Miss Eliza Cook. Through the shadow of the world we sweep into the younger day:
The bauble from my soul away; I'll sell it, whatsoe'er it bring:The world at auction here to-day!
Even therefore grieve I for those gallant yeomen,
England's peculiar and appropriate sons,
Known in no other land. Each boasts his hearth
And field as free as the best lord his barony,
Owing subjection to no human vassalage
Save to their king and law. Hence are they
resolute,
Leading the van on every day of battle,
As men who know the blessings they defend.
Hence are they frank and generous in peace,
As men who have their portion in its plenty.
No other kingdom shows such worth and happi
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Veil'd in such low estate.
Walter Scott's Halidon Hill.
Let me not live (quoth he)
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here After my flame lacks oil; to be the snuff
The mettle of your pasture: let us swear
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
not;
Mere feathers of their garments; whose con-
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
'Yes'-Oh! it is a kind reply,
When flowing from the lips of dear
Young beauty in whose ear we sigh
The one fond wish.
"Yes!" I answered you last night; "No!" this morning, Sir, I say!
Colours seen by candle-light
Will not look the same by day.
I'll serve his youth, for youth must have his course,
For being restrain'd it makes him ten times worse:
His pride, his riot, all that may be nam'd,
Time may recall, and all his madness tam'd.
Shaks. London Prodigal.
Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together;
Miss Barrett. Youth is full of pleasure,
Age is full of care:
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Miss Barrett. Age like winter bare;
Youth is full of sport,
Age's breath is short;
Cheerless, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell
'Midst sculls and coffins, epitaphs and worms:
Where light-heel'd ghosts, and visionary shades,
Beneath the wan cold moon (as fame reports)
Embodied thick, perform their mystic rounds.
No other merriment, dull tree! is thine.
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild and age is tame.
Age I do abhor thee;
Youth I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young:
Blair's Grave. Age I do defy thee;
Youth is a bubble blown up with breath,
Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death,
Whose way is wilderness, whose inn is penance,
And stoop gallant age, the host of grievance.
Spenser's Shepherd's Calender.
Be affable and courteous in youth, that
You may be honour'd in age. Roses that
Lose their colours, keep their savours, and pluck'd
From the stalk, are put to the still. Cotonea,
Because it boweth when the sun riseth,
Is sweetest when it is oldest: and children,
Which in their tender years sow courtesy,
Shall in their declining states reap pity.
Lilly's Sappho and Phaon.
I'll not practise any violent means to stay
Th' unbridled course of youth in him: for that
Restrain'd grows more impatient; and, in kind,
Like to the eager, but the gen'rous grey-hound,
Who, ne'er so little from his game withheld,
Turns head, and leaps up at his holder's throat.
Jonson's Every Man in His Humour.
Gather the rose-buds while ye may,
Old time is still a flying;
And that same flower that blooms to-day,
To morrow shall be dying.
Of gentle blood, his parents' only treasure,
Their lasting sorrow, and their vanish'd pleasure.
Adorn'd with features, virtues, wit, and grace,
A large provision for so short a race:
Of an unsteady youth, a giddy brain
Green indiscretion, flattery of greatness,
Rawness of judgment, wilfulness in folly,
Thoughts vagrant as the wind, and as uncertain.
John Ford's Broken Heart.
Folly may be in youth:
But many time 't is mixt with grave discretion That tempers it to use and makes its judgment Equal, if not exceeding that, which palsies Have almost shaken into a disease.
Youth has a sprightliness and fire to boast,
That in the valley of decline are lost,
And virtue with peculiar charms appears,
Crown'd with the garland of life's blooming years
Yet age, by long experience well inform'd,
Well read, well temper'd, with religion warm'd,
That fire abated which impels rash youth,
More moderate gifts might have prolong'd his Proud of his speed, to overshoot the truth,
Too early fitted for a better state:
But, knowing heaven his home, to shun delay,
He leap'd o'er age, and took the shortest way.
Dryden.
As time improves the grape's authentic juice, Mellows and makes the speech more fit for use, And claims a rev'rence in its short'ning day, That 't is an honour and a joy to pay. Cowper
What are all thy boasted treasures?
Tender sorrows, transient pleasures?
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears,
Laughing hours, and mourning years?
Deck'd with brightest tints at morn,
At twilight, with'ring on a thorn;
Like the gentle rose of spring,
Chill'd by ev'ry zephyr's wing:
Ah! how soon its colour flies,
Blushes, trembles, falls, and dies.
