Poems on Sick

Not Sickness stains the Brave,
Nor any Dart,
Nor Doubt of Scene to come,
But an adjourning Heart -

by Emily Dickinson.

A Sickness of this World it most occasions
When Best Men die.
A Wishfulness their far Condition
To occupy.

A Chief indifference, as Foreign
A World must be
Themselves forsake - contented,
For Deity.

by Emily Dickinson.

They choose not ill their lot who choose
All quietly to live and die,
By Science sheltered or the Muse,
In unpretending privacy.
Proud epitaph—the world's acclaim—
These ask thou not; if, in their room,
Some few but love thy living name,
And household tears bedew the tomb.

by John Kenyon.

691

Would you like summer? Taste of ours.
Spices? Buy here!
Ill! We have berries, for the parching!
Weary! Furloughs of down!
Perplexed! Estates of violet trouble ne'er looked on!
Captive! We bring reprieve of roses!
Fainting! Flasks of air!
Even for Death, a fairy medicine.
But, which is it, sir?

by Emily Dickinson.

(From Lenau.)


So late, and yet a nightingale?
Long since have dropp'd the blossoms pale,
The summer fields are ripening,
And yet a sound of spring?

O tell me, didst thou come to hear,
Sweet Spring, that I should die this year;
And call'st across from the far shore
To me one greeting more?

by Amy Levy.

957

As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured—

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence't has been—

by Emily Dickinson.

LET me thy properties explain:
A rotten cabin dropping rain:
Chimneys, with scorn rejecting smoke;
Stools, tables, chairs, and bedsteads broke.
Here elements have lost their uses,
Air ripens not, nor earth produces:
In vain we make poor Sheelah toil,
Fire will not roast, nor water boil.
Through all the valleys, hills, and plains,
The Goddess Want, in triumph reigns:
And her chief officers of state,
Sloth, Dirt, and Theft, around her wait.

by Jonathan Swift.

368

How sick—to wait—in any place—but thine—
I knew last night—when someone tried to twine—
Thinking—perhaps—that I looked tired—or alone—
Or breaking—almost—with unspoken pain—

And I turned—ducal—
That right—was thine—
One port—suffices—for a Brig—like mine—

Ours be the tossing—wild though the sea—
Rather than a Mooring—unshared by thee.
Ours be the Cargo—unladed—here—
Rather than the "spicy isles—"
And thou—not there—

by Emily Dickinson.

Farewell, mild saint!—meek child of love, farewell!
Ill can this stone thy finished virtues tell.
Rest, rest in peace! the task of life is o'er;
Sorrows shall sting, and sickness waste no more.
But hard our task from one so loved to part,
While fond remembrance clings round every heart,—
Hard to resign the sister, friend, and wife,
And all that cheers, and all that softens life.
Farewell! for thee the gates of bliss unclose,
And endless joy succeeds to transient woes.

by Anna Laetitia Barbauld.

559

It knew no Medicine—
It was not Sickness—then—
Nor any need of Surgery—
And therefore—'twas not Pain—

It moved away the Cheeks—
A Dimple at a time—
And left the Profile—plainer—
And in the place of Bloom

It left the little Tint
That never had a Name—
You've seen it on a Cast's face—
Was Paradise—to blame—

If momently ajar—
Temerity—drew near—
And sickened—ever afterward
For Somewhat that it saw?

by Emily Dickinson.

He was a man of the union clan
And a Labor secre-tary.
He fell unwell and beneath the spell
Of a little nurse named Mary.
Now, Mary was no little lamb,
And the tenets that he taught her
They turned her head and she voted 'red'
When the mad strike fever caught her.

Then he missed his gruel, and he thought it cruel
That he was so neglected
One winter morn; and, all forlorn,
He rang - and was neglected.
And when she came she said, 'My name
Is henceforth Trotsky Mary.
We've downed thermometers, my friend:
You've won, dear secre-tary!'

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

Of all among the fallen from on high,
We count you last and leave you to regain
Your born dominion of a life made vain
By three spheres of insidious ivory.
You dwindle to the lesser tragedy—
Content, you say. We call, but you remain.
Nothing alive gone wrong could be so plain,
Or quite so blasted with absurdity.

