"^p TO 1 _ " v- V y ■> ^. %$ /■ S c \ '^4 XV-' ' f 'r- .* «*, '0 N •^ ^ v? ^ ,0 o o o ,\V '' ,v ,0 0, A<3 ,0 c? *.♦ = o «5 -n*. * >**\ " ^'% "="„. .AN ,0 x * Ofr v #■ ; c -^ K SELECTIONS BRITISH POETS. By ELIZA WOODWORTH. iffy I totlbt giittstratium*. 7 &J. 33" e ro ~ T) o r k : PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 200 MULBERRY-STREET, 1 856. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New- York. CONTENTS. GEOFFREY CHAUCER x Page 9 From " The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales " 10 EDMUND SPENSER 17 The Cave of Despair 18 The Creation 23 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE 24 Hamlet's Soliloquy on Death 27 Music 28 A Father's Arlvice to his Son 28 Voice of the Dying 29 Outward Show 29 Wealth the Armour of Sin 30 Macheth's Mental Struggle 30 Abuse of Authority 31 Solitude Illustrated. 32 A Good Conscience 32 ROBERT HERRICK 33 The Daffodils 33 To Blossoms 34 Time 35 JOHN MILTON 36 Hymn to the Nativity 39 Speech of Belial Dissuading War 46 Apostrophe to Light Illustrated. 48 Imaginary Meeting of Satan, Sin, and Death 50 SAMUEL BUTLER 54 Sir Hudibras 54 4 CONTENTS. /OHN DRYDEN Page 56 Veni Creator 57 Natural Religion 58 Resignation Illustrated. 60 MATTHEW PRIOR 61 A Simile 62 Charity 62 ISAAC WATTS, D. D 65 Free Philosophy 66 Riches 67 Hymn of Praise 69 The Resurrection of Christ 70 Reverence 70 Adoration ■ 71 THOMAS PARNELL 72 A Night-piece on Death 73 EDWARD YOUNG, D. D .' 76 Procrastination 77 Night and Time 78 Conscience - 82 Death 82 From " The Consolation " 83 The Judgment-Day 86 The Existence of God 87 ALEXANDER POPE 89 Providence ~: 90 The Universal Prayer 94 . The Dying Christian to his Soul 96 JAMES THOMSON 97 A Man Perishing in the Snow 98 The Afflicted '. 99 A Winter's Storm Illustrated. 100 From the " Castle of Indolence " 105 THOMAS GRAY 106 Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard Illustrated. 106 WILLIAM COLLINS Ill The Passions Ill How Sleep the Brave ! 115 MARK AKENSIDE 116 From " The Pleasures of the Imagination " .' 117 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 122 The Village Pastor 123 The Village Schoolmaster 124 CONTEXTS. 5 WILLIAM COWPER Page 126 The Infidel and the Christian 128 Movement and Action the Life of Nature 130 The Winter Evening Illustrated. 131 Great Suhjects 135 The Rose 136 Slavery 137 Human Frailty ....._ 13S JAMES BEATTLE.LL. D 139 The Hermit Illustrated. 140 ROBERT BURNS 142 The Cotter's Saturday Night 144 Poverty 147 Lines written in the Prospect of Death 149 SAMUEL ROGERS 150 From " The Pleasures of Memory " 150 The With ..." 153 JOANNA BALLLIE 154 The Kitten 154 Song 158 WILLTAM WORDSWORTH v 160 Ode — Intimations of Immortality 160 A Simile 165 Change 165 London before Sunrise 167 The Power of Sound at Night 168 The Daffodils 169 SIR WALTER SCOTT 170 The Tomb of Michael Scott 170 A Dirge 175 Battle of Beal' an Duine 176 JAMES MONTGOMERY 179 The Grave 179 Life 181 Night 182 From " The World before the Flood " 7 184 Enoch's Account of the Death of Adam 185 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 188 From " The Ancient Mariner " 189 From "Christabel " 190 Youth and Age 191 Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni 193 The Nightingale Illustrated. 195 6 CONTENTS. ROBERT SOUTHEY Page 199 The Holly-tree 199 Moonlight Illustrated. 201 • THOMAS CAMPBELL 202 The Last Man 203 The Rainbow 206 The Sceptic 208 The Rose of the Wilderness Illustrated. 210 The Exile of Erin 212 THOMAS MOORE 214 Those Evening Bells 214 A Reflection at Sea 215 Dirge of Hinda 215 O Breathe not his Name ! 216 Hidden Sorrow 217 Little Things 217 REGINALD HEBER, D. D 218 Missionary Hymn 219 Hymn 220 The Judgment 221 Life Fading .- 221 Early Piety 222 Death 223 Affliction 224 The Birth of Christ 225 Passage of the Red Sea 225 JOHN WILSON 228 From " The City of the Plague " 228 The Death of the Christian 230 A Church-yard Scene Illustrated. 231 The Ocean 233 LORD BYRON • 234 Apostrophe to the Ocean 237 When Coldness Wraps this Suffering Clay 239 The Destruction of Sennacherib 240 Darkness .- 241 Waterloo — the Ball and the Battle 243 Byron's Farewell to his Wife 245 Greece 247 Thought 250 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 251 Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni 253 Lines written near Naples 255 Dirge for the Year 256 CONTENTS. 7 FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS Page 258 The Agony in the Garden 259 The Hour of Death 260 The Homes of England 261 The Pilgrim Fathers 263 The Spells of Home 264 The Vaudois Wife 266 Hymn of the Vaudois 268 A Dirge 270 Things that Change 270 A Father Beading the Bible 272 The Better Land 273 The Angels' Call 274 The Rhine 275 The Meeting of the Brothers 276 JOHN KEATS 279 To the Nightingale 279 ROBERT POLLOK 282 Perdition 284 The Hypocrite 285 Slander 286 The False Priest 287 The Critic 289 Sorrow and Change 289 LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON 292 To the Snow-Drop 293 The Forgotten One 294 Death 297 The Offering 298 The Struggles of Life 300 MARY ANNE BROWNE 301 The Forgotten One 301 She was not made for Happiness 303 CAROLINE SOUTHEY 305 Autumn Flowers 306 MARY HOWITT Illustkated. 308 Winter 308 The Grave 311 D. M. MOIR 314 Lines written at Midnight 314 Weep not for Her 316 ALFRED TEXXYSi >\ 318 The Golden Year 318 The Death of the Old Year .319 Progress 321 8 CONTENTS. PHILIP JAMES BAILEY Page 322 The End 322 Faith 322 Temptation 323 Life 324 MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER 325 The Words of Wisdom 325 Of Anticipation 327 To-day .-. 329 Of To-morrow 332 FRANCES BROWN 336 Let us Return 336 Streams 338 The Voice of the Falling Leaves 340 We are Growing Old 341 MISS ELIZA COOK 343 The Old Arm-chair 343 Fire 344 " Thy Will be Done !" : 345 HON. MRS. NORTON 347 Obscurity of Woman 348 Sonnet 352 Neutrality 353 FRANCES KEMBLE BUTLER 354 The Old Home 354 Past Hours 355 Life 356 ELIZABETH B. BROWNING 357 Cowper's Grave 357 The City 361 The Wail of the Spirit of Earth 363 Man 365 SELECTIONS FEOM TIE BRITISH POETS. 1328—1400. Geoffrey Chaucer, the earliest of the British poets, and "the father of English poetry," was, it is be- lieved, born in London. He received his education both at Cambridge and Oxford, and is supposed to have studied law. He married a sister of the wife of John of Gaunt, son of Edward IH. The poet appears to have imbibed, or at least defended, the sentiments of Wycliffe, and was, in consequence of becoming involved in the controversy and insur- rection at London, compelled to take refuge in Zea- land. He soon returned to his native country, but purchased his safety only by disclosures which roused against him the hatred of his former party- friends. During the later years of his life he lived in retirement at "Woodstock and Donnington Castle, and died while on a visit to London, in 1400. He filled many offices of public trust, and was a favourite at court. He also accompanied the forces of the 10 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. king during their invasion of France, in 1359, and was often sent on foreign embassies. The principal works of Chancer are the "Canterbury Tales," "Troilus and Cresseide," " Chaucer's Dreme," "The Legende of Good Women," "The Flower and the Leaf," and "The Testament of Love," with a few translations from the French. FROM THE PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES. Befelle, that in that season on a day, In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay, Eeady to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury, with devout courage, At night was come into that hostelrie Well nine and twenty in a companie Of sundry folk, by aventure yfalle In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambers and the stables weren wide, And well we weren eased atte beste. And shortly, when the sun was gone to reste, So had I spoken with them every one, That I was of their fellowship anon, And made agreement early for to rise, To take our way there as I you advise, But natheless, while I have time and space Before I further in the tale do pace, It seemeth me accordant unto reason, To tell unto you all the condition Of each of them, so as it seemed me, And who they weren, and of what degree ; GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 11 And eke in what array they all were in, And at a Knight then will I first begin. A Knight there was, and that a worthy man, That from the tune that he at first began To ridden out, he loved chivalrie, Truthe and honour, freedom and courtsie. Full worthy was he in his lordes warre, And thereto had he ridden, near and farre, As well in Christendom as in heathenness, And ever honoured for his worthiness. At Alisandr' he was when it was won, Full often time he had the field outdone Aboven all the nations warring in Prusse. In Lettone had he travelled, and in Eusse. ***** With many a noble army had he been, Of mortal battles had he seen fifteen. ***** And evermore he had a sovereign praise, And though that he was worthy he was wise, And of his port as meek as is a maid, He never yet no villainy had saide In all his life, unto no man or wight, He was a very perfect noble Knight. But for to tellen you of his array, His hose was good, but yet he was not gay. Of fustian he weared a gipon, All besmutted with his habergeon, For he was lately come from his voyage, And wenten for to do his pilgrimage. With him there was his son, a fresh young squire, A lover and a lusty bachelor, With locks curled as they were laid in press ; Of twenty years of age he was I guess. 12 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Of his stature lie was of equal length, And wonderf'ly agile, and great of strength; And he had something seen of chivalrie, In Flanders, in Artois, and Picardie, And borne him well, as of so little space, In hope to standen in his ladie's grace. Embroidered was he, as it were a meade All full of fresh flowers, white and red, Singing he was, or fluting all the day, He was as fresh as is the month of May. Short was his gown, with sleeves full long and wide Well could he sit on horse, and fairly ride. He could songs make, and well endite, Juste, and eke dance and well pourtray and write. Courteous he was, lowly and serviceable, And carved for his father at the table. A yeoman had he, and servants no mo At that time, for him pleased to ride so ; And he was clad in coat and hood of green, A sheafe of peacock arrows bright and keen Under his belt he bare full thriftily ; Well could he dress his tackel yeomanly. His arrows drooped not with feathers low, And in his hand he bare a mighty bow. A round head had he with a brown visage ; Of wood-craft knew he well all the usage ; Upon his arm he bare a gay bracer, And by his side a sword and buckler, And on that other side a gay dagger, Harnessed well, and sharp as point of spear ; A cristofre on his breast of silver shene ; An horn he bare, the baudrick was of green. A forester was he soothly I guess. GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 13 There also was a nun, a prioress, That in her smilling was full simple and coy, Her greatest oath was but by Saint Eloy ; And she was cleped Madame Eglantine. Full well she sang the service divine, Entuned in her nose full sweetly ; And French she spake full faire and fetisly, After the school of Stratford atte Bow, For French of Paris was to her unknowe. At meat was she well ytaught withal] ; She let no morsall from her lippes fall, Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep ; Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep That no drop ne fell upon her breast. In courtesie was set, full much, her lest. And certainly she was of great disport, And full pleasant, and amiable of part, And took much pains to counterfeit the air Of court, and hold a stately manner, And to be thoughten high of reverence. But for to speaken of her conscience, She was so charitable and so piteous, She would weep if that she saw a mouse Caught in a trap if it were dead or bled ; ■ Two small hounds had she that she fed "With roasted flesh, and milk, and wastel bread, But sore she wept if one of them were dead, Or if men smote it with a staff smarte : She was all conscience and tender heart. Full seemely her wimple pinched was ; Her nose was strait ; her eyes were grey as glass ; Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red ; But certainly she had a fair forehead. 