not observe how amazingly expensive travelling was, and all this though he was not yet twenty-one. GOLDSMITH. HOME AND CLASS WORK. Learn the spellings and meanings at the top of the page; and write sentences containing these words. JACQUES DESCRIBES TOUCHSTONE. Who laid him down and basked him in the sun, In good set terms-and yet a motley fool. "Good morrow, fool," quoth I-" No, Sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool, 'till heav'n have sent me fortune." And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says, very wisely, "it is ten o'clock: "Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags. "Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; SHAKSPERE. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still, and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singest In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening. Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not Like a high-born maiden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. Like a rose embowered, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine; I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught: Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever could come near. Better than all measures Of delight and sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. |
