The Second Best
Moderate tasks and moderate leisure,
Quiet living, strict-kept measure
Both in suffering and in pleasure
’Tis for this thy nature yearns.
But so many books thou readest,
But so many schemes thou breedest,
But so many wishes feedest,
That thy poor head almost turns.
And (the world’s so madly jangled,
Human things so fast entangled)
Nature’s wish must now be strangled
For that best which she discerns.
So it must be! yet, while leading
A strain’d life, while overfeeding,
Like the rest, his wit with reading,
No small profit that man earns,
Who through all he meets can steer him,
Can reject what cannot clear him,
Cling to what can truly cheer him!
Who each day more surely learns
That an impulse, from the distance
Of his deepest, best existence,
To the words ‘Hope, Light, Persistence,’
Strongly stirs and truly burns!
poem by Matthew Arnold (1852)
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We Do Not Respect Her At All
Those who spend decades learning about Nature of Nature's ways will tell you they have much to know
Her deepest secrets we will never learn of and our wonder of her only seem to grow
One could live for a thousand years and yet not know all about her as her most precious secrets with us she will never share
And yet in part due to us she does seem much the poorer as many of her life forms either extinct or rare
Many of her waterways by us have been polluted our factories puff up black smoke to the sky
Why do we try to harm the one who feeds us that is the question many have asked why
Without us Nature would do nicely though for to live on her we do depend
She supplies all of our needs for our existence though to her we are not a good friend
In technology humans have come far and many human achievements are great
But we've not been respectful to Nature and that's something we cannot celebrate
But Nature she will live forever and like her Seasons we come to life and die
Immortality for us Homo Sapiens has surely been based on a lie
We depend on her for our very existence and our achievements to her seem so small
And though we are one of her life forms we do not respect her at all.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Human Knowledge
Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written,
And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups;--
Since o'er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able,
Thou dost think that thy mind wonderful Nature can grasp.
Thus the astronomer draws his figures over the heavens,
So that he may with more ease traverse the infinite space,
Knitting together e'en suns that by Sirius-distance are parted,
Making them join in the swan and in the horns of the bull.
But because the firmament shows him its glorious surface,
Can he the spheres' mystic dance therefore decipher aright?
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Song
Rarely, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not her.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;--
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.
I love snow and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.
I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good;
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.
I love Love--though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee--
Thou art love and life! O come!
Make once more my heart thy home!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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In Harmony with Nature
"In Harmony with Nature?" Restless fool,
Who with such heat dost preach what were thee,
When true, the last impossibility—
To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool!
Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more,
And in that more lie all his hopes of good.
Nature is cruel, man is sick of of blood;
Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore;
Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest;
Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave;
Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest.
Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends;
Nature and man can never be fast friends.
Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!
poem by Matthew Arnold from Sonnets (1849)
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Song: Rarely, rarely, comest thou
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou are fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismay'd;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dress'd,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.
I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.
I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good;
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.
I love Love--though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee--
Thou art love and life! Oh come,
Make once more my heart thy home.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Invocation
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure; -
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.
I love snow and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.
I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good: -
Between thee and me
What diff'rence? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.
I love Love -though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee -
Thou art love and life! O come!
Make once more my heart thy home!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Table Turned
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
poem by William Wordsworth
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Epigram on Seeing Miss Fontenelle in a Favourite Character
Sweet naivete of feature,
Simple, wild, enchanting elf,
Not to thee, but thanks to Nature,
Thou art acting but thyself.
Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,
Spurning Nature, torturing art;
Loves and Graces all rejected,
Then indeed thou'd'st act a part.
poem by Robert Burns
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When The Last Human Being
When the last human being from Planet Earth has gone
The Goddess of Nature will surely live on
Yes without us to bother her Nature will live
We take and take from her and in return little give
For our disrespect to her we will be made to pay
What goes around comes around as some do say
Nature for her extinct life forms never lament
The donosaurs came and the dinosaurs went
She gives life and the remains of her dead does receive
And in the face of death she does not laugh or grieve
But long after the last human being from the World has gone
Nature the immortal will be living on.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Statue of Robert Burns
To a town in Southern land
Light of purse I come and lone;
And I pause awhile, and stand
By a pedestal of stone;
And I bend my head and bow
While my heart to Scotland turns,
For I know I’m standing now
‘Neath the form of Robbie Burns.
Round the corners of the lips
Lines of laughter seem to run;
From the merry eye there slips
Just a twinkle as of fun.
Living in the sculptor’s art,
Set in stone, mine eye discerns
All the beauty, and a part
Of the soul, of Robert Burns.
