
I have enjoy'd my summer day;
"Tis past; my leaf now lies below.
ON RECEIVING A PORTRAIT.
To gaze on you when life's last gleams decline,
And hold your hand, to the last clasp, in mine..
Of these two wishes, these my only two,
One has been granted, gentle maid, by you:
Were thus the other certain, I should go,
And leave but one man happier here below.
Beauty's pure native gems, ye quivering hairs!
Once mingled with my own,
While soft desires, ah me! were all the cares
Two idle hearts had known.
How is it, when I take ye from the shrine
Which holds one treasure yet,
That ye, now all of Nancy that is mine,
Shrink from my fond regret?
Ye leaves that droop not with the plant that bore ye,
Start ye before my
Shrink ye from tender Love who would adore ye,
O ye who fear not Death!
SENT TO A LADY WITH FLOWERS.
Take the last flowers your natal day
May ever from my hand receive!
Sweet as the former ones are they,
And sweet alike be those they leave.
Another, in the year to come,
May offer them to smiling eyes;
That smile would wake me from the tomb,
That smile would win me from the skies.
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