Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

When windows flap, and chimney roars,

And all is dismal out of doors;

And, sitting by my fire, I see

Eight sorry Carts, no less a train !

Unworthy Successors of thee,

Come straggling through the wind and rain :
And oft, as they pass slowly on,
Beneath my window one by one
See, perched upon the naked height
The summit of a cumbrous freight,
A single Traveller — and, there,
Another- then perhaps a Pair
The lame, the sickly, and the old ;
Men, Women, heartless with the cold;
And Babes in wet and starveling plight;
Which once, be weather as it might,
Had still a nest within a nest,

Thy shelter and their Mother's breast!

[ocr errors]

Then most of all, then far the most,

Do I regret what we have lost;

Am grieved for that unhappy sin
Which robbed us of good Benjamin:
And of his stately Charge, which none
Could keep alive when He was gone!

I.

TO THE DAISY.

"Her divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw
I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can

In some other wiser man.

[ocr errors]

G. WITHERS.

IN

youth from rock to rock I went, From hill to hill, in discontent

Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;

His Muse.

But now my own delights I make, –
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake
Of thee, sweet Daisy !

When soothed a while by milder airs,
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few grey hairs;
Spring cannot shun thee;

Whole summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the Traveller in the lane;
If welcomed once thou count'st it gain;
Thou art not daunted,

Nor car'st if thou be set at naught :
And oft alone in nooks remote

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,

When such are wanted.

Be Violets in their secret mews

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;

Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling;

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,

Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie

Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art! a Friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight ;

Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

And one chance look to Thee should turn,

I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds

The common life, our nature breeds;

A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise, alert and gay,

Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest

Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

« AnteriorContinuar »