The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song

Then stay at home, my heart, and Then heard I, more distinctly than

rest:

The bird is safest in its nest;

O'er all that flutter their wings and
fly,

A hawk is hovering in the sky:
To stay at home is best.

NATURE.

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,

Leads by the hand her little child

to bed,

Half-willing, half-reluctant to be led,

And leave his broken playthings on the floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door;

Nor wholly reassured and comforted

By promises of others in their stead,

Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

So Nature deals with us, and takes away

Our playthings one by one, and by the hand

Leads us to rest so gently, that we

go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,

Being too full of sleep to understand

How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

THE TIDES.

I SAW the long line of the vacant shore,

The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,

And the brown rocks left bare on

every hand,

before,

The ocean breathe, and its great breast expand;

And hurrying came on the defenceless land

The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.

All thought and feeling and desire, I said,

Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song,

Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o'er me

They swept again from their deep ocean-bed,

And in a tumult of delight, and

I can see a ship come sailing in
Beyond the headlands and harbor of
Lynn,

And a young man standing on the
deck,

With a silken kerchief round his neck.

As if the ebbing tide would flow no Now he is pressing it to his lips,

more.

And now he is kissing his finger-tips,

The door I opened to my heavenly Who, then, would wish or dare, be

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,

A shadow on those features fair and thin;

And softly from that hushed and darkened room,

A DAY OF SUNSHINE.

O GIFT of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play

Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain, Through every nerve, through every vein,

I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea, the

sun

Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-lands in the

west,

Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, Two angels issued, where but one Whose steep sierra far uplifts

went in.

All is of God! If He but wave his hand.

The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,

Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,

Lo! He looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are His;

Without His leave, they pass no threshold o'er;

Its craggy summits white with drifts. Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms

TO LUCASTA, ON GOING BEYOND | Can speak like spirits unconfined

THE SEAS.

IF to be absent were to be

Away from thee;

Or that when I am gone

You or I were alone;

Then, my Lucasta, might I crave Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave.

Though seas and land betwixt us both,

Our faith and troth,

Like separated souls,

All time and space controls:
Above the highest sphere we meet
Unseen, unknown, and greet as an-
gels greet.

So then we do anticipate
Our after-fate,

And are alive in the skies,
If thus our lips and eyes

In heaven, their earthly bodies left behind.

TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE
WARS.

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore,

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.

SAMUEL LOVER.

OH! WATCH YOU WELL BY DAY

LIGHT.

OH! watch you well by daylight,

By daylight may you fear, But keep no watch in darkness The angels then are near; For Heaven the sense bestoweth, Our waking life to keep, But tender mercy showeth,

To guard us in our sleep. Then watch you well by daylight. By daylight may you fear, But keep no watch in darknessThe angels then are near.

Oh! watch you well in pleasure

For pleasure oft betrays, But keep no watch in sorrow,

When joy withdraws its rays: For in the hour of sorrow,

As in the darkness drear, To Heaven entrust the morrow. For the angels then are near. O watch you well by daylight,

By daylight may you fear, But keep no watch in darkness The angels then are near.

THE CHILD AND THE AUTUMN
LEAF.

Down by the river's bank I strayed
Upon an autumn day;
Beside the fading forest there,

I saw a child at play.

She played among the yellow leaves

The leaves that once were green, And flung upon the passing stream What once had blooming been: Oh! deeply did it touch my heart To see that child at play; It was the sweet unconscious sport Of childhood with decay.

Fair child, if by this stream you stray,

When after years go by, The scene that makes thy childhood's sport,

May wake thy age's sigh:

Thus, a musing minstrel strayed
By the summer ocean,
Gazing on a lovely maid,

With a bard's devotion:-
Yet this love he never spoke,
Till now the silent spell he broke;—
The hidden fire to flame did spring,
Fanned by the passing angel's wing!

"I have loved thee well and long, With love of heaven's own making!

This is not a poet's song,

But a true heart's speaking, I will love thee, still, untired!" He felt he spoke - as one inspired, The words did from Truth's fountain spring. Upwaken'd by the angel's wing.

Silence o'er the maiden fell,

Her beauty lovelier making:And by her blush, he knew full well The dawn of love was breaking. It came like sunshine o'er his heart! He felt that they should never part, She spoke and oh!- the lovely

thing

Had felt the passing angel's wing.

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