14 SELECTIONS PROM THE BRITISH POETS. It was almost a span broad I trow, For certainly she was not undergrowe. Full handsome was her cloak, as I was 'ware, Of small coral about her arm she bare A pair of beads, gauded all with green, And thereon hung a broach of gold full shene, On which was first ywritten a crowned A, And after, Amor vincit omnia. Another nun also with her had she That was her chaplain, and of priestes three. A monk there was, full skilful in the chase, A bold rider, no better in that place, A manly man, to be an abbot able ; Full many a daintie horse had he in stable, And when he rode, men might his bridle hear Gingling in a whistling wind, as clear, And eke as loud, as doth the chapel bell. This jolly monk he let old things pace, And held after the new world the trace. He gave not for the test a pulled hen, That saith that hunters be not holy men ; And that a monk when he is reckless, Is like unto a fish that is waterless ; That is to say, a monk out of his cloister ; This ilke text held he not worth an oyster ; And I shall say his opinion was good. Why should he study, and make himself wood, Or upon a book in cloister alway pore, Or toil with his hands, and labour, As Austin bid ? How shall the world be served \ Let Austin have his toil to him reserved. Therefore he was a hard rider a right : Greyhounds he had as swift as fowl of flight ; GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 15 Of pricking and of hunting for the hare Was all his lust, for no cost would he spare. I saw his sleeves all gauded at the hand With fur, and that the finest of the land. And for to fasten his hood under his chin, He had of gold a curiously- wrought pin : A love-knot in the greater end there was. His head was bald, and shone as any glass, And eke his face, as it had been anoint. He was a lord full fat and in good point, His eyes were deep, and rolling in his head, That steamed as a furnace of lead. His boots souple, his horse in great estate, Now certainly he was a fair prelate, He was not pale as a tormented ghost ; A fat swan loved he best of any roast; His palfrey was as brown as is a berry. A good man there was of religion, That was a poor parson of a town ; But rich he was in holy thought and work, He was also a learned man, a clerk, That Christ's Gospel truely woidd preach, His parishens devoutly would he teach. Benigne he was and wondrous diligent, And in adversity full patient : And such he was yproved often times ; Full loth were he to cm-sen for his tithes, But rather would he given out of doubt, TJnto his poor parishioners about, Of his offering, and eke of his substance ; He coidd in little thing have suffisance. Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, But he nor felt nor thought of rain or thunder, 16 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. In sickness and in mischief to visit The farthest in his parish, much and oft, Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. This noble ensample to his sheep he gave, That first he wrought and afterward he taught, Out of the Gospel he the wordes caught, And this figure he added yet thereto, That if gold rust, what should iron do ? And if a priest be foul, on whom we trust, No wonder if a common man do rust ; Well ought a priest ensample for to give, By his cleanness, how his sheep should live. He set not his benefice to hire, Or left his sheep bewildred in the mire, And ran unto London, unto St. Paul's, To seeken him a chanterie for souls, Or with a brotherhood to be withhold : But dwelt at home, and kept well his fold, So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry. He was a shepherd and no mercenarie, And though he holy were, and virtuous, He was to sinful men not dispiteous, Nor of his speech dangerous nor high, But in his teaching discrete and benigne. To draw his folk to heaven, with faireness, By good ensample, was his business : But if were any person obstinate, Whether he were of high or low estate, Him would he reprove sharply for the nones, A better priest I trow that nowhere none is, He waited after neither pomp ne reverence, Nor maked him no spiced conscience, But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve He taught, but first he followed it himselve. EDMUND SPENSER. 17 1553—1598-9. Edmund Spenser, one of England's most celebrated poets, was born in London in 1553, and entered the University" of Cambridge in 1569. In 1580 lie was employed as secretary to Lord Grey, then lord-lieu- tenant of Ireland ; and a few years afterward was presented by the queen (who also gave him a yearly pension) with a grant of lands in the county of Cork, on condition of his residing there. Here, in the ancient castle of the Earls of Desmond, he wrote the " Faery Queen," and many other of his poems. But a fearful calamity was in store for him. In the great insurrection of Tyrone his castle was burned, and one of his children perished in the flames. Disheartened by poverty, and overpowered with grief, he returned to England, and died not long after. He was buried by the side of Chaucer, in Westminster Abbey, "the garner of England's greatness." During his life he struggled much against neglect and insolence; but his genius tri- umphed at the last, and his name is one remem- bered by Englishmen with pride and reverence. 18 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. THE CAVE OF DISPAIR. Ere long they come, where that same wicked wight His dwelling has, low in a hollow cave, Far underneath a craggy cliff yfright, Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave, That still for carrion carcasses doth crave ! On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owl, Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl, And all about it wand'ring ghosts did wail and howl. And all about old stocks and stubs of trees, Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever seen, Did hang upon the ragged, rocky knees, On which had many wretches hanged been, "Whose carcasses were scatter'd on the green. And thrown about the cliffs. Arrived there, That bare-head knight, for dread and doleful teene, Would fain have fled, nor durst approachen near ; But the other forced him stay, and comforted in fear. That darksome cave they enter, where they find That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullen mind ; His grisly locks, long growen and unbound, Disorder'd hung about his shoulders round, And hid his face, through which his hollow eyne, Look'd deadly dull, and stared as astound, His raid-lone cheeks, through penury and pine, Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine ; His garment, nought but many ragged clouts, With thorns together pinn'd and patched was, EDMUND SPENSER. 19 The which, his naked sides he wrapp'd abouts. And him beside, there lay upon the grass, A dreary corse, whose lite away did pass, All wallowM in his own yet lukewarm blood, That from his wound yet welled, fresh, alas! In which a rusty knife fast fixed stood, And made an open passage for the gushing flood. Which piteous spectacle approving true The woful tale that Trevisan had told, When as the gentle red-cross knight did view, With fiery zeal he burnt in courage bold, Him to avenge before his blood was cold ; And to the villain said : "Thou wicked wight, The author of this fact we here behold ; What justice can but judge against thee right, With thine own blood to price his blood here shed in sight?" " What frantic fit." quoth he, " hath thus distraught Thee, foolish man, so rash a doom to give ? What justice ever other judgment taught, But he should die who merits not to live ? None else to death this man despairing drove, But his own guilty mind deserving death. , Is't then unjust to each his due to give? Or let him die that loatlieth living breath? Or let him die at ease that liveth here uneath? " Who travels by the weary, wand'ring way, To come unto his wished home in haste, And meets a flood that doth his passage stay, Is 't not great grace to help him over past, Or free his feet that in the mire stick fast? Most envious man, that grieves at neighbours' good And fond, that joyest in the wo thou hast, 20 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Why wilt not let him pass, that long hath stood, Upon the bank, yet wilt thyself not pass the flood ? " He there does now enjoy eternal rest And happy ease, which thou dost want and crave, And further from it daily wander est ; What if some little pain the passage have, That makes frail flesh to fear the bitter wave ? Is not short pain well borne that brings long ease, And lays the soul to sleep in quiet grave? Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life doth greatly please." The knight much wonder'd at his sudden wit, And said, " The term of life is limited, Nor may a man prolong nor shorten it ; The soldier may not move from watchful sted, Nor leave his stand until his captain bid. Who life did limit by Almighty doom," Quoth he, " know best the term established ; And he that points the sentinel his room, Doth license him depart at sound of morning drum. " Is not His deed, whatever thing is done In heav'n and earth ? Did not He all create To die again ? All ends that are begun, Their times, in His eternal book of fate Are written sure, and have their certain date. Who then can strive with strong necessity, That holds the world in his still changing state, Or shun the death ordain'd by destiny"? When hour of death lias come, let none ask whence nor why. " The longer life, I wot, the greater sin ; And greater sin, the greater punishment ; All those great battles which thou boasts to win, EDMUND SPENSER. 