Thus hour by hour it tolls a funeral chime:
By day and night its calm and constant clicking
Denotes the speed of the old traveller Time.
It is a solemn voice. Who hath an ear
To hear its warning accents, let him hear,
And preparation make to meet the day
When he, alone, shall lie upon the brink
Of human life, and death shall bid him drink
The hemlock cup that none can put away.
What though man turn from the unwelcome theme,
Will Time sit still for man’s forgetfulness?--
To watch and wake were wiser than to dream
And wake at last to wo remediless.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
The world’s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls its fountains
Against the morning-star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads, on a sunnier deep;
A loftier Argos cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death’s scroll must be!
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtile sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew,
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more wise and good
Than all who fell, than one who rose,
Than many unwithstood--
Not gold, nor blood, their altar dowers,
But native tears and symbol flowers.
Oh cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past--
Oh, might it die or rest at last!
_Shelley._
* * * * *
Time past and time to come are not--
Time present is our only lot;
O God, henceforth our hearts incline
To seek no other love than thine!
_Montgomery._
* * * * *
Then haste thee, Time--’tis kindness all
That speeds thy winged feet so fast;
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,
And all thy pains are quickly past.
_Bryant._
* * * * *
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgotten as soon
As done.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
As through a valley remote I strayed,
Methought, beside a mouldering temple’s stone,
The tale of whose dark structure was unknown,
I saw the form of Time: his scythe’s huge blade
Lay swathed in the grass, whose gleam was seen
Fearful, as oft the wind, the tussocks green
Moved stirring to and fro: the beam of morn
Cast a dim lustre on his look forlorn;
When touching a responsive instrument,
Stern o’er the chords his furrowed brow he bent:
Meantime a naked boy, with aspect sweet,
Played smiling with the hour-glass at his feet!
Apart from these, and in a verdant glade,
A sleeping infant on the moss was laid,
O’er which a female form her vigils kept,
And watched it, softly-breathing as it slept.
Then I drew nigh, and to my listening ear
Came, stealing soft and slow, this ditty clear:
“Lullaby, sing lullaby,--
Sweetest babe, in safety lie;
I thy mother sit and sing,
Nor hear of Time the hurrying wing.
Here, where innocence reposes,
Fairy sylphs, your sports delay;
Then the breath of morning roses
From its bed of bliss convey.
Lullaby, sing lullaby,--
Sweetest babe, in safety lie;
I thy mother sit and sing,
Nor hear of Time the hurrying wing.”
_Bowles._
* * * * *
Relentless Time! that steals with silent tread,
Shall tear away the trophies of the dead.
Fame, on the pyramid’s aspiring top,
With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop;
The feeble characters of Glory’s hand
Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand;
But not with these expire the sacred flame
Of virtue, or the good man’s awful name.
_Bowles._
* * * * *
O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile--
As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:--
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!
_Bowles._
COMMON THISTLE.... _Misanthropy_.
Who would seek or prize
Delights that end in aching?
Who would trust to ties
That every hour are breaking?
Better far to be
In utter darkness lying,
Than be blest with light, and see
That light for ever flying.
All that’s bright must fade,--
The brightest still the fleetest,
All that’s sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest!
_Moore._
* * * * *
I had much rather see
A crested dragon or a basilisk,
Both are less poison to my eyes and nature.
_Dryden._
* * * * *
Hate all, curse all: show charity to none;
But let the famished flesh slide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar: give to dogs
What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow them,
Debts wither them to nothing: be men like blasted woods,
And may diseases lick up their false bloods.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind:
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
I’ll keep my way alone, and burn away--
Evil or good I care not, so I spread
Tremendous desolation on my road:
I’ll be remembered as huge meteors are;
From the dismay they scatter.
_Proctor._
* * * * *
I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To prayers than winds and seas; yet winds and seas
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages
Eternal tempest never to be calm.
_Milton._
* * * * *
Warped by the world in disappointment’s school.
In words too wise, in conduct there a fool;
Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop,
Doomed by his very virtues for a dupe,
He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill,
And not the traitors who betrayed him still;
Nor deemed that gifts bestowed on better men,
Had left him joy, and means to give again.
Feared, shunned, belied, ere youth had lost her force,
He hated men too much to feel remorse,
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call,
To pay the injuries of some on all.
