Produced by James Tenison





THE GOLDEN TREASURY

Of the best Songs and Lyrical Pieces
In the English Language


Selected by Francis Turner Palgrave


Illustrated by  A. Pearse


London and Glasgow
Collins' Clear-Type Press




DEDICATION

To

ALFRED TENNYSON

POET LAUREATE.


This book in its progress has recalled often to my memory a man with
whose friendship we were once honoured, to whom no region of English
literature was unfamiliar, and who, whilst rich in all the noble gifts
of nature, was most eminently distinguished by the noblest and the
rarest,--just judgment and high-hearted patriotism. It would have been
hence a peculiar pleasure and pride to dedicate what I have endeavoured
to make a true national Anthology of three centuries to Henry Hallam.
But he is beyond the reach of any human tokens of love and reverence;
and I desire therefore to place before it a name united with his by
associations which, whilst Poetry retains her hold on the minds of
Englishmen, are not likely to be forgotten.

Your encouragement, given while traversing the wild scenery of Treryn
Dinas, led me to begin the work; and it has been completed under your
advice and assistance. For the favour now asked I have thus a second
reason: and to this I may add, the homage which is your right as Poet,
and the gratitude due to a Friend, whose regard I rate at no common
value.

Permit me then to inscribe to yourself a book which, I hope, may be
found by many a lifelong fountain of innocent and exalted pleasure; a
source of animation to friends when they meet; and able to sweeten
solitude itself with best society,--with the companionship of the wise
and the good, with the beauty which the eye cannot see, and the music
only heard in silence. If this Collection proves a store-house of
delight to Labour and to Poverty,--if it teaches those indifferent to
the Poets to love them, and those who love them to love them more, the
aim and the desire entertained in framing it will be fully accomplished.

F.T.P.
May, 1861.



PREFACE.

This little Collection differs, it is believed, from others in the
attempt made to include in it all the best original Lyrical pieces and
Songs in our language, by writers not living,--and none beside the best.
Many familiar verses will hence be met with; many also which should be
familiar:--the Editor will regard as his fittest readers those who love
Poetry so well, that he can offer them nothing not already known and
valued. For those who take up the book in a serious and scholarly
spirit, the following remarks on the plan and the execution are added.

The Editor is acquainted with no strict and exhaustive definition of
Lyrical Poetry; but he has found the task of practical decision increase
in clearness and in facility as he advanced with the work, whilst
keeping in view a few simple principles. Lyrical has been here held
essentially to imply that each Poem shall turn on some single thought,
feeling, or situation. In accordance with this, narrative, descriptive,
and didactic poems,--unless accompanied by rapidity of movement,
brevity, and the colouring of human passion,--have been excluded.
Humorous poetry, except in the very unfrequent instances where a truly
poetical tone pervades the whole, with what is strictly personal,
occasional, and religious, has been considered foreign to the idea of
the book. Blank verse and the ten-syllable couplet, with all pieces
markedly dramatic, have been rejected as alien from what is commonly
understood by Song, and rarely conforming to Lyrical conditions in
treatment. But it is not anticipated, nor is it possible, that all
readers shall think the line accurately drawn. Some poems, as Gray's
_Elegy_, the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_, Wordsworth's _Ruth_ or
Campbell's _Lord Ullin_, might be claimed with perhaps equal justice for
a narrative or descriptive selection: whilst with reference especially
to Ballads and Sonnets, the Editor can only state that he has taken his
utmost pains to decide without caprice or partiality.

This also is all he can plead in regard to a point even more liable to
question;--what degree of merit should give rank among the Best. That a
Poem shall be worthy of the writer's genius,--that it shall reach a
perfection commensurate with its aim,--that we should require finish in
proportion to brevity,--that passion, colour, and originality cannot
atone for serious imperfections in clearness, unity, or truth,--that a
few good lines do not make a good poem,--that popular estimate is
serviceable as a guidepost more than as a compass,--above all, that
Excellence should be looked for rather in the Whole than in the
Parts,--such and other such canons have been always steadily regarded.
He may however add that the pieces chosen, and a far larger number
rejected, have been carefully and repeatedly considered; and that he has
been aided throughout by two friends of independent and exercised
judgment, besides the distinguished person addressed in the Dedication.
It is hoped that by this procedure the volume has been freed from that
one-sidedness which must beset individual decisions:--but for the final
choice the Editor is alone responsible.

Chalmers' vast collection, with the whole works of all accessible poets
not contained in it, and the best Anthologies of different periods, have
been twice systematically read through: and it is hence improbable that
any omissions which may be regretted are due to oversight. The poems are
printed entire, except in a very few instances (specified in the notes)
where a stanza has been omitted. The omissions have been risked only
when the piece could be thus brought to a closer lyrical unity: and, as
essentially opposed to this unity, extracts, obviously such, are
excluded. In regard to the text, the purpose of the book has appeared to
justify the choice of the most poetical version, wherever more than one
exists: and much labour has been given to present each poem, in
disposition, spelling, and punctuation, to the greatest advantage.

In the arrangement, the most poetically effective order has been
attempted. The English mind has passed through phases of thought and
cultivation so various and so opposed during these three centuries of
Poetry, that a rapid passage between Old and New, like rapid alteration
of the eye's focus in looking at the landscape, will always be wearisome
and hurtful to the sense of Beauty. The poems have been therefore
distributed into Books corresponding, I. to the ninety years closing
about 1616, II. thence to 1700, III. to 1800, IV. to the half century
just ended. Or, looking at the Poets who more or less give each portion
its distinctive character, they might be called the Books of
Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Wordsworth. The volume, in this respect,
so far as the limitations of its range allow, accurately reflects the
natural growth and evolution of our Poetry. A rigidly chronological
sequence, however, rather fits a collection aiming at instruction than
at pleasure, and the Wisdom which comes through Pleasure:--within each
book the pieces have therefore been arranged in gradations of feeling or
subject. The development of the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven has
been here thought of as a model, and nothing placed without careful
consideration. And it is hoped that the contents of this Anthology will
thus be found to present a certain unity, "as episodes," in the noble
language of Shelley, "to that great Poem which all poets, like the
co-operating thoughts of one great mind, have built up since the
beginning of the world."

As he closes his long survey, the Editor trusts he may add without
egotism, that he has found the vague general verdict of popular Fame
more just than those have thought, who, with too severe a criticism,
would confine judgments on Poetry to "the selected few of many
generations." Not many appear to have gained reputation without some
gift or performance that, in due degree, deserved it: and if no verses
by certain writers who show less strength than sweetness, or more
thought than mastery in expression, are printed in this volume, it
should not be imagined that they have been excluded without much
hesitation and regret,--far less that they have been slighted.
Throughout this vast and pathetic array of Singers now silent, few have
been honoured with the name Poet, and have not possessed a skill in
words, a sympathy with beauty, a tenderness of feeling, or seriousness
in reflection, which render their works, although never perhaps
attaining that loftier and finer excellence here required,--better worth
reading than much of what fills the scanty hours that most men spare for
self-improvement, or for pleasure in any of its more elevated and
permanent forms.

And if this be true of even mediocre poetry, for how much more are we
indebted to the best! Like the fabled fountain of the Azores, but with a
more various power, the magic of this Art can confer on each period of
life its appropriate blessing: on early years Experience, on maturity
Calm, on age Youthfulness. Poetry gives treasures "more golden than
gold," leading us in higher and healthier ways than those of the world,
and interpreting to us the lessons of Nature. But she speaks best for
herself. Her true accents, if the plan has been executed with success,
may be heard throughout the following pages:-wherever the Poets of
England are honoured, wherever the dominant language of the world is
spoken, it is hoped that they will find fit audience.

F. T. PALGRAVE.




THE GOLDEN TREASURY.




FIRST BOOK.

SUMMARY.


The Elizabethan Poetry, as it is rather vaguely termed, forms the
substance of this Book, which contains pieces from Wyat under Henry
VIII. to Shakespeare midway through the reign of James I., and Drummond
who carried on the early manner to a still later period. There is here a
wide range of style;--from simplicity expressed in a language hardly yet
broken in to verse,--through the pastoral fancies and Italian conceits
of the strictly Elizabethan time,--to the passionate reality of
Shakespeare: yet a general uniformity of tone prevails. Few readers can
fail to observe the natural sweetness of the verse, the single-hearted
straightforwardness of the thoughts:--nor less, the limitation of
subject to the many phases of one passion, which then characterised our
lyrical poetry,--unless when, as with Drummond and Shakespeare, the
"purple light of Love" is tempered by a spirit of sterner reflection.

It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the
main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction
to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has
not been aimed at. Great Excellence, in human art as in human character,
has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than Mediocrity,
by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature:--and so far as the
standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a
comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a
similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout:--something
neither modern nor ancient but true in all ages, and like the works of
Creation perfect as on the first day.




     1. SPRING.

     Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;
     Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
     Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
     Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

     The palm and may make country houses gay,
     Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
     And we hear aye birds tune their merry lay,
       Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

     The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
     Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
     In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
       Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
          Spring, the sweet Spring!

     T. NASH.




     2. SUMMONS TO LOVE.

     Phoebus, arise!
     And paint the sable skies
     With azure, white, and red:
     Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
     That she may thy career with roses spread:
     The nightingales thy coming eachwhere sing:
     Make an eternal spring!
     Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
     Spread forth thy golden hair
     In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
     And emperor-like decore
     With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
     Chase hence the ugly night
     Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

     --This is that happy morn,
     That day, long wishéd day
     Of all my life so dark,
     (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
     And fates not hope betray),
     Which, purely white, deserves
     An everlasting diamond should it mark.
     This is the morn should bring unto this grove
     My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
     Fair King, who all preserves,
     But show thy blushing beams,
     And thou two sweeter eyes
     Shalt see than those which by Penéus' streams
     Did once thy heart surprize.
     Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
     If that ye winds would hear
     A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
     Your furious chiding stay;
     Let Zephyr only breathe
     And with her tresses play.
     --The winds all silent are,
     And Phoebus in his chair
     Ensaffroning sea and air
     Makes vanish every star:
     Night like a drunkard reels
     Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels:
     The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,
     The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue;
     Here is the pleasant place--
     And nothing wanting is, save She, alas.

     WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.




     3. TIME AND LOVE.

     When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
     The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age;
     When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
     And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.

     When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
     Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
     And the firm soil win of the watery main,
     Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.

     When I have seen such interchange of state,
     Or state itself confounded to decay,
     Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--
     That Time will come and take my Love away.

     --This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
     But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     4.

     Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
     But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
     How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
     Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

     O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
     Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
     When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
     Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?

     O fearful meditation, where, alack!
     Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
     Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
     Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

     O! none, unless this miracle have might,
     That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     5. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

     Come live with me and be my Love,
     And we will all the pleasures prove
     That hills and valleys, dale and field,
     And all the craggy mountains yield.

     There will we sit upon the rocks
     And see the shepherds feed their flocks
     By shallow rivers, to whose falls
     Melodious birds sing madrigals.

     There will I make thee beds of roses
     And a thousand fragrant posies,
     A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
     Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

     A gown made of the finest wool,
     Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
     Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
     With buckles of the purest gold.

     A belt of straw and ivy-buds
     With coral clasps and amber studs:
     And if these pleasures may thee move,
     Come live with me and be my Love.

     Thy silver dishes for thy meat
     As precious as the gods do eat,
     Shall on an ivory table be
     Prepared each day for thee and me.

     The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
     For thy delight each May-morning:
     If these delights thy mind may move,
     Then live with me and be my Love.

     C. MARLOWE.




     6. A MADRIGAL.

       Crabbed Age and Youth
       Cannot live together:
       Youth is full of pleasance,
       Age is full of care;
       Youth like summer morn,
       Age like winter weather;
       Youth like summer brave,
       Age like winter bare:
       Youth is full of sport,
       Age's breath is short,
       Youth is nimble, Age is lame:
       Youth is hot and bold,
       Age is weak and cold;
       Youth is wild, and Age is tame:--
       Age, I do abhor thee,
       Youth, I do adore thee;
       O! my Love, my Love is young!
       Age, I do defy thee--
       O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
       For methinks thou stay'st too long.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     7.

       Under the greenwood tree
       Who loves to lie with me,
       And tune his merry note
       Unto the sweet bird's throat--
     Come hither, come hither, come hither!
          Here shall we see
          No enemy
     But winter and rough weather.

       Who doth ambition shun
       And loves to live i' the sun,
       Seeking the food he eats
       And pleased with what he gets--
     Come hither, come hither, come hither!
          Here shall he see
          No enemy
     But winter and rough weather.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     8.

     It was a lover and his lass
       With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino!
     That o'er the green cornfield did pass,
     In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
     When birds do sing hey ding a ding:
       Sweet lovers love the Spring.
     Between the acres of the rye
     These pretty country folks would lie:
     This carol they began that hour,
     How that life was but a flower:
     And therefore take the present time
       With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino!
     For love is crownéd with the prime
     In spring time, the only pretty ring time,
     When birds do sing, hey ding a ding;
       Sweet lovers love the Spring.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     9. PRESENT IN ABSENCE.

     Absence, hear thou my protestation
          Against thy strength,
          Distance, and length:
     Do what thou canst for alteration:
       For hearts of truest mettle
     Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.

     Who loves a mistress of such quality,
          He soon hath found
          Affection's ground
     Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
       To hearts that cannot vary
     Absence is Presence, Time doth tarry.

     By absence this good means I gain,
          That I can catch her,
          Where none can watch her,
     In some close corner of my brain:
       There I embrace and kiss her,
     And so I both enjoy and miss her.

     ANON.




     10. ABSENCE.

     Being your slave what should I do but tend
     Upon the hours and times of your desire?
     I have no precious time at all to spend,
     Nor services to do, till you require:

     Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
     Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
     Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
     When you have bid your servant once adieu:

     Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
     Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
     But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
     Save where you are, how happy you make those;--

     So true a fool is love, that in your will,
     Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     11.

     How like a winter hath my absence been
     From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
     What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
     What old December's bareness everywhere!

     And yet this time removed was summer's time:
     The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
     Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
     Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:

     Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
     But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;
     For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
     And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

     Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
     That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     12. A CONSOLATION.

     When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes
     I all alone beweep my outcast state,
     And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
     And look upon myself, and curse my fate;

     Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
     Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
     Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
     With what I most enjoy contented least;

     Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
     Haply I think on Thee--and then my state,
     Like to the lark at break of day arising
     From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

     For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings
     That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     13. THE UNCHANGEABLE.

     O never say that I was false of heart,
     Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify:
     As easy might I from my self depart
     As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie;

     That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
     Like him that travels, I return again,
     Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
     So that myself bring water for my stain.

     Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
     All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
     That it could so preposterously be stain'd
     To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:

     For nothing this wide universe I call,
     Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     14.

     To me, fair Friend, you never can be old,
     For as you were when first your eye I eyed
     Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
     Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;

     Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,
     In process of the seasons have I seen,
     Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
     Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.

     Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
     Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
     So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
     Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:

     For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,--
     Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     15. DIAPHENIA.

        Diaphenia like the daffadowndilly,
        White as the sun, fair as the lily,
      Heigh ho, how do I love thee!
        I do love thee as my lambs
        Are belovéd of their dams;
     How blest were I if thou would'st prove me.

        Diaphenia like the spreading roses,
        That in thy sweets all sweets encloses,
      Fair sweet, how do I love thee!
        I do love thee as each flower
        Loves the sun's life-giving power;
     For dead, thy breath to life might move me.

        Diaphenia like to all things blesséd
        When all thy praises are expresséd,
      Dear joy, how do I love thee!
        As the birds do love the spring,
        Or the bees their careful king:
     Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me!

     H. CONSTABLE.




     16. ROSALINE.

     Like to the clear in highest sphere
     Where all imperial glory shines,
     Of selfsame colour is her hair
     Whether unfolded, or in twines:
      Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
     Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
     Resembling heaven by every wink;
     The Gods do fear whenas they glow,
     And I do tremble when I think
      Heigh ho, would she were mine!

     Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
     That beautifies Aurora's face,
     Or like the silver crimson shroud
     That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace;
      Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
     Her lips are like two budded roses
     Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh,
     Within which bounds she balm encloses
     Apt to entice a deity:
      Heigh ho, would she were mine!

     Her neck like to a stately tower
     Where Love himself imprison'd lies,
     To watch for glances every hour
     From her divine and sacred eyes:
      Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
     Her paps are centres of delight,
     Her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame,
     Where Nature moulds the dew of light
     To feed perfection with the same:
      Heigh ho, would she were mine!

     With orient pearl, with ruby red,
     With marble white, with sapphire blue,
     Her body every way is fed,
     Yet soft in touch and sweet in view:
      Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
     Nature herself her shape admires;
     The Gods are wounded in her sight;
     And Love forsakes his heavenly fires
     And at her eyes his brand doth light:
      Heigh ho, would she were mine!

     Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan
     The absence of fair Rosaline,
     Since for a fair there's fairer none,
     Nor for her virtues so divine:
      Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
     Heigh ho, my heart! would God that she were mine!

     T. LODGE.




     17. COLIN.

     Beauty sat bathing by a spring
      Where fairest shades did hide her;
     The winds blew calm, the birds did sing,
      The cool streams ran beside her.

     My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye
      To see what was forbidden:
     But better memory said, fie!
      So vain desire was chidden:--
          Hey nonny nonny O!
          Hey nonny nonny!

     Into a slumber then I fell,
     When fond imagination
     Seeméd to see, but could not tell
     Her feature or her fashion.
     But ev'n as babes in dreams do smile,
     And sometimes fall a-weeping,
     So I awaked as wise this while
     As when I fell a-sleeping:--
          Hey nonny nonny O!
          Hey nonny nonny!

     THE SHEPHERD TONIE.




     18. TO HIS LOVE.

     Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
     Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
     Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
     And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

     Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
     And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
     And every fair from fair sometime declines,
     By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd.

     But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
     Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
     Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
     When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     19. TO HIS LOVE.

     When in the chronicle of wasted time
     I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
     And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
     In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;

     Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best
     Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
     I see their antique pen would have exprest
     Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.

     So all their praises are but prophecies
     Of this our time, all, you prefiguring;
     And for they look'd but with divining eyes,
     They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

     For we, which now behold these present days,
     Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     20. LOVE'S PERJURIES.

     On a day, alack the day!
     Love, whose month is ever May,
     Spied a blossom passing fair
     Playing in the wanton air:
     Through the velvet leaves the wind
     All unseen 'gan passage find;
     That the lover, sick to death,
     Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
     Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
     Air, would I might triumph so!
     But, alack, my hand is sworn
     Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
     Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
     Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
     Do not call it sin in me
     That I am forsworn for thee:
     Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear
     Juno but an Ethiope were,
     And deny himself for Jove,
     Turning mortal for thy love.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     21. A SUPPLICATION.

     Forget not yet the tried intent
     Of such a truth as I have meant;
     My great travail so gladly spent,
                       Forget not yet!

     Forget not yet when first began
     The weary life ye know, since whan
     The suit, the service, none tell can;
                       Forget not yet!

     Forget not yet the great assays,
     The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
     The painful patience in delays,
                       Forget not yet!

     Forget not! O, forget not this,
     How long ago hath been, and is
     The mind that never meant amiss--
                       Forget not yet!

     Forget not then thine own approved
     The which so long hath thee so loved,
     Whose steadfast faith yet never moved--
                       Forget not this!

     SIR T. WYAT.




     22. TO AURORA.

     O if thou knew'st how thou thyself does harm,
     And dost prejudge thy bliss, and spoil thy rest;
     Then thou would'st melt the ice out of thy breast
     And thy relenting heart would kindly warm.

     O if thy pride did not our joys controul,
     What world of loving wonders should'st thou see!
     For if I saw thee once transform'd in me,
     Then in thy bosom I would pour my soul;

     Then all my thoughts should in thy visage shine,
     And if that aught mischanced thou should'st not moan
     Nor bear the burthen of thy griefs alone;
     No, I would have my share in what were thine:

     And whilst we thus should make our sorrows one,
     This happy harmony would make them none.

     W. ALEXANDER, EARL OF STERLINE.




     23. TRUE LOVE.

     Let me not to the marriage of true minds
     Admit impediments. Love is not love
     Which alters when it alteration finds,
     Or bends with the remover to remove:--

     O no! it is an ever-fixéd mark
     That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
     It is the star to every wandering bark
     Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

     Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
     Within his bending sickle's compass come;
     Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
     But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom:--

     If this be error and upon me proved,
     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     24. A DITTY.

     My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
     By just exchange one to the other given:
     I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
     There never was a better bargain driven:
      My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

     His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
     My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
     He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
     I cherish his because in me it bides:
      My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

     SIR P. SIDNEY.




     25. LOVE'S OMNIPRESENCE.

     Were I as base as is the lowly plain,
     And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
     Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain
     Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love.

     Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
     And you, my Love, as humble and as low
     As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
     Whereso'er you were, with you my love should go.

     Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
     My love should shine on you like to the sun,
     And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
     Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done.

     Whereso'er I am, below, or else above you,
     Whereso'er you are, my heart shall truly love you.

     J. SYLVESTER.




     26. CARPE DIEM.

     O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
     O, stay and hear! your true-love's coming
        That can sing both high and low;
     Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
     Journeys end in lovers' meeting--
        Every wise man's son doth know.

     What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
     Present mirth hath present laughter;
        What's to come is still unsure:
     In delay there lies no plenty,--
     Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
        Youth's a stuff will not endure.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     27. WINTER.

     When icicles hang by the wall
      And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
     And Tom bears logs into the hall,
      And milk comes frozen home in pail;
     When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
     Then nightly sings the staring owl
                 Tuwhoo!
     Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note!
     While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

     When all around the wind doth blow,
      And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
     And birds sit brooding in the snow,
      And Marian's nose looks red and raw:
     When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl--
     Then nightly sings the staring owl
                 Tuwhoo!
     Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note!
     While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     28.

     That time of year thou may'st in me behold
     When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
     Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
     Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

     In me thou seest the twilight of such day
     As after sunset fadeth in the west,
     Which by and by black night doth take away,
     Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

     In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
     That on the ashes of his youth doth lie
     As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
     Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

     --This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
     To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     29. REMEMBRANCE.

     When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
     I summon up remembrance of things past,
     I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
     And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste

     Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
     For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
     And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
     And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.

     Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
     And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
     The sad account of fore-bemoanéd moan,
     Which I new pay as if not paid before:

     --But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
     All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     30. REVOLUTIONS.

     Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
     So do our minutes hasten to their end;
     Each changing place with that which goes before,
     In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

     Nativity once in the main of light
     Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
     Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
     And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.

     Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
     And delves the parallels in beauty's brow;
     Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
     And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

     And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand
     Praising Thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     31.

     Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
     And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
     The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing,
     My bonds in thee are all determinate.

     For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
     And for that riches where is my deserving?
     The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
     And so my patent back again is swerving.

     Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
     Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
     So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
     Comes home again, on better judgement making.

     Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter;
     In sleep, a king; but waking, no such matter.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     32. THE LIFE WITHOUT PASSION.

     They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
     That do not do the thing they most do show,
     Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
     Unmovéd, cold, and to temptation slow,--

     They rightly do inherit Heaven's graces,
     And husband nature's riches from expense;
     They are the lords and owners of their faces,
     Others, but stewards of their excellence.

     The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
     Though to itself it only live and die;
     But if that flower with base infection meet,
     The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

     For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
     Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     33. THE LOVER'S APPEAL.

       And wilt thou leave me thus?
       Say nay! say nay! for shame,
       To save thee from the blame
       Of all my grief and grame.
       And wilt thou leave me thus?
       Say nay! say nay!

       And wilt thou leave me thus,
       That hath loved thee so long
       In wealth and woe among:
       And is thy heart so strong
       As for to leave me thus?
       Say nay! say nay!

       And wilt thou leave me thus,
       That hath given thee my heart
       Never for to depart
       Neither for pain nor smart:
       And wilt thou leave me thus?
       Say nay! say nay!

       And wilt thou leave me thus,
       And have no more pity
       Of him that loveth thee?
       Alas! thy cruelty!
       And wilt thou leave me thus?
       Say nay! say nay!

     SIR T. WYAT.




     34. THE NIGHTINGALE.

     As it fell upon a day
     In the merry month of May,
     Sitting in a pleasant shade
     Which a grove of myrtles made,
     Beasts did leap and birds did sing,
     Trees did grow and plants did spring,
     Every thing did banish moan
     Save the Nightingale alone.
     She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
     Lean'd her breast against a thorn,
     And there sung the dolefullest ditty,
     That to hear it was great pity.
     Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry;
     Tereu, tereu, by and by:
     That to hear her so complain
     Scarce I could from tears refrain;
     For her griefs so lively shown
     Made me think upon mine own.
     --Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain,
     None takes pity on thy pain:
     Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee,
     Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee;
     King Pandion, he is dead,
     All thy friends are lapp'd in lead:
     All thy fellow birds do sing
     Careless of thy sorrowing:
     Even so, poor bird, like thee,
     None alive will pity me.

     R. BARNEFIELD.




     35.

     Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
     Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
     Relieve my anguish, and restore the light;
     With dark forgetting of my care return.

     And let the day be time enough to mourn
     The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth:
     Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
     Without the torment of the night's untruth.

     Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
     To model forth the passions of the morrow;
     Never let rising Sun approve you liars
     To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow:

     Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
     And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

     S. DANIEL.




     36. MADRIGAL.

        Take O take those lips away
        That so sweetly were forsworn,
        And those eyes, the break of day,
        Lights that do mislead the morn:
        But my kisses bring again,
                  Bring again--
        Seals of love, but seal'd in vain,
                  Seal'd in vain!

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     37. LOVE'S FAREWELL.

     Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,--
     Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
     And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
     That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

     Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
     And when we meet at any time again,
     Be it not seen in either of our brows
     That we one jot of former love retain.

     Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
     When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
     When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
     And innocence is closing up his eyes,

     --Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
     From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

     M. DRAYTON.




     38. TO HIS LUTE.

     My lute, be as thou wert when thou did'st grow
     With thy green mother in some shady grove,
     When immelodious winds but made thee move,
     And birds their ramage did on thee bestow.

     Since that dear Voice which did thy sounds approve,
     Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow,
     Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres above,
     What art thou but a harbinger of woe?

     Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
     But orphan's wailings to the fainting ear;
     Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
     For which be silent as in woods before:

     Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
     Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain.

     W. DRUMMOND.




     39. BLIND LOVE.

     O me! what eyes hath love put in my head
     Which have no correspondence with true sight:
     Or if they have, where is my judgment fled
     That censures falsely what they see aright?

     If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
     What means the world to say it is not so?
     If it be not, then love doth well denote,
     Love's eye is not so true as all men's: No,

     How can it? O how can love's eye be true,
     That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
     No marvel then though I mistake my view:
     The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

     O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
     Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find!

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     40. THE UNFAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.

     While that the sun with his beams hot
     Scorchéd the fruits in vale and mountain,
     Philon the shepherd, late forgot,
     Sitting beside a crystal fountain,
       In shadow of a green oak tree
       Upon his pipe this song play'd he:
     Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love,
     Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love;
     Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

     So long as I was in your sight
     I was your heart, your soul, and treasure;
     And evermore you sobb'd and sigh'd
     Burning in flames beyond all measure:
       --Three days endured your love to me,
       And it was lost in other three!
     Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love,
     Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love;
     Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

     Another Shepherd you did see
     To whom your heart was soon enchainéd;
     Full soon your love was leapt from me,
     Full soon my place he had obtainéd.
       Soon came a third, your love to win,
       And we were out and he was in.
     Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love,
     Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love;
     Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

     Sure you have made me passing glad
     That you your mind so soon removéd,
     Before that I the leisure had
     To choose you for my best belovéd:
       For all your love was past and done
       Two days before it was begun:--
     Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love,
     Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love;
     Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

     ANON.




     41. A RENUNCIATION.

     If women could be fair, and yet not fond,
     Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
     I would not marvel that they make men bond
     By service long to purchase their good will;
     But when I see how frail those creatures are,
     I muse that men forget themselves so far.

     To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
     How oft from Phoebus they do flee to Pan;
     Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range,
     These gentle birds that fly from man to man;
     Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist,
     And let them fly, fair fools, which way they list?

     Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both,
     To pass the time when nothing else can please,
     And train them to our lure with subtle oath,
     Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease;
     And then we say when we their fancy try,
     To play with fools, O what a fool was I!

     E. VERE, EARL OF OXFORD.




     42.

          Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
          Thou art not so unkind
          As man's ingratitude;
          Thy tooth is not so keen,
          Because thou art not seen,
          Although thy breath be rude.
     Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
     Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
          Then, heigh ho! the holly!
          This life is most jolly.

          Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
          That dost not bite so nigh
          As benefits forgot:
          Though thou the waters warp,
          Thy sting is not so sharp
          As friend remember'd not.
     Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
     Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
          Then heigh ho, the holly!
          This life is most jolly.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     43. MADRIGAL.

          My thoughts hold mortal strife;
          I do detest my life,
          And with lamenting cries
          Peace to my soul to bring
     Oft call that prince which here doth monarchise:
     --But he, grim grinning King,
     Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,
     Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb,
     Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.

     W. DRUMMOND.




     44. DIRGE OF LOVE.

       Come away, come away, Death,
     And in sad cypres let me be laid;
       Fly away, fly away, breath;
     I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
     My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
          O prepare it!
     My part of death no one so true
          Did share it.

       Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
     On my black coffin let there be strown;
       Not a friend, not a friend greet
     My poor corpse, where my bones shall thrown:
     A thousand thousand sighs to save,
          Lay me, O where
     Sad true lover never find my grave,
          To weep there.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     45. FIDELE.

     Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
        Nor the furious winter's rages:
     Thou thy worldly task hast done,
        Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
     Golden lads and girls all must,
     As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

     Fear no more the frown o' the great,
        Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
     Care no more to clothe and eat;
        To thee the reed is as the oak:
     The sceptre, learning, physic, must
     All follow this, and come to dust.

     Fear no more the lightning flash
        Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
     Fear not slander, censure rash;
        Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
     All lovers young, all lovers must
     Consign to thee, and come to dust.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     46. A SEA DIRGE.

     Full fathom five thy father lies:
        Of his bones are coral made;
     Those are pearls that were his eyes:
        Nothing of him that doth fade,
     But doth suffer a sea-change
     Into something rich and strange;
     Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
     Hark! now I hear them,--
        Ding, dong, Bell.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     47. A LAND DIRGE.

     Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
     Since o'er shady groves they hover
     And with leaves and flowers do cover
     The friendless bodies of unburied men.
     Call unto his funeral dole
     The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole
     To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm
     And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm;
     But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
     For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

     J. WEBSTER.




     48. POST MORTEM.

     If Thou survive my well-contented day
     When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
     And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
     These poor rude lines of thy deceaséd lover:

     Compare them with the bettering of the time,
     And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
     Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme
     Exceeded by the height of happier men.

     O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought--
     "Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,
     A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
     To march in ranks of better equipage:

     But since he died, and poets better prove,
     Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     49. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH.

     No longer mourn for me when I am dead
     Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
     Give warning to the world, that I am fled
     From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;

     Nay, if you read this line, remember not
     The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
     That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
     If thinking on me then should make you woe.

     O if, I say, you look upon this verse
     When I perhaps compounded am with clay
     Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
     But let your love even with my life decay;

     Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
     And mock you with me after I am gone.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     50. MADRIGAL.

     Tell me where is Fancy bred,
     Or in the heart or in the head?
     How begot, how nourishéd?
          Reply, reply.
     It is engender'd in the eyes,
     With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
     In the cradle where it lies:
     Let us all ring fancy's knell;
     I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.
               --Ding, dong, bell.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     51. CUPID AND CAMPASPE.

     Cupid and my Campaspe play'd
     At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:
     He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
     His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
     Loses them too; then down he throws
     The coral of his lip, the rose
     Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);
     With these, the crystal of his brow,
     And then the dimple on his chin;
     All these did my Campaspe win:
     At last he set her both his eyes--
     She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
        O Love! has she done this to thee?
        What shall, alas! become of me?

     J. LYLYE.




     52.

     Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day,
      With night we banish sorrow;
     Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft
      To give my Love good-morrow!
     Wings from the wind to please her mind,
      Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
     Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale sing,
      To give my Love good-morrow;
        To give my Love good-morrow
        Notes from them both I'll borrow.

     Wake from thy nest, Robin-redbreast!
      Sing, birds, in every furrow;
     And from each hill, let music shrill
      Give my fair Love good-morrow!
     Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
      Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
     You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
      Sing my fair Love good-morrow;
        To give my Love good-morrow
        Sing birds, in every furrow!

     T. HEYWOOD.




     53. PROTHALAMION.

     Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
     Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play--
     A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
     Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair;
     When I, (whom sullen care,
     Through discontent of my long fruitless stay
     In princes' court, and expectation vain
     Of idle hopes, which still do fly away
     Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain)
     Walk'd forth to ease my pain
     Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames;
     Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
     Was painted all with variable flowers,
     And all the meads adorn'd with dainty gems
     Fit to deck maidens' bowers,
     And crown their paramours
     Against the bridal day, which is not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     There in a meadow by the river's side,
     A flock of nymphs I chancéd to espy,
     All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
     With goodly greenish locks all loose untied
     As each had been a bride;
     And each one had a little wicker basket
     Made of fine twigs, entrailéd curiously,
     In which they gather'd flowers to fill their flasket,
     And with fine fingers cropt full feateously
     The tender stalks on high.
     Of every sort which in that meadow grew
     They gather'd some; the violet, pallid blue,
     The little daisy that at evening closes,
     The virgin lily and the primrose true:
     With store of vermeil roses,
     To deck their bridegrooms' posies
     Against the bridal day, which was not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     With that I saw two swans of goodly hue
     Come softly swimming down along the lee;
     Two fairer birds I yet did never see;
     The snow which doth the top of Pindus strow,
     Did never whiter show,
     Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be
     For love of Leda, whiter did appear;
     Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he,
     Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near;
     So purely white they were,
     That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
     Seem'd foul to them, and bade his billows spare
     To wet their silken feathers, lest they might
     Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair,
     And mar their beauties bright
     That shone as Heaven's light
     Against their bridal day, which was not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     Eftsoons the nymphs, which now had flowers their fill,
     Ran all in haste to see that silver brood
     As they came floating on the crystal flood;
     Whom when they saw, they stood amazéd still
     Their wondering eyes to fill;
     Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fair
     Of fowls, so lovely, that they sure did deem
     Them heavenly born, or to be that same pair
     Which through the sky draw Venus' silver team;
     For sure they did not seem
     To be begot of any earthly seed,
     But rather angels, or of angels' breed;
     Yet were they bred of summer's heat, they say,
     In sweetest season, when each flower and weed
     The earth did fresh array;
     So fresh they seem'd as day,
     Even as their bridal day, which was not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     Then forth they all out of their baskets drew
     Great store of flowers, the honour of the field,
     That to the sense did fragrant odours yield,
     All which upon those goodly birds they threw
     And all the waves did strew,
     That like old Peneus' waters they did seem
     When down along by pleasant Tempe's shore
     Scatter'd with flowers, through Thessaly they stream,
     That they appear, through lilies' plenteous store,
     Like a bride's chamber-floor.
     Two of those nymphs meanwhile two garlands bound
     Of freshest flowers which in that mead they found,
     The which presenting all in trim array,
     Their snowy foreheads therewithal they crown'd
     Whilst one did sing this lay
     Prepar'd against that day,
     Against their bridal day, which was not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     "Ye gentle birds! the world's fair ornament,
     And Heaven's glory, whom this happy hour
     Doth lead unto your lovers' blissful bower,
     Joy may you have, and gentle hearts content
     Of your loves complement;
     And let fair Venus, that is queen of love,
     With her heart-quelling son upon you smile,
     Whose smile, they say, hath virtue to remove
     All love's dislike, and friendship's faulty guile
     For ever to assoil.
     Let endless peace your steadfast hearts accord,
     And blesséd plenty wait upon your board;
     And let your bed with pleasures chaste abound,
     That fruitful issue may to you afford
     Which may your foes confound,
     And make your joys redound
     Upon your bridal day, which is not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song."

     So ended she; and all the rest around
     To her redoubled that her undersong,
     Which said their bridal day should not be long:
     And gentle Echo from the neighbour ground
     Their accents did resound.
     So forth those joyous birds did pass along
     Adown the lee that to them murmur'd low,
     As he would speak but that he lack'd a tongue,
     Yet did by signs his glad affection show,
     Making his stream run slow.
     And all the fowl which in his flood did dwell
     'Gan flock about these twain, that did excel
     The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend
     The lesser stars. So they, enrangéd well,
     Did on those two attend,
     And their best service lend
     Against their wedding day, which was not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     At length they all to merry London came,
     To merry London, my most kindly nurse,
     That to me gave this life's first native source,
     Though from another place I take my name,
     An house of ancient fame:
     There when they came whereas those bricky towers
     The which on Thames' broad agéd back do ride,
     Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers,
     There whilome wont the Templar-knights to bide,
     Till they decay'd through pride:
     Next whereunto there stands a stately place,
     Where oft I gainéd gifts and goodly grace
     Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell,
     Whose want too well now feels my friendless case;
     But ah! here fits not well
     Old woes, but joys to tell
     Against the bridal day, which is not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer,
     Great England's glory and the world's wide wonder,
     Whose dreadful name late thro' all Spain did thunder,
     And Hercules' two pillars standing near
     Did make to quake and fear:
     Fair branch of honour, flower of chivalry!
     That fillest England with thy triumphs' fame
     Joy have thou of thy noble victory,
     And endless happiness of thine own name
     That promiseth the same;
     That through thy prowess and victorious arms,
     Thy country may be freed from foreign harms,
     And great Eliza's glorious name may ring
     Through all the world, fill'd with thy wide alarms
     Which some brave Muse may sing
     To ages following,
     Upon the bridal day, which is not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song.

     From those high towers this noble lord issúing,
     Like radiant Hesper, when his golden hair
     In th' ocean billows he hath bathéd fair,
     Descended to the river's open viewing
     With a great train ensuing.
     Above the rest were goodly to be seen
     Two gentle knights of lovely face and feature,
     Beseeming well the bower of any queen,
     With gifts of wit and ornaments of nature,
     Fit for so goodly stature,
     That like the twins of Jove they seem'd in sight
     Which deck the baldric of the Heavens bright;
     They two, forth pacing to the river's side,
     Received those two fair brides, their love's delight;
     Which, at th' appointed tide,
     Each one did make his bride
     Against their bridal day, which is not long:
       Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

     E. SPENSER.




     54. THE HAPPY HEART.

     Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
          O sweet content!
     Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexéd?
          O punishment!
     Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexéd
     To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
     O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
     Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
     Honest labour bears a lovely face;
     Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

     Canst drink the waters of the crispéd spring?
          O sweet content!
     Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
          O punishment!
     Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
     No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
     O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
     Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
     Honest labour bears a lovely face;
     Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

     T. DEKKER.




     55.

     This Life, which seems so fair,
     Is like a bubble blown up in the air
     By sporting children's breath,
     Who chase it everywhere
     And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
     And though it sometimes seem of its own might
     Like to an eye of gold to be fix'd there,
     And firm to hover in that empty height,
     That only is because it is so light.
     --But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
     For when 'tis most admiréd, in a thought,
     Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought.

     W. DRUMMOND.




     56. SOUL AND BODY.

     Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
     Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array,
     Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
     Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

     Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
     Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
     Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
     Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?

     Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
     And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
     Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
     Within be fed, without be rich no more:--

     So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
     And death once dead, there's no more dying then.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     57. LIFE.

     The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man
            Less than a span:
     In his conception wretched, from the womb
            So to the tomb;
     Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
            With cares and fears.
     Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
     But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

     Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest,
            What life is best?
     Courts are but only superficial schools
            To dandle fools:
     The rural parts are turn'd into a den
            Of savage men:
     And where's a city from foul vice so free,
     But may be term'd the worst of all the three?

     Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
            Or pains his head:
     Those that live single, take it for a curse,
            Or do things worse:
     Some would have children: those that have them, moan
            Or wish them gone:
     What is it, then, to have, or have no wife,
     But single thraldom, or a double strife?

     Our own affections still at home to please
            Is a disease:
     To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
            Peril and toil:
     Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
            We are worse in peace;--
     What then remains, but that we still should cry
     For being born, or, being born, to die

     LORD BACON




     58. THE LESSONS OF NATURE.

     Of this fair volume which we World do name
     If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
     Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame,
     We clear might read the art and wisdom rare:

     Find out His power which wildest powers doth tame,
     His providence extending everywhere,
     His justice which proud rebels doth not spare,
     In every page, no period of the same.

     But silly we, like foolish children, rest
     Well pleased with colour'd vellum, leaves of gold,
     Fair dangling ribbands, leaving what is best,
     On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;

     Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught,
     It is some picture on the margin wrought.

     W. DRUMMOND.




     59.

     Doth then the world go thus, doth all thus move?
     Is this the justice which on Earth we find?
     Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?
     Are these your influences, Powers above?

     Those souls which vice's moody mists most blind,
     Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove;
     And they who thee, poor idle Virtue! love,
     Ply like a feather toss'd by storm and wind.

     Ah! if a Providence doth sway this all,
     Why should best minds groan under most distress?
     Or why should pride humility make thrall,
     And injuries the innocent oppress?

     Heavens! hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time
     When good may have, as well as bad, their prime!

     W. DRUMMOND.




     60. THE WORLD'S WAY.

     Tired with all these, for restful death I cry--
     As, to behold desert a beggar born,
     And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
     And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

     And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
     And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
     And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
     And strength by limping sway disabléd

     And art made tongue-tied by authority,
     And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
     And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
     And captive Good attending captain Ill:--

     --Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
     Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone.

     W. SHAKESPEARE.




     61. SAINT JOHN BAPTIST.

     The last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King
     Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
     Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
     Which he more harmless found than man, and mild.

     His food was locusts, and what there doth spring
     With honey that from virgin hives distill'd;
     Parch'd body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing
     Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.

     There burst he forth: All ye whose hopes rely
     On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn,
     Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!
     --Who listen'd to his voice, obey'd his cry?

