BEAUTY.

"T IS much immortal beauty to admire,
But more immortal beauty to withstand;
The perfect soul can overcome desire,
If beauty with divine delight be scanned.
For what is beauty but the blooming child
Of fair Olympus, that in night must end,
And be forever from that bliss exiled,
If admiration stand too much its friend?
The wind may be enamored of a flower,
The ocean of the green and laughing shore,
The silver lightning of a lofty tower,
But must not with too near a love adore;
Or flower and margin and cloud-capped tower
Love and delight shall with delight devour!

THOUGHT.

LORD THURLOW.

THOUGHT is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach

What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils ;

Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known;

Mind with mind did never meet; We 'e are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie;

All is thus but starlight here.

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.

PRELUDE TO THE VOICES OF THE

NIGHT.

PLEASANT it was, when woods were green,

And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.
Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
With one continuous sound; —

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings The feelings of a dream,

As of innumerable wings,

As, when a bell no longer swings,
Faint the hollow murmur rings

O'er meadow, lake, and stream.

And dreams of that which cannot die,
Bright visions, came to me,
As lapped in thought I used to lie,
And gaze into the summer sky,
Where the sailing clouds went by,
Like ships upon the sea;

Dreams that the soul of youth engage
Ere Fancy has been quelled;
Old legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,

And chronicles of eld.

And, loving still these quaint old themes, Even in the city's throng

I feel the freshness of the streams

That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams,

Water the green land of dreams,

The holy land of song.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE INNER VISION.

MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path there be or none,
While a fair region round the Traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;

Of temper sweet, of yielding will,

Of firm, yet placid mind,
With all my faults to love me still
With sentiment refined.

And as Time's car incessant runs,
And Fortune fills my store,
I want of daughters and of sons
From eight to half a score.
I want (alas! can mortal dare

Such bliss on earth to crave?) That all the girls be chaste and fair, The boys all wise and brave.

I want a warm and faithful friend, To cheer the adverse hour; Who ne'er to flatter will descend,

Nor bend the knee to power,
A friend to chide me when I'm wrong,
My inmost soul to see;

And that my friendship prove as strong
For him as his for me.

I want the seals of power and place,
The ensigns of command;
Charged by the People's unbought grace
To rule my native land.
Nor crown nor sceptre would I ask
But from my country's will,
By day, by night, to ply the task
Her cup of bliss to fill.

I want the voice of honest praise
To follow me behind,

And to be thought in future days

The friend of human-kind,
That after ages, as they rise,
Exulting may proclaim

In choral union to the skies

Their blessings on my name.

These are the Wants of mortal Man,
I cannot want them long,

For life itself is but a span,

And earthly bliss - a song.
My last great Want-absorbing all-
Is, when beneath the sod,
And summoned to my final call,
The Mercy of my God.

WASHINGTON, August 31, 1841.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

CONTENTMENT.

"Man wants but little here below."

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;

And he whose hand the creature raised Has yet a foot to kick him down.

The drudge who would all get, all save,

Like a brute beast, both feeds and lies; Prone to the earth, he digs his grave, And in the very labor dies.

Excess of ill-got, ill-kept pelf

Does only death and danger breed ; Whilst one rich worldling starves himself With what would thousand others feed. By which we see that wealth and power, Although they make men rich and great, The sweets of life do often sour,

And gull ambition with a cheat.

Nor is he happier than these,
Who, in a moderate estate,
Where he might safely live at ease,
Has lusts that are immoderate.
For he, by those desires misled,
Quits his own vine's securing shade,
To expose his naked, empty head
To all the storms man's peace invade.

Nor is he happy who is trim,

Tricked up in favors of the fair, Mirrors, with every breath made dim,

Birds, caught in every wanton snare.

Woman, man's greatest woe or bliss,

Does oftener far than serve, enslave And with the magic of a kiss

Destroys whom she was made to save.

O fruitful grief, the world's disease!
And vainer man, to make it so,
Who gives his miseries increase
By cultivating his own woe.

There are no ills but what we make

By giving shapes and names to things, Which is the dangerous mistake

That causes all our sufferings.

We call that sickness which is health, That persecution which is grace, That poverty which is true wealth, And that dishonor which is praise.

Alas! our time is here so short

That in what state soe'er 't is spent, Of joy or woe, does not import, Provided it be innocent.

But we may make it pleasant too,

If we will take our measures right,

Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened till I had my fill;
And as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

A NOBLE peasant, Isaac Ashford, died.
Noble he was, contemning all things mean,
His truth unquestioned and his soul serene.
Of no man's presence Isaac felt afraid;
At no man's question Isaac looked dismayed;
Shame knew him not, he dreaded no
disgrace;
Truth, simple truth, was written in his face;
Yet while the serious thought his soul approved,
Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved;
To bliss domestic he his heart resigned,

And with the firmest had the fondest mind;
Were others joyful, he looked smiling on,
And gave allowance where he needed none;
Good he refused with future ill to buy,
Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh;
A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
No envy stung, no jealousy distressed;
(Bane of the poor! it wounds their weaker mind
To miss one favor which their neighbors find;)
Yet far was he from Stoic pride removed;
He felt humanely, and he warmly loved.

I marked his action, when his infant died,
And his old neighbor for offence was tried:
The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek,
Spoke pity plainer than the tongue can
speak.
If pride were his, 't was not their vulgar pride
Who in their base contempt the great deride;
Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed;
Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
None his superior, and his equals few ;-
But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained
In sturdy boys to virtuous labors trained;
Pride in the power that guards his country's coast,
And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride in a life that slander's tongue defied,—
In fact, a noble passion misnamed pride.

GEORGE CRABBE

THE HAPPY MAN.

FROM "THE WINTER WALK AT NOON."

HE is the happy man whose life even now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit

Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.