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 : Thy shelter and their Mother's breast! Then most of all, then far the most, Do I regret what we have lost; Am grieved for that unhappy sin I. TO THE DAISY. "Her divine skill taught me this, In some other wiser man. 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, – When soothed a while by milder airs, Whole summer fields are thine by right; In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Nor car'st if thou be set at naught : 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; If to a rock from rains he fly, Near the green holly, And wearily at length should fare; A hundred times, by rock or bower, Some steady love; some brief delight; Some chime of fancy wrong or right; 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, Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play And when, at dusk, by dews opprest Hath often eased my pensive breast |