You click away the kingdom that is yours,
And you click off your crown for cap and bells;
You smile, who are still master of the feast,
And for your smile we credit you the least;
But when your false, unhallowed laugh occurs,
We seem to think there may be something else.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

O THOUGHT! O Memory! gems for ever heaping
High in the illumined chambers of the mind,
And thou, divine Imagination! keeping
Thy lamp's lone star 'mid shadowy hosts enshrined;
How in one moment rent and disentwined,
At Fever's fiery touch, apart they fall,
Your glorious combinations!-broken all,
As the sand-pillars by the desert's wind
Scatter'd to whirling dust!-Oh, soon uncrown'd!
Well may your parting swift, your strange return,
Subdue the soul to lowliness profound,
Guiding its chasten'd vision to discern
How by meek Faith Heaven's portals must be pass'd
Ere it can hold your gifts inalienably fast.

by Felicia Dorothea Hemans.

'A well-bred horse! but he won't get fat,
Though I've done the best 1 can;
He keeps as poor as a blessed rat!'
Said the sorrowful stable-man.


'I've bled and I've blistered him-and to-day
I bought him a monster ball;
But, blow the horse! let me do what 1 may,
He won't get fat at all.


'I've given him medicines galore,
And linseed oil and bran,
And yet the brute looks awfully poor,'
Said the woebegone stable-man.


One glance the intelligent stranger threw
At the ribs of the hollow weed,
Then asked, with an innocent air, 'Did you
Forget to give him a feed?'

by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant.

Brother belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek:
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength regain,
Well may thy brow the placid glow retain
Of sweet content and thy pleas'd eye may speak
The conscious self applause, but should I seek
To utter what this heart can feel, Ah! vain
Were the attempt! Yet kindest friends while o'er
My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness
The being whom your cares could e'en restore,
From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess
The feelings which these lips can ne'er express;
Feelings, deep fix'd in grateful memory's store.

by John Keats.

Supposed to have been written in America.

ILL-omen'd bird! whose cries portentous float
O'er yon savannah with the mournful wind;
While, as the Indian hears your piercing note,
Dark dread of future evil fills his mind;
Wherefore with early lamentation break
The dear delusive visions of repose?
Why from so short felicity awake
My wounded senses to substantial woes?
O'er my sick soul thus rous'd from transient rest,
Pale Superstition sheds her influence drear,
And to my shuddering fancy would suggest
Thou com'st to speak of ev'ry woe I fear,
Ah! Reason little o'er the soul prevails,
When, from ideal ill, the enfeebled spirit fails!

by Charlotte Smith.

Distraction is the panacea, Sir!
I hear my oracle of Medicine say.
Doctor! that same specific yesterday
I tried, and the result will not deter
A second trial. Is the devil's line
Of golden hair, or raven black, composed?
And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed,
Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine?
No matter, so I taste forgetfulness.
And if the devil snare me, body and mind,
Here gratefully I score:--he seemèd kind,
When not a soul would comfort my distress!
O sweet new world, in which I rise new made!
O Lady, once I gave love: now I take!
Lady, I must be flattered. Shouldst thou wake
The passion of a demon, be not afraid.

by George Meredith.

THOUGH doctors may your name discard
And say you physicked vilely,
I would I were as good a bard
As you a doctor, Wylie!

How often, when your skill subdued
The fever ranging highly,
You won a bushman’s gratitude,
Though little more, Doc Wylie!

How oft across the regions wide
Where scrub for many a mile lay
The bushman rode, as bushmen ride,
To seek your aid, Doc Wylie!

But now, when bushman’s wife or child
Lies ill and suffering direly,
He’ll need to ride a weary while
Before he finds Doc Wylie.

I hope where they have made your bed,
And where these verses I lay,
They’ll raise a board above your head—
And write your name—Doc Wylie!

by Henry Lawson.

What soul would bargain for a cure that brings
Contempt the nobler agony to kill?
Rather let me bear on the bitter ill,
And strike this rusty bosom with new stings!
It seems there is another veering fit
Since on a gold-haired lady's eyeballs pure,
I looked with little prospect of a cure,
The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit.
Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy
Has decked the woman thus? and does her head
Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited?
Madam, you teach me many things that be.
I open an old book, and there I find
That "Women still may love whom they deceive."
Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave,
The game you play at is not to my mind.

by George Meredith.

