Flashes the lovelight, increasing the glory, Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of the soul,
Telling of trust and content the sweet story, Lifting the shadows that over us roll. King, king, crown me the king: Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king!
Richer than miser with perishing treasure,
Served with a service no conquest could bring; Happy with fortune that words cannot measure, Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing. King, king, crown me the king: Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king.
REV. WILLIAM RANKIN DURYEA.
Without disease, the healthful life; The household of continuance;
The mean diet, no delicate fare; True wisdom joined with simpleness; The night dischargéd of all care, Where wine the wit may not oppress;
The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night; Contented with thine own estate, Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.
FROM "THIRD PART OF HENRY VI."
KING HENRY. O God! methinks, it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run; How many make the hour full complete; How many hours bring about the day; How many days will finish up the year; How many years a mortal man may live. When this is known, then to divide the times, So many hours must I tend my flock; So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young; So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: Sominutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, Passed over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroidered canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
THE MEANS TO ATTAIN HAPPY LIFE.
MARTIAL, the things that do attain The happy life be these, I find, The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind,
The equal friend; no grudge, no strife ; No charge of rule, nor governance;
DEAR Chloe, while the busy crowd, The vain, the wealthy, and the proud, In folly's maze advance; Though singularity and pride Be called our choice, we'll step aside, Nor join the giddy dance.
From the gay world we'll oft retire To our own family and fire,
Where love our hours employs; No noisy neighbor enters here, No intermeddling stranger near, To spoil our heartfelt joys.
If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast this jewel lies, And they are fools who roam; The world hath nothing to bestow, From our own selves our bliss must flow, And that dear hut, our home.
Our portion is not large, indeed; But then how little do we need, For nature's calls are few; In this the art of living lies, To want no more than may suffice, And make that little do.
We 'll therefore relish with content Whate'er kind Providence has sent, Nor aim beyond our power; For, if our stock be very small, 'T is prudence to enjoy it all, Nor lose the present hour.
To be resigned when ills betide, Patient when favors are denied, And pleased with favors given, - Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part, This is that incense of the heart, Whose fragrance smells to heaven.
A WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY
O THOU of home the guardian Lar, And when our earth hath wandered far Into the cold, and deep snow covers The walks of our New England lovers, Their sweet secluded evening-star! 'T was with thy rays the English Muse Ripened her mild domestic hues : 'T was by thy flicker that she conned The fireside wisdom that enrings With light from heaven familiar things; By thee she found the homely faith In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th, When Death, extinguishing his torch, Gropes for the latch-string in the porch; The love that wanders not beyond His earliest nest, but sits and sings While children smooth his patient wings: Therefore with thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs Life in the withered words! how swift recede Time's shadows! and how glows again Through its dead mass the incandescent verse, As when upon the anvils of the brain
It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought
By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's
Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred,
The aspirations unattained,
The rhythms so rathe and delicate,
They bent and strained
And broke, beneath the sombre weight Of any airiest mortal word.
As who would say, "'Tis those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean
That win the laurel";
While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof, Or the rude North with baffled strain Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane ! Now the kind nymph to Bacchus borne By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems Gifted upon her natal morn
By him with fire, by her with dreams, Nicotia, dearer to the Muse Than all the grapes' bewildering juice, We worship, unforbid of thee; And, as her incense floats and curls In airy spires and wayward whirls,
I KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully curled Above the green elms, that a cottage was near, And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,
In smooth dark pools of deeper thought.
A heart that is humble might hope for it here!"
BUT where to find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know ? The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And his long nights of revelry and ease : The naked negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country, ever is at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share, Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind; As different good, by art or nature given, To different nations makes their blessing even.
The stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand! Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O'er all the pleasant land; The deer across their greensward bound Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream.
The merry Homes of England ! Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love Meet in the ruddy light.
There woman's voice flows forth in song, Or childish tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
The blessed Homes of England !
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime Floats through their woods at morn; All other sounds, in that still time, Of breeze and leaf are born.
FILIAL AND FRATERNAL LOVE.
FILIAL LOVE.
FROM "CHILDE HAROLD."
THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight, Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so; I see them full and plain, An old man and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar: but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?
Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves
What may the fruit be yet? I know not - Cain was Eve's.
But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift: it is her sire To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth. No! he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher
Than Egypt's river; - from that gentle side
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine : Go where I will, to me thou art the same,
A loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny, - A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
The first were nothing, - had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness; But other claims and other ties thou hast, And mine is not the wish to make them less. A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore, He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
If my inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,
I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox; I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe.
Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward, My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being gave me that which marred The gift, a fate, or will, that walked astray: And I at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: But now I fain would for a time survive,
Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm If but to see what next can well arrive.
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Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away : Something - I know not what - does still uphold
A spirit of slight patience; - not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.
Perhaps the workings of defiance stir Within me, or perhaps of cold despair, Brought on when ills habitually recur, Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, (For even to this may change of soul refer, And with light armor we may learn to bear,) Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.
I feel almost at times as I have felt In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt, Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love, but none like thee.
Here are the Alpine landscapes which create A fund for contemplation; - to admire Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;
But something worthier do such scenes inspire. Here to be lonely is not desolate,
For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.
O that thou wert but with me! - but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret; There may be others which I less may show; I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I feel an ebb in my philosophy, And the tide rising in my altered eye.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over; I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before.
And for the future, this world's future may From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day : Having survived so many things that were ; My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have filled a century, Before its fourth in time had passed me by.
And for the remnant which may be to come, I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless, - for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb
My feelings farther. - Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound.
For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine : We were and are - I am, even as thou art Beings who ne'er each other can resign ; It is the same, together or apart,
I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, From life's commencement to its slow decline By the old Hall which may be mine no more. We are intwined, let death come slow or fast, Leman's is fair? but think not I forsake The tie which bound the first endures the last!
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore; Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are Resigned forever, or divided far.
The world is all before me; I but ask
Of Nature that with which she will comply, It is but in her summer's sun to bask, To mingle with the quiet of her sky, To see her gentle face without a mask, And never gaze on it with apathy. She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister, - till I look again on thee.
I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not; for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. The earliest, even the only paths for me, Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be; The passions which have torn me would have slept: I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.
With false Ambition what had I to do?
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame! And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make, -a name.
PUT the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done! The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary! I have sewn,
Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.
Sister, help me to the bed,
And stand near me, dearest-sweet! Do not shrink nor be afraid, Blushing with a sudden heat! No one standeth in the street! By God's love I go to meet, Love I thee with love complete.
Lean thy face down! drop it in
These two hands, that I may hold 'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. 'T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my first youth!
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