How calm and quiet a delight

Is it, alone,

To read, and meditate, and write,

By none offended, and offending none !

To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease, And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

O my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,

And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer's beam!
And in it all thy wanton fry,

Playing at liberty;

And with my angle, upon them
The all of treachery

I ever learn'd, industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show ;
The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po,

The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle water all compared with thine!

And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine much purer to compare ;

The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine
Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoin'd, submit,
And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

O my beloved rocks, that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies,
From some aspiring mountain's crown,
How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure, to look down ;

And, from the vales, to view the noble heights above!

O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat,

And all anxieties, my safe retreat ;

What safety, privacy, what true delight,

In the artificial night,

Your gloomy entrails make,
Have I taken, do I take !

How oft, when grief has made me fly,
To hide me from society,

E'en of my dearest friends, have I,
In your recesses' friendly shade,

All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy!

Lord! would men let me alone,

What an over-happy one

Should I think myself to be;

Might I in this desert place

(Which most men in discourse disgrace) Live but undisturbed and free !

Here, in this despised recess,

Would I, maugre winter's cold,

And the summer's worst excess,
Try to live out to sixty full years old;
And, all the while,

Without an envious eye

On any thriving under Fortune's smile, Contented live, and then contented die.

"WHEN FIRST THY EYES."

BY HENRY VAUGHAN.—1614-95.

[HENRY VAUGHAN was born at Newton, in Brecknockshire, in 1614. He studied at Oxford, and first became a lawyer, then a physician; but in neither capacity does he seem to have obtained a competency. In the latter part of his life, he became very serious and devout. He died in

1695.

Vaughan's poetry exhibits great strength and originality of thought, and abounds in imagery; but his ideas are often of a melancholy caste, and his rhymes not always as pleasing as those selected.]

WHEN first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave

To do the like; our bodies but forerun

The spirit's duty: true hearts spread and leave
Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun :

Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep
Him company all day, and in Him sleep.

Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should

:

Dawn with the day there are set awful hours
'Twixt heaven and us: the manna was not good
After sun-rising; far day sullies flowers :
Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sins glut,
And heaven's gate opens when the world's is shut.
Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush
And whisperings amongst them. Not a spring
Or leaf but hath his morning hymn; each bush
And oak doth know I AM. Canst thou not sing?
O leave thy cares and follies! Go this way,
And thou art sure to prosper all the day.
Serve God before the world; let Him not go
Until thou hast a blessing; then resign
The whole unto Him, and remember who
Prevail'd by wrestling e'er the sun did shine;
Pour oil upon the stones, weep for thy sin,
Then journey on, and have an eye to heav'n.
Mornings are mysteries; the first, the world's youth,
Man's resurrection, and the future's bud,

Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth,

Is styled their star; the stone and hidden food : Three blessings wait upon them, one of which Should move-they make us holy, happy, rich.

When the world's up, and every swarm abroad,
Keep well thy temper, mix not with each clay;
Despatch necessities: life hath a load
Which must be carried on, and safely may;
Yet keep those cares without thee; let the heart
Be God's alone, and choose the better part.

LIKE AS A NURSE.

EVEN as a Nurse, whose child's imperfect pace

Can hardly lead his foot from place to place, Leaves her fond kissing, sets him down to go, Nor does uphold him for a step or two; But when she finds that he begins to fall, She holds him up and kisses him withal: So God from man sometimes withdraws his hand Awhile, to teach his infant faith to stand; But when he sees his feeble strength begin To fail, he gently takes him up again.

THE RETREAT.

HAPPY those early days, when I
Shined in my Angel-infancy!

Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walk'd above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.