961

Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee
How long a Day I could endure
Though thine attention stop not on me
Nor the least signal, Me assure—

Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country—
And Mine—the Door
Thou paused at, for a passing bounty—
No More—

Accused—wert Thou—and Myself—Tribunal—
Convicted—Sentenced—Ermine—not to Me
Half the Condition, thy Reverse—to follow—
Just to partake—the infamy—

The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou—
Permit to be
The Housewife in thy low attendance
Contenteth Me—

No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it—
To die—or live—
The first—Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee—
For Life—be Love—

by Emily Dickinson.

Little, perhaps, thou valuest verse of mine—
Little hast read of what my hand has wrought,
Yet I with thy brave memory would entwine
The muse’s amaranths. For thou well hast fought
For freedom; well her sacred lessons taught;
Well baffled wrong; and delved with far design
Into those elements where treasures shine
Excelling those wherewith our hills are fraught.
And when thy glorious grey head shall make
One spot all-hallowed for the coming days—
Tombed in the golden land for whose sole sake
With labour thou hast furrowed all thy ways,—
Well a young nation shall thy worth appraise
Even through the grief which then shall o’er thee break

by Charles Harpur.

WAVING slowly before me, pushed into the dark,
Unseen my hands explore the silence, drawing the bark
Of my body slowly behind.

Nothing to meet my fingers but the fleece of night
Invisible blinding my face and my eyes! What if in their flight
My hands should touch the door!

What if I suddenly stumble, and push the door
Open, and a great grey dawn swirls over my feet, before
I can draw back!

What if unwitting I set the door of eternity wide
And am swept away in the horrible dawn, am gone down the tide
Of eternal hereafter!

Catch my hands, my darling, between your breasts.
Take them away from their venture, before fate wrests
The meaning out of them.

by David Herbert Lawrence.

Rise from the dells where ye first were born,
From the tangled beds of the weed and thorn,
Rise! for the dews of the morn are bright,
And haste away with your brows of light.--
--Should the green-house patricians with gathering frown,
On your plebian vestures look haughtily down,
Shrink not,--for His finger your heads hath bow'd,
Who heeds the lowly and humbles the proud.--
--The tardy spring, and the frosty sky,
Have meted your robes with a miser's eye,
And check'd the blush of your blossoms free,--
With a gentler friend your home shall be;
To a kinder ear you may tell your tale
Of the zephyr's kiss and the scented vale;--
Ye are charm'd! ye are charm'd! and your fragrant sigh
Is health to the bosom on which ye die.

by Lydia Huntley Sigourney.

1.

'TWAS so ; I saw thy birth. That drowsy lake
From her faint bosom breath'd thee, the disease
Of her sick waters and infectious ease.
But now at even,
Too gross for heaven,
Thou fall'st in tears, and weep'st for thy mistake.

2.

Ah ! it is so with me : oft have I press'd
Heaven with a lazy breath ; but fruitless this
Pierc'd not ; love only can with quick access
Unlock the way,
When all else stray,
The smoke and exhalations of the breast.


3.

Yet, if as thou dost melt, and with thy train
Of drops make soft the Earth, my eyes could weep
O'er my hard heart, that's bound up and asleep ;
Perhaps at last,
Some such showers past,
My God would give a sunshine after rain.

by Henry Vaughan.

WHO SENT ME FLOWERS, WHEN CONFINED BY
ILLNESS.


WHILE sickness still my step detains
From scenes where vernal pleasure reigns,
Where Spring has bath'd with dewy tear
The blossoms of the op'ning year;
To soothe confinement's languid hours,
You send a lavish gift of flowers,
Midst whose soft odours mem'ry roves
O'er all the images she loves.
Not long their sweetness shall prevail,
Their rosy tints shall soon be pale,

Yet fancy in their fading hues
No emblem of our friendship views;
Its firm fidelity shall last,
When all the flowers of spring are past;
And when life's summer shall be o'er,
That summer which returns no more,
Still friendship, with perennial bloom,
Shall soften half the winter's gloom!

by Helen Maria Williams.

Wide windy reaches of high stubble field;
A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines;
A wagon moving in a 'cloud by day.'
Two city sportsmen with a dove between,
Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep
A solitary dove, the only dove
In twenty counties, and it sick, or else
It were not there. Two guns that fire as one,
With thunder simultaneous and loud;
Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!
And later, in the gloaming, comes a man
The worthy local coroner is he,
Renowned all thereabout, and popular
With many a remain. All tenderly
Compiling in a game-bag the debris,
He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.
The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock,
Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet,
To die of age in some far foreign land.

by Ambrose Bierce.

Hezekiah's song; or, Sickness and recovery.

Isa. 38:9ff.

When we are raised from deep distress,
Our God deserves a song;
We take the pattern of our praise
From Hezekiah's tongue.

The gates of the devouring grave
Are opened wide in vain,
If he that holds the keys of death
Commands them fast again.

Pains of the flesh are wont t' abuse
Our minds with slavish fears:
"Our days are past, and we shall lose
The remnant of our years."

We chatter with a swallow's voice,
Or like a dove we mourn,
With bitterness instead of joys,
Afflicted and forlorn.

Jehovah speaks the healing word,
And no disease withstands;
Fevers and plagues obey the Lord,
And fly at his commands.

If half the strings of life should break,
He can our frame restore;
He casts our sins behind his back,
And they are found no more.

by Isaac Watts.

He seemed so strange to me, every way--
In manner, and form, and size,
From the boy I knew but yesterday,--
I could hardly believe my eyes!

To hear his name called over there,
My memory thrilled with glee
And leaped to picture him young and fair
In youth, as he used to be.

But looking, only as glad eyes can,
For the boy I knew of yore,
I smiled on a portly little man
I had never seen before!--

Grave as a judge in courtliness--
Professor-like and bland--
A little fat doctor and nothing less,
With his hat in his kimboed hand.

But how we talked old times, and 'chaffed'
Each other with 'Minnie' and 'Jim'---
And how the little fat doctor laughed,
And how I laughed with him!

'And it's pleasant,' I thought, 'though I yearn to see
The face of the youth that was,
To know no boy could smile on me
As the little fat doctor does!'

by James Whitcomb Riley.

Physician of my sin-sick soul,
To thee I bring my case;
My raging malady control,
And heal me by thy grace.

Pity the anguish I endure,
See how I mourn and pine;
For never can I hope a cure
From any hand but thine.

I would disclose my whole complaint,
But where shall I begin?
No words of mine can fully paint
That worst distemper, sin.

It lies not in a single part,
But through my frame is spread;
A burning fever in my heart,
A palsy in my head.

It makes me deaf, and dumb, and blind,
And impotent and lame;
And overclouds, and fills my mind,
With folly, fear, and shame.

A thousand evil thoughts intrude
Tumultuous in my breast;
Which indispose me for my food,
And rob me of my rest.

Lord I am sick, regard my cry,
And set my spirit free;
Say, canst thou let a sinner die,
Who longs to live to thee?

by John Newton.

Suspicion's playful counterfeit
Begot your question strange:
The only thing that I forget
Is that there's any change.
Did that long blight which fell on you
My zeal of heart assuage?
Less willing shall I watch you through
The milder illness, age?
To my monopoly first blind
When risks no longer live,
And careless of the hand so kind
That has no more to give,
Shall I forget Spring like a tree,
Nor boast, ‘Her honied cup
Of beauty to his lips save me
No man has lifted up!’
Mine are not memories that come
Of joys that could not last:
They are; and you, Dear, are the sum
Of all your lovely past.
Yet if, with all this conscious weal,
I still should covet more,
The joy behind me shall reveal
The joy that waits before:
I'll mind from sickness how to life
You came, by tardy stealth,
Till, one spring day, I clasp'd my wife
Abloom with blandest health.

by Coventry Patmore.

574

My first well Day—since many ill—
I asked to go abroad,
And take the Sunshine in my hands,
And see the things in Pod—

A 'blossom just when I went in
To take my Chance with pain—
Uncertain if myself, or He,
Should prove the strongest One.

The Summer deepened, while we strove—
She put some flowers away—
And Redder cheeked Ones—in their stead—
A fond—illusive way—

To cheat Herself, it seemed she tried—
As if before a child
To fade—Tomorrow—Rainbows held
The Sepulchre, could hide.

