WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts.
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
THE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.
COME, live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, or hills, or fields,
Or woods, and steepy mountains yields.
Where we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed our flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There I will make thee beds of roses
And then a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw, and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come, live with me, and be my love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
O, HOW MUCH MORE DOTH BEAUTY BEAUTEOUS SEEM.
O, How much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth.
FROM YOU HAVE I BEEN ABSENT IN THE
FROM you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Draw after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
SEE what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well.
With delicate spine and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design!
What is it? A learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.
The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water-world?
Slight, to be crush'd with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine,
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand!
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US.
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. - Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
AN IMITATION OF WORDSWORTH.
THERE is a river clear and fair,
'Tis neither broad nor narrow;
It winds a little here and there
It winds about like any hare;
And then it takes as straight a course,
As on the turnpike road a horse,
Or through the air an arrow.
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