Sweet's the dawn's ambiguous light,
Quiet pause 'tween day and night,
When afar the mellow horn
Chides the tardy gaited morn,
And asleep is yet the gale
On sea-beat mount, and rivered vale.
But the morn, though sweet and fair;
Sweeter is when thou art there;
Hymning stars successive fade,
Fairies hurtle through the shade,
Lovelorn flowers I weeping see,
If the scene is touched by thee.
* * * * *
Thus through life with thee I'll glide,
Happy still what'er betide,
And while plodding sots complain
Of ceaseless toil and slender gain,
Every passing hour shall be
Worth a golden age to me.
* * * * *
=_Robert Treat Paine, 1773-1811._= (Manual, p. 512.)
From "The Ruling Passion."
=_322._= THE MISER.
Next comes the miser; palsied, jealous, lean,
He looks the very skeleton of Spleen!
'Mid forests drear, he haunts, in spectred gloom,
Some desert abbey or some druid's tomb;
Where hearsed in earth, his occult riches lay,
Fleeced from the world, and buried from the day.
With crutch in hand, he points his mineral rod,
Limps to the spot, and turns the well-known sod.
While there, involved in night, he counts his store
By the soft tinklings of the golden ore,
He shakes with terror lest the moon should spy,
And the breeze whisper, where his treasures lie.
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