If the blest spirit of my childhood hours
Hath not yet ceased to pour a happy voice,
If my worn heart may dare once more rejoice,
Or memory hath preserved some faded flowers
Of life's first sweetness-I would seek the bowers
Where love once woke the song of infant joys,
And broke upon mine ear the blissful noise
Of streams and singing woods, no longer ours.
Ah! well known paths! your flowers are still the
Blooming in all their wilderness of grace;
The same fair sky, sweet air, and nature's face Smiling o'er all, and birds to hymn her name. He, he alone, is changed who wanders here;
Your calm is mockery now; farewell to scenes once dear.
FROM the same parent, issuing at a birth,
Two different beings tread this changeful earth;
The one call'd Happiness, to whom was given,
With liberal hand, each fairer boon of heaven ;
But, from his youth, defrauded of his due,
No kind, no lenient care Misfortune knew,
Till soften'd by his wrongs, the sacred powers
Bade Hermes soothe to milder grief his hours.
He placed Humanity for ever near,
And the sweet pleasures of the social tear;
Taught Love, with tender Amity to join,
And bade them heal his griefs with skill divine.
His are the sweets a humbled heart can prize,
His, every charm that solitude supplies,
When the thick shade its dusky umbrage throws,
In tenderest sounds he loves to breathe his woes ;
For him kind nature wraps in gloom the day,
For him the fountain murmuring steals away;
Averse to giddy joy, in anguish blest,
He cherishes the tears that bathe his breast.
No murmurs shall arraign the powers divine,
That made this keener sense of misery mine:
Untaught by this, I ne'er had learnt to prove,
Th' endearing transports of a mutual love :
By worldly hopes each dearer joy supprest,
The love of wealth had harden'd all my breast.
The mind subdu'd, averse to empty fame,
Heeds not the dazzling lustre of a name;
Applause displeases, grandeurs but oppress
The happy favorite of severe distress;
And love's pure flame, and friendship's sacred glow,
Beam brightest far with those who deepest taste of
COME, take up your hats, and away let us haste To the Butterfly's ball, and the Grasshopper's feast; The trumpeter Gadfly has summoned the crew, And the revels are now only waiting for you.
On the smooth shaven grass, by the side of a wood, Beneath a broad oak that for ages had stood,
See the children of earth, and the tenants of air, For an evening's amusement together repair.
And there came the Beetle so blind and so black, Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back; And there was the Gnat, and the Dragon-fly too, With all their relations, green, orange, and blue.
And there came the Moth in his plumage of down,
And the Hornet in jacket of yellow and brown,
Who with him the Wasp his 'companion did bring,
But they promised that evening to lay by their sting.
And the sly little Dormouse crept out of his hole,
And led to the feast his blind brother, the Mole;
And the Snail with his horns peeping out of his shell,
Came from a great distance, the length of an ell.
A mushroom their table, and on it was laid
A water-dock leaf, which a table-cloth made;
The viands were various, to each of their taste,
And the Bee brought his honey to crown the repast.
There, close on his haunches, so solemn and wise,
The Frog from a corner look'd up to the skies,
And the Squirrel, well pleased such diversion to see,
Sate cracking his nuts over-head in a tree.
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