We look before and after

And pine for what is not :

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Shelley.

VIRTUE'S PRIZE.

7 HAT nothing earthly gives, or can destroy

W

The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy,

Is Virtue's prize: A better would you fix,

Then give Humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.

Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet sigh'st thou now for apples and for cake?
Go, like the Indian, in another life

Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife :
As well as dream such trifles are assign'd,
As toys and empires, for a godlike mind.
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing:
How oft by these at sixty are undone
The virtues of a saint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or trust,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold,
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,

The lover and the love of human kind,
Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

Pope.

DAINTY DAVIE.

OW rosy May comes in wi' flowers,

N°

To deck her gay green-spreading bowers ;

And now comes in my happy hours

To wander wi' my Davie.

Meet me on the warlock knowe,
Dainty Davie, dainty Davie ;
There I'll spend the day wi' you,
My ain dear dainty Davie.

The crystal waters round us fa',
The
merry birds are lovers a',

The scented breezes round us blaw,
A-wandering wi' my Davie.

When purple morning starts the hare,
To steal upon her early fare,

Then through the dews I will repair,
To meet my faithfu' Davie.

When day, expiring in the west,
The curtain draws o' nature's rest,

I flee to his arms I lo’e best,

And that's my ain dear Davie.