Reader, attend-whether thy soul Know, prudent, cautious self-control Robert Burns 13 ON COMPLETING HIS THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 'IS time this heart should be unmoved, 'TIS Since others it hath ceased to move: Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love! My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The fire that on my bosom preys The hope, the fear, the jealous care, But 'tis not thus-and 'tis not here Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, Or binds his brow. The sword, the banner, and the field, Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!) Awake, my spirit! Think through whom Tread those reviving passions down, If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live? Is here:-up to the field, and give Seek out-less often sought than found— And take thy rest. Lord Byron 244 ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE OW soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, HOW Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! But my late spring no bud or blossom show'th. That I to manhood am arrived so near; It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven; All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. 45 John Milton YRIACK, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear, CRACK, thith, of beamish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Content though blind, had I no better guide. 46 John Milton WORLDLY PLACE E so spake the imperial sage, purest of men, VEN in a palace, life may be led well! Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, 247 Our freedom for a little bread we sell, Matthew Arnold TIRED IRED with all these, for restful death I cry— And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive Good attending captain Ill: —Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, William Shakespeare 1 A translation of the passage which inspired this sonnet may be seen in Prose, p. 445. 248 249 SAY AY not, the struggle naught availeth, If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, Arthur Hugh Clough THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS1 HIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings 1 The poem appears in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, where it is thus introduced: "Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote Cowley, or Burns, or Wordsworth, just now, to show you what houghts were suggested to them by the simplest natural object, such as 2 flower or a leaf; but I will read you a few lines, if you do not object, suggested by looking at a section of one of those chambered hells to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. If you will ook into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one -f these shells, and a section of it. The last will show you the series f enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that nhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. Can you find no esson in this?" |