MORNING MEDITATIONS IN WINTER.
ET Taylor preach upon a morning breezy,
How well to rise while nights and larks are
flying-
For my part, getting up seems not so easy
By half, as lying!
What if the lark does carol in the sky,
Soaring beyond the sight to find him out—
Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly ?
I'm not a trout!
Talk not to me of bees and such like hums,
The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime— Only lie long enough, and bed becomes
To me Dan Phoebus and his car are nought,
His steeds that paw impatiently about;
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought,
Morning Meditations in Winter.
My stomach is not ruled by other men's,
And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs
Wherefore should master rise before the hens
Have laid their eggs?
An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn,
Who used to haste the dewy grass among, "To meet the sun upon the upland lawn "Well-he died young!
With charwomen such early hours agree,
And sweeps that earn betimes their bit and sup; But I'm no climbing boy, and need not be "All up-all up!"
So here I'll lie, my morning calls deferring,
Till something nearer to the stroke of noon;
A man that's fond precociously of stirring
Must be a spoon!
WORD is ringing through my brain;
It was not meant to give me pain;
It had no tone to bid it stay
When other things had passed away;
It had no meaning more than all
Which in an idle hour fall;
It was, when first the sound I heard,
A lightly-uttered, careless word.
That word, oh! it doth haunt me now
In scenes of joy, in scenes of woe;
By night, by day, in sun or shade,
With the half smile that gently play'd
Reproachfully, and gave the sound
Eternal power through life to wound.
There is no voice I ever heard
So deeply fixed as that one word.
When in the laughing crowd some tone, Like those whose joyous sound is gone,
Strikes on my ear, I shrink, for then
The careless word comes back again.
When all alone I sit and gaze
Upon the cheerful home-fire blaze,
Lo! freshly as when first 'twas heard,
Returns that lightly uttered word.
When dreams bring back the days of old,
With all that wishes could not hold;
And from my feverish couch I start
To press a shadow to my heart—
Amid its beating echoes, clear
That little word I seem to hear;
In vain I say, while it is heard,
Why weep?-'twas but a foolish word!
It comes, and with it come the tears,
The hopes, the joys of former years;
Forgotten smiles, forgotten looks,
Thick as dead leaves on Autumn brooks,
And all as joyless, though they were
The brightest things life's springs could share.
Oh! would to God I ne'er had heard
That lightly-uttered, careless word!
It was the first, the only one-
Of those which lips for ever gone
Breathed in their love-which had for me
Rebuke of harshness at my glee;
And if those lips were heard to say
"Beloved, let it pass away,"
Ah! then perchance-but I have heard
The last dear tone-the careless word!
MRS. NORTON.
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