The rose its blushes need not lend,
Nor yet the lily with them blend,
To captivate my eyes:
Give me a cheek the heart obeys,
And, sweetly mutable, displays
Its feelings as they rise;
Features, where pensive, more than gay,
Save when a rising smile doth play,
The sober thoughts you see;
Eyes that all soft and tender seem,
And kind affections round them beam,
But most of all on me.
Frisbie.
There is a mood,
(I sing not to the vacant and the young,)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy
That wings the soul, and points her to the skies.
Oh! fragrant dwellers of the lea,
When first the wildwood rings
With each sound of vernal minstrelsy,
When fresh the green grass springs!
What can the blessed spring restore
More gladdening than your charms?
Bringing the memory once more
Of lovely fields and farms!
Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers;
Of life’s unfolding prime;
Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours;
Of souls without a crime.
Oh! blessed, blessed do ye seem,
For, even now, I turned,
With soul athirst for wood and stream,
From streets that glared and burned.
From the hot town, where mortal care
His crowded fold doth pen;
Where stagnates the polluted air
In many a sultry den.
And ye are here! and ye are here!
Drinking the dew-like wine,
Midst living gales and waters clear,
And heaven’s unstinted shine.
I care not that your little life
Will quickly have run through,
And the sward, with summer children rife,
Keep not a trace of you.
For again, again, on dewy plain,
I trust to see you rise,
When spring renews the wildwood strain,
And bluer gleam the skies.
Again, again, when many springs
Upon my grave shall shine,
Here shall you speak of vanished things,
To living hearts of mine.
Mrs. Howitt.
Blest are the pure and simple hearts,
Unconsciously refined,
By the free gifts that Heaven imparts
Through nature to the mind;
Not all the pleasures wealth can buy
Equal their happy destiny.
Mrs. Wells.
O Nature! a’ thy shows an’ forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the simmer kindly warms,
Wi’ life an’ light.
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!
Burns.