The Shepherdess

377

THE SHEPHERDESS

SHE walks the lady of my delight—
A shepherdess of sheep.

Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;

She guards them from the steep.

She feeds them on the fragrant height,

And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night

The chastest stars may peep.
She walks the lady of my delight—
A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.

She walks the lady of my delight

A shepherdess of sheep.

Alice Meynell (1853

STEPPING WESTWARD

STEPPING WESTWARD

"What, you are stepping westward?"—" Yea." —'Twould be a wildish destiny,

If we, who thus together roam

In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:

I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy:

Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing Sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay

Before me in my endless way.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

The World

379

A FAREWELL TO ARMS

(TO QUEEN ELIZABETH)

His golden locks Time hath to silver turned;

O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing! His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,

But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing: Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees;
And lovers' sonnets turned to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,

And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

And when he saddest sits in homely cell,

He'll teach his swains this carol for a song,"Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, Curst be the souls that think her any wrong." Goddess, allow this aged man his right To be your beadsman now that was your knight. George Peele [1558?-1597?]

THE WORLD

THE World's a bubble, and the life of Man
Less than a span:

In his conception wretched,-from the womb,
So to the tomb;

Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet whilst with sorrow here we live oppressed,
What life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools

To dandle fools;

The rural parts are turned into a den

Of savage men;

And where's a city from foul vice so free,
But may be termed the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
Or pains his head:

Those that live single, take it for a curse,
Or do things worse:

Some would have children; those that have them moan
Or wish them gone:

What is it, then, to have, or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
Is a disease;

To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Peril and toil;

Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
We are worse in peace:

-What then remains, but that we still should cry
For being born, or, being born, to die?

Francis Bacon [1561-1626]

"WHEN THAT I WAS AND A LITTLE TINY

BOY"

From " Twelfth Night "

WHEN that I was and a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

By swaggering could I never thrive,

For the rain it raineth every day.

A Lament

But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads;
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,

And we'll strive to please you every day.

381

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

OF THE LAST VERSES IN THE BOOK

WHEN we for age could neither read nor write,

The subject made us able to indite;

The soul, with nobler resolutions decked,
The body stooping does herself erect.
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her that, unbodied, can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

As they draw near to their eternal home.

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Edmund Waller [1606-1687]

A LAMENT

THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS EXECUTION

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares;
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain;

My crop of corn is but a field of tares;
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;