O let the days of thy life pass not
Without tasting life’s blisses;
And if thou’rt shelter’d from the shot,
Let it fly, for it misses.
If fortune should ever be passing thy way,
To grasp her, forth sally;
Don’t build on the summit thy cottage, I pray,
But down in the valley.
PRINCESS SABBATH.
In Arabia’s books of stories
Read we of enchanted princes,
Who from time to time recover’d
Their once handsome pristine features;
Or the whilome hairy monster
To a king’s son is converted,
Dress’d in gay and glittering garments,
And the flute divinely playing.
Yet the magic time expires,
And once more and of a sudden
We behold his royal highness
Changed into a shaggy monster.
Of a prince of such-like fortune
Sings my song. His name is Israel,
And a witch’s art has changed him
To the figure of a dog.
As a dog, with doggish notions,
All the week his time he muddles
Through life’s filthiness and sweepings,
To the scavengers’ derision.
But upon each Friday evening,
Just at twilight, the enchantment
Ceases suddenly,—the dog
Once more is a human being.
As a man, with human feelings,
With his head and breast raised proudly
Dress’d in festival attire,
His paternal halls he enters.