Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/42

 Ready to give thanks and live On the least that Heaven may give.

If, the quiet brooklet leaving, Up the stony vale I wind, Haply half in fancy grieving For the shades I leave behind, By the dusty wayside drear, Nightingales with joyous cheer Sing, my sadness to reprove, Gladlier than in cultured grove.

Where the thickest boughs are twining Of the greenest darkest tree, There they plunge, the light declining - All may hear, but none may see. Fearless of the passing hoof, Hardly will they fleet aloof; So they live in modest ways, Trust entire, and ceaseless praise.


 * Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine: and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now.  St. John ii. 10.

The heart of childhood is all mirth: We frolic to and fro As free and blithe, as if on earth Were no such thing as woe.

But if indeed with reckless faith We trust the flattering voice, Which whispers, "Take thy fill ere death,  Indulge thee and rejoice;"

Too surely, every setting day, Some lost delight we mourn; The flowers all die along our way Till we, too, die forlorn.

Such is the world's gay garish feast, In her first charming bowl