HOPE

HITE as a white sail on a dusky sea,

WH When half the horizon's clouded and half

free,

Fluttering beneath the dun wave and the sky,
Is Hope's last gleam in man's extremity.
Her anchor parts; but still her snowy sail
Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale:
Though every wave she climbs divides us more,
The heart still follows from the loneliest shore.

BYRON

BEGGARS

HAT noise of viols is so sweet

WHAT

As when our merry clappers ring?

What mirth doth want when beggars meet?
A beggar's life is for a king.

Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list,
Go where we will -so stocks be missed.
Bright shines the sun; play, beggars, play!
Here's scraps enough to serve to-day.

The world is ours, and ours alone;
For we alone have world at will.
We purchase not-all is our own;
Both fields and street we beggars fill.
Bright shines the sun; play, beggars, play!
Here's scraps enough to serve to-day.

FRANK DAVIDSON

THE STARLINGS

EARLY in the springtime, on raw and windy

mornings,

Beneath the freezing house-eaves, I heard the starlings sing

'Ah, dreary March month, is this then a time for building wearily?

Sad, sad to think that the year is but begun”.

Late in the autumn, on still and cloudless evenings,

Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing

"Ah, that sweet March month, when we and our mates were courting,

Sad, sad to think that the year is all but done".

CHARLES KINGSLEY

TO DAFFODILS

FAIR daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we

Will go with you along.

We have as short a time to stay, as you;
We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay

As you, or anything.

As

We die

your hours do, and dry
Away,

Like to the summer rain;

Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

ROBERT HERRICK

STREW

REQUIESCAT

TREW on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!

In quiet she reposes;

Ah! would that I did too.

Her mirth the world required;

She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.

Her cabined, ample spirit,

It fluttered and failed for breath; To-night it doth inherit

The vasty hall of death.

MATTHEW ARNOLD