With gentle tides that on your temples flow, Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, THE WILLIAM DRUMMOND. OLD AGE AND DEATH. HE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; So calm are we when passions are no more; Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain en- For then we know how vain it is to boast roll'd. Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost. Trust not those shining lights which wrought Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries. my woe When first I did their azure rays behold, Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show Than of the Thracian harper have been told. Look to this dying lily, fading rose, Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams Made all the neighboring herbs and grass rejoice, THE SEASONS OF LIFE. HERE is a period when the apple-tree blossoms with its fellows of the wood and field. How fair a time it is! All nature is woosome and winning; the material world celebrates its vegetable loves, and the flower-bells, touched by the winds of spring, usher in the universal marriage of Nature. Beast, bird, insect, reptile, fish, plant, lichen, with their prophetic colors spread, all float forward on the tide of new life. Then comes the summer. Many a blossom falls fruitless to the ground, littering the earth with beauty, never to be used. Thick leaves hide the process of creation, which first blushed public in the flowers, and now unseen goes on. For so life's most deep and fruitful hours are hid in mystery. Apples are growing on every tree; all summer long they grow, and in early autumn. At length the fruit is fully formed; the leaves begin to fall, letting the sun approach more near. The apple hangs there yet, not to grow, only to ripen. Weeks long it clings to the tree; it gains nothing in size and weight. Externally, there is increase of beauty. Having finished the form from within, Nature brings out the added grace of color. It is not a tricksy fashion painted on, but an expression which of itself comes out; a fragrance and loveliness of the apple's innermost. Within, at the same time, the component elements are changing. The apple grows mild and pleasant. It softens, sweetens, in one word, it mellows. Some night, when the vital forces of the tree get drowsy, and the autumn, with gentle breath, just shakes the bough, the expectant fruit lets go its hold, full-grown, full-ripe, full-colored too, and, with plump and happy sound, the apple falls into the autumn's lap, and the spring's marriage promise is complete. So have I seen a pine-tree in the woods, old, dry at its root, weak in its limbs, capped with age-resembling snow; it stood there, and seemed like to stand; but a little touch of wind drove it headlong, and it fell with long resounding crash. The next morning the woodsman is astonished that the old tree lies prostrate on the ground. This is a natural death, for the old tree and the venerable man. THEODORE PARKER. And then thy smiling answer to the moon, Whose beams so freely on thy bosom sleep, Unfold thy secret, even to night's dull noon. How couldst thou hope, in such a world as this, To shroud thy gentle path of beauty and of bliss? Think'st thou to be conceal'd, thou little seed! Unmoved by trampling storm, or thunder Thou bidest thy time, for herald spring shall come And wake thee, all unwilling as thou art, And soon, to all, thy ripen'd fruitage tells Think'st thou to be conceal'd, thou little That in the curtained chamber of the soul Dost wrap thyself so close, and dream to do A hidden work? Look to the hues that roll O'er the changed brow, the moving lip behold, MIDDLE AGE. (From "An Essay on an Old Subject."") N the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter morning and evening; no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air. The lyrical up-burst of the lark at such a time would be incongruous. The only sounds suitable to the season are the rusty caw of the homeward sliding rook, the creaking of the wain returning empty from the farmyard. There is "an unrest which men miscall delight," and of that unrest youth is for the most part composed. From that, middle age is free. The setting suns of youth are crimson and gold; the setting suns of middle age Youth is the slave of distract, madden, alarm. "Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality." beautiful faces, and fine eyes, and silver-sweet voices; they To middle age they are but the gracefullest statues, the loveliest poems. They delight, but hurt not. They awake no passion, they heighten no pulse. And the imaginative man of middle age possesses after a fashion all the passionate turbulence, all the keen delights, of his earlier days. They are not dead; they are dwelling in the antechamber of memory, awaiting his call; and when they are called, they wear an ethereal something which is not their own. The Muses are the daughters of Memory; youth is the time to love, but middle age the period at which the best love-poetry is written. And middle age, too, the earlier period of it, when a man is master of his instruments and knows what he can do, is the best season of intellectual activity. The playful capering flames of a newly kindled fire are a pretty sight; but not nearly so effective, any housewife will tell you, as when the flames are gone, and the whole mass of fuel has become caked into a sober redness that emits a steady glow. There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve. A silver wedding is better than the voice of the epithalamium. And the most beautiful face that ever was is made yet more beautiful when there is laid upon it the reverence of silver hairs. ALEXANDER SMITH. |