Who to his dwelling takes that visitant, Has a perpetual solace in all pain, A friend and comforter in every grief. The noblest domes, the haughtiest palaces, That know not her, have ever open gates Where misery may enter at her will. But from the threshold of the poorest hut Where she sits smiling, sorrow passes by, And owns the spell that robs her of her sting. CHARLES MACKAY, 1814— TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. GREEN little vaulter in the sunny grass, With those who think the candles come too soon, One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,— In doors and out, summer and winter,―mirth. LEIGH HUNT, 1784-1859. HYMN TO THE AIR. THE mightiest thou among the powers of earth, What pathless fields of new creation trod Thy crystal tablets no inscription bear; The awful Infinite is shrined in thee, Immeasurable Air! Thou art the soul wherein the earth renews Which makes her beautiful among the stars; Thine is the essence that informs her frame Thou makest the foreheads of her mountains smile; His heart to thine, the all-surrounding sea Spreads thy blue drapery o'er his cradled isle. Thou art the breath of Nature and the tongue Unto her dumb material being granted, And by thy voice her sorrowing psalms are chanted— Her hymns of triumph sung! Thine azure fountains nourish all that lives: Replenishing thy sources :-balmy dews, That on thy breast their summer tears diffuse; Strength from the pine, and sweetness from the rose; The spice of gorgeous Ind, the scents that fill Or multitudinous waves of ocean fling Their briny strength along thy rapid way— Escapes some virtue, which from thee they hold : And even the grosser exhalations, fed From earth's decay, Time's crowded charnel-bed, Fused in thy vast alembic, turn to gold. Man is thy nursling, universal Air! No kinder parent fosters him than thou: How soft thy fingers dally with his hair! How sweet their pressure on his fever'd brow! In the dark lanes where squalid misery dwells, Where the fresh glories of existence shun The childhood nurtured in the city's hells, And eyes that never saw the morning sun, Pale cheeks for thee are pining, heavy sighs Drawn from the depth of weary hearts arise— The flower of life is wither'd on its stem And the black shade the loathsome walls enclose, Day after day more drear and stifling grows, Till heaven itself seems forfeited to them! What marvel, then, as from a fever'd dream The dying wakes, to feel his forehead fann'd By thy celestial freshness, he should deem The death-sweat dried beneath an angel's hand? That tokens of the violet-sprinkled sod, Breathed like a blessing o'er his closing eyes, What is the scenery of earth to thine? Here, all is fix'd in everlasting shapes, But where the realms of gorgeous Cloudland shine, Of sunset, on whose tranquil bosom lie The "crystal hyaline" of heaven's own floor- Reflected on thy shore! To the pure calm of thy cerulean deeps The smoke of godless altars, hang below, Where those supernal tides of ether flow. What vistas ope from those serener plains! What dawning splendours touch thine azure towers! When some fair soul, whose path on earth was ours, The starry freedom of its wing regains, |