Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Hope smiled when your nativity was cast, Children of Summer!
But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover.
But to a higher mark than song can reach, Rose this pure eloquence.
Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach.
Faith is, necessary to explain anything, and to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil.
Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary men.
To be a Prodigal’s favourite,-then, worse truth, A Miser’s pensioner,-behold our lot!
Meek Nature’s evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth.
The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Because the good old rule Sufficeth them,-the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.
The very flowers are sacred to the poor.
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust Of servile opportunity to gold.
And mighty poets in their misery dead.
Earth has not anything to show more fair.
A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free.
One with more of soul in his face than words on his tongue.
Recognizes ever and anon The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams.
And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.