EMERSON.

* * * * *

TO A FIELD-MOUSE.

    Wee sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,
    Oh, what a panic’s in thy breastie! 
    Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
        Wi’ bickering brattle! 
    I wad be laith to rin and chase thee
        Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

    I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
    Has broken nature’s social union,
    And justifies that ill opinion
        Which makes thee startle
    At me, thy poor earth-born companion
        And fellow-mortal!

    Thou saw the fields lay bare and waste
    And weary winter comin’ fast,
    And cozie here, beneath the blast,
        Thou thought to dwell,
    Till, crash! the cruel coulter past
        Out thro’ thy cell.

    But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane[2]
    In proving foresight may be bain: 
    The best laid schemes o’ mice and men
        Gang aft a-gley,
    And lea’e us nought but grief and vain,
        For promised joy.

BURNS.

    [2] Not alone.

* * * * *

A SEA-SHELL.

    See what a lovely shell,
      Small and pure as a pearl,
    Lying close to my foot. 
      Frail, but a work divine,
    Made so fairily well
      With delicate spire and whorl. 
    How exquisitely minute
      A miracle of design!

    The tiny cell is forlorn,
      Void of the little living will
    That made it stir on the shore. 
      Did he stand at the diamond door
    Of his house in a rainbow frill? 
      Did he push when he was uncurled,
    A golden foot or a fairy horn
      Through his dim water-world?

    Slight, to be crushed with a tap
      Of my finger-nail on the sand;
    Small, but a work divine: 
      Frail, but of force to withstand,
    Year upon year, the shock
      Of cataract seas that snap
    The three-decker’s oaken spine,
      Athwart the ledges of rock,
    Here on the Breton strand.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

* * * * *

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

    This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
      Sails the unshadowed main,—­
      The venturous bark that flings
    On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
    In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
      And coral reefs lie bare,
    Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

    Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
      Wrecked is the ship of pearl! 
      And every chambered cell,
    Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
    As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
      Before thee lies revealed,—­
    Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!