_Byron._
* * * * *
He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
_Shelley._
* * * * *
They too, who mid the scornful thoughts that dwell
In his rich fancy, tinging all its streams,
As if the Star of Bitterness which fell
On earth of old, and touched them with its beams,
Can track a spirit, which, though driven to hate,
From Nature’s hands came kind, affectionate;
And which, even now, struck as it is with blight,
Comes out, at times, in love’s own native light--
How gladly all, who’ve watched these struggling rays
Of a bright, ruined spirit through his lays,
Would here inquire, as from his own frank lips,
What desolating grief, what wrongs had driven
That noble nature into cold eclipse--
Like some fair orb, that, once a sun in heaven,
And born, not only to surprise, but cheer
With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,
Is now so quenched, that, of its grandeur, lasts
Naught but the wide cold shadow which it casts!
_Moore._
DEW PLANT.... _Serenade_.
Inesilla! I am here:
Thy own cavalier
Is now beneath thy lattice playing:
Why art thou delaying?
He hath ridden many a mile
But to see thy smile:
The young light on the flowers is shining,
Yet he is repining.
What to him is a summer star,
If his love’s afar?
What to him the flowers perfuming,
When his heart’s consuming?
Sweetest girl! why dost thou hide?
Beauty may abide
Even before the eye of morning,
And want no adorning.
Now, upon their paths of light,
Starry spirits bright
To catch thy brighter glance are staying:
Why art thou delaying?
_Barry Cornwall._
* * * * *
Listen! from the forest boughs
The voice-like angel of the spring
Utters his soft vows
To the proud rose blossoming.
And now beneath thy lattice dear!
I am like the bird complaining:
Thou above (I fear)
Like the rose disdaining.
From her chamber in the skies
Shouts the lark at break of morning,
And when day-light flies
Comes the raven’s warning.
This of gloom and that of mirth
In their mystic numbers tell;
But thoughts of sweeter birth
Teacheth the nightingale.
_Barry Cornwall._
PINE.... _Pity_.
Naught is there under Heaven’s wide hollowness
That moves more dear compassion of the mind
Than beauty brought to unworthy wretchedness
Through envy’s snares, or fortune’s freaks unkind:
I, whether lately through her brightness blind,
Or through allegiance and vast fealty,
Which I do owe unto all womankind,
Feel my heart pierced with so great agony,
When such I see, that all for pity I could die.
_Spenser._
* * * * *
Like Ariadne, when in pale despair
The Athenian left her,--so sad Eva pined,
And so she went complaining to the air,
And gave her tresses to the careless wind:--
The colour of her fate was on her mind,
Dark, death-like, and despairing;--and her eye
Shone lustrous, like the light of prophecy.
Over the grassy meads,--beside lone streams,
To perilous heights which no weak step could reach,
She wandered, feeding her unearthly dreams
With musing, and would move the tremulous beech
And shuddering aspen with imploring speech;
For nothing that did live, save they (who sighed)
Pitied the downfall of her amorous pride.
_Barry Cornwall._
[Illustration: NARCISSUS, SCARLET, GERANIUM, MARIGOLD.
_Your self-love and stupidity excite my pity._]
* * * * *
Has Hope, like the bird in the story,
That flitted from tree to tree
With the talisman’s glittering glory--
Has Hope been that bird to thee?
On branch after branch alighting,
The gem did she still display,
And, when nearest and most inviting,
Then waft the fair gem away!
If thus the sweet hours have fleeted,
When Sorrow herself looked bright;
If thus the fond hope has cheated,
That led thee along so light;
If thus, too, the cold world wither
Each feeling that once was dear;--
Come, child of misfortune! come hither,
I’ll weep with thee, tear for tear.
_Moore._
* * * * *
The blind man groping cautiously his way
Along the crowded pavement of a city,
Has natural claims upon our tender pity.
Whether ’twere night, or whether it were day,
Would seem to make small difference to him
Whose days and nights alike are ever dim;
Yet still the tramp of human feet, and hum
Of human voices, sweetly fill his ear;
The surgings of the tides of life appear
Like the deep sounds that from the ocean come
At midnight to the listener. Pity’s glance
Upon his form instinctively we throw;
And while some sadness clouds our countenance,
To GOD we pray to save us from such wo.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Come, chase that starting tear away,
Ere mine to meet it springs;
To-night, at least, to-night be gay,
Whatever to-morrow brings!
Like sunset gleams, that linger late
When all is darkening fast,
Are hours like these we snatch from Fate--
The brightest and the last.
_Moore._
* * * * *
’Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
_Moore._
SAGE.... _Domestic Virtues_.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th’ expectant wee things, todlin stacher through
To meet their dad, wi’ flichtering noise and glee;
His wee-bit ingle blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.
