A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar ;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore,
What future bliss, He gives thee not to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest :
The soul uneasy and confin'd, from home
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way:
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv❜n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, a humbler heav'n ;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, Here He gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there :
Snatch from His Hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge His justice, he the God of God.
In Pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against the Eternal Cause.
POPE, Essay on Man.
CONVERSATION is but carving:
Give no more to every guest
Than he's able to digest;
Give him always of the prime,
And but little at a time;
Give to all but just enough,
Let them neither starve nor stuff,
And that each may have his due,
Let your neighbour carve for you.
SWEET, thou hast trod on a heart.
Pass! there's a world full of men,
And women as fair as thou art
Must do such things now and then.
Thou only hast stepped unaware,
Malice not one can impute;
And why should a heart have been there
In the way of a fair woman's foot?
It was not a stone that could trip,
Nor was it a thorn that could rend:
Put up thy proud underlip!
'Twas merely the heart of a friend.
And yet peradventure one day
Thou, sitting alone at the glass,
Remarking the bloom gone away,
Where the smile in its dimplement was,
And seeking around thee in vain
From hundreds who flattered before,
Such a word as, "Oh, not in the main
Do I hold thee less precious, but more!"
Thou'lt sigh, very like, on thy part,
"Of all I have known or can know,
I wish I had only that Heart
I trod upon ages ago!
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
"How glorious were the nightingales last night,
'Neath the dim April, warm, half-moonlit sky!
As from wood choirs and temples of delight,
The dewy streamside grass, the black thorn nigh,
They poured their melody."
"Indeed! I heard it not! I looked around,
And deemed that night and silence had their fill ;
From forest, fallow, distant lane, no sound
Save the dull dronings of the water mill :
The nightingales were still."
"O dull of ear to hear! but mark thou this:
My ears were sharpened by a bed of pain;
Thus, out of sorrow God works often bliss,
And that flits by, and this shall still remain :
The nightingales no strain !!!"
But sursum corda! may it not be so
That those sweet strains on Jordan's further side, Unheard by souls who only this world know,
May yet to them not wholly be denied
Who drink the cup of woe?
J. M. NEALE.
THE SUCCESSOR OF THE FOURE SWEETE MONTHS.
FIRST April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more riche and sweete array;
Next enters June, and brings us more
Jems than those two that went before :
Then lastly, July comes, and she
More wealth brings in than all those three.
HERRICK, Hesperides.
I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that thro' me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Thro' primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths:
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
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