'His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere!'
VIRG.
Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
I HAE a wife of my ain,
I’ll partake wi’ naebody;
I’ll take Cuckold frae nane,
I’ll gie Cuckold to naebody.
How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears --
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews--sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well,
She, men would have to be your mother once,
The winds and waters are in his command,
Held as a courser in the rider's hand.
He lets them loose, they triumph at his will:
He checks their course and all is calm and still.
Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do, till you require.
The people take the thing of course,
They marvel not to see
This strange, unnatural divorce
Betwixt delight and me.
THE PROLOGUE.
OUR Hoste gan to swear as he were wood;
"Harow!" quoth he, "by nailes and by blood,
This was a cursed thief, a false justice.
The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone;
The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too, O my
Ideal,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are !
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Brothers! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar:
Yet in spirit oft I see
On thy wild and winding shore
Month which the warring ancients strangely styled
The month of war,--as if in their fierce ways
Were any month of peace!--in thy rough days
I find no war in Nature, though the wild
A R I S E, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise
To praise the monarch of the earth and skies,
Whose goodness and benificence appear
As round its centre moves the rolling year,
O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
On this long storm the Rainbow rose --
On this late Morn -- the Sun --
The clouds -- like listless Elephants --
Horizons -- straggled down --
What men gain fairly--that they should possess,
And children may inherit idleness,
From him who earns it--This is understood;
Private injustice may be general good.
Swifter far than summer's flight--
Swifter far than youth's delight--
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone--
I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen,
O, things without compare!
Such sights again cannot be found