POW com'st thou on that gentle hand, where love should kisses
For beauty's tribute? answer me, thou foul and frightful thing!
Why dwell upon thy hideous form those reverent eyes that
Themselves the worshipped stars that light some youthful poet's dream?
"When bends the thick and golden grain, that ripes at my command,
From the cracked earth I creep to bless with food the fainting land ;
And thus no foulness in my form the grateful people see,
But maids as sweet and bright as this are priestesses to me.
Throned in the slime of ancient Nile, I bid the earth to bear,
And blades and blossoms at my voice, and corn and fruits appear;
And thus upon my loathly form are showers of beauty shed,
And peace and plenty join to fling a halo round my head."
Dark teacher! tell me yet again, what hidden lore doth lie
Beneath the exoteric type of thy philosophy?
"The Useful is the Beautiful; the good and kind and true
To feature and to form impart their own celestial hue.
Learn further, that one common chain runs through the heavenly plan,
And links in bonds of brotherhood the beetle and the man:
Both foul and fair alike from Him, the Lord of Love, do spring ;-
And this believe, he loves not well who loves not everything."
'APPY is he who lives to understand,
Not human nature, but explores
All natures,—to the end that he may find
The law that governs each; and where begins
The union, the partition where, that makes
Kind and degree, among all visible beings;
The constitutions, powers, and faculties,
Which they inherit,-cannot step beyond,―
And cannot fall beneath; that do assign
To every class its station and its office,
Through all the mighty commonwealth of things,
Up from the creeping-plant to sovereign man.
Such converse, if directed by a meek,
Sincere, and humble spirit, teaches love ;-
For knowledge is delight; and such delight
Breeds love yet suited as it rather is
To thought and to the climbing intellect,
It teaches less to love, than to adore ;
If that be not indeed the highest love!
The dignity of life is not impaired
By aught that innocently satisfies
The humbler cravings of the heart; and he
Is a still happier man, who, for those heights
Of speculation not unfit, descends,
And such benign affection cultivates
Among the inferior kinds; not merely those
That he may call his own, and which depend,
As individual objects of regard,
Upon his care, from whom he also looks
For signs and tokens of a mutual bond,
But others, far beyond this narrow sphere,
Whom for the very sake of love, he loves.
To mark their placid state, who never heard
Of a command which they have power to break,
Or rule which they are tempted to transgress :
These, with a soothed or elevated heart,
May we behold; their knowledge register;
Observe their ways, and, free from envy, find
Complacence there;-but, wherefore this to you?
I guess that, welcome to your lonely hearth,
The redbreast, ruffled up by winter's cold
Into a "feathery bunch," feeds at your hand;
A box, perchance, is from your casement hung,
For the small wren to build in; not in vain,
The barriers disregarding that surround
This deep, abiding place, before your sight
Mounts on the breeze the butterfly, and soars,
Small creature as she is, from earth's bright flowers
Into the dewy clouds. Ambition reigns
In the waste wilderness: the soul ascends,
Drawn towards her native firmament of heaven,
When the fresh eagle, in the month of May,
Upborne, at evening, on replenished wing,
This shaded valley leaves; and leaves the dark,
Empurpled hills, conspicuously renewing
A proud communication with the sun!
HE bright June woods with woodland sounds are ringing ;
The cuckoo calls me, fleeing ere I come;
A thousand insects, with life-joyous hum
Disport around; and through the orchard, singing
Its choral mass, the rich-toned thrush is winging
Its way to corny fields. No thing is dumb
To-day-the very grass breathes loud; each bloom
THE CHILD'S WISH IN JUNE.
Speaks odour as it opes; and blithely flinging
Spice-scents abroad, pink-blossomed hawthorn sheds Rare colours on the daisies at its foot !—
'Midst all this eloquence of Nature, mute
Man's melted spirit should not rest! Their heads Flowers raise to greet the sun; and man, too, lifts His thankful soul to God for all these summer gifts!
THE CHILD'S WISH IN JUNE.
OTHER, mother! the winds are at play ;
Prithee, let me idle to-day.
Look, dear mother! the flowers all lie
Languidly under the bright blue sky.
See how slowly the streamlet glides
Look how the violet roguishly hides;
Even the butterfly rests on the rose,
And scarcely sips the sweets as he goes.
Poor Tray is asleep in the noon-day sun,
And the flies go about him one by one;
And pussy sits near with a sleepy grace,
Without ever thinking of washing her face.
There flies a bird to a neighbouring tree,
But very lazily flieth he,
And he sits and twitters a gentle note
That scarcely ruffles his little throat.
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