One of Caledonia’s sons,
Coming lonely to the land.
Well might think he’d met a friend
Who would take him by the hand,
And the tears spring to his eyes,
While his heart for friendship yearns;
And from out that heart he cries,
“Heaven bless ye, Bobbie Burns.”
“Unto me, as unto you,
Has a hard world done ill turns;
And the sorrows that you knew
I am learning Bobbie Burns.
But I’ll keep my heart above
Until, after many moons,
I return to friends I love,
And to banks line bonnie Doon’s.”
poem by Henry Lawson
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Procemion
IN His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so'er thy fiery spirit hovers,
Its simile and type it straight discovers
Onward thou'rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,
Where'er thou goest, smiling is the way;
No more thou numbrest, reckonest no time,
Each step is infinite, each step sublime.
-----
WHAT God would outwardly alone control,
And on his finger whirl the mighty Whole?
He loves the inner world to move, to view
Nature in Him, Himself in Nature too,
So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,
The measure of His strength, His spirit gives.
-----
WITHIN us all a universe doth dwell;
And hence each people's usage laudable,
That ev'ry one the Best that meets his eyes
As God, yea e'en his God, doth recognise;
To Him both earth and heaven surrenders he,
Fears Him, and loves Him too, if that may be.
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Chorus of Youths and Virgins
Semichorus.
Oh Tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And Arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent'ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire,
Which Nature has imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen'rous breast?
Chorus.
Love's purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bent to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand'ring, self-consuming fire,
But Hymen's kinder flames unite;
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.
Semichorus.
Oh source of ev'ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse's fonder eye;
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev'rence, hope, and love.
Chorus.
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises;
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine
Purest love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.
poem by Alexander Pope
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The Calculation Of Life
Thou art aged; but recount,
Since thy early life began,
What may be the just amount
Thou shouldst number of thy span:
How much to thy debts belong,
How much when vain fancy caught thee,
How much to the giddy throng,
How much to the poor who sought thee,
How much to thy lawyer's wiles,
How much to thy menial crew,
How much to thy lady's smiles,
How much to thy sick-bed due,
How much for thy hours of leisure,
For thy hurrying to and fro,
How much for each idle pleasure,—
If the list thy memory know.
Every wasted, misspent day,
Which regret can ne'er recall,—
If all theso them tak'st away,
Thou wilt find thy age but small:
That thy years were falsely told,
And, even now, thou art not old.
poem by Jean Antoine de Baif
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I'd Like To Know More About Nature
I'd like to know more about Nature for of Nature so little i know
Though we see the beauty she creates and the beautiful things she does grow
Her rill that is born by the mountain flows downland by many a hedgerow
And it swells into a mighty river and on towards the ocean does flow.
I'd like to know more about Nature for Nature is an amazing thing
The song bird who sings in your garden sings the same song his father did sing
This is just one wonder of Nature how a small bird remembers a song
And passes it on through his genes to his offsprings a secret that to Nature belong.
I'd like to know more about Nature for of Nature i know little at all
Though i just like billions of others can recognize some birds and animals by their call
Great human minds have studied Nature but they only do learn to realize
That there is far more to our Earth Mother far more to her than meets our eyes.
I'd like to know more about Nature though i look at her every day
She guards her secrets with secrecy and from us she hides them away
And those who say they know all of Nature are those who do broadcast a lie
And Nature she lives on forever and we like all of her life forms must die.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Ch 04 On The Advantages Of Silence Story 14
A fellow with a disagreeable voice happened to be reading the Quran, when a pious man passed near, and asked him what his monthly salary was. He replied: ‘Nothing.’ He further inquired: ‘Then why takest thou this trouble?’ He replied: ‘I am reading for God’s sake.’ He replied: ‘For God’s sake do not read.’
If thou readest the Quran thus
Thou wilt deprive the religion of splendour.
Sonnet 35: What May Words Say
What may words say, or what may words not say,
Where truth itself must speak like flattery?
Within what bounds can one his liking stay,
Where Nature doth with infinite agree?
What Nestor's counsel can my flames allay,
Since Reason's self doth blow the coal in me?
And ah what hope, that hope should once see day,
Where Cupid is sworn page to Chastity?
Honor is honor'd, that thou dost possess
Him as thy slave, and now long needy Fame
Doth even grom rich, naming my Stella's name.
Wit learns in thee perfection to express,
Not thou by praise, but prasie in thee is rais'd:
It is a praise to praise, when thou art prais'd.
poem by Philip Sidney
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Sonnet
Oh, thou hadst been a wife for Shakspeare's self!
