Avon! I gaze and know

The wisdom emblemed in thy varying way;
It speaks of human joys that rise so slow,
So rapidly decay.

Kingdoms that long have stood

And slow to strength and power attain'd at last, Thus from the summit of high fortune's flood Ebb to their ruin fast.

So tardily appears

The course of time to manhood's envied stage;
Alas! how hurryingly the ebbing years
Then hasten to old age!

The HOLLY TREE.

O Reader! hast thou ever stood to see

The Holly Tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves

Ordered by an intelligence so wise,

As might confound the Atheists sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle thro' their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes

And moralize!

And in the wisdom of the Holly Tree
Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
Such as may profit in the after-time.

So, tho' abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,

Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree,

And as when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green,

The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see What then so chearful as the Holly Tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,

That in my age as chearful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.

English Eclogues.