THE Crow does sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!
Perceivest thou not the process of the year,
How the four seasons in four forms appear?
Like human life in every shape they wear:
Spring first, like infancy, shoots out her head,
With milky juice requiring to be fed......
Proceeding onward, whence the year began,
The summer grows adult, and ripens into man......
Autumn succeeds, a sober, tepid age,
Nor froze with fear, nor boiling into rage;
Last, winter creeps along with tardy pace,
Sour is his front, and furrow'd is his face.
Thus for all things in the world's prime,
The wise God seal'd their proper time,
Nor will permit those seasons, He
Ordained by turns, should mingled be.
Then whose wild actions out of season,
Cross to nature and her reason,
Would by new ways old orders rend,
Shall never find a happy end.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general_earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drop's fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.
SELF-SELFISHNESS.
-HONOUR is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas,
And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Cæsar with the senate at his heels.
And though all cry down self, none means
His own self in a literal sense.
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels;
More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts,
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
How often, in this cold and bitter world,
Is the warm heart thrown back upon itself!
Cold, careless are we of another's grief;
We wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness.
But och! mankind are unco weak,
And little to be trusted;
If self the wavering balance shake,
It's rarely right adjusted.
Selfishness:-Toy-bewitch'd,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,
No common centre Man, no common sire
Knoweth! A sordid, solitary thing,
'Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart,
Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams,
Feeling himself, his own low self the whole;
When he by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one self. Self, that no alien knows!
Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel!
Self, spreading still! oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing.
SELF-EXAMINATION-GOVERNMENT-LOVE.
SELF-EXAMINATION.
LET not soft slumber close my eyes,
Ere I have recollected thrice,
The train of actions through the day.
Where have my feet marked out their way?
What have I learnt where'er I've been,
From all I've heard, from all I've seen?
What know I more that's worth the knowing?
What have I done that's worth the doing?
What have I sought that I should shun?
What duties have I left undone?
Or into what new follies run?
These self-inquiries are the road
That leads to virtue and to God!
SELF-GOVERNMENT.
NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,
History is but the shadow of their shame,
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts,
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that heaven with obscure imagery
Of their own likeness. What! are members knit
By force or custom? Man, who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquish'd will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears-being himself alone.
SELF-LOVE but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another speeds;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace,
Its country next-next the whole human race.—Pope.
SECRECY. SECURITY. SEDUCTION.
SECRECY.
A SECRET in his mouth
Is like a wild bird put into a cage,
Whose door no sooner opens, but 't is out.
When two know it, how can it be a secret?
And indeed with what justice can you
Expect secrecy in me, that cannot
Be private to yourself.
As you may see a mighty promontory,
More digg'd and under-eaten than may warrant
A safe supportance to his hanging brows,
All passengers avoid him; shun all ground
That lies within his shadow, and bear still
A flying eye upon him; so great men
Corrupted in their grounds, and building out
Too swelling fronts for their foundations,
When most they should be propp'd, are most forsaken,
And men will rather thrust unto the storms
Of better grounded states, than take a shelter
Beneath the ruinous and fearful weight;
Yet they so oversee their faulty bases,
That they remain securer in conceit;
And that security doth worse presage
Their near destruction, than their eaten grounds.
HE fell, as doth the tempter ever fall,
Even in the gaining of his loathsome end.
God doth not work as man works, but makes all
The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;
Let him judge Margaret! If to be the thrall
Of love and faith, too generous to defend
Its very life from him she loved, be sin,
What hope of grace may the seducer win?
With weaker passion will affect the heart,
Than when the faithful eye beholds the part.
Francis, from Horace. O, what a life is the eye! what a strange and inscru
Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him;
Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his
Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber,
Even for him it exists! it moves and stirs in its prison! Lives with a separate life: and "is it a spirit?" he
Sure it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language. Coleridge.
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou still are blood!
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn;-
'Tis not the devil's crest.
Shakspere.
The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
Will eke with it his service. All admit it,
All practise it; and he who is content
With showing what he is, shall have small credit
In church, or camp, or state. So wags the world.
Old Play.
Who will believe? not I, for in deceiving
Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream;
I cannot spare the luxury of believing
That all things beautiful are what they seem.
Fitz-green Halleck.
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