No head, save some world-genius, ought to rest
Above the treasures of that perfect breast,
Or nightly draw fresh light from those keen stars
Through which thy soul awes ours: yet thou art bound-
O waste of nature!-to a craven hound;
To shameless lust, and childish greed of pelf;
Athene to a Satyr: was that link
Forged by The Father's hand? Man's reason bars
The bans which God allowed.-Ay, so we think:
Forgetting, thou hadst weaker been, full blest,
Than thus made strong by suffering; and more great
In martyrdom, than throned as Caesar's mate.
Eversley, 1851.
poem by Charles Kingsley
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Religious Isolation
Children (as such forgive them) have I known,
Ever in their own eager pastime bent
To make the incurious bystander, intent
On his own swarming thoughts, an interest own;
Too fearful or too fond to play alone.
Do thou, whom light in thine own inmost soul
(Not less thy boast) illuminates, control
Wishes unworthy of a man full-grown.
What though the holy secret which moulds thee
Moulds not; the solid Earth? though never Winds
Have whisper'd it to the complaining Sea,
Nature's great law, and law of all men's minds?
To its own impulse every creature stirs:
Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers.
poem by Matthew Arnold from Sonnets (1849)
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A Boon Nature Is For Man!
Man has to learn great lessons from not books but Nature!
Education provides just the fundamentals and foundation,
Basing which he has to build world learning from Nature.
So, he has to go out of the portals of education to Nature!
Nature is everywhere and man is part of Nature forever!
If he enjoys animal pleasure or aesthetic pleasure or
If he intellectually explores truth or mystically enjoys bliss,
If he digs or builds using Earth, it is one and the same!
Nature is living scientific art man has to explore the truth
With his heart, mind and soul through woman, art, Nature!
Five elements of Nature like air, fire, water, land and space
Man is made up of and is everywhere he has to explore!
His exploration will help him how to transform himself to spirit
And mingle himself with the all pervading spirit of bliss in Nature!
poem by Ramesh T A
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A Funeral Elegy on the Death of The Lady Penelope Clifton
Since thou art dead, Clifton, the world may see
A certain end of flesh and blood in thee;
Till then a way was left for man to cry,
Flesh may be made so pure it cannot die;
But now thy unexpected death doth strike
With grief the better and the worse alike;
The good are sad they are not with thee there,
The bad have found they must not tarry here.
Death, I confess, 'tis just in thee to try
Thy pow'r on us, for thou thyself must die;
Thou pay'st but wages, Death, yet I would know
What strange delight thou tak'st to pay them so;
When thou com'st face to face thou strik'st us mute
And all our liberty is to dispute
With thee behind thy back, which I will use:
If thou hadst bravery in thee, thou wouldst choose
(Since thou art absolute, and canst controul
All things beneath a reasonable soul)
Some looked for way of killing; if her day
Had ended in a fire, a sword, or sea,
Or hadst thou come hid in a hundred years
To make an end of all her hopes and fears,
Or any other way direct to thee
Which Nature might esteem an enemy,
Who would have chid thee? now it shews thy hand
Desires to cozen where it might command:
Thou art not prone to kill, but where th' intent
Of those that suffer is their nourishment;
If thou canst steal into a dish, and creep
When all is still as though into a sleep,
And cover thy dry body with a draught,
Whereby some innocent lady may be caught,
And cheated of her life, then thou wilt come
And stretch thyself upon her early tomb,
And laugh as pleased, to show thou canst devour
Mortality as well by wit as pow'r.
I would thou hadst had eyes, or not a dart,
That yet at least, the clothing of that heart
Thou struck'st so spitefully might have appear'd
To thee, and with a reverence have been fear'd:
But since thou art so blind, receive from me
Who 'twas on whom thou wrought'st this tragedy;
She was a lady, who for public fame,
Never (since she in thy protection came,
Who sett'st all living tongues at large) received
A blemish; with her beauty she deceived
No man; when taken with it, they agree
'Twas Nature's fault, when from 'em 'twas in thee.
And such her virtue was, that although she
Received as much joy, having pass'd through thee,
As ever any did; yet hath thy hate
Made her as little better in her state,
As ever it did any being here;
She lived with us as if she had been there.
Such ladies thou canst kill no more, but so
I give thee warning here to kill no moe;
For if thou dost, my pen shall make the rest
Of those that live, especially the best,
Whom thou most thirstest for, to abandon all
Those fruitless things, which thou wouldst have us call
Preservatives, keeping, their diet so,
As the long-living poor their neighbours do:
Then shall we have them long, and they at last
Shall pass from thee to her, but not so fast.
poem by Francis Beaumont
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