_Burns._
* * * * *
How warmly we are loved, we seldom learn
Till pain and sorrow take our strength away;
Then hearts too long estranged, to us will turn,
And be at peace, as in a former day.
Our true and loving wife more loving grows;
Our little ones in pitying wonder stand
Beside the bed and clasp our fevered hand;
Their glistening eye the tear of feeling shows;
And it may be, when evening calls to rest,
They sadly kneel beside their mother’s chair,
Their silvery voices blend in simple prayer,
And for their sire they make a child’s request.
The times of anguish vainly are not given.
That lead a family to unity and heaven.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Poor madam now condemned to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzled to behold
Her present face surpass the old:
With modesty her cheeks are dyed,
Humility displaces pride;
For tawdry finery is seen
A person ever neatly clean;
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good nature every day;
Serenely gay, and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife a perfect beauty.
_Goldsmith._
* * * * *
Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train,
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art:
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o’er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain:
And e’en while fashion’s brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?
_Goldsmith._
* * * * *
The first sure symptoms of a mind in health,
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.
_Young._
* * * * *
Nor need we power or splendour,--
Wide hall or lordly dome;
The good, the true, the tender,--
These form the wealth of home.
_Mrs. Hale._
* * * * *
His warm but simple home, where he enjoys
With her who shares his pleasure and his heart,
Sweet converse.
_Cowper._
* * * * *
Home is the sphere of harmony and peace,
The spot where angels find a resting-place,
When, bearing blessings, they descend to earth.
_Mrs. Hale._
* * * * *
Home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
_Thomson._
* * * * *
An angel always dwells beneath the roof
Where, in her virtue, a sweet wife fulfils
Her gentle duties; and unnumbered ills
From that love-guarded precinct keep aloof.
_MacKellar._
LICHEN.... _Solitude_.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
There can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale’s complaining notes
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o’ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I’ve thought
No sphery strains by me could e’er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry ’mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should never hear Apollo’s song,
Though feathery clouds were floating all along
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:
That the still murmur of the honey-bee
Would never teach a rural song to me:
That the bright glance from beauty’s eyelids slanting
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold
Some tale of love and arms in time of old.
_Keats._
* * * * *
No din
Invades the temple of their mind;--the mirth
And sighs of men are sounds to them unknown,
Though well they know the spirit’s inward groan;
And mortal agonies belong to them
As well as to their fellow men; for death
Hath passed on all who draw the vital breath,
And where sin is, there doth the law condemn.
Ah, hapless men! relentless Silence keeps
Her watchpost at the portals of the ear;
No heavenly word or sound approacheth near
And music’s melting influence in lasting stillness sleeps.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
There was a poet whose untimely tomb
No human hands with pious reverence reared,
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
Built o’er his mouldering bones a pyramid
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness;
A lovely youth!--no mourning maiden decked
With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
Gentle and brave, and generous, no lorn bard
Breathed o’er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude.
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
And virgins, as unknown he past, have sighed
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
And Silence, too, enamoured of that voice,
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.
_Shelley._
* * * * *
How blest the Solitary’s lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o’er his newly-gathered fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or, haply, to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream:
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to heaven on high,
As wand’ring, meand’ring,
He views the solemn sky.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys
Which I too keenly taste,
The Solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here must cry here,
At perfidy ingrate!
_Burns._
DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollow of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the young fair flowers, that lately sprang and stood,
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lonely beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie: but the cold November rain
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the wild-rose and the orchis died, amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the streams no more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
_Bryant._
Dictionary of Flowers,
WITH THEIR EMBLEMATIC SIGNIFICATIONS.
Acacia Friendship.
---- Rose Elegance.
Acanthus The Arts.
Achillea millefolia War.
Adonis, Flos Painful Recollections.
Agrimony Thankfulness.
Almond-tree Indiscretion.
Aloe Grief.
Amaranth Immortality.
Amaryllis Pride.
Anemone Forsaken.
----, Field Sickness.
Angelica Inspiration.
Angrec Royalty.
Apple blossom Preference.
Ash tree Grandeur.
Asphodel My Regrets follow you to the Grave.
Aster, China Variety.
---- After-thought.
Balm of Gilead Cure.
---- Gentle Joking.
Balsam Impatience.
Barberry Sourness of temper.
Basil Hate.
Beech Prosperity.
Bilberry Treachery.
Bladder-nut Frivolous amusement.
Borage Bluntness.
Box tree Stoicism.
