52. The Rhodora.*
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook:
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black waters with their beauty gay;--
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky,
Dear, tell them, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being.
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew,
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there, brought
R. W. Emerson, Mass., 1803—.
Lo, the lilies of the field,
How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson, given
By the blessed birds of heaven !
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy:
Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow;
God provideth for the morrow!
*On being asked whence this flower.
Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we, poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily.
Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow.
One there lives, whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;
One there lives who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely, then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow.
Bishop R. Heber, England, 1783-1826.
54. Trial and Hope.
As when a sudden storm of hail and rain
Beats to the ground the yet unbearded grain,
Think not the hopes of harvest are destroyed,
On the flat field, and on the naked void;
The light, unloaded stem, from tempests freed
Will raise the youthful honors of its head;
And soon, restored by native vigor, bear
The timely product of the bounteous year.
Nor yet conclude all fiery trials past;
For heaven will exercise us to the last;
Sometimes will check us in our mid career,
With doubtful blessings and with mingled fear,
That, still depending on his daily grace,
His every mercy for an alms may pass;
With sparing hands will diet us to good,
Preventing surfeits of our pampered blood.
So feeds the mother-bird her craving young,
With little morsels, and delays them long.
Dryden, England, 1631-1700.
55. The Angel of Patience.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.
There's quiet in that Angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance !
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure,
He kindly trains us to endure.
Angel of Patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brows with cooling palm;
To lay the storms of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make our own our Father's will!
O thou who mournest on the way,
With longings for the close of day;
He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned !"
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Mass., 1808
But look! o'er the fall see the angler stand,
Swinging his rod with skillful hand;
The fly at the end of his gossamer line
Swims through the sun like a summer moth,
Till, dropt with a careful precision fine,
It touches the pool beyond the froth.
A-sudden the speckled hawk of the brook
Darts from his covert and seizes the hook.
Swift spins the reel; with easy slip
The line pays out, and the rod, like a whip,
Lithe and arrowy, tapering, slim,
Is bent to a bow o'er the brooklet's brim,
Till the trout leaps up in the sun, and flings
The spray from the flash of his finny wings,
Then falls on his side, and, drunken with fright,
Is towed to the shore like a staggering barge,
Till beached at last on the sandy marge,
Where he dies with the hues of the morning light,
While his sides with a cluster of stars are bright.
The angler in his basket lays
The constellation, and goes his ways.
Thomas Buchanan Read, Penn.. 182%-.
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that spot his own;
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease:
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his God for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.
Oliver Goldsmith, Ireland, 1728-1774.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,—
For thou must die.
Sweet Rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,—
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