     Only the echoes, which he made relent,
     Rung from their flinty caves, Repent! Repent!

     W. DRUMMOND.





SECOND BOOK.

SUMMARY.


This division, embracing the latter eighty years of the seventeenth
century, contains the close of our Early poetical style and the
commencement of the Modern. In Dryden we see the first master of the
new: in Milton, whose genius dominates here as Shakespeare's in the
former book,--the crown and consummation of the early period. Their
splendid Odes are far in advance of any prior attempts, Spenser's
excepted: they exhibit the wider and grander range which years and
experience and the struggles of the time conferred on Poetry. Poetry now
gave expression to political feeling, to religious thought, to a high
philosophic statesmanship in writers such as Marvell, Herbert, and
Wotton: whilst in Marvell and Milton, again, we find the first noble
attempts at pure description of nature, destined in our own ages to be
continued and equalled. Meanwhile the poetry of simple passion, although
before 1660 often deformed by verbal fancies and conceits of thought,
and afterward by levity and an artificial tone,--produced in Herrick and
Waller some charming pieces of more finished art than the Elizabethan:
until in the courtly compliments of Sedley it seems to exhaust itself,
and lie almost dormant for the hundred years between the days of Wither
and Suckling and the days of Burns and Cowper.--That the change from our
early style to the modern brought with it at first a loss of nature and
simplicity is undeniable: yet the far bolder and wider scope which
Poetry took between 1620 and 1700, and the successful efforts then made
to gain greater clearness in expression, in their results have been no
slight compensation.





     62. ODE ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

     This is the month, and this the happy morn
     Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King
     Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
     Our great redemption from above did bring;
     For so the holy sages once did sing
     That He our deadly forfeit should release,
     And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

     That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
     And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty
     Wherewith He wont at Heaven's high council-table
     To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
     He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
     Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
     And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

     Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
     Afford a present to the Infant God?
     Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain
     To welcome Him to this His new abode,
     Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
     Hath took no print of the approaching light,
     And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

     See how from far, upon the eastern road,
     The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
     O run, prevent them with thy humble ode
     And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
     Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
     And join thy voice unto the angel quire
     From out His secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

                 THE HYMN.

     It was the Winter wild
     While the heaven-born Child
     All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies
     Nature in awe to Him
     Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
     With her great Master so to sympathise:
     It was no season then for her
     To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

     Only with speeches fair
     She woos the gentle air
     To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
     And on her naked shame,
     Pollute with sinful blame,
     The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
     Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
     Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

     But He, her fears to cease,
     Sent down the meek-eyed Peace,
     She crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
     Down through the turning sphere
     His ready harbinger,
     With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
     And waving wide her myrtle wand,
     She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

     No war, or battle's sound
     Was heard the world around:
     The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
     The hookéd Chariot stood
     Unstain'd with hostile blood;
     The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng;
     And kings sat still with awful eye,
     As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

     But peaceful was the night
     Wherin the Prince of Light
     His reign of peace upon the earth began:
     The winds, with wonder whist,
     Smoothly the waters kist
     Whispering new joys to the mild oceán--
     Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
     While birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave.

     The stars with deep amaze
     Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,
     Bending one way their precious influence;
     And will not take their flight
     For all the morning light,
     Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;
     But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
     Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.

     And though the shady gloom
     Had given day her room,
     The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
     And hid his head for shame,
     As his inferior flame
     The new-enlightn'd world no more should need:
     He saw a greater Sun appear
     Then his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

     The shepherds on the lawn
     Or ere the point of dawn
     Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;
     Full little thought they then
     That the mighty Pan
     Was kindly come to live with them below;
     Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep
     Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

     When such music sweet
     Their hearts and ears did greet
     As never was by mortal finger strook--
     Divinely-warbled voice
     Answering the stringéd noise,
     As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
     The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
     With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

     Nature that heard such sound
     Beneath the hollow round
     Of Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling,
     Now was almost won
     To think her part was done,
     And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;
     She knew such harmony alone
     Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union.

     At last surrounds their sight
     A globe of circular light
     That with long beams the shamefaced night array'd;
     The helméd Cherubim
     And sworded Seraphim,
     Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,
     Harping in loud and solemn quire
     With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir.

     Such music (as 'tis said)
     Before was never made
     But when of old the sons of morning sung,
     While the Creator great
     His constellations set
     And the well-balanced world on hinges hung;
     And cast the dark foundations deep,
     And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

     Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
     Once bless our human ears,
     If ye have power to touch our senses so;
     And let your silver chime
     Move in melodious time;
     And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;
     And with your ninefold harmony
     Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.

     For if such holy Song
     Enwrap our fancy long,
     Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;
     And speckled vanity
     Will sicken soon and die,
     And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;
     And Hell itself will pass away,
     And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

     Yea, Truth and Justice then
     Will down return to men,
     Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
     Mercy will sit between
     Throned in celestial sheen,
     With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
     And Heaven, as at some festival,
     Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

     But wisest Fate says No;
     This must not yet be so;
     The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy
     That on the bitter cross
     Must redeem our loss;
     So both Himself and us to glorify:
     Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep
     The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep;

     With such a horrid clang
     As on mount Sinai rang
     While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
     The aged Earth agast
     With terrour of that blast
     Shall from the surface to the centre shake,
     When at the worlds last sessión,
     The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread His throne.

     And then at last our bliss
     Full and perfect is,
     But now begins; for from this happy day
     The old Dragon, under ground
     In straiter limits bound,
     Not half so far casts his usurpéd sway;
     And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,
     Swinges the scaly horrour of his folded tail.

     The oracles are dumb;
     No voice or hideous hum
     Runs through the archéd roof in words deceiving:
     Apollo from his shrine
     Can no more divine,
     With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving:
     No nightly trance or breathéd spell
     Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

     The lonely mountains o'er
     And the resounding shore
     A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
     From haunted spring, and dale
     Edged with poplar pale
     The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
     With flower-inwoven tresses torn
     The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

     In consecrated earth
     And on the holy hearth,
     The Lars and Lemurés moan with midnight plaint;
     In urns, and altars round
     A drear and dying sound
     Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
     And the chill marble seems to sweat,
     While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat.

     Peor and Baalim
     Forsake their temples dim,
     With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine
     And moonéd Ashtaroth
     Heaven's queen and mother both,
     Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
     The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,
     In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

     And sullen Moloch, fled,
     Hath left in shadows dread
     His burning idol all of blackest hue;
     In vain with cymbals' ring
     They call the grisly king,
     In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
     The brutish gods of Nile as fast
     Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

     Nor is Osiris seen
     In Memphian grove, or green,
     Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:
     Nor can he be at rest
     Within his sacred chest;
     Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;
     In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark
     The sable stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

     He feels from Juda's land
     The dreaded infant's hand;
     The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
     Nor all the gods beside
     Longer dare abide,
     Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
     Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true,
     Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.

     So, when the sun in bed
     Curtain'd with cloudy red
     Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
     The flocking shadows pale
     Troop to the infernal jail,
     Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;
     And the yellow-skirted fays
     Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

     But see, the Virgin blest
     Hath laid her Babe to rest;
     Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:
     Heavens youngest-teeméd star,
     Hath fixed her polish'd car,
     Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending:
     And all about the courtly stable
     Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

     J. MILTON.




     63. SONG FOR ST CECILIA'S DAY,

                  1687.

     From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
       This universal frame began:
      When nature underneath a heap
       Of jarring atoms lay
      And could not heave her head,
     The tuneful voice was heard from high
       Arise, ye more than dead!
     Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
     In order to their stations leap,
       And Music's power obey.
     From harmony, from heavenly harmony
       This universal frame began:
       From harmony to harmony
     Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
     The diapason closing full in Man.

     What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
       When Jubal struck the chorded shell
      His listening brethren stood around,
      And, wondering, on their faces fell
      To worship that celestial sound.
     Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
       Within the hollow of that shell,
       That spoke so sweetly and so well.
     What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

      The trumpet's loud clangor
       Excites us to arms,
      With shrill notes of anger,
       And mortal alarms.
      The double double double beat
       Of the thundering drum
       Cries "Hark! the foes come;
     Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!"

      The soft complaining flute
      In dying notes discovers
      The woes of hopeless lovers,
     Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

      Sharp violins proclaim
     Their jealous pangs and desperation,
     Fury, frantic indignation,
     Depth of pains, and height of passion
      For the fair, disdainful dame.

     But oh! what art can teach,
     What human voice can reach
      The sacred organ's praise?
     Notes inspiring holy love,
     Notes that wing their heavenly ways
      To mend the choirs above.
     Orpheus could lead the savage race,
     And trees uprooted left their place
      Sequacious of the lyre:
     But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
     When to her Organ vocal breath was given
     An angel heard, and straight appear'd--
      Mistaking Earth for Heaven!

              _Grand Chorus_:

     As from the power of sacred lays
      The spheres began to move,
     And sung the great Creator's praise
      To all the blest above;
     So when the last and dreadful hour
     This crumbling pageant shall devour,
     The trumpet shall be heard on high,
     The dead shall live, the living die,
     And Music shall untune the sky.

     J. DRYDEN.




     64. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT.

     Avenge, O Lord! Thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
     Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;
     Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old
     When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones.

     Forget not: In Thy book record their groans
     Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
     Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd
     Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

     The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
     To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
     O'er all the Italian field, where still doth sway
     The triple tyrant, that from these may grow
     A hundred-fold, who, having learnt Thy way,
     Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

     J. MILTON.




     65. HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND.

       The forward youth that would appear,
       Must now forsake his Muses dear,
          Nor in the shadows sing
          His numbers languishing.

       'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
       And oil the unused armour's rust,
          Removing from the wall
          The corslet of the hall.

       So restless Cromwell could not cease
       In the inglorious arts of peace,
          But through adventurous war
          Urgéd his active star:

       And like the three-fork'd lightning first
       Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
          Did thorough his own side
          His fiery way divide:

       For 'tis all one to courage high
       The emulous, or enemy;
          And with such, to enclose
          Is more than to oppose;

       Then burning through the air he went
       And palaces and temples rent;
          And Caesar's head at last
          Did through his laurels blast.

       'Tis madness to resist or blame
       The face of angry heaven's flame;
          And if we would speak true,
          Much to the Man is due

       Who, from his private gardens, where
       He lived reservéd and austere
          (As if he his highest plot
          To plant the bergamot)

       Could by industrious valour climb
       To ruin the great work of time,
          And cast the Kingdoms old
          Into another mould.

       Though Justice against Fate complain,
       And plead the ancient Rights in vain--
          But those do hold or break
          As men are strong or weak;

       Nature, that hateth emptiness,
       Allows of penetration less,
          And therefore must make room
          Where greater spirits come.

       What field of all the civil war
       Where his were not the deepest scar?
          And Hampton shows what part
          He had of wiser art,

       Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
       He wove a net of such a scope
          That Charles himself might chase
          To Carisbrook's narrow case;

       That thence the Royal actor borne
       The tragic scaffold might adorn:
          While round the arméd bands
          Did clap their bloody hands;

       He nothing common did or mean
       Upon that memorable scene,
          But with his keener eye
          The axe's edge did try;

       Nor call'd the Gods, with vulgar spite,
       To vindicate his helpless right;
          But bow'd his comely head
          Down, as upon a bed.

       --This was that memorable hour
       Which first assured the forcéd power:
          So when they did design
          The Capitol's first line,

       A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
       Did fright the architects to run;
          And yet in that the State
          Foresaw its happy fate!

       And now the Irish are ashamed
       To see themselves in one year tamed:
          So much one man can do
          That does both act and know.

       They can affirm his praises best,
       And have, though overcome, confest
          How good he is, how just
          And fit for highest trust;

       Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
       But still in the Republic's hand--
          How fit he is to sway
          That can so well obey!

       He to the Commons' feet presents
       A Kingdom for his first year's rents,
          And (what he may) forbears
          His fame, to make it theirs:

       And has his sword and spoils ungirt
       To lay them at the Public's skirt.
          So when the falcon high
          Falls heavy from the sky,

       She, having kill'd, no more doth search
       But on the next green bough to perch,
          Where, when he first does lure,
          The falconer has her sure.

       --What may not then our Isle presume
       While victory his crest does plume?
          What may not others fear
          If thus he crowns each year!

       As Caesar he, ere long, to Gaul,
       To Italy an Hannibal,
          And to all states not free
          Shall climacteric be.

       The Pict no shelter now shall find
       Within his parti-colour'd mind,
          But, from this valour, sad
          Shrink underneath the plaid--

       Happy, if in the tufted brake
       The English hunter him mistake,
          Nor lay his hounds in near
          The Caledonian deer.

       But Thou, the War's and Fortune's son,
       March indefatigably on;
          And for the last effect
          Still keep the sword erect:

       Besides the force it has to fright
       The spirits of the shady night,
          The same arts that did gain
          A power, must it maintain.

     A. MARVELL.




     66. LYCIDAS

     _Elegy on a Friend drowned in the Irish Channel._

     Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
     Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
     I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
     And with forced fingers rude
     Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
     Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear
     Compels me to disturb your season due:
     For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
     Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
     Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
     Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
     He must not float upon his watery bier
     Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
     Without the meed of some melodious tear.

       Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
     That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
     Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string;
     Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
     So may some gentle Muse
     With lucky words favour my destined urn:
     And as he passes, turn
     And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

       For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
     Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill:
     Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
     Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
     We drove a-field, and both together heard
     What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
     Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
     Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
     Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.
     Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;
     Temper'd to the oaten flute,
     Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
     From the glad sound would not be absent long;
     And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.

       But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
     Now thou art gone and never must return!
     Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves,
     With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
     And all their echoes, mourn.
     The willows and the hazel copses green
     Shall now no more be seen
     Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays:--
     As killing as the canker to the rose,
     Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
     Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
     When first the white-thorn blows;
     Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear.

       Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
     Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
     For neither were ye playing on the steep
     Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
     Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
     Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
     Ay me! I fondly dream--
     Had ye been there--for what could that have done?
     What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
     The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
     Whom universal nature did lament,
     When by the rout that made the hideous roar
     His gory visage down the stream was sent,
     Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

       Alas! what boots it with incessant care
     To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade
     And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
     Were it not better done, as others use,
     To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
     Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
     Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
     (That last infirmity of noble mind)
     To scorn delights and live laborious days;
     But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
     And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
     Comes the blind Fury with the abhorréd shears
     And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
     Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
     "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
     Nor in the glistering foil
     Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies:
     But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
     And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
     As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
     Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed."

       O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood
     Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds!
     That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
     But now my oat proceeds,
     And listens to the herald of the sea
     That came in Neptune's plea;
     He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,
     What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?
     And question'd every gust of rugged wings
     That blows from off each beakéd promontory:
     They knew not of his story;
     And sage Hippotadés their answer brings,
     That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;
     The air was calm, and on the level brine
     Sleek Panopé with all her sisters play'd.
     It was that fatal and perfidious bark
     Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,
     That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

       Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
     His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge
     Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
     Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe:
     "Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge!"
     Last came, and last did go
     The pilot of the Galilean Lake;
     Two massy keys he bore of metals twain
     (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain);
     He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:
     "How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
     Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake
     Creep and intrude and climb into the fold!
     Of other care they little reckoning make
     Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
     And shove away the worthy bidden guest;
     Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
     A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least
     That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
     What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
     And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
     Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
     The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
     But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw
     Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
     Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
     Daily devours apace, and nothing said:
     --But that two-handed engine at the door
     Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

       Return, Alphéus; the dread voice is past
     That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
     And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
     Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
     Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
     Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks
     On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks;
     Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes
     That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers
     And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
     Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
     The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
     The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
     The glowing violet,
     The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
     With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
     And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
     Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
     And daffodillies fill their cups with tears
     To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
     For so to interpose a little ease,
     Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise;
     Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
     Wash far away,--where'er thy bones are hurl'd;
     Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides
     Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide
     Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world;
     Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
     Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
     Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
     Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold,
     --Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
     --And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth!

       Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
     For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
     Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
     So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,
     And yet anon repairs his drooping head
     And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
     Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
     So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high
     Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the waves;
     Where, other groves and other streams along,
     With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
     And hears the unexpressive nuptial song
     In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
     There entertain him all the saints above
     In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
     That sing, and singing, in their glory move,
     And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
     Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
     Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
     In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
     To all that wander in that perilous flood.

       Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
     While the still morn went out with sandals gray;
     He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
     With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
     And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
     And now was dropt into the western bay:
     At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:
     To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

     J. MILTON.




     67. THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

     Mortality, behold and fear
     What a change of flesh is here!
     Think how many royal bones
     Sleep within these heaps of stones;
     Here they lie, had realms and lands,
     Who now want strength to stir their hands,
     Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust
     They preach, "In greatness is no trust."
     Here's an acre sown indeed
     With the richest royallest seed
     That the earth did e'er suck in
     Since the first man died for sin:
     Here the bones of birth have cried
     "Though gods they were, as men they died!"
     Here are sands, ignoble things,
     Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings
     Here's a world of pomp and state
     Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

     F. BEAUMONT.




     68. THE LAST CONQUEROR.

     Victorious men of earth, no more
       Proclaim how wide your empires are;
     Though you bind-in every shore
       And your triumphs reach as far
          As night and day,
       Yet you, proud monarchs, must obey
     And mingle with forgotten ashes, when
     Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.

     Devouring Famine, Plague, and War,
       Each able to undo mankind,
     Death's servile emissaries are;
       Nor to these alone confined,
          He hath at will
       More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
     A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,
     Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart.

     J. SHIRLEY.




     69. DEATH THE LEVELLER.

     The glories of our blood and state
        Are shadows, not substantial things;
     There is no armour against fate;
        Death lays his icy hand on kings:
          Sceptre and Crown
          Must tumble down,
     And in the dust be equal made
     With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

     Some men with swords may reap the field,
        And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
     But their strong nerves at last must yield;
        They tame but one another still:
          Early or late
          They stoop to fate,
     And must give up their murmuring breath
     When they, pale captives, creep to death.

     The garlands wither on your brow;
        Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
     Upon Death's purple altar now
        See where the victor-victim bleeds:
          Your heads must come
          To the cold tomb;
     Only the actions of the just
     Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

     J. SHIRLEY.




     70. WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY.

     Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms,
     Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
     If deed of honour did thee ever please;
     Guard them, and him within protect from harms.

     He can requite thee; for he knows the charms
     That call fame on such gentle acts as these.
     And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas,
     Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms.

     Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower:
     The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
     The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
     Went to the ground: and the repeated air
     Of sad Electra's poet had the power
     To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.

     J. MILTON.




     71. ON HIS BLINDNESS.

     When I consider how my light is spent
     Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
     And that one talent which is death to hide
     Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

     To serve therewith my Maker, and present
     My true account, lest He returning chide,--
     Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
     I fondly ask:--But Patience, to prevent

     That murmur, soon replies; God doth not need
     Either man's work, or His own gifts: who best
     Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state

     Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
     And post o'er land and ocean without rest:--
     They also serve who only stand and wait.

     J. MILTON.




     72. CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

     How happy is he born and taught
     That serveth not another's will;
     Whose armour is his honest thought
     And simple truth his utmost skill!

     Whose passions not his masters are,
     Whose soul is still prepared for death,
     Not tied unto the world by care
     Of public fame, or private breath;

     Who envies none that chance doth raise
     Or vice; Who never understood
     How deepest wounds are given by praise;
     Nor rules of state, but rules of good:

     Who hath his life from rumours freed,
     Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
     Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
     Nor ruin make accusers great;

     Who God doth late and early pray
     More of His grace than gifts to lend;
     And entertains the harmless day
     With a well-chosen book or friend;

     --This man is freed from servile bands
     Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
     Lord of himself, though not of lands,
     And having nothing, yet hath all.

     SIR H. WOTTON.




     73. THE NOBLE NATURE.

        It is not growing like a tree
        In bulk, doth make Man better be;
     Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
     To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
          A lily of a day
          Is fairer far in May,
        Although it fall and die that night--
        It was the plant and flower of Light.
     In small proportions we just beauties see;
     And in short measures life may perfect be.

     B. JONSON




     74. THE GIFTS OF GOD.

         When God at first made Man,
     Having a glass of blessings standing by;
     Let us (said he) pour on him all we can:
     Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie,
         Contract into a span.

         So strength first made a way;
     Then beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
     When almost all was out, God made a stay,
     Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
         Rest in the bottom lay.

         For if I should (said he)
     Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
     He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
     And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
         So both should losers be.

         Yet let him keep the rest,
     But keep them with repining restlessness:
     Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
     If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
         May toss him to my breast.

     G. HERBERT.




     75. THE RETREAT.

     Happy those early days, when I
     Shined in my Angel-infancy!
     Before I understood this place
     Appointed for my second race,
     Or taught my soul to fancy aught
     But a white, celestial thought;
     When yet I had not walk'd above
     A mile or two from my first Love,

     And looking back, at that short space
     Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
     When on some gilded cloud or flower
     My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
     And in those weaker glories spy
     Some shadows of eternity;
     Before I taught my tongue to wound
     My conscience with a sinful sound,
     Or had the black art to dispense
     A several sin to every sense,
     But felt through all this fleshly dress
     Bright shoots of everlastingness.

     O how I long to travel back,
     And tread again that ancient track!
     That I might once more reach that plain,
     Where first I left my glorious train;
     From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees
     That shady City of Palm trees!
     But ah! my soul with too much stay
     Is drunk, and staggers in the way:--
     Some men a forward motion love,
     But I by backward steps would move;
     And when this dust falls to the urn,
     In that state I came, return.

     H. VAUGHAN.




     76. TO MR. LAWRENCE.

     Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
     Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire,
     Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
     Help waste a sullen day, what may be won

     From the hard season gaining? Time will run
     On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
     The frozen earth, and cloth in fresh attire
     The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

     What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
     Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
     To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice

     Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
     He who of those delights can judge, and spare
     To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

     J. MILTON.




     77. TO CYRIACK SKINNER.

     Cyriack, whose grandsire on the royal bench
     Of British Themis, with no mean applause
     Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws,
     Which others at their bar so often wrench;

     To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
     In mirth, that after no repenting draws;
     Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
     And what the Swede intends, and what the French.

     To measure life learn thou betimes, and know
     Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;
     For other things mild Heaven a time ordains,

     And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
     That with superfluous burden loads the day,
     And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

     J. MILTON.




     78. HYMN TO DIANA.

     Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,
        Now the sun is laid to sleep,
     Seated in thy silver chair
        State in wonted manner keep:
          Hesperus entreats thy light,
          Goddess excellently bright.

     Earth, let not thy envious shade
        Dare itself to interpose;
     Cynthia's shining orb was made
        Heaven to clear when day did close;
          Bless us then with wishéd sight,
          Goddess excellently bright.

     Lay thy bow of pearl apart
        And thy crystal-shining quiver;
     Give unto the flying hart
        Space to breathe, how short soever;
          Thou that mak'st a day of night,
          Goddess excellently bright.

     B. JONSON.




     79. WISHES FOR THE SUPPOSED MISTRESS.

     Whoe'er she be,
     That not impossible She
     That shall command my heart and me;

     Where'er she lie,
     Lock'd up from mortal eye
     In shady leaves of destiny:

     Till that ripe birth
     Of studied Fate stand forth,
     And teach her fair steps to our earth;

     Till that divine
     Idea take a shrine
     Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

     --Meet you her, my Wishes,
     Bespeak her to my blisses,
     And be ye call'd, my absent kisses.

     I wish her beauty,
     That owes not all its duty
     To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie:

     Something more than
     Taffata or tissue can,
     Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

     A face that's best
     By its own beauty drest,
     And can alone command the rest:

     A face made up
     Out of no other shop
     Than what Nature's white hand sets ope.

     Sydneian showers
     Of sweet discourse, whose powers
     Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.

     Whate'er delight
     Can make day's forehead bright
     Or give down to the wings of night.

     Soft silken hours,
     Open suns, shady bowers;
     'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.

     Days, that need borrow
     No part of their good morrow
     From a fore-spent night of sorrow:

     Days, that in spite
     Of darkness, by the light
     Of a clear mind are day all night.

     Life, that dares send
     A challenge to his end,
     And when it comes, say, "Welcome friend."

     I wish her store
     Of worth may leave her poor
     Of wishes; and I wish--no more.

     --Now, if Time knows
     That Her, whose radiant brows
     Weave them a garland of my vows;

     Her that dares be
     What these lines wish to see;
     I seek no further, it is She.

     'Tis She, and here
     Lo! I unclothe and clear
     My wishes' cloudy character.

     Such worth as this is
     Shall fix my flying wishes,
     And determine them to kisses.

     Let her full glory,
     My fancies, fly before ye;
     Be ye my fictions:--but her story.

     R. CRASHAW.




     80. THE GREAT ADVENTURER.

        Over the mountains
        And over the waves,
        Under the fountains
        And under the graves;
        Under floods that are deepest,
        Which Neptune obey;
        Over rocks that are steepest
        Love will find out the way.

        When there is no place
        For the glow-worm to lie;
        When there is no space
        For receipt of a fly;
        When the midge dares not venture
        Lest herself fast she lay;
        If Love come, he will enter
        And will find out his way.

        You may esteem him
        A child for his might;
        Or you may deem him
        A coward from his flight;
        But if she whom love doth honour
        Be conceal'd from the day,
        Set a thousand guards upon her,
        Love will find out the way.

        Some think to lose him
        By having him confined;
        And some do suppose him,
        Poor thing, to be blind;
        But if ne'er so close ye wall him,
        Do the best that you may,
        Blind love, if so ye call him,
        Will find out his way.

        You may train the eagle
        To stoop to your fist;
        Or you may inveigle
        The phoenix of the east;
        The lioness, ye may move her
        To give o'er her prey;
        But you'll ne'er stop a lover:
        He will find out his way.

     ANON.




     81. CHILD AND MAIDEN.

     Ah, Chloris! could I now but sit
       As unconcern'd as when
     Your infant beauty could beget
       No happiness or pain!
     When I the dawn used to admire,
       And praised the coming day,
     I little thought the rising fire
       Would take my rest away.

     Your charms in harmless childhood lay
       Like metals in a mine;
     Age from no face takes more away
       Than youth conceal'd in thine.
     But as your charms insensibly
       To their perfection prest,
     So love as unperceived did fly,
       And center'd in my breast.

     My passion with your beauty grew,
       While Cupid at my heart
     Still as his mother favour'd you,
       Threw a new flaming dart:
     Each gloried in their wanton part;
       To make a lover, he
     Employ'd the utmost of his art--
       To make a beauty, she.

     SIR C. SEDLEY.




     82. COUNSEL TO GIRLS.

     Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
       Old Time is still a-flying:
     And this same flower that smiles to-day,
       To-morrow will be dying.

     The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
       The higher he's a-getting
     The sooner will his race be run,
       And nearer he's to setting.

     That age is best which is the first,
       When youth and blood are warmer,
     But being spent, the worse, and worst
       Times, still succeed the former.

     Then be not coy, but use your time;
       And while ye may, go marry:
     For having lost but once your prime,
       You may for ever tarry.

     R. HERRICK.




     83. TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.

     Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
       That from the nunnery
     Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
       To war and arms I fly.

     True, a new mistress now I chase,
       The first foe in the field;
     And with a stronger faith embrace
       A sword, a horse, a shield.

     Yet this inconstancy is such
       As you too shalt adore;
     I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
       Loved I not Honour more.

     COLONEL LOVELACE.




     84. ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA.

     You meaner beauties of the night,
       Which poorly satisfy our eyes
     More by your number than your light,
       You common people of the skies,
     What are you, when the Moon shall rise?

     Ye violets that first appear,
       By your pure purple mantles known
     Like the proud virgins of the year
       As if the spring were all your own,--
     What are you, when the Rose is blown?

     You curious chanters of the wood
       That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
     Thinking your passions understood
       By your weak accents; what's your praise
     When Philomel her voice doth raise?

     So, when my Mistress shall be seen
       In sweetness of her looks and mind,
     By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
       Tell me, if she were not design'd
     Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

     SIR H. WOTTON.




     85. TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY.

     Daughter to that good earl, once President
     Of England's council and her treasury,
     Who lived in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
     And left them both, more in himself content.

     Till the sad breaking of that parliament
     Broke him, as that dishonest victory
     At Chaeronia, fatal to liberty,
     Kill'd with report that old man eloquent;--

     Though later born than to have known the days
     Wherein your father flourish'd, yet by you,
     Madam, methinks I see him living yet;

     So well your words his noble virtues praise,
     That all both judge you to relate them true,
     And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.

     J. MILTON.




     86. THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE.

     It is not Beauty I demand,
     A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
     Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
     Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:

     Tell me not of your starry eyes,
     Your lips that seem on roses fed,
     Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies,
     Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed:--

     A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
     Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
     A breath that softer music speaks
     Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,

     These are but gauds: nay what are lips?
     Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
     Whose brink when your adventurer slips
     Full oft he perisheth on them.

     And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft
     That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
     Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
     Do Greece or Ilium any good?

     Eyes can with baleful ardour burn;
     Poison can breathe, that erst perfumed;
     There's many a white hand holds an urn
     With lovers hearts to dust consumed.

     For crystal brows there's nought within;
     They are but empty cells for pride;
     He who the Syren's hair would win
     Is mostly strangled in the tide.

     Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,
     A tender heart, a loyal mind
     Which with temptation I would trust,
     Yet never link'd with error find,--

     One in whose gentle bosom I
     Could pour my secret heart of woes,
     Like the care-burthen'd honey-fly
     That hides his murmurs in the rose,--

     My earthly Comforter! whose love
     So indefeasible might be
     That, when my spirit wonn'd above,
     Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

     ANON.




     87. THE TRUE BEAUTY.

        He that loves a rosy cheek
         Or a coral lip admires,
        Or from star-like eyes doth seek
         Fuel to maintain his fires;
        As old Time makes these decay,
        So his flames must waste away.

        But a smooth and steadfast mind,
         Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
        Hearts with equal love combined,
         Kindle never-dying fires:--
        Where these are not, I despise
        Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

     T. CAREW.




     88. TO DIANEME.

     Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
     Which starlike sparkle in their skies;
     Nor be you proud, that you can see
     All hearts your captives; yours yet free:
     Be you not proud of that rich hair
     Which wantons with the lovesick air;
     Whenas that ruby which you wear,
     Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
     Will last to be a precious stone,
     When all your world of beauty's gone.

     R. HERRICK.




     89.

       Go, lovely Rose!
     Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
       That now she knows,
     When I resemble her to thee,
     How sweet and fair she seems to be.

       Tell her that's young,
     And shuns to have her graces spied,
       That hadst thou sprung
     In deserts, where no men abide,
     Thou must have uncommended died.

       Small is the worth
     Of beauty from the light retired:
       Bid her come forth,
     Suffer herself to be desired,
     And not blush so to be admired.

       Then die! that she
     The common fate of all things rare
       May read in thee:
     How small a part of time they share
     That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

     E. WALLER.




     90. TO CELIA.

     Drink to me only with thine eyes,
       And I will pledge with mine;
     Or leave a kiss but in the cup
       And I'll not look for wine.
     The thirst that from the soul doth rise
       Doth ask a drink divine;
     But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
       I would not change for thine.

     I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
       Not so much honouring thee
     As giving it a hope that there
       It could not wither'd be;
     But thou thereon didst only breathe
       And sent'st it back to me;
     Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
       Not of itself but thee!

     B. JONSON.




     91. CHERRY-RIPE.

     There is a garden in her face
       Where roses and white lilies blow;
     A heavenly paradise is that place,
       Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow;
     There cherries grow that none may buy,
     Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry.

     Those cherries fairly do enclose
       Of orient pearl a double row,
     Which when her lovely laughter shows,
       They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow:
     Yet them no peer nor prince can buy
     Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry.

     Her eyes like angels watch them still;
       Her brows like bended bows do stand,
     Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill
       All that approach with eye or hand
     These sacred cherries to come nigh,
     --Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry!

     ANON.




     92. THE POETRY OF DRESS.

     I.

     A sweet disorder in the dress
     Kindles in clothes a wantonness:--
     A lawn about the shoulders thrown
     Into a fine distractión,--
     An erring lace, which here and there
     Enthrals the crimson stomacher,--
     A cuff neglectful, and thereby
     Ribbands to flow confusedly,--
     A winning wave, deserving note,
     In the tempestuous petticoat,--
     A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
     I see a wild civility;--
     Do more bewitch me, than when art
     Is too precise in every part.

     R. HERRICK.




     93.--II.

     Whenas in silks my Julia goes
     Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
     That liquefaction of her clothes.

     Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
     That brave vibration each way free;
     O how that glittering taketh me!

     R. HERRICK.




     94.--III.

     My Love in her attire doth shew her wit,
      It doth so well become her;
     For every season she hath dressings fit,
      For Winter, Spring, and Summer.
      No beauty she doth miss
      When all her robes are on
      But Beauty's self she is
      When all her robes are gone.

     ANON.




     95. ON A GIRDLE.

     That which her slender waist confined
     Shall now my joyful temples bind:
     No monarch but would give his crown
     His arms might do what this has done.

     It was my Heaven's extremest sphere,
     The pale which held that lovely deer:
     My joy, my grief, my hope, my love
     Did all within this circle move.

     A narrow compass! and yet there
     Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair:
     Give me but what this ribband bound,
     Take all the rest the Sun goes round.

     E. WALLER.




     96. TO ANTHEA WHO MAY COMMAND HIM ANY THING.

     Bid me to live, and I will live
       Thy Protestant to be;
     Or bid me love, and I will give
       A loving heart to thee.

     A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
       A heart as sound and free
     As in the whole world thou canst find,
       That heart I'll give to thee.

     Bid that heart stay, and it will stay,
       To honour thy decree:
     Or bid it languish quite away,
       And 't shall do so for thee.

     Bid me to weep, and I will weep,
       While I have eyes to see:
     And having none, yet I will keep
       A heart to weep for thee.

     Bid me despair, and I'll despair,
       Under that cypress tree:
     Or bid me die, and I will dare
       E'en Death, to die for thee.

     Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
       The very eyes of me,
     And hast command of every part,
       To live and die for thee.

     R. HERRICK.




     97.

     Love not me for comely grace,
     For my pleasing eye or face,
     Nor for any outward part,
     No, nor for a constant heart,--
      For these may fail, or turn to ill,
       So thou and I shall sever:
     Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
     And love me still, but know not why--
      So hast thou the same reason still
       To doat upon me ever!

     ANON.




     98.

     Not, Celia, that I juster am
      Or better than the rest;
     For I would change each hour, like them,
      Were not my heart at rest.

     But I am tied to very thee
      By every thought I have;
     Thy face I only care to see,
      Thy heart I only crave.

     All that in woman is adored
      In thy dear self I find--
     For the whole sex can but afford
      The handsome and the kind.

     Why then should I seek further store,
      And still make love anew?
     When change itself can give no more,
      'Tis easy to be true.

     SIR C. SEDLEY.




     99. TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON.

     When Love with unconfinéd wings
      Hovers within my gates,
     And my divine Althea brings
      To whisper at the grates;
     When I lie tangled in her hair
      And fetter'd to her eye,
     The birds that wanton in the air
      Know no such liberty.

     When flowing cups run swiftly round
      With no allaying Thames,
     Our careless heads with roses crown'd,
      Our hearts with loyal flames;
     When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
      When healths and draughts go free--
     Fishes that tipple in the deep
      Know no such liberty.

     When, linnet-like confinéd, I
      With shriller throat shall sing
     The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
      And glories of my King;
     When I shall voice aloud how good
      He is, how great should be,
     Enlargéd winds, that curl the flood,
      Know no such liberty.

     Stone walls do not a prison make,
      Nor iron bars a cage;
     Minds innocent and quiet take
      That for an hermitage:
     If I have freedom in my love
      And in my soul am free,
     Angels alone, that soar above,
      Enjoy such liberty.

     COLONEL LOVELACE.




     100. TO LUCASTA, ON GOING BEYOND THE SEAS.

       If to be absent were to be
          Away from thee;
        Or that when I am gone
        You or I were alone;
       Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
     Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave.

       Though seas and land betwixt us both,
          Our faith and troth,
          Like separated souls,
        All time and space controls:
       Above the highest sphere we meet
     Unseen, unknown; and greet as Angels greet.

       So then we do anticipate
          Our after-fate,
        And are alive i' the skies,
        If thus our lips and eyes
       Can speak like spirits unconfined
     In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.

     COLONEL LOVELACE.




     101. ENCOURAGEMENTS TO A LOVER.

     Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
        Prythee, why so pale?
     Will, if looking well can't move her,
        Looking ill prevail?
        Prythee, why so pale?

     Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
        Prythee, why so mute?
     Will, when speaking well can't win her,
        Saying nothing do't?
        Prythee, why so mute?

     Quit, quit for shame! This will not move,
        This cannot take her;
     If of herself she will not love,
        Nothing can make her:
        The D----l take her!

     SIR J. SUCKLING.




     102. A SUPPLICATION.

         Awake, awake, my Lyre!
     And tell thy silent master's humble tale
         In sounds that may prevail;
       Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
         Though so exalted she
         And I so lowly be
     Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.

         Hark! how the strings awake:
     And, though the moving hand approach not near,
         Themselves with awful fear
       A kind of numerous trembling make.
         Now all thy forces try;
         Now all thy charms apply;
     Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.

         Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
     Is useless here, since thou art only found
         To cure, but not to wound,
       And she to wound, but not to cure.
         Too weak too wilt thou prove
         My passion to remove;
     Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.

         Sleep, sleep again my Lyre!
     For thou canst never tell my humble tale
         In sounds that will prevail,
       Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
         All thy vain mirth lay by,
         Bid thy strings silent lie,
     Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.

     A. COWLEY.




     103. THE MANLY HEART.

     Shall I, wasting in despair,
     Die because a woman's fair?
     Or my cheeks make pale with care
     'Cause another's rosy are?
     Be she fairer than the day,
     Or the flowery meads in May--
       If she be not so to me,
       What care I how fair she be?

     Shall my foolish heart be pined
     'Cause I see a woman kind;
     Or a well disposéd nature
     Joinéd with a lovely feature?
     Be she meeker, kinder, than
     Turtle-dove or pelican,
       If she be not so to me,
       What care I how kind she be?

     Shall a woman's virtues move
     Me to perish for her love?
     Or her merit's value known
     Make me quite forget my own?
     Be she with that goodness blest
     Which may gain her name of Best;
       If she be not such to me,
       What care I how good she be?

     'Cause her fortune seems too high,
     Shall I play the fool and die?
     Those that bear a noble mind
     Where they want of riches find,
     Think what with them they would do
     Who without them dare to woo;
       And unless that mind I see,
       What care I how great she be?

     Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
     I will ne'er the more despair;
     If she love me, this believe,
     I will die ere she shall grieve;
     If she slight me when I woo,
     I can scorn and let her go;
       For if she be not for me,
       What care I for whom she be?

     G. WITHER.




     104. MELANCHOLY.

     Hence, all you vain delights,
     As short as are the nights
     Wherein you spend your folly
     There's naught in this life sweet
     If men were wise to see't,
     But only melancholy,
     O sweetest Melancholy!
     Welcome, folded arms and fixéd eyes,
     A sigh that piercing mortifies,
     A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
     A tongue chain'd up without a sound!
     Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
     Places which pale passion loves!
     Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
     Are warmly housed save bats and owls!
       A midnight bell, a parting groan!
       These are the sounds we feed upon;
     Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
     Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

     J. FLETCHER.




     105. TO A LOCK OF HAIR.

     Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
     As in that well-remember'd night
     When first thy mystic braid was wove,
     And first my Agnes whisper'd love.

       Since then how often hast thou prest
     The torrid zone of this wild breast,
     Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell
     With the first sin that peopled hell;
     A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean,
     Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion!
     O if such clime thou canst endure
     Yet keep thy hue unstain'd and pure,
     What conquest o'er each erring thought
     Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought!
     I had not wander'd far and wide
     With such an angel for my guide;
     Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove me
     If she had lived, and lived to love me.

     Not then this world's wild joys had been
     To me one savage hunting scene,
     My sole delight the headlong race,
     And frantic hurry of the chase;
     To start, pursue, and bring to bay,
     Rush in, drag down, and rend my prey,
     Then--from the carcase turn away!
     Mine ireful mood had sweetness tamed,
     And soothed each wound which pride inflamed:--
     Yes, God and man might now approve me
     If thou hadst lived, and lived to love me!

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     106. THE FORSAKEN BRIDE.

     O waly waly, up the bank,
       And waly waly down the brae,
     And waly waly yon burn-side
       Where I and my Love wont to gae!
     I leant my back unto an aik,
       I thought it was a trusty tree;
     But first it bow'd, and syne it brak,
       Sae my true Love did lichtly me.

     O waly waly, but love be bonny
       A little time while it is new;
     But when 'tis auld, it waxeth cauld,
       And fades awa' like morning dew.
     O wherefore should I busk my head?
       Or wherefore should I kame my hair?
     For my true Love has me forsook,
       And says he'll never loe me mair.

     Now Arthur-seat sall be my bed;
       The sheets sall ne'er be prest by me:
     Saint Anton's well sall be my drink,
       Since my true Love has forsaken me.
     Marti'mas wind, when wilt thou blaw
       And shake the green leaves aff the tree?
     O gentle Death, when wilt thou come?
       For of my life I am wearíe.

     'Tis not the frost, that freezes fell,
       Nor blawing snaw's inclemencie,
     'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry,
       But my Love's heart grown cauld to me.
     When we came in by Glasgow town
       We were a comely sight to see;
     My Love was clad in the black velvét,
       And I mysell in cramasie.

     But had I wist, before I kist,
       That love had been sae ill to win,
     I had lockt my heart in a case of gowd
       And pinn'd it wi' a siller pin.
     And O! if my young babe were born,
       And set upon the nurse's knee,
     And I mysell were dead and gane,
       And the green grass growing over me!

     ANON.




     107. FAIR HELEN.

     I wish I were where Helen lies;
     Night and day on me she cries;
     O that I were where Helen lies
        On fair Kirconnell lea.

     Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
     And curst the hand that fired the shot,
     When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
        And died to succour me!

