PROUD MAISIE

Proud Maisie is in the wood,
Walking so early;

Sweet Robin sits on the bush,

Singing so rarely.

"Tell me, thou bonny bird,
When shall I marry me?"
— “ When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye.”

"The glowworm o'er grave and stone

Shall light thee steady;

The owl from the steeple sing,

Welcome, proud lady."

Sir Walter Scott

GANE WERE BUT THE WINTER CAULD

Gane were but the winter cauld,
And gane were but the snaw,
I could sleep in the wild woods,
Where primroses blaw.

Cauld's the snaw at my head,
And cauld at my feet,
And the finger o' death's at my een,
Closing them to sleep.

Let nane tell my father,

Or my mither sae dear;

I'll meet them baith in heaven

At the spring o' the year.

Allan Cunningham

THE INNER VISION

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes

To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between

The beauty coming and the beauty gone.

If Thought and Love desert us, from that day Let us break off all commerce with the Muse: With Thought and Love companions of our way

-

Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,
The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

William Wordsworth

ADMONITION TO A TRAVELLER

Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!

The lovely Cottage in the guardian nook

Hath stirr'd thee deeply; with its own dear brook,
Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!

But covet not the abode; forbear to sigh
As many do, repining while they look;

Intruders who would tear from Nature's book

This precious leaf with harsh impiety.

Think what the home must be if it were thine, Even thine, though few thy wants! - Roof, window, door, The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,

The roses to the porch which they entwine:
Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day

On which it should be touch'd, would melt away!
William Wordsworth

THE STRIFE

The wish that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life,

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear -

I falter where I firmly trod;

And, falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

A VISION

Alfred Tennyson

I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright:

And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,

Driven by the spheres,

Like a vast shadow moved; in which the World

And all her train were hurl'd.

Henry Vaughan

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1809-1892