2. No nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: No sweeter voice was ever heard In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. 3. Will no one tell me what she sings? Or is it some more humble lay, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 4. Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang And o'er the sickle bending; THE RIVER. 1. Amid the rushes green and slight, 2. The winter comes with icy blast, The summer brings her scorching suns, Day after day has come and passed, And still the river runs. 3. I see it flow away, away, Along the same broad even track, The waves sweep onward night and day, But never one comes back. 4. And thus it is, time passes by, Nor ever stops for joy or pain; Thus years, and days, and moments fly, But never come again. 5. The shadows on the river fall, The wave reflects them every one, The bending rush, the poplar tall, But carries with it none. 6. And every virtue, every crime, Our thoughts, our deeds, our feelings, cast A shadow on the stream of time, As it goes rushing past. 7. The wave reflecteth sky and tree, But things we've done can never be, 8. 'Twas good or bad, 'twas right or wrong; And He who notes our every deed, Has caught it as it swept along, And marked it for its meed. 9. Then, as we watch the river flow, Think we how time doth ever glide, And pray we that our lives may throw, Bright shadows on the tide. I was ever of opinion that the honest man, who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population. From this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown-not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured, notable woman, and as for education, there were few country ladies who could shew more. She could read any English book without much spelling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none could excel her. She prided herself also upon being an excellent contriver in housekeeping; though I could never find that we grew richer with all her contrivances. However, we loved each other tenderly, and our fondness increased as we grew old. There was, in fact, nothing that could make us angry with the world or each other. We had an elegant house, situate in a fine country, and a good neighbourhood. The year was spent in moral or rural amusements, in visiting our rich neighbours, and relieving such as were poor. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown. As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or stranger to visit us, to taste our gooseberry-wine, for which we had great reputation; and I profess, with the veracity of an historian, that I never knew one of them find fault with it. Our cousins, too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the herald's office, and came very frequently to see us. Some of them did us no great honour by these claims of kindred; as we had the blind, the maimed, and the halt amongst the number. However, my wife always insisted that, as they were the same flesh and blood, they should sit with us at the same table; so that, if we had not very rich, we generally had very happy friends about us ; for this remark will hold good through life, that the poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated; and as some men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip or the wing of a butterfly, so I was by nature an admirer of happy human faces. However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house, I ever took care |