38 THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES. Through the calm and frosty air Of this morning bright and fair Sylph or fairy hither tending— In her upward eye of fire! With a tiger-leap half way Now she meets the coming prey, Lets it go as fast, and then Has it in her power again : Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian conjuror ; Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Clapping hands with shout and stare, Of her own exceeding pleasure! THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES. 'Tis a pretty baby-treat; * Yet, whate'er enjoyments dwell Of the silent heart which Nature That your transports are not mine, Even as ye do, thoughtless pair! Spite of melancholy reason, Will walk through life in such a way That, when time brings on decay, 39 LOW, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly: This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, As benefits forgot: As friend remember'd not. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly : Then, heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly. SHAKESPEARE. [From "As You Like It."] ND this place my forefathers made for man! To each poor brother who offends against us- F By ignorance and parching poverty, His energies roll back upon his heart, And stagnate and corrupt, till, changed to poison, And savage faces, at the clanking hour, Seen through the steam and vapours of his dungeon Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed With other ministrations thou, O Nature! Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets: To be a jarring and a dissonant thing By the benignant touch of love and beauty. COLERIDGE. ["Of all our writers of the briefer narrative poetry," says Leigh Hunt, "Coleridge is the finest since Chaucer, and assuredly he is the sweetest of all our poets. Wallis's music is but a court flourish in comparison; and though Beaumont and Fletcher, Collins, Gray, Keats, Shelley, and others, have several as sweet passages, and Spenser is, in a certain sense, musical throughout, yet no man has written whole poems, of equal length, so perfect in the sentiment of music, so varied with it, and yet leaving on the ear so unbroken and single an effect." SAMUEL TAYLOR Coleridge, whose works are unsurpassed for grandeur of imagination and command of expression, was born at Bristol, in 1771, and educated at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards at Cambridge. After a long and chequered career, at one period of which he served as a private in a cavalry regiment, he died at Highgate, in 1834. It is related of him that, on his enlistment, the captain of his troop asked him if he could run a Frenchman through the body. "I do not know," replied the valiant poet, "but he shall run me through the body before I will run away."] |