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38

THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES.

Through the calm and frosty air

Of this morning bright and fair
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed

Sylph or fairy hither tending—
To his lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In this wavering parachute.
-But the kitten how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now-now one—
Now they stop; and there are none—
What intenseness of desire

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
Of a thousand standers-by,

Clapping hands with shout and stare,
What would little Tabby care
For the plaudits of the crowd?
Over-happy to be proud,
Over-wealthy in the treasure

Of her own exceeding pleasure!

THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES.

'Tis a pretty baby-treat;
Nor, I deem, for me unmeet;
Here, for neither babe nor me,
Other playmate can I see.

*

Yet, whate'er enjoyments dwell
In the impenetrable cell

Of the silent heart which Nature
Furnishes to every creature;
Whatsoe'er we feel and know
Too sedate for outward show
Such a light of gladness breaks,
Pretty kitten! from thy freaks-
Spreads with such a living grace
O'er my little Laura's face;
Yes, the sight so stirs and charms
Thee, baby, laughing in my arms,
That almost I could repine

That your transports are not mine,
That I do not wholly fare

Even as ye do, thoughtless pair!
And I will have my careless season

Spite of melancholy reason,

Will walk through life in such a way

That, when time brings on decay,
Now and then I may possess
Hours of perfect gladsomeness.
-Pleased by any random toy;
By a kitten's busy joy,
Or an infant's laughing eye
Sharing in the ecstasy;
I would fare like that or this,
Find my wisdom in my bliss ;
Keep the sprightly soul awake,

39

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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:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho! the holly!

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

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."]

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ND this place my forefathers made for man!
This is the process of our love and wisdom

To each poor brother who offends against us-
Most innocent, perhaps—and what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God!
Each pore and natural outlet shrivelled up

F

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By ignorance and parching poverty,

His energies roll back upon his heart,

And stagnate and corrupt, till, changed to poison,
They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot.
Then we call in our pampered mountebanks ;
And this is their best cure! Uncomforted
And friendless solitude, groaning, and tears,

And savage faces, at the clanking hour,

Seen through the steam and vapours of his dungeon
By the lamp's dismal twilight! So he lies,
Circled with evil, till his very soul

Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed
By sights of evermore deformity!

With other ministrations thou, O Nature!
Healest thy wandering and distempered child :
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,

Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets:
Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters!
Till he relent, and can no more endure

To be a jarring and a dissonant thing
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy,
But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,
His angry spirit healed and harmonised

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."]

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