DEAR native brook! like Peace, so placidly Smoothing thro' fertile fields thy current meek: Dear native brook! where first young Poesy Stared wildly-eager to her noontide dream, Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek, As water-lilies ripple a slow stream:
Dear native haunts! where Virtue still is gay; Where Friendship's fixed star sheds a mellow'd
Where Love a crown of thornless roses wears;
Where soften'd Sorrow smiles within her tears;
And Mem'ry, with a Vestal's chaste employ,
Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy :
No more your skylarks, melting from the sight,
Shall thrill th' untuned heart-string with delight;
No more shall deck your pensive pleasures sweet
With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat.
Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene
Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between :
Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song,
That soars on Morning's wing your vales among!
Scenes of my hope! the asking eye ye leave
Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve! Tearful and sadd'ning with the sadden'd blaze,
Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze; Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend, Till chill and damp the moonless night descend.
UNTHINKING, idle, wild, and young,
I laugh'd, and talk'd, and danced, and sung:
And proud of health, of freedom vain,
Dream'd not of sorrow, care, or pain;
Concluding, in those hours of glee,
That all the world was made for me.
But when the days of trial came,
When sickness shook this trembling frame,
When folly's gay pursuits were o'er,
And I could dance and sing no more,
It then occurr'd how sad 'twould be
Were this world only made for me!
One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely, then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow :
God provideth for the morrow!
And canst thou, Mother, for a moment think
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honours on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away,
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought!—where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home.
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
And now I acne..
Ali hope aut juga kust
Ne'er from the st
I ask but they a
YE Birds, that fly through the fields of air,
What lessons of wisdom and truth ye bear;
Ye would teach our souls from the earth to rise;
Ye would bid us its grovelling scenes despise ;
Ye would tell us that all its pursuits are vain,
That pleasure is toil-ambition is pain,—
That its bliss is touch'd with a poisoning leaven,
Ye would teach us to fix our aim in Heaven!
Beautiful Birds, of lightsome wing,
Bright creatures, that come with the voice of
Spring;
We see you array'd in the hues of the morn,
Yet ye dream not of pride, and ye wist not of scorn!
Though rainbow-splendour around you glows,
Ye vaunt not the beauty which nature bestows:
Oh! what a lesson for glory are ye,
How ye preach the grace of humility.
Swift Birds, that skim o'er the stormy deep,
Who steadily onward your journey keep,
Who neither for rest nor for slumber stay,
But press still forward, by night or day
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