Being laid, and dressed for sleep, close not thy eyes Up with thy curtains; give thy soul the wing In some good thoughts; so when thy day shall rise, And thou unrakest thy fire, those sparks will bring New flames; besides where these lodge, vain heats mourn And die; that bush, where God is, shall not burn. TO HIS BOOKS. BRIGHT books! the pérspectives to our weak sights, The clear projections of discerning lights, Burning and shining thoughts, man's posthume day, The track of fled souls, and their milky way, voice The dead alive and busy, the still Of enlarged spirits, kind Heaven's white decoys! Who lives with you lives like those knowing flowers, Which in commérce with light spend all their hours; Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun, But with glad haste unveil to kiss the sun. (night, Beneath you all is dark, and a dead Which whoso lives in, wants both health and sight. By sucking you, the wise, like bees, do grow Healing and rich, though this they do most slow, Because most choicely; for as great a store Have we of books as bees of herbs, or more: NATURE. JONES VERY. THE bubbling brook doth leap when I come by, Because my feet find measure with its call; The birds know when the friend they love is nigh, For I am known to them, both great and small. The flower that on the lonely hillside grows Expects me there when spring its bloom has given; And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows, And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven; For he who with his Maker walks aright, Shall be their lord as Adam was before; His ear shall catch each sound with new delight, Each object wear the dress that then it wore; And he, as when erect in soul he stood, Hear from his Father's lips that all is good. Too many, too many For eye or for ear, The sights that we see, And the sounds that we hear. A weight as of slumber Comes down on the mind; So swift is life's train To its objects we're blind; I myself am but one In the fleet-gliding show Like others I walk, But know not where I go. One saint to another I heard say "How long?" I listened, but nought more I heard of his song; The shadows are walking Through city and plain, How long shall the night And its shadow remain ? How long ere shall shine, In this glimmer of things, The light of which prophet In prophecy sings? And the gates of that city Be open, whose sun No more to the west Its circuit shall run! The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, THE ROSE. Go, lovely rose! Tell her that wastes her time and me, Tell her that's young, And shuns to have her graces spied, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Lets in new light through chinks Of beauty from the light retired; that time has made. Bid her come forth- ON A GIRDLE. THAT which her slender waist confined |