Is nature in thee too spiritless, Ignoble, impotent, and dead, To prize her love and loveliness The more for being thy daily bread? And art thou one of that vile crew Which see no splendour in the sun, Praising alone the good that’s new, Or over, or not yet begun? And has it dawn’d on thy dull wits That love warms many as soft a nest, That, though swathed round with benefits, Thou art not singularly blest? And fail thy thanks for gifts divine, The common food of many a heart, Because they are not only thine? Beware lest in the end thou art Cast for thy pride forth from the fold, Too good to feel the common grace Of blissful myriads who behold For evermore the Father’s face. III. _The Zest of Life_. Give thanks. It is not time misspent; Worst fare this betters, and the best, Wanting this natural condiment, Breeds crudeness, and will not digest. The grateful love the Giver’s law; But those who eat, and look no higher, From sin or doubtful sanction draw The biting sauce their feasts require. Give thanks for nought, if you’ve no more, And, having all things, do not doubt That nought, with thanks, is blest before Whate’er the world can give, without. IV. _Fool and Wise_. Endow the fool with sun and moon, Being his, he holds them mean and low, But to the wise a little boon Is great, because the giver’s so. SAHARA. 1 I stood by Honor and the Dean, They seated in the London train. A month from her! yet this had been, Ere now, without such bitter pain. But neighbourhood makes parting light, And distance remedy has none; Alone, she near, I felt as might A blind man sitting in the sun; She near, all for the time was well; Hope’s self, when we were far apart, With lonely feeling, like the smell Of heath on mountains, fill’d my heart. To see her seem’d delight’s full scope, And her kind smile, so clear of care, Ev’n then, though darkening all my hope, Gilded the cloud of my despair. 2 She had forgot to bring a book. I lent one; blamed the print for old; And did not tell her that she took A Petrarch worth its weight in gold. I hoped she’d lose it; for my love Was grown so dainty, high, and nice, It prized no luxury above The sense of fruitless sacrifice. 3 The bell rang, and, with shrieks like death, Link catching link, the long array, With ponderous pulse and fiery breath, Proud of its burthen, swept away; And through the lingering crowd I broke, Sought the hill-side, and thence, heart-sick, Beheld, far off, the little smoke Along the landscape kindling quick. 4