'HE flower is small that decks the field,

But flower and bee alike may yield
Food for a thoughtful hour.

Essence and attributes of each
For ends profound combine;
And all they are, and all they teach,
Springs from the Mind Divine.

Is there who scorneth little things?
As wisely might he scorn to eat
The food that bounteous Autumn brings
In little grains of wheat.

Methinks, indeed, that such an one
Few pleasures upon earth will find,
Where wellnigh every good is won
From little things combined.

The lark that in the morning air

Amid the sunbeams mounts and sings;

What lifted her so lightly there?

Small feathers in her wings.

What form too, then, the beauteous dyes
With which all nature oft is bright,

Meadows and streams, woods, hills, and skies?-
Minutest waves of light.

And when the earth is sere and sad
From summer's over fervid reign,
How is she in fresh beauty clad?
By little drops of rain.

Yea, and the robe that Nature weaves,
Whence does it every robe surpass?
From little flowers, and little leaves,
And little blades of grass.

O sure, who scorneth little things,
If he were not a thoughtless elf,
Far above all that round him springs,
Would scorn his little self.

XCIX

Thomas Davis

L

THE LOST DAY

OST! lost! lost!

A gem of countless price,

Cut from the living rock,

And graved in Paradise:

Set round with three times eight
Large diamonds, clear and bright,
And each with sixty smaller ones,
All changeful as the light.

Lost where the thoughtless throng

In Fashion's mazes wind,

Where trilleth folly's song,
Leaving a sting behind.

Yet to my hand 't was given,

A golden harp to buy,

Such as the white-robed choir attune
To deathless minstrelsy.

For till these heartstrings sever,
I know that Heaven's intrusted gift
Is reft away for ever.

But when the sea and land,

Like burning scroll have fled,

I'll see it in His hand,

Who judgeth quick and dead;
And when of scathe and loss
That man can ne'er repair,
The dread inquiry meets my soul,

What shall it answer there?

L. H. Sigourney

C

R

RELIGION NOT ADVERSE TO
PLEASURE

ELIGION does not censure or exclude

Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued ;

To study, culture, and with artful toil,

To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil;
To give dissimilar, yet fruitful lands,

The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands;
To cherish virtue in an humble state,

And share the joys your bounty may create;
To mark the matchless workings of the power
That shuts within its seed the future flower:
Bids these in elegance of form excel,
In color these, and those delight the smell;
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth and charm all human eyes:
To teach the canvas innocent deceit,
Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet,
These, these are arts pursued without a crime,
That leave no stain upon the wing of time.

Cowper

CI

MUTABILITY

HE sea of Fortune doth not even flow,

THE

She draws her favors to the lowest ebb,

Her tides have equal times to come and go,

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web.

No joy so great, but runneth to an end;
No hap so hard, but may in time amend.

Not always full of leaf, nor always spring;
Not endless night, yet not eternal day:
The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

R. Southwell

CII

W

EARLY RISING AND PRAYER

WHEN first thine eyes unveil, give thy soul leave
To do the like; our bodies but forerun

The spirit's duty: true hearts spread and heave
Unto their God as flowers do to the sun;

Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep Him company all day, and in Him sleep.

Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should Dawn with the day: these are set awful hours