To the last point of vision, and be-Two of us in the churchyard lie, yond, 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, Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine; Type of the wise, who soar, but never My sister and my brother; And often after sunset, sir, The first that died was little Jane; So in the churchyard she was laid; And steps of virgin liberty; And now I see with eye serene And when the ground was white with Endurance, foresight, strength, and snow, skill; SCORN NOT THE SONNET. SCORN not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honors: with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; [grief; Camoëns soothed with it an exile's The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from fairy-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp [hand Fell round the path of Milton, in his The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew Soul-animating strains alas, too few! TO THE CUCKOO. O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard, O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, While I am lying on the grass, I hear thee babbling to the vale Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, The same whom in my school-boy days I listened to; that cry Which made me look a thousand ways In bush and tree and sky. To seek thee did I often rove And I can listen to thee yet; O blessed bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial, fairy place; DISDAIN me not without desert, Nor leave me not so suddenly; Refuse me not without cause why, Since that by lot of fantasy, Mistrust me not, though some there be ness. Believe them not, since that ye see Forsake me not, till I deserve; Nor hate me not, till I offend, Destroy me not, till that I swerve; But since ye know what I intend, Disdain me not, that am your own; Refuse me not that am so true; Mistrust me not, till all be known; Forsake me not now for no new. PLEASURE MIXED WITH PAIN. VENOMOUS thorns that are so sharp and keen Bear flowers we see, full fresh and fair of hue: Poison is also put in medicine, And unto man his health doth oft renew. The fire that all things eke consumeth clean, May hurt and heal: then if that this be true, I trust some time my harm may be my health, This careful knot needs knit I Since every woe is joinèd with some must. wealth. EDWARD YOUNG. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT I. PROCRASTINATION, AND FORGET- ALL promise is poor dilatory man, In full content we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to re solve; |