ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

293

294

CHRISTMAS DAY

HOUGH rude winds usher thee, sweet day,

ΤΗ

though clouds thy face deform,

though nature's grace is swept away

before thy sleety storm;

ev'n in thy sombrest wintry vest,

of blessed days thou art most blest.

Nor frigid air nor gloomy morn
shall check our jubilee;

bright is the day when Christ was born,
no sun need shine but He;

let roughest storms their coldest blow,
with love of Him our hearts shall glow.

Oft, as this joyous morn doth come

to speak our Saviour's love,

oh, may it bear our spirits home,

where He now reigns above;

that day which brought Him from the skies,
and man restores to Paradise!

TO THE EVENING STAR

TAR that bringest home the bee,

ST

S. RICKARDS

and sett'st the weary labourer free!

if any star shed peace, 'tis Thou

that send'st it from above,

appearing when Heaven's breath and brow

are sweet as hers we love.

Come to the luxuriant skies,
whilst the landscape's odours rise,
whilst far-off lowing herds are heard
and songs when toil is done,
from cottages whose smoke unstirr'd
curls yellow in the sun.

Star of love's soft interviews,
parted lovers on thee muse;
their remembrancer in Heaven
of thrilling vows thou art,
too delicious to be riven

by absence from the heart.

T. CAMPBELL

295

296

TO MEMORY

HAIL, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine

from age to age unnumber'd treasures shine! thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, and Place and Time are subject to thy sway! Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone; the only pleasures we can call our own. Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die, if but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; if but a beam of sober Reason play, lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away! but can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour? these, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, pour round her path a stream of living light; and gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!

WHAT

LOVE OF LUCRE

S. ROGERS

HAT man in his wits had not rather be poor,
than for lucre his freedom to give;
ever busy the means of his life to secure,
and so ever neglecting to live!

Environ'd from morning to night in a crowd,
not a moment unbent, or alone;

constrain'd to be abject, though never so proud,
and at every one's call but his own!

Still repining and longing for quiet each hour,
yet studiously flying it still;

with the means of enjoying his wish in his power,
but accurst with his wanting the will!

For a year must be past or a day must be come, before he has leisure to rest:

he must add to his store this or that pretty sum, and then will have time to be blest.

But his gains, more bewitching the more they increase,
only swell the desire of his eye:

such a wretch let mine enemy live, if he please,
but not even my enemy die.

297

298

SW

WINTER

WEET are the harmonies of Spring;
sweet is the Summer's evening gale,
and sweet the autumnal winds that shake
the many-colour'd grove.

And pleasant to the sober'd soul
the silence of the wintry scene,

when nature shrouds herself, entranced
in deep tranquillity.

Not undelightful now to roam

the wild heath sparkling on the sight;
not undelightful now to pace

the forest's ample rounds;

and see the spangled branches shine,
and mark the moss of many a hue
that varies the old tree's brown bark,
or o'er the grey stone spreads;
and mark the clustered berries bright
amid the holly's gay green leaves;
the ivy round the leafless oak
that clasps its foliage close.

THE NEW-BORN RILL

up and watch the new-born rill

Gjust trickling from its mossy bed,

streaking the heath-clad hill

with a bright emerald thread.

R. SOUTHEY

Canst thou her bold career foretel,
what rocks she shall o'erleap or rend,
how far in Ocean's swell

her freshening billows send?

Perchance that little brook shall flow
the bulwark of some mighty realm,
bear navies to and fro

with monarchs at their helm.

Or canst thou guess, how far away
some sister nymph, beside her urn
reclining night and day,

'mid reeds and mountain fern,

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

299

300

nurses her store, with thine to blend
when many a moor and glen are past,
then in the wide sea end

their spotless lives at last?

TO MEMORY

J. KEBLE

H! sacred Memory, tablet of the heart,

[ocr errors]

still ever prompt to wake the slumb'ring smart,
and backward lure the visionary gaze;
thou tellest but of scenes that melted by

are vanished now, like wreaths of winter snow;
the tear of sorrow gems thy lucid eye,

and yet, so beauteous is thy garb of woe, we love thee still and clasp thy fond regret, too tender to renounce, too pleasing to forget! why should Mem'ry weep, that frowning truth so early chased the mockeries of delight, the idle dreams that flushed the cheek of youth, and glittered baneful on the dazzled sight? She hath not murdered Hope, though distant far, and trembling at her voice, with drooping plume, gay Fancy flies; nor quenched that better star,

whose radiant orb can cheer the wintry gloom, where sacred Virtue rears her hallowed nest, there Peace shall linger still, companion of the breast.

THE ISER-DRINKING SONG OF MUNICH

WEET Iser! were thy sunny realm,

and flowery gardens mine,

thy waters I would shade with elm
to prop the tender vine;

my golden flagons I would fill
with rosy draughts from every hill;
and, under every myrtle bower,
my gay companions should prolong
the laugh, the revel and the song,
to many an idle hour.

Like rivers crimsoned with the beam
of yonder planets bright,

our balmy cups should ever stream
profusion of delight;

301

no care should touch the mellow heart,
and sad or sober none depart;

for wine can triumph over woe;
and Love and Bacchus, brother powers,
could build in Iser's sunny bowers
a paradise below.

JET

THE LONGEST DAY

ET us quit the leafy harbour,
and the torrent murmuring by;

for the sun is in his harbour,
weary of the open sky.

Summer ebbs ;-each day that follows
is a reflux from on high,

tending to the darksome hollows
where the frosts of winter lie.
He who governs the creation,
in his providence, assigned
such a gradual declination
to the life of human kind.

T. CAMPBELL

Yet we mark it not;-fruits redden,
fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown,

and the heart is loth to deaden

hopes that she so long hath known.

Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden !
and when thy decline shall come,
let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden,
hide the knowledge of thy doom.

W. WORDSWORTH

302

TO FANCY

Queen of numbers, once again
animate some chosen swain,
who, filled with unexhausted fire,
may boldly smite the sounding lyre;
who with some new unequalled song
may rise above the rhyming throng;
o'er all our listening passions reign,
o'erwhelm our souls with joy and pain,
with terror shake, and pity move,
rouse with revenge, or melt with love;

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »