The raging fire, the roaring wind, Two worlds are ours: 'tis only Sin The mystic heaven and earth within Thou, who hast given me eyes to see Give me a heart to find out Thee, And read Thee every where. JOHN KEBLE. TO A SKYLARK. ETHEREAL minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still. To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler!-that love-prompted strain, ("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy Spring. Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine, True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. WORDSWORTH. THE SKYLARK. HOW the blithe Lark runs up the golden stair That leads thro' cloudy gates from heaven to earth, And, all alone in the empyreal air, Fills it with jubilant sweet songs of mirth; How far he seems, how far, With the light upon his wings; Is it a bird, or star, That shines and sings? What matter if the days be dark and frore, He peeps, and sees behind And now he dives into a rainbow's rivers, In streams of gold and purple he is drowned; Shrilly the arrows of his song he shivers, As tho' the stormy drops were turned to sound; He scales a cloudy tower, Let every wind be hushed, that I may hear Back the gold gates again, All heaven to men ! So the victorious Poet sings alone, And fills with light his solitary home, And thro' that glory sees new worlds foreshown, And hears high songs and triumphs yet to come; He waves the air of time With thrills of golden chords, And makes the world to climb What if his hair be grey, his eyes be dim, If wealth forsake him, and if friends be cold; Wonder unbars her thousand gates to him, Truth never fails, nor beauty waxeth old; More than he tells, his eyes Blest is the man who with the sound of song Of kings, tho' his be poor, Singing thou scalest heaven upon thy wings, Far up the sunny streams, I see his dreams. FREDERICK TENNYSON. FLOWER AND FRUIT. A LITTLE child lay on its mother's knee In shade of summer boughs; and that fond mother Waved in one hand the flowers of a wild tree, And a fair branch of fruitage in the other. Longing he lay, and glancing his blue eyes To fix its choice—he sighed his first-born sighs, Stretched out both arms, and would have clutched them both. A grey old man peeped thro' the leaves, and blessed That lovely child-then sadly turned apart, And, sitting down a little from the rest, Sighed, as he murmured thus to his own heart : Within the violet's cup no nectar flows, When the young sun is arming him at morn, When the swift heart of the enchanted boy And beauty all the treasures of the wise; But when the time-worn heart begins to bud Scarce stirring with the pulses that have been. |