BUT happy they, the happiest of their kind,
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace; but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love:
Where friendship full exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem, enliven'd by desire
Ineffable and sympathy of soul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will
With boundless confidence; for naught but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungen'rous, who, alone intent
To bless himself, from sordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, consume his nights and days;
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel;
Let Eastern tyrants, from the light of heaven
Seclude their bosom slaves, meanly possess'd
Of a mere lifeless violated form:
While those whom love cements in holy faith
And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all,
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish?
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or in the mind, or mind-illumin'd face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shews some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.-
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.—
Oh, speak the joy! ye, whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart :
All elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.—
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly.-The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy: and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads :
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;
When, after the long vernal day of life, Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells With many a proof of recollected love, Together down they sink in social sleep; Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.
JAMES THOMSON, 1700-1746.
FRIENDSHIP, peculiar boon of Heaven,
The noble mind's delight and pride,
To men and angels only given,
To all the lower world denied.
While love, unknown among the blest,
Parent of thousand wild desires,
The savage and the human breast
Torments alike with raging fires.
With bright, but oft destructive gleam,
Alike o'er all his lightnings fly,
Thy lambent glories only beam
Around the fav'rites of the sky.
Thy gentle flows of guileless joys
On fools and villains ne'er descend; In vain for thee the tyrant sighs,
And hugs a flatterer for a friend.
Directress of the brave and just,
Oh, guide us through life's darksome way! And let the tortures of mistrust
On selfish bosoms only prey.
Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow,
When souls to peaceful climes remove;
What raised our virtue here below
Shall aid our happiness above.
SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709–1785.
I MAY not scorn the meanest thing
That on the earth doth crawl-
The slave who dares not burst his chain,
The tyrant in his hall.
The vile oppressor who hath made
The widow'd mother mourn,
Though worthless, soulless, he may stand-
I cannot, dare not scorn.
The darkest night that shrouds the sky
Of beauty hath a share;
The blackest heart hath signs to tell
That God still lingers there.
I pity all that evil are―
I pity and I mourn ;
But the Supreme hath fashion'd all,
And, oh! I dare not scorn.
ROBERT NICOLL, 1814-1837.
SPEAK it not lightly-'tis a holy thing,
A bond existing through long distant years, When joy o'er thine abode is hovering,
Or when thine eye is wet with bitterest tears, Recorded by an angel's pen on high,
And must be question'd in eternity!
Speak it not lightly!-though the young and gay
Are thronging round thee now with tones of mirth,
Let not the holy promise of to-day
Fade like the clouds that with the morn have birth; But ever bright and sacred may it be,
Stored in the treasure-cell of memory.
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