As oft return, a pert voracious kind.
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned
To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and wading at their head With well-considered steps, seems to resent His altered gait and stateliness retrenched. How find the myriads, that in summer cheer The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs, Due sustenance, or where subsist they now? Earth yields them nought; the imprisoned worm is safe
Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs Lie covered close; and berry-bearing thorns, That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose) Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. The long protracted rigour of the year,
Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
As instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds, And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touched within us, and the heart replies. How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard A kindred melody, the scene recurs, And with it all its pleasures and its pains. Such comprehensive views the spirit takes, That in a few short moments I retrace (As in a map the voyager his course) The windings of my way through many years. Short as in retrospect the journey seems, It seemed not always short; the rugged path, And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn, Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length. Yet feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all, How readily we wish time spent revoked, That we might try the ground again, where once (Through inexperience, as we now perceive) We missed that happiness we might have found! Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend, A father, whose authority, in show
When most severe, and mustering all its force, Was but the graver countenance of love; Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice, But had a blessing in its darkest frown, Threatening at once and nourishing the plant. We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand, That reared us. At a thoughtless age, allured By every gilded folly, we renounced
His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent That converse, which we now in vain regret. How gladly would the man recall to life The boy's neglected sire! a mother too, That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still, Might he demand them at the gates of death. Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed
The playful humour; he could now endure, (Himself grown sober in the vale of tears) And feel a parent's presence no restraint. not to understand a treasure's worth
has stolen away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is. The few that pray at all pray oft amiss,
And, seeking grace to improve the prize they hold,
Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.
The night was winter in his roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills, And where the woods fence off the northern
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud, and white without a speck The dazzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o'er the vale; And through the trees I view the embattled tower,
Whence all the music. I again perceive The soothing influence of the wafted strains, And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, Whose outspread branches over-arch the glade.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. The red-breast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppressed:
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, That tinkle in the withered leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give an useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without his books.
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed ; Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene! How often have I paused on every charm, The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
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