21 Through strife, and bloodshed, and avengeinent, ISToav prais'd, hereafter dear thou shalt repent, For life must life, and blood must blood repay. Is not enough thy evil life forespent? For he that once hath missed the right way, The further he doth go, the further he doth stray. " Then do no further go, no further stray, But here lie down, and to thy rest betake, The ill to prevent, that life unserven may. For what hath life that may it loved make, And gives not rather cause it to forsake ? Fear, sickness, age, loss, labour, sorrow, strife, Pain, hunger, cold, that makes the heart to quake ; And ever fickle fortune rageth rife ; All which, and thousands more, do make a loathsome life. " Thou, wretched man, of death hath greatest need, If in true balance thou wilt weigh thy state ; For never knight that dared warlike deed, More luckless disadventures did await. Witness the dungeon deep, wherein of late, Thy life shut up, for death so oft did call ; And though good luck prolonged hath thy date ; Yet death then would the like mishaps forestall, Into the which hereafter thou maist happen fall. " "Why then dost thou, O man of sin I desire To draw thy days forth to their last degree ? Is not the measure of thy sinful hire High heaped up with huge iniquity, Against the day of wrath to burden thee ? " Is not He just that all this doth behold From highest heav'n, and bears an equal eye ? Shall He thy sins up in his knowledge fold, 22 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. And guilty be of thine impiety ? Is not His law, Let ev'ry sinner die, Die shall all flesh ? What then must needs be done ? Is it not better to die willingly, Than linger till the glass be all outrun? Death is the end of woes ; die soon, O fairy's son." .» The knight was much enmoved with this speech, That as a sword's point through his heart did pierce ; And in his conscience made a secret breach, Well knowing true all that he did rehearse, And to his fresh remembrance did reverse The ugly view of his deformed crimes ; That all his manly pow'rs it did disperse, As he were charmed with enchanted rhymes, That oftentimes he quak'd, and fainted oftentimes. In which amazement when the miscreant Perceived him to waver weak and frail, (Whiles trembling horror did his conscience daunt, And hellish anguish did his soul assail,) To drive him to despair, and quite to quail, He show'd him painted in a table plain, The damned ghosts that do in torment wail, And thousand fiends that do them endless pain, With fire and brimstone, which for ever shall remain. The sight thereof so thoroughly him dismay'd, That nought but death before his eyes he saw ; And ever-burning wrath before him laid, By righteous sentence of th' Almighty's law. Then gan the villain him to over-craw, And brought unto him swords, ropes, poison, fire, And all that might him to perdition draw ; And bade him choose what death he would desire, For death was due to him that had provoked God's ire. EDMUND SPENSES. 23 But when as none of them he saw him take, He to him brought a dagger, sharp and keen, And gave it him in hand ; his hand did quake And tremble like a leaf of aspen green, And troubled blood through his pale face was seen To come and go with tidings from the heart, As it a running messenger had been. At last, resolv'd to work his final smart, He lifted up his hand, that back again did start. THE CREATION. "What time this world's great Workmaister did cast, To make all tjhings such as we now behold, It seems that he before his eyes had plast A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould, He fashion'd them as comely as he could, That now so fair and seemly they appear, As naught may be amended anywhere. That wondrous patterne, wheresoe'er it be, Whether in earth laid up in secret store, Or else in heav'n, that no man may it see With sinful eyes, for feare it to deplore, Is perfect beautie. 24 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. illiam jS|akqjWL 1564—1616. William Shakspeaee was born at Stratford-upon- Avon, in Warwickshire, in 1564. His father was a wool-comber, apparently in good circumstances, and a man of some note in his little village. The poet was the eldest of ten children, and does not appear to have been placed in a position very favourable to the cultivation of his mind or the development of his genius. The habits of his early life seem to have been somewhat irregular, and widely diverse from the studious and sober applica- tion of the scholar. He married, at the age of eighteen, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, and eight years his senior ; but soon afterward, being detected in robbing the hunting-grounds of a nobleman, took refuge in London, where he became connected with the stage, first as actor, then as author. Here his genius quickly distinguished him, and he became the com- panion of princes and nobles, and the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, who specially interested herself in his welfare, and at whose request several of his dramas were written. Having won an enduring fame, and an ample fortune, he retired from public WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 25 life to his estate in Stratford, where he resided but four years, his death taking place in 1616, on his fifty-second birthday. He left three daughters, his only son having died in childhood. "The grand old poet" passed away like other men, and was buried in the great church of his native village, where is this inscription upon the stone over his tomb : — " Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbear To dig the dust enclosed here ; Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones." Shakspeare's works consist of thirty-five plays, tragedies and comedies, with the poems " Tarquin and Lucrece" and " Yenus and Adonis," with a number of sonnets, half of which remained in MS. seven years after his death, before publication. There are also two dramas attributed to him, the authorship of which is generally disputed. Dryden thus gives his opinion of Shakspeare's genius and labours, which Johnson declares to be a " perpetual model of encomiastic criticism, exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration :" — " He (Shakspeare) was the man who, of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not labori- ously, but luckily. When he describes anything you more than see it — you feel it too. Those who 26 SELECTIONS FKOM THE BRITISH POETS. accuse him to have wanted learning, gave him the greater commendation. He was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature ; he looked inward, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike ; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into clinches, and his serious into bombast. But he is always great, when great occasion is presented to him ; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, — " Quantum lenta solent inter vibuma cupressiP WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 27 HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON DEATH. To be — or not to be — tbat is tbe question ; — Whether 't is nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die — to sleep No more — and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to ; 't is a consummation • Devoutly to be wish'd. To die — to sleep — To sleep ? — perchance to dream ! Ay, there 's the rub, — For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There 's the respect That makes calamity of so long life ; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pang of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death — That undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveller returns — puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution 28 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. — Act 3, Scene 1. MUSIC. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears ; soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica : look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ; There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, But in his motion like an angel sings, Still choiring to the young- eyed cherubims, — Such harmony is in immortal souls, But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it. Merchant of Venice. A FATHER'S ADVICE TO HIS SON. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar ; The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy sold with hooks of steel, But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd unfledg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice ; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment- WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 29 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy ; rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station, Are most select and generous, chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all — To thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. VOICE OF THE DYING. The tongues of dying men Inforce attention like deep harmony. Where words are scarce they 're seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. He that no more must say, is listen'd more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose ; More are men's ends marked than their lives before ; The setting sun, and music in the close, As the last taste of sweets is sweetest, last ; Writ in remembrance, more than things long past. PaoHAKD II., Act 2, Scene 1. OUTWARD SHOW. 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 ? 30 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. 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. By terms divine in selling hours of dross ; "Within be fed, without be rich no more. So shalt thou feed on death that feeds on men, And death once dead there 's no more dying then. WEALTH THE ARMOUR OF SIN. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ; ' Eobes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags — a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. Leak, Act 4, Scene 6. MACBETH'S MENTAL STRUGGLE. If it were done wben 't is done, then 't were well It were done quickly ; if th' assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With its surcease success ; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here; But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We 'd jump the life to come — but in these cases We still have judgment here ; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague th' inventor ; thus even-handed justice Commends th' ingredients of our poison'd chalice WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 31 To our own lips. He 's here in double trust ; First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, — Strong both against the deed ; then, as his host, Who should against his murd'rer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking off, And pity, like a naked new-born babe Striding the blast, or heav'n's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in ev'ry eye, That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other side. — Act 1, Scene 7. ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength ! but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. Could great men thunder As a Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet ; For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder ; Nothing but thunder, merciful heaven ! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Split the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle, — but man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority ; Most ignorant of what he 's most assnr'd, 32 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. His glassy essence, — like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven As make the angels weep, who, with our spleens, "Would all themselves laugh mortal. Meastjee foe Measuee, Act 2, Scene 2. SOLITUDE. Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court ? Here feel we hut the penalty of Adam, The season's difference ; as the icy fang, And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say This is no flattery ; these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ; And thus our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. As YOU LIKE IT, AOT 2, SCENE 1. A GOOD CONSCIENCE. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. Henby VI., Aot 2, Scene 1. ROBERT HERRICK. 33 |Uhrt fnTttL Born 1591. Robert Herrick: was the son of a goldsmith in London, and was educated for the pulpit. His private character, it would appear, was rather the reverse of his sacred profession, and much of his poetry partakes of a widely different spirit from that of evangelical piety. In many of his shorter poems, however, there is a sweetness and beauty, mingled with a sad pensiveness, peculiarly strik- ing. He was born in 1591 ; but the time of his death is, I believe, unknown. THE 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 evening song, And, having pray'd together, we Will go with you along. 2 * 34 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. We have short time to stay as you, "We have as short a spring, As quick a hreath to meet decay, As you, or anything. "We die As your hours do, and dry Away. Like to the summer's rain, Or as the pearls of morning dew, Ne'er to be found again. TO BLOSSOMS. Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, "Why do ye fall so fast ? Tour 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? 'T was 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. ROBERT HERRICK. 35 TIME. Gather ye rose-buds -while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying ; And this same flow'r that smiles to-day, To-morrow will he dying. The glorious lamp of heav'n, the sun, The higher he 's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he 's to setting. 36 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. 0jjn IStiltfliL 1608—1674. This great poet was born in London, of wealthy parents, and was educated at Cambridge. He designed entering the Church; but an unwilling- ness to conform to some of its requirements, to which he thought he could not subscribe with a clear .conscience, prevented him, fortunately per- haps, from so doing. After leaving the University he passed five years in retirement at his father's house in Buckinghamshire, employing the time in severe study and meditation. He afterward travelled through France and Italy, where he was treated with much consideration by distin- guished literary men and others. The convulsions then rending England hastened his return, and the poet became merged in the politician. Dr. Johnson ridicules Milton as returning to Eng- land to rescue her, and then, instead of saving her, setting up as schoolmaster. ■ But though he opened an academy at London, his powerful pen was vigorously and constantly employed in defending and advancing the principles he had espoused; and his name was known throughout Europe as an unbending advocate of the liberty JOHN MILTON. 37 of the Church from the regulations and interference of the secular government. At the age of thirty-one he was married to Miss Mary Powell, the daughter of a royalist. Reared in luxury and affluence, she very soon became dissatisfied with the humbler lot in which she was placed by her marriage, and, after living with her husband about the space of a month she left him, and returned to her father's house. Her conduct doubtless provoked the patience, and wounded the sensitive feelings of the poet beyond all endurance, and he finally issued a laborious Treatise on Di- vorce. This volume roused the indignation of his Presbyterian brethren, whereupon he separated from them, although he might have had other reasons. But three years afterward, when his wife desired to return, and her friends were in danger from their political belief, he generously forgave his incorrigible spouse, and sheltered and protected her relatives. In 1652 she died, and six years after he married a second time. The lady was amiable and affectionate, and the poet was tenderly attached to her ; but she died within a year after their marriage. Milton was at this time Latin Sec- retary of State. A few years previous his sight commenced failing, and before the death of his first wife was totally lost. lie was, however, still con- tinued in his office. Sorrows began to multiply. The accession of Cromwell was an unfortunate thing for the "liberty party," and the ensuing 38 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. reign of Charles II. brought new troubles and fresh disasters. Milton had sacrificed the most of his property in the cause of his country, and was now obliged to seek safety in concealment. Alone, in obscurity and poverty, the blind man, to whom darkness rested upon the outward world, but who from that very darkness saw more clearly the heart of man, and heard more audibly the voice of its contending impulses, passions, and reason, set out in his loneliness to walk forward, with the clear, strong light of a spiritual knowl- edge shining around him. The soul of the poet was full of light, but all outside of it was. dark and disheartening. His daughters, with the exception of the younger, plundered him of all their hands could reach, even selling his books, and rendered his life unhappy and gloomy. Under these circum- stances he married a third time. His last wife is said to have nourished and assisted him, and done all in her power to make his declining years happy and peaceful. He died of gout, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. A tomb was erected to his memory in "Westminster Abbey in 1737. "Paradise Lost" appeared in 1667. He was paid five pounds for the first edition of thirteen hundred copies, his bookseller promising to pay ten pounds in addition upon the sale of two more editions ! JOHN MILTON. 39 HYMN TO THE NATIVITY. It was the winter mid, While the heaven-born child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies : Nature, in awe to Him, Hath doff' d her gaudy trim, "With her great Master so to sympathize : 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 vail 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 am'rous cloud 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; 40 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood ; The trumpet spate not to the armed throng ; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. But peaceful was the night, Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began : The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kiss'd, Whisp'ring new joys to the mild ocean, "Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed 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 enlighten'd world no more should need : He saw a greater Sun appear Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear. The shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row ; JOHN MILTON. 41 Full little thought they then, That the mighty Pan "Was kindly come to live with them helow ; 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 stringed 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 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 shame-faced night array'd ; The helmed cherubim, And sworded seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd, Harping in loud and solemn choir, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born heir. Such music (as 't is said) Before was never made ; But when of old the sons of morning sung, 42 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BEITISH POETS. While the Creator great, His constellations set, And the well-balanced world on hinges hung ; And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep. Eing 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 nine-fold harmony, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. For if such holy song Inwrap 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. Tea, 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, JOHN MILTON. 43 That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss ; So both himself and us to glorify : Yet first, to those enchain' d in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smould'ring clouds outbreak : The aged earth aghast, With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake : When, at the world's last session, 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 usurped sway ; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail. The oracles are dumb. No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in word deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 44 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. 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 Lemures 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 foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-bathed God of Palestine ; And moaned Ashteroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shrine ; 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. JOHN MILTON. 45 Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lo wings loud : Nor can he be at rest "Within his sacred chest ; Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud ; In vain, with timbrel'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his dusky eyn ; Nor all the Gods beside Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine : Our babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling-bands control the damned 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's 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 : Heaven's youngest-teem'd star Hath fix'd her polish'd ear, Her sleeping Lord, with handmaid lamp, attending : And all about the courtly stable Bright harness'd angels sit in order serviceable. 46 SELECTIONS FKOM THE BRITISH POETS. SPEECH OF BELIAL DISSUADING WAR. " I should be much for open war, O peers, As not behind in hate, if what were urged, Main reason to persuade immediate war, Did not dissuade me mose, and seem to cast Ominous conjecture on the whole success ; When he, who most excels in tact of arms, In what he counsels, and in what excels, Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair, And utter dissolution as the scope Of all his aim, after some dire revenge. First what revenge ? The towers of heaven are fill'c "With armed watch, that render all access Impregnable : oft, on the bordering deep, Encamp their legions : or with obscure wing, Scout far and wide into the realms of night, Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise, "With blackest insurrection, to confound Heaven's purest light ; yet our great enemy, All incorruptible, would, on his throne, Sit unpolluted ; and the ethereal world, Incapable of stain, would soon expel Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire, Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope Is fiat despair : we must exasperate The almighty Victor to spend all his rage, And that must end us ; that must be our cure, — To be no more. Sad cure ! for Avho would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, — Those thoughts that wander through eternity, — JOHN MILTON. 47 To perish rather, swallowed up, and lost In the wide tomb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion ? And who knows (Let this be good) whether our angry foe Can give it, or will ever ? How he can Is doubtful ; that he never will, is sure. Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire, Belike through impotence, or uuawares, To give his enemies their wish, and end Them in his anger, whom his anger saves To punish endless ? " " Wherefore cease ye then ? " Say they who counsel war : " We are decreed, Eeserved, and destined to eternal woe : Whatever doing, what can we suffer more, What can we suffer worse?" " Is this then worst, Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms ? What, when we fled amain, pursued and struck With heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought The deep to shelter us ? this hell then seem'd A refuge from those wounds ! or when we lay Chain'd on the burning lake? that sure was worse. What if the breath that kindled those grim fires, Awaked, should blow them into seven-fold rage, And plunge us in the flames ? or, from above, Should intermitted vengeance arm again His red right hand to plague us ? what if all Her stores were opened, and this firmament Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire, Impending horrors, threatening hideous fall One day upon our heads ; while we, perhaps, Designing, or exhorting glorious war, Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd, Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey Of racking whirlwinds ; or, forever sunk Under yon boiling ocean, wrapp'd in chains ; 48 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. There to converse — with everlasting groans, Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved, Ages — of hopeless end ? — this would be worse. War, therefore, open and conceal' d, alike My voice dissuades." APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT. Hail, holy light, offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam, May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light, Dwelt from eternity ; dwelt there in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence uncreate !. Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, "Whose fountain who shall tell ? Before the sun, Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite. Thee I revisit now with bolder wing, Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight Through utter and through middle darkness borne, With other notes than to the Orphean lyre, I sung of chaos and eternal night. Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend, Though hard and rare : thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovereign vital lamp ; but thou Kevisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn : APOSTROFHK TO LIQ-HT JOHN MILTON. 49 So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs, Or dim suffusion vail'd. Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget Those other two equal'd with me in fate, So were I equal'd with them in renown ! Blind Thamyris, and blind Masonides ; And Tiresias, and Phineas, prophets old : Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return ; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; But clouds instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds mo, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair, Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expunged and razed, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather then, celestial light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. 3 50 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. IMAGINARY MEETING OF SATAN, SIN, AND DEATH. Meanwhile the adversary of God and man, Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight : sometimes He scours the right-hand coast, sometimes the left ; Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high. As when far off at sea, a fleet descried, Hangs on the cloud, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs ; they, on the trading flood, Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, Ply stemming nightly toward the pole : so seem'd Far off the flying fiend. At last appear Hell's bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice threefold the gates : three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat, On either side, a formidable shape : The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair ; But ended foul in many a scaly fold. Voluminous and vast ; a serpent arm'd "With mortal sting : about her middle round, A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd, "With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rang A hideous peal. JOHN MILTON. 51 Far less abhorr'd than these, Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore ; Nor uglier follow the night hag, when, call'd In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance "With Lapland witches, while the laboring moon Eclipses at their charms. The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none, Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either ; black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, Aud shook a dreadful dart ; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand, and from his seat The monster moving onward, came as fast With horrid strides ; Hell trembled as he strook The undaunted fiend, what this might be admired ; Admired, not feared ; God and his Son except, Created thing, naught valued he, nor shunn'd, And with disdainful look thus first began : — " "Whence, and what art thou, execrable shape ! That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way To yonder gates ? through them I mean to pass, That be assur'd, Avithout leave ask'd of thee : Ketire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof, Hell-born ! not to contend with spirits of heaven." To whom the goblin, full of wrath, replied : — " Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he 52 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith till then Unbroken ; and in proud rebellious arms Drew after hini the third part of heaven's sons, Oonjur'd against the Highest, for wbich both thou And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd To waste eternal days in woe and pain ? " And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of heaven, Hell-doom'd ! and breath'st defiance here and scorn, Where I reign king : and to enrage thee more, Thy king and lord ? Back to thy punishment, False fugitive ! and to thy speed add wings, Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." So spake the grisly terror, and in shape, So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold More dreadful and deform'd. On the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified ; and like a comet burn'd That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head Level'd his deadly aim, their fatal hands No second stroke intend ; and such a frown Each cast at th' other, as when two black clouds, With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on Over the Caspian ; then, stand front to front,. Hov'ring a space, till the winds tbe signal blow, To join their dark encounter in mid-air. So frown'd the migbty combatants, that Hell Grew darker at their frown, so matcb'd tbey stood ; JOHN MILTON. 53 For never but once more was either like To meet so great a foe. And now great deeds Had been achiev'd, whereof all hell had rung, Had not the snaky sorceress that sat Fast by hell-gate, and kept the fatal key, Risen, and with hideous outcry, rush'd between. 54 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. amid §tttler. 1612—1680. Samuel Butler, the author of " Hudibras," was the son of a farmer in humble circumstances in "Wor- cestershire, England. He married a lady of some wealth ; but through mismanagement, or by mis- fortune, lost everything, and died in poverty. His writings were received with great favor, and won him a lasting fame. They were collected and first published from manuscript copies in 1759. SIR HUDIBRAS. He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skill' d in analytic ; He could distinguish, and divide, A hair 'twixt south and southwest side : On either which he would dispute, Confute, change hands, and still confute ; He 'd run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination ; All this by syllogism true, In mood and figure he would do. For rhetoric, he could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope ; And when he happen'd to break off I' th' middle of his speech, or cough, SAMUEL BUTLER. 55 He had hard word to show you why And tell what rules he did it by ; Else, when with greatest art he spoke, You 'd think he talk'd like other folk ; For all a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools. But when he pleased to show 't, his speech In loftiness of sound was rich, A Babylonish dialect, "Which learned pedants much affect ; It was a party-color'd dress Of patch'd and piebald languages ; 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin Like fustian heretofore, on satin. In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater ; Eor he, by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale ; Eesolve by signs and tangents straight If bread and butter wanted weight ; And wisely tell what hour o' day The clock does strike by algebra. Besides, he was a shrewd philosopher, And had read every text and gloss over, Whatever the crabbed'st author hath He understood b 1 implicit faith ; Whatever sceptic could inquire for, For every why he had a wherefore ; Knew more than forty of them do, As far as words and terms could go ; All which he understood by rote, And as occasion served would quote, No matter whether right or wrong They might be either said or sung. 56 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. ffljm irgktt* 1631—1700. John Dkyden, the most celebrated poet during the reign of Charles II., was born at Aldwinkle, North- amptonshire, of a noble family. He was admitted to the Oxford University at the age of nineteen. His life was full of contradictions. He veered con- stantly from one view of a thing to its opposite. He espoused republicanism one day, and vindicated monarchy the next ; worshiped as a Puritan in all sincerity, and then degenerated into the forms and easy discipline of the High Church aristocracy, or the superstitions of Koman Catholicism. His liter- ary tastes, and opinions, and judgments, were ever on the wing. Still, like Coleridge and Collins, he executed great things, though not the things he contemplated. He planned forever, but seldom finished planning on one subject before a new idea came and bore him away, half resisting, but still undecided. Walter Scott asserts that Dryden's life was a history of the literature of the age. His works are many, consisting in part of dramas, (numbering in all twenty-eight,) epistles, fables, prologues, and epilogues in great quantity. He married unhappily, and during the latter years of his life suffered from poverty. JOHN DRYDEN. 57 VENI CREATOR. Creator Spirit ! by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid, Come, visit every pious mind : Come, pour thy joys on human kind. From sin and sorrow set us free, And make thy temples worthy thee. O, source of uncreated light, The Father's promised Paraclete ! Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire, Our hearts with heavenly love inspire : Come, and thy sacred unction bring- To sanctify us while we sing. Plenteous of grace, descend from high, Rich in thy sevenfold energy ! Thou strength of his Almighty hand, Whose power does heaven and earth command ;- Proceeding Spirit ! our defense, Who dost the gift of tongues dispense, And crown'st thy gift with eloquence ! Refine and purge our earthly parts; But O ! inflame and fire our hearts ! Our frailties help, our vice control, Submit the senses to the soul : And when rebellious they are grown, Then lay Thy hand and hold them down. Chase from our minds the infernal foe, And peace, the fruit of love, bestow ; And lest our feet should step astray, Protect and guide us in the way. 58 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Make us eternal truths receive, And practice all that we helieve ; Give us thyself, that we may see The Father and the Son by thee. Immortal honor, endless fame Attend the almighty Father's name ; The Saviour Son be glorified, Who for lost man's redemption died ; And equal adoration be, Eternal Paraclete, to thee ! NATURAL RELIGION. Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar, And would not be obliged to God for more. Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled, To think thy wit these godlike notions bred I These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropp'd from heaven, and of a nobler kind. Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight, And Reason saw not till Faith sprung the light. Hence all thy natural worship takes the source ; 'Tis revelation what thou think'st discourse. Else how com'st thou to see these truths so clear, Which so obscure to heathens did appear ? Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found : NY>r he whose wisdom oracles renown'd. Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime, Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb ? Canst thou by reason more of godhead know Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ? JOHN DRYDEN. 59 Those giant wits, in happier ages horn, When arms and arts did Greece and Eome adorn, Knew no such system, no such piles could raise, Of natural worship, huilt on prayer and praise, To one sole God. Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe, But slew their fellow-creatures for a bribe ; The guiltless victim groan'd for their offense, And cruelty and blood was penitence. If sheep and oxen could atone for men, Ah ! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin ! And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile, By offering his own creatures for a spoil ! Darest thou, poor worm, offend Infinity ? And must the terms of peace be given by thee ? Then thou art Justice in the last appeal, Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel : And, like a king remote and weak, must take What satisfaction thou art pleased to make. But if there be a Power, too just and strong To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong, Look humbly upward, see His will disclose The forfeit first, and then the fine impose ; A mulct thy poverty could never pay, Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way, And with celestial wealth supplied thy store ; His justice makes the fine, his mercy quits the score. See God descending in thy human frame, Th' offended suffering in th' offender's name ; All thy misdeeds to him imputed see ; And all his righteousness devolv'd on thee. 60 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. RESIGNATION. Be vengeance wholly left to powers divine ! If joys hereafter mnst be purchased here With loss of all that mortals hold most dear, Then welcome infamy and public shame, And last a long farewell to fame ! 'T is said with ease, but O, how hardly tried, By haughty souls to human honor tied! O, sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride ! Down, then, thou rebel, never more to rise ! And what thou didst, and dost so dearly prize, That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice. 'T is nothing thou hast given, then add thy tears For a long race of unrepenting years ; 'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give; Then add those may-be years thou hast to live ; Yet nothing still ; then poor and naked come ; Thy Father will receive his unthrift home, And thy blest Saviour's blood discharge the mighty sum. RESIGNATION. MATTHEW PRIOR. 61 attbeto Iriflr, 1664—1721. Matthew Prior was, it is supposed, a native of London, and received his education at Cambridge. Becoming known to some of the influential nobility by his talents and tact, he rose from an humble station in life to offices of trust and importance. Upon the accession of Queen Anne to the crown he changed his politics, and joined himself to the Tory party, in which he was soon distinguished. In 1713 he was sent as embassador to France, and employed in many other positions of political promi- nence and honor. At the death of the queen the Tories were violently persecuted, and many of the friends of Bolingbroke and Oxford, their principal leaders, were obliged to flee or abide imprisonment and disgrace. Prior was recalled from his embassy and imprisoned for three years. Upon his release Lord Oxford's son purchased him an estate in remembrance of his father's friendship ; but the poet died not long afterward. The Earl of Oxford erected a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey. His works consist of poems written in various styles, and on many different subjects. 62 SELECTIONS FKOM THE BEITISH POETS. A SIMILE. Dear Thomas, did'st thou never pop Thy head into a tinman's shop ? There, Thomas, did'st thou never see ('T is hut hy way of simile) A sqixirrel spend his little rage In jumping round a rolling cage — The cage, as either side turn'd up, Striking a ring of bells at top ? Moved in the orb, pleased with the chimes, The foolish creature thinks he climbs ; But here or there, turn wood or wire, He never gets two inches higher. So fares it with those merry blades That frisk it under Pindar's shades, In noble song and lofty odes, They tread on stars, and talk with gods, Still dancing in an airy round, Still pleased with their own verses' sound ; Brought back, how fast soe'er they go, Always aspiring, always low. CHARITY. Did sweeter sounds adorn thy flowing tongue, Than ever man pronounced or angels sung ; Had I all knowledge, human and divine, That thought can reach or science can define, And had I power to give that knowledge birth, In all the speeches of the babbling earth ; MATTHEW PRIOR. 63 Did Shadrach's zeal my glowing breast inspire To weary tortures, and rejoice in fire ; Or bad I faith like tbat wbich Israel saw When Moses gave tbem miracles and law; Yet, gracious Obarity ! indulgent guest, Were not thy power exerted in my breast, Those speeches would send up unheeded pray'r ; That scorn of life would be but wild despair ; A cymbal's sound were better than my voice ; My faith were form, my eloquence were noise. ' Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind, Softens the high, and rears the abject mind ; Knows with just reins and gentle hand to guide Betwixt vile shame and arbitrary pride. Not soon provoked, she easily forgives, And much she suffers, as she much believes. Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives; She builds our quiet as she forms our lives ; Lays the rough paths of nature even, And opens in each heart a little heaven. Each other gift which God 01^ man bestows, Its proper bound and due restriction knows ; To one fix'd purpose dedicates its power. Bnt lasting Charity's more ample sway, Nor bound by time, nor subject to decay, In happy triumph shall for ever live, And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive. As through the artist's intervening glass Our eye observes the distant planets pass, A little we discover, but allow That more remains unseen than art can show ; So, whilst our mind its knowledge would improve, (Its feeble eye intent on things above,) 64 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. High as we may, we lift our reason up, By faith directed, and confirm'd by hope : Yet we are able only to survey Dawning of beams and promises of day. Heaven's fuller effluence mocks our dazzled sight, Too great its swiftness, and too strong its light. But soon the mediate clouds shall be dispell'd ; The sun shall soon be face to face beheld In all his robes, with all his glory on, Seated sublime on his meridian throne. Then constant faith and holy hope shall die,* One lost in certainty and one in joy ; Whilst thou, more happy power, fair Charity, Triumphant sister, greatest of the three, Thy office and thy nature still the same, Lasting thy lamp, and unconsum'd thy flame, Shalt still survive — Shalt stand before the host of heaven confess'd, For ever blessing, and for ever bless'd. ° Neither faith nor hope die in heaven, according to the sacred word. ISAAC WATTS, D. D. 65 Isaac Halts, g. 167-4—1748. This eminent man was a native of Southampton. His father was a man of fine education, and for some years the principal of a boarding-school for young gentlemen, held in high repute ; so much so, that many pupils were sent from America to obtain an education under his care. From early child- hood Isaac Watts displayed an active, industrious mind, and a thirst for knowledge, even to a degree which was prodigious. At the age of four he could read Latin quite correctly, and his perseverance and unwavering interest in seeking wisdom con- tinued to the close of his life. His parents were Protestant Dissenters, and suffered much persecu- tion under the reign of Charles II. ; but the poet resolved to employ his talents and education en- tirely in the sacred work. In entering upon the calling to which he had devoted his life, in the noble spirit of self-denial and obedience, unhinder- ed by its toils, or comparative seclusion from fame, he has left a high example of humility, coupled with the possession of commanding talents. For years he occupied himself with study and devotion, and entered not his Lord's vineyard hastily or 66 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BEITISH POETS. unprepared. His usefulness might have been very great indeed in this field ; but a constitution natu- rally frail, and probably impaired by severe study, gave way under his arduous labors, and he was obliged to leave his more public duties. In Lon- don, where he had been settled, he found a home in the house of Sir Thomas Abney, where he lived until the time his death, a period of thirty-six years. This time was actively employed in the study of divinity and philosophy, and in the composition of those beautiful songs, the first remembrance of our infancy, as well as of poems of a maturer form of expression. His works have been published in England in six quarto volumes. Most of his writings are theo- logical, and consist of sermons and essays, among which is the celebrated " Improvement of the Mind," to the composition of which he directed his attention at intervals for twenty years. FREE PHILOSOPHY. Custom, that tyranness of fools, That leads the learned round the schools, In magic charms of forms and rules — * My genius storms her throne. No more, ye slaves, with awe profound, Beat the dull track and dance the round ; Loose hands and quit the enchanted ground ; Knowledge invites us each alone. ISAAC WATTS, D. D. 61 I hate these shackles of the mind Forged by the haughty wise ; Souls were not born to be confined, And led, like Samson, blind and bound ; But when his native strength he found, He well avenged