FLAVIA.

The wretched FLAVIA on her couch reclin'd,
Thus breath'd the anguish of a wounded mind ;
A glass revers'd in her right hand she bore,
For now she shun'd the face she sought before.

'How am I chang'd ! alas ! how am I grown
'A frightful spectre, to myself unknown !
'Where's my Complexion ? where the radiant Bloom,
'That promis'd happiness for Years to come ?
'Then with what pleasure I this face survey'd !
'To look once more, my visits oft delay'd !
'Charm'd with the view, a fresher red would rise,

MY mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That for because her livelood was but thin [livelihood]
Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endured to much pain:
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse
That when the furrows swimmed with the rain
She must lie cold and wet in sorry plight,
And, worse than that, bare meat there did remain
To comfort her when she her house had dight:
Sometime a barleycorn, sometime a bean,

"HALT! Who goes there?” The sentry’s call
Rose on the midnight air
Above the noises of the camp,
The roll of wheels, the horses’ tramp.
The challenge echoed over all—
“Halt! Who goes there?”
A quaint old figure clothed in white,
He bore a staff of pine,
An ivy-wreath was on his head.
“Advance, oh friend,” the sentry said,
“Advance, for this is Christmas night,
And give the countersign.”

“No sign nor countersign have I,
Through many lands I roam
The whole world over far and wide,

Samuel Sewall, in a world of wigs,
Flouted opinion in his personal hair;
For foppery he gave not any figs,
But in his right and honor took the air.
Thus in his naked style, though well attired,
He went forth in the city, or paid court
To Madam Winthrop, whom he much admired,
Most godly, but yet liberal with the port.

And all the town admired for two full years
His excellent address, his gifts of fruit,
Her gracious ways and delicate white ears,
And held the course of nature abolute.

But yet she bade him suffer a peruke,

Though not for common praise of him,
Nor yet for pride or charity,
Still would I make to Vanderberg
One tribute for his memory:

One honest warrant of a friend
Who found with him that flesh was grass—
Who neither blamed him in defect
Nor marveled how it came to pass;

Or why it ever was that he—
That Vanderberg, of all good men,
Should lose himself to find himself,
Straightway to lose himself again.

For we had buried Sainte-Nitouche,
And he had said to me that night:
“Yes, we have laid her in the earth,

IMPLACABLE as are thy arctic floes;
Grim and gigantic as thy mountain height;
Girt with thy pines for spindles and the light
Of pale auroras for thy stars; to those
Who know thee not thou seem’st as one who goes
Unvex’d by Wrong, nor swerves to help the Right,
A grey Lachesis of the Northern night,
Stark as thy steppes and colder than thy snows.

But we—we know thee now, Ally and Friend!
True as thy Baltic Spars and tried by fire,
Thy seeming coldness hides a courage high,

A short direction
To avoid dejection,
By variations
In occupations,
And prolongation
Of relaxation,
And combinations
Of recreations,
And disputation
On the state of the nation
In adaptation
To your station,
By invitations
To friends and relations,
By evitation
Of amputation,
By permutation
In conversation,
And deep reflection
You'll avoid dejection.

Learn well your grammar,
And never stammer,
Write well and neatly,
And sing most sweetly,
Be enterprising,

They brought me rubies from the mine,
And held them to the sun;
I said, they are drops of frozen wine
From Eden's vats that run.

I looked again,--I thought them hearts
Of friends to friends unknown;
Tides that should warm each neighboring life
Are locked in sparkling stone.

But fire to thaw that ruddy snow,
To break enchanted ice,
And give love's scarlet tides to flow,--
When shall that sun arise?

O friend, from your foes your heart release,
In pleasant company drink the good wine with ease.
Confer with those who know, open your heart
And from the ignorant fleas flee like the breeze.

Every friend who talked of love, became a foe.
Every eagle shifted its shape to a crow.
They say the night is pregnant, and I say,
Who is the father? And how do you know?