Had something strange I could but mark;
leaves of memory seemed to make
POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND REFLECTION.
No princely pompe nor welthie store, No force to win the victorie,
No wylie wit to salve a sore,
No shape to winne a lover's eye, To none of these I yeeld as thrall; For why, my mind despiseth all.
Some have too much, yet still they crave;
I little have, yet seek no more. They are but poore, though much they have, And I am rich with little store. They poor, I rich; they beg, I give ; They lacke, I lend; they pine, I live.
I laugh not at another's losse,
I grudge not at another's gaine ; No worldly wave my mind can tosse ; I brooke that is another's bane.
I feare no foe, nor fawne on friend; I lothe not life, nor dread mine end.
THOUGHT is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.
We are spirits clad in veils ; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen. Heart to heart was never known;
Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone
Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie;
All is thus but starlight here. What is social company
But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream?
"T is much immortal beauty to admire, But more immortal beauty to withstand; The perfect soul can overcome desire, If beauty with divine delight be scanned. For what is beauty but the blooming child Of fair Olympus, that in night must end, And be forever from that bliss exiled, If admiration stand too much its friend? The wind may be enamored of a flower, The ocean of the green and laughing shore, The silver lightning of a lofty tower, - But must not with too near a love adore; Or flower and margin and cloud-capped tower Love and delight shall with delight devour!
FROM "THE EARTHLY PARADISE."
Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer of an empty day.
But rather, when aweary of your mirth, From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days
Remember me a little then, I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear; So let me sing of names remembered, Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead, Or long time take their memory quite away From us poor singers of an empty day.
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
Folk say, a wizard to a Northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines arow, While still unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day.
So with this Earthly Paradise it is If ye do read aright, and pardon me Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea, Where tossed about all hearts of men must be ; Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, Not the poor singer of the empty day.
THANKS untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the odors blown From unseen meadows newly mown, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; The traveler owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
FROM "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."
THESEUS. More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, - That is, the madman; the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt; The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.
MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes To pace the ground, if path there be or none, While a fair region round the traveler lies Which he forbears again to look upon; Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, The work of fancy, or some happy tone Of meditation, slipping in between The beauty coming and the beauty gone. If Thought and Love desert us, from that day Let us break off all commerce with the Muse: With Thought and Love companions of our way, - Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,
The mind's internal Heaven shall shed her dews Of inspiration on the humblest lay.
I WEIGH not fortune's frown or smile; I joy not much in earthly joys;
I seek not state, I reck not style; I am not fond of fancy's toys: I rest so pleased with what I have, I wish no more, no more I crave.
I quake not at the thunder's crack; I tremble not at news of war;
I swound not at the news of wrack; I shrink not at a blazing star;
I fear not loss, I hope not gain, I envy none, I none disdain.
I see ambition never pleased;
I see some Tantals starved in store;
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