his eyes. Thought should be free as fire or wind ; The pinions of a single mind "Will through all nature fly. But who can drag up to the poles Long fetter'd ranks of leaden souls ? A genius which no chain controls, Boves with delight, or deep, or high ; Swift I survey the globe around, Dive to the center through the solid ground, Or travel to the sky. RICHES. I am not concern'd to know What to-morrow's fate will do ; 'T is enough that I can say, I 've possess'd myself to-day. Then, if haply midnight death Seize my flesh, and stop my breath, Yet to-morrow I shall be Hen- of the best part of me. ****** I 've a mighty part within That the world hath never seen, Eich as Eden's happy ground, And with choicer plenty crown 'd, 68 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS- Here, on all the shining boughs, Knowledge fair and useful grows ; On the same young flow'ry tree, All the seasons you may see ; Notions in the bloom of light, Just disclosing to the sight ; Here are thoughts of larger growth Eipening into solid truth ; Fruits rehned, of noble taste, Seraphs feed on such repast ; Here, in green and shady grove, Streams of pleasure mix with love ; There, beneath the smiling skies, Hills of contemplation rise ; Now upon some shining top Angels light and call me up ; I rejoice to raise my feet ; Both rejoice when then we meet ; There are endless beauties more Earth hath no resemblance for. Nothing like them round the pole ; Nothing can describe the soul: 'T is a region half unknown, That hath treasures of its own, More remote from public view Than the bowels of Peru — Broader 't is and brighter far Than the golden Indies are. Yet the silly wand'ring mind, Loath to be too much confined, Eoves and takes her daily tours, Coasting round the narrow shores, — Narrow shores of flesh and sense, Picking shells and pebbles thence ; ISAAC WATTS, D. D. 69 Or she sits at fancy's door, Calling shapes and shadows to her ; Foreign visits still receiving, And t 1 herself a stranger living. HYMN OF PRAISE. Eternal Wisdom ! thee we praise, Thee the creation sings : With thy loved name, rocks, hills, and seas, And heaven's high palace, rings. Thy hand, how wide it spreads the sky, How glorious to behold ! Tinged with a blue of heavenly dye, And starr'd with sparkling gold. There thou hast bid the globes of light Their endless circuits run : There the pale planet rules the night ; The day obeys the sun. Thy glories blaze all nature round, And strike the wond'ring sight, Through skies, and seas, and solid ground, With terror and delight. Infinite strength, and equal skill, Shine through thy works abroad: Our souls with vast amazement fill, And speak the builder God ! But the mild glories of thy grace, Our softer passions move : Pity divine, in Jesus' face, We see, adore, and love. 10 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. He dies ! the Friend of sinners dies ! Lo ! Salem's daughters weep around ; A solemn darkness vails the skies, A sudden trembling shakes the ground : Come, saints, and drop a tear or two For him who groan'd beneath your load ; He shed a thousand drops for you, — A thousand drops of richer blood. Here 's love and grief beyond degree : The Lord of glory dies for man ! But lo ! what sudden joys we see : Jesus, the dead, revives again. The rising God forsakes the tomb ; (In vain the tomb forbids his rise ;) Cherubic legions guard him home, And shout him welcome to the skies. REVERENCE. Eternal Power, whose high abode Becomes the grandeur of a God : Infinite lengths, beyond the bounds Where stars revolve their little rounds : Thee while the first archangel sings, He hides his face behind his wings : And ranks of shining thrones around Fall worshipping, and spread the ground. ISAAC WATTS, D. D. 71 Lord, what shall earth and ashes do ? We would adore our Maker too ; From sin and dust to thee we cry, The Great, the Holy, and the High. Earth, from afar, hath heard thy fame, And worms have learn'd to lisp thy name : But O ! the glories of thy mind Leave all our soaring thoughts behind. God is in heaven, and men below : Be short our tunes ; our words be few : A solemn rev'rence checks our songs, And praise sits silent on our tongues. ADORATION. Before Jehovah's awful throne, Ye nations bow with sacred joy ; Know that the Lord is God alone, He can create, and he destroy. His sov'reign power, without our aid, Made us of clay, and form'd us men; And when like wand'ring sheep we stray'd, He brought us to his fold again. We '11 crowd thy gates with thankful songs, High as the heavens our voices raise ; And earth, with her ten thousand tongues, Shall fill thy courts with sounding praise. Wide as the world is thy command ; Vast as eternity thy love ; Firm as a rock thy truth shall stand, When rolling years shall cease to move. 12 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. omas lanulL 1679—1717. Thomas Parnell was born in Dublin, and received his education at the University of his native city. In 1705 he entered the ministry of the established Church. Dean Swift and Alexander Pope were his intimate friends, the latter of whom he assisted in his translation of the works of Homer. Parnell appears to have been a man of fine sensibilities and refined feelings. The death of his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, impaired his health, and, it is said, was the immediate cause of his decease. Pope first collected and arranged the writings of his departed friend. THOMAS PARNELL. 73 A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH. By the blue taper's trembling light No more I waste the wakeful night, Intent with endless view to pore The schoolmen and the sages o'er ; Their books from wisdom widely stray, Or point at best the longest way. I '11 seek a readier path, and go Where wisdom 's surely taught below. How deep yon azure dyes the sky ! Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie ; While through their ranks, in silver pride, The nether crescent seems to glide. The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds, which on the right aspire, In dimness, from the view retire ; The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. That steeple guides thy doubtful sight Among the livid gleams of night. There pass, with melancholy state, By all the solemn heaps of Fate, And think, as softly sad you tread Above the venerable dead — Time was, like thee, they life possess'd, And time stiaU be that thou shalt rest. 4 74 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Those with bending osier bound, That nameless heave the crumbled ground, Quick to the glancing thought disclose Where toil, and strife, and thought repose. The flat smooth stones that bear a name, The chisel's slender help to fame, (Which, ere our set of friends decay, Their frequent steps may wear away,) A middle race of mortals own, Men half ambitious, all unknown. The marble tombs that rise on high, Whose dead in vaulted arches lie, Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones, Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones, These all the poor remains of state, Adorn the rich, or praise the great ; Who, while on earth in fame they live, Are senseless of the fame they give. Ha ! while I gaze pale Cynthia fades, The bursting earth unvails the shades ! All slow, and wan, and wrapp'd with shrouds, They rise in visionary crowds, And all with sober accent cry, — " Think, mortal, what it is to die !" Now from yon black and funeral yew That bathes the charnel-house with dew, Methinks I hear a voice begin — (Ye ravens, cease your croaking din ; Ye tolling clocks, no time resound, O'er the long lake and midnight ground,) It sends a peal of hollow groans, Thus speaking from among the bones : — " When men my scythe and dart siipply, How great a king of fears am If THOMAS PARNELL. 75 They view me like the last of things ; They make, and then they draw my strings. Fools ! if you less provoked your fears, No more my specter form appears. Death 's hut a path that must he trod, If man would ever pass to God. A port of calms, a state of ease, From the rough rage of swelling seas ! " "Why then thy flowing sable stoles, Deep pendant cypress, mourning poles, Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds, Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds, And plumes of black, that, as they tread, Nod o'er th' escutcheons of the dead ? Nor can the parted body know, Nor wants the soul these forms of woe ; As men who long in prison dwell, With lamps that glimmer round the cell, Whene'er their suff 'ring years are run, Spring forth to greet the glitt'ring sun, Such joy, though far transcending sense, Have pious souls at parting hence. On earth and in the body placed, A few and evil years they waste ; But when their chains are cast aside, See the glad scene unfolding wide, Clap the glad wing and tower away, And mingle with the blaze of day. 76 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BBITISH POETS. dfotoarlr |0Mg, $)♦ $♦ 1686—1765. The author of the " Night Thoughts" was the son of a clergyman, and was born at Upham, near Winches- ter, the seat of an old and somewhat renowned college. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford ; and took his degree in 1719 as doctor of divinity. He was already distinguished as a sound scholar, and a person of fine talents. In 1728 he collected and published his " Satires," previous to which he had written a " Paraphrase on the Book of Job," a poem entitled " The Force of Re- ligion ; or, Vanquished Love ; " and the tragedy of " Busiris," with a number of smaller poems. About this time he was appointed chaplain to George H., and is said to have been popular and successful as a pulpit orator. He also devoted himself to literary pursuits with ardor, and soon issued " Im/perium Pelagi" a naval lyric ; an " Ode upon the Ocean ;" " An Essay on Lyric Poetry ;" a prose work called " A True Estimate of Human Life," and another upon the authors of the age ; also a number of pub- lished sermons. At the age of forty-five he married a daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, who is described as having been a person of great intelligence and love- EDWARD YOUNG, D. D. 77 liness. She lived but ten years after their marriage, and died greatly lamented by her husband. He commenced the composition of his celebrated poem soon after her death, and in 1762 published "Resig- nation," being nearly eighty years of age. PROCRASTINATION. Be wise to-day ; 't is madness to defer ; Next day the fatal precedent will plead, Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time : Year after year it steals till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange ? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still ; Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears » The palm, " That all men are about to live," For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel, and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise : At least their own, their future selves applaud, How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! Time, lodg'd in their own hands, is folly's veils; That lodg'd in fates, to wisdom they consign ; The thing they can't but purpose they postpone. 