But evil is wrought by want of thought,

As well as want of heart.

Oh! would I were dead now,

Or up in my bed now,

The Lady's Dream.

To cover my head now,

And have a good cry!

Straight down the crooked lane,

And all round the square.

A Table of Errata.

A Plain Direction.

For my part getting up seems not so easy
By half as lying.

Morning Meditations.

He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles.

Ibid.

Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould.

How widely its agencies vary,

-

To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,

As even its minted coins express,

Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,

And now of a bloody Mary.

Another tumble! That's his precious nose!

Ibid.

Ibid.

Parental Ode to my Infant Son.

Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red.

It is not linen you 're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives! 1

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!

One more Unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death.

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;

Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

The Season

Song of the Shirt.

Ibid.

Ibid.

The Bridge of Sighs.

Ibid.

Alas for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

Ibid.

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon,

No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day,

No road, no street, no t' other side the way,

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.

1 Compare Scott, The Antiquary, Ch. xi.

Ibid.

November.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 1794-1878.

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,

Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?

The Ages. xxxiii.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language.

Thanatopsis.

The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join,

The innumerable caravan which moves 1

Ibid.

To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
The groves were God's first temples.

Ibid.

A Forest Hymn.

1 The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take.

Edition of 1821.

The stormy March has come at last,

With winds and clouds and changing skies;

I hear the rushing of the blast

That through the snowy valley flies.

But 'neath yon crimson tree,

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,

Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,

Her blush of maiden shame.

March.

Autumn Woods.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows The Death of the Flowers.

brown and sear.

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream

no more.

Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Ibid.

A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.
The Battle-Field.

The victory of endurance born.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.

Ibid.

JAMES G. PERCIVAL. 1795-1856.

On thy fair bosom, silver lake,

The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, And round his heart the ripples break,

As down he bears before the gale.

To Seneca Lake.

RUFUS CHOATE. 1799-1859.

There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and equal laws which it had framed.

Speech before the New England Society, Dec. 22, 1843. We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to the music of the Union. Letter to the Whig Convention.

Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence. Letter to the Maine Whig Committee, 1856.

COLONEL BLACKER.

Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry.3

Oliver's Advice. 1834.

1 The Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.-Junius, Letter No. 35, Dec. 19, 1769.

It (Calvinism) established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king. - George Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. iii. Ch. 6.

2 We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent. - Franklin J. Dickman, Review of a Lecture by Rufus Choate, in the Providence Journal, Dec. 14, 1849.

3 There is a well-authenticated anecdote of Cromwell. On a certain occasion, when his troops were about crossing a river to attack the enemy, he concluded an address, couched in the usual fanatic terms in use among them, with these words: "Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry."— Hayes's Ballads of Ireland, Vol. i. p. 191.