THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE.

THRICE, oh, thrice happy shepherd's life and state,
When courts are happiness, unhappy pawns!
His cottage low, and safely humble gate,

Shuts out proud fortune, with her scorns and fawns;
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep;

Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep; Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.

No Syrian worms he knows, that with their thread
Draw out their silken lives :-
:-nor silken pride:
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need,
Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed:

No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright;
No begging wants his middle fortune bite :
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.

Instead of music and base flattering tongues,
Which wait to first-salute my lord's uprise,
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes.
In country plays is all the strife he uses;
Or sing, or dance unto the rural Muses;
And but in music's sports all difference refuses.

His certain life, that never can deceive him,

Is full of thousand sweets and rich content: The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him With coolest shades, till noontide's rage is spent:

His life is neither toss'd in boisterous seas

Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease: Pleased and full bless'd he lives, when he his God can please.

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place:
His little son into his bosom creeps,

The lively picture of his father's face.

Never his humble house or state torment him;

Less he could like, if less his God had sent him; And when he dies, green turfs, with grassy tomb, content him.

PHINEAS FLETCHER, 1584-1650.

HUMAN FRAILTY.

CAN he be fair, that withers at a blast?
Or he be strong, that airy breath can cast?
Can he be wise, that knows how to live?
Or he be rich, that nothing hath to give?
Can he be young, that's feeble, weak, and wan?
So fair, strong, wise, so rich, so young is man.
So fair is man, that death (a parting blast)
Blasts his fair flower, and makes him earth at last
So strong is man, that with a gasping breath
He totters, and bequeaths his strength to death;

st;

So wise is man, that if with death he strive,
His wisdom cannot teach him how to live;
So rich is man, that (all his debts being paid)
His wealth's the winding-sheet wherein he's laid;
So young is man, that, broke with care and sorrow,
He's old enough to-day, to die to-morrow:
Why bragg'st thou, then, thou worm of five feet long?
Thou 'rt neither fair, nor strong, nor wise, nor rich, nor

young.

FRANCIS QUARLES, 1592-1644.

UP WITH THE DAWN.

Up with the dawn, ye sons of toil!
And bare the brawny arm,
To drive the harness'd team afield,
And till the fruitful farm;

To dig the mine for hidden wealth,
Or make the woods to ring

With swinging axe, and steady stroke,
To fell the forest king.

With ocean car and iron steed

Traverse the land and sea,

And spread our commerce round the globe,

As winds that wander free.

Subdue the earth, and conquer fate,
Outspeed the flight of time;
Old earth is rich, and man is young,
Nor near his jocund prime.

Work, and the clouds of care will fly,
Pale want will pass away;
Work, and the leprosy of crime

And tyrants must decay.
Leave the dead ages in their urns;
The present time be ours,

To grapple bravely with our lot,

And strew our path with flowers.

THOMAS ELLIOTT, 1820

THE SEASONS OF LIFE.

WE, too, have autumns, when our leaves Drop loosely through the dampen'd air, When all our good seems bound in sheaves, And we stand reap'd and bare.

Our seasons have no fix'd returns,
Without our will they come and go;

At noon our sudden summer burns,
Ere sunset all is snow.

But each day brings less summer cheer,
Crimps more our ineffectual spring,
And something earlier every year
Our singing birds take wing.

As less the olden glow abides,
And less the chillier heart aspires,
With drift-wood beach'd in past spring-tides
We light our sullen fires,

By the pinch'd rushlight's starving beam
We cower and strain our wasted sight,
To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by seam,
In the long arctic night,

It was not so we once were young-
When Spring, to womanly Summer turning,
Her dewdrops on each grass-blade strung
In the red sunrise burning.

We trusted then, aspired, believed

That earth could be remade to-morrow ;

Ah, why be ever undeceived?

Why give up faith for sorrow?

O thou, whose days are yet all spring,

Trust, blighted once, is past retrieving;
Experience is a dumb, dead thing;

The victory's in believing.

-American.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 1819