Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

THE SANDpiper.

ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I
And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood bleached and dry

The wild waves reach their hands for it, [high, The wild wind raves, the tide runs As up and down the beach we flit,One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high.

Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;

He starts not at my fitful song,

Or flash of fluttering drapery; He has no thought of any wrong, He scans me with a fearless eye; Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,

The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night When the loosed storm breaks furiously?

My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly?

I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky:

For are we not God's children both, Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

JAMES THOMSON.

[From The Seasons.]

PURE AND HAPPY LOVE.

BUT happy they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate

Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.

'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,

Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,

That binds their peace, but harmony itself,

Attuning all their passions into love; Where Friendship full-exerts her softest power,

Perfect esteem enlivened by desire Ineffable, and sympathy of soul; Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,

With boundless confidence: for nought but love

UNUSUAL

[From The Seasons.]

THE TEMPEST.

darkness broods; and growing, gains

The full possession of the sky, surcharged

With wrathful vapor, from the secret beds,

Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn.

Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume

Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day, With various-tinctured trains of latent flame, Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,

A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,

Ferment; till, by the touch ethereal roused,

The dash of clouds, or irritating

war

Can answer love, and render bliss Of fighting winds, while all is calm

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

[From The Seasons.]

BIRDS, AND THEIR LOves.

WHEN first the soul of love is sent abroad

Warm through the vital air, and on the heart

Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin,

In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing;

And try again the long-forgotten strain.

At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows

The soft infusion prevalent, and wide, Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows

In music unconfined. Upsprings the lark,

Shrill-voiced, and loud, the messenger of morn;

Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings

Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts

Calls up the tuneful nations. Every

copse

Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads

Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush

And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length

Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns

To let them joy, and purposes, in thought

Elate, to make her night excel their day.

The blackbird whistles from the

thorny brake;

[blocks in formation]

The mellow bullfinch answers from ALL winter drives along the dark

the grove:

ened air:

Nor are the linnets, o'er the flower-In his own loose revolving fields, the

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »