CONTENTMENT.

BY L. H. SIGOURNEY.

THINK'ST thou the steed that restless roves
O'er rocks and mountains, fields and groves,
With wild, unbridled bound,
Finds fresher pasture than the bee,
On thymy bank or vernal tree,

Intent to store her industry

Within her waxen round?

Think'st thou the fountain forced to turn
Through marble vase or sculptured urn,
Affords a sweeter draught

Than that which, in its native sphere,
Perennial, undisturb'd and clear,

Flows, the lone traveller's thirst to cheer,
And wake his grateful thought?

Think'st thou the man whose mansions hold
The worldling's pomp and miser's gold,
Obtains a richer prize

Than he who, in his cot at rest,

Finds heavenly peace, a willing guest,

And bears the promise in his breast

Of treasure in the skies?

HAPPINESS OF THE SHEPHERD'S
LIFE.

BY GILES AND PHINEAS FLETCHER.

THRICE, oh, thrice happy, shepherd's life and state!
When courts are happiness, unhappy pawns!
His cottage low and safely humble gate

Shut out proud Fortune, with her scorns ami fawns:

No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep :
Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep;
Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.
No Serian worms he knows, that with their thread
Draw out their silken lives: nor silken pride:
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need,
Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed:
No empty hopes no courtly fears him fright:
Nor begging wants his middle fortune bite:
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.
Instead of music, and base flattering tongues,
Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise;
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes:
In country plays is all the strife he uses;
Or sing, or dance unto the rural Muses;
And but in music's sports all difference refuses
His certain life, that never can deceive him,

Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content:
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive

him

With coolest shades, till noon-tide rage is spent: His life is neither toss'd in boist'rous seas

Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease; Pleased, and full blest he lives, when he his God please.

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;
His little son into his bosom creeps,
The lively picture of his father's face:

Never his humble house nor state torment him;
Less he could like, if less his God had sent him;
And when he dies, green turfs, with grassy tomb,
content him.

THE RICHEST JEWELL.

THERE is a jewel which no Indian mine can buy,
No chemic art can counterfeit ;

It makes men rich in greatest poverty,
Makes water wine, turns wooden cups to gold,
The homely whistle to sweet music's strain;
Seldom it comes, to few from heaven sent,
That much in little-all in nought-Content.

HALBERT.

BY SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

SIR, you do me wrong;

I boast no virtue when I claim content

With that which you have left me;-would not change

My naked turret, in its mountain hold,

Reached by the path along whose rugged steeps
Discord and envy climb not, for the fields
Rich Inverary in its scornful groves
Embosoms; and to me the mouldering walls
Of its small chapel wear the glory yet
Of consecration which they took from prayers
Of the first teachers, through a thousand storms
Have drenched and shaken them. Forgive me,
I have a patrimony which disdains
Envy of yours.

sir:

Most miserable

Is the desire that's glorious: blessed be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,

Which seasons comfort.

Shakespear.