Fly from the " old poetic " fields, Ye Paynim shadows dark! Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays, Lo! here the "unknown God" of thy unconscious praise! The olive-wreath, the ivied wand, So thoughts beyond their thought to those high Bards were given. And these are ours: Thy partial The tempting treasure lends: Are forfeit to Thy friends; What seemed an idol hymn, now breathes of Thee, Tuned by Faith's ear to some celestial melody. There's not a strain to Memory dear, Nor flower in classic grove, There's not a sweet note warbled here, But minds us of Thy Love, O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes, There is no light but Thine: with Thee all beauty glows. FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. [The Lilies of the Field.] SWEET nurslings of the vernal skies, Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew, What more than magic in you lies, To fill the heart's fond view? In childhood's sports, companions gay, In sorrow, on Life's downward way, How soothing! in our last decay Memorials prompt and true. Relics ye are of Eden's bowers, As pure as fragrant, and as fair, As when ye crowned the sunshine hours Of happy wanderers there. Fall'n all beside the world of life, How is it stained with fear and strife! In Reason's world what storms are rife What passions range and glare! But cheerful and unchanged the while The stars of heaven a course are taught Ye dwell beside our paths and homes, Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow, And guilty man, where'er he roams, Your innocent mirth may borrow. The birds of air before us fleet, They cannot brook our shame to meetBut we may taste our solace sweet And come again to-morrow. Ye fearless in your nests abide Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, Your silent lessons, undescried By all but lowly eyes: For ye could draw th' admiring gaze Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour, As when He paused and owned you good; His blessing on earth's primal bower, Ye felt it all renewed. What care ye now, if winter's storm Sweep ruthless o'er each silken form? Christ's blessing at your heart is warm, Ye fear no vexing mood. Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, That daily court you and caress, How few the happy secret find Of your calm loveliness! "Live for to-day! to-morrow's light PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 1792-1822. [PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, eldest son of Timothy Shelley (afterwards Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart.), was born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex, August 4, 1792. He was educated at Eton and at University College, Oxford; but was expelled from Oxford in 1811 on account of his authorship of a tract on The Necessity of Atheism. In the same year he married Harriet Westbrook, a girl of sixteen, daughter of a coffee-house keeper, but separated from her in 1814. His intimacy with Mary Godwin, daughter of William Godwin, author of Political Justice, and of Mary Wolfstonecraft, led to a marriage with her after his first wife's death in 1816. In 1817 he was deprived by Lord Eldon of the custody of his children by his first marriage, and in 1818 he left England for Italy, in which country he resided, mainly at Naples, Leghorn, and Pisa, till his death by drowning in the Gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822. Queen Mab, his first work of any note, was privately printed in 1813; Alastor was published in 1816; and Laon and Cythna, published and withdrawn in 1817, was reissued as The Revolt of Islam in 1818. The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound were both published in 1820. Epipsychidion was printed, and Adonais published in 1821, and the list is ended by Hellas published in 1822,- the year of the poet's untimely death.] |