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The Happy Heart

THE HAPPY HEART

Thomas Dekker

RT thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexèd?

O punishment!

Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labor bears a lovely face;

Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crispèd spring?

O sweet content!

Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own

tears?

O punishment!

Then he that patiently want's burden bears,

No burden bears, but is a king, a king!

O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace;

Honest labor bears a lovely face;

Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

S

CROSSING THE BAR

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

UNSET and evening star

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam, -

When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

The Shepherd Boy Sings

THE SHEPHERD BOY SINGS IN

THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION

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John Bunyan

E that is down needs fear no fall,
He that is low no pride;
He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,

Little it be or much:

And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because Thou savest such.

Fullness to such a burden is

That go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

TO A WATERFOWL

W

William Cullen Bryant

HITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last

steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,

As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coastThe desert and illimitable air

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

To a Waterfowl

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone! the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart:

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone
Will lead my steps aright.

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