Reader, attend-whether thy soul Know, prudent, cautious self-control Is wisdom's root. Robert Burns ON COMPLETING HIS THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR IS time this heart should be unmoved, 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, Where glory decks the hero's bier, 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 Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven; As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. John Milton 245 CYRIACK, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear, outward view, of blemish 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. 246 E WORLDLY PLACE John Milton VEN in a palace, life may be led well! Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, Our freedom for a little bread we sell, Matthew Arnold 247 TIRE IRED with all these, for restful death I cry- And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, 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. 78 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 249 THIS 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 thoughts were suggested to them by the simplest natural object, such as a 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 shells to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells, and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. Can you find no lesson in this?" |