Say, father Thames, for thou hast

seen

Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green, The paths of pleasure trace; Who foremost now delight to cleave, With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?

The captive linnet which inthrall? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent,

Their murmuring labors ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare de-
scry:

Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,

The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigor born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,

The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see, how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful

train!

Ah, show them where in ambush stand,

To seize their prey, the murth'rous band!

Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth,

Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school: and then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow: then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth: and then the justice

In fair round belly, with good capon lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern in

SUN-DIAL.

THE shadow on the dial's face,
That steals from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments and months, and years

away;

This shadow, which, in every clime,
Since light and motion first began,
Hath heid its course sublime;
What is it? mortal man!
It is the scythe of Time.
Not only o'er the dial's face,
This silent phantom, day by day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Steals moments, months, and years
away;

From hoary rock and aged tree, From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls,

From Teneriffe, towering o'er the

My hand was next to them, and then my heart;

I took, without more thinking, in

good part

Time's gentle admonition;

Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,

And the sad augurs mock their own presage;

Incertainties now crown themselves assured,

And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

Now with the drops of this most balmy time

My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,

Since spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.

And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

GOOD OMENS.

NOT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,

DESTINY.

THE Destiny, Minister General, That executeth in the world o'er all The purveiance that God hath seen beforne;

So strong it is, that though the world had sworn