Of temper sweet, of yielding will,

Of firm, yet placid mind,
With all my faults to love me still
With sentiment refined.

And as Time's car incessant runs,
And Fortune fills my store,
I want of daughters and of sons
From eight to half a score.
I want (alas! can mortal dare

Such bliss on earth to crave?)
That all the girls be chaste and fair,
The boys all wise and brave.

I want a warm and faithful friend,
To cheer the adverse hour;
Who ne'er to flatter will descend,

Nor bend the knee to power,

A friend to chide me when I'm wrong, My inmost soul to see;

And that my friendship prove as strong
For him as his for me.

I want the seals of power and place,
The ensigns of command;
Charged by the People's unbought grace
To rule my native land.
Nor crown nor sceptre would I ask

But from my country's will,
By day, by night, to ply the task
Her cup of bliss to fill.

I want the voice of honest praise
To follow me behind,

And to be thought in future days

The friend of human-kind, That after ages, as they rise, Exulting may proclaim

In choral union to the skies

Their blessings on my name.

These are the Wants of mortal Man,
I cannot want them long,

- a song.

For life itself is but a span,
And earthly bliss -
My last great Want-absorbing all-
Is, when beneath the sod,

And summoned to my final call,
The Mercy of my God.

WASHINGTON, August 31, 1841.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

CONTENTMENT.

"Man wants but little here below."

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;

DIRECTED TO MY DEAR FATHER, AND MOST WORTHY
FRIEND, MR. ISAAC WALTON.

HEAVEN, what an age is this! what race
Of giants are sprung up, that dare

Thus fly in the Almighty's face,

And with his providence make war!

I can go nowhere but I meet

With malecontents and mutineers, As if in life was nothing sweet,

And we must blessings reap in tears.

O senseless man! that murmurs still
For happiness, and does not know,
Even though he might enjoy his will,
What he would have to make him so.

Is it true happiness to be

By undiscerning Fortune placed In the most eminent degree,

Where few arrive, and none stand fast?

Titles and wealth are Fortune's toils,
Wherewith the vain themselves insnare :
The great are proud of borrowed spoils,
The miser's plenty breeds his care.

The one supinely yawns at rest,

The other eternally doth toil; Each of them equally a beast,

A pampered horse, or laboring moil:

The titulados oft disgraced

By public hate or privatê frown,

And he whose hand the creature raised Has yet a foot to kick him down.

The drudge who would all get, all save,

Like a brute beast, both feeds and lies; Prone to the earth, he digs his grave,

And in the very labor dies. Excess of ill-got, ill-kept pelf

Does only death and danger breed ; Whilst one rich worldling starves himself With what would thousand others feed. By which we see that wealth and power, Although they make men rich and great, The sweets of life do often sour,

And gull ambition with a cheat.

Nor is he happier than these,
Who, in a moderate estate,
Where he might safely live at ease,
Has lusts that are immoderate.
For he, by those desires misled,
Quits his own vine's securing shade,
To expose his naked, empty head
To all the storms man's peace invade.

Nor is he happy who is trim,

Tricked up in favors of the fair, Mirrors, with every breath made dim,

Birds, caught in every wanton snare.

Woman, man's greatest woe or bliss,

Does oftener far than serve, enslave And with the magic of a kiss

Destroys whom she was made to save. O fruitful grief, the world's disease! And vainer man, to make it so, Who gives his miseries increase By cultivating his own woe.

There are no ills but what we make

By giving shapes and names to things, Which is the dangerous mistake

That causes all our sufferings.

We call that sickness which is health, That persecution which is grace, That poverty which is true wealth, And that dishonor which is praise.

Alas! our time is here so short

That in what state soe'er 't is spent, Of joy or woe, does not import, Provided it be innocent.

But we may make it pleasant too,

If we will take our measures right,

Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened till I had my fill;
And as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE PEASANT.

