Using the world with all its bounteous store
Of richest blessings, comforts, loves, and joys,
Which thine all-healthy hunger prizeth more
Than the gorged fool whom sinful surfeit cloys; Still, not fogetful of thy nobler self,
The breath divine within thee,--but with care
Cherishing the faint spark that glimmereth there,
Nor by Brazilian slavery to pelf
Plunging thy taper into poison'd air.
GIVE while thou canst, it is a godlike thing,
Give what thou canst, thou shalt not find it loss,
Yea, sell and give, much gain such barteries bring,
Yea, all thou hast, and get fine gold for dross:
Still, see thou scatter wisely; for to fling
Good seeds on rocks, or sands, or thorny ground. Were not to copy Him, whose generous cross
Hath this poor world with rich salvation crown'd. And when thou look'st on woes and want around, Knowing that God hath lent thee all thy wealth, That better it is to give than to receive, That riches cannot buy thee joy nor healthWhy hinder thy own welfare? thousands grieve Whom, if thy pitying hand will but relieve, It shall for thine own wear the robe of gladness weave.
WHERE Vice is virtue, thou art still despised,
O, petty loathsome love of hoarded pelf,
Ev'n in the pit where all things vile are prized,
Still is there found in Lucifer himself
Spirit enough to hate thee, sordid thing:
Thank Heav'n! I own in thee nor lot nor part:
And though to many a sin and folly cling
The worse weak fibres of my weedy heart.
Yet to thy withered lips and snake-like eye
My warmest welcome is, Depart, depart!
For to my sense so foul and base thou art
I would not stoop to thee to reach the sky:
Aroint thee, filching hand, and heart of stone!
Be this thy doom, with conscience left alone,
Learn how like death thou art, unsated selfish one.
My sympathies are all with times of old,
I cannot live with things of yesterday,
Upstart and flippant, foolish, weak, and gay,
But spirits cast in a severer mould,
Of solid worth like elemental gold:
I love to wander o'er the shadowy past,
Dreaming of dynasties long swept away,
And seem to find myself almost the last
Of a time-honoured race, decaying fast:
For I can dote upon the rare antique,
Conjuring up what story it might tell,
The bronze, or bead, or coin, or rare relique;
And in a desert could delight to dwell
Amongst vast ruins-Tadmor's stately halls,
Old Egypt's giant fanes, or Babel's mouldering walls.
BEHOLD, I stand upon a speck of earth,
To work the works allotted me-and die,
Glad among toils to snatch a little mirth,
And, when I must, unmurmuring down to lie
In the same soil that gave me food and birth:
For all that went before me, what care I?
The past, the future-these are but a dream;
I want the tangible good of present worth.
And heed not wisps of light that dance and gleam
Over the marshes of the foolish past:
We are a race the best, because the last,
Improving all, and happier day by day
To think our chosen lot hath not been cast
In those old puerile times, discreetly swept away,
THROW me from this tall cliff-my wings are strong,
The hurricane is raging fierce and high,
My spirit pants, and all in heat I long
To struggle upward to a purer sky,
And tread the clouds above me rolling by:
Lo, thus into the buoyant air I leap
Confident, and exulting, at a bound,
Swifter than whirlwinds, happily to sweep
On fiery wing the reeling world around:
Off with my fetters!-who shall hold me back?
My path lies there-the lightning's sudden track,
O'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,-
Thus can I spurn matter, and space, and time,
Soaring above the universe sublime.
In the deep clay of yonder sluggish flood
The huge behemoth makes his ancient lair,
And with slow caution heavily wallows there,
Moving above the stream, a mound of mud!
And near him, stretching to the river's edge,
In dense dark grandeur, stands the silent wood,
Whose unpierced jungles, choked with rotting sedge,
Prison the damp air from the freshening breeze:
Lo! the rhinoceros comes down this way,
Thundering furiously on-and snorting sees
The harmless monster at his awkward play,
And rushes on him from the crashing trees-
A dreadful shock, as when the Titans hurl'd Against high Jove the Himalayan world.
O LIFE, O glorious! sister-twin of light,
Essence of Godhead, energizing love,
Hail, gentle conqueror of dead cold night,
Hail, on the waters kindly-brooding dove!
I feel thee near me, in me: thy strange might
Flies thro' my bones like fire-my heart beats high
With thy glad presence: pain and fear and care
Hide from the lightning laughter of mine eye,
No dark unseasonable terrors dare
Disturb me, revelling in the luxury,
The new-found luxury of life and health,
This blithesome elasticity of limb,
This pleasure, in which all my senses swim,
This deep outpouring of a creature's wealth!
GHASTLY and weak, O dreadful monarch, Death,
With failing feet I near thy silent realm,
Upon my brain strikes chill thine icy breath,
My fluttering heart thy terrors overwhelm.
Thou sullen pilot of life's crazy bark,
How treacherously thou puttest down the helm Just where smooth eddies hide the sunken rock ; While close behind follows the hungry shark
Snuffing his meal from far, swift with black fin
The foam dividing-ha! that sudden shock
Splits my frail skiff; upon the billows dark
A drowning wretch awhile struggling I float,
Till, just as I had hoped the wreck to win,
I feel thy bony fingers clutch my throat.
THE EXCUSE OF AN UNFORtunate.
A STARLESS night, and bitter cold;
The low dun clouds all wildly roll'd
Scudding before the blast,
And cheerlessly the frozen sleet
Adown the melancholy street
Swept onward thick and fast;
When crouched at an unfriendly door,
Faint, sick, and miserably poor,
A silent woman sate,
She might be young, and had been fair,
But from her eye look'd out despair,
All dim and desolate.
Was I to pass her coldly by,
Leaving her there to pine and die,
The live-long freezing night?
The secret answer of my heart
Told me I had not done my part
In flinging her a mite;
She look'd her thanks, then droop'd her head; "Have you no friend, no home?" I said:
"Get up, poor creature, come,
You seem unhappy, faint, and weak,
How can I serve or save you-speak,
Or whither help you home?"
"Alas, kind sir, poor Ellen Gray
Has had no friend this many a day,
And, but that you seem kind
She has not found the face of late
That look'd on her in aught but hate,
And still despairs to find:
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