IS sweet, when slanting light the field adorns,
To see the new-shorn flocks recline or browse;
While swallows flit among the restful cows,
Their gurgling dew-laps, and their harmless horns;
Or flirt the aged hunter, in his doze,
With passing wing; yet with no thought to grieve
His mild, unjealous, innocent repose,
With those keen contrasts our sad hearts conceive.
And then, perchance, the evening wind awakes
With sudden tumult, and the bowery ash
Goes storming o'er the golden moon, whose flash
Fills and refills its breezy gaps and breaks;
The weeping-willow at her neighbour floats,
And busy rustlings stir the wheat and oats.
CHARLES (TENNYSON) TURNER
TO THE WHITE STAR ON THE FOREHEAD OF A FAVOURITE OLD MARE.
WHITE star! that travellest at old Maggie's pace
About my field, where'er a wandering mouth,
And foot, that slowly shifts from place to place,
Conduct thee, East or West, or North or South;
A loving eye is my best chart to find.
Thy whereabouts at dawn or dusk; but when
She dreams at noon, with heel a-tilt behind,
And pendent lip, I mark thee fairest then;
I see thee dip and vanish, when she rolls
On earth, supine, then with one rousing shake
Reculminate; but, most, thou lov'st to take
A quiet onward course-Heaven's law controls
The mild, progressive motion thou dost make,
Albeit thy path is scarce above the mole's.
CHARLES
(TENNYSON) TURNER
A SUMMER NIGHT IN THE BEEHIVE.
HE little bee returns with evening's gloom,
To join her comrades in the braided hive,
Where, housed beside their mighty honeycomb,
They dream their polity shall long survive.
Still falls the summer night—the browsing horse
Fills the low portal with a grassy sound
From the near paddock, while the water-course
Sends them sweet murmurs from the meadow-ground:
None but such peaceful noises break the hush,
Save Pussy, growling, in the thyme and sage,
Over the thievish mouse, in happy rage:
At last, the flowers against the threshold brush
In morning airs-fair shines the uprisen sun;
Another day of honey has begun!
UR window-panes enthral our summer bees;
(To insect woes I give this little page)—
We hear them threshing in their idle rage
Those crystal floors of famine, while, at ease,
Their outdoor comrades probe the nectaries
Of flowers, and into all sweet blossoms dive;
Then home, at sundown, to the happy hive,
On forward wing, straight through the dancing flies:
For such poor strays a full-plumed wisp I keep,
And when I see them pining, worn, and vext,
I brush them softly with a downward sweep
To the raised sash-all-angered and perplext:
So man, the insect, stands on his defence
Against the very hand of Providence.
MINNIE AND HER DOVE.
WO days she missed her dove, and then, alas!
A knot of soft gray feathers met her view,
So light, their stirring hardly broke the dew
That hung on the blue violets and the grass;
A kite had struck her fondling as he passed;
And o'er that fleeting, downy, epitaph
The poor child lingered, weeping; her gay laugh
Was mute that day, her little heart o'ercast.
Ah! Minnie, if thou livest, thou wilt prove
Intenser pangs-less tearful, though less brief;
Thou'lt weep for dearer death and sweeter love,
And spiritual woe, of woes the chief,
Until the full-grown wings of human grief
Eclipse thy memory of the kite and dove.
THE HOLY EMERALD,
SAID TO BE THE ONLY TRUE LIKENESS OF CHRIST.
HE gem, to which the artist did entrust
That face which now outshines the Cherubim,
Gave up, full willingly, its emerald dust,
To take Christ's likeness-to make room for him.
So must it be, if thou wouldst bear about
Thy Lord thy shining surface must be lowered,
Thy goodly prominence be chipt and scored,
Till those deep scars have brought his features out:
Sharp be the stroke and true, make no complaints;
For heavenly lines thou givest earthy grit :
But oh! how oft our coward spirit faints,
When we are called our jewels to submit
To this keen graver, which so oft hath writ
The Saviour's image on his wounded saints!
CHARLES (TENNYSON) TURNER
CHARLES
(TENNYSON) TURNER
OUR MARY AND THE CHILD-MUMMY.
WHEN the four quarters of the world shall rise,
Men, women, children, at the Judgment-time,
Perchance this Memphian girl, dead ere her prime,
Shall drop her mask, and with dark new-born eyes
Salute our English Mary, loved and lost;
The Father knows her little scroll of prayer,
And life as pure as his Egyptian air;
For, though she knew not Jesus, nor the cost
At which He won the world, she learned to pray;
And though our own sweet babe on Christ's good name
Spent her last breath, premonished and advised
Of him, and in his glorious Church baptized,
She will not spurn this old-world child away,
ON FINDING A SMALL FLY CRUSHED IN A BOOK.
SOME hand, that never meant to do thee hurt,
Has crushed thee here between these pages pent;
But thou hast left thine own fair monument,
Thy wings gleam out and tell me what thou wert:
Oh! that the memories which survive us here e
Were half as lovely as these wings of thine!
Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine
Now thou art gone: Our doom is ever near:
The peril is beside us day by day ;
The book will close upon us, it may be,
Just as we lift ourselves to soar away
Upon the summer-airs. But, unlike thee,
The closing book may stop our vital breath,
Yet leave no lustre on our page of death.
RICH red wheat! thou wilt not long defer
Thy beauty, though thou art not wholly grown;
The fair blue distance and the moorland fir
Long for thy golden laughter! Four years gone,
How oft! with eager foot, I scaled the top
Of this long rise, to give mine eye full range;
And, now again, rotation brings the change.
From seeds and clover, to my favourite crop;
How oft I've watched thee from my garden, charmed
With thy noon-stillness, or thy morning tears!
Or, when the wind clove and the sunset warmed
Thine amber-shafted depths and russet ears;
O all ye cool green stems! improve the time,
Fulfil your beauty! justify my rime!
CHARLES (TENNYSON) TURNER
THE HARVEST MOON.
HOW peacefully the broad and golden moon
Comes up to gaze upon the reaper's toil!
That they who own the land for many a mile,
May bless her beams, and they who take the boon
Of scattered ears; Oh! beautiful! how soon
The dusk is turned to silver without soil,
Which makes the fair sheaves fairer than at noon,
And guides the gleaner to his slender spoil;
So, to our souls, the Lord of love and might
Sends harvest-hours, when daylight disappears;
When age and sorrow, like a coming night,
Darken our field of work with doubts and fears,
He times the presence of his heavenly light
To rise up softly o'er our silver hairs.
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