Mount, their transports to improve, Opens through the shades of death! INVITATION TO THE FEATHERED RACE. [GRAVES.] AGAIN the balmy zephyr blows, Ye gentle warblers, hither fly, And shun the noon-tide heat; My shrubs a cooling shade supply, My groves a safe retreat. Here freely hop from spray to spray, Here rove and sing the live-long day, Amidst this cool, translucent rill, Here bathe your plumes, here drink your fill, No school-boy rude, to mischief prone, Or twangs his bow, or hurls a stone, Hither the vocal thrush repairs, The goldfinch dreads no slimy snares. Sad Philomel! ah, quit thy haunt, Let not the harmless redbreast fear, And seek a sure asylum here, My trees for you, ye artless tribe, For you these cherries I protect, Sweet is the fruit that you have pick❜d; But sweeter far your song. Let then this league, betwixt us made, Mine be the gift of fruit and shade, MAN'S VANITY AND LIFE. [JOHN CLARE.] MAN is an insect, life his cell, Nor lives he till death breaks the shell; He dreameth here, and waketh there, So what, forsooth, hath life to heir? A painted nothing of the mind, Whose peace we hunt, and never find; A fancied tale of what hath been, When all is heard and nothing seen; A mystic show, which thoughts devise, A rumour cloth'd in prophecies; A dream unmarr'd-a hope deferredHere all is fancy, nothing heard. Anon, man peeps behind the screen;The spell is out, the show is seen, The rumour proved, and so belied, The prophecy nigh thrown aside; The dream half faded, woke too soon; The hope torn up, and well nigh done. Anon, he lets the curtain fall;The past's forgot, the present all, The dream renews, the scene beguiles, And hope's torn blossom lives and smiles. The clouds seem gone, the skies are blue, The sun is out-it must be true; The dread of former storms and rain Are nought as they'd be near again, The flower is open, leaves are green, The summer reigns, the air serene; The bird hath sung and built its nest, Love's bowers too made, and they at rest, All Nature seems in pleasure's span,~ Anon be feasts :-life's viands shine, And clear the wasted scraps away. When eyes grew dim, the roses wan, FRAILTY. [HOOD.] AYE, let us think of Him awhile, That, with a coffin for a boat, Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat, And for our table choose a tomb : There's dark enough in any skull To charge with black a raven plume; And for the saddest funeral thoughts A winding-sheet hath ample room, Where Death, with his keen-pointed style, Hath writ the common doom. How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom, And o'er the dead lets fall its dew, As if in tears it wept for them, The many human families That sleep around its stem! How cold the dead have made these stones, With natural drops kept ever wet! Lo! here the best, the worst, the world Are in one common ruin hurl'd, Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet; |