     O think na but my heart was sair,
     When my Love dropt down and spak nae mair!
     I laid her down wi' meikle care,
        On fair Kirconnell lea.

     As I went down the water side,
     None but my foe to be my guide,
     None but my foe to be my guide,
        On fair Kirconnell lea;

     I lighted down my sword to draw,
     I hackéd him in pieces sma',
     I hackéd him in pieces sma',
        For her sake that died for me.

     O Helen fair, beyond compare!
     I'll make a garland of thy hair
     Shall bind my heart for evermair
        Until the day I die.

     O that I were where Helen lies!
     Night and day on me she cries;
     Out of my bed she bids me rise,
        Says, "Haste, and come to me!"

     O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
     If I were with thee, I were blest,
     Where thou lies low and takes thy rest
        On fair Kirconnell lea.

     I wish my grave were growing green,
     A winding-sheet drawn ower my een,
     And I in Helen's arms lying,
        On fair Kirconnell lea.

     I wish I were where Helen lies;
     Night and day on me she cries;
     And I am weary of the skies,
        Since my Love died for me.

     ANON.




     108. THE TWA CORBIES.

     As I was walking all alane
     I heard twa corbies making a mane;
     The tane unto the t'other say,
     "Where sall we gang and dine to-day?"

     "--In behint yon auld fail dyke,
     I wot there lies a new-slain Knight;
     And naebody kens that he lies there,
     But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

     "His hound is to the hunting gane,
     His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
     His lady's ta'en another mate,
     So we may mak our dinner sweet.

     "Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
     And I'll pick out his bonny blue een:
     Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair
     We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

     "Mony a one for him makes mane,
     But nane sall ken where he is gane;
     O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
     The wind sall blaw for evermair."

     ANON.




     109. TO BLOSSOMS.

     Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
        Why do ye fall so fast?
        Your date is not so past,
     But you may stay yet here awhile
        To blush and gently smile,
          And go at last.

     What, were ye born to be
        An hour or half's delight;
        And so to bid good-night?
     'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,
        Merely to show your worth,
          And lose you quite.

     But you are lovely leaves, where we
        May read how soon things have
        Their end, though ne'er so brave:
     And after they have shown their pride
        Like you, awhile, they glide
          Into the grave.

     R. HERRICK.




     110. TO DAFFODILS.

     Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
          You haste away so soon
     As yet the early-rising Sun
          Has not attain'd his noon.
               Stay, stay,
          Until the hasting day
               Has run
          But to the even-song;
     And, having pray'd together, we
          Will go with you along.

     We have short time to stay, as you,
          We have as short a Spring;
     As quick a growth to meet decay
          As you, or any thing.
               We die
          As your hours do, and dry
               Away
          Like to the summer's rain;
     Or as the pearls of morning's dew
          Ne'er to be found again.

     R. HERRICK.




     111. THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN.

     How vainly men themselves amaze
     To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
     And their incessant labours see
     Crown'd from some single herb or tree,
     Whose short and narrow-vergéd shade
     Does prudently their toils upbraid;
     While all the flowers and trees do close
     To weave the garlands of Repose.

     Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
     And Innocence thy sister dear?
     Mistaken long, I sought you then
     In busy companies of men:
     Your sacred plants, if here below,
     Only among the plants will grow:
     Society is all but rude
     To this delicious solitude.

     No white nor red was ever seen
     So amorous as this lovely green.
     Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
     Cut in these trees their mistress' name:
     Little, alas! they know or heed
     How far these beauties hers exceed!
     Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound,
     No name shall but your own be found.

     When we have run our passions' heat,
     Love hither makes his best retreat:
     The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
     Still in a tree did end their race:
     Apollo hunted Daphne so
     Only that she might laurel grow;
     And Pan did after Syrinx speed
     Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

     What wondrous life in this I lead!
     Ripe apples drop about my head;
     The luscious clusters of the vine
     Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
     The nectarine and curious peach
     Into my hands themselves do reach;
     Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
     Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

     Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
     Withdraws into its happiness;
     The mind, that ocean where each kind
     Does straight its own resemblance find;
     Yet it creates, transcending these,
     Far other worlds, and other seas;
     Annihilating all that's made
     To a green thought in a green shade.

     Here at the fountain's sliding foot
     Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
     Casting the body's vest aside
     My soul into the boughs does glide;
     There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
     Then whets and claps its silver wings,
     And, till prepared for longer flight,
     Waves in its plumes the various light.

     Such was that happy Garden-state
     While man there walk'd without a mate:
     After a place so pure and sweet,
     What other help could yet be meet!
     But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
     To wander solitary there:
     Two paradises are in one,
     To live in Paradise alone.

     How well the skilful gardener drew
     Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
     Where, from above, the milder sun
     Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
     And, as it works, th' industrious bee
     Computes its time as well as we.
     How could such sweet and wholesome hours
     Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers!

     A. MARVELL.




     112. L'ALLEGRO.

     Hence, loathéd Melancholy,
       Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
     In Stygian cave forlorn
       'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
     Find out some uncouth cell
       Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings
     And the night-raven sings;
       There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks
     As ragged as thy locks,
       In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

         But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
         In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
         And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
         Whom lovely Venus at a birth
         With two sister Graces more
         To ivy-crownéd Bacchus bore:
         Or whether (as some sager sing)
         The frolic wind that breathes the spring
         Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
         As he met her once a-Maying--
         There, on beds of violets blue
         And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew
         Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair,
         So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
           Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
         Jest, and youthful jollity,
         Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
         Nods, and becks, and wreathéd smiles
         Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
         And love to live in dimple sleek;
         Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
         And Laughter holding both his sides:--
         Come, and trip it as you go
         On the light fantastic toe;
         And in thy right hand lead with thee
         The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
         And if I give thee honour due,
         Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
         To live with her, and live with thee,
         In unreprovéd pleasures free;
         To hear the lark begin his flight
         And singing startle the dull night
         From his watch-tower in the skies,
         Till the dappled dawn doth rise:
         Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
         And at my window bid good-morrow,
         Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,
         Or the twisted eglantine:
         While the cock with lively din,
         Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
         And to the stack, or the barn-door,
         Stoutly struts his dames before:
         Oft listening how the hounds and horn
         Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
         From the side of some hoar hill,
         Through the high wood echoing shrill:
         Sometime walking, not unseen,
         By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green,
         Right against the eastern gate
         Where the great Sun begins his state
         Robed in flames and amber light,
         The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
         While the ploughman, near at hand,
         Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
         And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
         And the mower whets his scythe,
         And every shepherd tells his tale
         Under the hawthorn in the dale.
           Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
         Whilst the landscape round it measures;
         Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
         Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
         Mountains, on whose barren breast
         The labouring clouds do often rest;
         Meadows trim with daisies pied;
         Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
         Towers and battlements it sees
         Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
         Where perhaps some Beauty lies,
         The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
           Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
         From betwixt two aged oaks,
         Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met
         Are at their savoury dinner set
         Of herbs, and other country messes,
         Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;
         And then in haste her bower she leaves
         With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
         Or, if the earlier season lead,
         To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
           Sometimes with secure delight
         The upland hamlets will invite,
         When the merry bells ring round,
         And the jocund rebecks sound
         To many a youth and many a maid,
         Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
         And young and old come forth to play
         On a sun-shine holy-day,
         Till the live-long day-light fail:
         Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
         With stories told of many a feat,
         How faery Mab the junkets eat;
         She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said;
         And he, by friar's lantern led,
         Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
         To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
         When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
         His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
         That ten day-labourers could not end;
         Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
         And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
         Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
         And crop-full out of doors he flings,
         Ere the first cock his matin rings.
           Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
         By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
           Tower'd cities please us then,
         And the busy hum of men,
         Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
         In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
         With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
         Rain influence, and judge the prize
         Of wit or arms, while both contend
         To win her grace whom all commend.
         There let Hymen oft appear
         In saffron robe, with taper clear,
         And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
         With mask, and antique pageantry;
         Such sights as youthful poets dream
         On summer eves by haunted stream.
         Then to the well-trod stage anon,
         If Jonson's learned sock be on,
         Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
         Warble his native wood-notes wild.
           And ever against eating cares,
         Lap me in soft Lydian airs
         Married to immortal verse,
         Such as the meeting soul may pierce
         In notes, with many a winding bout
         Of linkéd sweetness long drawn out,
         With wanton heed and giddy cunning
         The melting voice through mazes running,
         Untwisting all the chains that tie
         The hidden soul of harmony;
         That Orpheus' self may heave his head
         From golden slumber, on a bed
         Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
         Such strains as would have won the ear
         Of Pluto, to have quite set free
         His half-regain'd Eurydice.
           These delights if thou canst give,
         Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

     J. MILTON.




     113. IL PENSEROSO.

     Hence, vain deluding Joys,
       The brood of Folly without father bred!
     How little you bestead
       Or fill the fixéd mind with all your toys!
     Dwell in some idle brain,
       And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess
     As thick and numberless
       As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,
     Or likest hovering dreams
       The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

           But hail, thou goddess sage and holy,
         Hail, divinest Melancholy!
         Whose saintly visage is too bright
         To hit the sense of human sight,
         And therefore to our weaker view
         O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
         Black, but such as in esteem
         Prince Memnon's sister might beseem.
         Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
         To set her beauty's praise above
         The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended.
         Yet thou art higher far descended:
         Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore,
         To solitary Saturn bore;
         His daughter she; in Saturn's reign
         Such mixture was not held a stain:
         Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
         He met her, and in secret shades
         Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
         Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
           Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
         Sober, steadfast, and demure,
         All in a robe of darkest grain
         Flowing with majestic train,
         And sable stole of cypres lawn
         Over thy decent shoulders drawn:
         Come, but keep thy wonted state,
         With even step, and musing gait,
         And looks commercing with the skies,
         Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
         There, held in holy passion still,
         Forget thyself to marble, till
         With a sad leaden downward cast
         Thou fix them on the earth as fast:
         And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
         Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
         And hears the Muses in a ring
         Aye round about Jove's altar sing:
         And add to these retired Leisure
         That in trim gardens takes his pleasure:--
         But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
         Him that yon soars on golden wing,
         Guiding the fiery-wheeléd throne,
         The cherub Contemplatión;
         And the mute Silence hist along,
         'Less Philomel will deign a song,
         In her sweetest saddest plight,
         Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
         While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
         Gently o'er the accustom'd oak.
         --Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
         Most musical, most melancholy!
         Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among
         I woo, to hear thy even-song;
         And, missing thee, I walk unseen
         On the dry smooth-shaven green,
         To behold the wandering moon,
         Riding near her highest noon,
         Like one that had been led astray
         Through the heaven's wide pathless way,
         And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
         Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
           Oft, on a plat of rising ground
         I hear the far-off curfeu sound,
         Over some wide-water'd shore,
         Swinging slow with sullen roar;
         Or, if the air will not permit,
         Some still removéd place will fit,
         Where glowing embers through the room
         Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
         Far from all resort of mirth,
         Save the cricket on the hearth,
         Or the bellman's drowsy charm
         To bless the doors from nightly harm.
           Or let my lamp at midnight hour
         Be seen in some high lonely tower,
         Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
         With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
         The spirit of Plato, to unfold
         What worlds or what vast regions hold
         The immortal mind that hath forsook
         Her mansion in this fleshy nook:
         And of those demons that are found
         In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
         Whose power hath a true consent
         With planet, or with element.
         Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
         In sceptr'd pall come sweeping by
         Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
         Or the tale of Troy divine;
         Or what (though rare) of later age
         Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.
           But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
         Might raise Musaeus from his bower,
         Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
         Such notes as, warbled to the string,
         Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek
         And made Hell grant what Love did seek!
         Or call up him that left half-told
         The story of Cambuscan bold,
         Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
         And who had Canacé to wife
         That own'd the virtuous ring and glass;
         And of the wondrous horse of brass
         On which the Tartar king did ride;
         And if aught else great bards beside
         In sage and solemn tunes have sung
         Of tourneys, and of trophies hung,
         Of forests, and enchantments drear,
         Where more is meant than meets the ear.
           Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
         Till civil-suited Morn appear,
         Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont
         With the Attic Boy to hunt,
         But kercheft in a comely cloud
         While rocking winds are piping loud,
         Or usher'd with a shower still,
         When the gust hath blown his fill,
         Ending on the rustling leaves
         With minute drops from off the eaves.
         And when the sun begins to fling
         His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring
         To archéd walks of twilight groves,
         And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
         Of pine, or monumental oak,
         Where the rude axe, with heavéd stroke,
         Was never heard the nymphs to daunt
         Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
         There in close covert by some brook
         Where no profaner eye may look,
         Hide me from day's garish eye,
         While the bee with honey'd thigh,
         That at her flowery work doth sing,
         And the waters murmuring,
         With such consort as they keep
         Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep.
         And let some strange mysterious dream
         Wave at his wings in aery stream
         Of lively portraiture display'd,
         Softly on my eyelids laid:
         And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
         Above, about, or underneath,
         Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
         Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
           But let my due feet never fail
         To walk the studious cloister's pale,
         And love the high-embowéd roof,
         With antique pillars massy proof,
         And storied windows richly dight
         Casting a dim religious light:
         There let the pealing organ blow
         To the full-voiced quire below
         In service high and anthems clear,
         As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
         Dissolve me into ecstasies,
         And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
           And may at last my weary age
         Find out the peaceful hermitage,
         The hairy gown and mossy cell,
         Where I may sit and rightly spell
         Of every star that heaven doth show,
         And every herb that sips the dew;
         Till old experience do attain
         To something like prophetic strain.

           These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
         And I with thee will choose to live.

     J. MILTON.




     114. SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA.

     Where the remote Bermudas ride
     In the ocean's bosom unespied,
     From a small boat that row'd along
     The listening woods received this song.

       "What should we do but sing His praise
     That led us through the watery maze
     Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks,
     That lift the deep upon their backs,
     Unto an isle so long unknown,
     And yet far kinder than our own?
     He lands us on a grassy stage,
     Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage:
     He gave us this eternal spring
     Which here enamels everything,
     And sends the fowls to us in care
     On daily visits through the air.
     He hangs in shades the orange bright
     Like golden lamps in a green night,
     And does in the pomegranates close
     Jewels more rich than Ormus shows:
     He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
     And throws the melons at our feet;
     But apples plants of such a price,
     No tree could ever bear them twice.
     With cedars chosen by His hand
     From Lebanon He stores the land;
     And makes the hollow seas that roar
     Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
     He cast (of which we rather boast)
     The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;
     And in these rocks for us did frame
     A temple where to sound His name.
     O let our voice His praise exalt
     Till it arrive at Heaven's vault,
     Which then perhaps rebounding may
     Echo beyond the Mexique bay!"
     --Thus sung they in the English boat
     A holy and a cheerful note:
     And all the way, to guide their chime,
     With falling oars they kept the time.

     A. MARVELL.




     115. AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

     Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,
     Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Verse,
     Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ
     Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce,
     And to our high-raised phantasy present
     That undisturbéd Song of pure concent,
     Ay sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne
        To Him that sits thereon,
     With saintly shout and solemn jubilee;
     Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
     Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow;
     And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
     Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
     With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms
        Hymns devout and holy psalms
        Singing everlastingly:
     That we on earth, with undiscording voice
     May rightly answer that melodious noise;
     As once we did, till disproportion'd sin
     Jarr'd against nature's chime, and with harsh din
     Broke the fair music that all creatures made
     To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd
     In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
     In first obedience, and their state of good.
     O may we soon again renew that Song,
     And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
     To His celestial consort us unite,
     To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light!

     J. MILTON.




     116. ALEXANDER'S FEAST, OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC.

     'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
     By Philip's warlike son--
     Aloft in awful state
     The godlike hero sate
     On his imperial throne;
     His valiant peers were placed around;
     Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
     (So should desert in arms be crown'd).
     The lovely Thais by his side
     Sate like a blooming eastern bride
     In flower of youth and beauty's pride:--
     Happy, happy, happy pair!
     None but the brave
     None but the brave
     None but the brave deserves the fair.

       Timotheus placed on high
     Amid the tuneful quire
     With flying fingers touch'd the lyre:
     The trembling notes ascend the sky
     And heavenly joys inspire.
     The song began from Jove
     Who left his blissful seats above--
     Such is the power of mighty love!
     A dragon's fiery form belied the god;
     Sublime on radiant spires he rode
     When he to fair Olympia prest,
     And while he sought her snowy breast;
     Then round her slender waist he curl'd,
     And stamp'd an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
     --The listening crowd admire the lofty sound!
     A present deity! they shout around:
     A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound!
     With ravish'd ears
     The monarch hears,
     Assumes the god;
     Affects to nod
     And seems to shake the spheres.

       The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung:
     Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:
     The jolly god in triumph comes!
     Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!
     Flush'd with a purple grace
     He shows his honest face:
     Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes!
     Bacchus, ever fair and young,
     Drinking joys did first ordain;
     Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
     Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:
     Rich the treasure,
     Sweet the pleasure,
     Sweet is pleasure after pain.

       Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
     Fought all his battles o'er again,
     And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain!
     The master saw the madness rise,
     His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
     And while he Heaven and Earth defied
     Changed his hand and check'd his pride.
     He chose a mournful Muse
     Soft pity to infuse:
     He sung Darius great and good,
     By too severe a fate
     Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
     Fallen from his high estate,
     And weltering in his blood;
     Deserted, at his utmost need,
     By those his former bounty fed;
     On the bare earth exposed he lies
     With not a friend to close his eyes.
     --With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
     Revolving in his alter'd soul
     The various turns of Chance below;
     And now and then a sigh he stole;
     And tears began to flow.

       The mighty master smiled to see
     That love was in the next degree;
     'Twas but a kindred-sound to move,
     For pity melts the mind to love.
     Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
     Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
     War, he sung, is toil and trouble,
     Honour but an empty bubble,
     Never ending, still beginning;
     Fighting still, and still destroying;
     If the world be worth thy winning,
     Think, O think, it worth enjoying:
     Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
     Take the good the gods provide thee!
     --The many rend the skies with loud applause;
     So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause.
     The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
     Gazed on the fair
     Who caused his care,
     And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,
     Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again:
     At length, with love and wine at once opprest
     The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

       Now strike the golden lyre again:
     A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!
     Break his bands of sleep asunder,
     And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
     Hark, hark! the horrid sound
     Has raised up his head:
     As awaked from the dead,
     And amazed he stares around.
     Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
     See the Furies arise!
     See the snakes that they rear
     How they hiss in their hair,
     And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
     Behold a ghastly band
     Each a torch in his hand!
     Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain
     And unburied remain
     Inglorious on the plain:
     Give the vengeance due
     To the valiant crew!
     Behold how they toss their torches on high,
     How they point to the Persian abodes
     And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
     --The princes applaud with a furious joy:
     And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
     Thais led the way,
     To light him to his prey,
     And like another Helen, fired another Troy!

     --Thus, long ago,
     Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow,
     While organs yet were mute,
     Timotheus, to his breathing flute
     And sounding lyre
     Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
     At last divine Cecilia came,
     Inventress of the vocal frame;
     The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store
     Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
     And added length to solemn sounds,
     With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
     --Let old Timotheus yield the prize
     Or both divide the crown;
     He raised a mortal to the skies;
     She drew an angel down!

     J. DRYDEN.





THIRD BOOK.


SUMMARY.


It is more difficult to characterise the English Poetry of the
eighteenth century than that of any other. For it was an age not only of
spontaneous transition, but of bold experiment: it includes not only
such divergences of thought as distinguished the "Rape of the Lock" from
the "Parish Register," but such vast contemporaneous differences as lie
between Pope and Collins, Burns and Cowper. Yet we may clearly trace
three leading moods or tendencies:--the aspects of courtly or educated
life represented by Pope and carried to exhaustion by his followers; the
poetry of Nature and of Man, viewed through a cultivated, and at the
same time an impassioned frame of mind by Collins and Gray:--lastly, the
study of vivid and simple narrative, including natural description,
begun by Gay and Thomson, pursued by Burns and others in the north, and
established in England by Goldsmith, Percy, Crabbe, and Cowper. Great
varieties in style accompanied these diversities in aim: poets could not
always distinguish the manner suitable for subjects so far apart; and
the union of the language of courtly and of common life, exhibited most
conspicuously by Burns, has given a tone to the poetry of that century
which is better explained by reference to its historical origin than by
naming it, in the common criticism of our day, artificial. There is
again, a nobleness of thought, a courageous aim at high and, in a strict
sense manly, excellence in many of the writers:--nor can that period be
justly termed tame and wanting in originality, which produced poems such
as Pope's Satires, Gray's Odes and Elegy, the ballads of Gay and Carey,
the songs of Burns and Cowper. In truth Poetry at this as at all times
was a more or less unconscious mirror of the genius of the age; and the
brave and admirable spirit of Enquiry which made the eighteenth century
the turning-time in European civilisation is reflected faithfully in its
verse. An intelligent reader will find the influence of Newton as
markedly in the poems of Pope, as of Elizabeth in the plays of
Shakespeare. On this great subject, however, these indications must here
be sufficient.




     117. ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE.

     Now the golden Morn aloft
       Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
     With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
       She woos the tardy Spring:
     Till April starts, and calls around
     The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
     And lightly o'er the living scene
     Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

     New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
       Frisking ply their feeble feet;
     Forgetful of their wintry trance
       The birds his presence greet:
     But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
     His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
     And lessening from the dazzled sight,
     Melts into air and liquid light.

     Yesterday the sullen year
       Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
     Mute was the music of the air,
       The herd stood drooping by:
     Their raptures now that wildly flow
     No yesterday nor morrow know;
     'Tis Man alone that joy descries
     With forward and reverted eyes.

     Smiles on past Misfortune's brow
       Soft Reflection's hand can trace,
     And o'er the cheek of Sorrow throw
       A melancholy grace;
     While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
     Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
     And blacken round our weary way,
     Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

     Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
       See a kindred Grief pursue;
     Behind the steps that Misery treads
       Approaching Comfort view:
     The hues of bliss more brightly glow
     Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
     And blended form, with artful strife,
     The strength and harmony of life.

     See the wretch that long has tost
       On the thorny bed of pain,
     At length repair his vigour lost
       And breathe and walk again:
     The meanest floweret of the vale,
     The simplest note that swells the gale,
     The common sun, the air, the skies,
     To him are opening Paradise.

     T. GRAY.




     118. SOLITUDE.

     Happy the man, whose wish and care
     A few paternal acres bound,
     Content to breathe his native air
                    In his own ground.

     Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
     Whose flocks supply him with attire;
     Whose trees in summer yield him shade
                    In winter, fire.

     Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
     Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
     In health of body, peace of mind,
                    Quiet by day,

     Sound sleep by night; study and ease
     Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
     And innocence, which most does please
                    With meditation.

     Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
     Thus unlamented let me die;
     Steal from the world, and not a stone
                    Tell where I lie.

     A. POPE.




     119. THE BLIND BOY.

     O say what is that thing call'd Light,
       Which I must ne'er enjoy;
     What are the blessings of the sight,
       O tell your poor blind boy!

     You talk of wondrous things you see,
       You say the sun shines bright;
     I feel him warm, but how can he
       Or make it day or night?

     My day or night myself I make
       Whene'er I sleep or play;
     And could I ever keep awake
       With me 'twere always day.

     With heavy sighs I often hear
       You mourn my hapless woe;
     But sure with patience I can bear
       A loss I ne'er can know.

     Then let not what I cannot have
       My cheer of mind destroy:
     Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
       Although a poor blind boy.

     C. CIBBER.




     120. ON A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

     'Twas on a lofty vase's side
     Where China's gayest art had dyed
     The azure flowers that blow,
     Demurest of the tabby kind
     The pensive Selima, reclined,
     Gazed on the lake below.

     Her conscious tail her joy declared:
     The fair round face, the snowy beard,
     The velvet of her paws,
     Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
     Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes--
     She saw, and purr'd applause.

     Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide
     Two angel forms were seen to glide,
     The Genii of the stream:
     Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
     Through richest purple, to the view
     Betray'd a golden gleam.

     The hapless Nymph with wonder saw;
     A whisker first, and then a claw
     With many an ardent wish
     She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize--
     What female heart can gold despise?
     What cat's averse to fish?

     Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
     Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
     Nor knew the gulf between--
     Malignant Fate sat by and smiled--
     The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
     She tumbled headlong in!

     Eight times emerging from the flood,
     She mew'd to every watery God
     Some speedy aid to send:--
     No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd,
     Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard--
     A favourite has no friend!

     From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived
     Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,
     And be with caution bold:
     Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
     And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,
     Nor all that glisters, gold!

     T. GRAY.




     121. TO CHARLOTTE PULTENEY.

        Timely blossom, Infant fair,
        Fondling of a happy pair,
        Every morn and every night
        Their solicitous delight,
        Sleeping, waking, still at ease,
        Pleasing, without skill to please
        Little gossip, blithe and hale,
        Tattling many a broken tale,
        Singing many a tuneless song.
        Lavish of a heedless tongue;
        Simple maiden, void of art,
        Babbling out the very heart,
        Yet abandon'd to thy will,
        Yet imagining no ill,
        Yet too innocent to blush,
        Like the linnet in the bush
        To the mother-linnet's note
        Moduling her slender throat;
        Chirping forth thy petty joys,
        Wanton in the change of toys,
        Like the linnet green, in May
        Flitting to each bloomy spray;
        Wearied then and glad of rest,
        Like the linnet in the nest:--
        This thy present happy lot
        This, in time will be forgot:
        Other pleasures, other cares,
        Ever-busy Time prepares;
        And thou shalt in thy daughter see,
        This picture, once, resembled thee.

     A. PHILIPS.




     122. RULE BRITANNIA.

       When Britain first at Heaven's command
         Arose from out the azure main,
       This was the charter of her land,
         And guardian angels sung the strain:
     Rule Brittania! Brittania rules the waves!
           Britons never shall be slaves.

       The nations not so blest as thee
         Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
       Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free
         The dread and envy of them all.

       Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
         More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
       As the loud blast that tears the skies
         Serves but to root thy native oak.

       Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
         All their attempts to bend thee down
       Will but arouse thy generous flame,
         And work their woe and thy renown.

       To thee belongs the rural reign;
         Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
       All thine shall be the subject main,
         And every shore it circles thine!

       The Muses, still with Freedom found,
         Shall to thy happy coast repair;
       Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crown'd,
         And manly hearts to guard the fair:--
     Rule Britannia! Brittania rules the waves!
           Britons never shall be slaves!

     J. THOMSON.




     123. THE BARD.

     _Pindaric Ode._

     "Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
      Confusion on thy banners wait!
     Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing
      They mock the air with idle state.
     Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail
     Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
     To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
     From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
     --Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
      Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
     As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
      He wound with toilsome march his long array:--
     Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance;
     "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd quivering lance.

      On a rock, whose haughty brow
     Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
      Robed in the sable garb of woe
     With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
     (Loose his beard and hoary hair
     Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air)
     And with a master's hand and prophet's fire
     Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre:
     "Hark, how each giant oak and desert-cave
      Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
     O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
      Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
     Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
     To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

      "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue
      That hush'd the stormy main;
     Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
      Mountains, ye mourn in vain
      Modred, whose magic song
     Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.
      On dreary Arvon's shore they lie
     Smear'd with gore and ghastly pale:
     Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail;
      The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.
     Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
      Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
     Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
      Ye died amidst your dying country's cries--
     No more I weep; They do not sleep;
      On yonder cliffs, a griesly band,
     I see them sit; They linger yet,
      Avengers of their native land:
     With me in dreadful harmony they join,
     And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.

     "Weave the warp and weave the woof
      The winding-sheet of Edward's race:
     Give ample room and verge enough
      The characters of hell to trace.
     Mark the year and mark the night
     When Severn shall re-echo with affright
     The shrieks of death thro' Berkley's roof that ring,
     Shrieks of an agonising king!
      She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs
     That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
      From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs
     The scourge of Heaven! What terrors round him wait!
     Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
     And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.

     "Mighty Victor, mighty lord,
      Low on his funeral couch he lies!
     No pitying heart, no eye, afford
      A tear to grace his obsequies.
     Is the sable warrior fled?
     Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
     The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born?
     --Gone to salute the rising morn.
     Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
      While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
     In gallant trim the gilded Vessel goes:
      Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm:
     Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway,
     That hush'd in grim repose expects his evening prey.

      "Fill high the sparkling bowl,
     The rich repast prepare;
      Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast.
     Close by the regal chair
      Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
      A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
     Heard ye the din of battle bray,
      Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
      Long years of havock urge their destined course,
     And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way.
      Ye Towers of Julius! London's lasting shame,
     With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
      Revere his Consort's faith, his Father's fame,
     And spare the meek usurper's holy head!
     Above, below, the rose of snow,
      Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
     The bristled boar in infant gore
      Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
     Now, brothers, bending o'er the accurséd loom,
     Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

     "Edward, lo! to sudden fate
      (Weave we the woof; the thread is spun;)
     Half of thy heart we consecrate.
      (The web is wove; the work is done;)
     Stay, O stay! nor thus forlorn
     Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn:
     In yon bright track that fires the western skies
     They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
     But O! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height
      Descending slow, their glittering skirts unroll?
     Visions of glory, spare my aching sight,
      Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
     No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail:--
     All hail, ye genuine Kings! Britannia's issue, hail!

      "Girt with many a baron bold,
     Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
      And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
     In bearded majesty, appear.
     In the midst a form divine!
     Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-Line:
     Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face
     Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace.
     What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
      What strains of vocal transport round her play?
     Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
      They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
     Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,
     Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-colour'd wings.

     "The verse adorn again,
      Fierce War and faithful Love,
     And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.
      In buskin'd measures move
     Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
     With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
     A voice as of the cherub-choir
      Gales from blooming Eden bear,
      And distant warblings lessen on my ear
     That lost in long futurity expire.
     Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud
      Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day?
     To-morrow he repairs the golden flood
      And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
     Enough for me: with joy I see
      The different doom our fates assign:
     Be thine Despair and sceptred Care;
      To triumph and to die are mine."
     He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height
     Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

     T. GRAY.




     124. ODE WRITTEN IN MDCCXLVI.

     How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
     By all their Country's wishes blest!
     When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
     Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
     She there shall dress a sweeter sod
     Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

     By fairy hands their knell is rung,
     By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
     There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
     To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
     And Freedom shall awhile repair
     To dwell a weeping hermit, there!

     W. COLLINS.




     125. LAMENT FOR CULLODEN.

     The lovely lass o' Inverness,
     Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
     For e'en and morn she cries, Alas!
     And aye the saut tear blink's her ee:
     Drumossie moor--Drumossie day--
     A waefu' day it was to me!
     For there I lost my father dear,
     My father dear, and brethren three.

     Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
     Their graves are growing green to see:
     And by them lies the dearest lad
     That ever blest a woman's ee!
     Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
     A bluidy man I trow thou be;
     For mony a heart thou hast made sair
     That ne'er did wrong to thine or thee.

     R. BURNS.




     126. LAMENT FOR FLODDEN.

     I've heard them lilting at our ewe-milking,
       Lasses a' lilting before dawn o' day;
     But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning--
       The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

     At bughts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning,
       Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
     Nae daffin', nae gabbin', but sighing and sabbing,
       Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.

     In har'st, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
       Bandsters are lyart, and runkled and gray;
     At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching--
       The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

     At e'en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming
       'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play;
     But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie--
       The Flowers of the Forest are weded away.

     Dool and wae for the order, sent out lads to the border!
       The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;
     The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
       The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.

     We'll hear nae mair lilting at the ewe-milking;
       Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
     Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning--
       The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

     J. ELLIOTT.




     127. THE BRAES OF YARROW.

     Thy braes were bonny, Yarrow stream,
     When first on them I met my lover;
     Thy braes how dreary, Yarrow stream,
     When now thy waves his body cover!
     For ever now, O Yarrow stream!
     Thou art to me a stream of sorrow;
     For never on thy banks shall I
     Behold my Love, the flower of Yarrow!

     He promised me a milk-white steed
     To bear me to his father's bowers;
     He promised me a little page
     To squire me to his father's towers;
     He promised me a wedding-ring,--
     The wedding-day was fix'd to-morrow;--
     Now he is wedded to his grave,
     Alas, his watery grave, in Yarrow!

     Sweet were his words when last we met;
     My passion I as freely told him;
     Clasp'd in his arms, I little thought
     That I should never more behold him!
     Scarce was he gone, I saw his ghost;
     It vanish'd with a shriek of sorrow;
     Thrice did the water-wraith ascend,
     And gave a doleful groan thro' Yarrow.

     His mother from the window look'd
     With all the longing of a mother;
     His little sister weeping walk'd
     The green-wood path to meet her brother;
     They sought him east, they sought him west,
     They sought him all the forest thorough;
     They only saw the cloud of night,
     They only heard the roar of Yarrow.

     No longer from thy window look--
     Thou hast no son, thou tender mother!
     No longer walk, thou lovely maid;
     Alas, thou hast no more a brother!
     No longer seek him east or west
     And search no more the forest thorough;
     For, wandering in the night so dark,
     He fell a lifeless corpse in Yarrow.

     The tear shall never leave my cheek,
     No other youth shall be my marrow--
     I'll seek thy body in the stream,
     And then with thee I'll sleep in Yarrow.
     --The tear did never leave her cheek,
     No other youth became her marrow;
     She found his body in the stream,
     And now with him she sleeps in Yarrow.

     J. LOGAN.




     128. WILLIE DROWNED IN YARROW.

     Down in yon garden sweet and gay
       Where bonnie grows the lily,
     I heard a fair maid sighing say
       "My wish be wi' sweet Willie!

     "Willie's rare, and Willie's fair,
       And Willie's wondrous bonny;
     And Willie hecht to marry me
       Gin e'er he married ony.

     "O gentle wind, that bloweth south,
       From where my Love repaireth,
     Convey a kiss frae his dear mouth
       And tell me how he fareth!

     "O tell sweet Willie to come doon
       And hear the mavis singing,
     And see the birds on ilka bush
       And leaves around them hinging.

     "The lav'rock there, wi' her white breast
       And gentle throat sae narrow;
     There's sport eneuch for gentlemen
       On Leader haughs and Yarrow.

     "O Leader haughs are wide and braid
       And Yarrow haughs are bonny;
     There Willie hecht to marry me
       If e'er he married ony.

     "But Willie's gone, whom I thought on,
       And does not hear me weeping;
     Draws many a tear frae true love's e'e
       When other maids are sleeping.

     "Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid,
       The night I'll mak' it narrow,
     For a' the live-lang winter night
       I lie twined o' my marrow.

     "O came ye by yon water-side?
       Pou'd you the rose or lily?
     Or came you by yon meadow green,
       Or saw you my sweet Willie?"

     She sought him up, she sought him down,
       She sought him braid and narrow;
     Syne, in the cleaving of a craig,
       She found him drown'd in Yarrow!

     ANON.




     129. LOSS OF THE _ROYAL GEORGE_.

     Toll for the Brave!
     The brave that are no more!
     All sunk beneath the wave
     Fast by their native shore!

     Eight hundred of the brave
     Whose courage well was tried,
     Had made the vessel heel
     And laid her on her side.

     A land-breeze shook the shrouds
     And she was overset;
     Down went the _Royal George_,
     With all her crew complete.

     Toll for the brave!
     Brave Kempenfelt is gone:
     His last sea-fight is fought,
     His work of glory done.

     It was not in the battle;
     No tempest gave the shock;
     She sprang no fatal leak,
     She ran upon no rock.

     His sword was in its sheath,
     His fingers held the pen,
     When Kempenfeld went down
     With twice four hundred men.

     Weigh the vessel up
     Once dreaded by our foes!
     And mingle with our cup
     The tear that England owes.

     Her timbers yet are sound,
     And she may float again
     Full charged with England's thunder,
     And plough the distant main:

     But Kempenfeld is gone,
     His victories are o'er;
     And he and his eight hundred
     Shall plough the wave no more.

     W. COWPER.




     130. BLACK-EYED SUSAN.

     All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd,
       The streamers waving in the wind,
     When black-eyed Susan came aboard;
       "O! where shall I my true-love find?
     Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true
     If my sweet William sails among the crew."

     William, who high upon the yard
       Rock'd with the billow to and fro,
     Soon as her well-known voice he heard
       He sigh'd, and cast his eyes below;
     The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands,
     And quick as lightning on the deck he stands.

     So the sweet lark, high poised in air,
       Shuts close his pinions to his breast
     If chance his mate's shrill call he hear,
       And drops at once into her nest:--
     The noblest captain in the British fleet
     Might envy William's lip those kisses sweet

     "O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,
       My vows shall ever true remain
     Let me kiss off that falling tear;
       We only part to meet again.
     Change as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be
     The faithful compass that still points to thee.

     "Believe not what the landmen say
       Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind:
     They'll tell thee, sailors, when away,
       In every port a mistress find:
     Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,
     For Thou art present wheresoe'er I go.

     "If to fair India's coast we sail,
       Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright,
     Thy breath is Afric's spicy gale,
       Thy skin is ivory so white.
     Thus every beauteous object that I view
     Wakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue.

     "Though battle call me from thy arms
       Let not my pretty Susan mourn;
     Though cannons roar, yet safe from harms
       William shall to his Dear return.
     Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,
     Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye."

     The boatswain gave the dreadful word,
       The sails their swelling bosom spread;
     No longer must she stay aboard;
       They kiss'd, she sigh'd, he hung his head.
     Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land;
     "Adieu!" she cries; and waved her lily hand.

     J. GAY.




     131. SALLY IN OUR ALLEY.

     Of all the girls that are so smart
      There's none like pretty Sally;
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.
     There is no lady in the land
      Is half so sweet as Sally;
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

     Her father he makes cabbage-nets,
      And through the streets does cry 'em;
     Her mother she sells laces long
      To such as please to buy 'em;
     But sure such folks could ne'er beget
      So sweet a girl as Sally!
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

     When she is by, I leave my work,
      I love her so sincerely;
     My master comes like any Turk,
      And bangs me most severely--
     But let him bang his bellyful,
      I'll bear it all for Sally;
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

     Of all the days that's in the week
      I dearly love but one day--
     And that's the day that comes betwixt
      A Saturday and Monday;
     For then I'm drest all in my best
      To walk abroad with Sally:
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

     My master carries me to church,
      And often am I blamed
     Because I leave him in the lurch
      As soon as text is named;
     I leave the church in sermon-time
      And slink away to Sally;
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

     When Christmas comes about again,
      O then I shall have money;
     I'll hoard it up, and box it all,
      I'll give it to my honey:
     I would it were ten thousand pound,
      I'd give it all to Sally;
     She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

     My master and the neighbours all
      Make game of me and Sally,
     And, but for her, I'd better be
      A slave and row a galley;
     But when my seven long years are out
      O then I'll marry Sally,--
     O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed,
      But not in our alley!

     H. CAREY.




     132. A FAREWELL.

     Go fetch to me a pint o' wine,
      And fill it in a silver tassie;
     That I may drink before I go
      A service to my bonnie lassie:
     The boat rocks at the pier of Leith,
      Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry,
     The ship rides by the Berwick-law,
      And I maun leave my bonnie Mary.

     The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
      The glittering spears are rankéd ready;
     The shouts o' war are heard afar,
      The battle closes thick and bloody;
     But it's not the roar o' sea or shore
      Wad make me langer wish to tarry;
     Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar--
      It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.

     R. BURNS.




     133.

     If doughty deeds my lady please
       Right soon I'll mount my steed;
     And strong his arm, and fast his seat
       That bears frae me the meed.
     I'll wear thy colours in my cap
       Thy picture in my heart;
     And he that bends not to thine eye
       Shall rue it to his smart!
        Then tell me how to woo thee, Love;
          O tell me how to woo thee!
        For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take
          Tho' ne'er another trow me.

     If gay attire delight thine eye
       I'll dight me in array;
     I'll tend thy chamber door all night,
       And squire thee all the day.
     If sweetest sounds can win thine ear,
       These sounds I'll strive to catch;
     Thy voice I'll steal to woo thysell,
       That voice that nane can match.

     But if fond love thy heart can gain,
       I never broke a vow;
     Nae maiden lays her skaith to me,
       I never loved but you.
     For you alone I ride the ring,
       For you I wear the blue;
     For you alone I strive to sing,
       O tell me how to woo!
        Then tell me how to woo thee, Love;
          O tell me how to woo thee!
        For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take,
          Tho' ne'er another trow me.

     GRAHAM OF GARTMORE.




     134. TO A YOUNG LADY.

     Sweet stream, that winds through yonder glade,
     Apt emblem of a virtuous maid--
     Silent and chaste she steals along,
     Far from the world's gay busy throng:
     With gentle yet prevailing force,
     Intent upon her destined course;
     Graceful and useful all she does,
     Blessing and blest where'er she goes;
     Pure-bosom'd as that watery glass,
     And Heaven reflected in her face.

     W. COWPER.




     135. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

     Sleep on, and dream of Heaven awhile--
     Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes,
     Thy rosy lips still wear a smile
     And move, and breathe delicious sighs!

     Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks
     And mantle o'er her neck of snow:
     Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
     What most I wish--and fear to know!

     She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
     Her fair hands folded on her breast:
     --And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
     A seraph in the realms of rest!

     Sleep on secure! Above controul
     Thy thoughts belong to Heaven and thee:
     And may the secret of thy soul
     Remain within its sanctuary!

     S. ROGERS.




     136.

     For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
     An unrelenting foe to Love,
     And when we meet a mutual heart
     Come in between, and bid us part?

     Bid us sigh on from day to day,
     And wish and wish the soul away;
     Till youth and genial years are flown,
     And all the life of life is gone?

     But busy, busy, still art thou,
     To bind the loveless joyless vow,
     The heart from pleasure to delude,
     To join the gentle to the rude.

     For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
     And I absolve thy future care;
     All other blessings I resign,
     Make but the dear Amanda mine.

     J. THOMSON.




     137.

     The merchant, to secure his treasure,
     Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
     Euphelia serves to grace my measure,
     But Cloe is my real flame.

     My softest verse, my darling lyre
     Upon Euphelia's toilet lay--
     When Cloe noted her desire
     That I should sing, that I should play.

     My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
     But with my numbers mix my sighs:
     And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
     I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes.

     Fair Cloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd:
     I sung, and gazed; I play'd, and trembled:
     And Venus to the Loves around
     Remark'd how ill we all dissembled.

     M. PRIOR.




     138.

     When lovely woman stoops to folly
     And finds too late that men betray,--
     What charm can soothe her melancholy,
     What art can wash her guilt away?

     The only art her guilt to cover,
     To hide her shame from every eye,
     To give repentance to her lover
     And wring his bosom, is--to die.

     O. GOLDSMITH.




     139.

     Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon
       How can ye blume sae fair!
     How can ye chant, ye little birds,
       And I sae fu' o' care!

     Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird
       That sings upon the bough;
     Thou minds me o' the happy days
       When my fause Luve was true.

     Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird
       That sings beside thy mate;
     For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
       And wist na o' my fate.

     Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon
       To see the woodbine twine,
     And ilka bird sang o' its love;
       And sae did I o' mine.

     Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
       Frae aff its thorny tree;
     And my fause luver staw the rose,
       But left the thorn wi' me.

     R. BURNS.




     140. THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

     _A Pindaric Ode._

       Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,
     And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
     From Helicon's harmonious springs
       A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
     The laughing flowers that round them blow
     Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
     Now the rich stream of Music winds along
     Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
     Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
     Now rolling down the steep amain
     Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:
     The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.

       O Sovereign of the willing soul,
     Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
     Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares
       And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
     On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
     Has curb'd the fury of his car
     And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.
     Perching on the sceptred hand
     Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
     With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
     Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
     The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

     Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
     Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
     O'er Idalia's velvet-green
     The rosy-crownéd Loves are seen
     On Cytherea's day,
     With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures,
     Frisking light in frolic measures;
     Now pursuing, now retreating,
       Now in circling troops they meet:
     To brisk notes in cadence beating
       Glance their many-twinkling feet.
     Slow-melting strains their Queen's approach declare:
       Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay:
     With arms sublime that float upon the air
       In gliding state she wins her easy way:
     O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
     The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

       Man's feeble race what ills await!
     Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
     Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
       And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
     The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
     And justify the laws of Jove.
     Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
     Night, and all her sickly dews,
     Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry
     He gives to range the dreary sky:
     Till down the eastern cliffs afar
     Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war.

       In climes beyond the solar road
     Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
     The Muse has broke the twilight gloom
       To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
     And oft, beneath the odorous shade
     Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
     She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat
     In loose numbers wildly sweet
     Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
     Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
     Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
     Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

     Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
     Isles, that crown th' Aegean deep,
     Fields that cool Ilissus laves
     Or where Maeander's amber waves
     In lingering lab'rinths creep,
     How do your tuneful echoes languish,
     Mute, but to the voice of anguish!
     Where each old poetic mountain
       Inspiration breathed around;
     Every shade and hallow'd fountain
       Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:
     Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour
       Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
     Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,
       And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
     When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
     They sought, O Albion! next, thy sea-encircled coast.

       Far from the sun and summer-gale
     In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
     What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
       To him the mighty Mother did unveil
     Her awful face: the dauntless Child
     Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smiled.
     This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
     Richly paint the vernal year:
     Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy!
     This can unlock the gates of Joy;
     Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,
     Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.

       Nor second He, that rode sublime
     Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy
     The secrets of the Abyss to spy:
       He pass'd the flaming bounds of Place and Time:
     The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze
     Where Angels tremble while they gaze,
     He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
     Closed his eyes in endless night.
     Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car
     Wide o'er the fields of Glory bear
     Two coursers of ethereal race
     With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.

     Hark! his hands the lyre explore!
     Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,
     Scatters from her pictured urn
     Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
     But ah! 'tis heard no more--
     O! Lyre divine, what daring Spirit
     Wakes thee now! Tho' he inherit
     Nor the pride, nor ample pinion
       That the Theban Eagle bear,
     Sailing with supreme dominion
       Thro' the azure deep of air:
     Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
       Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
     With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun:
       Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
     Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate:
     Beneath the Good how far--but far above the Great.

     T. GRAY.




     141. THE PASSIONS.

     _An Ode for Music._

     When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
     While yet in early Greece she sung,
     The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
     Throng'd around her magic cell
     Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
     Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
     By turns they felt the glowing mind
     Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined:
     'Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
     Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,
     From the supporting myrtles round
     They snatch'd her instruments of sound,
     And, as they oft had heard apart
     Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
     Each, for Madness ruled the hour,
     Would prove his own expressive power.

     First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
       Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
     And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
       E'en at the sound himself had made.

     Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
       In lightnings own'd his secret stings;
     In one rude clash he struck the lyre
       And swept with hurried hand the strings.

     With woeful measures wan Despair--
       Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled,
     A solemn strange and mingled air,
       'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

     But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
       What was thy delighted measure?
     Still it whisper'd promised pleasure
       And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
     Still would her touch the strain prolong;
       And from the rocks, the woods, the vale
     She call'd on Echo still through all the song;
       And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
       A soft responsive voice was heard at every close:
     And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair;--
     And longer had she sung:--but with a frown Revenge impatient rose:
     He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down;
          And with a withering look
       The war-denouncing trumpet took
     And blew a blast so loud and dread,
     Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
          And ever and anon he beat
          The doubling drum with furious heat;
     And, though sometimes, each each dreary pause between,
          Dejected Pity at his side
          Her soul-subduing voice applied,
       Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien,
     While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.

     Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd:
       Sad proof of thy distressful state!
     Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd;
       And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.

     With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
     Pale Melancholy sat retired;
     And from her wild sequester'd seat,
     In notes by distance made more sweet,
     Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
       And dashing soft from rocks around
       Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
     Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
       Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
          Round an holy calm diffusing,
          Love of peace, and lonely musing,
       In hollow murmurs died away.

     But O! how alter'd was its sprightlier tone
     When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
       Her bow across her shoulder flung,
       Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,
     Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
       The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known!
     The oak-crown'd Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen,
       Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen
       Peeping from forth their alleys green:
     Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;
       And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear.

     Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
     He, with viny crown advancing,
       First to the lively pipe his hand addrest:
     But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol
       Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best:
     They would have thought who heard the strain
          They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids
          Amidst the festal-sounding shades
     To some unwearied minstrel dancing;
     While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the stings,
       Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:
       Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
       And he, amidst his frolic play,
       As if he would the charming air repay,
     Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

     O Music! Sphere-descended maid,
     Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
     Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
     Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
     As in that loved Athenian bower
     You learn'd an all-commanding power,
     Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd!
     Can well recall what then it heard.
     Where is thy native simple heart
     Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
     Arise, as in that elder time,
     Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
     Thy wonders, in that god-like age,
     Fill thy recording Sister's page;--
     'Tis said and I believe the tale,
     Thy humblest reed could more prevail
     Had more of strength, diviner rage,
     Than all which charms this laggard age,
     E'en all at once together found
     Cecilia's mingled world of sound:--
     O bid our vain endeavours cease:
     Revive the just designs of Greece:
     Return in all thy simple state!
     Confirm the tales her sons relate!

     W. COLLINS.




     142. ODE ON THE SPRING.

     Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
       Fair Venus' train, appear,
     Disclose the long-expecting flowers
       And wake the purple year!
     The Attic warbler pours her throat
     Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
     The untaught harmony of Spring:
     While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
     Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
       Their gather'd fragrance fling.

     Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
       A broader, browner shade,
     Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
       O'er-canopies the glade,
     Beside some water's rushy brink
     With me the Muse shall sit, and think
     (At ease reclined in rustic state)
     How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
     How low, how little, are the Proud,
       How indigent the Great!

     Still is the toiling hand of Care;
       The panting herds repose:
     Yet hark, how thro' the peopled air
       The busy murmur glows!
     The insect youth are on the wing,
     Eager to taste the honied spring
     And float amid the liquid noon:
     Some lightly o'er the current skim,
     Some show their gaily-gilded trim
       Quick-glancing to the sun.

     To Contemplation's sober eye
       Such is the race of Man:
     And they that creep, and they that fly,
       Shall end where they began.
     Alike the busy and the gay
     But flutter thro' life's little day,
     In Fortune's varying colours drest:
     Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
     Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
       They leave, in dust to rest.

     Methinks I hear in accents low,
       The sportive kind reply:
     Poor moralist! and what art thou?
       A solitary fly!
     Thy joys no glittering female meets,
     No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
     No painted plumage to display:
     On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
     Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone--
       We frolic while 'tis May.

     T. GRAY.




     143. THE POPLAR FIELD.

     The poplars are fell'd, farewell to the shade
     And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
     The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
     Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

     Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view
     Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew:
     And now in the grass behold they are laid,
     And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.

     The blackbird has fled to another retreat
     Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
     And the scene where his melody charm'd me before
     Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

     My fugitive years are all hasting away,
     And I must ere long lie lowly as they,
     With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
     Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

     'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
     To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
     Short-lived as we are, our enjoyments, I see,
     Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.

     W. COWPER.




     144. TO A FIELD-MOUSE.

     Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
     O 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,
     An' justifies that ill opinion
     Which makes thee startle
     At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
     An' fellow-mortal!

     I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
     What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
     A daimen icker in a thrave
     'S a sma' request:
     I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
     An' never miss't!

     Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
     It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
     An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
     O' foggage green!
     And bleak December's winds ensuin'
     Baith snell and keen!

     Thou saw the fields laid bare an' 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.

     That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
     Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
     Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
     But house or hald,
     To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
     An' cranreuch cauld!

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

     Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
     The present only toucheth thee:
     But, och! I backward cast my e'e.
     On prospects drear!
     An' forward, tho' I canna see,
     I guess and fear.

     R. BURNS.




     145. A WISH.

     Mine be a cot beside the hill;
     A bee-hive's hum shall sooth my ear;
     A willowy brook that turns a mill,
     With many a fall shall linger near.

     The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch
     Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
     Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
     And share my meal, a welcome guest.

     Around my ivied porch shall spring
     Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
     And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
     In russet-gown and apron blue.

     The village-church among the trees,
     Where first our marriage-vows were given,
     With merry peals shall swell the breeze
     And point with taper spire to Heaven.

     S. ROGERS.




     146. TO EVENING.

     If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song
     May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear
        Like thy own solemn springs,
        Thy springs, and dying gales;

     O Nymph reserved,--while now the bright-hair'd sun
     Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts
        With brede ethereal wove,
        O'erhang his wavy bed,

     Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
     With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
        Or where the beetle winds
        His small but sullen horn,

     As oft he rises midst the twilight path
     Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,--
        Now teach me, maid composed,
        To breathe some soften'd strain

     Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale,
     May not unseemly with its stillness suit;
        As musing slow I hail
        Thy genial loved return.

     For when thy folding-star arising shows
     His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
        The fragrant Hours, and Elves
        Who slept in buds the day,

     And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge
     And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still
        The pensive Pleasures sweet,
        Prepare thy shadowy car.

     Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
     Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells,
        Whose walls more awful nod
        By thy religious gleams.

     Or if chill blustering winds or driving rain
     Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
        That, from the mountain's side
        Views wilds and swelling floods,

     And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
     And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
        Thy dewy fingers draw
        The gradual dusky veil.

     While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
     And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
        While Summer loves to sport
        Beneath thy lingering light;

     While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
     Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
        Affrights thy shrinking train,
        And rudely rends thy robes;

     So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
     Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
        Thy gentlest influence own,
        And love thy favourite name!

     W. COLLINS.




     147. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

     The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
     The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
     The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
     And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

     Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
     And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
     Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
     And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

     Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
     The moping owl does to the moon complain
     Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
     Molest her ancient solitary reign.

     Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
     Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
     Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
     The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

     The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
     The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
     The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
     No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

     For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn
     Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
     No children run to lisp their sire's return,
     Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

     Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
     Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
     How jocund did they drive their team afield!
     How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

     Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
     Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
     Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
     The short and simple annals of the Poor.

     The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
     And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
     Await alike th' inevitable hour:--
     The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

     Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
     If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
     Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
     The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

     Can storied urn or animated bust
     Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
     Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
     Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

     Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
     Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
     Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
     Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

     But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
     Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
     Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
     And froze the genial current of the soul.

     Full many a gem of purest ray serene
     The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
     Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
     And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

     Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
     The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
     Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
     Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

     Th' applause of listening senates to command,
     The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
     To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
     And read their history in a nation's eyes

     Their lot forbad; nor circumscribed alone
     Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
     Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
     And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

     The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
     To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
     Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
     With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

     Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
     Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
     Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
     They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

     Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
     Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
     With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
     Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

     Their name, their years, spelt by the unletter'd Muse,
     The place of fame and elegy supply:
     And many a holy text around she strews,
     That teach the rustic moralist to die.

     For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
     This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
     Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
     Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

     On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
     Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
     E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
     E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

     For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
     Dost in those lines their artless tale relate;
     If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
     Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,--

     Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
     Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,
     Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
     To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

     There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech
     That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
     His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,
     And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

     Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
     Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
     Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
     Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

     One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
     Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
     Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
     Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

     The next with dirges due in sad array,
     Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,--
     Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay
     Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.

                   THE EPITAPH.

     Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
     A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
     Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
     And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

     Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
     Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
     He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
     He gain'd from Heaven, 'twas all he wish'd, a friend.

     No farther seek his merits to disclose,
     Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
     (There they alike in trembling hope repose),
     The bosom of his Father and his God.

     T. GRAY.




     148. MARY MORISON.

     O Mary, at thy window be,
     It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
     Those smiles and glances let me see
     That make the miser's treasure poor:
     How blythely wad I bide the stoure,
     A weary slave frae sun to sun,
     Could I the rich reward secure,
     The lovely Mary Morison.

     Yestreen when to the trembling string
     The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha',
     To thee my fancy took its wing,--
     I sat, but neither heard nor saw:
     Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
     And yon the toast of a' the town,
     I sigh'd, and said amang them a',
     "Ye are na Mary Morison."

     O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace
     Wha for thy sake wad gladly dee?
     Or canst thou break that heart of his,
     Whase only faut is loving thee?
     If love for love thou wilt na gie,
     At least be pity to me shown;
     A thought ungentle canna be
     The thought o' Mary Morison.

     R. BURNS.




     149. BONNIE LESLEY.

     O saw ye bonnie Lesley
       As she gaed o'er the border?
     She's gane, like Alexander,
       To spread her conquests farther.

     To see her is to love her,
       And love but her for ever;
     For nature made her what she is,
       And ne'er made sic anither!

     Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,
       Thy subjects we, before thee;
     Thou art divine, fair Lesley,
       The hearts o' men adore thee.

     The deil he could na scaith thee,
       Or aught that wad belang thee;
     He'd look into thy bonnie face,
       And say "I canna wrang thee!"

     The Powers aboon will tent thee,
       Misfortune sha' na steer thee;
     Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely
       That ill they'll ne'er let near thee.

     Return again, fair Lesley,
       Return to Caledonie!
     That we may brag we hae a lass
       There's nane again sae bonnie.

     R. BURNS.




     150.

     O my Luve's like a red, red rose
       That's newly sprung in June:
     O my Luve's like the melodie
       That's sweetly play'd in tune.

     As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
       So deep in luve am I:
     And I will luve thee still, my dear,
       Till a' the seas gang dry:

     Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
       And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
     I will luve thee still, my dear,
       While the sands o' life shall run.

     And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
       And fare thee weel a while!
     And I will come again, my Luve
       Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

     R. BURNS.




     151. HIGHLAND MARY.

     Ye banks and braes and streams around
       The castle o' Montgomery,
     Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
       Your waters never drumlie!
     There simmer first unfauld her robes,
       And there the langest tarry;
     For there I took the last fareweel
       O' my sweet Highland Mary.

     How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk,
       How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
     As underneath their fragrant shade
       I clasp'd her to my bosom!
     The golden hours on angel wings
       Flew o'er me and my dearie;
     For dear to me as light and life
       Was my sweet Highland Mary.

     Wi' mony a vow and lock'd embrace
       Our parting was fu' tender;
     And pledging aft to meet again,
       We tore oursels asunder;
     But O! fell Death's untimely frost,
       That nipt my flower sae early!
     Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay,
       That wraps my Highland Mary!

     O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
       I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly!
     And closed for aye the sparkling glance
       That dwelt on me sae kindly;
     And mouldering now in silent dust
       That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
     But still within my bosom's core
       Shall live my Highland Mary.

     R. BURNS.




     152. AULD ROBIN GRAY.

     When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame,
     And a' the warld to rest are gane,
     The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
     While my gudeman lies sound by me.

     Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;
     But saving a croun he had naething else beside:
     To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea;
     And the croun and the pund were baith for me.

     He hadna been awa' a week but only twa,
     When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown awa;
     My mother she fell sick, and my Jamie at the sea--
     And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

     My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin;
     I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
     Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e
     Said, Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me!

     My heart it said nay; I look'd for Jamie back;
     But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;
     His ship it was a wrack--Why didna Jamie dee?
     Or why do I live to cry, Wae's me?

     My father urgit sair: my mother didna speak;
     But she look'd in my face till my heart was like to break:
     They gi'ed him my hand, but my heart was at the sea;
     Sae auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.

     I hadna been a wife a week but only four,
     When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at the door,
     I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I couldna think it he--
     Till he said, I'm come hame to marry thee.

     O sair, sair did we greet, and muckle did we say;
     We took but ae kiss, and I bad him gang away;
     I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;
     And why was I born to say, Wae's me!

     I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
     I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
     But I'll do my best a gude wife aye to be,
     For auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me.

     LADY A. LINDSAY.




     153. DUNCAN GRAY.

     Duncan Gray cam here to woo,
        Ha, ha, the wooing o't,
     On blythe Yule night when we were fou,
        Ha, ha, the wooing o't,
     Maggie coost her head fu' high,
     Look'd asklent and unco skeigh,
     Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
        Ha, ha, the wooing o't.

     Duncan fleech'd and Duncan pray'd;
     Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig;
     Duncan sigh'd baith out and in,
     Grat his een baith bleert and blin',
     Spak o' lowpin' ower a linn!

     Time and chance are but a tide,
     Slighted love is sair to bide;
     Shall I, like a fool, quoth he,
     For a haughty hizzie dee?
     She may gae to--France for me!

     How it comes let doctors tell,
     Meg grew sick--as he grew heal;
     Something in her bosom wrings,
     For relief a sigh she brings;
     And O, her een, they spak sic things!

     Duncan was a lad o' grace;
     Maggie's was a piteous case;
     Duncan could na be her death,
     Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath;
     Now they're crouse and canty baith:
        Ha, ha, the wooing o't!

     R. BURNS.




     154. THE SAILOR'S WIFE.

     And are ye sure the news is true?
       And are ye sure he's weel?
     Is this a time to think o' wark?
       Ye jades, lay by your wheel;
     Is this the time to spin a thread,
       When Colin's at the door?
     Reach down my cloak, I'll to the quay
       And see him come ashore.
     For there's nae luck about the house,
       There's nae luck at a';
     There's little pleasure in the house
       When our gudeman's awa'.

     And gie to me my bigonet,
       My bishop's satin gown;
     For I maun tell the baillie's wife
       That Colin's in the town.
     My Turkey slippers maun gae on,
       My stockins pearly blue;
     It's a' to pleasure our gudeman,
       For he's baith leal and true.

     Rise, lass, and mak a clean fireside,
       Put on the muckle pot;
     Gie little Kate her button gown
       And Jock his Sunday coat;
     And mak their shoon as black as slaes,
       Their hose as white as snaw;
     It's a' to please my ain gudeman,
       For he's been long awa.

     There's twa fat hens upo' the coop
       Been fed this month and mair;
     Mak haste and thraw their necks about,
       That Colin weel may fare;
     And spread the table neat and clean,
       Gar ilka thing look braw,
     For wha can tell how Colin fared
       When he was far awa?

     Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech.
       His breath like caller air;
     His very foot has music in't
       As he comes up the stair--
     And will I see his face again?
       And will I hear him speak?
     I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,
       In troth I'm like to greet!

     If Colin's weel, and weel content,
       I hae nae mair to crave:
     And gin I live to keep him sae,
       I'm blest aboon the lave:
     And will I see his face again,
       And will I hear him speak?
     I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,
       In troth I'm like to greet!

     For there's nae luck about the house,
       There's nae luck at a';
     There's little pleasure in the house
       When our gudeman's awa.

     W. J. MICKLE.




     155. JEAN.

     Of a' the airts the wind can blaw
       I dearly like the West,
     For there the bonnie lassie lives,
       The lassie I lo'e best:
     There wild woods grow, and rivers row,
       And mony a hill between;
     But day and night my fancy's flight
       Is ever wi' my Jean.

     I see her in the dewy flowers,
       I see her sweet and fair:
     I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
       I hear her charm the air:
     There's not a bonnie flower that springs,
       By fountain, shaw, or green;
     There's not a bonnie bird that sings
       But minds me o' my Jean.

     O blaw ye westlin winds, blaw saft
       Amang the leafy trees;
     Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale
       Bring hame the laden bees;
     And bring the lassie back to me
       That's aye sae neat and clean;
     Ae smile o' her wad banish care,
       Sae charming is my Jean.

     What sighs and vows amang the knowes
       Hae pass'd atween us twa!
     How fond to meet, how wae to part
       That night she gaed awa!
     The Powers aboon can only ken
       To whom the heart is seen,
     That nane can be sae dear to me
       As my sweet lovely Jean!

     R. BURNS.




     156. JOHN ANDERSON.

     John Anderson my jo, John,
     When we were first acquent
     Your locks were like the raven,
     Your bonnie brow was brent;
     But now your brow is bald, John,
     Your locks are like the snow;
     But blessings on your frosty pow,
     John Anderson my jo.

     John Anderson my jo, John,
     We clamb the hill thegither,
     And mony a canty day, John,
     We've had wi' ane anither:
     Now we maun totter down, John,
     But hand in hand we'll go,
     And sleep thegither at the foot,
     John Anderson my jo.

     R. BURNS.




     157. THE LAND O' THE LEAL.

     I'm wearing awa', Jean
     Like snaw when its thaw, Jean,
     I'm wearing awa'
       To the land o' the leal.
     There's nae sorrow there, Jean,
     There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,
     The day is aye fair
       In the land o' the leal.

     Ye were aye leal and true, Jean,
     Your task's ended noo, Jean,
     And I'll welcome you
       To the land o' the leal.
     Our bonnie bairn's there, Jean,
     She was baith guid and fair, Jean;
     O we grudged her right sair
       To the land o' the leal!

     Then dry that tearfu' e'e, Jean,
     My soul langs to be free, Jean,
     And angels wait on me
       To the land o' the leal.
     Now fare ye weel, my ain Jean
     This warld's care is vain, Jean;
     We'll meet and aye be fain
       In the land o' the leal.

     LADY NAIRN.




     158. ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

     Ye distant spires, ye antique towers
       That crown the wat'ry glade,
     Where grateful Science still adores
       Her Henry's holy shade;
     And ye, that from the stately brow
     Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
     Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
     Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
     Wanders the hoary Thames along
       His silver-winding way:

     Ah happy hills! ah pleasing shade!
       Ah fields beloved in vain!
     Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
       A stranger yet to pain!
     I feel the gales that from ye blow
     A momentary bliss bestow,
     As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
     My weary soul they seem to soothe,
     And, redolent of joy and youth,
       To breathe a second spring.

     Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
       Full many a sprightly race
     Disporting on thy margent green
       The paths of pleasure trace;
     Who foremost now delight to cleave
     With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?
     The captive linnet which enthral?
     What idle progeny succeed
     To chase the rolling circle's speed
       Or urge the flying ball?

     While some, on earnest business bent
       Their murmuring labours ply
     'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
       To sweeten liberty:
     Some bold adventurers disdain
     The limits of their little reign
     And unknown regions dare descry:
     Still as they run they look behind,
     They hear a voice in every wind
       And snatch a fearful joy.

     Gay Hope is theirs by fancy fed,
       Less pleasing when possest;
     The tear forgot as soon as shed,
       The sunshine of the breast:
     Theirs buxom Health, of rosy hue,
     Wild Wit, Invention ever new,
     And lively Cheer, of Vigour born;
     The thoughtless day, the easy night,
     The spirits pure, the slumbers light
       That fly th' approach of morn.

     Alas! regardless of their doom
       The little victims play!
     No sense have they of ills to come
       Nor care beyond to-day:
     Yet see how all around 'em wait
     The ministers of human fate
     And black Misfortune's baleful train!
     Ah shew them where in ambush stand
     To seize their prey, the murderous band!
       Ah, tell them they are men!

     These shall the fury Passions tear,
       The vultures of the mind,
     Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
       And Shame that skulks behind;
     Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
     Or Jealousy with rankling tooth
     That inly gnaws the secret heart,
     And Envy wan, and faded Care,
     Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
       And Sorrow's piercing dart.

     Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
       Then whirl the wretch from high
     To bitter Scorn a sacrifice
       And grinning Infamy.
     The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
     And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
     That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
     And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
     And moody Madness laughing wild
       Amid severest woe.

     Lo, in the Vale of Years beneath
       A griesly troop are seen,
     The painful family of Death,
       More hideous than their Queen:
     This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
     That every labouring sinew strains,
     Those in the deeper vitals rage:
     Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
     That numbs the soul with icy hand,
       And slow-consuming Age.

     To each his sufferings: all are men,
       Condemn'd alike to groan;
     The tender for another's pain,
       Th' unfeeling for his own.
     Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
     Since sorrow never comes too late,
     And happiness too swiftly flies?
     Thought would destroy their paradise!
     No more;--where ignorance is bliss,
       'Tis folly to be wise.

     T. GRAY.




     159. HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

      Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
       Thou tamer of the human breast,
      Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
       The bad affright, afflict the best!
      Bound in thy adamantine chain
      The proud are taught to taste of pain,
      And purple tyrants vainly groan
     With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

      When first thy Sire to send on earth
       Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
      To thee he gave the heavenly birth
       And bade to form her infant mind.
      Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
      With patience many a year she bore:
      What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,
     And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

      Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
       Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
      Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
       And leave us leisure to be good.
      Light they disperse, and with them go
      The summer Friend, the flattering Foe;
      By vain Prosperity received
     To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

      And Melancholy, silent maid,
       With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
      Still on thy solemn steps attend:
      Warm Charity, the general friend,
      With Justice, to herself severe,
     And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

      Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,
       Dread Goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
      Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
       Not circled with the vengeful band
      (As by the impious thou art seen)
      With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
      With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
     Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:

      Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear,
       Thy milder influence impart,
      Thy philosophic train be there
       To soften, not to wound my heart.
      The generous spark extinct revive,
      Teach me to love and to forgive,
      Exact my own defects to scan,
     What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

     T. GRAY.




     160. THE SOLITUDE OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK.

     I am monarch of all I survey;
     My right there is none to dispute;
     From the centre all round to the sea
     I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
     O Solitude! Where are the charms
     That sages have seen in thy face?
     Better dwell in the midst of alarms
     Than reign in this horrible place.

     I am out of humanity's reach,
     I must finish my journey alone,
     Never hear the sweet music of speech;
     I start at the sound of my own.
     The beasts that roam over the plain
     My form with indifference see;
     They are so unacquainted with man,
     Their tameness is shocking to me.

     Society, Friendship, and Love
     Divinely bestow'd upon man,
     O had I the wings of a dove
     How soon would I taste you again!
     My sorrows I then might assuage
     In the ways of religion and truth,
     Might learn from the wisdom of age,
     And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.

     Ye winds that have made me your sport,
     Convey to this desolate shore
     Some cordial endearing report
     Of a land I shall visit no more:
     My friends, do they now and then send
     A wish or a thought after me?
     O tell me I yet have a friend,
     Though a friend I am never to see.

     How fleet is a glance of the mind!
     Compared with the speed of its flight,
     The tempest itself lags behind,
     And the swift-wingéd arrows of light.
     When I think of my own native land
     In a moment I seem to be there;
     But alas! recollection at hand
     Soon hurries me back to despair.

     But the seafowl is gone to her nest,
     The beast is laid down in his lair;
     Even here is a season of rest,
     And I to my cabin repair.
     There's mercy in every place,
     And mercy, encouraging thought!
     Gives even affliction a grace
     And reconciles man to his lot.

     W. COWPER.




     161. TO MARY UNWIN.

     Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,
     Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew,
     An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
     And undebased by praise of meaner things,

     That ere through age or woe I shed my wings
     I may record thy worth with honour due,
     In verse as musical as thou art true
     And that immortalizes whom it sings:--

     But thou hast little need. There is a Book
     By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
     On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

     A chronicle of actions just and bright--
     There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
     And since, thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

     W. COWPER.




     162. TO MARY.

     The twentieth year is well nigh past
     Since first our sky was overcast;
     Ah would that this might be the last!
             My Mary!

     Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
     I see thee daily weaker grow--
     'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
             My Mary!

     Thy needles, once a shining store,
     For my sake restless heretofore,
     Now rust disused, and shine no more;
             My Mary!

     For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
     The same kind office for me still,
     Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
             My Mary!

     But well thou play'dst the housewife's part,
     And all thy threads with magic art
     Have wound themselves about this heart,
             My Mary!

     Thy indistinct expressions seem
     Like language utter'd in a dream;
     Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
             My Mary!

     Thy silver locks, once auburn bright
     Are still more lovely in my sight
     Than golden beams of orient light,
             My Mary!

     For could I view nor them nor thee,
     What sight worth seeing could I see?
     The sun would rise in vain for me,
             My Mary!

     Partakers of thy sad decline
     Thy hands their little force resign;
     Yet gently press'd, press gently mine,
             My Mary!

     Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st
     That now at every step thou mov'st
     Upheld by two; yet still thou lov'st,
             My Mary!

     And still to love, though press'd with ill,
     In wintry age to feel no chill,
     With me is to be lovely still,
             My Mary!

     But ah! by constant heed I know
     How oft the sadness that I show
     Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe,
             My Mary!

     And should my future lot be cast
     With much resemblance of the past
     Thy worn-out heart will break at last--
             My Mary!

     W. COWPER.




     163. THE DYING MAN IN HIS GARDEN.

     Why, Damon, with the forward day
     Dost thou thy little spot survey,
     From tree to tree, with doubtful cheer,
     Pursue the progress of the year,
     What winds arise, what rains descend,
     When thou before that year shalt end?

     What do thy noontide walks avail,
     To clear the leaf, and pick the snail,
     Then wantonly to death decree
     An insect usefuller than thee?
     Thou and the worm are brother-kind,
     As low, as earthy, and as blind.

     Vain wretch! canst thou expect to see
     The downy peach make court to thee?
     Or that thy sense shall ever meet
     The bean-flower's deep-embosom'd sweet
     Exhaling with an evening blast?
     Thy evenings then will all be past!

     Thy narrow pride, thy fancied green
     (For vanity's in little seen),
     All must be left when Death appears,
     In spite of wishes, groans, and tears;
     Nor one of all thy plants that grow
     But Rosemary will with thee go.

     G. SEWELL.




     164. TO-MORROW.

     In the downhill of life, when I find I'm declining,
      May my lot no less fortunate be
     Than a snug elbow-chair can afford for reclining,
      And a cot that o'erlooks the wide sea;
     With an ambling pad-pony to pace o'er the lawn,
      While I carol away idle sorrow,
     And blithe as the lark that each day hails the dawn
      Look forward with hope for to-morrow.

     With a porch at my door, both for shelter and shade too,
      As the sunshine or rain may prevail;
     And a small spot of ground for the use of the spade too,
      With a barn for the use of the flail:
     A cow for my dairy, a dog for my game,
      And a purse when a friend wants to borrow;
     I'll envy no nabob his riches or fame,
      Nor what honours await him to-morrow.

     From the bleak northern blast may my cot be completely
      Secured by a neighbouring hill;
     And at night may repose steal upon me more sweetly
      By the sound of a murmuring rill:
     And while peace and plenty I find at my board,
      With a heart free from sickness and sorrow,
     With my friends may I share what to-day may afford,
      And let them spread the table to-morrow.

     And when I at last must throw off this frail covering
      Which I've worn for three-score years and ten,
     On the brink of the grave I'll not seek to keep hovering,
      Nor my thread wish to spin o'er again:
     But my face in the glass I'll serenely survey,
      And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow;
     As this old worn-out stuff, which is threadbare to-day
      May become everlasting to-morrow.

     -- COLLINS.




     165.

     Life! I know not what thou art,
     But know that thou and I must part;
     And when, or how, or where we met
     I own to me's a secret yet.

     Life! we've been long together
     Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
     'Tis hard to part when friends are dear--
     Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
     --Then steal away, give little warning,
       Choose thine own time;
     Say not Good Night,--but in some brighter clime
       Bid me Good Morning.

     A L. BARBAULD.





FOURTH BOOK.


SUMMARY.


It proves sufficiently the lavish wealth of our own age in Poetry, that
the pieces which, without conscious departure from the standard of
Excellence, render this Book by far the longest, were with very few
exceptions composed during the first thirty years the nineteenth
century. Exhaustive reasons can hardly be given for the strangely sudden
appearance of individual genius: but none, in the Editor's judgment, can
be less adequate than that which assigns the splendid national
achievements of our recent poetry, to an impulse from the frantic
follies and criminal wars that at the time disgraced the least
essentially civilised of our foreign neighbours. The first French
Revolution was rather, in his opinion, one result, and in itself by no
means the most important, of that far wider and greater spirit which
through enquiry and doubt, through pain and triumph, sweeps mankind
round the circles of its gradual development: and it is to this that we
must trace the literature of modern Europe. But, without more detailed
discussion on the motive causes of Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, Keats,
and Shelley, we may observe that these Poets, with others, carried to
further perfection the later tendencies of the Century preceding, in
simplicity of narrative, reverence for human Passion and Character in
every sphere, and impassioned love of Nature:--that, whilst maintaining
on the whole the advances in art made since the Restoration, they
renewed the half-forgotten melody and depth of tone which marked the
best Elizabethan writers:--that, lastly, to what was thus inherited they
added a richness in language and a variety in metre, a force and fire in
narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, an insight into the finer
passages of the Soul and the inner meanings of the landscape, a larger
and wiser Humanity,--hitherto hardly attained, and perhaps unattainable
even by predecessors of not inferior individual genius. In a word, the
Nation which, after the Greeks in their glory, has been the most gifted
of all nations for Poetry, expressed in these men the highest strength
and prodigality of its nature. They interpreted the age to itself--hence
the many phases of thought and style they present:--to sympathise with
each, fervently and impartially, without fear and without fancifulness,
is no doubtful step in the higher education of the Soul. For, as with
the Affections and the Conscience, Purity in Taste is absolutely
proportionate to Strength:--and when once the mind has raised itself to
grasp and to delight in Excellence, those who love most will be found to
love most wisely.





     166. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

     Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold
     And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
     Round many western islands have I been
     Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

     Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
     That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
     Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
     Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

     --Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
     When a new planet swims into his ken;
     Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes

     He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
     Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
     Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

     J. KEATS.




     167. ODE ON THE POETS.

     Bards of Passion and of Mirth
     Ye have left your souls on earth!
     Have ye souls in heaven too,
     Doubled-lived in regions new?
     --Yes, and those of heaven commune
     With the spheres of sun and moon;
     With the noise of fountains wonderous
     And the parle of voices thunderous;
     With the whisper of heaven's trees
     And one another, in soft ease
     Seated on Elysian lawns
     Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
     Underneath large blue-bells tented,
     Where the daisies are rose-scented,
     And the rose herself has got
     Perfume which on earth is not;
     Where the nightingale doth sing
     Not a senseless, trancéd thing,
     But divine melodious truth;
     Philosophic numbers smooth;
     Tales and golden histories
     Of heaven and its mysteries.

       Thus ye live on high, and then
     On the earth ye live again;
     And the souls ye left behind you
     Teach us, here, the way to find you
     Where your other souls are joying,
     Never slumber'd, never cloying.
     Here, your earth-born souls still speak
     To mortals, of their little week;
     Of their sorrows and delights;
     Of their passions and their spites;
     Of their glory and their shame;
     What doth strengthen and what maim:--
     Thus ye teach us, every day,
     Wisdom, though fled far away.

       Bards of Passion and of Mirth
     Ye have left your souls on earth!
     Ye have souls in heaven too,
     Double-lived in regions new!

     J. KEATS.




     168. LOVE.

     All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
     Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
     All are but ministers of Love,
         And feed his sacred flame.

     Oft in my waking dreams do I
     Live o'er again that happy hour,
     When midway on the mount I lay
         Beside the ruin'd tower.

     The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
     Had blended with the lights of eve;
     And she was there, my hope, my joy,
         My own dear Genevieve!

     She lean'd against the arméd man,
     The statue of the arméd knight;
     She stood and listen'd to my lay,
         Amid the lingering light.

     Few sorrows hath she of her own
     My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
     She loves me best, whene'er I sing
         The songs that make her grieve.

     I play'd a soft and doleful air,
     I sang an old and moving story--
     An old rude song, that suited well
         That ruin wild and hoary.

     She listen'd with a flitting blush,
     With downcast eyes and modest grace;
     For well she knew, I could not choose
         But gaze upon her face.

     I told her of the Knight that wore
     Upon his shield a burning brand;
     And that for ten long years he woo'd
         The Lady of the Land.

     I told her how he pined: and ah!
     The deep, the low, the pleading tone
     With which I sang another's love,
         Interpreted my own.

     She listen'd with a flitting blush,
     With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
     And she forgave me, that I gazed
         Too fondly on her face.

     But when I told the cruel scorn
     That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
     And that he cross'd the mountain-woods,
         Nor rested day nor night;

     That sometimes from the savage den,
     And sometimes from the darksome shade,
     And sometimes starting up at once
         In green and sunny glade.

     There came and look'd him in the face
     An angel beautiful and bright;
     And that he knew it was a Fiend,
         This miserable Knight!

     And that unknowing what he did,
     He leap'd amid a murderous band,
     And saved from outrage worse than death
         The Lady of the Land;

     And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees;
     And how she tended him in vain;
     And ever strove to expiate
         The scorn that crazed his brain;

     And that she nursed him in a cave,
     And how his madness went away,
     When on the yellow forest-leaves
         A dying man he lay;

     --His dying words--but when I reach'd
     That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
     My faltering voice and pausing harp
         Disturb'd her soul with pity!

     All impulses of soul and sense
     Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
     The music and the doleful tale,
         The rich and balmy eve;

     And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
     An undistinguishable throng,
     And gentle wishes long subdued,
         Subdued and cherish'd long!

     She wept with pity and delight,
     She blush'd with love, and virgin shame;
     And like the murmur of a dream,
         I heard her breathe my name.

     Her bosom heaved--she stepp'd aside,
     As conscious of my look she stept--
     Then suddenly, with timorous eye
         She fled to me and wept.

     She half enclosed me with her arms,
     She press'd me with a meek embrace;
     And bending back her head, look'd up,
         And gazed upon my face.

     'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
     And partly 'twas a bashful art,
     That I might rather feel, than see.
         The swelling of her heart.

     I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
     And told her love with virgin pride;
     And so I won my Genevieve,
         My bright and beauteous Bride.

     S. T. COLERIDGE.




     169. ALL FOR LOVE.

     O talk not to me of a name great in story;
     The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
     And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
     Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

     What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
     'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
     Then away with all such from the head that is hoary--
     What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

     O Fame!--if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
     'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
     Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
     She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

     There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
     Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
     When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
     I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

     LORD BYRON.




     170. THE OUTLAW.

     O Brignall banks are wild and fair,
      And Greta woods are green,
     And you may gather garlands there
      Would grace a summer-queen.
     And as I rode by Dalton-Hall
      Beneath the turrets high,
     A Maiden on the castle-wall
      Was singing merrily:
     "O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
      And Greta woods are green;
     I'd rather rove with Edmund there
      Than reign our English queen."

     "If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me,
      To leave both tower and town,
     Thou first must guess what life lead we
      That dwell by dale and down.
     And if thou canst that riddle read,
      As read full well you may,
     Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed
      As blithe as Queen of May."
     Yet sung she "Brignall banks are fair,
      And Greta woods are green;
     I'd rather rove with Edmund there
      Than reign our English queen.

     "I read you by your bugle-horn
      And by your palfrey good,
     I read you for a ranger sworn
      To keep the King's greenwood."
     "A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
      And 'tis at peep of light;
     His blast is heard at merry morn,
      And mine at dead of night."
     Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair,
      And Greta woods are gay;
     I would I were with Edmund there
      To reign his Queen of May!

     "With burnish'd brand and musketoon
      So gallantly you come,
     I read you for a bold Dragoon,
      That lists the tuck of drum."
     "I list no more the tuck of drum,
      No more the trumpet hear;
     But when the beetle sounds his hum
      My comrades take the spear.
     And O! though Brignall banks be fair,
      And Greta woods be gay,
     Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
      Would reign my Queen of May!

     "Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
      A nameless death I'll die;
     The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
      Were better mate than I!
     And when I'm with my comrades met
      Beneath the greenwood bough,
     What once we were we all forget,
      Nor think what we are now.

                   _Chorus._

     Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
      And Greta woods are green,
     And you may gather flowers there
      Would grace a summer-queen.

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     171.

     There be none of Beauty's daughters
      With a magic like Thee;
     And like music on the waters
      Is thy sweet voice to me:
     When, as if its sound were causing
     The charméd ocean's pausing,
     The waves lie still and gleaming,
     And the lull'd winds seem dreaming
     And the midnight moon is weaving
      Her bright chain o'er the deep,
     Whose breast is gently heaving,
      As an infant's asleep:
     So the spirit bows before thee
     To listen and adore thee;
     With a full but soft emotion,
     Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

     LORD BYRON.




     172. LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR.

     I arise from dreams of Thee
     In the first sweet sleep of night,
     When the winds are breathing low
     And the stars are shining bright:
     I arise from dreams of thee,
     And a spirit in my feet
     Hath led me--who knows how?
     To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

     The wandering airs they faint
     On the dark, the silent stream--
     The champak odours fail
     Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
     The nightingale's complaint,
     It dies upon her heart,
     As I must on thine,
     Oh, belovéd as thou art!

     Oh lift me from the grass!
     I die! I faint, I fail!
     Let thy love in kisses rain
     On my lips and eyelids pale.
     My cheek is cold and white, alas!
     My heart beats loud and fast;
     O! press it to thine own again
     Where it will break at last.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     173.

     She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
     And all that's best of dark and bright
     Meets in her aspect and her eyes,
     Thus mellow'd to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

     One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impair'd the nameless grace
     Which waves in every raven tress
     Or softly lightens o'er her face,
     Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

     And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
     The smiles that win, the tints that glow
     But tell of days in goodness spent,--
     A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent.

     LORD BYRON.




     174.

     She was a phantom of delight
     When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
     A lovely apparition, sent
     To be a moment's ornament;
     Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
     Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
     But all things else about her drawn
     From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
     A dancing shape, an image gay,
     To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

     I saw her upon nearer view,
     A spirit, yet a woman too!
     Her household motions light and free,
     And steps of virgin-liberty;
     A countenance in which did meet
     Sweet records, promises as sweet;
     A creature not too bright or good
     For human nature's daily food,
     For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
     Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

     And now I see with eye serene
     The very pulse of the machine;
     A being breathing thoughtful breath,
     A traveller between life and death:
     The reason firm, the temperate will,
     Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
     A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
     To warn, to comfort, and command;
     And yet a Spirit still, and bright
     With something of an angel-light.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     175.

       She is not fair to outward view
        As many maidens be;
       Her loveliness I never knew
        Until she smiled on me.
       O then I saw her eye was bright,
       A well of love, a spring of light.

       But now her looks are coy and cold,
        To mine they ne'er reply,
       And yet I cease not to behold
        The love-light in her eye:
       Her very frowns are fairer far
       Than smiles of other maidens are.

     H. COLERIDGE.




     176.

     I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden;
     Thou needest not fear mine;
     My spirit is too deeply laden
     Ever to burthen thine.

     I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
     Thou needest not fear mine;
     Innocent is the heart's devotion
     With which I worship thine.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     177. THE LOST LOVE.

     She dwelt among the untrodden ways
       Beside the springs of Dove;
     A maid whom there were none to praise,
       And very few to love.

     A violet by a mossy stone
       Half hidden from the eye!
     --Fair as a star, when only one
       Is shining in the sky.

     She lived unknown, and few could know
       When Lucy ceased to be;
     But she is in her grave, and O!
       The difference to me!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     178.

     I travell'd among unknown men
       In lands beyond the sea;
     Nor, England! did I know till then
       What love I bore to thee.

     'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
       Nor will I quit thy shore
     A second time, for still I seem
       To love thee more and more.

     Among thy mountains did I feel
       The joy of my desire;
     And she I cherish'd turn'd her wheel
       Beside an English fire.

     Thy mornings showed, thy nights conceal'd,
       The bowers where Lucy play'd;
     And thine too is the last green field
       That Lucy's eyes survey'd.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     179. THE EDUCATION OF NATURE.

     Three years she grew in sun and shower;
     Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
     On earth was never sown;
     This child I to myself will take;
     She shall be mine, and I will make
     A lady of my own.

     "Myself will to my darling be
     Both law and impulse: and with me
     The girl, in rock and plain,
     In earth and heaven, in glade and bower
     Shall feel an overseeing power
     To kindle or restrain.

     "She shall be sportive as the fawn
     That wild with glee across the lawn
     Or up the mountain springs;
     And her's shall be the breathing balm,
     And her's the silence and the calm
     Of mute insensate things.

     "The floating clouds their state shall lend
     To her; for her the willow bend;
     Nor shall she fail to see
     E'en in the motions of the storm
     Grace that shall mould the maiden's form
     By silent sympathy.

     "The stars of midnight shall be dear
     To her; and she shall lean her ear
     In many a secret place
     Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
     And beauty born of murmuring sound
     Shall pass into her face.

     "And vital feelings of delight
     Shall rear her form to stately height,
     Her virgin bosom swell;
     Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
     While she and I together live
     Here in this happy dell."

     Thus Nature spake--The work was done--
     How soon my Lucy's race was run!
     She died, and left to me
     This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
     The memory of what has been,
     And never more will be.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     180.

     A slumber did my spirit seal;
       I had no human fears:
     She seem'd a thing that could not feel
       The touch of earthly years.

     No motion has she now, no force;
       She neither hears nor sees;
     Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
       With rocks, and stones, and trees!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     181. LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER.

     A Chieftain to the Highlands bound
     Cries "Boatman, do not tarry!
     And I'll give thee a silver pound
     To row us o'er the ferry!"

     "Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle
     This dark and stormy water?"
     "O I'm the chief of Ulva's isle,
     And this, Lord Ullin's daughter.

     "And fast before her father's men
     Three days we've fled together,
     For should he find us in the glen,
     My blood would stain the heather.

     "His horsemen hard behind us ride--
     Should they our steps discover,
     Then who will cheer my bonny bride
     When they have slain her lover?"

     Out spoke the hardy Highland wight
     "I'll go, my chief, I'm ready:
     It is not for your silver bright,
     But for your winsome lady:--

     "And by my word! the bonny bird
     In danger not shall tarry;
     So though the waves are raging white
     I'll row you o'er the ferry."

     By this the storm grew loud apace,
     The water-wraith was shrieking;
     And in the scowl of heaven each face
     Grew dark as they were speaking.

     But still as wilder blew the wind
     And as the night grew drearer,
     Adown the glen rode arméd men,
     Their trampling sounded nearer.

     "O haste thee, haste!" the lady cries,
     "Though tempests round us gather;
     I'll meet the raging of the skies,
     But not an angry father."

     The boat has left a stormy land,
     A stormy sea before her,--
     When O! too strong for human hand
     The tempest gather'd o'er her.

     And still they row'd amidst the roar
     Of waters fast prevailing:
     Lord Ullin reach'd that fatal shore,--
     His wrath was changed to wailing.

     For, sore dismay'd, through storm and shade
     His child he did discover:--
     One lovely hand she stretch'd for aid,
     And one was round her lover.

     "Come back! come back!" he cried in grief,
     "Across this stormy water:
     And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
     My daughter!--O my daughter!"

     'Twas vain: the loud waves lash'd the shore,
     Return or aid preventing:
     The waters wild went o'er his child,
     And he was left lamenting.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     182. JOCK O' HAZELDEAN.

     "Why weep ye by the tide, ladie?
       Why weep ye by the tide?
     I'll wed ye to my youngest son,
       And ye sall be his bride:
     And ye sall be his bride, ladie,
       Sae comely to be seen"--
     But aye she loot the tears doon fa'
       For Jock o' Hazeldean.

     "Now let this wilfu' grief be done,
       And dry that cheek so pale;
     Young Frank is chief of Errington
       And lord of Langley-dale;
     His step is first in peaceful ha',
       His sword in battle keen"--
     But aye she loot the tears down fa'
       For Jock o' Hazeldean.

     "A chain of gold ye shall not lack,
       Nor braid to bind your hair,
     Nor mettled hound, nor managed hawk
       Nor palfrey fresh and fair;
     And you the foremost o' them a'
       Shall ride our forest queen"--
     But aye she loot the tears down fa'
       For Jock o' Hazeldean.

     The kirk was deck'd at morning-tide,
       The tapers glimmer'd fair;
     The priest and bridegroom wait the bride,
       And dame and knight are there:
     They sought her baith by bower and ha';
       The ladie was not seen!
     She's o'er the Border, and awa'
       Wi' Jock o' Hazeldean.

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     183. FREEDOM AND LOVE.

     How delicious is the winning
     Of a kiss at love's beginning,
     When two mutual hearts are sighing
     For the knot there's no untying!

     Yet remember, 'midst your wooing,
     Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
     Other smiles may make you fickle,
     Tears for other charms may trickle.

     Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
     Just as fate or fancy carries;
     Longest stays, when sorest chidden;
     Laughs and flies, when press'd and bidden.

     Bind the sea to slumber stilly,
     Bind its odour to the lily,
     Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver,
     Then bind Love to last for ever.

     Love's a fire that needs renewal
     Of fresh beauty for its fuel:
     Love's wing moults when caged and captured,
     Only free, he soars enraptured.

     Can you keep the bee from ranging
     Or the ringdove's neck from changing?
     No! nor fetter'd Love from dying
     In the knot there's no untying.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     184. LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

     The fountains mingle with the river
     And the rivers with the ocean,
     The winds of heaven mix for ever
     With a sweet emotion;
     Nothing in the world is single,
     All things by a law divine
     In one another's being mingle--
     Why not I with thine?

     See the mountains kiss high heaven
     And the waves clasp one another;
     No sister-flower would be forgiven
     If it disdain'd its brother:
     And the sunlight clasps the earth,
     And the moonbeams kiss the sea--
     What are all these kissings worth,
     If thou kiss not me?

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     185. ECHOES.

     How sweet the answer Echo makes
     To Music at night
     When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
     And far away o'er lawns and lakes
     Goes answering light!

     Yet Love hath echoes truer far
     And far more sweet
     Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star,
     Of horn or lute or soft guitar
     The songs repeat.

     'Tis when the sigh,--in youth sincere
     And only then,
     The sigh that's breathed for one to hear--
     Is by that one, that only Dear
     Breathed back again.

     T. MOORE.




     186. A SERENADE.

     Ah! County Guy, the hour is nigh,
       The sun has left the lea,
     The orange-flower perfumes the bower,
       The breeze is on the sea.
     The lark, his lay who trill'd all day,
       Sits hush'd his partner nigh;
     Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour,
       But where is County Guy?

     The village maid steals through the shade
       Her shepherd's suit to hear;
     To Beauty shy, by lattice high,
       Sings high-born Cavalier.
     The star of Love, all stars above,
       Now reigns o'er earth and sky,
     And high and low the influence know--
       But where is County Guy?

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     187. TO THE EVENING STAR.

     Gem of the crimson-colour'd Even,
     Companion of retiring day,
     Why at the closing gates of heaven,
     Beloved Star, dost thou delay?

     So fair thy pensile beauty burns
     When soft the tear of twilight flows;
     So due thy plighted love returns
     To chambers brighter than the rose;

     To Peace, to Pleasure, and to love
     So kind a star thou seem'st to be,
     Sure some enamour'd orb above
     Descends and burns to meet with thee.

     Thine is the breathing, blushing hour
     When all unheavenly passions fly,
     Chased by the soul-subduing power
     Of Love's delicious witchery.

     O! sacred to the fall of day
     Queen of propitious stars, appear,
     And early rise, and long delay
     When Caroline herself is here!

     Shine on her chosen green resort
     Whose trees the sunward summit crown,
     And wanton flowers, that well may court
     An angel's feet to tread them down:--

     Shine on her sweetly scented road
     Thou star of evening's purple dome,
     That lead'st the nightingale abroad,
     And guid'st the pilgrim to his home.

     Shine where my charmer's sweeter breath
     Embalms the soft exhaling dew,
     Where dying winds a sigh bequeath
     To kiss the cheek of rosy hue:--

     Where, winnow'd by the gentle air,
     Her silken tresses darkly flow
     And fall upon her brow so fair,
     Like shadows on the mountain snow.

     Thus, ever thus, at day's decline
     In converse sweet to wander far--
     O bring with thee my Caroline,
     And thou shalt be my Ruling Star!

     T. CAMPBELL.




     188. TO THE NIGHT.

     Swiftly walk over the western wave,
                 Spirit of Night!
     Out of the misty eastern cave
     Where all the long and lone daylight
     Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
     Which make thee terrible and dear,--
                 Swift be thy flight!

     Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
                 Star-inwrought!
     Blind with thine hair the eyes of day,
     Kiss her until she be wearied out,
     Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
     Touching all with thine opiate wand--
                 Come, long-sought!

     When I arose and saw the dawn,
                 I sigh'd for thee;
     When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
     And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
     And the weary Day turn'd to his rest,
     Lingering like an unloved guest,
                 I sigh'd for thee.

     Thy brother Death came, and cried,
                 Wouldst thou me?
     Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
     Murmur'd like a noon-tide bee
     Shall I nestle near thy side?
     Wouldst thou me?--And I replied
                 No, not thee!

     Death will come when thou art dead,
                 Soon, too soon--
     Sleep will come when thou art fled;
     Of neither would I ask the boon
     I ask of thee, belovéd Night--
     Swift be thine approaching flight,
                 Come soon, soon!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     189. TO A DISTANT FRIEND.

     Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant
     Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
     Of absence withers what was once so fair?
     Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?

     Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant,
     Bound to thy service with unceasing care--
     The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
     For nought but what thy happiness could spare.

     Speak!--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
     A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
     Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
     Than a forsaken bird's-nest fill'd with snow
     'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine--
     Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     190.

          When we two parted
          In silence and tears,
          Half broken-hearted
          To sever for years,
          Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
          Colder thy kiss;
          Truly that hour foretold
          Sorrow to this!

          The dew of the morning
          Sunk chill on my brow;
          It felt like the warning
          Of what I feel now.
          Thy vows are all broken,
          And light is thy fame:
          I hear thy name spoken,
          And share in its shame.

          They name thee before me,
          A knell to mine ear;
          A shudder comes o'er me--
          Why wert thou so dear?
          They know not I knew thee,
          Who knew thee too well:
          Long, long shall I rue thee
          Too deeply to tell.

          In secret we met:
          In silence I grieve
          That thy heart could forget,
          Thy spirit deceive.
          If I should meet thee
          After long years,
          How should I greet thee?--
          With silence and tears.

     LORD BYRON.




     191. HAPPY INSENSIBILITY.

     In a drear-nighted December,
     Too happy, happy Tree
     Thy branches ne'er remember
     Their green felicity:
     The north cannot undo them
     With a sleety whistle through them,
     Nor frozen thawings glue them
     From budding at the prime.

     In a drear-nighted December
     Too happy, happy Brook
     Thy bubblings ne'er remember
     Apollo's summer look;
     But with a sweet forgetting
     They stay their crystal fretting,
     Never, never petting
     About the frozen time.

     Ah! would 'twere so with many
     A gentle girl and boy!
     But were there ever any
     Writhed not at passéd joy?
     To know the change and feel it,
     When there is none to heal it
     Nor numbéd sense to steal it--
     Was never said in rhyme.

     J. KEATS.




     192.

     Where shall the lover rest
      Whom the fates sever
     From his true maiden's breast
      Parted for ever?
     Where, through groves deep and high
      Sounds the far billow,
     Where early violets die
      Under the willow.
        Eleu loro
      Soft shall be his pillow.

     There, through the summer day
      Cool streams are laving:
     There, while the tempests sway,
      Scarce are boughs waving;
     There thy rest shalt thou take,
      Parted for ever,
     Never again to wake
      Never, O never!
        Eleu loro
      Never, O never!

     Where shall the traitor rest,
      He, the deceiver,
     Who would win maiden's breast,
      Ruin, and leave her?
     In the lost battle,
      Borne down by the flying,
     Where mingles war's rattle
      With groans of the dying;
        Eleu loro
      There shall he be lying.

     Her wing shall the eagle flap
      O'er the falsehearted;
     His warm blood the wolf shall lap
      Ere life be parted:
     Shame and dishonour sit
      By his grave ever;
     Blessing shall hallow it
      Never, O never!
        Eleu loro
      Never, O never!

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     193. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.

     "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
      Alone and palely loitering?
     The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
      And no birds sing.

     "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
      So haggard and so woe-begone?
     The squirrel's granary is full,
      And the harvest's done.

     "I see a lily on thy brow
      With anguish moist and fever-dew,
     And on thy cheeks a fading rose
      Fast withereth too."

     "I met a lady in the meads,
      Full beautiful--a faery's child,
     Her hair was long, her foot was light,
      And her eyes were wild.

     "I made a garland for her head,
      And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
     She look'd at me as she did love,
      And made sweet moan.

     "I set her on my pacing steed
      And nothing else saw all day long,
     For sidelong would she bend, and sing
      A faery's song.

     "She found me roots of relish sweet,
      And honey wild and manna-dew,
     And sure in language strange she said,
      'I love thee true.'

     "She took me to her elfin grot,
      And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
     And there I shut her wild wild eyes
      With kisses four.

     "And there she lulléd me asleep,
      And there I dream'd--Ah! woe betide!
     The latest dream I ever dream'd
      On the cold hill's side.

     "I saw pale kings and princes too,
      Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
     They cried--'La belle Dame sans Merci
      Hath thee in thrall!'

     "I saw their starved lips in the gloam
      With horrid warning gapéd wide,
     And I awoke and found me here,
      On the cold hill's side.

     "And this is why I sojourn here
      Alone and palely loitering,
     Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
      And no birds sing."

     J. KEATS.




     194. THE ROVER.

     "A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
       A weary lot is thine!
     To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
       And press the rue for wine.
     A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
       A feather of the blue,
     A doublet of the Lincoln green--
       No more of me you knew,
                   My Love!
     No more of me you knew.

     "The morn is merry June, I trow,
       The rose is budding fain;
     But she shall bloom in winter snow
       Ere we two meet again."
     He turn'd his charger as he spake
       Upon the river shore,
     He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
       Said "Adieu for evermore,
                   My Love!
     And adieu for evermore."

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     195. THE FLIGHT OF LOVE.

     When the lamp is shatter'd,
     The light in the dust lies dead--
     When the cloud is scatter'd,
     The rainbow's glory is shed.
     When the lute is broken,
     Sweet tones are remember'd not;
     When the lips have spoken,
     Loved accents are soon forgot.

     As music and splendour
     Survive not the lamp and the lute,
     The heart's echoes render
     No song when the spirit is mute--
     No song but sad dirges,
     Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,
     Or the mournful surges
     That ring the dead seaman's knell.

     When hearts have once mingled,
     Love first leaves the well-built nest;
     The weak one is singled
     To endure what it once possest.
     O Love! who bewailest
     The frailty of all things here,
     Why choose you the frailest
     For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

     Its passions will rock thee
     As the storms rock the ravens on high;
     Bright reason will mock thee
     Like the sun from a wintry sky.
     From thy nest every rafter
     Will rot, and thine eagle home
     Leave thee naked to laughter,
     When leaves fall and cold winds come.

     P. B. SHELLEY.




     196. THE MAID OF NEIDPATH.

     O lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
      And lovers' ears in hearing;
     And love, in life's extremity
      Can lend an hour of cheering.
     Disease had been in Mary's bower
      And slow decay from mourning,
     Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
      To watch her Love's returning.

     All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
      Her form decay'd by pining,
     Till through her wasted hand, at night,
      You saw the taper shining.
     By fits a sultry hectic hue
      Across her cheek was flying;
     By fits so ashy pale she grew
      Her maidens thought her dying.

     Yet keenest powers to see and hear
      Seem'd in her frame residing;
     Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear
      She heard her lover's riding;
     Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd
      She knew and waved to greet him,
     And o'er the battlement did bend
      As on the wing to meet him.

     He came--he pass'd--an heedless gaze
      As o'er some stranger glancing;
     Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
      Lost in his courser's prancing--

     The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
      Returns each whisper spoken,
     Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
      Which told her heart was broken.

     SIR W. SCOTT




     197. THE MAID OF NEIDPATH.

     Earl March look'd on his dying child,
      And smit with grief to view her--
     The youth, he cried, whom I exiled
      Shall be restored to woo her.

     She's at the window many an hour
      His coming to discover:
     And he look'd up to Ellen's bower
      And she look'd on her lover--

     But ah! so pale, he knew her not,
      Though her smile on him was dwelling--
     And am I then forgot--forgot?
      It broke the heart of Ellen.

     In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs,
      Her cheek is cold as ashes;
     Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes
      To lift their silken lashes.

     T. CAMPBELL




     198.

     Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art--
     Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
     And watching, with eternal lids apart,
     Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,

     The moving waters at their priestlike task
     Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
     Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
     Of snow upon the mountains and the moors:--

     No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
     Pillow'd upon my fair Love's ripening breast
     To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
     Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;

     Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
     And so live ever,--or else swoon to death.

     J. KEATS.




     199. THE TERROR OF DEATH.

     When I have fears that I may cease to be
     Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
     Before high-piléd books, in charact'ry,
     Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

     When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
     Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
     And think that I may never live to trace
     Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

     And when I feel, fair Creature of an hour!
     That I shall never look upon thee more,
     Never have relish in the fairy power
     Of unreflecting love--then on the shore

     Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
     Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

     J. KEATS.




     200. DESIDERIA.

     Surprized by joy--impatient as the wind--
     I turn'd to share the transport--Oh, with whom
     But Thee--deep buried in the silent tomb,
     That spot which no vicissitude can find?

     Love, faithful love recall'd thee to my mind--
     But how could I forget thee? Through what power
     Even for the least division of an hour
     Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

     To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return
     Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore
     Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

     Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
     That neither present time, nor years unborn
     Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     201.

     At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping,
           I fly
     To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in
           thine eye;
     And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions
           of air
     To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to
           me there
     And tell me our love is remember'd even in the sky!

     Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear
     When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on
           the ear;
     And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison
           rolls,
     I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice, from the Kingdom
           of Souls
     Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

     T. MOORE.




     202. ELEGY ON THYRZA.

     And thou art dead, as young and fair
       As aught of mortal birth;
     And forms so soft and charms so rare
       Too soon return'd to Earth!
     Though Earth received them in her bed,
     And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
       In carelessness or mirth,
     There is an eye which could not brook
     A moment on that grave to look.

     I will not ask where thou liest low
       Nor gaze upon the spot;
     There flowers and weeds at will may grow
       So I behold them not:
     It is enough for me to prove
     That what I loved and long must love
       Like common earth can rot;
     To me there needs no stone to tell
     'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

     Yet did I love thee to the last,
       As fervently as thou
     Who didst not change through all the past
       And canst not alter now.
     The love where Death has set his seal
     Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
       Nor falsehood disavow:
     And, what were worse, thou canst not see
     Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

     The better days of life were ours;
       The worst can be but mine:
     The sun that cheers, the storm that lours
       Shall never more be thine.
     The silence of that dreamless sleep
     I envy now too much to weep;
       Nor need I to repine
     That all those charms have pass'd away
     I might have watch'd through long decay.

     The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
       Must fall the earliest prey;
     Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
       The leaves must drop away.
     And yet it were a greater grief
     To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
       Than see it pluck'd to-day;
     Since earthly eye but ill can bear
     To trace the change from foul to fair.

     I know not if I could have borne
       To see thy beauties fade;
     The night that follow'd such a morn
       Had worn a deeper shade:
     Thy day without a cloud hath past,
     And thou wert lovely to the last,
       Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
     As stars that shoot along the sky
     Shine brightest as they fall from high.

     As once I wept if I could weep,
       My tears might well be shed
     To think I was not near, to keep
       One vigil o'er thy bed:
     To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
     To fold thee in a faint embrace,
       Uphold thy drooping head;
     And show that love, however vain,
     Nor thou nor I can feel again.

     Yet how much less it were to gain,
       Though thou hast left me free,
     The loveliest things that still remain
       Than thus remember thee!
     The all of thine that cannot die
     Through dark and dread Eternity
       Returns again to me,
     And more thy buried love endears
     Than aught except its living years.

     LORD BYRON.




     203.

     One word is too often profaned
       For me to profane it,
     One feeling too falsely disdain'd
       For thee to disdain it.
     One hope is too like despair
       For prudence to smother,
     And Pity from thee more dear
       Than that from another.

     I can give not what men call love;
       But wilt thou accept not
     The worship the heart lifts above
       And the Heavens reject not:
     The desire of the moth for the star,
       Of the night for the morrow,
     The devotion to something afar
       From the sphere of our sorrow?

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     204. GATHERING SONG OF DONALD THE BLACK.

       Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
        Pibroch of Donuil
       Wake thy wild voice anew,
        Summon Clan Conuil.
       Come away, come away,
        Hark to the summons!
       Come in your war-array,
        Gentles and commons.

       Come from deep glen, and
        From mountain so rocky;
       The war-pipe and pennon
        Are at Inverlochy.
       Come every hill-plaid, and
        True heart that wears one,
       Come every steel blade, and
        Strong hand that bears one.

       Leave untended the herd,
        The flock without shelter;
       Leave the corpse uninterr'd,
        The bride at the altar;
       Leave the deer, leave the steer,
        Leave nets and barges:
       Come with your fighting gear,
        Broadswords and targes.

       Come as the winds come, when
        Forests are rended,
       Come as the waves come, when
        Navies are stranded:
       Faster come, faster come,
        Faster and faster,
       Chief, vassal, page and groom,
        Tenant and master.

       Fast they come, fast they come;
        See how they gather!
       Wide waves the eagle plume
        Blended with heather.
       Cast your plaids, draw your blades,
        Forward each man set!
       Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
        Knell for the onset!

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     205.

     A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
       A wind that follows fast
     And fills the white and rustling sail
       And bends the gallant mast;
     And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
       While like the eagle free
     Away the good ship flies, and leaves
       Old England on the lee.

     O for a soft and gentle wind!
       I heard a fair one cry;
     But give to me the snoring breeze
       And white waves heaving high;
     And white waves heaving high, my lads,
       The good ship tight and free--
     The world of waters is our home,
       And merry men are we.

     There's tempest in yon hornéd moon,
       And lightning in yon cloud;
     But hark the music, mariners!
       The wind is piping loud;
     The wind is piping loud, my boys,
       The lightning flashes free--
     While the hollow oak our palace is,
       Our heritage the sea.

     A. CUNNINGHAM.




     206.

     Ye Mariners of England
     That guard our native seas!
     Whose flag has braved, a thousand years
     The battle and the breeze!
     Your glorious standard launch again
     To match another foe:
     And sweep through the deep,
     While the stormy winds do blow;
     While the battle rages loud and long
     And the stormy winds do blow.

     The spirits of your fathers
     Shall start from every wave--
     For the deck it was their field of fame,
     And Ocean was their grave:
     Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
     Your manly hearts shall glow,
     As ye sweep through the deep,
     While the stormy winds do blow;
     While the battle rages loud and long
     And the stormy winds do blow.

     Britannia needs no bulwarks,
     No towers along the steep;
     Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
     Her home is on the deep.
     With thunders from her native oak
     She quells the floods below--
     As they roar on the shore,
     When the stormy winds do blow;
     When the battle rages loud and long
     And the stormy winds do blow.

     The meteor flag of England
     Shall yet terrific burn;
     Till danger's troubled night depart
     And the star of peace return.
     Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
     Our song and feast shall flow
     To the fame of your name,
     When the storm has ceased to blow;
     When the fiery fight is heard no more,
     And the storm has ceased to blow.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     207. BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.

     Of Nelson and the North
     Sing the glorious day's renown,
     When to battle fierce came forth
     All the might of Denmark's crown,
     And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
     By each gun the lighted brand
     In a bold determined hand,
     And the Prince of all the land
     Led them on.

     Like leviathans afloat
     Lay their bulwarks on the brine;
     While the sign of battle flew
     On the lofty British line:
     It was ten of April morn by the chime:
     As they drifted on their path
     There was silence deep as death;
     And the boldest held his breath
     For a time.

     But the might of England flush'd
     To anticipate the scene;
     And her van the fleeter rush'd
     O'er the deadly space between.
     "Hearts of oak!" our captains cried, when each gun
     From its adamantine lips
     Spread a death-shade round the ships,
     Like the hurricane eclipse
     Of the sun.

     Again! again! again!
     And the havoc did not slack,
     Till a feeble cheer the Dane
     To our cheering sent us back;--
     Their shots along the deep slowly boom:--
     Then ceased--and all is wail,
     As they strike the shatter'd sail,
     Or in conflagration pale
     Light the gloom.

     Out spoke the victor then
     As he hail'd them o'er the wave,
     "Ye are brothers! ye are men!
     And we conquer but to save:--
     So peace instead of death let us bring:
     But yield, proud foe, thy fleet
     With the crews, at England's feet,
     And make submission meet
     To our King."

     Then Denmark blest our chief
     That he gave her wounds repose;
     And the sounds of joy and grief
     From her people wildly rose,
     As death withdrew his shades from the day:
     While the sun look'd smiling bright
     O'er a wide and woeful sight,
     Where the fires of funeral light
     Died away.

     Now joy, old England, raise!
     For the tidings of thy might,
     By the festal cities' blaze,
     Whilst the wine-cup shines in light;
     And yet amidst that joy and uproar,
     Let us think of them that sleep
     Full many a fathom deep
     By thy wild and stormy steep,
     Elsinore!

     Brave hearts! to Britain's pride
     Once so faithful and so true,
     On the deck of fame that died
     With the gallant good Riou:
     Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave!
     While the billow mournful rolls
     And the mermaid's song condoles
     Singing glory to the souls
     Of the brave!

     T. CAMPBELL.




     208. ODE TO DUTY

       Stern Daughter of the voice of God!
       O Duty! if that name thou love
       Who art a light to guide, a rod
       To check the erring, and reprove;
       Thou who art victory and law
       When empty terrors overawe;
       From vain temptations dost set free,
     And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

       There are who ask not if thine eye
       Be on them; who, in love and truth
       Where no misgiving is, rely
       Upon the genial sense of youth:
       Glad hearts! without reproach or blot,
       Who do thy work, and know it not:
       Oh! if through confidence misplaced
     They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

       Serene will be our days and bright
       And happy will our nature be
       When love is an unerring light,
       And joy its own security.
       And they a blissful course may hold
       Ev'n now who, not unwisely bold,
       Live in the spirit of this creed;
     Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

       I, loving freedom, and untried;
       No sport of every random gust,
       Yet being to myself a guide,
       Too blindly have reposed my trust:
       And oft, when in my heart was heard
       Thy timely mandate, I deferr'd
       The task, in smoother walks to stray;
     But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

       Through no disturbance of my soul
       Or strong compunction in me wrought,
       I supplicate for thy controul,
       But in the quietness of thought:
       Me this uncharter'd freedom tires;
       I feel the weight of chance desires;
       My hopes no more must change their name;
     I long for a repose which ever is the same.

       Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
       The Godhead's most benignant grace;
       Nor know we anything so fair
       As is the smile upon thy face:
       Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
       And fragrance in thy footing treads;
       Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;
     And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

       To humbler functions, awful Power!
       I call thee: I myself commend
       Unto thy guidance from this hour;
       O let my weakness have an end!
       Give unto me, made lowly wise,
       The spirit of self-sacrifice;
       The confidence of reason give;
     And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     209. ON THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.

     Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!
     Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art--
     For there thy habitation is the heart--
     The heart which love of Thee alone can bind;

     And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd,
     To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
     Their country conquers with their martyrdom
     And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.

     Chillon! thy prison is a holy place
     And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod
     Until his very steps have left a trace

     Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
     By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!
     For they appeal from tyranny to God.

     LORD BYRON.




     210. ENGLAND AND SWITZERLAND.

                      1802.

     Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea,
     One of the Mountains; each a mighty voice:
     In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
     They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

     There came a tyrant, and with holy glee
     Thou fought'st against him,--but hast vainly striven:
     Thou from thy Alpine holds at length are driven
     Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.

     --Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft;
     Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left--
     For, high-soul'd Maid, what sorrow would it be

     That Mountain floods should thunder as before,
     And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
     And neither awful Voice be heard by Thee!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     211. ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC.

     Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee
     And was the safeguard of the West; the worth
     Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
     Venice, the eldest child of liberty.

     She was a maiden city, bright and free;
     No guile seduced, no force could violate;
     And when she took unto herself a mate,
     She must espouse the everlasting Sea.

     And what if she had seen those glories fade,
     Those titles vanish, and that strength decay,--
     Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

     When her long life hath reach'd its final day:
     Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
     Of that which once was great has pass'd away.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     212. LONDON, MDCCCII.

     O Friend! I know not which way I must look
     For comfort, being, as I am, opprest
     To think that now our life is only drest
     For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook,

     Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook
     In the open sunshine, or we are unblest;
     The wealthiest man among us is the best:
     No grandeur now in Nature or in book

     Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
     This is idolatry; and these we adore:
     Plain living and high thinking are no more:

     The homely beauty of the good old cause
     Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
     And pure religion breathing household laws.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     213. THE SAME.

     Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
     England hath need of thee: she is a fen
     Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
     Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

     Have forfeited their ancient English dower
     Of inward happiness. We are selfish men
     O! raise us up, return to us again;
     And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

     Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
     Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,
     Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;

     So didst thou travel on life's common way
     In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
     The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     214.

     When I have borne in memory what has tamed
     Great nations; how ennobling thoughts depart
     When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
     The student's bower for gold,--some fears unnamed

     I had, my Country!--am I to be blamed?
     Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,
     Verily, in the bottom of my heart
     Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.

     For dearly must we prize thee; we who find
     In thee a bulwark of the cause of men;
     And I by my affection was beguiled:

     What wonder if a Poet now and then,
     Among the many movements of his mind,
     Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     215. HOHENLINDEN.

     On Linden, when the sun was low,
     All bloodless lay the untrodden snow;
     And dark as winter was the flow
        Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

     But Linden saw another sight,
     When the drum beat at dead of night
     Commanding fires of death to light
        The darkness of her scenery.

     By torch and trumpet fast array'd
     Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
     And furious every charger neigh'd
        To join the dreadful revelry.

     Then shook the hills with thunder riven;
     Then rush'd the steed, to battle driven;
     And louder than the bolts of Heaven
        Far flash'd the red artillery.

     But redder yet that light shall glow
     On Linden's hills of stainéd snow;
     And bloodier yet the torrent flow
        Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

     'Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun
     Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
     Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
       Shout in their sulphurous canopy.

     The combat deepens. On, ye Brave
     Who rush to glory, or the grave!
     Wave, Munich all thy banners wave,
        And charge with all thy chivalry!

     Few, few shall part, where many meet!
     The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
     And every turf beneath their feet
        Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     216. AFTER BLENHEIM.

     It was a summer evening,
       Old Kaspar's work was done,
     And he before his cottage door
       Was sitting in the sun;
     And by him sported on the green
     His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

     She saw her brother Peterkin
       Roll something large and round
     Which he beside the rivulet
       In playing there had found
     He came to ask what he had found
     That was so large and smooth and round.

     Old Kaspar took it from the boy
       Who stood expectant by;
     And then the old man shook his head,
       And with a natural sigh
     "'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
     "Who fell in the great victory.

     "I find then in the garden,
       For there's many here about;
     And often when I go to plough
       The ploughshare turns them out.
     For many thousand men," said he,
     "Were slain in that great victory."

     "Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
       Young Peterkin he cries;
     And little Wilhelmine looks up
       With wonder-waiting eyes;
     "Now tell us all about the war,
     And what they fought each other for."

     "It was the English," Kaspar cried,
       "Who put the French to rout;
     But what they fought each other for
       I could not well make out.
     But every body said," quoth he,
     "That 'twas a famous victory.

     "My father lived at Blenheim then,
       Yon little stream hard by;
     They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
       And he was forced to fly:
     So with his wife and child he fled,
     Nor had he where to rest his head.

     "With fire and sword the country round
       Was wasted far and wide,
     And many a childing mother then
       And newborn baby died:
     But things like that, you know, must be
     At every famous victory.

     "They say it was a shocking sight
       After the field was won;
     For many thousand bodies here
       Lay rotting in the sun:
     But things like that, you know, must be
     After a famous victory.

     "Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won
       And our good Prince Eugene";
     "Why 'twas a very wicked thing!"
       Said little Wilhelmine;
     "Nay--nay--my little girl," quoth he,
     "It was a famous victory.

     And every body praised the Duke
       Who this great fight did win."
     "But what good came of it at last?"
       Quoth little Peterkin:--
     "Why that I cannot tell," said he,
     "But 'twas a famous victory."

     R. SOUTHEY.




     217. PRO PATRIA MORI.

     When he who adores thee has left but the name
       Of his fault and his sorrows behind,
     O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
       Of a life that for thee was resign'd!
     Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,
       Thy tears shall efface their decree;
     For, Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,
       I have been but too faithful to thee.

     With thee were the dreams of my earliest love;
       Every thought of my reason was thine;
     In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above
       Thy name shall be mingled with mine!
     O! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live
       The days of thy glory to see;
     But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give
       Is the pride of thus dying for thee.

     T. MOORE.




     218. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA.

     Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
       As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
     Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
       O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

     We buried him darkly at dead of night,
       The sods with our bayonets turning;
     By the struggling moonbeam's misty light
       And the lantern dimly burning.

     No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
       Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him:
     But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
       With his martial cloak around him.

     Few and short were the prayers we said
       And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
     But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
       And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

     We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed
       And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
     That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
       And we far away on the billow!

     Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
       And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him--
     But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
       In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

     But half of our heavy task was done
       When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
     And we heard the distant and random gun
       That the foe was sullenly firing.

     Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
       From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
     We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
       But we left him alone with his glory.

     C. WOLFE.




     219. SIMON LEE THE OLD HUNTSMAN.

     In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
     Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
     An old man dwells, a little man,
     I've heard he once was tall.
     Full five-and-thirty years he lived
     A running huntsman merry;
     And still the centre of his cheek
     Is red as a ripe cherry.

     No man like him the horn could sound,
     And hill and valley rang with glee,
     When Echo bandied round and round
     The halloo of Simon Lee.
     In those proud days he little cared
     For husbandry or tillage;
     To blither tasks did Simon rouse
     The sleepers of the village.

     He all the country could outrun,
     Could leave both man and horse behind;
     And often, ere the chase was done,
     He reel'd and was stone-blind.
     And still there's something in the world
     At which his heart rejoices;
     For when the chiming hounds are out,
     He dearly loves their voices.

     But O the heavy change!--bereft
     Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see
     Old Simon to the world is left
     In liveried poverty:
     His master's dead, and no one now
     Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;
     Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
     He is the sole survivor.

     And he is lean and he is sick,
     His body dwindled and awry
     Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
     His legs are thin and dry.
     He has no son, he has no child;
     His wife, an aged woman,
     Lives with him, near the waterfall,
     Upon the village common.

     Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
     Not twenty paces from the door,
     A scrap of land they have, but they
     Are poorest of the poor.
     This scrap of land he from the heath
     Enclosed when he was stronger;
     But what avails the land to them
     Which he can till no longer?

     Oft, working by her husband's side,
     Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
     For she, with scanty cause for pride,
     Is stouter of the two.
     And, though you with your utmost skill
     From labour could not wean them,
     'Tis little, very little, all
     That they can do between them.

     Few months of life has he in store
     As he to you will tell,
     For still, the more he works, the more
     Do his weak ankles swell.
     My gentle reader, I perceive
     How patiently you've waited,
     And now I fear that you expect
     Some tale will be related.

     O reader! had you in your mind
     Such stores as silent thought can bring,
     O gentle reader! you would find
     A tale in everything.
     What more I have to say is short,
     And you must kindly take it;
     It is no tale; but, should you think,
     Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

     One summer-day I chanced to see
     This old man doing all he could
     To unearth the root of an old tree,
     A stump of rotten wood.
     The mattock totter'd in his hand
     So vain was his endeavour
     That at the root of the old tree
     He might have work'd for ever.

     "You're overtask'd, good Simon Lee,
     Give me your tool," to him I said;
     And at the word right gladly he
     Received my proffer'd aid.
     I struck, and with a single blow
     The tangled root I sever'd,
     At which the poor old man so long
     And vainly had endeavour'd.

     The tears into his eyes were brought,
     And thanks and praises seem'd to run
     So fast out of his heart, I thought
     They never would have done.
     --I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
     With coldness still returning;
     Alas! the gratitude of men
     Has oftener left me mourning.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     220. THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

     I have had playmates, I have had companions
     In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
     All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

     I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
     Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
     All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

     I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
     Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her--
     All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

     I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
     Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
     Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

     Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
     Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse,
     Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

     Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
     Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
     So might we talk of the old familiar faces,

     How some they have died, and some they have left me,
     And some are taken from me; all are departed;
     All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

     C. LAMB.




     221. THE JOURNEY ONWARDS.

     As slow our ship her foamy track
      Against the wind was cleaving,
     Her trembling pennant still look'd back
      To that dear isle 'twas leaving.
     So loth we part from all we love,
      From all the links that bind us;
     So turn our hearts, as on we rove,
      To those we've left behind us!

     When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years
      We talk with joyous seeming--
     With smiles that might as well be tears,
      So faint, so sad their beaming;
     While memory brings us back again
      Each early tie that twined us,
     Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then
      To those we've left behind us!

     And when in other climes, we meet
      Some isle or vale enchanting,
     Where all looks flowery wild and sweet,
      And nought but love is wanting;
     We think how great had been our bliss
      If Heaven had but assign'd us
     To live and die in scenes like this,
      With some we've left behind us!

     As travellers oft look back at eve
      When eastward darkly going,
     To gaze upon that light they leave
      Still faint behind them glowing,--
     So, when the close of pleasure's day
      To gloom hath near consign'd us,
     We turn to catch our fading ray
      Of joy that's left behind us.

     T. MOORE.




     222. YOUTH AND AGE.

     There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
     When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
     'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,
     But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

     Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
     Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess:
     The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
     The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

     Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
     It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
     That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
     And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

     Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
     Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;
     'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe,
     All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.

     O could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
     Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene,--
     As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
     So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me!

     LORD BYRON.




     223. A LESSON.

     There is a flower, the Lesser Celandine,
     That shrinks like many more from cold and rain,
     And the first moment that the sun may shine,
     Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!

     When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,
     Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest,
     Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm
     In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest.

     But lately, one rough day, this flower I past,
     And recognised it, though an alter'd form,
     Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
     And buffeted at will by rain and storm.

     I stopp'd and said with inly-mutter'd voice,
     "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold;
     This neither is its courage nor its choice,
     But its necessity in being old.

     "The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew;
     It cannot help itself in its decay;
     Stiff in its members, wither'd, changed of hue."
     And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was gray.

     To be a prodigal's favourite--then, worse truth,
     A miser's pensioner--behold our lot!
     O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth
     Age might but take the things Youth needed not!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     224. PAST AND PRESENT.

