While on thy downy couch reposing,
To watch thee is my tender toil;
I mark thy sweet blue eye unclosing,
I fondly hail thy cherub smile.
Smile on, sweet babe! unknown to sorrow,
Still brightly beam thy heavenly eye;
And may the dawn of every morrow
Shed blessings on my darling boy.
Он stay thy hand-thou hast a power to kill,
But none to bring forth life! Impressive truth;
Sounding to wisdom like a warning voice,
And teaching, that our feebleness to work
The least good thing, should guard us tremblingly
From aught that looks like evil; lest we wrench
From her retired seat the better soul,
The sense which God hath lent us, which that God
Sees not polluted with a slumbering eye;
But vexes him, that sets his gift at nought,
With awful darkness, and a fearful wandering!
Thou seest athwart this grove of trembling trees, Trembling and glistening with the morning light,
Thou seest yon lav'rock rise! to the great sun
He seems to hasten: save the burning orb
That lives above, nought but this little bird
Varies the mighty solitude of heaven!
Art thou assur'd the Almighty doth not speak
To that same little bird-that morning's glories
Are not discourses of his watchful love,
Gladdening this innocent creature? Couldst thou
seek
To stop his song of gratulation, quench
His sense of joy, and all those living powers
That dance so cheerly in him? They serve Heaven
Who love his works! and they most feel a God
Who hold each bodily sense a holy thing,
Communicating measurably to all
The influxes of that Eternal Spirit,
Whose countenance to man are day-light hues,
And sky, and sea, and forests, lakes and hills,
And lightnings, thunders, and prodigious storms,
And suns, and all the company of worlds!
I would not kill one bird in wanton sport,
I would not mingle jocund mirth with death,
For all the smoking board, the savoury feast,
Can yield to pamper'd sense.
My friend, I knew
A man who liv'd in solitude: a dell,
A mossy dell, green, woody, hung around
With various forest growth, was his abode ;
And in the forest many a gleaming plot
Of tenderest grass its island circlet spread!
This man did rear a hut, and liv'd and died
In that lone dell! He had no friend on earth,
Nor wanted one; for much he lov'd his God,
And much those works which e'en the lonely man
May taste abundantly! And he did think
So oft on life's great Author, that at last
He worshipp'd him in all things, and believ'd
His poorest creatures holy, and could see
"Religious meanings in the forms of Nature;"
Dreaming he saw, e'en in the passing bird,
The crawling worm, or serpent on the grass,
An emanation of his Maker; so
That a new presence stung him into thought,
And made him sigh and weep!
Well, this poor man
Liv'd on the scanty fruits this little dell
Afforded. Never did a dying writhe,
Or dying gasp, war with his sense of good.
At length he died; and such had been his life,
That, when he yielded up his animal frame,
It only seemed as if he went to sleep
More quietly than ever!
I SAW the virtuous man contend
With life's unnumber'd woes;
And he was poor-without a friend-
Press'd by a thousand foes.
I saw the Passion's pliant slave
In gallant trim and gay;
His course was Pleasure's placid wave,
His life a summer's day.
And I was caught in Folly's snare,
And join'd her giddy train;
But found her soon the nurse of Care, And Punishment, and Pain.
There surely is some guiding Power
Which rightly suffers wrong;
Gives Vice to bloom its little hour,
But Virtue, late and long!
THOU wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,
Which babes might wish to play with; and the thievish jay,
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs,
And all thy embryo vastness, at a gulp.
But fate thy growth decreed: autumnal rains,
Beneath thy parent-tree, mellow'd the soil
Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar'd
The soft receptacle, in which secure
Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.
Thou fell'st mature, and in the loamy clod,
Swelling with vegetative force instinct,
Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled twins,
Now stars: two lobes protruding, pair'd exact;
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,
And all the elements thy puny growth
Fostering propitious, thou becam❜st a twig.
Time made thee what thou wast-king of the woods!
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