O happy ship, Her children, hid The cliffs amid, To rise and dip, Are gambolling with the gambolling With the blue crystal at your lip! kid; Or down the walls, With tipsy calls, Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls. The fisher's child, With tresses wild, O happy crew, My heart with you Sails, and sails, and sings anew! No more, no more The worldly shore Unto the smooth, bright sand be- Upbraids me with its loud uproar! guiled, With glowing lips Sings as she skips, Or gazes at the far-off ships. Yon deep bark goes From lands of sun to lands of snows; With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise! In lofty lines, Mid palms and pines, And olives, aloes, elms, and vines, On sunset wings, Where Tasso's spirit soars and sings. O backward-looking thought! O pain! O tears! For us there is not any silver sound Of rhythmic wonders springing from the ground. That dry the tender juices in the breast, And put the thunders of the Lord [praise, to test, So that no marvel must be, and no Nor any God except Necessity. Woe worth the knowledge and the What can ye give my poor stained bookish lore Which makes men mummies; weighs out every grain Of that which was miraculous before, And sneers the heart down with the scoffing brain; life in lieu Of this dead cherub which I slew for ye! Take back your doubtful wisdom and renew [dunce, My early foolish freshness of the Woe worth the peering, analytic Whose simple instincts guessed the days heavens at once. Where sit the aged poor; I come creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; In the noisy city street, My pleasant face you'll meet, Cheering the sick at heart Toiling his busy part — Silently creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; You cannot see me coming, I come quietly creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; More welcome than the flowers SAMUEL ROGERS. Six Poems entitled by the author, “Reflections." | Cost what they will, such cruel freaks THE PERVERSION OF GREAT GIFTS. ALAS, to our discomfort and his own, Oft are the greatest talents to be found In a fool's keeping. For what else is he, However worldly wise and worldly strong, Who can pervert and to the worst abuse The noblest means to serve the noblest ends? Who can employ the gift of eloquence, That sacred gift, to dazzle and delude; Or, if achievement in the field be his, Climb but to gain a loss, suffering how much, And how much more inflicting! HEART SUPERIOR TO HEAD. THE heart, they say, is wiser than the schools: And well they may. All that is great in thought, That strikes at once as with electric fire, And lifts us, as it were, from earth to heaven, Comes from the heart; and who confesses not Its voice as sacred, nay, almost divine, When inly it declares on what we do, Blaming, approving? Let an erring world Judge as it will, we care not while we stand Acquitted there; and oft, when clouds on clouds Compass us round and not a track appears, Oft is an upright heart the surest guide, Surer and better than the subtlest |