II. THE TABLES TURNED; AN EVENING SCENE, ON THE SAME SUBJECT. Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double : Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun, above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland Linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the Throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, One impulse from a vernal wood Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: Enough of Science and of Art; Close up these barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives. III. WRITTEN IN GERMANY, ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY. The Reader' must be apprised, that the Stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping Horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms. A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse! me have the song of the Kettle; Let And the tongs and the poker, instead of that Horse That gallops away with such fury and force On his dreary dull plate of black metal. See that Fly, a disconsolate creature! perhaps A child of the field or the grove; And, sorrow for him! the dull treacherous heat Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat, And he creeps to the edge of my stove. VOL. IV. K Alas! how he fumbles about the domains Which this comfortless oven environ ! He cannot find out in what track he must crawl, Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed; The best of his skill he has tried; His feelers, methinks, I can see him put forth To the East and the West, to the South and the North; But he finds neither Guide-post nor Guide. How his spindles sink under him, foot, leg, and thigh; His eyesight and hearing are lost; Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws; And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze Are glued to his sides by the frost. No Brother, no Mate has he near him — while I my Love; As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom, As if green summer grass were the floor of my room, And woodbines were hanging above. |