This is the purest exercise of health, The kind refresher of the summer-heats; Nor, when cold winter keens the brightening flood,
Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink. Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserved, By the bold swimmer, in the swift elapse Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs Knit into force; and the same Roman arm, That rose victorious o'er the conquered earth, First learned, while tender, to subdue the wave. Even from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid.
Roguish archers, I'll be bound, Little heeding whom they wound; See them, with capricious pranks, Ploughing now the drifted banks; Jingle, jingle, mid the glee
Who among them cares for me? Jingle, jingle, on they go, Capes and bonnets white with snow, Not a single robe they fold To protect them from the cold; Jingle, jingle, mid the storm, Fun and frolic keep them warm ; Jingle, jingle, down the hills, O'er the meadows, past the mills, Now 't is slow, and now 't is fast; Winter will not always last. Jingle, jingle, clear the way! 'Tis the merry, merry sleigh.
Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush, | Hunting is the noblest exercise, In hope her to attain by hook or crook.
Faërie Queene, Book iii. Cant. i.
The intent and not the deed
Makes men laborious, active, wise,
Brings health, and doth the spirits delight, It helps the hearing and the sight; It teacheth arts that never slip
Is in our power; and therefore who dares greatly The memory, good horsemanship,
Does greatly.
Barbarossa.
Stand, Bayard, stand!" The steed obeyed, With arching neck and bended head, And glancing eye, and quivering ear, As if he loved his lord to hear. No foot Fitz-James in stirrup staid, No grasp upon the saddle laid,
But wreathed his left hand in the mane, And lightly bounded from the plain, Turned on the horse his armèd heel, And stirred his courage with the steel. Bounded the fiery steed in air, The rider sate erect and fair,
Then, like a bolt from steel cross-bow Forth launched, along the plain they go.
The Lady of the Lake, Cant. v.
After many strains and heaves,
He got up to the saddle eaves, From whence he vaulted into th' seat With so much vigor, strength, and heat, That he had almost tumbled over With his own weight, but did recover, By laying hold of tail and mane, Which oft he used instead of rein.
We shall walk wo more through the sorten plain. With the faved bents c'erspread,
Which the dash brace drivers d'erhead;
We shall park, no more in this bound & the rain
where thy last farewell was said
Bar- ferhops I shall was third know there
When the sea graves of her dead
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