My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,
My sweetest flower I'll prove thee,
And pleased I pin thee to my breast,
And dearly do I love thee.
And when, my nosegay, thou shalt fade,
As sweet a flower thou'lt prove thee;
And as thou witherest on my breast
For beauty past I'll love thee.
And when, my nosegay, thou shalt die,
And heaven's flower shalt prove thee,
My hopes shall follow to the sky,
And everlasting love thee.
WHAT IS LIFE?
And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?—A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
And happiness?—a bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
What are vain hopes?—The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem,—and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark, mysterious name of horrid sound?—
A long and lingering sleep, the weary crave.
And Peace? where can its happiness abound?
No where at all, save heaven, and the grave.
Then what is Life?—When stripp'd of its disguise,
A thing to be desir'd it cannot be,
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'T is but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.
The following lines in the "Address to Plenty" have always been admired for their Doric strength and simplicity, and the vivid realism of the scene which they depict:—
Toiling in the naked fields,
Where no bush a shelter yields,
Needy Labour dithering stands,
Beats and blows his numbing hands,
And upon the crumping snows
Stamps, in vain, to warm his toes.
Leaves are fled, that once had power
To resist a summer shower;
And the wind so piercing blows,
Winnowing small the drifting snows;
Clare used at first, without hesitation, the provincialisms of his native county, but afterwards, as his mind matured, he saw the propriety of adopting the suggestions which Charles Lamb and other friends made to him on this subject, and his style gradually became more polished, until in the "Rural Muse" scarcely any provincialisms were employed, and the glossary of the earlier volumes was therefore unnecessary.