Ho! pretty page, with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber's shear,
All your wish is woman to win;
This is the way that boys begin –
Wait till you come to forty year.
Curly gold locks cover foolish brains;
Billing and cooing is all your cheer
Sighing and singing of midnight strains,
Under Bonnybell's window-panes
Wait till you come to forty year.
Forty times over let Michaelmas pass;
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass
Once you have come to forty year.
Pledge me round; I bid ye declare,
All good fellows whose beards are gray —
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere
Ever a month was past away?
The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper and we not list,
Or look away and never be missed
Ere yet ever a month is gone.
Gillian's dead! God rest her bier.
How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married; but I sit here,
Alone and merry at forty year,
Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.
William Makepeace Thackeray
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go!
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birthplace of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go!
I stand upon the summit of my years';
Behind, the toil, the camp, the march, the strife,
The wandering and the desert; vast, afar,
Beyond this weary way, behold! the Sea!
The sea o'erswept by clouds and winds and wings,
By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath
Is freshness and whose mighty pulse is peace.
Palter no question of the dim Beyond;
Cut loose the bark; such voyage itself is rest;
Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,
A widening heaven, a current without care.
Eternity! Deliverance, Promise, Course!
Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore.
O Friend! I know not which way I must look
For comfort, being, as I am, opprest
To think that now our life is only drest
For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook,
Or groom! - We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest;
The wealthiest man among us is the best:
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more :
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.
William Wordsworth
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men:
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart :
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear:
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
After the sun's remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days:
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy Hope! and high Humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have shew'd
them me,
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,
Shining no where, but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul, when man doth sleep;
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted
themes,
Through that pure virgin shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o'er Thy glorious noon, That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine And face the moon:
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.
No mercy-seat of gold,
No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone,
But His own living works did my Lord hold
And lodge alone;
Where trees and herbs did watch and peep
And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.
Dear Night! this world's defeat;
The stop to busy fools; Care's check and curb;
The day of Spirits; my soul's calm retreat
Which none disturb!
Christ's progress, and his prayer time;
The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.
There is in God - some say
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
Oh for that Night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!
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