THE TABLES TURNED;

An Evening Scene, on the same Subject,
 
  Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks,
  Why all this toil and trouble?
  Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
  Or surely you'll grow double.
 
  The sun, above the mountain's head,
  A freshening lustre mellow
  Through all the long green fields has spread,
  His first sweet evening yellow.
 
  Books! 'tis dull and endless strife,
  Come, here the woodland linnet,
  How sweet his music; on my life
  There's more of wisdom in it.
 
  And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
  And he is no mean preacher;
  Come forth into the light of things,
  Let Nature be your teacher.
 
  She has a world of ready wealth,
  Our minds and hearts to bless—
  Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
  Truth breathed by chearfulness.
 
  One impulse from a vernal wood
  May teach you more of man;
  Of moral evil and of good,
  Than all the sages can.
 
  Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
  Our meddling intellect
  Mishapes the beauteous forms of things;
  —We murder to dissect.
 
  Enough of science and of art;
  Close up these barren leaves;
  Come forth, and bring with you a heart
  That watches and receives.
 
ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY & DECAY
 
A SKETCH.
 
                  The little hedge-row birds
  That peck along the road, regard him not.
  He travels on, and in his face, his step,
  His gait, is one expression; every limb,
  His look and bending figure, all bespeak
  A man who does not move with pain, but moves
  With thought—He is insensibly subdued
  To settled quiet: he is one by whom
  All effort seems forgotten, one to whom
  Long patience has such mild composure given,
  That patience now doth seem a thing, of which
  He hath no need.
 He is by nature led
  To peace so perfect, that the young behold
  With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
  —I asked him whither he was bound, and what
  The object of his journey; he replied
  That he was going many miles to take
  A last leave of his son, a mariner,
  Who from a sea-fight had been brought to Falmouth,
  And there was lying in an hospital.

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