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POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND REFLECTION.

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"I was Ever thuis! _ Each hour that came, Still incremitting, bought.

Some newer form of grief or shame,

Some newer

care for thought

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POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND REFLECTION.

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My minde to me a kingdom is;

Such perfect joy therein I finde As farre exceeds all earthly blisse

That God or nature hath assignde; Though much I want that most would have, Yet still my minde forbids to crave.

Content I live; this is my stay,

I seek no more than may suffice.
I presse to beare no haughtie sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Loe, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

I see how plentie surfets oft,

And hastie clymbers soonest fall; I see that such as sit aloft

Mishap doth threaten most of all.
These get with toile, and keepe with feare;
Such cares my mind could never beare.

No princely pompe nor welthie store,
No force to win the victorie,

No wylie wit to salve a sore,

No shape to winne a lover's eye, To none of these I yeeld as thrall; For why, my mind despiseth all.

Some have too much, yet still they crave; I little have, yet seek no more.

They are but poore, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store.

They poor, I rich; they beg, I give ;
They lacke, I lend; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another's losse,

I grudge not at another's gaine;
No worldly wave my mind can tosse;
I brooke that is another's bane.

I feare no foe, nor fawne on friend;
I lothe not life, nor dread mine end.

I joy not in no earthly blisse ;

I weigh not Cresus' wealth a straw; For care, I care not what it is;

I feare not fortune's fatal law; My mind is such as may not move For beautie bright, or force of love.

I wish but what I have at will;

I wander not to seeke for more;

I like the plaine, I clime no hill;

In greatest stormes I sitte on shore, And laugh at them that toile in vaine To get what must be lost againe.

I kisse not where I wish to kill;

I feigne not love where most I hate ;
I breake no sleepe to winne my will;

I wayte not at the mightie's gate.
I scorne no poore, I feare no rich;
I feele no want, nor have too much.

The court ne cart I like ne loath,

Extreames are counted worst of all; The golden meane betwixt them both

Doth surest sit, and feares no fall;
This is my choyce; for why, I finde
No wealth is like a quiet minde.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clere my chiefe defence;
I never seeke by bribes to please,

Nor by desert to give offence.
Thus do I live, thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I !

WILLIAM BYRD.

BEAUTY.

"T is much immortal beauty to admire,
But more immortal beauty to withstand;
The perfect soul can overcome desire,
If beauty with divine delight be scanned.
For what is beauty but the blooming child
Of fair Olympus, that in night must end,
And be forever from that bliss exiled,
If admiration stand too much its friend?
The wind may be enamored of a flower,
The ocean of the green and laughing shore,
The silver lightning of a lofty tower,
But must not with too near a love adore;
Or flower and margin and cloud-capped tower
Love and delight shall with delight devour!

THOUGHT.

-.

LORD THURLOW.

THOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils ;

Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known;

Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete.
Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart though seeming near,
In our light we scattered lie;

All is thus but starlight here.

What is social company

But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy

But the glancing of a dream?

Only when the sun of love

Melts the scattered stars of thought,

Only when we live above

What the dim-eyed world hath taught.

Only when our souls are fed

By the fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led

Which they never drew from earth,

We, like parted drops of rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one.

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH.

PRELUDE TO THE VOICES OF THE

NIGHT.

PLEASANT it was, when woods were green,

And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long drooping boughs between, Shadows dark and sunlight sheen

Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.
Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,

With one continuous sound;

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings The feelings of a dream,

As of innumerable wings,

As, when a bell no longer swings,
Faint the hollow murmur rings

O'er meadow, lake, and stream.

And dreams of that which cannot die,
Bright visions, came to me,
As lapped in thought I used to lie,
And gaze into the summer sky,
Where the sailing clouds went by,
Like ships upon the sea;

Dreams that the soul of youth engage
Ere Fancy has been quelled;
Old legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,

And chronicles of eld.

And, loving still these quaint old themes, Even in the city's throng

I feel the freshness of the streams

That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams. Water the green land of dreams,

The holy land of song.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE INNER VISION.

MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path there be or none,
While a fair region round the Traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;

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I see ambition never pleased;

I see some Tantals starved in store;

I see gold's dropsy seldom eased;
I see even Midas gape for more;
I neither want nor yet abound,
Enough's a feast, content is crowned.

I feign not friendship where I hate ;
I fawn not on the great (in show);
I prize, I praise a mean estate,

Neither too lofty nor too low:
This, this is all my choice, my cheer, -
A mind content, a conscience clear.
JOSHUA SYLvester.

"

JOHN GREENLeaf Whittier.

IMAGINATION.

FROM MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."

THESEUS. More strange than true: I never may believe

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman; the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt;
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to

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