That overhangs the village plain, The bridge whose arches low and wide It ripples through-and should you lean A moment there, no lovelier scene On England's Wye, or Scotland's Tay, Would charm your gaze a summer's day. And on it glides, by grove and glen, Dark woodlands and the homes of men, With now a ferry, now a mill: Has come, its larger life to share, DAILY DYING. NOT in a moment drops the rose That in a summer garden grows: A robin sings beneath the tree A twilight song of ecstasy, And the red, red leaves at its fragrant heart, Trembling so in delicious pain, Fall to the ground with a sudden start, And the grass is gay with a crimson stain; And a honey-bee, out of the fields of clover, Heavily flying the garden over, Brushes the stem as it passes by, And others fall where the heartleaves lie, And air and dew, ere the night is done, Have stolen the petals, every one. Our death is gradual, like to these: We die with every waning day; There is no waft of sorrow's breeze But bears some heart-leaf slow away! Up and on to the vast To Be Our life is going eternally! Less of earth than we had last year Throbs in your veins and throbs in mine, But the way to heaven is growing clear, While the gates of the city fairer shine, And the day that our latest treasures flee, Wide they will open for you and me! FRANCIS QUARLES. THE WORLD. SHE'S empty: hark! she sounds: there's nothing there Thy vain inquiry can at length but find A blast of murmuring wind: It is a cask that seems as full as fair, But merely tunned with air. Fond youth, go build thy hopes on better grounds; Her joys upon this world, but feeds on empty sounds. She's empty: hark! she sounds; there's nothing in't: Shall sooner melt, and hardest raunce shall first Thou mayst as well expect meridian light From shades of black-mouthed night, She's empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis void and vast; It is but wind, and blows but where it list, Poor honor earth can give! What generous mind Her heaven-bred soul, a slave to serve a blast of wind? She's empty; hark! she sounds: 'tis but a ball The painted film but of a stronger bubble, It is a world whose work and recreation Is vanity and vexation; A hag, repaired with vice-complexioned paint, A quest-house of complaint. It is a saint, a fiend; worse fiend when most a saint. She's empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis vain and void. But grief and sickness, and large bills of sorrow, Or, what are men but puffs of dying breath, Revived with living death? Fond youth, O build thy hopes on surer grounds Than what dull flesh propounds: Trust not this hollow world; she's empty: hark! she sounds. ON MAN. My darkened soul, but they were false alarms; AT our creation, but the Word was I thought I'd had fair Rachel in my said; And we were made; No sooner were, but our false hearts did swell With pride, and fell: How slight is man! At what an easy cost He's made and lost! bed, But I had blear-eyed Leah in my arms; How seeming sweet is sin when clothed in light, But, when discovered, what a loathed delight. |