We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam,

thought.

Yet if we could scorn

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Hate and pride and fear,

If we were things born

THE THRUSH.

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Of winters past or coming, void of care;
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling
flowers,

To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick which by thy songs
(Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,

The world should listen then, as I am listening And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven!

now.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

ETHEREAL minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond,

Mount, daring warbler ! that love-prompted strain,

"Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond,

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain; Yet mightst thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy spring.