And now, would'st thou, O man, delight the ear
With earth's delicious sounds; or charm the eye
With beautiful creations? Then pass forth,
And find them 'midst those many-coloured birds
That fill the glowing woods. The richest hues
Lie in their splendid plumage, and their tones
Are sweeter than the music of the lute,
Or the harp's melody, or the notes that gush
So thrillingly from beauty's ruby lip.
If thou art pained with the world's noisy stir,
And crazed with its mad tumults, and weighed down
With any of the ills of human life;
If thou art sick and weak, or mourn'st the loss
Of brethren gone to that far-distant land
To which we all do pass, gentle and poor,
The gayest and the gravest, all alike-
Then turn into the peaceful woods, and hear
The thrilling music of the forest birds.
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well-created things.
To thrill with the rich melody of birds,
Living their life of sunshine:
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence,
Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world.
The earth is full of love, albeit the storms
Of passion mar its influence benign,
And drown its voice with discords. Every flower
That to the sun its heaving breast expands,
Is born of love; and every song of birds,
That floats mellifluous on the balmy air,
Is but a love-note.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in each leafy tree;
In the leafy trees so broad and tall,
Like a green and beautiful palace hall,
With its airy chambers light and boon,
That open to sun, and stars, and moon;
That open unto the bright blue sky,
And the frolicsome winds as they wander by.
What a joy it must be, like a living breeze,
To flutter about 'mong the flow'ring trees;
Lightly to soar, and to see beneath,
The wastes of the blossoming purple heath;
And the yellow furze like fields of gold,
That gladden some fairy region old!
On mountain top, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of the forest tree,
How happy the life of a bird must be!
Song-birds of nature, ye, whose bursting throats
People the wildwood with your mellow notes,
I love ye all! and yet can ill-express
The unutterable joy which fills my heart
When pours the language, which your strains impart,
And I may not translate. Yet not the less
Doth busy fancy whisper in mine ear
The meaning of each trill! Oh, curst be he Who takes ye from your homes, where many a year Ye carolled with delight that ye were free! And, with mock tenderness, doth prison ye In gilded cage, with span of turf to yield. Oh, mockery! the freshness of the field,
Where erst ye revelled in your liberty.
BIRTH-BIRTHDAY.
I SWEAR, 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
Madam, you haply scorn the vulgar earth
Of which I stand compacted: and because
I cannot add a splendour to my name,
Reflective from a royal pedigree,
You interdict my language; but be pleas'd
To know, the ashes of my ancestors,
If intermingled in the tomb with kings,
Could hardly be distinguish'd. The stars shoot
An equal influence on the open cottage,
Where the poor shepherd's child is rudely nursed
As on the cradle where the prince is rock'd
With care and whisper.
Mark if his birth make any difference,
If to his words it adds one grain of sense.
Be just in all you say and all you do;
Whatever be your birth, you're sure to be
A peer of the first magnitude to me.
First gave me birth, and (which is strange to tell)
The fates e'er since, as watching its return,
Have caught it as it flew, and mark'd it deep
With something great; extremes of good or ill.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
Vain was the man, and false as vain,
Who said, "Were he ordained to run
His long career of life again,
He would do all that he had done."
Ah! 'tis not thus the voice that dwells
In sober birthdays speaks to me;
Far otherwise. Of time it tells
Lavished unwisely-carelessly;
Of counsel mocked; of talents made
Haply for high and pure designs,
But oft, like Israel's incense, laid
Upon unholy earthly shrines.
If any white-wing'd power above
My joys and griefs survey,
The day when thou wert born, my love, —
He surely bless'd that day.
And duly shall my raptured song,
And gladly shall my eyes
Still bless this day's return, so long
As thou shalt see it rise.
My birthday! O, beloved mother!
My heart is with thee o'er the seas,
I did not think to count another,
Before I wept upon thy knees.
I have had dreams of greatness, glorious dreams,
How I would play the lord!-How I would spurn
The littleness of that false pride which seeks
To build on pedigree its high renown:-
How I would lend my influence to suppress
The haughtiness of titled rank, and teach
That brain, not blood, were proof of noble birth.
I've learned to judge of men by their own deeds,
I do not make the accident of birth
The standard of their merit.
My birthday! what a joyous sound
That word possessed in earlier years!
Then it could make my pulses bound;
Now it but dims mine eye with tears;
For ah! the time has passed away
When birthdays had for me a charm,
And wrapped in feeling's dull decay,
Their spell no more my heart can warm.
A birthday anniversary!
What crowding thoughts it brings;
What conflicts in the human breast,
Where hope eternal springs.
When mem'ry faithful to her charge,
Recalls to mind the past,
And tells the tale of other days,
Of joys too pure to last.
BITTERNESS.
FRIENDS now fast sworn
Unseparable, shall within this hour,
On a dissension of a breath, break out
To bitterest enmity.
I so lively acted with my tears,
That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,
Wept bitterly.
Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,
His fits, his phrensy, and his bitterness. --Shakspere.
There lived a poet in this town,
(If we may term our modern writers poets,)
Sharp-witted, bitter-tongued; his pen of steel;
His ink was tempered with the biting juice,
And extracts of the bitterest weeds that grew;
He never wrote but when the elements
Of fire and water tilted in his brain.
It is a bitter thing to know
The heart's enchantment o'er;
It is more bitter still to feel
It can be charmed no more. - Miss Landon.
THAT huge great body which the giant bore,
Was vanquished quite, and of that monstrous mass
Was nothing left, but like an empty bladder was.
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
These many summers, on a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me.
This same world of ours;
'Tis but a pool amid a storm of rain,
And we the air bladders that course up and down,
And joust and tilt in every tournament;
And when one bubble runs foul of another,
The weaker needs must break.
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