The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield. High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield But thou beneath the random bield
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
There in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!
Such is the fate of artless Maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade,
By love's simplicity betray'd
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card
The billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven,
Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heaven,
He, ruin'd, sink!
Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight
CHILD of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight
Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;
And, where the flowers of paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!
Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept.
And such is man; soon from his cell of clay
To burst a seraph in the blaze of day.
PROCRASTINATION.
EDWARD YOUNG.
BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange ?-
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born:
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel, and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least their own; their future selves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose they postpone.
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves: then dies the same.
Lo! at noon 'tis sudden night,
Darkness covers all the sky
Rocks are rending at the sight:
Children, can you tell me why?
What can all these wonders be?-
Jesus dies on Calvary!
Nail'd upon the cross, behold,
How his tender limbs are torn;
For a royal crown of gold
They have made Him one of thorn:
Cruel hands, that dare to bind
Thorns upon a brow so kind!
See, the blood is falling fast,
From his forehead and his side;
Hark! He now has breathed his last:
With a mighty groan He died.
Children, shall I tell you why
Jesus condescends to die?
He who was the King above
Left his kingdom for a grave,
Out of pity out of love,
That the guilty He might save.
Down to this sad world He flew,
For such little ones as you.
THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine;
My temple, Lord, that arch of thine;
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.
My choir shall be the moonlit waves,
When murmuring homeward to their caves;
Or when the stillness of the sea,
Even more than music, breathes of Thee.
I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown,
All light and silence, like thy throne;
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.
Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look,
Shall be my pure and shining book;
Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.
I'll read thy anger, in the rack
That clouds awhile the day-beam's track;
Thy mercy, in the azure hue
Of sunny brightness breaking through!-
There's nothing bright above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy Deity!
There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy love;
An dmeekly wait that moment, when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!
LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD.
LET Erin remember the days of old,
Ere her faithless sons betray'd her;
When Malachi wore the collar of gold,
Which he won from her proud invader;
When her kings, with standard of green
Led the red-branch knights to danger;
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger.
On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days
In the wave beneath him shining;
Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over,
Thus, sighing, look through the waves of time
For the long-faded glories they cover.
THE BIRD LET LOOSE.
THOMAS MOORE.
THE bird, let loose in Eastern skies,
When hast'ning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam,
But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
So grant me, God, from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air,
To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
My soul, as home she springs:—
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom in her wings!
|