THE moist and quiet morn was scarcely breaking,
When Ariadne in her bower was waking;
Her eyelids still were closing, and she heard
But indistinctly yet a little bird,
That in the leaves o'erhead, waiting the sun,
Seemed answering another distant one.
She waked, but stirred not, only just to please
Her pillow-nestling cheek; while the full seas,
The birds, the leaves, the lulling love o'ernight,
The happy thought of the returning light,
The sweet, self-willed content, conspired to keep
Her senses lingering in the feel of sleep;
And with a little smile she seemed to say,
"I know my love is near me, and 'tis day."
I HAVE been reading Pomfret's " Choice" this spring,
A pretty kind of sort of kind of thing,
Not much a verse, and poem none at all,
Yet, as they say, extremely natural.
And yet I know not. There's a skill in pies,
In raising crusts as well as galleries;
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows
The charm that hallows the least truth from prose,
And dresses it in its mild singing clothes.
Not oaks alone are trees, nor roses flowers;
Much humble wealth makes rich this world of ours. Nature from some sweet energy throws up
Alike the pine-mount and the buttercup,
And truth she makes so precious, that to paint
Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint,
And bring him in his turn the crowds that press
Round Guido's saints, or Titian's goddesses.
Our trivial poet hit upon a theme
Which all men love, an old, sweet household dream,
Such as comes true with some, and might with all,
Were liberty to build her wisest hall,
Though to the loss of, here and there, a wall:
For call the building by some handsome name,
College, or square, not parallelogram,
And who would scorn to pass consummate hours,
Bless'd against care and want, in reverend bowers,
With just enough of toil to sweeten ease,
And music, ringing through their evening trees?
I own I shouldn't: I could even bear
To some majestic table to repair,
And dine for three-pence on luxurious fare.
WERE this impossible, I know full well
What sort of house should grace my garden-bell,-
A good, old country lodge, half hid with blooms
Of honied green, and quaint with straggling rooms,
A few of which, white-bedded and well swept,
For friends, whose names endear'd them, should be kept.
Of brick I'd have it, far more broad than high,
With green up to the door, and elm trees nigh;
And the warm sun should have it in his eye.
The tiptoe traveller, peeping through the boughs
O'er my low wall, should bless the pleasant house,
And that my luck might not seem ill-bestow'd,
A bench and spring should greet him on the road.
My grounds should not be large; I like to go To Nature for a range, and prospect too,
And cannot fancy she'll comprise for me,
Even in a park, her all-sufficiency.
Besides, my thoughts fly far; and when at rest,
Love, not a watch-tower, but a lulling nest.
But all the ground I had should keep a look
Of Nature still, have birds'-nests and a brook;
One spot for flowers, the rest all turf and trees;
For I'd not grow my own bad lettuces.
I'd build a walk, however, against rain,
Long, peradventure, as my whole domain,
And so be sure of generous exercise,
The youth of age, and med'cine of the wise.
And this reminds me, that behind some screen
About my grounds, I'd have a bowling-green;
Such as in wits' and merry women's days
Suckling preferred before his walk of bays.
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