HUSH!

Every thought is public, Every nook is wide; Thy gossips spread each whisper, And the gods from side to side.

ORATOR.

He who has no hands Perforce must use his tongue; Foxes are so cunning Because they are not strong.

ARTIST.

Quit the hut, frequent the palace, Reck not what the people say; For still, where’er the trees grow biggest, Huntsmen find the easiest way.

POET.

Ever the Poet from the land Steers his bark, and trims his sail; Right out to sea his courses stand, New worlds to find in pinnace frail.

POET.

To clothe the fiery thought In simple words succeeds, For still the craft of genius is To mask a king in weeds.

BOTANIST.

Go thou to thy learned task, I stay with the flowers of spring: Do thou of the ages ask What me the flowers will bring.

GARDENER.

True Bramin, in the morning meadows wet, Expound the Vedas of the violet, Or, hid in vines, peeping through many a loop, See the plum redden, and the beurré stoop.

FORESTER.

He took the colour of his vest From rabbit’s coat or grouse’s breast; For, as the wood-kinds lurk and hide, So walks the woodman, unespied.

NORTHMAN.

The gale that wrecked you on the sand, It helped my rowers to row; The storm is my best galley hand, And drives me where I go.

FROM ALCUIN.

The sea is the road of the bold, Frontier of the wheat-sown plains, The pit wherein the streams are rolled, And fountain of the rains.

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