Bramble Envy.
Broom Humility.
---- Ardour.
Buck-bean Calm repose.
Bugloss Falsehood.
Bulrush Indiscretion.
Burdock Touch me not.
Buttercup Ingratitude.
Cactus, Virginia Horror.
Canterbury Bell Constancy.
Catchfly Snare.
Champignon Suspicion.
Cherry tree Good education.
Chestnut tree Do me justice.
Chicory Frugality.
Cinquefoil Beloved daughter.
Circæa Spell.
Clematis Artifice.
Clot-bur Rudeness.
Clove tree Dignity.
Columbine Folly.
Convolvulus, Night Night.
Coriander Hidden merit.
Corn Riches.
Cornbottle Delicacy.
Cornel Cherry tree Durability.
Cowslip, American You are my divinity.
Cress Resolution.
Crown Imperial Power.
Cuscuta Meanness.
Cypress Mourning.
Daffodil Self-love.
Daisy Innocence.
----, Garden I share your sentiments.
----, Wild I will think of it.
Dandelion The rustic oracle.
Day-Lily, Yellow Coquetry.
Dittany Childbirth.
Dock, Patience Patience
Dodder Meanness.
Ebony tree Blackness.
Eglantine Poetry.
Fennel Strength.
Fig Longevity.
Fir tree Elevation.
Flax I feel your kindness.
Flower-de-Luce Flame.
Forget-Me-Not Forget me not.
Fraxinella Fire.
Fuller’s Teasel Misanthropy.
Geranium, Pencilled leaf Ingenuity.
----, Rose-scented Preference.
----, Scarlet Stupidity.
----, Sorrowful Melancholy mind.
----, Wild Steadfast piety.
Grass Utility.
Hawthorn Hope.
Hazel Peace, reconciliation.
Heart’s-ease Think of me.
Heath Solitude.
Heliotrope, Peruvian Devoted attachment.
Hellenium Tears.
Hepatica Confidence.
Holly Foresight.
Hollyhock Ambition.
Honeysuckle Generous and devoted affection.
Hop Injustice.
Hornbeam Ornament.
Horse-chestnut Luxury.
Hortensia You are cold.
Hyacinth Game, play.
Ice-plant Your looks freeze me.
Ipomæa I attach myself to you.
Iris Message.
Ivy Friendship.
Jasmine Amiableness.
----, Carolina Separation.
----, Indian I attach myself to you.
Jonquil Desire.
Juniper Protection.
Larch Boldness.
Larkspur Lightness.
Laurel Glory.
Laurustinus I die if neglected.
Lavender Mistrust.
Leaves, Dead Sadness, melancholy.
Lilac First emotions of love.
----, White Youth.
Lily Majesty.
Lily of the Valley Return of happiness.
Linden tree Conjugal love.
Liverwort Confidence.
London Pride Frivolity.
Lotus Eloquence.
Lucern Life.
Madder Calumny.
Maiden Hair Secrecy.
Mallow Beneficence.
Manchineel tree Falsehood.
Mandrake Rarity.
Maple Reserve.
Marigold Grief.
----, Prophetic Prediction.
---- and Cypress Despair.
Marvel of Peru Timidity.
Meadow Saffron My best days are past.
Mezereon Coquetry.
---- Desire to please.
Mignonette Your qualities surpass your charms.
Milkwort Hermitage.
Mistletoe I surmount all difficulties.
Moonwort Forgetfulness.
Moss Maternal Love.
Mulberry tree, Black I shall not survive you.
----, White Wisdom.
Musk-plant Weakness.
Myrobolan Privation.
Myrtle Love.
Narcissus Self-love.
Nettle Cruelty.
Nightshade, Bitter-sweet Truth.
----, Enchanter’s Spell.
Nosegay Gallantry.
Oak Hospitality.
Olive Peace.
Ophrys, Spider Skill.
Orange Flower Chastity.
---- tree Generosity.
Orchis, Bee Error.
Parsley Festivity.
Passion Flower Faith.
Peppermint Warmth of feeling.
Periwinkle Tender recollections.
Pine-apple You are perfect.
Pink Pure love.
----, Yellow Disdain.
Plane tree Genius.
Plum tree Keep your promises.
----, Wild Independence.
Poplar, Black Courage.
----, White Time.
Poppy Consolation.
---- Sleep.
----, White My bane, my antidote.
Potato Beneficence.
Primrose Childhood.
----, large-flowered Evening Inconstancy.
Privet Prohibition.
Quince Temptation.