O souls in whom no heav'nly fire is found,
Fat minds, and ever grov'ling on the ground.
DRYDEN.

Yours is a soul irregularly great,
Which, wanting temper, yet abounds with heat.
DRYDEN.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;
But when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

GEORGE HERBERT.

O mighty brother soul of man,
Where'er thou art, in low or high,
Thy skyey arches with exulting span
O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul,
And from the many slowly upward win
To one who grasps the whole.

J. R. LOWELL.

This attracts the soul,

Governs the inner man, the nobler part; That other o'er the body only reigns.

MILTON.

Unfold.

What worlds, or what vast regions, hold
Th' immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook!

MILTON: Il Penseroso.

The soul on earth is an immortal guest,
Compell'd to starve at an unreal feast;

A spark which upwards tends by nature's force;
A stream diverted from its parent source;
A drop dissever'd from the boundless sea;
A moment parted from eternity;

A pilgrim panting for the rest to come;
An exile anxious for his native home.

HANNAH MORE.

Even so the soul in this contracted state, Confined to these strait instruments of sense,

More dull and narrowly doth operate:

Soul, dwelling oft in God's infinitude,
And sometimes seeming no more part of me-
This me, worms' heritage--than that sun can be
Part of the earth he has with warmth imbued,-
Whence camest thou? Whither goest thou? I,
subdued

With awe of mine own being, thus sit still,
Dumb, on the summit of this lonely hill,
Whose dry November-grasses dew-bestrew'd
Mirror a million suns. That sun, so bright,
Passes, as thou must pass, Soul, into night!
Art thou afraid, who solitary hast trod

A path I know not, from a source to a bourn
Both which I know not? fear'st thou to return
Alone, even as thou camest alone, to God?
D. M. MULOCH: Sonnets.

On their own axes as the planets run,
Yet make at once their circle round the sun,
So two consistent motions act the soul,
And one regards itself, and one the whole.
POPE.

For when the fair in all their pride expire, To their first elements the souls retire.

РОРЕ.

In some fair body, thus the secret soul
With spirit feeds, with vigour fills the whole;
Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains,
Itself unseen, but in th' effects remains.

POPE.

As in bodies, thus in souls, we find What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind.

POPE.

He looks in heav'n with more than mortal eyes,
Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amidst her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home.

O soul that wilt complain,

from hence,

Like naked lamp, she is one shining sphere, And round about hath perfect cognizance

Whatever in the horizon doth appear:

Our burden and our pain,— How just our anguish brings

Nearer those long'd-for things We seek for now in vain,

РОРЕ.

PRIOR.

ear.

HENRY MORE: Platonical Song of the Soul.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER :

If Thou Couldst Know.

Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports, And grief dejects and wrings the tortured soul. ROSCOMMON.

Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.

SHAKSPEARE.

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit.
SHAKSPEARE.
Those, with the fineness of their souls,
By reason guide his execution.

SHAKSPEARE.

The delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.

SHAKSPEARE.

Ah, then, my hungry soule! which long hast fed
On idle fancies of thy foolish thought,
And with false beautie's flattering bait misled
Hast after vaine deceitfull shadowes sought,
Which all are fled, and now have left thee
nought

But late repentance through thy follies brief;
Ah, cease to gaze on matter of thy grief,
And looke at last up to that soveraine light
From whose pure beams al perfect beauty
springs;

That kindleth love in every godly spright,
Even the love of God; which loathing brings
Of this vile world and those gay-seeming things;
With whose sweet pleasures being so possest,
Thy straying henceforth shall forever rest.

SPENSER: Hymn of Heavenly Beautie.

When nature ceases, thou shalt still remain, Nor second chaos bound thy endless reign; Fate's tyrant laws thy happier lot shall brave, Baffle destruction, and elude the grave.

TICKELL.

"Retire, my soul, within thyself retire, Away from sense and every outward show: Now let my thoughts to loftier themes aspire; My knowledge now on wheels of fire May mount and spread above, surveying all below."

The Lord grows lavish of his heavenly light, And pours whole floods on such a mind as this:

SPRING.

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Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire, Hoar Winter's blooming child, delightful Spring! Whose unshorn locks with leaves

And swelling buds are crown'd;

From the green islands of eternal youth (Crown'd with fresh blooms and ever-springing shade),

Turn, hither turn thy step.

MRS. BARBAULD: Ode to Spring.

Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land,
For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons bland,
And in their northern cave the storms hath
bound;

From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound,

Torrents are hurl'd, green hills emerge,

and, lo,

The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crown'd;

Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go, And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant's heart o'erflow.

BEATTIE.

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost

Candies the grass, or calls an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a second birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee:
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world, the youthful spring;
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May:
Now all things smile.

THOMAS CAREW.

The spring-scented buds all around me are swelling,

There are songs in the stream, there is health in the gale;

A sense of delight in each bosom is dwelling, As float the pure day-beams o'er mountain and vale:

The desolate reign of old Winter is broken,
The verdure is fresh upon every tree;
Of Nature's revival the charm-and a token
Of love, O thou Spirit of Beauty! to thee.

morning,

And flushes the clouds that begirt his career; He welcomes the gladness and glory returning

To rest on the promise and hope of the year. He fills with rich light all the balm-breathing flowers,

He mounts to the zenith, and laughs on the

DRYDEN.

Eternal spring, with smiling verdure, here Warms the mild air, and crowns the youthful

year,

The tuberose ever breathes, and violets blow. GARTH.

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer ling'ring blooms delay'd.
GOLDSMITH: Deserted Village.

I come, I come! ye have call'd me long;
I come o'er the mountains with light and song:
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowers

By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers;
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains.
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

MRS. HEMANS: Voice of Spring.

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows you have your closes,
And all must die.

GEORGE HERBERT: The Church.

Now Heaven seems one bright, rejoicing eye,
And Earth her sleeping vesture flings aside,
And with a blush awakes, as does a bride;
And Nature speaks, like thee, in melody.
The forest, sunward, glistens, green and high;
The ground each moment, as some blossom
springs,

Puts forth, as does thy cheek, a lovelier dye, And each new morning some new songster brings.

And hark! the brooks their rocky prisons break, And echo calls on echo to awake,

Like nymph to nymph. The air is rife with

wings

Rustling through wood or dripping over lake. Herb, bud, and bird return-but not to me With song or beauty, since they bring not thee. GEORGE HILL: Spring.