But if the mind Be inclined To unquietness, That only may be called The worst of all distress. He that is melancholy, Were he possessed of honors, Fly away; A SWEET PASTORAL. 707 Into some other fashion doth it range; Thus goes the floating world beneath the moon; Wherefore, my mind, above time, motion, place, Rise up, and steps unknown to nature trace. A GOOD that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April showers, A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, A honor that more fickle is than wind, A glory at opinion's frown that lowers, A treasury which bankrupt time devours, A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, A vain delight our equals to command, A style of greatness in effect a dream, A swelling thought of holding sea and land, A servile lot, decked with a pompous name: Are the strange ends we toil for here below Till wisest death makes us our errors know. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. A Sweet Pastoral. Good muse, rock me asleep With some sweet harmony! The weary eye is not to keep Thy wary company. Sweet love, begone a while! Thou know'st my heaviness; Beauty is born but to beguile My heart of happiness. See how my little flock, That loved to feed on high, Do headlong tumble down the rock, And in the valley die. The bushes and the trees, That were so fresh and green, Do all their dainty color lease, And not a leaf is seen. Sweet Philomel, the bird That hath the heavenly throat, Doth now, alas! not once afford Recording of a note. The flowers have had a frost; Each herb hath lost her savor; And Phillida, the fair, hath lost The comfort of her favor. Now all these careful sights So kill me in conceit, That how to hope upon delights Is but a mere deceit. And, therefore, my sweet muse, Thou know'st what help is best; Do now thy heavenly cunning use To set my heart at rest. And in a dream bewray What fate shall be my friendWhether my life shall still decay, Or when my sorrow end. NICHOLAS BRETON. Ode to Beauty. WHO gave thee, O beauty, Lavish, lavish promiser, The acorn's cup, the rain-drop's arc, The shining pebble of the pond In thy momentary play, Ah, what avails it To hide or to shun Hath granted His throne! Is the deep's lover; As fate refuses To me the heart fate for me chooses. Was mingled from the generous whole; I hear the lofty pæans Of the masters of the shell, Olympian bards who sung Which always find us young, And always keep us so. Oft, in streets or humblest places, I detect far-wandered graces, Thee gliding through the sea of form, HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 709 Thou eternal fugitive, Hovering over all that live, Quick and skilful to inspire Sweet, extravagant desire, Starry space and lily-bell Filling with thy roseate smell, Wilt not give the lips to taste Of the nectar which thou hast. All that's good and great with thee Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely Thou hast touched for my despair; RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. THE awful shadow of some unseen power Floats, though unseen, among us — visiting As summer winds that creep from flower to flower; Like moonbeams, that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Like clouds in starlight widely spread, Like aught that for its grace may be Spirit of beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart Thou messenger of sympathies That wax and wane in lovers' eyes! Thou that to human thought art nourishment, Depart not as thy shadow came ! While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; Wood-Notes. As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, WOOD-NOTES. So waved the pine-tree through my thought, "WHETHER is better, the gift or the donor? Come to me," Quoth the pine-tree, "I am the giver of honor. And my manure the snow; And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, In summer's scorching glow. "He is great who can live by me. One dry, and one the living tree. It seemed the likeness of their own; Me through trackless thickets led, Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide?' I found the water's bed. The water-courses were my guide; I travelled grateful by their side, Or through their channel dry; They led me through the thicket damp, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land, Unerring to the ocean-sand. The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark; Supplied me necessary food; A pillow in her greenest field, "What prizes the town and the tower? The wild-eyed boy, who in the woods I give my rafters to his boat, 711 Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, A little while each russet gem Will swell and rise with wonted grace; But when it seeks enlarged supplies, The orphan of the forest dies. Whoso walks in solitude, And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird, From these companions, power and grace; |