English

Full many are the centuries since the days
When early Christians traveled to great shrines,
Weary and spent, along hot, dusty ways,
To hear, at Easter time, the blessed lines
Read to assure them of the living Christ —
Words that could strengthen faith, sorrow allay.
These pilgrims counted it a thing unpriced
To hear again, " The stone was rolled away. "

No distant journey needs must be to feel
The joy that pulses with new bud and leaf;
And here, in Easter quiet, heart may kneel
To grasp his comfort after winter grief.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
That to be hated needs but to be seen,
Invites my lays; be present sylvan maids,
And graceful deer reposing in the shades.

I am the Morning and the Evening Star,
Drag the slow barge, or wheel the rapid car
While wrapped in fire the realms of ether glow,
Or private dirt in public virtue throw.

How small of all that human hearts endure
The short and simple annals of the poor!
I would commend their bodies to the rack;
At least we'll die with harness on our back!

Full happy is the man who comes at last
— Into the safe completion of his year;
Weathered the perils of his spring, that blast
— How many blossoms promising and dear!
And of his summer, with dread passions fraught
— That oft, like fire through the ripening corn,
Blight all with mocking death and leave distraught
— Loved ones to mourn the ruined waste forlorn.
But now, though autumn gave but harvest slight,
— Oh, grateful is he to the powers above
For winter's sunshine, and the lengthened night

A Fryar was walking in Exeter-street
Drest up in his Garb like a Gentleman neat;
He there with a wanton young Lady did meet
And freely did offer and earnestly proffer
to give her a Bottle of Wine.

Love, let us not stand to Discourse in the Cold,
My amorous Jewel I prithee behold;
Then straight he pull'd out a whole handful of Gold
And said, My dear honey, here 's plenty of Money;
I'll give thee a Guinny or two.

The glittering Guinnies soon dazel'd her eyes,
That privately straight she began to devise

Fruitful Earth drinks up the rain,
Trees from Earth drink that again,
The Sea drinks the Air, the Sun
Drinks the Sea, and him the Moon:
Is it reason then d'ee think
I should thirst when all else drink?

The fruit of the orchard is over-ripe, Elaine,
And leaves are crisping on the garden wall.
Leaves on the garden path are wet and rain
Drips from the low shrubs with a steady fall.

It is long, so long since I was here, Elaine,
Moles have gnawed the rose tree at its root;
You did not think that I would come again,
Least of all in the day of falling fruit.

The fruit of all the service that I serve
Despair doth reap, such hapless hap have I.
But though he have no power to make me swerve,
Yet, by the fire, for cold I feel I die.
In paradise, for hunger still I sterve;
And, in the flood, for thirst to death I dry.
So Tantalus am I, and in worse pain
Amids my help, and helpless doth remain.

The frugal snail, with forecast of repose,
Carries his house with him where'er he goes;
Peeps out,—and if there comes a shower of rain,
Retreats to his small domicile amain.
Touch but a tip of him, a horn,—'tis well,—
He curls up in his sanctuary shell.
He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.
Himself he boards and lodges; both invites
And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights.
He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure
Chattels; himself is his own furniture,

Frost in the air and music in the air,
And the singing is sweet in the street.
She wakes from a dream to a dream — O hark!
The singing so faint in the dark.

The musicians come and stand at the door,
A fiddler and singers three,
And one with a bright lamp thrusts at the dark,
And the music comes sudden — O hark!

She hears the singing as sweet as a dream
And the fiddle that climbs to the sky,
With head 'neath the curtain she stares out — O hark!
The music so strange in the dark.

1. From whence doth this union arise, That
2. It cannot in Eden be found, Nor
hatred is conquered by love?
yet in a Paradise lost;
It fastens our
It grows on Im-
That distance and time can't remove.
And Jesus' dear blood it did cost.
souls with such ties,
manuel's ground,

3. My friends once so dear unto me,
Our souls so united in love;
Where Jesus is gone we shall be,
In yonder blest mansions above.

4. With Jesus we ever shall reign,
And all his bright glories shall see;