What is youth? a smiling sorrow,
Blithe to-day, and sad to-morrow;
Never fix'd, for ever ranging,
Laughing, weeping, doating, changing;
Wild, capricious, giddy, vain,
Coy'd with pleasure, nurs'd with pain:
Age steals on with wintry face,
Ev'ry rapt'rous hope to chase,
Like a wither'd, sapless tree,
Bow'd to chilling fate's decree;
Stripp'd of all its foliage gay,
Drooping at the close of day:
What of tedious life remains
Keen regrets and cureless pains;
Till death appears, a welcome friend,
To bid the scene of sorrow end.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening
Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue;
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims pay!
No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day.
Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black misfortune's baleful train,
Ah! show them where in ambush stand,
To scize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!
Ab, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ab, fields belov'd in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.
Gray's Eton College.
Happy the school-boy! did he prize his bliss,
'T were ill exchang'd for all the dazzling gems
That gaily sparkle in ambition's eye;
His are the joys of nature, his the smile,
The cherub smile of innocence and health,
Sorrow unknown, or if a tear be shed,
He wipes it soon: for hark! the cheerful voice
Of comrades calls him to the top, or ball,
Away he hies, and clamours as he goes,
With glee, which causes him to tread on air.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, The sports of children satisfy the child. Goldsmith's Traveller.
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves, that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active men engage;
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim-declining age!
Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise
We love the play-place of our early days.
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone,
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.
Cowper's Tirocinium.
The charms of youth at once are seen and past;
And nature says, "They are too sweet to last "
So blooms the rose: and so the blushing maid
Be gay: too soon the flowers of Spring will fade
Sir William Jones
Ah, who, when fading of itself away,
Would cloud the sunshine of his little day!
Now is the May of life. Careering round!
Joy wings his feet, joy lifts him from the ground
Rogers's Human Life.
Down the smooth stream of life the stripling darts, | Her smiles and tears had pass'd, as light winds Gay as the morn; bright glows the vernal sky,
Hope swells the sails, and passion steers his O'er lakes, to ruffle, not destroy, their glass.
Safe glides his little bark along the shore
Where virtue takes her stand; but if too far
He launches forth beyond discretion's mark,
Sudden the tempest scowls, the surges roar,
Blot his fair day, and plunge him in the deep.
Porteus's Death.
Of young ideas painted on the mind,
In the warm glowing colours fancy spreads
On objects not yet known, when all is new,
And all is lovely.
Byron's Island
A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
Вугоп.
The love of higher things and better days;
The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways;
The moments when we gather from a glance
More joy than from all future pride or praise,
Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Hannah More's David and Goliah. Of which another's bosom is the zone.
I can remember, with unsteady feet,
Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure
In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things
which long
Have lost their power to please; which when
In earlier days, and calmer hours,
When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers,
-a friend!
II had—ah! have I now?
They closed beside the chimney's blaze,
And talk'd and hoped for happier days,
And lent their spirit's rising glow
Awhile to gild impending woe;
High privilege of youthful time,
Worth all the pleasures of our prime !
Scott's Rokeby.
The tear, down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush, the flower is dry.
Blest hour of childhood! then, and then alone,
Dance we the revels close round pleasure's throne,
Quaff the bright nectar from her fountain-springs,
And laugh beneath the rainbow of her wings.
Oh! time of promise, hope, and innocence,
Of trust, and love, and happy ignorance!
Whose every dream is heaven, in whose fair
joy,
Experience yet has thrown no black alloy;
Whose pain, when fiercest, lacks the venom'd
Which to maturer ill doth oft belong,
When, mute and cold, we weep departed bliss,
And hope expires on broken happiness.
Thoughts of a Recluse.
Scott's Rokeby. Oh Strangford! when we parted last,
I little thought the times were past,
For ever past, when brilliant joy,
Was all my vacant heart's employ:
When, fresh from mirth to mirth again,
We thought the rapid hours too few,
Our only use for knowledge then
To turn to rapture all we knew!
Delicious days of whim and soul,
When mingling love and laugh together,
We learn'd the book on pleasure's bowl,
And turn'd the leaf with folly's feather!
Here while I roved, a heedless boy,
Here, while through paths of peace I ran,
My feet were vex'd with puny snares,
My bosom stung with insect-cares:
But ah! what light and little things
Are childhood's woes!- they break no rest,
Like dew-drops on the skylark's wings,
While slumbering in his grassy nest,
Gone in a moment, when he springs
To meet the morn with open breast,
As o'er the eastern hills her banners glow,
And veil'd in mist the valley sleeps below.
Montgomery's World before the Flood.
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