     I remember, I remember
     The house where I was born,
     The little window where the sun
     Came peeping in at morn;
     He never came a wink too soon
     Nor brought too long a day;
     But now, I often wish the night
     Had borne my breath away.

     I remember, I remember
     The roses, red and white,
     The violets, and the lily-cups--
     Those flowers made of light!
     The lilacs where the robin built,
     And where my brother set
     The laburnum on his birthday,--
     The tree is living yet!

     I remember, I remember
     Where I was used to swing,
     And thought the air must rush as fresh
     To swallows on the wing;
     My spirit flew in feathers then
     That is so heavy now,
     And summer pools could hardly cool
     The fever on my brow.

     I remember, I remember
     The fir trees dark and high;
     I used to think their slender tops
     Were close against the sky:
     It was a childish ignorance,
     But now 'tis little joy
     To know I'm farther off from Heaven
     Than when I was a boy.

     T. HOOD.




     225. THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS.

     Oft, in the stilly night,
      Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
     Fond Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me:
        The smiles, the tears
        Of boyhood's years,
      The words of love then spoken;
        The eyes that shone,
        Now dimm'd and gone,
      The cheerful hearts now broken!
     Thus in the stilly night,
      Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
     Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

     When I remember all
      The friends, so link'd together,
     I've seen around me fall
      Like leaves in wintry weather,
        I feel like one
        Who treads alone
      Some banquet-hall deserted,
        Whose lights are fled,
        Whose garlands dead,
      And all but he departed!
     Thus in the stilly night,
      Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
     Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

     T. MOORE.




     226. INVOCATION.

     Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
       Spirit of Delight!
     Wherefore hast thou left me now
       Many a day and night?
     Many a weary night and day
     'Tis since thou art fled away.

     How shall ever one like me
       Win thee back again?
     With the joyous and the free
       Thou wilt scoff at pain.
     Spirit false! thou hast forgot
     All but those who need thee not.

     As a lizard with the shade
       Of a trembling leaf,
     Thou with sorrow art dismay'd;
       Even the sighs of grief
     Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
     And reproach thou wilt not hear.

     Let me set my mournful ditty
       To a merry measure;--
     Thou wilt never come for pity,
       Thou wilt come for pleasure;--
     Pity then will cut away
     Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

     I love all that thou lovest,
       Spirit of Delight!
     The fresh Earth in new leaves drest
       And the starry night;
     Autumn evening, and the morn
     When the golden mists are born.

     I love snow, and all the forms
       Of the radiant frost;
     I love waves, and winds, and storms,
       Everything almost
     Which is Nature's, and may be
     Untainted by man's misery.

     I love tranquil solitude,
       And such society
     As is quiet, wise, and good;
       Between thee and me
     What diff'rence? but thou dost possess
     The things I seek, not love them less.

     I love Love--though he has wings,
       And like light can flee,
     But above all other things,
       Spirit, I love thee--
     Thou art love and life! O come!
     Make once more my heart thy home!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     227. STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES.

         The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
         The waves are dancing fast and bright,
         Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
         The purple noon's transparent light:
         The breath of the moist air is light
         Around its unexpanded buds;
         Like many a voice of one delight--
         The winds', the birds', the ocean-floods'--
     The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

         I see the Deep's untrampled floor
         With green and purple sea-weeds strown;
         I see the waves upon the shore
         Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown;
         I sit upon the sands alone;
         The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
         Is flashing round me, and a tone
         Arises from its measured motion--
     How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

         Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
         Nor peace within nor calm around,
         Nor that Content, surpassing wealth,
         The sage in meditation found,
         And walked with inward glory crown'd--
         Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;
         Others I see whom these surround--
         Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;
     To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

         Yet now despair itself is mild
         Even as the winds and waters are;
         I could lie down like a tired child,
         And weep away the life of care
         Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
         Till death like sleep might steal on me,
         And I might feel in the warm air
         My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
     Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     228. THE SCHOLAR.

     My days among the Dead are past;
     Around me I behold,
     Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
     The mighty minds of old:
     My never-failing friends are they,
     With whom I converse day by day.

     With them I take delight in weal
     And seek relief in woe;
     And while I understand and feel
     How much to them I owe,
     My cheeks have often been bedew'd
     With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

     My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
     I live in long-past years,
     Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
     Partake their hopes and fears,
     And from their lessons seek and find
     Instruction with an humble mind.

     My hopes are with the Dead; anon
     My place with them will be,
     And I with them shall travel on
     Through all Futurity;
     Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
     That will not perish in the dust.

     R. SOUTHEY.




     229. THE MERMAID TAVERN.

     Souls of Poets dead and gone
     What Elysium have ye known,
     Happy field or mossy cavern,
     Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
     Have ye tippled drink more fine
     Than mine host's Canary wine?
     Or are fruits of Paradise
     Sweeter than those dainty pies
     Of Venison? O generous food!
     Drest as though bold Robin Hood
     Would, with his Maid Marian,
     Sup and browse from horn and can.

       I have heard that on a day
     Mine host's signboard flew away
     Nobody knew whither, till
     An astrologer's old quill
     To a sheepskin gave the story--
     Said he saw you in your glory
     Underneath a new-old Sign
     Sipping beverage divine,
     And pledging with contented smack
     The Mermaid in the Zodiac!
       Souls of poets dead and gone
     What Elysium have ye known--
     Happy field or mossy cavern--
     Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

     J. KEATS.




     230. THE PRIDE OF YOUTH.

     Proud Maisie is in the wood,
      Walking so early;
     Sweet Robin sits on the bush,
      Singing so rarely.

     "Tell me, thou bonny bird,
      When shall I marry me?"
     --"When six braw gentlemen
      Kirkward shall carry ye."

     "Who makes the bridal bed,
      Birdie, say truly?"
     --"The gray-headed sexton
      That delves the grave duly.

     "The glowworm o'er grave and stone
      Shall light thee steady;
     The owl from the steeple sing
      Welcome, proud lady!"

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     231. THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

         One more Unfortunate
         Weary of breath
         Rashly importunate,
         Gone to her death!

         Take her up tenderly,
         Lift her with care;
         Fashion'd so slenderly
         Young, and so fair!

         Look at her garments
         Clinging like cerements;
         Whilst the wave constantly
         Drips from her clothing;
         Take her up instantly,
         Loving, not loathing.

         Touch her not scornfully;
         Think of her mournfully,
         Gently and humanly;
         Not of the stains of her--
         All that remains of her
         Now is pure womanly.

         Make no deep scrutiny
         Into her mutiny
         Rash and undutiful:
         Past all dishonour,
         Death has left on her
         Only the beautiful.

         Still, for all slips of hers,
         One of Eve's family--
         Wipe those poor lips of hers
         Oozing so clammily.

         Loop up her tresses
         Escaped from the comb,
         Her fair auburn tresses;
         Whilst wonderment guesses
         Where was her home?

         Who was her father?
         Who was her mother?
         Had she a sister?
         Had she a brother?
         Or was there a dearer one
         Still, and a nearer one
         Yet, than all other?

         Alas! for the rarity
         Of Christian charity
         Under the sun!
         O! it was pitiful!
         Near a whole city full,
         Home she had none.

         Sisterly, brotherly,
         Fatherly, motherly
         Feelings had changed:
         Love, by harsh evidence,
         Thrown from its eminence;
         Even God's providence
         Seeming estranged.

         Where the lamps quiver
         So far in the river,
         With many a light
         From window and casement,
         From garret to basement,
         She stood, with amazement,
         Houseless by night.

         The bleak wind of March
         Made her tremble and shiver;
         But not the dark arch,
         Or the black flowing river:
         Mad from life's history,
         Glad to death's mystery,
         Swift to be hurl'd--
         Any where, any where
         Out of the world!

         In she plunged boldly,
         No matter how coldly
         The rough river ran,
         Over the brink of it,--
         Picture it, think of it,
         Dissolute Man!
         Lave in it, drink of it,
         Then, if you can!

         Take her up tenderly,
         Lift her with care;
         Fashion'd so slenderly,
         Young, and so fair!

         Ere her limbs frigidly
         Stiffen too rigidly,
         Decently, kindly,
         Smooth and compose them;
         And her eyes, close them,
         Staring so blindly!

         Dreadfully staring
         Thro' muddy impurity,
         As when with the daring
         Last look of despairing
         Fix'd on futurity.

         Perishing gloomily,
         Spurr'd by contumely,
         Cold inhumanity,
         Burning insanity,
         Into her rest.
         --Cross her hands humbly
         As if praying dumbly,
         Over her breast!

         Owning her weakness,
         Her evil behaviour,
         And leaving, with meekness,
         Her sins to her Saviour!

     T. HOOD.




     232. ELEGY.

       O snatch'd away in beauty's bloom!
       On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
       But on thy turf shall roses rear
       Their leaves, the earliest of the year,
     And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:

       And oft by yon blue gushing stream
       Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,
       And feed deep thought with many a dream,
       And lingering pause and lightly tread;
     Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

       Away! we know that tears are vain,
       That Death nor heeds nor hears distress:
       Will this unteach us to complain?
       Or make one mourner weep the less?
       And thou, who tell'st me to forget,
     Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

     LORD BYRON.




     233. HESTER.

     When maidens such as Hester die
     Their place ye may not well supply,
     Though ye among a thousand try
            With vain endeavour.
     A month or more hath she been dead,
     Yet cannot I by force be led
     To think upon the wormy bed
            And her together.

     A springy motion in her gait,
     A rising step, did indicate
     Of pride and joy no common rate,
            That flush'd her spirit:
     I know not by what name beside
     I shall it call: if 'twas not pride,
     It was a joy to that allied,
            She did inherit.

     Her parents held the Quaker rule
     Which doth the human feeling cool;
     But she was train'd in Nature's school;
            Nature had blest her.
     A waking eye, a prying mind;
     A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;
     A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind;
            Ye could not Hester.

     My sprightly neighbour! gone before
     To that unknown and silent shore,
     Shall we not meet, as heretofore
            Some summer morning--
     When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
     Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
     A bliss that would not go away,
            A sweet fore-warning?

     C. LAMB.




     234. CORONACH.

     He is gone on the mountain,
       He is lost to the forest
     Like a summer-dried fountain,
       When our need was the sorest.
     The fount reappearing
       From the raindrops shall borrow,
     But to us comes no cheering,
       To Duncan no morrow!

     The hand of the reaper
       Take the ears that are hoary,
     But the voice of the weeper
       Wails manhood in glory.
     The autumn winds rushing
       Waft the leaves that are serest,
     But our flower was in flushing
       When blighting was nearest.

     Fleet foot on the correi,
       Sage counsel in cumber,
     Red hand in the foray,
       How sound is thy slumber!
     Like the dew on the mountain,
       Like the foam on the river,
     Like the bubble on the fountain,
       Thou art gone, and for ever!

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     235. THE DEATH BED.

     We watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
      Her breathing soft and low,
     As in her breast the wave of life
      Kept heaving to and fro.

     But when the morn came dim and sad
      And chill with early showers,
     Her quiet eyelids closed--she had
      Another morn than ours.

     T. HOOD.




     236. ROSABELLE.

     O listen, listen, ladies gay!
      No haughty feat of arms I tell;
     Soft is the note, and sad the lay
      That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

     "Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew,
      And, gentle lady, deign to stay!
     Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
      Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

     "The blackening wave is edged with white;
      To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
     The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
      Whose screams forbode that wreck is nigh.

     "Last night the gifted Seer did view
      A wet shroud swathed round lady gay;
     Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch;
      Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?

     "'Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
      To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
     But that my lady-mother there
      Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

     "'Tis not because the ring they ride,
      And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
     But that my sire the wine will chide
      If 'tis not fill'd by Rosabelle."

     --O'er Roslin all that dreary night
      A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
     'Twas broader than the watch-fire's light,
      And redder than the bright moonbeam.

     It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
      It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
     'Twas seen from Dryden's grove of oak,
      And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden.

     Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud
      Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie,
     Each baron, for a sabled shroud,
      Sheathed in his iron panoply.

     Seem'd all on fire within, around,
      Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
     Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
      And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail.

     Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
      Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair--
     So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
      The lordly line of high Saint Clair.

     There are twenty of Roslin's baron's bold
      Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
     Each one the holy vault doth hold,
      But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

     And each Saint Clair was buried there
      With candle, with book, and with knell;
     But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung
      The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     237. ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN.

     I saw where in the shroud did lurk
     A curious frame of Nature's work;
     A flow'ret crushéd in the bud,
     A nameless piece of Babyhood
     Was in her cradle-coffin lying;
     Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:
     So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
     For darker closets of the tomb!
     She did but ope an eye, and put
     A clear beam forth, then straight up shut
     For the long dark: ne'er more to see
     Through glasses of mortality.
     Riddle of destiny, who can show
     What thy short visit meant, or know
     What thy errand here below?
     Shall we say, that Nature blind
     Check'd her hand, and changed her mind
     Just when she had exactly wrought
     A finish'd pattern without fault?
     Could she flag, or could she tire,
     Or lack'd she the Promethean fire
     (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd)
     That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
     Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure
     Life of health, and days mature:
     Woman's self in miniature!
     Limbs so fair, they might supply
     (Themselves now but cold imagery)
     The sculptor to make Beauty by.
     Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry
     That babe or mother, one must die;
     So in mercy left the stock
     And cut the branch; to save the shock
     Of young years widow'd, and the pain
     When Single State comes back again
     To the lone man who, reft of wife,
     Thenceforward drags a maiméd life?
     The economy of Heaven is dark,
     And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark
     Why human buds, like this, should fall,
     More brief than fly ephemeral
     That has his day; while shrivell'd crones
     Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
     And crabbéd use the conscience sears
     In sinners of an hundred years.
     --Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
     Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss:
     Rites, which custom does impose,
     Silver bells, and baby clothes;
     Coral redder than those lips
     Which pale death did late eclipse;
     Music framed for infants' glee,
     Whistle never tuned for thee;
     Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,
     Loving hearts were they which gave them.
     Let not one be missing; nurse,
     See them laid upon the hearse
     Of infant slain by doom perverse.
     Why should kings and nobles have
     Pictured trophies to their grave,
     And we, churls, to thee deny
     Thy pretty toys with thee to lie--
     A more harmless vanity?

     C. LAMB.




     238. THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET.

     Where art thou, my beloved Son,
     Where art thou, worse to me than dead!
     Oh find me, prosperous or undone!
     Or if the grave be now thy bed,
     Why am I ignorant of the same
     That I may rest; and neither blame
     Nor sorrow may attend thy name?

     Seven years, alas! to have received
     No tidings of an only child--
     To have despair'd, have hoped, believed,
     And be for evermore beguiled,--
     Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
     I catch at them, and then I miss;
     Was ever darkness like to this?

     He was among the prime in worth,
     An object beauteous to behold;
     Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
     Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
     If things ensued that wanted grace,
     As hath been said, they were not base;
     And never blush was on my face.

     Ah! little doth the young-one dream,
     When full of play and childish cares,
     What power is in his wildest scream,
     Heard by his mother unawares!
     He knows it not, he cannot guess:
     Years to a mother bring distress;
     But do not make her love the less.

     Neglect me! no, I suffer'd long
     From that ill thought; and being blind
     Said, "Pride shall help me in my wrong:
     Kind mother have I been, as kind
     As ever breathed": and that is true;
     I've wet my path with tears like dew,
     Weeping for him when no one knew.

     My Son, if thou be humbled, poor,
     Hopeless of honour and of gain,
     O! do not dread thy mother's door,
     Think not of me with grief and pain:
     I now can see with better eyes;
     And worldly grandeur I despise
     And fortune with her gifts and lies.

     Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings
     And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
     They mount--how short a voyage brings
     The wanderers back to their delight!
     Chains tie us down by land and sea;
     And wishes, vain as mine, may be
     All that is left to comfort thee.

     Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan
     Maim'd, mangled by inhuman men;
     Or thou upon a desert thrown
     Inheritest the lion's den;
     Or hast been summoned to the deep,
     Thou, thou, and all thy mates, to keep
     An incommunicable sleep.

     I look for ghosts: but none will force
     Their way to me; 'tis falsely said
     That there was ever intercourse
     Between the living and the dead;
     For surely then I should have sight
     Of him I wait for day and night
     With love and longings infinite.

     My apprehensions come in crowds;
     I dread the rustling of the grass;
     The very shadows of the clouds
     Have power to shake me as they pass;
     I question things, and do not find
     One that will answer to my mind;
     And all the world appears unkind.

     Beyond participation lie
     My troubles, and beyond relief:
     If any chance to heave a sigh
     They pity me, and not my grief.
     Then come to me, my Son, or send
     Some tidings that my woes may end!
     I have no other earthly friend.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     239. HUNTING SONG.

     Waken, lords and ladies gay,
     On the mountain dawns the day;
     All the jolly chase is here
     With hawk and horse and hunting-spear;
     Hounds are in their couples yelling,
     Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
     Merrily merrily mingle they,
     "Waken, lords and ladies gay."

     Waken, lords and ladies gay,
     The mist has left the mountains gray,
     Springlets in the dawn are streaming,
     Diamonds on the brake are gleaming,
     And foresters have busy been
     To track the buck in thicket green;
     Now we come to chant our lay
     "Waken, lords and ladies gay."

     Waken, lords and ladies gay,
     To the greenwood haste away;
     We can show you where he lies,
     Fleet of foot and tall of size;
     We can show the marks he made
     When 'gainst the oak his antlers fray'd;
     You shall see him brought to bay;
     "Waken, lords and ladies gay."

     Louder, louder chant the lay
     Waken, lords and ladies gay!
     Tell them youth and mirth and glee
     Run a course as well as we;
     Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk,
     Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk;
     Think of this, and rise with day
     Gentle lords and ladies gay!

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     240. TO THE SKYLARK.

     Ethereal Minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
     Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
     Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
     Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
     Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
     Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

     To the last point of vision, and beyond,
     Mount, daring warbler!--that love-prompted strain
     --'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond--
     Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
     Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
     All independent of the leafy Spring.

     Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
     A privacy of glorious light is thine;
     Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
     Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
     Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam--
     True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     241. TO A SKYLARK.

             Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
               Bird thou never wert,
             That from heaven, or near it
               Pourest thy full heart
     In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

             Higher still and higher
               From the earth thou springest,
             Like a cloud of fire;
               The blue deep thou wingest,
     And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

             In the golden lightning
               Of the sunken sun
             O'er which clouds are brightening,
               Thou dost float and run,
     Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

             The pale purple even
               Melts around thy flight;
             Like a star of heaven
               In the broad daylight
     Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:

             Keen as are the arrows
               Of that silver sphere,
             Whose intense lamp narrows
               In the white dawn clear
     Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

             All the earth and air
               With thy voice is loud,
             As, when night is bare,
               From one lonely cloud
     The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

             What thou art we know not;
               What is most like thee?
             From rainbow clouds there flow not
               Drops so bright to see
     As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

             Like a poet hidden
               In the light of thought,
             Singing hymns unbidden
               Till the world is wrought
     To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

             Like a high-born maiden
               In a palace tower,
             Soothing her love-laden
               Soul in secret hour
     With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

             Like a glow-worm golden
               In a dell of dew,
             Scattering unbeholden
               Its aerial hue
     Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

             Like a rose embower'd
               In its own green leaves,
             By warm winds deflower'd,
               Till the scent it gives
     Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingéd thieves.

             Sound of vernal showers
               On the twinkling grass,
             Rain-awaken'd flowers,
               All that ever was
     Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

             Teach us, sprite or bird,
               What sweet thoughts are thine:
             I have never heard
               Praise of love or wine
     That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

             Chorus hymeneal
               Or triumphal chaunt
             Match'd with thine, would be all
               But an empty vaunt--
     A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

             What objects are the fountains
               Of thy happy strain?
             What fields, or waves, or mountains?
               What shapes of sky or plain?
     What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

             With thy clear keen joyance
               Languor cannot be:
             Shadow of annoyance
               Never came near thee:
     Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

             Waking or asleep
               Thou of death must deem
             Things more true and deep
               Than we mortals dream,
     Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

             We look before and after,
               And pine for what is not:
             Our sincerest laughter
               With some pain is fraught;
     Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

             Yet if we could scorn
               Hate, and pride, and fear;
             If we were things born
               Not to shed a tear,
     I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

             Better than all measures
               Of delightful sound,
             Better than all treasures
               That in books are found,
     Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

             Teach me half the gladness
               That thy brain must know,
             Such harmonious madness
               From my lips would flow
     The world should listen then, as I am listening now!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     242. THE GREEN LINNET.

     Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
     Their snow white blossoms on my head,
     With brightest sunshine round me spread
     Of Spring's unclouded weather,
     In this sequester'd nook how sweet
     To sit upon my orchard-seat!
     And birds and flowers once more to greet,
     My last year's friends together.

     One have I mark'd, the happiest guest
     In all this covert of the blest:
     Hail to Thee, far above the rest
     In joy of voice and pinion!
     Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
     Presiding Spirit here to-day
     Dost lead the revels of the May,
     And this is thy dominion.

     While birds, and butterflies, and flowers
     Make all one band of paramours,
     Thou, ranging up and down the bowers
     Art sole in thy employment;
     A Life, a Presence like the air,
     Scattering thy gladness without care,
     Too blest with any one to pair;
     Thyself thy own enjoyment.

     Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
     That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
     Behold him perch'd in ecstasies,
     Yet seeming still to hover;
     There, where the flutter of his wings
     Upon his back and body flings
     Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
     That cover him all over.

     My dazzled sight he oft deceives--
     A brother of the dancing leaves;
     Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
     Pours forth his song in gushes,
     As if by that exulting strain
     He mock'd and treated with disdain
     The voiceless Form he chose to feign
     While fluttering in the bushes.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     243. TO THE CUCKOO.

       O blithe new-comer! I have heard,
       I hear thee and rejoice:
       O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
       Or but a wandering Voice?

       While I am lying on the grass
       Thy twofold shout I hear;
       From hill to hill it seems to pass,
       At once far off and near.

       Though babbling only to the vale
       Of sunshine and of flowers,
       Thou bringest unto me a tale
       Of visionary hours.

       Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
       Even yet thou art to me
       No bird, but an invisible thing,
       A voice, a mystery;

       The same whom in my school-boy days
       I listen'd to; that Cry
       Which made me look a thousand ways
       In bush, and tree, and sky.

       To seek thee did I often rove
       Through woods and on the green;
       And thou wert still a hope, a love;
       Still long'd for, never seen!

       And I can listen to thee yet;
       Can lie upon the plain
       And listen, till I do beget
       That golden time again.

       O blesséd bird! the earth we pace
       Again appears to be
       An unsubstantial, fairy place;
       That is fit home for Thee!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     244. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

     My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
      My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
     Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
      One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
     'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
      But being too happy in thine happiness,--
       That thou, light-wingéd Dryad of the trees,
          In some melodious plot
      Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
       Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

     O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
      Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvéd earth,
     Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
      Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
     O for a beaker full of the warm South,
      Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
       With beaded bubbles winking at the brim
          And purple-stainéd mouth;
      That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
       And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

     Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
      What thou among the leaves hast never known,
     The weariness, the fever, and the fret
      Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
     Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
      Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
       Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
          And leaden-eyed despairs;
      Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
       Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

     Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
      Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
     But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
      Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
     Already with thee! tender is the night,
      And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
       Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
          But here there is no light
      Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
       Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

     I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
      Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
     But, in embalméd darkness, guess each sweet
      Wherewith the seasonable month endows
     The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
      White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
       Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
          And mid-May's eldest child,
      The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
       The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

     Darkling I listen; and for many a time
      I have been half in love with easeful Death,
     Call'd him soft names in many a muséd rhyme,
      To take into the air my quiet breath;
     Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
      To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
       While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
          In such an ecstasy!
      Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
       To thy high requiem become a sod.

     Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
      No hungry generations tread thee down;
     The voice I hear this passing night was heard
      In ancient days by emperor and clown:
     Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
       She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
          The same that oft-times hath
      Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
       Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

     Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
      To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
     Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
      As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
     Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
      Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
       Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
          In the next valley-glades:
      Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
       Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep?

     J. KEATS.




     245. UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

              _Sept._ 3, 1802.

     Earth has not anything to show more fair:
     Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
     A sight so touching in its majesty:
     This City now doth like a garment wear
     The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
     Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
     Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
     All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

     Never did sun more beautifully steep
     In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
     Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

     The river glideth at his own sweet will:
     Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
     And all that mighty heart is lying still!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     246. OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT.

     I met a traveller from an antique land
     Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
     Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
     Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
     And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
     Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
     Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
     The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed;
     And on the pedestal these words appear:
     "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
     Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
     Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
     Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
     The lone and level sands stretch far away.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     247. COMPOSED AT NEIDPATH CASTLE, THE PROPERTY OF LORD QUEENSBERRY,
          1803.

     Degenerate Douglas! O the unworthy lord!
     Whom mere despite of heart could so far please
     And love of havoc (for with such disease
     Fame taxes him) that he could send forth word

     To level with the dust a noble horde,
     A brotherhood of venerable trees,
     Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these
     Beggar'd and outraged!--Many hearts deplored

     The fate of those old trees; and oft with pain
     The traveller at this day will stop and gaze
     On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed:

     For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
     And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
     And the green silent pastures, yet remain.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     248. ADMONITION TO A TRAVELLER.

     Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!
     --The lovely cottage in the guardian nook
     Hath stirr'd thee deeply; with its own dear brook,
     Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!

     But covet not the abode--O do not sigh
     As many do, repining while they look;
     Intruders who would tear from Nature's book
     This precious leaf with harsh impiety:

     --Think what the home would be if it were thine,
     Even thine, though few thy wants!--Roof, window, door,
     The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,

     The roses to the porch which they entwine:
     Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day
     On which it should be touch'd would melt away!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     249. TO THE HIGHLAND GIRL OF INVERSNEYDE.

     Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
     Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
     Twice seven consenting years have shed
     Their utmost bounty on thy head:
     And these grey rocks, this household lawn,
     These trees--a veil just half withdrawn,
     This fall of water that doth make
     A murmur near the silent lake,
     This little bay, a quiet road
     That holds in shelter thy abode;
     In truth together ye do seem
     Like something fashion'd in a dream;
     Such forms as from their covert peep
     When earthly cares are laid asleep!
     But, O fair Creature! in the light
     Of common day, so heavenly bright,
     I bless Thee, Vision as thou art,
     I bless thee with a human heart;
     God shield thee to thy latest years!
     I neither know thee nor thy peers:
     And yet my eyes are fill'd with tears.

     With earnest feeling I shall pray
     For thee when I am far away;
     For never saw I mien or face
     In which more plainly I could trace
     Benignity and home-bred sense
     Ripening in perfect innocence.
     Here scatter'd like a random seed,
     Remote from men, Thou dost not need
     The embarrass'd look of shy distress,
     And maidenly shamefacedness:
     Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
     The freedom of a mountaineer:
     A face with gladness overspread,
     Soft smiles, by human kindness bred;
     And seemliness complete, that sways
     Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
     With no restraint, but such as springs
     From quick and eager visitings
     Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
     Of thy few words of English speech:
     A bondage sweetly brook'd, a strife
     That gives thy gestures grace and life!
     So have I, not unmoved in mind,
     Seen birds of tempest-loving kind,
     Thus beating up against the wind.

     What hand but would a garland cull
     For thee who art so beautiful?
     O happy pleasure! here to dwell
     Beside thee in some heathy dell;
     Adopt your homely ways and dress,
     A shepherd, thou a shepherdess!
     But I could frame a wish for thee
     More like a grave reality:
     Thou art to me but as a wave
     Of the wild sea: and I would have
     Some claim upon thee, if I could,
     Though but of common neighbourhood.
     What joy to hear thee, and to see!
     Thy elder brother I would be,
     Thy father, anything to thee.

     Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace
     Hath led me to this lonely place.
     Joy have I had; and going hence
     I bear away my recompense.
     In spots like these it is we prize
     Our memory, feel that she hath eyes:
     Then why should I be loth to stir?
     I feel this place was made for her;
     To give new pleasure like the past,
     Continued long as life shall last.
     Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
     Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part;
     For I, methinks, till I grow old
     As fair before me shall behold
     As I do now, the cabin small,
     The lake, the bay, the waterfall;
     And Thee, the spirit of them all!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     250. THE REAPER.

     Behold her, single in the field,
     Yon solitary Highland Lass!
     Reaping and singing by herself;
     Stop here, or gently pass!
     Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
     And sings a melancholy strain;
     O listen! for the vale profound
     Is overflowing with the sound.

     No nightingale did ever chaunt
     More welcome notes to weary bands
     Of travellers in some shady haunt,
     Among Arabian sands:
     No sweeter voice was ever heard
     In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
     Breaking the silence of the seas
     Among the farthest Hebrides.

     Will no one tell me what she sings?
     Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
     For old, unhappy, far-off things,
     And battles long ago:
     Or is it some more humble lay,
     Familiar matter of to-day?
     Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
     That has been, and may be again?

     Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
     As if her song could have no ending;
     I saw her singing at her work,
     And o'er the sickle bending;
     I listen'd till I had my fill;
     And, as I mounted up the hill,
     The music in my heart I bore
     Long after it was heard no more.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     251. THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

     At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears
     Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
     Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot, and has heard
     In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

     'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
     A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
     Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
     And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

     Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale
     Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail;
     And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
     The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

     She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade
     The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
     The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
     And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     252. TO A LADY, WITH A GUITAR.

     Ariel to Miranda:--Take
     This slave of music, for the sake
     Of him who is the slave of thee;
     And teach it all the harmony
     In which thou canst, and only thou,
     Make the delighted spirit glow,
     Till joy denies itself again
     And, too intense, is turn'd to pain;
     For by permission and command
     Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
     Poor Ariel sends this silent token
     Of more than ever can be spoken;
     Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
     From life to life, must still pursue
     Your happiness, for thus alone
     Can Ariel ever find his own;
     From Prospero's enchanted cell,
     As the mighty verses tell,
     To the throne of Naples he
     Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
     Flitting on, your prow before,
     Like a living meteor.
     When you die, the silent Moon,
     In her interlunar swoon
     Is not sadder in her cell
     Than deserted Ariel;
     When you live again on earth,
     Like an unseen Star of birth
     Ariel guides you o'er the sea
     Of life from your nativity:--
     Many changes have been run
     Since Ferdinand and you begun
     Your course of love, and Ariel still
     Has track'd your steps and served your will.
     Now in humbler, happier lot,
     This is all remember'd not;
     And now, alas! the poor sprite is
     Imprison'd for some fault of his
     In a body like a grave--
     From you he only dares to crave
     For his service and his sorrow
     A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

     The artist who this viol wrought
     To echo all harmonious thought,
     Fell'd a tree, while on the steep
     The woods were in their winter sleep,
     Rock'd in that repose divine
     On the wind-swept Apennine;
     And dreaming, some of autumn past,
     And some of spring approaching fast,
     And some of April buds and showers,
     And some of songs in July bowers,
     And all of love; and so this tree,--
     O that such our death may be!--
     Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
     To live in happier form again:
     From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,
     The artist wrought this loved Guitar;
     And taught it justly to reply
     To all who question skilfully
     In language gentle as thine own;
     Whispering in enamour'd tone
     Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
     And summer winds in sylvan cells;
     --For it had learnt all harmonies
     Of the plains and of the skies,
     Of the forests and the mountains,
     And the many-voicéd fountains;
     The clearest echoes of the hills,
     The softest notes of falling rills,
     The melodies of birds and bees,
     The murmuring of summer seas,
     And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
     And airs of evening; and it knew
     That seldom-heard mysterious sound
     Which, driven on its diurnal round,
     As it floats through boundless day,
     Our world enkindles on its way:
     --All this it knows, but will not tell
     To those who cannot question well
     The spirit that inhabits it;
     It talks according to the wit
     Of its companions; and no more
     Is heard than has been felt before
     By those who tempt it to betray
     These secrets of an elder day:
     But, sweetly as its answers will
     Flatter hands of perfect skill,
     It keeps its highest holiest tone
     For one beloved Friend alone.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     253. THE DAFFODILS.

       I wander'd lonely as a cloud
       That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
       When all at once I saw a crowd,
       A host of golden daffodils,
       Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
       Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

       Continuous as the stars that shine
       And twinkle on the milky way,
       They stretch'd in never-ending line
       Along the margin of a bay:
       Ten thousand saw I at a glance
       Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

       The waves beside them danced; but they
       Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:--
       A Poet could not but be gay
       In such a jocund company!
       I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
       What wealth the show to me had brought;

       For oft, when on my couch I lie
       In vacant or in pensive mood,
       They flash upon that inward eye
       Which is the bliss of solitude;
       And then my heart with pleasure fills,
       And dances with the daffodils.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     254. TO THE DAISY.

       With little here to do or see
       Of things that in the great world be,
       Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee
           For thou art worthy,
       Thou unassuming commonplace
       Of Nature, with that homely face,
       And yet with something of a grace,
           Which love makes for thee!

       Oft on the dappled turf at ease
       I sit and play with similes,
       Loose types of things through all degrees,
           Thoughts of thy raising;
       And many a fond and idle name
       I give to thee, for praise or blame,
       As is the humour of the game,
           While I am gazing.

       A nun demure, of lowly port;
       Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,
       In thy simplicity the sport
           Of all temptations;
       A queen in crown of rubies drest;
       A starveling in a scanty vest;
       Are all, as seem to suit thee best,
           Thy appellations.

       A little Cyclops, with one eye
       Staring to threaten and defy,
       That thought comes next--and instantly
           The freak is over,
       The shape will vanish, and behold!
       A silver shield with boss of gold
       That spreads itself, some fairy bold
           In fight to cover.

       I see thee glittering from afar--
       And then thou art a pretty star,
       Not quite so fair as many are
           In heaven above thee!
       Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
       Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest;--
       May peace come never to his nest,
           Who shall reprove thee!

       Sweet Flower! for by that name at last
       When all my reveries are past
       I call thee and to that cleave fast,
           Sweet silent Creature!
       That breath'st with me in sun and air,
       Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
       My heart with gladness, and a share
           Of thy meek nature!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     255. ODE TO AUTUMN.

     Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
     Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
     Conspiring with him how to load and bless
     With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
     To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
     And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
     To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
     With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
     And still more, later flowers for the bees,
     Until they think warm days will never cease;
     For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

     Who hath not seen Thee oft amid thy store?
     Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
     Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
     Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
     Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
     Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
     Spares the next swath and all its twinéd flowers;
     And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep
     Steady thy laden head across a brook;
     Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
     Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

     Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
     Think not of them,--thou hast thy music too,
     While barréd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
     And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
     Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
     Among the river sallows, borne aloft
     Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
     And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
     Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
     The redbreast whistles from a garden croft;
     And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

     J. KEATS.




     256. ODE TO WINTER.

          _Germany_, _December_, 1800.

     When first the fiery mantled Sun
     His heavenly race began to run,
     Round the earth and ocean blue
     His children four the Seasons flew:--
      First, in green apparel dancing,
     The young Spring smiled with angel-grace;
      Rosy Summer next advancing,
     Rush'd into her sire's embrace--
     Her bright-hair'd sire, who bade her keep
      For ever nearest to his smiles,
     On Calpe's olive-shaded steep
      Or India's citron-cover'd isles.
     More remote and buxom-brown,
      The Queen of vintage bow'd before his throne;
     A rich pomegranate gemm'd her crown,
      A ripe sheaf bound her zone.

     But howling Winter fled afar
     To hills that prop the polar star;
     And loves on deer-borne car to ride
     With barren darkness at his side
     Round the shore where loud Lofoden
      Whirls to death the roaring whale,
     Round the hall where Runic Odin
      Howls his war-song to the gale--
     Save when adown the ravaged globe
      He travels on his native storm,
     Deflowering Nature's grassy robe
      And trampling on her faded form;
     Till light's returning Lord assume
      The shaft that drives him to his northern fields,
     Of power to pierce his raven plume
      And crystal-cover'd shield.

     O sire of storms! whose savage ear
     The Lapland drum delights to hear,
     When Frenzy with her bloodshot eye
     Implores thy dreadful deity--
     Archangel! Power of desolation!
      Fast descending as thou art,
     Say, hath mortal invocation
      Spells to touch thy stony heart:
     Then, sullen Winter! hear my prayer,
     And gently rule the ruin'd year;
     Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare
     Nor freeze the wretch's falling tear:
     To shuddering Want's unmantled bed
      Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lend,
     And gently on the orphan head
      Of Innocence descend.

     But chiefly spare, O king of clouds!
     The sailor on his airy shrouds,
     When wrecks and beacons strew the deep
     And spectres walk along the deep.
     Milder yet thy snowy breezes
      Pour on yonder tented shores,
     Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes,
      Or the dark-brown Danube roars.
     O winds of Winter! list ye there
      To many a deep and dying groan?
     Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,
      At shrieks and thunders louder than your own?
     Alas! e'en your unhallow'd breath
      May spare the victim fallen low;
     But Man will ask no truce to death,
      No bounds to human woe.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     257. YARROW UNVISITED.

               1803.

     From Stirling castle we had seen
     The mazy Forth unravell'd,
     Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
     And with the Tweed had travell'd;
     And when we came to Clovenford,
     Then said my "winsome Marrow."
     "Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
     And see the Braes of Yarrow."

     "Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
     Who have been buying, selling,
     Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own,
     Each maiden to her dwelling!
     On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
     Hares couch, and rabbits burrow,
     But we will downward with the Tweed,
     Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

     "There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
     Both lying right before us;
     And Dryburgh, where with chiming Tweed
     The lintwhites sing in chorus;
     There's pleasant Tiviotdale, a land
     Made blythe with plough and harrow:
     Why throw away a needful day
     To go in search of Yarrow?

     "What's Yarrow but a river bare
     That glides the dark hills under?
     There are a thousand such elsewhere
     As worthy of your wonder."
     --Strange words they seem'd of slight and scorn;
     My true-love sighed for sorrow,
     And look'd me in the face, to think
     I thus could speak of Yarrow!

     "O green," said I, "are Yarrow's holms,
     And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
     Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
     But we will leave it growing.
     O'er hilly path, and open strath,
     We'll wander Scotland thorough;
     But, though so near, we will not turn
     Into the dale of Yarrow.

     "Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
     The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
     The swan on still Saint Mary's Lake
     Float double, swan and shadow!
     We will not see them; will not go
     To-day, nor yet to-morrow;
     Enough if in our hearts we know
     There's such a place as Yarrow.

     "Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown;
     It must, or we shall rue it:
     We have a vision of our own;
     Ah! why should we undo it?
     The treasured dreams of times long past,
     We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!
     For when we're there, although 'tis fair,
     'Twill be another Yarrow.

     "If care with freezing years should come
     And wandering seem but folly,--
     Should we be loth to stir from home,
     And yet be melancholy;
     Should life be dull, and spirits low,
     'Twill soothe us in our sorrow
     That earth has something yet to show,
     The bonny Holms of Yarrow!"

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     258. YARROW VISITED.

               _September_, 1814.

     And is this--Yarrow?--This is the Stream
     Of which my fancy cherish'd
     So faithfully, a waking dream,
     An image that hath perish'd?
     O that some minstrel's harp were near
     To utter notes of gladness
     And chase this silence from the air,
     That fills my heart with sadness!

     Yet why?--a silvery current flows
     With uncontroll'd meanderings;
     Nor have these eyes by greener hills
     Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
     And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake
     Is visibly delighted;
     For not a feature of those hills
     Is in the mirror slighted.

     A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow Vale,
     Save where that pearly whiteness
     Is round the rising sun diffused,
     A tender hazy brightness;
     Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
     All profitless dejection;
     Though not unwilling here to admit
     A pensive recollection.

     Where was it that the famous Flower
     Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding?
     His bed perchance was yon smooth mound
     On which the herd is feeding:
     And haply from this crystal pool,
     Now peaceful as the morning,
     The water-Wraith ascended thrice,
     And gave his doleful warning.

     Delicious is the Lay that sings
     The haunts of happy lovers,
     The path that leads them to the grove,
     The leafy grove that covers:
     And pity sanctifies the verse
     That paints, by strength of sorrow,
     The unconquerable strength of love;
     Bear witness, rueful Yarrow!

     But thou that didst appear so fair
     To fond imagination
     Dost rival in the light of day
     Her delicate creation:
     Meek loveliness is round thee spread,
     A softness still and holy:
     The grace of forest charms decay'd,
     And pastoral melancholy.

     That region left, the vale unfolds
     Rich groves of lofty stature,
     With Yarrow winding through the pomp
     Of cultivated Nature;
     And rising from those lofty groves
     Behold a ruin hoary,
     The shatter'd front of Newark's Towers,
     Renown'd in Border story.

     Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom,
     For sportive youth to stray in,
     For manhood to enjoy his strength,
     And age to wear away in!
     Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss,
     A covert for protection
     Of studious ease and generous cares,
     And every chaste affection!

     How sweet on this autumnal day
     The wild-wood fruits to gather,
     And on my true-love's forehead plant
     A crest of blooming heather!
     And what if I enwreathed my own?
     'Twere no offence to reason;
     The sober hills thus deck their brows
     To meet the wintry season.

     I see--but not by sight alone
     Loved Yarrow, have I won thee;
     A ray of Fancy still survives--
     Her sunshine plays upon thee!
     Thy ever-youthful waters keep
     A course of lively pleasure;
     And gladsome notes my lips can breathe
     Accordant to the measure.

     The vapours linger round the heights,
     They melt, and soon must vanish;
     One hour is theirs, nor more is mine--
     Sad thought! which I would banish,
     But that I know, where'er I go,
     Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
     Will dwell with me, to heighten joy
     And cheer my mind in sorrow.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     259. THE INVITATION.

     Best and Brightest, come away,
     Fairer far than this fair day,
     Which, like thee, to those in sorrow
     Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
     To the rough year just awake
     In its cradle on the brake.
     The brightest hour of unborn Spring
     Through the winter wandering,
     Found, it seems, the halcyon morn
     To hoar February born;
     Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
     It kiss'd the forehead of the earth,
     And smiled upon the silent sea,
     And bade the frozen streams be free,
     And waked to music all their fountains,
     And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
     And like a prophetess of May
     Strew'd flowers upon the barren way,
     Making the wintry world appear
     Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.

