The Household Book of Poetry

Of human thought or form, where art thou
gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim, vast vale of tears, vacant and deso-
late?

Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain

Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom; why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope.

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
To sage or poet these responses given;
Therefore the names of demon, ghost, and
heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavorFrail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to sever

From all we hear and all we see

Doubt, chance, and mutability.

Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven,

Or music by the night wind sent

Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart

And come, for some uncertain moments lent.

Man were immortal and omnipotent
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state with-
in his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies

That wax and wane in lover's eyes!
Thou that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came!
Depart not, lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

Spirit of beauty, that dost consecrate

With thine own hues all thou dost shine While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,

upon

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pur-
suing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our
youth is fed;

I was not heard; I saw them not.
When musing deeply on the lot

river;

Why aught should fail and fade that once is Of life, at that sweet time when winds are

shown;

wooing

THE FOUNTAIN.

What is social company
But a babbling summer stream?
What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream?

Only when the sun of love
Melts the scattered stars of thought,
Only when we live above

What the dim-eyed world hath taught,

Only when our souls are fed

By the fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led
Which they never drew from earth,

We, like parted drops of rain, Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one.

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH

THE TABLES TURNED.

Up! up, my friend! and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double;
Up! up, my friend! and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long, green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 't is a dull and endless strife;

Come, hear the woodland linnet-How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it!

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher;
Come forth into the light of things-
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless,Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things→ We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE FOUNTAIN.

A CONVERSATION.

WE talked with open heart, and tongue Affectionate and true

A pair of friends, though I was young And Matthew seventy-two.

657

We lay beneath a spreading oak,
Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke,
And gurgled at our feet.

"Now, Matthew!" said I, "let us match
This water's pleasant tune
With some old border-song or catch,
That suits a summer's noon;

"Or of the church-clock and the chimes
Sing here, beneath the shade,
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!"

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree; And thus the dear old man replied, The gray-haired man of glee:

"No check, no stay, this streamlet fears; How merrily it goes!

'T will murmur on a thousand years, And flow as now it flows.

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