Like genial dew, like fertile showers, coff The words of wisdom fall,
`Awaken man's unconscious powers,
Strength out of weakness call;
Like morning beams, they strike the mind,
Its loveliness reveals;
And softly then the evening wind
The wounded spirit heals.
As dew and rain, as light and air,
From heaven, instruction came,
The waste of nature to repair,
Kindle a sacred flame;
A flame to purify the earth,
Exalt her sons on high,
And train them for their second birth
Their birth beyond the sky.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
BORN, 1771; DIED, 1832.
FROM 'THE ANTIQUARY."
WHY sitt'st thou by that ruined hall,
Thou aged carle so stern and gray?
Dost thou its former pride recall,
Or ponder how it passed away?
"Know'st thou not me?" the Deep Voice cried,
So long enjoyed, so oft misused
Alternate, in thy fickle pride,
Desired, neglected, and accused?
Before my breath, like blazing flax,
Man and his marvels pass away; And changing empires wane and wax,Are founded, flourish, and decay.
Redeem thine hours-the space is brief-
While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,
And measureless thy joy or grief,
When Time and thou shalt part for ever!"
FANCIED HAPPINESS.
Woe to the youth whom Fancy gains,
Winning from Reason's hand the reins,
Pity and woe! for such a mind
Is soft, contemplative, and kind;
And woe to those who train such youth,
And spare to press the rights of truth,
The mind to strengthen and anneal,
While on the stithy glows the steel;
Oh! teach him, while your lessons last,
To judge the present by the past;
Remind him of each wish pursued,
How rich it glowed with promised good;
Remind him of each wish enjoyed,
How soon his hopes possession cloyed!
Tell him we play unequal game,
Whene'er we shoot by Fancy's aim;
And, ere he strip him for the race,
Show the conditions of the chase.
Two sisters by the goal are set,
Cold Disappointment and Regret;
One disenchants the winner's eyes,
And strips of all its worth the prize,
While one augments its gaudy show,
More to enhance the loser's woe.
The victor sees his fairy gold
Transformed, when won, to drossy mould:
But still the vanquished mourns his loss,
And rues, as gold, that glittering dross.
YOUTH, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—
Both were mine! Life went a Maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young?-Ah, woeful when!
Ah! for the change 'twixt now and then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along :—
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together.
Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O! the joys that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old?--Ah, woeful ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here:
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
"Tis known that thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be, that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled:-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE, IN EDUCATION. 271
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size :
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old :
That only serves to make us grieve,
With oft and tedious taking leave;
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist,
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE, IN EDUCATION. O'ER wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces;
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school,
For, as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it ;-so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of Education,-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks, I see them grouped in seemly show,
The straitened arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snow
O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.
But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And, bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes, iti eI
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,
Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half-supplies adT
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love.
Yet haply there will come a weary day,
When, overtasked at length,
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then, with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
And both supporting does the work of both.
O LADY! if some new-born babe should bless,
In answer to a nation's prayers, thy love,
When thou, beholding it in tenderness,
The deepest, holiest joy of earth shall prove,
In that the likeness of all infants see,
And call to mind that hour what now thou hear'st from me.
Then seeing infant man, that Lord of Earth,
Most weak and helpless of all breathing things, Remember that as Nature makes at birth
No different law for peasants or for kings,
And at the end no difference may befall,
The "short parenthesis of life” is all.
But in that space, how wide may be their doom
Of honour or dishonour, good or ill!
From Nature's hand like plastic clay they come,
To take from circumstance their woe or weal;
And as the form and pressure may be given,
They wither upon earth, or ripen there for Heaven.
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