The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With
green hath clad the hill and eke the vale;
The nightingale, with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer has come, for every spray now springs;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flings;
The swift swallow pursueth the fliès smale;
The busy bee her honey now she mings;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale,
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.
Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness
Blest is thy dwelling-place,
O, to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud
Far in the downy cloud
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on the dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen,
O'er moor and mountain green,
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow's rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing away!
There, where the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be;
Emblem of happiness
Blest is thy dwelling-place,
O, to abide in the desert with thee!
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud ; Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee, we neither love nor hate.
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.
Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate.
Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame, or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumors freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
To crave for less, and more obey,
Nor dare with heaven's high will contend.
-This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve there with my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,-
Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?
I fondly ask :-But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies; God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows,
In the Acroceraunian mountains,-
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leaped down the rocks
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;-
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams; And gliding and springing She went, ever singing
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.
Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook.
And opened a chasm
In the rocks;—with a spasm
All Erymanthus shook :
And the black south wind
It concealed behind
The urns of the silent snow.
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder
The bars of the springs below:
The beard and the hair
Of the river-god were
Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.
"O, save me! O, guide me,
And bid the deep hide me;
For he grasps me now by the hair!"
The loud Ocean heard,
To its blue depth stirred,
And divided at her prayer;
And under the water
The Earth's white daughter
Fled like a sunny beam;
Behind her descended
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