My dwelling is no lordly hall,
I rule no wide domain;
No bending servants wait my call,
No flatterers swell my train;
But roses twine around my home,
Bright smiles my presence greet;
The woodland wild is mine to roam,
Mine Summer's odors sweet.
No costly diamonds deck my hair,
No cloth of gold have I;
But gorgeous robes and jewels rare
Stay not the sad heart's sigh.
Those gems might bind an aching brow,
There is no pain in mine;
Red gold might win a faithless vow,
And I be left to pine.
BY G. P. R. JAMES.
It may seem perhaps a paradox to say that expectation is enjoyment. Nevertheless it is so on this earth. Fruition is for heaven. With the accomplishment of every desire there is so much of disappointment mingled that it cannot be really called enjoyment, for fancy always exercises itself upon the future; and when we obtain the hard reality for which we wished, the charms with which imagination decorated it are gone. Did we but state the case to ourselves as it truly is, whenever we conceive any of the manifold desires which lead us on from step to step through life, the proposition would be totally different from that which man forever puts before his own mind, and we should take one step toward undeceiving ourselves. We continually say, "if I could attain such an object, I should be quite contented." But what man ought to say to himself is, "I believe this or that acquisition would give me happiness." He would soon find that it did not do so; and the never-ceasing recurrence of the lesson might, in the end, teach him to ask what was the source of his disappointment? Was it that other circumstances in his own fate were so altered, even while he pursued the path of endeavor, as to render attainment no longer satisfactory?—was it that the object sought was intrinsically different when attained, from that which he had reasonably believed it to be while pursuing it?—or was it that his fancy had gilded it with charms not its own, and that he had voluntarily and blindly persuaded himself that it was brighter and more excellent than it was? Perhaps the answer, yes, might be returned to all these questions; but yet I fear the chief burden of deceit would rest with imagination, and that man would ever find he had judged of the future without sufficient grounds, and had suffered desire to stimulate hope, and hope to cheat expectation. Yet, perhaps, if he would but turn back and look behind, when disappointment and success had been obtained together, he would find that the pleasures lasted in the pursuit, especially at the time when fruition was drawing nearer and nearer, would, in the sum, make up the amount of enjoyment which he had anticipated in possession.
BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.
A DREAM OF SUMMER.
Bland as the morning breath of June
The south-west breezes play;
And through its haze the winter noon
Seems warm as summer day.
The snow-plumed angel of the north
Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.
The fox his hill-side cell forsakes,
The muskrat leaves his nook,
The blue-bird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
"Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free,
"Our winter voices prophesy
Of summer days to thee!"
So in the winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear,
O'erswept, from memory's frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear,
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And low beneath the winter's snow
Lie gems of summer flowers.