The flowers fall scatter'd from her lifted hands;
cry of grief she utters in affright;
And self-condemn'd for negligence she stands
Aghast and helpless at the cruel sight.
Come, Lucy, let me dry those tearful eyes;
Take thou, dear child, a lesson not unholy,
From one whom nature taught to moralise
Both in his mirth and in his melancholy.
I will not warn thee not to set thy heart
Too fondly upon perishable things;
In vain the earnest preacher spends his art
Upon the theme; in vain the poet sings.
It is our nature's strong necessity,
And this the soul's unerring instincts tell : Therefore, I say, let us love worthily,
Dear child, and then we cannot love too well.
Better it is all losses to deplore,
Which dutiful affection can sustain,
Than that the heart should, in its inmost core,
Harden without it, and have liv'd in vain.
This love which thou hast lavish'd, and the woe
Which makes thy lips now quiver with distress,
Are but a vent, an innocent overflow
From the deep springs of female tenderness.
And something I would teach thee from the grief That thus hath fill'd those gentle eyes with tears, The which may be thy sober, sure relief
When sorrow visits thee in after
I ask not whither is the spirit flown
That lit the eye which there in death is seal'd Our Father hath not made that mystery known; Needless the knowledge, therefore, not reveal'd.
But didst thou know in sure and sacred truth,
It had a place assign'd in yonder skies,
There, through an endless life of joyous youth,
To warble in the bowers of Paradise.
Lucy, if then the power to thee were given
In that cold form its life to re-engage,
Wouldst thou call back the warbler from its heaven,
To be again the tenant of a cage?
Only that thou might'st cherish it again,
Wouldst thou the object of thy love recall
To mortal life, and chance, and change, and pain,
And death, which must be suffer'd once by all?
Oh, no, thou sayst; oh, surely not, not so!
I read the answer which those looks express.
For pure and true affection well I know,
Leaves in the heart no room for selfishness.
Such love of all our virtues is the gem;
We bring with us th' immortal seed at birth :
Of heaven it is, and heavenly: woe to them
Who make it wholly earthly and of earth!
What we love perfectly, for its own sake
We love and not our own, being ready thus
Whate'er self sacrifice is ask'd, to make;
That which is best for it, is best for us.
O Lucy! treasure up that pious thought;
It hath a balm for sorrow's deadliest darts: And with true comfort thou wilt find it fraught,
If grief should reach thee in thy heart of hearts.
Day's harbinger attunes! I have not heard
Such elegant divisions drawn from art.
And what is he, which wins our admiration?
A little speck which floats upon the sunbeam!
What vast perfection cannot nature crowd
Into a puny point! The nightingale,
Her sole anthem sung, and all who heard
Content, joins in the chorus of the day.
She, gentle heart, thinks it no pain to please,
Nor, like the moody songsters of the world,
Displays her talent, pleases, takes affront,
And locks it up in envy.
I love to see the little goldfinch pluck
The groundsel's feather'd seed, and twit and twit :
And soon in bower of apple blossoms perch'd,
Trim his gay suit, and pay us with a song.
I would not hold him pris'ner for the world.
The chimney-haunting swallow, too, my eye
And ear well pleases. I delight to see
How suddenly he skims the glassy pool,
How quaintly dips, and with a bullet's speed
Whisks by. I love to be awake, and hear
His morning song twitter'd to dawning day.
But most of all it wins my admiration
To view the structure of this little work,
A bird's nest. Mark it well, within, without.
No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut,
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert,
No glue to join; his little beak was all.
And yet how neatly finish'd! What nice hand,
With ev'ry implement and means of art,
And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Could make me such another? Fondly, then,
We boast of excellence, where noblest skill
Instinctive genius fails.
She too an artist is, and laughs at man,
Who calls on rules the sightly hexagon
With truth to form; a cunning architect,
Who at the roof begins her golden work,
And builds without foundation. How she toils,
And still from bed to bed, from flow'r to flow'r,
Travels the livelong day! Ye idle drones,
Who rather pilfer than your bread obtain
By honest means like these, behold, and learn
How grand, how fair, how honourable 'tis
To live by industry. The busy tribes
Of bees, so emulous, are daily fed
With heaven's peculiar manna. 'Tis for them,
Unwearied alchemists, the blooming world
Nectareous gold distils. And bounteous heav'n,
Still to the diligent and active good,
Their very labour makes the certain cause
Of future wealth.
A LEGENDARY TALE OF CHIVALRY.
TOGETHER they sate by a river's side,
A knight and a lady gay;
And they watch'd the deep and eddying tide
Round a flowery islet stray.
And "O for that flower of brilliant hue,"
Said then the lady fair:
"To grace my neck with the blossoms blue,
"And braid my nut-brown hair.”
The knight has plung'd in the whirling wave,
All for the lady's smile;
And he swims the stream with courage brave,
And he gains yon flowery isle;
And his fingers have cropp'd the blossoms blue,
And the prize they backward bear,
To deck his love with the brilliant hue,
And braid her nut-brown hair.
But the way is long, and the current strong,
And alas for that gallant knight!
For the waves prevail, and his stout arms fail,
Though cheer'd by his lady's sight.
Then the blossoms blue to the bank he threw
Ere he sank in the eddying tide:
And, "Lady, I'm gone, thine own knight true
"FORGET ME NOT," he cried.
The farewell pledge, the lady caught
And hence, as legends say,
That flow'r is a sign to awaken thought
Of friends that are far away.
For the lady fair of her knight so true
Still remember'd the hapless lot:
And she cherish'd the flow'r of brilliant hue,
And she braided her hair with its blossoms blue, And she call'd it "FORGET ME NOT."
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