LAS! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.
A dreary sea now flows between; But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
O be, or not to be,-that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them?-To die,-to sleep,-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,-'t is a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death,- The undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns,-puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of! Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn a-wry, And lose the name of action.
In that village on the hill Never is sound of smithy or mill;
The houses are thatched with grass and flowers, Never a clock to tell the hours;
The marble doors are always shut; You may not enter at hall or hut.
In that village under the hill, When the night is starry and still, Many a weary soul in prayer Looks to the other village there, And weeping and sighing, longs to go Up to that home from this below; Longs to sleep by the forest wild, Whither have vanished wife and child, And heareth, praying, the answer fall, — "Patience: That village shall hold ye all!" ROSE TERRY COOKE.
SAY, what is that thing called light, Which I must ne'er enjoy? What are the blessings of the sight? O tell your poor blind boy!
You talk of wondrous things you see,
You say the sun shines bright;
I feel him warm, but how can he
Or make it day or night?
My day or night myself I make, Whene'er I sleep or play;
And could I ever keep awake,
With me 't were always day.
With heavy sighs I often hear You mourn my hapless woe; But sure with patience I can bear A loss I ne'er can know.
Then let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy; Whilst thus I sing, I am a king, Although a poor blind boy.
HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a love once, fairest among women; Closed are her doors on me. I must not see her; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Like an ingrate I left my friend abruptly; Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my child
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces,
How some they have died, and some they have left
And some are taken from me: all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
« PreviousContinue » |