-This man is freed from servile bands

Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;

Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing, yet hath all.

Sir H. Wotton.

THE RIVER OF LIFE

THE more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages:
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan,

And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,

Ye Stars, that measure life to man,

Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath

And life itself is vapid,

Why, as we reach the Falls of Death,

Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange-yet who would change
Time's course to slower speeding,

When one by one our friends have gone
And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength

Indemnifying fleetness;

And those of youth, a seeming length,

Proportion'd to their sweetness.

T. Campbell.

A LESSON

THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine,

That shrinks like many more from cold and rain,
And the first moment that the sun may shine,

Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!

When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,

Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm
In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest.

But lately, one rough day, this Flower I past,
And recognized it, though an alter'd form,
Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
And buffeted at will by rain and storm.

I stopp'd and said, with inly-mutter'd voice,
'It doth not love. the shower, nor seek the cold;
This neither is its courage nor its choice,

But its necessity in being old.

'The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew;

It cannot help itself in its decay;

Stiff in its members, wither'd, changed of hue,'—
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was gray.

To be a prodigal's favourite then, worse truth,
A miser's pensioner-behold our lot!

O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not!
W. Wordsworth.

STANZAS

OFTEN rebuked, yet always back returning

To those first feelings that were born with me, And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning For idle dreams of things that cannot be:

To-day I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:

Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

E. Brontë.

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

I HEARD a thousand blended notes

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trail'd its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopp'd and play'd
Their thoughts I cannot measure,—
But the least motion which they made
It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament

What Man has made of Man?

W. Wordsworth.

A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT

IS THERE for honest Poverty

That hings his head, an' a' that; The coward slave-we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that!

For a' that, an' a' that,

Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that;

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,

A Man's a Man for a' that:

For a' that, an' a' that,

Their tinsel show an' a' that; The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'da lord,'
Wha struts an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,

His ribband, star, an' a' that;
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Gude faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,

Their dignities an' a' that;

The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that),

That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth, Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,

The Man to Man, the world o'er,

Shall brothers be for a' that.

R. Burns.