66
FROM THE PARISh register."

A NOBLE peasant, Isaac Ashford, died.
Noble he was, contemning all things mean,
His truth unquestioned and his soul serene.
Of no man's presence Isaac felt afraid;
At no man's question Isaac looked dismayed;
Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace;
Truth, simple truth, was written in his face;
Yet while the serious thought his soul approved,
Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved;
To bliss domestic he his heart resigned,
And with the firmest had the fondest mind;
Were others joyful, he looked smiling on,
And gave allowance where he needed none;
Good he refused with future ill to buy,
Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh;
A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
No envy stung, no jealousy distressed;
(Bane of the poor! it wounds their weaker mind
To miss one favor which their neighbors find ;)
Yet far was he from Stoic pride removed;
He felt humanely, and he warmly loved.
I marked his action, when his infant died,
And his old neighbor for offence was tried ;
The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek,
Spoke pity plainer than the tongue can speak.
If pride were his, 't was not their vulgar pride
Who in their base contempt the great deride;
Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed;
Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
None his superior, and his equals few ;-
But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honost fame, by virtue gained
In sturdy boys to virtuous labors trained;
Pride in the power that guards his country's coast,
And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride in a life that slander's tongue defied,
In fact, a noble passion misnamed pride.

The world o'erlooks him in her busy search
Of objects, more illustrious in her view;
And, occupied as earnestly as she,

Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain.
He cannot skim the ground like summer birds
Pursuing gilded flies; and such he deems
Her honors, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,

Whose power is such that whom she lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heaven unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be revealed.
Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed,
And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird
That flutters least is longest on the wing.

HAPPINESS.

WILLIAM COWPER.

"
FROM THE ESSAY ON MAN."

O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts the eternal
sigh

For which we bear to live or dare to die,
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shrine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows?-
- where grows it not? If vain
our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:
Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere,
'Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere:
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,
And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with

thee.

Ask of the learned the way? The learned are blind;

This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these ;
Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some, swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain!
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in everything, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

Take nature's path, and mad opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;

Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right and meaning well; And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense and common ease.

ALEXANDER POPE

A HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill! Whose passions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death, Not tied unto the world with care

Of public fame or private breath; Who envies none that chance doth raise, Or vice; who never understood How deepest wounds are given by praise; Nor rules of state, but rules of good; Who hath his life from rumors freed,

Whose conscience is his strong retreat; Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend, 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 HENRY WOTTON.

THE HERMIT.

AT the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove,
While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began;
'T was thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,

No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man:
"Ah! why, all abandoned to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthrall.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay, -
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to
mourn!

O, soothe him whose pleasures like thine pass away!
Full quickly they pass, - but they never return.

"Now, gliding remote on the verge of the sky, The moon, half extinguished, her crescent displays;

But lately I marked when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendor again!
But man's faded glory what change shall renew?
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

“'T is night, and the landscape is lovely no more. I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching your charms to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save;
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave?

""T was thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,
My thoughts wont to roam from shade onward to
shade,

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride; From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free.'

"And darkness and doubt are now flying away;
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.
See truth, love, and mercy in triumph descending,
And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!
On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are
blending;

And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."
JAMES BEATTIE.

And some to happy homes repair,
Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, And dreams of greatness in thine eye! Go'st thou to build an early name,

Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow!

Who is now fluttering in thy snare? Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,

Or melt the glittering spires in air? Who of this crowd to-night shall tread

The dance till daylight gleam again? Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?

Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold, dark hours, how slow the light; And some, who flaunt amid the throng,

Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each where his tasks or pleasures call,

They pass, and heed each other not. There is who heeds, who holds them all

In His large love and boundless thought. These struggling tides of life, that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

RETIREMENT.

FAREWELL, thou busy world, and may

We never meet again;

Here I can eat and sleep and pray,
And do more good in one short day
Then he who his whole age outwears
Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where naught but vanity and vice appears.

Good God! how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord what good hours do we keep !
How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity! How innocent from the lewd fashion Is all our business, all our recreation.