FAIR insect, that, with thread-like legs spread Try some plump alderman: and suck the blood I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween, Enriched with generous wine and costly meat; In well-filled skins, soft as thy native mud, Fix thy light pump, and raise thy freckled feet. Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls, The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls. There corks are drawn, and the red vintage flows, To fill the swelling veins for thee; and now The ruddy cheek, and now the ruddier nose, Shall tempt thee as thou flittest round the brow; And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings, The offspring of the gods, though born on earth. No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT PAN IN LOVE. NAY! if you will not sit upon my knee, Paused in his strain of love to list to mine. Their strings can never sing like my sweet pipes, Some, that will make fierce tigers rub their fur Against the oak-trunks for delight, or stretch Their plump sides for my pillow on the sward. Some, that will make the satyrs' clattering hoofs Leap when they hear, and from their noonday dreams Start up to stamp a wild and frolic dance In the green shadows. Ay! and better songs, And all the airy sounds that lull the grove That Bacchus' self would give his hide to hear. -- With violets like your eyes, just for a kiss. sun (Such wine as Bacchus never tasted yet). And not a poisonous plant shall have the power To tetter your white flesh, if you 'll love Pan. And then I'll tell you tales that no one knows; of what the pines talk in the summer nights, When far above you hear them murmuring, As they sway whispering to the lifting breeze; And what the storm shrieks to the struggling oaks As it flies through them hurrying to the sea From mountain crags and cliffs. Or, when you're sad, I'll tell you tales that solemn cypresses WILLIAM WETMORE STORY. GOD EVERYWHERE IN NATURE. How desolate were nature, and how void Of every charm, how like a naked waste Of Africa, were not a present God Beheld employing, in its various scenes, His active might to animate and adorn! What life and beauty, when, in all that breathes, Or moves, or grows, his hand is viewed at work! When it is viewed unfolding every bud, Each blossom tingeing, shaping every leaf, Wafting each cloud that passes o'er the sky, Rolling each billow, moving every wing That fans the air, and every warbling throat Heard in the tuneful woodlands! In the least As well as in the greatest of his works Is ever manifest his presence kind; Dancing a merry hour, then seen no more, As on me shines the sun with his full blaze, The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, Ode: On the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. T. GRAY. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, COUNTRY LIFE. But on and up, where Nature's heart POPE. LORD HOUGHTON. The Cock and Fox. DRYDEN. Who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast, The Seasons: Spring. THOMSON. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; FAIR EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY. I'll example you with thievery : The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun : All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; The sea 's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves All discord, harmony not understood; Night wanes, - the vapors round the mountains | The sun had long since in the lap Lara. BYRON. And, like a lobster boiled, the morn Hudibras, Part II. Cant. ii. DR. S. BUTLER. Now sunk the sun; the closing hour of day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues The last still loveliest, till 't is gone and all Childe Harold, Cant. iv. The day is done, and the darkness BYRON. Lycidas. MILTON. The Day is Done. LONGFELLOW A dewy freshness fills the silent air; Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side, Paradise Lost. Book i. No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor I see them on their winding way, Above their ranks the moonbeams play. And waving arms and banners bright Are glancing in the mellow light. Lines written to a March. The moon looks On many brooks, MILTON. BISHOP HEBER. horn. Night Thoughts, Night i THE STARS. DR. E. YOUNG. |