Part 32

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Ah! could you look into my heart, And watch your image there! You would own the sunny loveliness Affection makes it wear.

Mrs. Osgood.

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The pensive soul with ardent thirsting turns To heaven and earth to seek its fill of love.

MacKellar.

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Oh! there is one affection which no stain Of earth can ever darken;--when two find, The softer and the manlier, that a chain Of kindred taste has fastened mind to mind. ’Tis an attraction from all sense refined; The good can only know it; ’tis not blind, As love is unto baseness; its desire Is but with hands entwined to lift our being higher.

Percival.

COWSLIP.... Pensiveness.

The solitary Cowslip was known to the old English poets as the “sweet nun of the fields,” and has been immortalized in “Shakspeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In America, the Cowslip may be found from Maine to Missouri. Its hues are not gaudy, but winning; and the whole appearance of the flower, as it blooms in some solitary vale, or on some gentle slope, expresses the idea of pensive beauty.

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The rose its blushes need not lend, Nor yet the lily with them blend, To captivate my eyes: Give me a cheek the heart obeys, And, sweetly mutable, displays Its feelings as they rise; Features, where pensive, more than gay, Save when a rising smile doth play, The sober thoughts you see; Eyes that all soft and tender seem, And kind affections round them beam, But most of all on me.

Frisbie.

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There is a mood, (I sing not to the vacant and the young,) There is a kindly mood of melancholy That wings the soul, and points her to the skies.

Dyer.

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Oh! fragrant dwellers of the lea, When first the wildwood rings With each sound of vernal minstrelsy, When fresh the green grass springs! What can the blessed spring restore More gladdening than your charms? Bringing the memory once more Of lovely fields and farms! Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers; Of life’s unfolding prime; Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours; Of souls without a crime. Oh! blessed, blessed do ye seem, For, even now, I turned, With soul athirst for wood and stream, From streets that glared and burned. From the hot town, where mortal care His crowded fold doth pen; Where stagnates the polluted air In many a sultry den. And ye are here! and ye are here! Drinking the dew-like wine, Midst living gales and waters clear, And heaven’s unstinted shine. I care not that your little life Will quickly have run through, And the sward, with summer children rife, Keep not a trace of you. For again, again, on dewy plain, I trust to see you rise, When spring renews the wildwood strain, And bluer gleam the skies. Again, again, when many springs Upon my grave shall shine, Here shall you speak of vanished things, To living hearts of mine.

Mrs. Howitt.

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Blest are the pure and simple hearts, Unconsciously refined, By the free gifts that Heaven imparts Through nature to the mind; Not all the pleasures wealth can buy Equal their happy destiny.

Mrs. Wells.

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O Nature! a’ thy shows an’ forms To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms! Whether the simmer kindly warms, Wi’ life an’ light. Or winter howls, in gusty storms, The lang, dark night!

Burns.

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Melancholy Sits on me, as a cloud along the sky, Which will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet Descend in rain, and end; but spreads itself ’Twixt heaven and earth, like envy between man And man--an everlasting mist.