Town Eclogues Saturday The Small-Pox

FLAVIA.
THE wretched FLAVIA on her couch reclin'd,
Thus breath'd the anguish of a wounded mind ;
A glass revers'd in her right hand she bore,
For now she shun'd the face she sought before.

' How am I chang'd ! alas ! how am I grown
' A frightful spectre, to myself unknown !
' Where's my Complexion ? where the radiant Bloom,
' That promis'd happiness for Years to come ?
' Then with what pleasure I this face survey'd !
' To look once more, my visits oft delay'd !


To Men

Sirs, when you pity us, I say
You waste your pity. Let it stay,
Well corked and stored upon your shelves,
Until you need it for yourselves.

We do appreciate God's thought
In forming you, before He brought
Us into life. His art was crude,
But oh, so virile in its rude

Large elemental strength: and then
He learned His trade in making men;
Learned how to mix and mould the clay
And fashion in a finer way.

How fine that skilful way can be
You need but lift your eyes to see;


To The Daisy 2

BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere,
Bold in maternal Nature's care,
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy or sorrow;
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

Is it that Man is soon deprest?
A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,
Or on his reason,
And Thou would'st teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind,
A hope for times that are unkind


To the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus

I sing the Name which None can say
But touch’t with An interiour Ray:
The Name of our New Peace; our Good:
Our Blisse: and Supernaturall Blood:
The Name of All our Lives and Loves.
Hearken, And Help, ye holy Doves!
The high-born Brood of Day; you bright
Candidates of blissefull Light,
The Heirs Elect of Love; whose Names belong
Unto The everlasting life of Song;
All ye wise Soules, who in the wealthy Brest
Of This unbounded Name build your warm Nest.
Awake, My glory. Soul, (if such thou be,


To the Moon

With musing mind I watch thee steal
Above those envious clouds that hid
Till now thy face; thou dost reveal
More than the glaring sunlight did;
So round me would I have thy light
In one broad sea of beauty lie,
And who, while thou dost rule the night,
For day would sigh,
Nor long for wings that he might flee
To find thy hidden face and ride the dark with thee?
And hence it was that ever forth
My fancy doated more and more


To The Moon

Bush and vale thou fill'st again

With thy misty ray,
And my spirit's heavy chain

Castest far away.

Thou dost o'er my fields extend

Thy sweet soothing eye,
Watching like a gentle friend,

O'er my destiny.

Vanish'd days of bliss and woe

Haunt me with their tone,
Joy and grief in turns I know,

As I stray alone.

Stream beloved, flow on! flow on!

Ne'er can I be gay!
Thus have sport and kisses gone,

Truth thus pass'd away.


To the Cuckoo

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
   Thou messenger of Spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
   And woods thy welcome ring.

What time the daisy decks the green,
   Thy certain voice we hear:
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
   Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee
   I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
   From birds among the bowers.

The schoolboy, wand'ring through the wood
   To pull the primrose gay,


To One Dead

A blackbird singing
On a moss-upholstered stone,
Bluebells swinging,
Shadows wildly blown,
A song in the wood,
A ship on the sea.
The song was for you
and the ship was for me.

A blackbird singing
I hear in my troubled mind,
Bluebells swinging,
I see in a distant wind.
But sorrow and silence,
Are the wood's threnody,
The silence for you
and the sorrow for me.


To Newcastle

I met a man the other day-
A kindly man, and serious-
Who viewed me in a thoughtful way,
And spoke me so, and spoke me thus:

"Oh, dallying's a sad mistake;
'Tis craven to survey the morrow!
Go give your heart, and if it break-
A wise companion is Sorrow.

"Oh, live, my child, nor keep your soul
To crowd your coffin when you're dead...."
I asked his work; he dealt in coal,
And shipped it up the Tyne, he said.


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