Thy wee bit housie too, in ruin !
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin':
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!

An bleak December's winds ensuin'
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste

An' weary winter comin' fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble

An' cranreuch cauld!

But mousie, thou art no thy lane

In proving foresight may be vain :

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,
For promised joy.

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:
But, och! I backward cast my e'e
On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

I

guess an' fear.

Robert Burns.

* 1 13 *

TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON.

When love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered to her eye,

The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free-
Fishes that tipple in the deep

Know no such liberty.

When, linnet-like, confined, I

With shriller note shall sing

The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage :
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

Richard Lovelace.

* 114*

ODE ON IMMORTALITY.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore ;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more!

The rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the rose;

The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep,—
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every beast keep holiday;
Thou child of joy

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy!

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.
O evil day! if I were sullen
While earth herself is adorning

This sweet May morning;
And the children are pulling
On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:
I hear, I hear, with joy 1 hear!

But there's a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone :
The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat;
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy;

The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate, man, Forget the glories he hath known And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the child among his new-born blisses,
A six years darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;
A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song;
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love or strife;
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage' With all the persons, down to palsied age,