     Away, away, from men and towns,
     To the wild wood and the downs--
     To the silent wilderness
     Where the soul need not repress
     Its music, lest it should not find
     An echo in another's mind,
     While the touch of Nature's art
     Harmonises heart to heart.

     Radiant Sister of the Day
     Awake! arise! and come away!
     To the wild woods and the plains,
     And the pools where winter rains
     Image all their roof of leaves,
     Where the pine its garland weaves
     Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
     Round stems that never kiss the sun,
     Where the lawns and pastures be
     And the sandhills of the sea,
     Where the melting hoar-frost wets
     The daisy-star that never sets,
     And wind-flowers and violets
     Which yet join not scent to hue
     Crown the pale year weak and new;
     When the night is left behind
     In the deep east, dim and blind,
     And the blue noon is over us,
     And the multitudinous
     Billows murmur at our feet,
     Where the earth and ocean meet,
     And all things seem only one
     In the universal Sun.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     260. THE RECOLLECTION.

     Now the last day of many days
     All beautiful and bright as thou,
     The loveliest and the last, is dead,
     Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
     Up, do thy wonted work! come, trace
     The epitaph of glory fled,
     For now the Earth has changed its face,
     A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

     We wander'd to the Pine Forest
      That skirts the Ocean's foam;
     The lightest wind was in its nest,
      The tempest in its home.
     The whispering waves were half asleep,
      The clouds were gone to play,
     And on the bosom of the deep
      The smile of Heaven lay;
     It seem'd as if the hour were one
      Sent from beyond the skies
     Which scatter'd from above the sun
      A light of Paradise!

     We paused amid the pines that stood
      The giants of the waste,
     Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
      As serpents interlaced,--
     And soothed by every azure breath
      That under heaven is blown
     To harmonies and hues beneath,
      As tender as its own:
     Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
      Like green waves on the sea,
     As still as in the silent deep
      The ocean-woods may be.

     How calm it was!--the silence there
      By such a chain was bound,
     That even the busy woodpecker
      Made stiller by her sound
     The inviolable quietness;
      The breath of peace we drew
     With its soft motion made not less
      The calm that round us grew.
     There seem'd from the remotest seat
      Of the wide mountain waste
     To the soft flower beneath our feet
      A magic circle traced
     A spirit interfused around,
      A thrilling silent life;
     To momentary peace it bound
      Our mortal nature's strife;--
     And still I felt the centre of
      The magic circle there
     Was one fair Form that fill'd with love
      The lifeless atmosphere.

     We paused beside the pools that lie
      Under the forest bough;
     Each seemed as 'twere a little sky
      Gulf'd in a world below;
     A firmament of purple light
      Which in the dark earth lay,
     More boundless than the depth of night
      And purer than the day--
     In which the lovely forests grew
      As in the upper air,
     More perfect both in shape and hue
      Than any spreading there.
     There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
      And through the dark green wood
     The white sun twinkling like the dawn
      Out of a speckled cloud.
     Sweet views which in our world above
      Can never well be seen
     Were imaged by the water's love
      Of that fair forest green:
     And all was interfused beneath
      With an Elysian glow,
     An atmosphere without a breath,
      A softer day below.
     Like one beloved the scene had lent
      To the dark water's breast
     Its very leaf and lineament
      With more than truth exprest;
     Until an envious wind crept by,
      Like an unwelcome thought
     Which from the mind's too faithful eye
      Blots one dear image out.
     --Though Thou art ever fair and kind,
      The forests ever green,
     Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,
      Than calm in waters seen!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     261. BY THE SEA.

     It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
     The holy time is quiet as a nun
     Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
     Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

     The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea:
     Listen! the mighty being is awake,
     And doth with his eternal motion make
     A sound like thunder--everlastingly.

     Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here,
     If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought
     Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

     Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
     And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
     God being with thee when we know it not.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     262. TO THE EVENING STAR.

     Star that bringest home the bee,
     And sett'st the weary labourer free!
     If any star shed peace, 'tis Thou
       That send'st it from above,
     Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow
       Are sweet as hers we love.

     Come to the luxuriant skies,
     Whilst the landscape's odours rise,
     Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard
       And songs when toil is done,
     From cottages whose smoke unstirr'd
       Curls yellow in the sun.

     Star of love's soft interviews,
     Parted lovers on thee muse;
     Their remembrancer in Heaven
       Of thrilling vows thou art,
     Too delicious to be riven
       By absence from the heart.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     263. DATUR HORA QUIETI.

     The sun upon the lake is low,
      The wild birds hush their song,
     The hills have evening's deepest glow,
      Yet Leonard tarries long.
     Now all whom varied toil and care
      From home and love divide,
     In the calm sunset may repair
      Each to the loved one's side.

     The noble dame on turret high,
      Who waits her gallant knight,
     Looks to the western beam to spy
      The flash of armour bright.
     The village maid, with hand on brow
      The level ray to shade,
     Upon the footpath watches now
      For Colin's darkening plaid.

     Now to their mates the wild swans row,
      By day they swam apart,
     And to the thicket wanders slow
      The hind beside the hart.
     The woodlark at his partner's side
      Twitters his closing song--
     All meet whom day and care divide,
      But Leonard tarries long!

     SIR W. SCOTT.




     264. TO THE MOON.

         Art thou pale for weariness
       Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
         Wandering companionless
       Among the stars that have a different birth,--
     And ever-changing, like a joyless eye
     That finds no object worth its constancy?

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     265.

       A widow bird sate mourning for her Love
         Upon a wintry bough;
       The frozen wind crept on above,
         The freezing stream below.

       There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
         No flower upon the ground,
       And little motion in the air
         Except the mill-wheel's sound.

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     266. TO SLEEP.

     A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by
     One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
     Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
     Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;--

     I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie
     Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies
     Must hear, first utter'd from my orchard trees,
     And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

     Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
     And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
     So do not let me wear to-night away:

     Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
     Come, blesséd barrier between day and day,
     Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     267. THE SOLDIERS DREAM.

     Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd,
      And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
     And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,
      The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

     When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
      By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
     At the dead of the night a sweet Vision I saw;
      And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

     Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array
      Far, far, I had roam'd on a desolate track:
     'Twas Autumn,--and sunshine arose on the way
      To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

     I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
      In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
     I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
      And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

     Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
      From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
     My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,
      And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart.

     "Stay--stay with us!--rest!--thou art weary and worn!"--
      And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;--
     But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,
      And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     268. A DREAM OF THE UNKNOWN.

     I dream'd that, as I wander'd by the way
      Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
     And gentle odours led my steps astray,
      Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring
     Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
      Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
     Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
     But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

     There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
      Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,
     The constellated flower that never sets;
      Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
     The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
     Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
     When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

     And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
      Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd May,
     And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
      Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day;
     And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
      With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
     And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold,
     Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.

     And nearer to the rivers trembling edge
      There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,
     And starry river-buds among the sedge,
      And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
     Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
      With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
     And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
     As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

     Methought that of these visionary flowers
      I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
     That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
      Were mingled or opposed, the like array
     Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours
      Within my hand;--and then, elate and gay,
     I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come
     That I might there present it--O! to Whom?

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     269. THE INNER VISION.

     Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
     To pace the ground, if path there be or none,
     While a fair region round the Traveller lies
     Which he forbears again to look upon;

     Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene
     The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
     Of meditation, slipping in between
     The beauty coming and the beauty gone.

     --If Thought and Love desert us, from that day
     Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
     With Thought and Love companions of our way--

     Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,--
     The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews
     Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     270. THE REALM OF FANCY.

     Ever let the Fancy roam!
     Pleasure never is at home:
     At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
     Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
     Then let wingéd Fancy wander
     Through the thought still spread beyond her:
     Open wide the mind's cage-door,
     She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
     O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
     Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
     And the enjoying of the Spring
     Fades as does its blossoming:
     Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too
     Blushing through the mist and dew
     Cloys with tasting: What do then?
     Sit thee by the ingle, when
     The sear faggot blazes bright,
     Spirit of a winter's night;
     When the soundless earth is muffled,
     And the cakéd snow is shuffled
     From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
     When the Night doth meet the Noon
     In dark conspiracy
     To banish Even from her sky.
     --Sit thee there, and send abroad
     With a mind self-overawed
     Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!
     She has vassals to attend her;
     She will bring, in spite of frost,
     Beauties that the earth hath lost;
     She will bring thee, all together,
     All delights of summer weather;
     All the buds and bells of May,
     From dewy sward or thorny spray;
     All the heapéd Autumn's wealth,
     With a still, mysterious stealth:
     She will mix these pleasures up
     Like three fit wines in a cup,
     And thou shalt quaff it;--thou shalt hear
     Distant harvest-carols clear;
     Rustle of the reapéd corn;
     Sweet birds antheming the morn:
     And in the same moment--hark!
     'Tis the early April lark,
     Or the rooks, with busy caw,
     Foraging for sticks and straw.
     Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
     The daisy and the marigold;
     White-plumed lilies, and the first
     Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
     Shaded hyacinth, alway
     Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
     And every leaf, and every flower
     Pearléd with the self-same shower.
     Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
     Meagre from its celléd sleep;
     And the snake all winter-thin
     Cast on sunny bank its skin;
     Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see
     Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
     When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
     Quiet on her mossy nest;
     Then the hurry and alarm
     When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
     Acorns ripe down-pattering
     While the autumn breezes sing.

       O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
     Everything is spoilt by use:
     Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
     Too much gazed at? Where's the maid
     Whose lip mature is ever new?
     Where's the eye, however blue,
     Doth not weary? Where's the face
     One would meet in every place?
     Where's the voice, however soft,
     One would hear so very oft?
     At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
     Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
     Let then wingéd Fancy find
     Thee a mistress to thy mind:
     Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
     Ere the God of Torment taught her
     How to frown and how to chide;
     With a waist and with a side
     White as Hebe's, when her zone
     Slipt its golden clasp, and down
     Fell her kirtle to her feet,
     While she held the goblet sweet,
     And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh
     Of the Fancy's silken leash;
     Quickly break her prison-string,
     And such joys as these she'll bring:
     --Let the wingéd Fancy roam!
     Pleasure never is at home.

     J. KEATS.




     271. HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF NATURE.

     Life of Life! Thy lips enkindle
      With their love the breath between them;
     And thy smiles before they dwindle
      Make the cold air fire; then screen them
     In those locks, where whoso gazes
     Faints, entangled in their mazes.

     Child of Light! Thy limbs are burning
      Through the veil which seems to hide them,
     As the radiant lines of morning
      Through thin clouds, ere they divide them;
     And this atmosphere divinest
     Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

     Fair are others; none beholds Thee;
      But thy voice sounds low and tender
     Like the fairest, for it folds thee
      From the sight, that liquid splendour;
     And all feel, yet see thee never,--
     As I feel now, lost for ever!

     Lamp of Earth! Where'er thou movest
      Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,
     And the souls of whom thou lovest
      Walk upon the winds with lightness
     Till they fail, as I am failing,
     Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

     P. B. SHELLEY.




     272. WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

     I heard a thousand blended notes
     While in a grove I sat reclined,
     In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
     Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

     To her fair works did Nature link
     The human soul that through me ran;
     And much it grieved my heart to think
     What Man has made of Man.

     Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
     The periwinkle trail'd its wreaths;
     And 'tis my faith that every flower
     Enjoys the air it breathes.

     The birds around me hopp'd and play'd,
     Their thoughts I cannot measure--
     But the least motion which they made
     It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.

     The budding twigs spread out their fan
     To catch the breezy air;
     And I must think, do all I can,
     That there was pleasure there.

     If this belief from heaven be sent,
     If such be Nature's holy plan,
     Have I not reason to lament
     What Man has made of Man?

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     273. RUTH: OR THE INFLUENCES OF NATURE.

     When Ruth was left half desolate,
     Her father took another mate;
     And Ruth, not seven years old,
     A slighted child, at her own will
     Went wandering over dale and hill,
     In thoughtless freedom bold.

     And she had made a pipe of straw,
     And music from that pipe could draw
     Like sounds of winds and floods;
     Had built a bower upon the green,
     As if she from her birth had been
     An infant of the woods.

     Beneath her father's roof, alone
     She seem'd to live; her thoughts her own;
     Herself her own delight:
     Pleased with herself, nor sad nor gay,
     She pass'd her time; and in this way
     Grew up to woman's height.

     There came a youth from Georgia's shore--
     A military casque he wore
     With splendid feathers drest;
     He brought them from the Cherokees;
     The feathers nodded in the breeze
     And made a gallant crest.

     From Indian blood you deem him sprung:
     But no! he spake the English tongue
     And bore a soldier's name;
     And, when America was free
     From battle and from jeopardy,
     He 'cross the ocean came.

     With hues of genius on his cheek,
     In finest tones the youth could speak:
     --While he was yet a boy
     The moon, the glory of the sun,
     And streams that murmur as they run
     Had been his dearest joy.

     He was a lovely youth! I guess
     The panther in the wilderness
     Was not so fair as he;
     And when he chose to sport and play,
     No dolphin ever was so gay
     Upon the tropic sea.

     Among the Indians he had fought,
     And with him many tales he brought
     Of pleasure and of fear;
     Such tales as, told to any maid
     By such a youth, in the green shade,
     Were perilous to hear.

     He told of girls, a happy rout!
     Who quit their fold with dance and shout,
     Their pleasant Indian town,
     To gather strawberries all day long;
     Returning with a choral song
     When daylight is gone down.

     He spake of plants that hourly change
     Their blossoms, through a boundless range
     Of intermingling hues;
     With budding, fading, faded flowers,
     They stand the wonder of the bowers
     From morn to evening dews,

     He told of the Magnolia, spread
     High as a cloud, high over head!
     The cypress and her spire;
     --Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam
     Cover a hundred leagues, and seem
     To set the hills on fire.

     The youth of green savannahs spake,
     And many an endless, endless lake,
     With all its fairy crowds
     Of islands, that together lie
     As quietly as spots of sky
     Among the evening clouds.

     And then he said, "How sweet it were
     A fisher or a hunter there,
     In sunshine or in shade
     To wander with an easy mind,
     And build a household fire, and find
     A home in every glade!

     "What days and what bright years! Ah me!
     Our life were life indeed, with Thee
     So pass'd in quiet bliss;
     And all the while," said he, "to know
     That we were in a world of woe,
     On such an earth as this!"

     And then he sometimes interwove
     Fond thoughts about a father's love,
     "For there," said he, "are spun
     Around the heart such tender ties,
     That our own children to our eyes
     Are dearer than the sun.

     "Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me
     My helpmate in the woods to be,
     Our shed at night to rear;
     Or run, my own adopted bride,
     A sylvan huntress at my side,
     And drive the flying deer!

     "Beloved Ruth!"--No more he said.
     The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed
     A solitary tear:
     She thought again--and did agree
     With him to sail across the sea,
     And drive the flying deer.

     "And now, as fitting is and right,
     We in the church our faith will plight,
     A husband and a wife."
     Even so they did; and I may say
     That to sweet Ruth that happy day
     Was more than human life.

     Through dream and vision did she sink,
     Delighted all the while to think
     That, on those lonesome floods,
     And green savannahs, she should share
     His board with lawful joy, and bear
     His name in the wild woods.

     But, as you have before been told,
     This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,
     And with his dancing crest
     So beautiful, through savage lands
     Had roam'd about, with vagrant bands
     Of Indians in the West.

     The wind, the tempest roaring high,
     The tumult of a tropic sky
     Might well be dangerous food
     For him, a youth to whom was given
     So much of earth--so much of heaven,
     And such impetuous blood.

     Whatever in those climes he found
     Irregular in sight or sound
     Did to his mind impart
     A kindred impulse, seem'd allied
     To his own powers, and justified
     The workings of his heart.

     Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought,
     The beauteous forms of Nature wrought,--
     Fair trees and gorgeous flowers;
     The breezes their own languor lent;
     The stars had feelings, which they sent
     Into those favour'd bowers.

     Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween
     That sometimes there did intervene
     Pure hopes of high intent:
     For passions link'd to forms so fair
     And stately, needs must have their share
     Of noble sentiment.

     But ill he lived, much evil saw,
     With men to whom no better law
     Nor better life was known;
     Deliberately and undeceived,
     Those wild men's vices he received,
     And gave them back his own.

     His genius and his moral frame
     Were thus impair'd, and he became
     The slave of low desires:
     A man who without self-control
     Would seek what the degraded soul
     Unworthily admires.

     And yet he with no feign'd delight
     Had woo'd the maiden, day and night
     Had loved her, night and morn:
     What could he less than love a maid
     Whose heart with so much nature play'd--
     So kind and so forlorn?

     Sometimes most earnestly he said,
     "O Ruth! I have been worse than dead;
     False thoughts, thoughts bold and vain
     Encompass'd me on every side
     When I, in confidence and pride,
     Had cross'd the Atlantic main.

     "Before me shone a glorious world
     Fresh as a banner bright, unfurl'd
     To music suddenly:
     I look'd upon those hills and plains,
     And seem'd as if let loose from chains
     To live at liberty!

     "No more of this--for now, by thee,
     Dear Ruth! more happily set free
     With nobler zeal I burn;
     My soul from darkness is released
     Like the whole sky when to the east
     The morning doth return."

     Full soon that better mind was gone;
     No hope, no wish remain'd, not one,--
     They stirr'd him now no more;
     New objects did new pleasure give,
     And once again he wish'd to live
     As lawless as before.

     Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared,
     They for the voyage were prepared,
     And went to the sea-shore,
     But, when they thither came, the youth
     Deserted his poor bride, and Ruth
     Could never find him more.

     God help thee, Ruth!--Such pains she had
     That she in half a year was mad
     And in a prison housed;
     And there, exulting in her wrongs,
     Among the music of her songs
     She fearfully caroused.

     Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,
     Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew,
     Nor pastimes of the May;
     --They all were with her in her cell;
     And a clear brook with cheerful knell
     Did o'er the pebbles play.

     When Ruth three seasons thus had lain,
     There came a respite to her pain;
     She from her prison fled;
     But of the vagrant none took thought;
     And where it liked her best she sought
     Her shelter and her bread.

     Among the fields she breathed again:
     The master-current of her brain
     Ran permanent and free;
     And, coming to the banks of Tone,
     There did she rest; and dwell alone
     Under the greenwood tree.

     The engines of her pain, the tools
     That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools,
     And airs that gently stir
     The vernal leaves--she loved them still,
     Nor ever tax'd them with the ill
     Which had been done to her.

     A barn her Winter bed supplies;
     But, till the warmth of Summer skies
     And Summer days is gone,
     (And all do in this tale agree)
     She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree,
     And other home hath none.

     An innocent life, yet far astray!
     And Ruth will, long before her day,
     Be broken down and old:
     Sore aches she needs must have! but less
     Of mind, than body's wretchedness,
     From damp, and rain, and cold.

     If she is prest by want of food
     She from her dwelling in the wood
     Repairs to a road-side;
     And there she begs at one steep place
     Where up and down with easy pace
     The horsemen-travellers ride.

     That oaten pipe of hers is mute
     Or thrown away; but with a flute
     Her loneliness she cheers;
     This flute, made of a hemlock stalk,
     At evening in his homeward walk
     The Quantock woodman hears.

     I, too, have pass'd her on the hills
     Setting her little water-mills
     By spouts and fountains wild--
     Such small machinery as she turn'd
     Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd,
     A young and happy child!

     Farewell! and when thy days are told,
     Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mould
     Thy corpse shall buried be;
     For thee a funeral bell shall ring,
     And all the congregation sing
     A Christian psalm for thee.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     274. WRITTEN IN THE EUGANEAN HILLS, NORTH ITALY.

     Many a green isle needs must be
     In the deep wide sea of misery,
     Or the mariner, worn and wan,
     Never thus could voyage on
     Day and night, and night and day,
     Drifting on his dreary way,
     With the solid darkness black
     Closing round his vessel's track;
     Whilst above, the sunless sky
     Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
     And behind the tempest fleet
     Hurries on with lightning feet,
     Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
     Till the ship has almost drank
     Death from the o'er-brimming deep;
     And sinks down, down, like that sleep
     When the dreamer seems to be
     Weltering through eternity;
     And the dim low line before
     Of a dark and distant shore
     Still recedes, as ever still
     Longing with divided will,
     But no power to seek or shun,
     He is ever drifted on
     O'er the unreposing wave,
     To the haven of the grave.

     Ah, many flowering islands lie
     In the waters of wide agony:
     To such a one this morn was led
     My bark, by soft winds piloted.
     --'Mid the mountains Euganean
     I stood listening to the paean
     With which the legion'd rooks did hail
     The Sun's uprise majestical:
     Gathering round with wings all hoar,
     Through the dewy mist they soar
     Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
     Bursts, and then,--as clouds of even
     Fleck'd with fire and azure, lie
     In the unfathomable sky,--
     So their plumes of purple grain
     Starr'd with drops of golden rain
     Gleam above the sunlight woods,
     As in silent multitudes
     On the morning's fitful gale
     Through the broken mist they sail;
     And the vapours cloven and gleaming
     Follow down the dark steep streaming,
     Till all is bright, and clear, and still
     Round the solitary hill.

       Beneath is spread like a green sea
     The waveless plain of Lombardy,
     Bounded by the vaporous air,
     Islanded by cities fair;
     Underneath day's azure eyes,
     Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,--
     A peopled labyrinth of walls,
     Amphitrite's destined halls,
     Which her hoary sire now paves
     With his blue and beaming waves.
     Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
     Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
     On the level quivering line
     Of the waters crystalline;
     And before that chasm of light,
     As within a furnace bright,
     Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
     Shine like obelisks of fire,
     Pointing with inconstant motion
     From the altar of dark ocean
     To the sapphire-tinted skies;
     As the flames of sacrifice
     From the marble shrines did rise
     As to pierce the dome of gold
     Where Apollo spoke of old.

       Sun-girt City! thou hast been
     Ocean's child, and then his queen;
     Now is come a darker day,
     And thou soon must be his prey,
     If the power that raised thee here
     Hallow so thy watery bier.
     A less drear ruin then than now
     With thy conquest-branded brow
     Stooping to the slave of slaves
     From thy throne among the waves,
     Wilt thou be,--when the sea-mew
     Flies, as once before it flew,
     O'er thine isles depopulate,
     And all is in its ancient state,
     Save where many a palace-gate
     With green sea-flowers overgrown
     Like a rock of ocean's own,
     Topples o'er the abandon'd sea
     As the tides change sullenly.
     The fisher on his watery way
     Wandering at the close of day,
     Will spread his sail and seize his oar
     Till he pass the gloomy shore,
     Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
     Bursting o'er the starlight deep,
     Lead a rapid masque of death
     O'er the waters of his path.

       Noon descends around me now:
     'Tis the noon of autumn's glow,
     When a soft and purple mist
     Like a vaporous amethyst,
     Or an air-dissolvéd star
     Mingling light and fragrance, far
     From the curved horizon's bound
     To the point of heaven's profound,
     Fills the overflowing sky:
     And the plains that silent lie
     Underneath; the leaves unsodden
     Where the infant frost has trodden
     With his morning-wingéd feet
     Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
     And the red and golden vines
     Piercing with their trellised lines
     The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
     The dun and bladed grass no less,
     Pointing from this hoary tower
     In the windless air; the flower
     Glimmering at my feet; the line
     Of the olive-sandall'd Apennine
     In the south dimly islanded;
     And the Alps, whose snows are spread
     High between the clouds and sun;
     And of living things each one;
     And my spirit, which so long
     Darken'd this swift stream of song,--
     Interpenetrated lie
     By the glory of the sky;
     Be it love, light, harmony,
     Odour, or the soul of all
     Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
     Or the mind which feeds this verse
     Peopling the lone universe.

     Noon descends, and after noon
     Autumn's evening meets me soon,
     Leading the infantine moon
     And that one star, which to her
     Almost seems to minister
     Half the crimson light she brings
     From the sunset's radiant springs:
     And the soft dreams of the morn
     (Which like wingéd winds had borne
     To that silent isle, which lies
     'Mid remember'd agonies,
     The frail bark of this lone being),
     Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
     And its ancient pilot, Pain,
     Sits beside the helm again.

     Other flowering isles must be
     In the sea of life and agony:
     Other spirits float and flee
     O'er that gulf: ev'n now, perhaps,
     On some rock the wild wave wraps,
     With folding wings they waiting sit
     For my bark, to pilot it
     To some calm and blooming cove,
     Where for me, and those I love,
     May a windless bower be built,
     Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
     In a dell 'mid lawny hills
     Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
     And soft sunshine, and the sound
     Of old forests echoing round,
     And the light and smell divine
     Of all flowers that breathe and shine.
     --We may live so happy there,
     That the spirits of the air,
     Envying us, may even entice
     To our healing paradise
     The polluting multitude;
     But their rage would be subdued
     By that clime divine and calm,
     And the winds whose wings rain balm
     On the uplifted soul, and leaves
     Under which the bright sea heaves;
     While each breathless interval
     In their whisperings musical
     The inspired soul supplies
     With its own deep melodies;
     And the Love which heals all strife
     Circling, like the breath of life,
     All things in that sweet abode
     With its own mild brotherhood.
     They, not it, would change; and soon
     Every sprite beneath the moon
     Would repent its envy vain,
     And the Earth grow young again!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     275. ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

     O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
     Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
     Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
     Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
     Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou
     Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
     The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
     Each like a corpse within its grave, until
     Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
     Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
     (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
     With living hues and odours plain and hill:
     Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
     Destroyer and preserver; Hear, O hear!

       Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
     Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed
     Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
     Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread
     On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
     Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
     Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge
     Of the horizon to the zenith's height--
     The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
     Of the dying year, to which this closing night
     Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
     Vaulted with all thy congregated might
     Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
     Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

       Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
     The blue Mediterranean, where he lay
     Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
     Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
     And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
     Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
     All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
     So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
     For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
     Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
     The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
     The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
     Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
     And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

       If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
     If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
     A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
     The impulse of thy strength, only less free
     Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even
     I were as in my boyhood, and could be
     The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
     As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed
     Scarce seem'd a vision, I would ne'er have striven
     As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
     O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
     I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
     A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
     One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

       Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is:
     What if my leaves are falling like its own!
     The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
     Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
     Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
     My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
     Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
     Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
     And, by the incantation of this verse,
     Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
     Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
     Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
     The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
     If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     276. NATURE AND THE POET.

     _Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, painted by
     Sir George Beaumont._

     I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
     Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
     I saw thee every day; and all the while
     Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

     So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
     So like, so very like, was day to day!
     Whene'er I look'd, thy image still was there;
     It trembled, but it never pass'd away.

     How perfect was the calm! It seem'd no sleep,
     No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
     I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
     Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

     Ah! then if mine had been the painter's hand
     To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
     The light that never was on sea or land,
     The consecration, and the Poet's dream,--

     I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile,
     Amid a world how different from this!
     Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
     On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

     A picture had it been of lasting ease,
     Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
     No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
     Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

     Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,
     Such picture would I at that time have made;
     And seen the soul of truth in every part,
     A steadfast peace that might not be betray'd.

     So once it would have been,--'tis so no more
     I have submitted to a new control:
     A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
     A deep distress hath humanised my soul.

     Not for a moment could I now behold
     A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
     The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
     This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

     Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend
     If he had lived, of him whom I deplore,
     This work of thine I blame not, but commend;
     This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

     O 'tis a passionate work!--yet wise and well,
     Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
     That hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
     This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

     And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,
     I love to see the look with which it braves,
     --Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time--
     The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

     Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
     Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
     Such happiness, wherever it be known,
     Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

     But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
     And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
     Such sights, or worse, as are before me here:
     Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     277. THE POET'S DREAM.

        On a Poet's lips I slept
        Dreaming like a love-adept
        In the sound his breathing kept;
        Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
        But feeds on the aerial kisses
        Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses.
        He will watch from dawn to gloom
        The lake-reflected sun illume
        The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
          Nor heed nor see, what things they be--
        But from these create he can
        Forms more real than living Man,
          Nurslings of immortality!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     278.

     The World is too much with us; late and soon,
     Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
     Little we see in Nature that is ours;
     We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

     This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
     The winds that will be howling at all hours
     And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
     For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

     It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
     A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,--
     So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

     Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
     Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
     Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     279. WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.

     Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,
     With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd
     (Albeit labouring for a scanty band
     Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense

     And glorious work of fine intelligence!
     --Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
     Of nicely-calculated less or more:--
     So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense

     These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
     Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells
     Where light and shade repose, where music dwells

     Lingering and wandering on as loth to die--
     Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
     That they were born for immortality.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     280. YOUTH AND AGE.

     Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
     Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee--
     Both were mine! Life went a-maying
     With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
                 When I was young!

     When I was young?--Ah, woeful when!
     Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
     This breathing house not built with hands,
     This body that does me grievous wrong,
     O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands
     How lightly then it flash'd along:
     Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
     On winding lakes and rivers wide,
     That ask no aid of sail or oar,
     That fear no spite of wind or tide!
     Nought cared this body for wind or weather
     When Youth and I lived in't together.
     Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
     Friendship is a sheltering tree;
     O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
     Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
                 Ere I was old!

     Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,
     Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
     O Youth! for years so many and sweet
     'Tis known that Thou and I were one,
     I'll think it but a fond conceit--
     It cannot be, that Thou art gone!
     Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:--
     And thou wert aye a masker bold!
     What strange disguise hast now put on
     To make believe that thou art gone?
     I see these locks in silvery slips,
     This drooping gait, this alter'd size:
     But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,
     And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
     Life is but Thought: so think I will
     That Youth and I are housemates still.

     Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
     But the tears of mournful eve!
     Where no hope is, life's a warning
     That only serves to make us grieve

                 When we are old:
     --That only serves to make us grieve
     With oft and tedious taking-leave,
     Like some poor nigh-related guest
     That may not rudely be dismist,
     Yet hath out-stay'd his welcome while,
     And tells the jest without a smile.

     S. T. COLERIDGE.




     281. THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS.

     We walk'd along, while bright and red
     Uprose the morning sun;
     And Matthew stopp'd, he looked, and said,
     "The will of God be done!"

     A village schoolmaster was he,
     With hair of glittering gray;
     As blithe a man as you could see
     On a spring holiday.

     And on that morning, through the grass,
     And by the steaming rills
     We travel'd merrily, to pass
     A day among the hills.

     "Our work," said I, "was well begun;
     Then, from thy breast what thought,
     Beneath so beautiful a sun,
     So sad a sigh has brought?"

     A second time did Matthew stop;
     And fixing still his eye
     Upon the eastern mountain-top,
     To me he made reply:

     "Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
     Brings fresh into my mind
     A day like this, which I have left
     Full thirty years behind.

     "And just above yon slope of corn
     Such colours, and no other,
     Were in the sky, that April morn
     Of this the very brother.

     "With rod and line I sued the sport
     Which that sweet season gave,
     And, to the church-yard come, stopp'd short
     Beside my daughter's grave.

     "Nine summers had she scarcely seen,
     The pride of all the vale;
     And then she sang:--she would have been
     A very nightingale.

     "Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
     And yet I loved her more--
     For so it seem'd,--than till that day
     I e'er had loved before.

     "And, turning from her grave, I met,
     Beside the church-yard yew,
     A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
     With points of morning dew.

     "A basket on her head she bare;
     Her brow was smooth and white:
     To see a child so very fair,
     It was a pure delight!

     "No fountain from its rocky cave
     E'er tripped with foot so free;
     She seem'd as happy as a wave
     That dances on the sea.

     "There came from me a sigh of pain
     Which I could ill confine;
     I looked at her, and looked again
     And did not wish her mine!"

     --Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
     Methinks I see him stand
     As at that moment, with a bough
     Of wilding in his hand.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     282. THE FOUNTAIN.

               _A Conversation._

     We talk'd with open heart, and tongue
     Affectionate and true,
     A pair of friends, though I was young,
     And Matthew seventy-two.

     We lay beneath a spreading oak,
     Beside a mossy seat;
     And from the turf a fountain broke
     And gurgled at our feet.

     "Now, Matthew!" said I "let us match
     This water's pleasant tune
     With some old border song, or catch
     That suits a summer's noon.

     "Or of the church-clock and the chimes
     Sing here beneath the shade
     That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
     Which you last April made!"

     In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
     The spring beneath the tree;
     And thus the dear old man replied,
     The gray-hair'd man of glee:

     "No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears,
     How merrily it goes!
     'Twill murmur on a thousand years
     And flow as now it flows.

     "And here, on this delightful day
     I cannot choose but think
     How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
     Beside this fountain's brink.

     "My eyes are dim with childish tears,
     My heart is idly stirr'd,
     For the same sound is in my ears
     Which in those days I heard.

     "Thus fares it still in our decay:
     And yet the wiser mind
     Mourns less for what Age takes away,
     Than what it leaves behind.

     "The blackbird amid leafy trees--
     The lark above the hill,
     Let loose their carols when they please,
     Are quiet when they will.

     "With Nature never do they wage
     A foolish strife; they see
     A happy youth, and their old age
     Is beautiful and free:

     "But we are press'd by heavy laws;
     And often, glad no more,
     We wear a face of joy, because
     We have been glad of yore.

     "If there be one who need bemoan
     His kindred laid in earth,
     The household hearts that were his own,--
     It is the man of mirth.

     "My days, my friend, are almost gone,
     My life has been approved,
     And many love me; but by none
     Am I enough beloved."

     "Now both himself and me he wrongs,
     The man who thus complains!
     I live and sing my idle songs
     Upon these happy plains:

     "And Matthew, for thy children dead
     I'll be a son to thee!"
     At this he grasp'd my hand and said,
     "Alas! that cannot be."

     We rose up from the fountain-side;
     And down the smooth descent
     Of the green sheep-track did we glide
     And through the wood we went;

     And, ere we came to Leonard's Rock,
     He sang those witty rhymes
     About the crazy old church-clock,
     And the bewilder'd chimes.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     283. THE RIVER OF LIFE.

     The more we live, more brief appear
       Our life's succeeding stages:
     A day to childhood seems a year,
       And years like passing ages.

     The gladsome current of our youth
       Ere passion yet disorders,
     Steals lingering like a river smooth
       Along its grassy borders.

     But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
       And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,
     Ye Stars, that measure life to man,
       Why seem your courses quicker?

     When joys have lost their bloom and breath
       And life itself is vapid,
     Why, as we reach the Falls of Death,
       Feel we its tide more rapid?

     It may be strange--yet who would change
       Time's course to lower speeding,
     When one by one our friends have gone
       And left our bosoms bleeding?

     Heaven gives our years of fading strength
       Indemnifying fleetness;
     And those of youth, a seeming length,
       Proportion'd to their sweetness.

     T. CAMPBELL.




     284. THE HUMAN SEASONS.

     Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
     There are four seasons in the mind of Man:
     He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
     Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

     He has his summer, when luxuriously
     Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
     To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
     Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

     His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
     He furleth close; contented so to look
     On mists in idleness--to let fair things
     Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook:--

     He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
     Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

     J. KEATS.




     285. A LAMENT.

     O World! O Life! O Time!
     On whose last steps I climb,
       Trembling at that where I had stood before;
     When will return the glory of your prime?
       No more--O never more!

     Out of the day and night
     A joy has taken flight:
       Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
     Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
       No more--O never more!

     P.B. SHELLEY.




     286.

     My heart leaps up when I behold
       A rainbow in the sky:
     So was it when my life began,
     So is it now I am a man;
     So be it when I shall grow old
        Or let me die!
     The Child is father of the Man:
     I could wish my days to be
     Bound each to each by natural piety.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     287. ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF
     EARLY CHILDHOOD.

     There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
     The earth, and every common sight
                 To me did seem
             Apparell'd in celestial light,
     The glory and the freshness of a dream.
     It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
             Turn wheresoe'er I may,
                 By night or day,
     The things which I have seen I now can see no more!

             The rainbow comes and goes,
             And lovely is the rose;
             The moon doth with delight
        Look round her when the heavens are bare;
             Waters on a starry night
             Are beautiful and fair;
        The sunshine is a glorious birth;
        But yet I know, where'er I go,
     That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.

     Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
        And while the young lambs bound
             As to the tabor's sound,
     To me alone there came a thought of grief:
     A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
             And I again am strong.
     The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep,--
     No more shall grief of mine the season wrong:
     I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
     The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
             And all the earth is gay;
                 Land and sea
        Give themselves up to jollity,
             And with the heart of May
        Doth every beast keep holiday;--
                 Thou child of joy,
     Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy
           Shepherd boy!

     Ye blesséd creatures, I have heard the call
        Ye to each other make; I see
     The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
        My heart is at your festival,
        My head hath its coronal,
     The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.
             O evil day! if I were sullen
             While Earth herself is adorning
                 This sweet May morning,
             And the children are pulling
                 On every side
             In a thousand valleys far and wide
             Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
     And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:--
             I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
             --But there's a tree, of many, one,
     A single field which I have look'd upon,
     Both of them speak of something that is gone:
                 The pansy at my feet
                 Doth the same tale repeat:
     Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
     Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

     Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
     The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
             Hath had elsewhere its setting
                 And cometh from afar;
             Not in entire forgetfulness
             And not in utter nakedness
     But trailing clouds of glory do we come
                 From God, who is our home:
     Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
     Shades of the prison-house begin to close
                 Upon the growing boy,
     But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
                 He sees it in his joy,
     The youth, who daily farther from the east
         Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
             And by the vision splendid
             Is on his way attended;
     At length the man perceives it die away,
     And fade into the light of common day.

     Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
     Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
     And, even with something of a mother's mind,
                 And no unworthy aim,
             The homely nurse doth all she can
     To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man,
                 Forget the glories he hath known
     And that imperial palace whence he came.

     Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
     A six years' darling of a pigmy size!
     See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
     Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
     With light upon him from his father's eyes!
     See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
     Some fragment from his dream of human life,
     Shaped by himself with newly-learnéd art;
             A wedding or a festival,
             A mourning or a funeral;
                 And this hath now his heart,
             And unto this he frames his song:
                 Then will he fit his tongue
     To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
             But it will not be long
             Ere this be thrown aside,
             And with new joy and pride
     The little actor cons another part;
     Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"
     With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
     That life brings with her in her equipage;
             As if his whole vocation
             Were endless imitation.

     Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
             Thy soul's immensity;
     Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
     Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
     That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
     Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
                 Mighty prophet! Seer blest!
                 On whom those truths do rest
     Which we are toiling all our lives to find;
     In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
     Thou, over whom thy immortality
     Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
     A presence which is not to be put by;
     Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
     Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
     Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
     The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
     Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
     Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
     And custom lie upon thee with a weight
     Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

             O joy! that in our embers
             Is something that doth live,
             That nature yet remembers
             What was so fugitive!
     The thought of our past years in me doth breed
     Perpetual benediction: not indeed
     For that which is most worthy to be blest,
     Delight and liberty, the simple creed
     Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
     With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:
             --Not for these I raise
             The song of thanks and praise;
        But for those obstinate questionings
        Of sense and outward things,
        Fallings from us, vanishings,
        Blank misgivings of a creature
     Moving about in worlds not realised,
     High instincts, before which our mortal nature
     Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
        But for those first affections,
        Those shadowy recollections,
             Which, be they what they may,
     Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
     Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
        Uphold us--cherish--and have power to make
     Our noisy years seem moments in the being
     Of the eternal silence: truths that wake,
                 To perish never;
     Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour
                 Nor man nor boy
     Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
     Can utterly abolish or destroy!
        Hence, in a season of calm weather
             Though inland far we be,
     Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
                 Which brought us hither;
             Can in a moment travel thither--
     And see the children sport upon the shore,
     And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

     Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
             And let the young lambs bound
             As to the tabor's sound!
        We, in thought, will join your throng
             Ye that pipe and ye that play,
             Ye that through your hearts to-day
             Feel the gladness of the May!
     What though the radiance which was once so bright
     Be now for ever taken from my sight,
        Though nothing can bring back the hour
     Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
             We will grieve not, rather find
             Strength in what remains behind,
             In the primal sympathy
             Which having been must ever be,
             In the soothing thoughts that spring
             Out of human suffering,
             In the faith that looks through death,
     In years that bring the philosophic mind.

     And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
     Forebode not any severing of our loves!
     Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
     I only have relinquish'd one delight
     To live beneath your more habitual sway;
     I love the brooks which down their channels fret
     Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they;
     The innocent brightness of a new-born day
                 Is lovely yet;
     The clouds that gather round the setting sun
     Do take a sober colouring from an eye
     That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
     Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
     Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
     Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
     To me the meanest flower that blows can give
     Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

     W. WORDSWORTH.




     288.

        Music, when soft voices die,
        Vibrates in the memory--
        Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
        Live within the sense they quicken.

        Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
        Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;
        And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone,
        Love itself shall slumber on.

     P.B. SHELLEY.





PALGRAVE'S NOTES.


Poem 2.
_Rouse Memnon's mother_: Awaken the Dawn from the dark Earth and the
clouds where she is resting. Aurora in the old mythology is mother of
Memnon (the East), and wife of Tithonus (the appearances of Earth and
Sky during the last hours of Night). She leaves him every morning in
renewed youth, to prepare the way for Phoebus (the Sun), whilst Tithonus
remains in perpetual old age and grayness.

_by Peneus' streams_: Phoebus loved the Nymph Daphne whom he met by the
river Peneus in the vale of Tempe. This legend expressed the attachment
of the Laurel (Daphne) to the Sun, under whose heat the tree both fades
and flourishes. It has been thought worth while to explain these
allusions, because they illustrate the character of the Grecian
Mythology, which arose in the Personification of natural phenomena, and
was totally free from those debasing and ludicrous ideas with which,
through Roman and later misunderstanding or perversion, it has been
associated.

_Amphion's lyre_: He was said to have built the walls of Thebes to the
sound of his music.

_Night like a drunkard reels_: Compare Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene
3: "The gray-eyed morn smiles," etc.--It should be added that three
lines, which appeared hopelessly misprinted, have been omitted in this
Poem.


Poem 4.

_Time's chest_: in which he is figuratively supposed to lay up past
treasures. So in Troilus, Act III. Scene 3, "Time hath a wallet at his
back," etc.


