Flashes the lovelight, increasing the glory, Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of the soul, Telling of trust and content the sweet story, King, king, crown me the king: Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king! Richer than miser with perishing treasure, Served with a service no conquest could bring; Happy with fortune that words cannot measure, Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing. King, king, crown me the king: Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king. REV. WILLIAM RANKIN DURYEA. A SHEPHERD'S LIFE. FROM "THIRD PART OF HENRY VI." KING HENRY. O God! methinks, it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, So many days my ewes have been with young; THE FIRESIDE. DEAR Chloe, while the busy crowd, From the gay world we 'll oft retire Where love our hours employs ; If solid happiness we prize, And they are fools who roam; And that dear hut, our home. A WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE. O THOU of home the guardian Lar, Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, The rhythms so rathe and delicate, And broke, beneath the sombre weight As who would say, "Tis those, I ween, While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, By him with fire, by her with dreams, Than all the grapes' bewildering juice, A flower of frailest revery, Now laughter-rippled, and now caught BUT where to find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know? The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And his long nights of revelry and ease : The naked negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country, ever is at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share, Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind; As different good, by art or nature given, To different nations makes their blessing even. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. THE HOMES OF ENGLAND. The stately Homes of England, The deer across their greensward bound And the swan glides past them with the sound The merry Homes of England! What gladsome looks of household love There woman's voice flows forth in song, The blessed Homes of England! That breathes from Sabbath hours! Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime All other sounds, in that still time, FROM CHILDE HAROld." THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight, Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so; I see them full and plain, An old man and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar: but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves What may the fruit be yet? I know not- - Cain was Eve's. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same, I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not; for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. The earliest, even the only paths for me, Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be ; The passions which have torn me would have slept : I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept. With false Ambition what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame! And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make,―a name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; I have outlived myself by many a day : And for the remnant which may be to come, My feelings farther. - Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound. For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine : We were and are I am, even as thou art Beings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart, From life's commencement to its slow decline We are intwined, let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last! BYRON. BERTHA IN THE LANE. PUT the broidery-frame away, Sister, help me to the bed, And stand near me, dearest-sweet! Love I thee with love complete. Lean thy face down! drop it in These two hands, that I may hold 'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. "T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my first youth! |