|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 76
It waved not through an Eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby
It was not fanned by southern breeze
In some green isle of Indian seas,
Nor did its graceful shadows sleep
O'er stream of Africa, lone and deep.
But far the exiled Palm-tree grew
Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the moss-beds at his feet.
There came an eve of festal hours--
Rich music filled that garden's bowers:
Lamps, that from flowering branches hung,
On sparks of dew soft colours flung,
And bright forms glanced--a fairy show--
Under the blossoms, to and fro.
But one, a lone one, midst the throng,
Seemed reckless all of dance or song:
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been--
Of crested brow, and long black hair--
A stranger, like the Palm-tree, there!
And slowly, sadly moved his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms:
He passed the pale green olives by,
Nor won the chestnut-flowers his eye;
But, when to that sole Palm he came,
Then shot a rapture through his frame!
To him, to him its rustling spoke:
The silence of his soul it broke!
It whispered of his own bright isle,
That lit the ocean with a smile;
Ay, to his ear that native tone
Had something of the sea-wave's moan!
His mother's cabin home, that lay
Where feathery cocoas fringed the bay;
The dashing of his brethren's oar;
The conch-note heard along the shore;--
All through his wakening bosom swept;
He clasped his country's Tree--and wept!
Oh! scorn him not! The strength whereby
The patriot girds himself to die,
The unconquerable power, which fills
The freeman battling on his hills--
These have one fountain deep and clear--
The same whence gushed that child-like tear!
ENNUI, AND THE DESIRE TO BE FASHIONABLE.
BY LORD JEFFREY.
There are two great sources of unhappiness to those whom fortune and
nature seem to have placed above the reach of ordinary miseries. The one
is _ennui_--that stagnation of life and feeling which results from the
absence of all motives to exertion; and by which the justice of
Providence has so fully compensated the partiality of fortune, that it
may be fairly doubted whether, upon the whole, the race of beggars is
not happier than the race of lords; and whether those vulgar wants that
are sometimes so importunate, are not, in this world, the chief
ministers of enjoyment. This is a plague that infects all indolent
persons who can live on in the rank in which they were born, without the
necessity of working; but, in a free country, it rarely occurs in any
great degree of virulence, except among those who are already at the
summit of human felicity. Below this, there is room for ambition, and
envy, and emulation, and all the feverish movements of aspiring vanity
and unresting selfishness, which act as prophylactics against this more
dark and deadly distemper. It is the canker which corrodes the
full-blown flower of human felicity--the pestilence which smites at the
bright hour of noon.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|