All nature has a feeling: woods, fields, brooks
Are life eternal: and in silence they
Speak happiness beyond the reach of books;
There's nothing mortal in them; their decay
Is the green life of change; to pass away
And come again in blooms revivified.
Its birth was heaven, eternal it its stay,
And with the sun and moon shall still abide
Beneath their day and night and heaven wide.
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All forgot for recollecting
Just a paltry One—
All forsook, for just a Stranger's
New Accompanying—
Grace of Wealth, and Grace of Station
Less accounted than
An unknown Esteem possessing—
Estimate—Who can—
Home effaced—Her faces dwindled—
Nature—altered small—
Sun—if shone—or Storm—if shattered—
Overlooked I all—
Dropped—my fate—a timid Pebble—
In thy bolder Sea—
Prove—me—Sweet—if I regret it—
Prove Myself—of Thee—
'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son—
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais by his side
Sate like a blooming eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty's pride:—
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave
None but the brave
None but the brave deserves the fair!
Timotheus placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire
'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son—
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais by his side
Sate like a blooming eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty's pride:—
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave
None but the brave
None but the brave deserves the fair!
Timotheus placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire
While Monarchs in stern Battle strove
For proud Imperial Sway;
Abandon'd to his milder Love,
Within a silent peaceful Grove,
Alcidor careless lay.
Some term'd it cold, unmanly Fear;
Some, Nicety of Sense,
That Drums and Trumpets cou'd not hear,
The sullying Blasts of Powder bear,
Or with foul Camps dispense.
A patient Martyr to their Scorn,
And each ill-fashion'd Jest;
The Youth, who but for Love was born,
Remain'd, and thought it vast Return,
To reign in Cloria's Breast.
Earth, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;
If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses,--have been dear to me;
[As a Tribute of Esteem and Admiration this Poem is inscribed to ROBERT MERRY, Esq. A. M. Member of the Royal Academy at Florence, and Author of the Laurel of Liberty, and the Della Crusca Poems.]
O THOU, to whom superior worth's allied,
Thy Country's honourand the MUSES' pride;
Whose pen gives polish to the varying line
That blends instruction with the song divine;
Whose fancy, glancing o'er the hostile plain,
Plants a fond trophy o'er the mighty slain; I
Or to the daisied lawn directs its way,
Blithe as the songstress of returning day;
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so:
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature, too.
But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
Let love through all your actions run,
And all your words be mild:
Live like the blessed Virgin's Son,
That sweet and lovely child.
His soul was gentle as a lamb;
And as his stature grew,
He grew in favor both with man,
And God his Father too.
Night closed around the conqueror's way,
And lightnings show'd the distant hill,
Where those who lost that dreadful day
Stood few and faint, but fearless still.
The soldier's hope, the patriot's zeal,
For ever dimm'd, for ever crost --
Oh! who shall say what heroes feel,
When all but life and honour's lost?
The last sad hour of freedom's dream,
And valour's task, moved slowly by,
While mute they watch'd, till morning's beam
Should rise and give them light to die.
There's yet a world, where souls are free,
HE sat among the woods; he heard
The sylvan merriment; he saw
The pranks of butterfly and bird,
The humors of the ape, the daw.
And in the lion or the frog,—
In all the life of moor and fen,—
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
He read similitudes of men.
“Of these, from those,” he cried, “we come,
Our hearts, our brains descend from these.”
And, lo! the Beasts no more were dumb,
But answered out of brakes and trees:
“Not ours,” they cried; “Degenerate,