The prouder beauties of the field
In gay but quick succession shine,
Race after race their honours yield,
They flourish and decline.
But this small flower, to Nature dear,
While moons and stars their courses run,
Wreathes the whole circle of the year,
Companion of the sun.
It smiles upon the lap of May,
To sultry August spreads its charms,
Lights pale October on its way,
And twines December's arms.
The purple heath and golden broom
On moory mountains catch the gale,
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,
The violet in the vale.
But this bold floweret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,
Plays on the margin of the rill,
Peeps round the fox's den.
Within the garden's cultured round
It shares the sweet carnation's bed;
And blooms on consecrated ground
In honour of the dead.
The lambkin crops its crimson gem,
The wild bee murmurs on its breast,
The blue-fly bends its pensile stem,
Light o'er the skylark's nest.
"Tis Flora's page; in every place,
In every season fresh and fair,
It opens with perennial grace,
And blossoms everywhere.
VOL. II.-M
On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;
The rose has but a summer reign,
The daisy never dies.
WANTON drole, whose harmless play
Beguiles the rustic's closing day,
When drawn the evening fire about,
Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout,
And child upon his three-foot stool,
Waiting till his supper cool;
And maid, whose cheek outblooms the rose,
As bright the blazing fagot glows,
Who, bending to the friendly light,
Plies her task with busy sleight:
Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces
Thus circled round with merry faces.
Backward coil'd, and crouching low,
With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe,
The housewife's spindle whirling round,
Or thread, or straw, that on the ground
Its shadow throws, by urchin sly
Held out to lure the roving eye;
Then, onward stealing, fiercely spring
Upon the futile, faithless thing.
Now, wheeling round, with bootless skill,
Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still,
As oft beyond thy curving side
Its jetty tip is seen to glide;
Till, from thy centre starting far,
Thou sidelong rear'st, with tail in air
Erected stiff, and gait awry,
Like madam in her tantrums high;
Though ne'er a madam of them all,
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall,
More varied trick and whim displays,
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze.
Doth power in measured verses dwell,
All thy vagaries wild to tell?
Ah! no the start, the jet, the bound,
The giddy scamper round and round,
With leap, and jerk, and high curvet,
And many a whirling somerset
(Permitted be the modern Muse
Expression technical to use),
These mock the deftliest rhymester's skill,
But poor in art, though rich in will.
The nimblest tumbler, stage-bedight,
To thee is but a clumsy wight,
Who every limb and sinew strains
To do what costs thee little pains,
For which, I trow, the gaping crowd
Requites him oft with plaudits loud.
But, stopp'd the while thy wanton play,
Applauses too thy feats repay:
For then, beneath some urchin's hand,
With modest pride thou takest thy stand,
While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along thy back and tabby sides;
Dilated swells thy glossy fur,
And loudly sings thy busy pur,
As, timing well the equal sound,
Thy clutching feet bepat the ground,
And all their harmless claws disclose,
Like prickles of an early rose;
While softly from thy whisker'd cheek
Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.
But not alone by cottage fire
Do rustics rude thy tricks admire;
The learned sage, whose thoughts explore
The widest range of human lore
Or, with unfetter'd fancy, fly
Through airy heights of poesy,
Pausing, smiles, with alter'd air,
To see thee climb his elbow chair;
Or, struggling on the mat below,
Hold warfare with his slipper'd toe.
The widow'd dame or lonely maid,
Who in the still, but cheerless shade
Of home unsocial spends her age,
And rarely turns a letter'd page,
Upon her hearth for thee lets fall
The rounded cork or paper ball;
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch
The ends of ravell'd skein to catch,
But lets thee have thy wayward will,
Perplexing oft her sober skill.
Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent,
In lonely tower or prison pent,
Reviews the wit of former days,
And loathes the world and all its ways;
What time the lamp's unsteady gleam
Doth rouse him from his moody dream,
Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat,
His heart with pride less fiercely beat,
And smiles, a link in thee to find,
That joins him still to living kind.
Whence hast thou, then, thou witless puss,
The magic power to charm us thus ?
Is it that in thy glaring eye
And rapid movements we descry-
While we at ease, secure from ill,
The chimney-corner snugly fill-
A lion darting on the prey?
A tiger at his ruthless play?
Or is it that in thee we trace,
With all thy varied wanton grace,
An emblem, view'd with kindred eye,
Of tricksy, restless infancy?
Ah! many a lightly-sportive child,
Who hath, like thee, our wits beguiled,
To dull and sober manhood grown,
With strange recoil our hearts disown.
Even so, poor Kit! must thou endure,
When thou becomest a cat demure;
Full many a cuff and angry word,
Chid roughly from the tempting board.
And yet, for that thou hast, I ween,
So oft our favour'd playmate been,
Soft be the change which thou shalt prove,
When time hath spoil'd thee of our love;
Still be thou deem'd, by housewife fat,
A comely, careful, mousing cat,
Whose dish is, for the public good,
Replenish'd oft with savoury food.
Nor, when thy span of life be past,
Be thou to pond or dunghill cast;
But, gently borne on good man's spade,
Beneath the decent sod be laid;
And children show, with glistening eyes,
The place where poor old Pussy lies.
REGINALD HEBER. 1783-1826.
FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How sweet the lily grows!
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
Of Sharon's dewy rose!
Lo! such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod;
Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,
Is upward drawn to God!
By cool Siloam's shady rill
The lily must decay;
The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly fade away.
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