LIKE a worn gray-haired mariner whom the sea
Hath wrecked, then flung in mockery ashore,
To clamber some gaunt cliff, and list the roar
Of wave pursuing wave unceasingly;
His native land, dear home, and toil-won store
Inexorably severed from his sight;
His sole companions Hopelessness and Grief—
Who feels his day will soon be mirkest night—
Who from its close alone expects relief—
Praying life's sands, in pity, to descend
And rid him of life's burden,—So do I
Gaze on the world, and time fast surging by,

I saw, strange sight! the children sat at meat,
When they their Parent's face had never known;
Nor rose they when they heard his step to greet,
But feasted there upon his gifts alone;
'Twas morn, and noon, and evening hour the same;
They heeded not 'twas He who gave them bread;
For they had not yet learned to call his name,
They had been children, but they now were dead;
Yet still their Father, with a father's care,
Early and late stood waiting by their board;
Hoping each hour that they his love would share,

Ah! who can see those fruites of Paradise,
Celestial cherries, which so sweetly swell,
That sweetnesse selfe confinde there seemes to dwell,
And all those sweetest parts about despise?
Ah! who can see and feele no flame surprise
His hardened heart? for mee, alas! too well
I know their force, and how they doe excell:
Now burne I through desire, now doe I freeze;
I die, deare life, vnlesse to mee bee giuen
As many kisses as the spring hath flowrs,
Or as the siluer drops of Iris' showrs,
Or as the starres in all-embracing heauen;

“A Little , passionately, not at all?”
She casts the snowy petals on the air:
And what care we how many petals fall!

Nay, wherefore seek the seasons to forestall?
It is but playing, and she will not care,
A little, passionately, not at all!

She would not answer us if we should call
Across the years: her visions are too fair;
And what care we how many petals fall!

She knows us not, nor recks if she enthrall
With voice and eyes and fashion of her hair,
A little, passionately, not at all!

Knee-deep she goes in meadow grasses tall,

‘They are his new boots,’ she pursued;
‘They have not been worn at all:
They stay there hung on the wall,
And are getting as stiff as wood.
He bought them for the wet weather,
And they are of waterproof leather.’

‘Why does her husband,’ said I,
‘Never wear those boots bought new?’
To a neighbour of hers I knew;
Who answered: ‘Ah, those boots. Aye,
He bought them to wear whenever
It rained. But there they hang ever.

‘“Yes,” he laughed, as he hung them up,
“I've got them at last—a pair
I can walk in anywhere

Yes, I too could face death and never shrink:
But it is harder to bear hated life;
To stive with hands and knees weary of strife;
To drag the heavy chain whose every link
Galls to the bone; to stand upon the brink
Of the deep grave, nor drowse, though it be rife
With sleep; to hold with steady hand the knife
Nor strike home: this is courage as I think.
Surely to suffer is more than to do:
To do is quickly done; to suffer is
Longer and fuller of heart-sicknesses:
Each day's experience testifies of this:

IF waiting by the time-crown'd halls,
Which nurtur'd us for Christ in youth,
We love to watch on the grey walls
The lingering gleam of Evangelic Truth;
If to the spoilers of the soul,
Proudly we shew our banner'd scroll,
And bid them our old war-cry hear,
“God is my Light: whom need IFear!”
How bleak, that hour, across our purpose high,
Sweeps the chill damping shade of thoughtless years gone by!

How count we then lost eve and morn,
The bell unwelcom'd, prayer unsaid,
And holy hours and days outworn

How sweet the refrain,
O Lark, of thy strain,
How it floats from the height thou hast won!
I rejoice, I am free,
I am singing with thee,
We ascend through the clouds to the sun.

O Lark, thou descendest,
Thy carol thou endest,
Thou sink'st to yon meadow so fair;
Then in silence I'm bound,
I descend to the ground,
And Oh! to what gloom and despair!

Swift cloud, swift light, now dark, now bright, across the landscape played;
And, spotted as a leopard's side in chasing sun and shade,
To far dim heights and purple vales the upland rolled away,
Where the soft, warm haze of summer days on all the distance lay.

From shorn and hoary harvest-fields to barn and bristling stack,
The wagon bore its beetling loads, or clattered empty back;
The leaning oxen clashed their horns and swayed along the road,
And the old house-dog lolled beside, in the shadow of the load.

The sun just o'er the hills was peeping,
The hynds arising, gentry sleeping,
The dogs were barking, cocks were crawing,
Night-drinking sots counting their lawin;
Clean were the roads, and clear the day,
When forth a falconer took his way,
Nane with him but his she knight-errant,
That acts in air the bloody tyrant;
While with quick wing, fierce beak, and claws,
She breaks divine and human laws;
Ne'er pleas'd but with the hearts and livers
Of peartricks, teals, moor-powts, and plivers:
Yet is she much esteem'd and dandl'd,