READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly tree ?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves
Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen,
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear, Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in the wisdom of the holly tree
Can emblems see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
Such as may profit in the after-time.
So, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude;
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know, Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.
And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green
The holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see
What then so cheerful as the holly tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem amid the
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly tree.
Scene, the house of COLLATINE.
WELCOME, my father! good Valerius,
Welcome! and thou too, Brutus! ye were both
My wedding guests, and fitly ye are come.
My husband-Collatine-alas! no more
Lucretia's husband, for thou shalt not clasp
Pollution to thy bosom,-hear me on!
For I will tell thee all.
I sate at eve
Spinning amid my maidens as I wont,
When from the camp at Ardea Sextus came.
Curb down thy swelling feelings, Collatine!
I little liked the man; yet, for he came
From Ardea, for he brought me news of thee,
I gladly gave him welcome, gladly listen'd,
Thou canst not tell how gladly! to his tales
Of battles, and the long and perilous siege,
And when I laid me down at night to sleep,
'Twas with a lighten'd heart,-I knew thee safe.
My visions were of thee.
Nay hear me out!
And be thou wise in vengeance, so thy wife
Not vainly shall have suffered. I have wrought.
My soul up to the business of this hour
That it may stir your noble spirits, prompt
Such glorious deeds that ages yet unborn
Shall bless my fate. At midnight I awoke-
For by my bed the villain Tarquin stood.
My chamber lamp gleam'd on his unsheath'd sword;
That was not half so fearful as his eye,
His hot, red, eye!-O Collatine-my husband!
Where wert thou then! gone was my rebel strength-
All power of utterance gone! astonish'd-stunn'd,
I saw the coward ruffian, heard him urge
His damned suit, and bid me tamely yield-
Yield to dishonour. When he proffer'd death—
Oh I had leapt to meet the merciful sword!
But that with most accursed vows he vow'd
That he would lay a dead slave by my side,
Murdering my spotless honour.—Collatine!
From what an anguish have I rescued thee!
And thou, my father-wretched as thou art—
Thou miserable, childless, poor old man—
Think, father, what that agony had been!
Now thou mayst sorrow for me, thou mayst bless
The memory of thy poor, polluted child.
Look if it have not kindled Brutus' eye!
Mysterious man! at last I know thee now,
I see thy dawning glories, to the grave
Not unrevenged Lucretia shall descend-
Not always shall her wretched country wear
The Tarquins' yoke,-ye will deliver Rome-
And I have comfort in this dreadful hour.
Thinkest thou, my husband, that I dreaded death?
O Collatine! the weapon that had gored
My bosom, had been ease, been happiness-
Elysium to the hell of his hot grasp.
Judge if Lucretia could have fear'd to die!
TO RECOVERY.
RECOVERY, where art thou?
Daughter of Heaven, where shall we seek thy help?
Upon what hallowed fountain hast thou laid
O nymph adored, thy spell ?
By the grey ocean's verge,
Daughter of Heaven, we seek thee, but in vain;
We find no healing in the breeze that sweeps
Thy thymy mountain's brow.
Where are the happy hours,
The sunshine that so cheer'd the morn of life!
For health is fled, and with her fled the joys
That made existence dear.
I saw the distant hills
Smile in the radiance of the orient beam,
And gazed delighted that anon our feet
Should visit scenes so fair.
I look'd abroad at noon,
The shadow and the storm were on the hills.
The crags that like a faery fabric shone
Darkness had overwhelm'd.
On you, ye coming years,
So fairly shone the April gleam of hope,
So darkly o'er the distance late so bright,
Now settle the black clouds.
Come thou and chase away
Sorrow and pain, the persecuting powers
That make the melancholy day so long,
So long the restless night.
Shall we not find thee here,
Recovery, on the ocean's breezy strand?
Is there no healing in the gales that sweep
The thymy mountain's brow?
I look for thy approach,
O life-preserving Power! as he who strays
Alone in darkness o'er the pathless marsh
Watches the dawn of day.
NAY gather not that filbert, Nicholas,
There is a maggot there, it is his house-
His castle-Oh commit not burglary!
Strip him not naked, 'tis his clothes, his shell,
His bones, the very armour of his life,
And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas !
It were an easy thing to crack that nut,
Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth,
So easily may all things be destroyed!
But 'tis not in the power of mortal man
To mend the fracture of a filbert shell.
There were two great men once amused themselves
With watching maggots run their wriggling race
And wagering on their speed; but Nick, to us
It were no sport to see the pampered worm
Roll out and then draw in his folds of fat,
Like to some barber's leathern powder bag
Wherewith he feathers, frosts, or cauliflowers
Spruce beau, or lady fair, or doctor grave.
Enough of dangers and of enemies
Hath Nature's wisdom for the worm ordained,
Increase not thou the number! him the mouse
Gnawing with nibbling tooth the shell's defence
May from his native tenement eject;
Him may the nut-hatch piercing with strong bill
Unwittingly destroy, or to his hoard
The squirrel bear, at leisure to be crack'd.
Man also hath his dangers and his foes,
As this poor maggot hath, and when I muse
Upon the aches, anxieties, and tears,
The maggot knows not, Nicholas, methinks
It were a happy metamorphosis
To be enkernelled thus: never to hear
Of wars, and of invasions, and of plots,
Kings, Jacobines, and tax-commissioners,
To feel no motion but the wind that shook
The filbert tree, and rocked me to my rest;
And in the middle of such exquisite food
To live luxurious! the perfection this
Of snugness! it were to unite at once
Hermit retirement, aldermanic bliss,
And stoic independence of mankind.
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