Poem 5.

A fine example of the high-wrought and conventional Elizabethan
Pastoralism, which it would be ludicrous to criticise on the ground of
the unshepherdlike or unreal character of some images suggested. Stanza
6 was probably inserted by Izaak Walton.

Poem 9.
This Poem, with 25 and 94, is taken from Davison's "Rhapsody," first
published in 1602. One stanza has been here omitted, in accordance with
the principle noticed in the Preface. Similar omissions occur in 45, 87,
100, 128, 160, 165, 227, 235. The more serious abbreviation by which it
has been attempted to bring Crashaw's "Wishes" and Shelley's "Euganean
Hills" within the limits of lyrical unity, is commended with much
diffidence to the judgment of readers acquainted with the original
pieces.

_Presence_ in line 12 is here conjecturally printed for _present_. A
very few similar corrections of (it is presumed) misprints have been
made:--as _thy_ for _my_, 22, line 9: _men_ for _me_, 41, line 3: _viol_
for _idol_, 252, line 43, and _one_ for _our_, line 90: _locks_ for
_looks_, 271, line 5: _dome_ for _doom_, 275, line 25:--with two or
three more less important.


Poem 15.

This charming little poem, truly "old and plain, and dallying with the
innocence of love" like that spoken of in Twelfth Night, is taken with
5, 17, 20, 34, and 40, from the most characteristic collection of
Elizabeth's reign, "England's Helicon," first published in 1600.


Poem 16.

Readers who have visited Italy will be reminded of more than one picture
by this gorgeous Vision of Beauty, equally sublime and pure in its
Paradisaical naturalness. Lodge wrote it on a voyage to "the Islands of
Terceras and the Canaries"; and he seems to have caught, in those
southern seas, no small portion of the qualities which marked the almost
contemporary Art of Venice,--the glory and the glow of Veronese, or
Titian, or Tintoret, when he most resembles Titian, and all but
surpasses him.

_The clear_: is the crystalline or outermost heaven of the old
cosmography. For _resembling_ other copies give _refining_: the correct
reading is perhaps _revealing_.

_For a fair there's fairer none_: If you desire a Beauty, there is none
more beautiful than Rosaline.


Poem 18.

_that fair thou owest_: that beauty thou ownest.


Poem 23.

_the star Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken_:
apparently, Whose stellar influence is uncalculated, although his
angular altitude from the plane of the astrolabe or artificial horizon
used by astrologers has been determined.


Poem 27.

_keel_: skim.


Poem 29.

_expense_: waste.


Poem 30.

_Nativity once in the main of light_: when a star has risen and entered
on the full stream of light;--another of the astrological phrases no
longer familiar.

_Crooked eclipses_: as coming athwart the Sun's apparent course.

Wordsworth, thinking probably of the "Venus" and the "Lucrece," said
finely of Shakespeare "Shakespeare _could_ not have written an Epic; he
would have died of plethora of thought." This prodigality of nature is
exemplified equally in his Sonnets. The copious selection here given
(which from the wealth of the material, required greater consideration
than any other portion of the Editor's task) contains many that will not
be fully felt and understood without some earnestness of thought on the
reader's part. But he is not likely to regret the labour.


Poem 31.

_upon misprision growing_: either, granted in error, or, on the growth
of contempt.


Poem 32.

With the tone of this Sonnet compare Hamlet's "Give me that man That is
not passion's slave," etc. Shakespeare's writings show the deepest
sensitiveness to passion:--hence the attraction he felt in the
contrasting effects of apathy.


Poem 33.

_grame_: sorrow. It was long before English Poetry returned to the
charming simplicity of this and a few other poems by Wyat.


Poem 34.

Pandion in the ancient fable was father to Philomela.


Poem 38.

_ramage_: confused noise.


Poem 39.

_censures_: judges.


Poem 40.

By its style this beautiful example of old simplicity and feeling may be
referred to the early years of Elizabeth. _Late forgot_: lately.


Poem 41.

_haggards_: the least tameable hawks.


Poem 44.

_cypres_ or cyprus,--used by the old writers for _crape_: whether from
the French _crespe_ or from the Island whence it was imported. Its
accidental similarity in spelling to _cypress_ has, here and in Milton's
Penseroso, probably confused readers.


Poems 46, 47.

"I never saw anything like this funeral dirge," says Charles Lamb,
"except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the
Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth,
earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve
itself into the element which it contemplates."


Poem 51.

_crystal_: fairness.


Poem 53.

This "Spousal Verse" was written in honour of the Ladies Elizabeth and
Katherine Somerset. Although beautiful, it is inferior to the
"Epithalamion" on Spenser's own marriage,--omitted with great reluctance
as not in harmony with modern manners.

_feateously_: elegantly.

_shend_: put out.

_a noble peer_: Robert Devereux, second Lord Essex, then at the height
of his brief triumph after taking Cadiz: hence the allusion following to
the Pillars of Hercules, placed near Gades by ancient legend.

_Eliza_: Elizabeth; _twins of Jove_: the stars Castor and Pollux;
_baldric_: belt, the zodiac.


Poem 57.

A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry;--that written by
thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Wotton's, 72, is
another. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay,
have left similar specimens.


Poem 62.

_whist_: hushed; _Pan_: used here for the Lord of all; _Lars and
Lemures_: household Gods and spirits of relations dead; _Flamens_: Roman
priests; _That twice-batter'd god_: Dagon.

_Osiris_, the Egyptian god of Agriculture (here, perhaps by confusion
with Apis, figured as a Bull), was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed
after death in a sacred chest. This myth, reproduced in Syria and Greece
in the legends of Thammuz, Adonis, and perhaps Absyrtus, represents the
annual death of the Sun or the Year under the influences of the winter
darkness. Horus, the son of Osiris, as the New Year, in his turn
overcomes Typho.--It suited the genius of Milton's time to regard this
primaeval poetry and philosophy of the seasons, which has a further
reference to the contest of Good and Evil in Creation, as a malignant
idolatry. Shelley's Chorus in _Hellas_, "Worlds on worlds," treats the
subject in a larger and sweeter spirit.

_unshower'd grass_: as watered by the Nile only.


Poem 64.

_The Late Massacre_: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the
Duke of Savoy. This "collect in verse," as it has been justly named, is
the most mighty Sonnet in any language known to the Editor. Readers
should observe that, unlike our sonnets of the sixteenth century, it is
constructed , on the original Italian or Provençal model,--unquestionably
far superior to the imperfect form employed by Shakespeare and Drummond.


Poem 65.

Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650. Hence the prophecies, not
strictly fulfilled, of his deference to the Parliament, in stanzas
21-24.

This Ode, beyond doubt one of the finest in our language, and more in
Milton's style than has been reached by any other poet, is occasionally
obscure from imitation of the condensed Latin syntax. The meaning of st.
5 is "rivalry or hostility are the same to a lofty spirit, and
limitation more hateful than opposition." The allusion in st. 11 is to
the old physical doctrines of the non-existence of a vacuum and the
impenetrability of matter:--in st. 17 to the omen traditionally
connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome. The ancient belief
that certain years in life complete natural periods and are hence
peculiarly exposed to death, is introduced in stanza 26 by the word
_climacteric_.


Poem 66.

_Lycidas_. The person lamented is Milton's college friend Edward King,
drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland.

Strict Pastoral Poetry was first written or perfected by the Dorian
Greeks settled in Sicily: but the conventional use of it, exhibited more
magnificently in _Lycidas_ than in any other pastoral, is apparently of
Roman origin. Milton, employing the noble freedom of a great artist, has
here united ancient mythology, with what may be called the modern
mythology of Camus and Saint Peter,--to direct Christian images.--The
metrical structure of this glorious poem is partly derived from Italian
models.

_Sisters of the sacred well_: the Muses, said to frequent the fountain
Helicon on Mount Parnassus.

_Mona_: Anglesea, called by the Welsh Inis Dowil or the Dark Island,
from its dense forests.

_Deva_: the Dee: a river which probably derived its magical character
from Celtic traditions: it was long the boundary of Briton and
Saxon.--These places are introduced, as being near the scene of the
shipwreck.

_Orpheus_ was torn to pieces by Thracian women; _Amaryllis_ and _Neaera_
names used here for the love idols of poets: as _Damoetas_ previously
for a shepherd.

_the blind Fury_: Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life.

_Arethuse_ and _Mincius_: Sicilian and Italian waters here alluded to as
synonymous with the pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Virgil.

_oat_: pipe, used here like Collins' _oaten stop_, No. 146, for _Song_.

_Hippotades_: Aeolus, god of the Winds. _Panope_ a Nereid. The names of
local deities in the Hellenic mythology express generally some feature
in the natural landscape, which the Greeks studied and analysed with
their usual unequalled insight and feeling. Panope represents the
boundlessness of the ocean-horizon when seen from a height, as compared
with a limited horizon of the land in hilly countries such as Greece or
Asia Minor.

_Camus_: the Cam; put for King's University.

_The sanguine flower_: the Hyacinth of the ancients; probably our Iris.

_The pilot_: Saint Peter, figuratively introduced as the head of the
Church on earth, to foretell "the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in
their heighth" under Laud's primacy.

_the wolf_: Popery.

_Alpheus_: a stream in Southern Greece, supposed to flow underseas to
meet the Arethuse.

_Swart star_: the Dogstar, called swarthy because its heliacal rising in
ancient times occurred soon after mid-summer.

_moist vows_: either tearful prayers, or prayers for one at sea.

_Bellerus_: a giant, apparently created here by Milton to personify
Bellerium, the ancient title of the Land's End.

_The great Vision_:--The story was that the Archangel Michael had
appeared on the rock by Marazion in Mount's Bay which bears his name.
Milton calls on him to turn his eyes from the south homeward, and to
pity Lycidas, if his body has drifted into the troubled waters of the
Land's End. Finisterre being the land due south of Marazion, two places
in that district (then by our trade with Corunna probably less
unfamiliar to English ears), are named,--_Namancos_ now Mujio in
Galicia, _Bayona_ north of the Minho, or, perhaps a fortified rock (one
of the _Cies_ Islands) not unlike St. Michael's Mount, at the entrance
of Vigo Bay.

_ore_: rays of golden light. _Doric lay_: Sicilian, pastoral.


Poem 70.

_The assault_: was an attack on London expected in 1642, when the troops
of Charles I. reached Brentford. "Written on his door" was in the
original title of this sonnet. Milton was then living in Aldersgate
Street.

_Emathian Conqueror_: When Thebes was destroyed (B.C. 335) and the
citizens massacred by thousands, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar
to be spared. He was as incapable of appreciating the Poet as Lewis XIV.
of appreciating Racine: but even the narrow and barbarian mind of
Alexander could understand the advantage of a showy act of homage to
Poetry.

_the repeated air \Of sad Electra's poet_: Amongst Plutarch's vague
stories, he says that when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B.C. took
Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect
produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the Electra
of Euripides sung at a feast. There is however no apparent congruity
between the lines quoted (167, 8 Ed. Dindorf) and the result ascribed to
them.


Poem 73.

This high-toned and lovely Madrigal is quite in the style, and worthy
of, the "pure Simonides."


Poem 75.

Vaughan's beautiful though quaint verses should be compared with
Wordsworth's great Ode, No. 287.


Poem 76.

_Favonius_: the spring wind.


Poem 77.

_Themis_: the goddess of justice. Skinner was grandson by his mother to
Sir E. Coke;--hence, as pointed out by Mr. Keightley, Milton's allusion
to the _bench_.

_what the Swede intends, and what the French_: Sweden was then at war
with Poland, and France with the Spanish Netherlands.


Poem 79.

_Sydneian showers_: either in allusion to the conversations in the
"Arcadia," or to Sidney himself as a model of "gentleness" in spirit and
demeanour.


Poem 84.

_Elizabeth of Bohemia_: Daughter to James I., and ancestor to Sophia of
Hanover. These lines are a fine specimen of gallant and courtly
compliment.


Poem 85.

Lady M. Ley was daughter to Sir J. Ley, afterwards Earl of Marlborough,
who died March, 1628-9, coincidently with the dissolution of the third
Parliament of Charles's reign. Hence Milton poetically compares his
death to that of the Orator Isocrates of Athens, after Philip's victory
in 328 B.C.


Poems 92, 93.

These are quite a Painter's poems.


Poem 99.

_From Prison_: to which his active support of Charles I. twice brought
the high-spirited writer.


Poem 105.

Inserted in Book II. as written in the character of a Soldier of Fortune
in the Seventeenth Century.


Poem 106.

_Waly waly_: an exclamation of sorrow, the root and the pronunciation of
which are preserved in the word _caterwaul_. _Brae_: hillside; _burn_:
brook; _busk_: adorn. _Saint Anton's Well_: at the foot of Arthur's Seat
by Edinburgh. _Cramasie_: crimson.


Poem 107.

_burd_: maiden.


Poem 108.

_corbies_: crows; _fail_: turf; _hause_: neck; _theek_: thatch.

If not in their origin, in their present form this and the two preceding
poems appear due to the Seventeenth Century, and have therefore been
placed in Book II.


Poem 111.

The remark quoted in the note to No. 47 applies equally to these truly
wonderful verses, which, like "Lycidas," may be regarded as a test of
any reader's insight into the most poetical aspects of Poetry. The
general differences between them are vast: but in imaginative intensity
Marvell and Shelley are closely related. This poem is printed as a
translation in Marvell's works: but the original Latin is obviously his
own. The most striking verses in it, here quoted as the book is rare,
answer more or less to stanzas 2 and 6:

Alma Quies, teneo te! et te, germana Quietis, Simplicitas! vos ergo diu
per templa, per urbes Quaesivi, regum perque alta palatia, frustra: Sed
vos hortorum per opaca silentia, longe Celarunt plantae virides, et
concolor umbra.


Poems 112&113.

_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_. It is a striking proof of Milton's
astonishing power, that these, the earliest pure Descriptive Lyrics in
our language, should still remain the best in a style which so many
great poets have since attempted. The Bright and the Thoughtful aspects
of Nature are their subjects: but each is preceded by a mythological
introduction in a mixed Classical and Italian manner. The meaning of the
first is that Gaiety is the child of Nature; of the second, that
Pensiveness is the daughter of Sorrow and Genius.

112: Perverse ingenuity has conjectured that for _Cerberus_ we should
read _Erebus_, who in the Mythology is brother at once and husband of
Night. But the issue of this union is not Sadness, but Day and
Aether:--completing the circle of primary creation, as the parents are
both children of Chaos, the first-begotten of all things. (Hesiod.)

_the mountain nymph_: compare Wordsworth's Sonnet, No. 210.

_The clouds in thousand liveries dight_: is in _apposition_ to the
preceding, by a grammatical license not uncommon with Milton.

_tells his tale_: counts his flock; _Cynosure_: the Pole Star; _Corydon,
Thyrsis_, etc.: Shepherd names from the old Idylls; _Jonson's learned
sock_: the gaiety of our age would find little pleasure in his elaborate
comedies; _Lydian airs_: a light and festive style of ancient music.

113: _bestead_: avail.

_starr'd Ethiop queen_: Cassiopeia, the legendary Queen of Ethiopia, and
thence translated amongst the constellations.

_Cynthia_: the Moon: her chariot is drawn by dragons in ancient
representations.

_Hermes_: called Trismegistus, a mystical writer of the Neo-Platonist
school; _Thebes_, etc.: subjects of Athenian Tragedy; _Buskin'd_:
tragic; _Musaeus_: a poet in Mythology.

_him that left half told_: Chaucer, in his incomplete "Squire's Tale."

_great bards_: Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, are here intended.

_frounced_: curled; _The Attic Boy_: Cephalus.


Poem 114.

Emigrants supposed to be driven towards America by the government of
Charles I.

_But apples_, etc.: A fine example of Marvell's imaginative hyperbole.


Poem 115.

_concent_: harmony.


Poem 123.

_The Bard_.: This Ode is founded on a fable that Edward I., after
conquering Wales, put the native Poets to death. After lamenting his
comrades (st. 2, 3) the Bard prophesies the fate of Edward II. and the
conquests of Edward III. (4); his death and that of the Black Prince
(5): of Richard II, with the wars of York and Lancaster, the murder of
Henry VI. (the _meek usurper_), and of Edward V. and his brother (6). He
turns to the glory and prosperity following the accession of the Tudors
(7), through Elizabeth's reign (8): and concludes with a vision of the
poetry of Shakespeare and Milton.

_Glo'ster_: Gilbert de Clare, son-in-law to Edward; _Mortimer_: one of
the Lords Marchers of Wales.

_Arvon_: the shores of Carnarvonshire opposite Anglesey.

_She-wolf_: Isabel of France, adulterous Queen of Edward II.; _Towers of
Julius_: the Tower of London, built in part, according to tradition, by
Julius Caesar.

_bristled boar_: the badge of Richard III.

_Half of thy heart_: Queen Eleanor died soon after the conquest of
Wales.

_Arthur_: Henry VII. named his eldest son thus, in deference to British
feeling and legend.


Poem 125.

The Highlanders called the battle of Culloden, Drumossie.


Poem 126.

_lilting_: singing blithely; _loaning_: broad lane; _bughts_: pens;
_scorning_: rallying; _dowie_: dreary; _daffin'_ and _gabbin'_: joking
and chatting; _leglin_: milkpail; _shearing_: reaping; _bandsters_:
sheaf-binders; _lyart_: grizzled; _runkled_: wrinkled; _fleeching_:
coaxing; _gloaming_: twilight; _bogle_: ghost; _dool_: sorrow.


Poem 128.

The Editor has found no authoritative text of this poem, in his judgment
superior to any other of its class in melody and pathos. Part is
probably not later than the seventeenth century: in other stanzas a more
modern hand, much resembling Scott's, is traceable. Logan's poem (127)
exhibits a knowledge rather of the old legend than of the old verses.

_Hecht_: promised, the obsolete _hight_; _mavis_: thrush; _ilka_: every;
_lav'rock_: lark; _haughs_: valley-meadows; _twined_: parted from;
_marrow_: mate; _syne_ then.


Poem 129.

The _Royal George_, of 108 guns, whilst undergoing a partial careening
in Portsmouth Harbour, was overset about 10 A.M. Aug. 29, 1782. The
total loss was believed to be near 1000 souls.


Poem 131.

A little masterpiece in a very difficult style: Catullus himself could
hardly have bettered it. In grace, tenderness, simplicity, and humour it
is worthy of the Ancients; and even more so, from the completeness and
unity of the picture presented.


Poem 136.

Perhaps no writer who has given such strong proofs of the poetic nature
has left less satisfactory poetry than Thomson. Yet he touched little
which he did not beautify: and this song, with "Rule Britannia" and a
few others, must make us regret that he did not more seriously apply
himself to lyrical writing.


Poem 140.

_Aeolian lyre_: the Greeks ascribed the origin of their Lyrical Poetry
to the colonies of Aeolis in Asia Minor.

_Thracia's hills_ supposed a favourite resort of Mars.

_Feather'd king_ the Eagle of Jupiter, admirably described by Pindar in
a passage here imitated by Gray.

_Idalia_: in Cyprus, where _Cytherea_ (Venus) was especially worshipped.

_Hyperion_: the Sun. St. 6-8 allude to the Poets of the Islands and
Mainland of Greece, to those of Rome and of England.

_Theban Eagle_: Pindar.


Poem 141.

_chaste-eyed Queen_: Diana.


Poem 142.

_Attic warbler_: the nightingale.


Poem 144.

_sleekit_: sleek; _bickering brattle_: flittering flight; _laith_: loth;
_pattle_: ploughstaff; _whyles_: at times; _a daimen icker_: a corn-ear
now and then; _thrave_: shock; _lave_: rest; _foggage_: aftergrass;
_snell_: biting; _but hald_: without dwelling-place; _thole_: bear;
_cranreuch_: hoarfrost; _thy lane_: alone; _a-gley_: off the right
line, awry.


Poem 147.

Perhaps the noblest stanzas in our language.


Poem 148.

_stoure_: dust-storm; _braw_: smart.


Poem 149.

_scaith_: hurt; _tent_: guard; _steer_: molest.


Poem 151.

_drumlie_: muddy; _birk_: birch.


Poem 152.

_greet_: cry; _daurna_: dare not.--There can hardly exist a poem more
truly tragic in the highest sense than this: nor, except Sappho, has any
Poetess known to the Editor equalled it in excellence.


Poem 153.

_fou_: merry with drink; _coost_: carried; _unco skeigh_: very proud;
_gart_: forced; _abeigh_: aside; _Ailsa craig_: a rock in the Firth of
Clyde; _grat his een bleert_: cried till his eyes were bleared;
_lowpin_: leaping; _linn_: waterfall; _sair_: sore; _smoor'd_:
smothered; _crouse and canty_: blythe and gay.


Poem 154.

Burns justly named this "one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots or
any other language." One verse, interpolated by Beattie, is here
omitted:--it contains two good lines, but is quite out of harmony with
the original poem.

_Bigonet_: little cap, probably altered from _beguinette_; _thraw_:
twist; _caller_: fresh.


Poem 155.

_airts_: quarters; _row_: roll; _shaw_: small wood in a hollow, spinney;
_knowes_: knolls.


Poem 156.

_jo_: sweetheart; _brent_: smooth; _pow_: head.


Poem 157.

_leal_: faithful; _fain_: happy.


Poem 158.

Henry VI. founded Eton.


Poem 161.

The Editor knows no Sonnet more remarkable than this, which, with 162,
records Cowper's gratitude to the Lady whose affectionate care for many
years gave what sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched.
Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect finish;
Shakespeare's more passion; Milton's stand supreme in stateliness,
Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with an
exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would have
called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his loving
and ingenuous nature. There is much mannerism, much that is unimportant
or of now exhausted interest in his poems: but where he is great, it is
with that elementary greatness which rests on the most universal human
feelings. Cowper is our highest master in simple pathos.


Poem 163.

_fancied green_: cherished garden.


Poem 164.

Nothing except his surname appears recoverable with regard to the author
of this truly noble poem: It should be noted as exhibiting a rare
excellence,--the climax of simple sublimity.

It is a lesson of high instructiveness to examine the essential
qualities which give first-rate poetical rank to lyrics such as
"To-morrow" or "Sally in our Alley," when compared with poems written
(if the phrase may be allowed) in keys so different as the subtle
sweetness of Shelley, the grandeur of Gray and Milton, or the delightful
Pastoralism of the Elizabethan verse. Intelligent readers will gain
hence a clear understanding of the vast imaginative, range of
Poetry;--through what wide oscillations the mind and the taste of a
nation may pass;--how many are the roads which Truth and Nature open to
Excellence.


Poem 166.

_stout Cortez_: History requires here Balbóa: (A.T.) It may be noticed,
that to find in Chapman's Homer the "pure serene" of the original, the
reader must bring with him the imagination of the youthful poet;--he
must be "a Greek himself," as Shelley finely said of Keats.


Poem 169.

The most tender and true of Byron's smaller poems.


Poem 170.

This poem, with 236, exemplifies the peculiar skill with which Scott
employs proper names: nor is there a surer sign of high poetical genius.


Poem 191.

The Editor in this and in other instances has risked the addition (or
the change) of a Title, that the aim of the verses following may be
grasped more clearly and immediately.


Poem 198.

_Nature's Eremite_: refers to the fable of the Wandering Jew.--This
beautiful sonnet was the last word of a poet deserving the title
"marvellous boy" in a much higher sense than Chatterton. If the
fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England
appears to have lost in Keats one whose gifts in Poetry have rarely been
surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their lives been
closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left poems of less
excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty school and the
London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of "high collateral
glory."


Poem 201.

It is impossible not to regret that Moore has written so little in this
sweet and genuinely national style.


Poem 202.

A masterly example of Byron's command of strong thought and close
reasoning in verse:--as the next is equally characteristic of Shelley's
wayward intensity, and 204 of the dramatic power, the vital
identification of the poet with other times and characters, in which
Scott is second only to Shakespeare.


Poem 209.

Bonnivard, a Genevese, was imprisoned by the Duke of Savoy in Chillon on
the lake of Geneva for his courageous defence of his country against the
tyranny with which Piedmont threatened it during the first half of the
seventeenth century. This noble Sonnet is worthy to stand near Milton's
on the Vaudois massacre.


Poem 210.

Switzerland was usurped by the French under Napoleon in 1800: Venice in
1797 (211).


Poem 215.

This battle was fought Dec. 2, 1800, between the Austrians under
Archduke John and the French under Moreau, in a forest near Munich.
_Hohen Linden_ means _High Limetrees_.


Poem 218.

After the capture of Madrid by Napoleon, Sir J. Moore retreated before
Soult and Ney to Corunna, and was killed whilst covering the embarcation
of his troops. His tomb, built by Ney, bears this inscription--"John
Moore, leader of the English armies, slain in battle, 1809."


Poem 229.

The Mermaid was the club-house of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other
choice spirits of that age.


Poem 230.

_Maisie_: Mary. Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than
this little song, which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a
wild-wood music of the rarest quality. No moral is drawn, far less any
conscious analysis of feeling attempted:--the pathetic meaning is left
to be suggested by the mere presentiment of the situation. Inexperienced
critics have often named this, which may be called the Homeric manner,
superficial, from its apparent simple facility: but first-rate
excellence in it (as shown here, in 196, 156, and 129) is in truth one
of the least common triumphs of Poetry.--This style should be compared
with what is not less perfect in its way, the searching out of inner
feeling, the expression of hidden meanings, the revelation of the heart
of Nature and of the Soul within the Soul,--the analytical method, in
short,--most completely represented by Wordsworth and by Shelley.


Poem 234.

_correi_: covert on a hillside; _Cumber_: trouble.


Poem 235.

Two intermediate stanzas have been here omitted. They are very
ingenious, but, of all poetical qualities, ingenuity is least in
accordance with pathos.


Poem 243.

This poem has an exaltation and a glory, joined with an exquisiteness of
expression, which place it in the highest rank amongst the many
masterpieces of its illustrious Author.


Poem 252.

_interlunar swoon_: interval of the Moon's invisibility.


Poem 256.

_Calpe_: Gibraltar; _Lofoden_: the Maelstrom whirlpool off the N.-W.
coast of Norway.


Poem 257.

This lovely poem refers here and there to a ballad by Hamilton on the
subject better treated in 127 and 128.


Poem 268.

_Arcturi_: seemingly used for _northern stars_.

_And wild roses_, etc. Our language has no line modulated with more
subtle sweetness. A good poet _might_ have written _And roses
wild_:--yet this slight change would disenchant the verse of its peculiar
beauty.


Poem 270.

_Ceres' daughter_: Proserpine; _God of Torment_: Pluto.


Poem 271.

This impassioned address expresses Shelley's most rapt imaginations, and
is the direct modern representative of the feeling which led the Greeks
to the worship of Nature.


Poem 274.

The leading idea of this beautiful description of a day's landscape in
Italy is expressed with an obscurity not unfrequent with its author. It
appears to be,--On the voyage of life are many moments of pleasure,
given by the sight of Nature, who has power to heal even the worldliness
and the uncharity of man.

_Amphitrite_ was daughter to Ocean.

_Sun-girt City_: It is difficult not to believe that the correct reading
is _Seagirt_. Many of Shelley's poems appear to have been printed in
England during his residence abroad: others were printed from his
manuscripts after his death. Hence probably the text of no English Poet
after 1660 contains so many errors. See the Note on No. 9.


Poem 275.

_Maenad_: a frenzied Nymph, attendant on Dionysus in the Greek
mythology.

_The sea-blooms_, etc.: Plants under water sympathise with the seasons
of the laud, and hence with the winds which affect them.


Poem 276.

Written soon after the death, by shipwreck, of Wordsworth's brother
John. This Poem should be compared with Shelley's following it. Each is
the most complete expression of the innermost spirit of his art given by
these great Poets:--of that Idea which, as in the case of the true
Painter (to quote the words of Reynolds), "subsists only in the mind:
The sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it; it is an idea
residing in the breast of the artist, which he is always labouring to
impart, and which he dies at last without imparting."


Poem 278.

Proteus represented the everlasting changes united with ever-recurrent
sameness, of the Sea.


Poem 279.

_the Royal Saint_: Henry VI.




   INDEX OF WRITERS.


   WITH DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH.


   ALEXANDER, William (1580-1640) 22

   BACON, Francis (1561-1626) 57
   BARBAULD, Anna Laetitia (1743-1825) 165
   BARNEFIELD, Richard (16th Century) 34
   BEAUMONT, Francis (1586-1616) 67
   BURNS, Robert (1759-1796) 125, 132, 139, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153,
   155, 156
   BYRON, George Gordon Noel (1788-1824) 169, 171, 173 190, 202; 209, 222,
   232

   CAMPBELL, Thomas (1777-1844) 181, 183, 187, 197, 206, 207, 215, 256,
   262, 267, 283
   CAREW, Thomas (1589-1639) 87
   CAREY, Henry (-- -1743) 131
   CIBBER, Colley (1671-1757) 119
   COLERIDGE, Hartley (1796-1849) 175
   COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) 168, 280
   COLLINS, William (1720-1756) 124, 141, 146
   COLLINS, --- (18th Century) 164
   CONSTABLE, Henry (156-?-1604?) 15
   COWLEY, Abraham (1618-1667) 102
   COWPER, William (1731-1800) 129, 134, 143, 160, 161, 162
   CRASHAW, Richard (1615?-1652) 79
   CUNNINGHAM, Allan (1784-1842) 205

   DANIEL, Samuel (1562-1619) 35
   DEKKER, Thomas (-- -1638?) 54
   DRAYTON, Michael (1563-1631) 37
   DRUMMOND, William (1585-1649) 2, 38, 43, 55, 58, 59, 61
   DRYDEN, John (1631-1700) 63, 116

   ELLIOTT, Jane (18th Century) 126

   FLETCHER, John (1576-1625) 104

   GAY, John (1688-1732) 130
   GOLDSMITH, Oliver (1728-1774) 138
   GRAHAM, --- (1735-1797) 133
   GRAY, Thomas (1716-1771) 117, 120, 123, 140, 142, 147, 158, 159

   HERBERT, George (1593-1632) 74
   HERRICK, Robert (1591-1674?) 82, 88, 92, 93, 96, 109, 110
   HEYWOOD, Thomas (-- -1649?) 52
   HOOD, Thomas (1798-1845) 224, 231, 235

   JONSON, Ben (1574-1637) 73, 78, 90

   KEATS, John (1795-1821) 166, 167, 191, 193, 198, 229, 244, 255, 270, 284

   LAMB, Charles (1775-1835) 220, 233, 237
   LINDSAY, Anne (1750-1825) 152
   LODGE, Thomas (1556-1625) 16
   LOGAN, John (1748-1788) 127
   LOVELACE, Richard (1618-1658) 83, 99, 100
   LYLYE, John (1554-1600) 51

   MARLOWE, Christopher (1562-1593) 5
   MARVELL, Andrew (1620-1678) 65, 111, 114
   MICKLE, William Julius (1734-1788) 154
   MILTON, John (1608-1674) 62, 64, 66, 70, 71, 76, 77, 85, 112, 113, 115
   MOORE, Thomas (1780-1852) 185, 201, 217, 221, 225

   NAIRN, Carolina (1766-1845) 157
   NASH, Thomas (1567-1601?) 1

   PHILIPS, Ambrose (1671-1749) 121
   POPE, Alexander (1688-1744) 118
   PRIOR, Matthew (1664-1721) 137

   ROGERS, Samuel (1762-1855) 135, 145

   SCOTT, Walter (1771-1832) 105, 170, 182, 186, 192, 194, 196, 204, 230,
   234, 236, 239, 263
   SEDLEY, Charles (1639-1701) 81, 98
   SEWELL, George (-- -1726) 163
   SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616) 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18,
   19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49
   50, 56, 60
   SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) 172, 176, 184, 188, 195, 203, 226,
   227, 241, 246, 252, 259, 260, 264, 265, 268, 271, 274, 275, 277, 285,
   288
   SHIRLEY, James (1596-1666) 68, 69
   SIDNEY, Philip (1554-1586) 24
   SOUTHEY, Robert (1774-1843) 216, 228
   SPENSER, Edmund (1553-1598/9) 53
   SUCKLING, John (1608/9-1641) 101
   SYLVESTER, Joshua (1563-1618) 25
   THOMSON, James (1700-1748) 122, 136

   VAUGHAN, Henry (1621-1695) 75
   VERE, Edward (1534-1604) 41

   WALLER, Edmund (1605-1687) 89, 95
   WEBSTER, John (-- -1638?) 47
   WITHER, George (1588-1667) 103
   WOLFE, Charles (1791-1823) 218
   WORDSWORTH, William (1770-1850) 174, 177, 178, 179, 180, 189, 200, 208,
   210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 219, 223, 238, 240, 242, 243, 245, 247, 248,
   249, 250, 251, 253, 254, 257, 258, 261, 266, 269, 272, 273, 276, 278,
   279, 281, 282, 286, 287
   WOTTON, Henry (1568-1639) 72, 84
   WYAT, Thomas (1503-1542) 21, 33

   UNKNOWN: 9, 17, 40, 80, 86, 91, 94, 97, 106, 107, 108, 128





   INDEX OF FIRST LINES.

   Absence, hear thou my protestation
   A Chieftain to the Highlands bound
   A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by
   Ah, Chloris! could I now but sit
   Ah! County Guy, the hour is nigh
   All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd
   All thoughts, all passions, all delights
   And are ye sure the news is true?
   And is this Yarrow?--This the Stream
   And thou art dead, as young and fair
   And wilt thou leave me thus?
   Ariel to Miranda:--Take
   Art thou pale for weariness
   Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
   As it fell upon a day
   As I was walking all alane
   A slumber did my spirit seal
   As slow our ship her foamy track
   A sweet disorder in the dress
   At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears
    At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
   Avenge, O Lord! Thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
   Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake
   Awake, awake, my Lyre!
   A weary lot is thine, fair maid
   A wet sheet and a flowing sea
   A widow bird sate mourning for her Love


   Bards of Passion and of Mirth
   Beauty sat bathing by a spring
   Behold her, single in the field
   Being your slave, what should I do but tend
   Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
   Best and brightest, come away
   Bid me to live, and I will live
   Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy
   Blow, blow, thou winter wind
   Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art


   Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren
   Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
   Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in Arms
   Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night
   Come away, come away, death
   Come live with me and be my Love
   Crabbed Age and Youth
   Cupid and my Campaspe play'd
   Cyriack, whose grandsire, on the royal bench


   Daughter of Jove, relentless power
   Daughter to that good earl, once President
   Degenerate Douglas! O the unworthy lord!
   Diaphenia like the daffadowndilly
   Doth then the world go thus, doth all thus move?
   Down in yon garden sweet and gay
   Drink to me only with thine eyes
   Duncan Gray cam here to woo


   Earl March look'd on his dying child
   Earth has not anything to show more fair
   Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!
   Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky!
   Ever let the Fancy roam


   Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
   Fair pledges of a fruitful tree
   Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
   Fear no more the heat o' the sun
   For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
   Forget not yet the tried intent
   Four Seasons fill the measure of the year
   From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
   From Stirling Castle we had seen
   Full fathom five thy father lies


   Gather ye rose-buds while ye may
   Gem of the crimson-colour'd Even
   Go fetch to me a pint o' wine
   Go, lovely Rose!


   Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
   Happy the man, whose wish and care
   Happy those early days, when I
   He is gone on the mountain
   He that loves a rosy cheek
   Hence, all you vain delights
   Hence, loathéd Melancholy
   Hence, vain deluding Joys
   How delicious is the winning
   How happy is he born and taught
   How like a winter hath my absence been
   How sleep the Brave, who sink to rest
   How sweet the answer Echo makes
   How vainly men themselves amaze


   I am monarch of all I survey
   I arise from dreams of thee
   I dream'd that as I wander'd by the way
   If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
   If doughty deeds my lady please
   I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden
   If Thou survive my well-contented day
   If to be absent were to be
   If women could be fair, and yet not fond
   I have had playmates, I have had companions
   I heard a thousand blended notes
   I met a traveller from an antique land
   I'm wearing awa', Jean
   In a drear-nighted December
   In the downhill of life, when I find I'm declining
   In the sweet shire of Cardigan
   I remember, I remember
   I saw where in the shroud did lurk
   It is a beauteous evening, calm and free
   It is not Beauty I demand
   It is not growing like a tree
   I travell'd among unknown men
   It was a lover and his lass
   It was a summer evening
   I've heard them lilting at our ewe-milking
   I wander'd lonely as a cloud
   I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
   I wish I were where Helen lies


   John Anderson, my jo, John


   Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son
   Let me not to the marriage of true minds
   Life! I know not what thou art
   Life of Life! thy lips enkindle
   Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
   Like to the clear in highest sphere
   Love not me for comely grace
   Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours


   Many a green isle needs must be
   Mary! I want a lyre with other strings
   Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour
   Mine be a cot beside the hill
   Mortality, behold and fear
   Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
   Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold
   Music, when soft voices die
   My days among the Dead are past
   My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
   My heart leaps up when I behold
   My Love in her attire doth show her wit
   My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow
   My thoughts hold mortal strife
   My true-love hath my heart, and I have his


   No longer mourn for me when I am dead
   Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
   Not, Celia, that I juster am
   Now the golden Morn aloft
   Now the last day of many days


   O blithe new-comer! I have heard
   O Brignall banks are wild and fair
   Of all the girls that are so smart
   Of a' the airts the wind can blaw
   Of Nelson and the North
   O Friend! I know not which way I must look
   Of this fair volume which we World do name
   Oft in the stilly night
   O if thou knew'st how thou thyself dost harm
   Oh, lovers' eyes are sharp to see
   Oh, snatch'd away in beauty's bloom!
   O listen, listen, ladies gay!
   O Mary, at thy window be
   O me! what eyes hath love put in my head
   O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
   O my Luve's like a red, red rose
   On a day, alack the day!
   On a Poet's lips I slept
   Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee
   One more Unfortunate
   One word is too often profaned
   O never say that I was false of heart
   On Linden, when the sun was low
   O saw ye bonnie Lesley
   O say what is that thing call'd Light
   O talk not to me of a name great in story
   Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd
   Over the mountains
   O waly waly up the bank
   O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms
   O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
   O World! O Life! O Time!


   Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day
   Phoebus, arise!
   Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
   Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth
   Proud Maisie is in the wood


   Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair


   Rarely, rarely, comest thou
   Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!


   Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
   Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
   Shall I, wasting in despair
   She dwelt among the untrodden ways
   She is not fair to outward view
   She walks in beauty, like the night
   She was a phantom of delight
   Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
   Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part
   Sleep on, and dream of Heaven awhile
   Souls of Poets dead and gone
   Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king
   Star that bringest home the bee
   Stern Daughter of the voice of God!
   Surprised by joy--impatient as the wind
   Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
   Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
   Sweet stream, that winds through yonder glade
   Swiftly walk over the western wave


   Take, O take those lips away
   Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense
   Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
   Tell me where is Fancy bred
   That time of year thou may'st in me behold
   That which her slender waist confined
   The curfew tolls the knell of parting day
   The forward youth that would appear
   The fountains mingle with the river
   The glories of our blood and state
   The last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King
   The lovely lass o' Inverness
   The merchant, to secure his treasure
   The more we live, more brief appear
   The poplars are fell'd! farewell to the shade
   The sun is warm, the sky is clear
   The sun upon the lake is low
   The twentieth year is well-nigh past
   The World is too much with us; late and soon
   The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man
   There be none of Beauty's daughters
   There is a flower, the lesser Celandine
   There is a garden in her face
   There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
   There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream
   They that have power to hurt, and will do none
   This is the month, and this the happy morn
   This life, which seems so fair
   Three years she grew in sun and shower
   Thy braes were bonnie, Yarrow stream
   Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
   Timely blossom, Infant fair
   Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
   Toll for the brave
   To me, fair Friend, you never can be old
   'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
   'Twas on a lofty vase's side
   Two Voices are there, one is of the Sea


   Under the greenwood tree


   Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying
   Victorious men of earth, no more


   Waken, lords and ladies gay
   Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie
   Were I as base as is the lowly plain
   We talk'd with open heart, and tongue
   We walk'd along, while bright and red
   We watch'd her breathing thro' the night
   Whenas in silks my Julia goes
   When Britain first at Heaven's command
   When first the fiery-mantled Sun
   When God at first made Man
   When he who adores thee has left but the name
   When icicles hang by the wall
   When I consider how my light is spent
   When I have borne in memory what has tamed
   When I have fears that I may cease to be
   When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
   When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
   When in the chronicle of wasted time
   When lovely woman stoops to folly
   When Love with unconfined wings
   When maidens such as Hester die
   When Music, heavenly maid, was young
   When Ruth was left half desolate
   When the lamp is shatter'd
   When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame
   When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
   When we two parted
   Where art thou, my beloved Son
   Where shall the lover rest
   Where the remote Bermudas ride
   While that the sun with his beams hot
   Whoe'er she be
   Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
   Why, Damon, with the forward day
   Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
   Why weep ye by the tide, ladie?
   With little here to do or see


   Ye banks and braes and streams around
   Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon
   Ye distant spires, ye antique towers
   Ye Mariners of England
   Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!
   Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
   You meaner beauties of the night





   Corrections to Collins edition:

   Poem 143--"W. COUPER" to "W. COWPER"
   Poem 274--"like a green see" to "like a green sea"
   Poem 280--"woful Ere" to "woeful Ere"
   Palgrave's Notes--Poem 62: "mythe" to "myth"
   Palgrave's Notes--Poem 85: "Parliamant" to "Parliament"
   Palgrave's Notes--Poem 140: "Acolian lyre" to "Aeolian lyre"
   Palgrave's Notes--Poem 140: "were Cytheria" to "where Cytheria"
   Palgrave's Notes--Poem 275: "Geeek" to "Greek"