“Rest and be thankful.”

“Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and its fears,To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

“The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest— Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast.”

“Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,Home-felt, and home-created,comes to healThat grief for which the senses still supply Fresh food; for only then, when memoryIs hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain those busy cares that would allay my pain;Oh! Leave me to myself, nor let me feelThe officious touch that makes me droop again.”

“But the sweet face of Lucy GrayWill never more be seen.The storm came on before its time:She wandered up and down;And many a hill did Lucy climb:But never reached the town.”

“This son of his old age was yet more dear— Less from instinctive tenderness, the same Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all— 145Than that a child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts, And stirrings of inquietude, when they By tendency of nature needs must fail.”

“What though the radiance that was once so bright, be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.”