Insects.

29

Their wings with azure, green, and purple

gloss'd,

Studded with colour'd eyes, with gems emboss'd,

Inlaid with pearl, and mark'd with various stains

Of lively crimson through their dusky veins.
Some shoot like living stars athwart the night,
And scatter from their wings a vivid light,
To guide the Indian to his tawny loves,
As through the woods with cautious step he

moves.

See the proud giant of the beetle race;
What shining arms his polish'd limbs enchase!
Like some stern warrior, formidably bright,
His steely sides reflect a gleaming light:
On his large forehead spreading horns he wears;
And high in air the branching antlers bears:
O'er many an inch extends his wide domain,
And his rich treasury swells with hoarded grain.

MRS. BARBAULD,

30

The Frozen Shower.

THE FROZEN SHOWER.

Written at Copenhagen

ERE yet the clouds let fall the treasur'd snow,
Or winds began through hazy skies to blow,
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose,
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclos'd at once to view
The face of Nature in a rich disguise,
And brighten'd every object to my eyes:
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn seem'd wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.
The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes
yield,

Seem polish'd lances in a hostile field.

The stag in limpid currents, with surprise Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise: The spreading oak, the beech and tow'ring pine, Glaz❜d over, in the freezing æther shine.

False Greatness.

31

The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.
Then, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies,

The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends.

A. PHILLIPS.

FALSE GREATNESS.

MILO, forbear to call him blest
Who only boasts a large estate,
Should all the treasures of the west
Meet and conspire to make him great!

Let a broad stream with golden sands
Through all his meadows roll,
He's but a wretch with all his lands
That bears a narrow soul.

Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man!

WATTS.

32

The Oid Man's Comforts.

THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS, AND HOW HE GAINED THEM.

"You are old, father William," the young man cried,

"The few locks that are left you are gray : You are hale, father William, a hearty old man : Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," father William replied,

"I remember'd that youth would fly fast, And abus'd not my health and my vigour at first, That I never might need them at last.”

"You are old, father William," the young man cried,

"And pleasures with youth pass away,

And yet you lament not the days that are gone : Now tell me the reason, I pray."

The Old Man's Comforts.

33

"In the days of my youth," father William

replied,

"I remember'd that youth could not last; I thought of the future whatever I did,

That I never might grieve for the past.'

"You are old, father William," the young man cried,

"And life must be hast'ning away;

You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death:

Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"I am cheerful young man," father William replied,

"Let the cause thy attention engage : In the days of my youth I remember'd my God, And he hath not forgotten my age."

ANTHOLOGY