Thou wilt find shelter everywhere
With those to whom a different skin
Is not a damning proof of sin.
But, if all others are unkind,
There's one heart whither thou canst fly
For shelter from the biting wind;
And, in that home of purity,
It were no bitter thing to die.
98.-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,"
Forever 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.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where passed the shaft no trace is found;
As from the wing no scar the sky retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death;
E'en with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
99.—THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.
ALEXANDER POPE.
Father of all! in every age,
In every clime, adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Thou great first cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confined
To know but this, that Thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.
What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun,
That more than heaven pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives,
To enjoy is to obey.
Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw;
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy foe.
If I am right thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart
To find that better way!
Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another s woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath :
O lead me whereso'er I go,
Through this day's life or death.
This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun
Thou know'st if best bestowed or not,
And let thy will be done.
To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all beings raise
All nature's incense rise.
100.-SONNETS AND SONGS.
GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.-KEats.
The poetry of earth is never dead;
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.
That is the grasshopper's,—he takes the lead
In summer luxury, he has never done
With his delights; for, when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never.
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems, to one in drowsiness half lost,
The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low. With shield of proof shield me from out the prease Of those fierce darts, Despair at me doth throw; O make in me those civil wars to cease!
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.-KEATS.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been,
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific,-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
When eve is purpling cliff and cave,
Thoughts of the heart, how soft
ye flow!
Not softer on the western wave
The golden lines of sunset glow.
Then all by chance or fate removed,
Like spirits crowd upon the eye,-
The few we liked, the one we loved,-
And the whole heart is memory;
And life is like a fading flower,
Its beauty dying as we gaze;
Yet as the shadows round us lower,
Heaven pours above a brighter blaze.
When morning sheds its gorgeous dye,
Our hope, our heart, to earth is given;
But dark and lonely is the eye
That turns not, at its eve, to heaven.
ON HIS BLINDNESS.-MILTON.
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 therewith 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.'
WHAT BOOTS THE QUEST?-WORDSWORTH.
Alas! what boots the long, laborious quest
Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill;
Or pains abstruse, to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcendent rest
Where every passion shall the sway attest
Of reason, seated on her sovereign hill?
What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie depressed
Beneath the brutal sword? Her haughty schools
Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day,
Than all the pride of intellect and thought?
LAMENT FOR GLENCAIRN.-BURNS
Ye scattered birds that faintly sing,
The reliques of the vernal choir!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honors of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;
But nocht in all revolving time
Can gladness bring again to me.
The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee:
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!
|