45

Tell me, Moon, thou pale and grey
pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
in what depth of night or day
seekest thou repose now?

Weary Wind, who wanderest
like the world's rejected guest,
hast thou still some secret nest
on the tree or billow?

CONTENTMENT

P. B. SHELLEY

46

HORT is our span; then why engage

was ne'er by fate design'd?

Why slight the gift of Nature's hand? 'What wanderer from his native land e'er left himself behind?

For me, O Shore, I only claim
to merit, not to seek for, fame:
the good and just to please,

a state above the fear of want,

domestic love,-Heaven's choicest grant-
health, leisure, peace and ease.

WHY,

AGAINST REGRET

age

WARREN HASTINGS

HY, why repine, my pensive friend,
at pleasures slipt away?

Some the stern Fates will never lend,
and all refuse to stay.

I see the rainbow in the sky,
the dew upon the grass,
I see them, and I ask not why
they glimmer or they pass.

With folded arms I linger not
to call them back; 'twere vain;
in this or in some other spot

I know they'll shine again.

W. S. LANDOR

47

INFLUENCE OF MUSIC

RPHEUS with his lute made trees,

bow themselves, when he did sing:
to his music plants and flowers
ever sprung; as sun and showers
there had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,
even the billows of the sea,

hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art;
killing care and grief of heart
fall asleep, or hearing die.

W. SHAKESPEARE

48

49

FE

TO A SKYLARK

EATHERED lyric! warbling high,
sweetly gaining on the sky,
opening with thy matin lay
(nature's hymn!) the eye of day,
teach my soul, on early wing,
thus to soar and thus to sing.

While the bloom of orient light
gilds thee in thy tuneful flight,
may the day-spring from on high,
seen by faith's religious eye,
cheer me with his vital ray,
promise of eternal day!

W. THOMPSON

THE WORLD

WHETHER men do laugh or weep,

whether they do wake or sleep,

whether they feel heat or cold,
whether they be young or old;
there is underneath the sun
nothing in true earnest done.

All our pride is but a jest,

none are worst and none are best:
grief and joy, and hope and fear,
play their pageants everywhere;
vain opinion all doth sway,
and the world is but a play.

50

THE PRIMROSE

SK me why I send you here

ASK

this firstling of the infant year;

ask me why I send to you

this primrose all bepearled with dew;
I straight will whisper in your ears,
the sweets of love are washed with tears.

Ask me why this flower doth show

so yellow, green, and sickly too;
ask me why the stalk is weak,
and bending, yet it doth not break;
I must tell you these discover

what doubts and fears are in a lover.

T. CAREW

51

SONG TO BRITANNIA

FAIREST isle, all isles excelling,

seat of pleasures and of loves;
Venus here will choose her dwelling,
and forsake her Cyprian groves.

Cupid from his favourite nation
care and envy will remove,
jealousy, that poisons passion,
and despair, that dies for love.

Gentle murmurs, sweet complaining,
sighs that blow the fire of love;
soft repulses, kind disdaining,
shall be all the pains you prove.

J. DRYDEN

52

HA

THE INJURED LOVER

AD I a cave on some wild distant shore, where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar, there would I weep my woes,

there seek my lost repose,

till grief my eyes should close,
ne'er to wake more.

Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare
all thy fond-plighted vows-fleeting as air?
to thy new lover hie,
laugh o'er thy perjury,
then in thy bosom try

what peace is there!

R. BURNS

53 TO A FAIR YOUNG LADY, GOING OUT OF THE TOWN

IN SPRING

SK not the cause why sullen Spring

ASK

so long delays her flowers to bear;
why warbling birds forget to sing,
and winter storms invert the year:
Chloris is gone, and fate provides
to make it Spring, where she resides.
Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;

she cast not back a pitying eye:
but left her lover in despair,

to sigh, to languish, and to die:
ah, how can those fair eyes endure
to give the wounds they will not cure!

J. DRYDEN

54

THE FOLLY OF MAKING TROUbles.

H, fading joy, how quickly art thou past!

AH,

yet we thy ruin haste:

as if the cares of human life were few,

we seek out new:

and follow fate, which would too fast pursue.

F. S. II.

2

See, how on every bough the birds express
in their sweet notes their happiness:

they all enjoy and nothing spare;

but on their mother Nature lay their care:
why then should man, the lord of all below,
such troubles choose to know,

as none of all his subjects undergo?

J. DRYDEN

55

56

THE

SONG

HE merry waves dance up and down and play, sport is granted to the sea:

birds are the queristers of th' empty air,

sport is never wanting there,

the ground doth smile at the spring's flowery birth,
sport is granted to the earth:

the fire its cheering flame on high doth rear,
sport is never wanting there:

if all the elements, the earth, the sea,

air and fire, so merry be;

why is man's mirth so seldom and so small,
who is compounded of them all?

TO THE REDBREAST

UNHEARD in summer's flaring ray,

pour forth thy notes, sweet singer, wooing the stillness of the autumn day: bid it a moment linger,

nor fly

too soon from winter's scowling eye.

The blackbird's song at eventide,
and hers, who gay ascends
filling the heavens far and wide,
are sweet: but none so blends,
as thine,

with calm decay and peace divine.

A. COWLEY

H. CORNISH