She dealt a fashion to the Nut—
She tied the Hoods to Seeds—
She dropped bright scraps of Tint, about—
And left Brazilian Threads

On every shoulder that she met—
Then both her Hands of Haze
Put up—to hide her parting Grace
From our unfitted eyes.

My loss, by sickness—Was it Loss?
Or that Ethereal Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave—
Then—measuring the Sun—

by Emily Dickinson.

The evils that beset our path
Who can prevent or cure?
We stand upon the brink of death
When most we seem secure.

If we today sweet peace possess,
It soon may be withdrawn;
Some change may plunge us in distress,
Before tomorrow's dawn.

Disease and pain invade our health
And find an easy prey;
And oft, when least expected, wealth
Takes wings and flies away.

A fever or a blow can shake
Our wisdom's boasted rule;
And of the brightest genius make
A madman or a fool.

The gourds, from which we look for fruit,
Produce us only pain;
A worm unseen attacks the root,
And all our hopes are vain.

I pity those who seek no more
Than such a world can give;
Wretched they are, and blind, and poor,
And dying while they live.

Since sin has filled the earth with woe,
And creatures fade and die;
Lord wean our hearts from things below,
And fix our hopes on high.

by John Newton.

How strange at night to wake
And watch, while others sleep,
Till sight and hearing ache
For objects that may keep
The awful inner sense
Unroused, lest it should mark
The life that haunts the emptiness
And horror of the dark!
How strange at night the bay
Of dogs, how wild the note
Of cocks that scream for day,
In homesteads far remote;
How strange and wild to hear
The old and crumbling tower,
Amid the darkness, suddenly
Take tongue and speak the hour!
Albeit the love-sick brain
Affects the dreary moon,
Ill things alone refrain
From life's nocturnal swoon:
Men melancholy mad,
Beasts ravenous and sly,
The robber, and the murderer,
Remorse, with lidless eye.
The nightingale is gay,
For she can vanquish night;
Dreaming, she sings of day
Notes that make darkness bright;
But when the refluent gloom
Saddens the gaps of song,
Men charge on her the dolefulness,
And call her crazed with wrong.

by Coventry Patmore.

Beside the gospel pool
Appointed for the poor;
From year to year, my helpless soul
Has waited for a cure.

How often have I seen
The healing waters move;
And others, round me, stepping in
Their efficacy prove.

But my complaints remain,
I feel the very same;
As full of guilt, and fear, and pain.
As when at first I came.

O would the Lord appear
My malady to heal;
He knows how long I've languished here;
And what distress I feel.

How often have I thought
Why should I longer lie?
Surely the mercy I have sought
Is not for such as I.

But whither can I go?
There is no other pool
Where streams of sovereign virtue flow
To make a sinner whole.

Here then, from day to day,
I'll wait, and hope, and try;
Can Jesus hear a sinner pray,
Yet suffer him to die?

No: he is full of grace;
He never will permit
A soul, that fain would see his face,
To perish at his feet.

by John Newton.

Beside the gospel pool
Appointed for the poor;
From year to year, my helpless soul
Has waited for a cure.

How often have I seen
The healing waters move;
And others, round me, stepping in
Their efficacy prove.

But my complaints remain,
I feel the very same;
As full of guilt, and fear, and pain.
As when at first I came.

O would the Lord appear
My malady to heal;
He knows how long I've languished here;
And what distress I feel.

How often have I thought
Why should I longer lie?
Surely the mercy I have sought
Is not for such as I.

But whither can I go?
There is no other pool
Where streams of sovereign virtue flow
To make a sinner whole.

Here then, from day to day,
I'll wait, and hope, and try;
Can Jesus hear a sinner pray,
Yet suffer him to die?

No: he is full of grace;
He never will permit
A soul, that fain would see his face,
To perish at his feet.

by John Newton.

DECEMBER 29, 1792.

Stirs not thy spirit, Priestley! as the train
With low obeisance, and with servile phrase,
File behind file, advance, with supple knee,
And lay their necks beneath the foot of power?
Burns not thy cheek indignant, when thy name,
On which delighted Science loved to dwell,
Becomes the bandied theme of hooting crowds?
With timid caution, or with cool reserve,
When e'en each reverend brother keeps aloof,
Eyes the struck deer, and leaves thy naked side
A mark for Power to shoot at? Let it be.
“On evil days though fallen and evil tongues,”

To thee, the slander of a passing age
Imports not. Scenes like these hold little space
In his large mind, whose ample stretch of thought
Grasps future periods.—Well canst thou afford
To give large credit for that debt of fame
Thy country owes thee. Calm thou canst consign it
To the slow payment of that distant day,—
If distant,—when thy name, to Freedom's joined,
Shall meet the thanks of a regenerate land.

by Anna Laetitia Barbauld.

Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue
Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew;
For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night,
Stole a bottleful of Heenzo from the desk whereon I write.

I am certain sure he did it (though he never would let on),
For all last week he had a cold and to-day his cough is gone;
Now I'm sick and sore and sorry, and I'm sad for friendship's sake
(It was better than the cough-cure that our Granny used to make).

Oh, he might have pinched my whisky, and he might have pinched my beer,
Or all the fame or money that I make while writing here –
Oh, he might have shook the blankets and I'd not have made a row,
If he'd only left my Heenzo till the morning, anyhow.

So I've lost my faith in Mateship, which was all I had to lose
Since I lost my faith in Russia and myself and got the blues;
And so trust turns to suspicion, and so friendship turns to hate,
Even Kaiser Bill would never pinch his Heenzo from a mate.

by Henry Lawson.

When sickness clouds the languid eye,
And seeds of sharp diseases fly
Swift through the vital frame;
Rich drugs are torn from earth and sea,
And balsam drops from every tree,
To quench the parching flame.
But oh! what opiate can assuage
The throbbing breast's tumultuous rage,
Which mingling passions tear!
What art the wounds of grief can bind,
Or soothe the sick impatient mind
Beneath corroding care!

Not all the potent herbs that grow
On purple heath, or mountain's brow,
Can banished peace restore;
In vain the spring of tears to dry,
For purer air or softer sky
We quit our native shore.
Friendship, the richest balm that flows,
Was meant to heal our sharpest woes,
But runs not always pure;
And Love—has sorrows of his own,
Which not an herb beneath the moon
Is found of power to cure.
Soft Pity, mild dejected maid,
With tenderest hand applies her aid
To dry the frequent tear;
But her own griefs, of finer kind,
Too deeply wound the feeling mind
With anguish more severe.

by Anna Laetitia Barbauld.

I said to Lettice, our sister Lettice,
While drooped and glistened her eyelash brown,
'Your man's a poor man, a cold and dour man,
There's many a better about our town.'
She smiled securely - 'He loves me purely:
A true heart's safe, both in smile or frown;
And nothing harms me while his love warms me,
Whether the world go up or down.'
'He comes of strangers, and they are rangers,
And ill to trust, girl, when out of sight:
Fremd folk may blame ye, and e'en defame ye,
A gown oft handled looks seldom white.'
She raised serenely her eyelids queenly, -
'My innocence is my whitest gown;
No harsh tongue grieves me while he believes me,
Whether the world go up or down.'
'Your man's a frail man, was ne'er a hale man,
And sickness knocketh at every door,
And death comes making bold hearts cower, breaking -'
Our Lettice trembled; - but once, no more.
'If death should enter, smite to the center
Our poor home palace, all crumbling down,
He cannot fright us, nor disunite us,
Life bears Love's cross, death brings Love's crown.'

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.

1.
SWEET, sacred hill ! on whose fair brow
My Saviour sate, shall I allow
Language to love,
And idolize some shade, or grove,
Neglecting thee ? such ill-plac'd wit,
Conceit, or call it what you please,
Is the brain's fit,
And mere disease.
2.
Cotswold and Cooper's both have met
With learn褠swains, and echo yet
Their pipes and wit ;
But thou sleep'st in a deep neglect,
Untouch'd by any ; and what need
The sheep bleat thee a silly lay,
That heard'st both reed
And sheepward play ?

3.
Yet if poets mind thee well,
They shall find thou art their hill,
And fountain too.
Their Lord with thee had most to do ;
He wept once, walk'd whole nights on thee :
And from thence?His suff'rings ended?
Unto glory
Was attended.

4.
Being there, this spacious ball
Is but His narrow footstool all ;
And what we think
Unsearchable, now with one wink
He doth comprise ; but in this air
When He did stay to bear our ill
And sin, this hill
Was then His Chair.

by Henry Vaughan.