How calm and quiet a delight Is it, alone, To read, and meditate, and write, By none offended, and offending none ! To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease, And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease. O my beloved nymph, fair Dove, Upon thy flowery banks to lie, And view thy silver stream, Playing at liberty; And with my angle, upon them I ever learn'd, industriously to try! Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show ; The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine, And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine Beloved Dove, with thee To vie priority; Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoin'd, submit, O my beloved rocks, that rise To awe the earth and brave the skies, Giddy with pleasure, to look down ; And, from the vales, to view the noble heights above! O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat, And all anxieties, my safe retreat ; What safety, privacy, what true delight, In the artificial night, Your gloomy entrails make, How oft, when grief has made me fly, E'en of my dearest friends, have I, All my sorrows open laid, And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy! Lord! would men let me alone, What an over-happy one Should I think myself to be; Might I in this desert place (Which most men in discourse disgrace) Live but undisturbed and free ! Here, in this despised recess, Would I, maugre winter's cold, And the summer's worst excess, Without an envious eye On any thriving under Fortune's smile, Contented live, and then contented die. "WHEN FIRST THY EYES." BY HENRY VAUGHAN.—1614-95. [HENRY VAUGHAN was born at Newton, in Brecknockshire, in 1614. He studied at Oxford, and first became a lawyer, then a physician; but in neither capacity does he seem to have obtained a competency. In the latter part of his life, he became very serious and devout. He died in 1695. Vaughan's poetry exhibits great strength and originality of thought, and abounds in imagery; but his ideas are often of a melancholy caste, and his rhymes not always as pleasing as those selected.] WHEN first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave To do the like; our bodies but forerun The spirit's duty: true hearts spread and leave Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should : Dawn with the day there are set awful hours Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth, Is styled their star; the stone and hidden food : Three blessings wait upon them, one of which Should move-they make us holy, happy, rich. When the world's up, and every swarm abroad, LIKE AS A NURSE. EVEN as a Nurse, whose child's imperfect pace Can hardly lead his foot from place to place, Leaves her fond kissing, sets him down to go, Nor does uphold him for a step or two; But when she finds that he begins to fall, She holds him up and kisses him withal: So God from man sometimes withdraws his hand Awhile, to teach his infant faith to stand; But when he sees his feeble strength begin To fail, he gently takes him up again. THE RETREAT. HAPPY those early days, when I Before I understood this place Before I taught my tongue to wound |