'T is not in folly not to scorn a fool ; And scarce in human wisdom to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage ; when young, indeed, 78 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. In full content we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool ; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ; In all the magnanimity of thought Eesolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same. And why ? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves ; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread ; But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close, where pass'd the shaft no trace is found, As from the wing, no scar the sky retains ; The parted wave no furrow from the keel. So dies in human hearts the thought of death, E'en with the tender tear which nature sheds O'er those we love — we drop it in their grave. • Night First. NIGHT AND TIME. Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep ! He, like the world, his ready visit pays "Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he forsakes ; Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unsullied with a tear. From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose I wake ; how happy they who wake no more ! Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave. I wake emerging from a sea of dreams Tumultuous ; where my wreck'd desponding thoughts From wave to wave of fancied misery EDWARD YOUNG, D. D. 79 At random drove, her helm of reason lost ; Though now restored, 't is only change of pain ; (A hitter change,) severer for severe ; The day too short for my distress, and night, E'en in the zenith of her dark domain, Is sunshine to the colour of my fate. Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world. Silence how dead ! and darkness how profound ! Nor eye, nor list'ning ear an object finds. Creation sleeps ! 'T is as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause, An awful pause ! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd ; Fate ! drop the curtain, I can lose no more. Silence and darkness ! solemn sisters ! twins From ancient Night, who muse the tender thought To reason, and on reason build resolve, (That column of true majesty to man,) Assist me, I will thank you in the grave ; The grave, your kingdom. There this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine. But what are ye ? — THOU, who didst put to flight Primeval silence, when the morning stars Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball ; O THOU, whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, tbe sun, strike wisdom from my soul ; My soul, which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure, As misers to their gold, while others rest. Through this opaque of nature and of soul, This double night, transmit one pitying ray, To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind, (A mind that fain would wander from its woe,) 80 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Lead it through various scenes of life and death, And from each scene the nohlest truths inspire. The bell strikes one. "We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours ; Where are they ? With the years beyond the flood. It is the signal that demands despatch ; How much is to be clone ! My hopes and fears Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down — on what? a fathomless abyss, A dread eternity ! how surely mine ! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour ? How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man ! How passing wonder, HE who made him such I Who centre'd in our make such strange extremes I From different natures marvellously mix'd, Connexion exquisite of distant world ! Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain ! Midway from nothing to the Deity ! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb' d! Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine ! Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! And heir of glory ! a frail child of dust ! Helpless immortal ! insect infinite ! A worm ! a god ! I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost ! At home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, And wond'ring at her own ! How reason reels I O, what a miracle to man is man ! ■it******** EDWARD YOUNG, D. D. 81 All, all on earth is shadow ; all beyond Is substance ; the reverse is Folly's creed. How solid all, where change shall be no more ! This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, The twilight of our day, the vestibule ; Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death, Strong death alone, can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us, embryos of existence, free. Yet man, fool man ! here buries all his thoughts ; Inters celestial hopes without one sigh ; Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here pinions all his wishes ; wing'd by Heaven To fly at infinite ; and reach it there, Where seraphs gather immortality, On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God : What golden joys ambrosial clust'ring glo^w In HIS full beam, and ripen for the just ; Where momentary ages are no more ! Where time, and pain, and chance, and death expire ! And is it in the flight of threescore years, To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather or to drown a fly. — Night First. 4* 82 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. CONSCIENCE. Conscience, what art thou ? Thou tremendous power ! "Who dost inhabit us without our leave ; And act within ourselves, another self, A master-self, that loves to domiueer, And treat the monarch frankly, as the slave ; How dost thou light a torch to distant deeds ! Make the past, present, and the future frown ! How ever and anon, awake the soul, As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors, In this long, restless dream, which idiots hug — Nay, which wise men flatter with the name of life ! DEATH. And feel I, Death, no joy from thought of thee ? Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires "With every nobler thought and fairer deed ! Death, the deliverer, who rescues man ! Death, the rewarder, who rescued crowns ! Death, that absolves my birth, a curse without it ! Rich death, that realizes all my cares, Toils, virtues, hopes, without it chimera ! Death, of all pain the period, not of joy; Joy's source and subject, still subsist unhurt ; One, in my soul ; and one, in her great Sire ; Though the four winds were warring for my dust ; Yes ; and from winds, and waves, and central night, Though prison'd there, my dust, too, I reclaim, EDWARD YOUNG, I). D. 83 (To dust when drop proud Nature's proudest spheres,) And live entire ; Death is the crown of life. "Were death denied, poor men would live in vain ; "Were death denied, to live would not he life ; "Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die. Death wounds to cure ; we fall, we rise, we reign ! Spring from our fetters ; fasten in the skies ; Where blooming Eden withers in our sight, Death gives us more than was in Eden lost. This king of terrors is the prince of peace. When shall I die to vanity, pain, death? When shall I die ? when shall I live for ever ? Why start at death ? Where is he ? Death arrived, Is past : not come, or gone, he 's never here. Ere hope, sensation fails, black-boding man Eeceives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow. The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave ; The deep, damp vault, the darkness and the worm ; These are the bugbears of a winter's eve, The terrors of the living, not the dead. Imagination's fool, and error's watch, Man makes a death which nature made ; Then on the point of his own fancy falls, And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one. Night Fourth. FROM THE CONSOLATION. As when a traveller, a long day past, In painful search of what he cannot find, At night's approach, content with the next cot, There ruminates, awhile, his labour lost; 84 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Then cheers his heart with what his fate affords, And chants his sonnet to deceive the time, Till the due season calls him to repose : Thus I, long travelled in the ways of men, And dancing with the rest the giddy maze, Where disappointment smiles at hope's career, Warni'd by the languor of life's evening ray, At length have housed me in an humble shed ; Where, future wand'ring banish'd from my thought, And waiting, patient, the sweet hour of rest, I chase the moments with a serious song. Song soothes our pains, and age has pains to soothe. The sick in body call for aid ; the sick In mind are covetous of more disease, And, when at worst, they dream themselves quite well. To know ourselves diseased is half our cure. When nature's blush by custom is wiped off, And conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes, Has into manners naturalized our crimes ; The cui'se of curses is, our curse to love ; To triumph in the blackness of our guilt, (As Indians glory in the deepest jet,) And throw aside our senses with our peace. But grant no guilt, no shame, no least alloy, But through the thin partition of an hour, I see its sables wove by destiny ; And that, in sorrow buried ; this, in shame ; While howling furies ring the doleful knell ; And conscience, now so soft, thou scarce canst hear Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal. Where the prime actors of the last year's scene ; Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume ? How many sleep, who kept the world awake With lustre and with noise ! Has death proclaimed EDWARD YOUNG, D. D. 85 A truce, and hung his sated lance on high ? 'T is brandish'd still, nor shall the present year Be more tenacious of her human leaf, Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall But needless monument to wake the thought ; Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality ; Though in a style more florid, full as plain, As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs. What are our noblest ornaments but deaths Turn'd flatterers of life in paint or marble, — The well-stain' d canvass or the featured stone ? Our father's grace, or rather haunt the scene : Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead. What is the world itself? Thy world?— a gravel Where is the dust that has not been alive ? The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors ; From human mould we reap our daily bread. The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes, And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons. O'er devastation we blind revels keep, While buried towns support the dancer's heel. ********* Where now The Roman, Greek? They stalk, an empty name! Yet few regard them in this useful light, Though half our learning is their epitaph. When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought, That loves to wander in thy sunless realms, O Death! I stretch my view, what visions rise! What triumphs ! toils imperial ! arts divine! In wither'd laurels glide before my sight! What lengths of far-famed ages, billow'd high With human agitation, roll along In unsubstantial images of air ! The melancholy -ghosts of dead renown, 86 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. "Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause, "With penitential aspect, as they pass, All point at earth, and hiss at human pride, The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the great. Night Ninth. THE JUDGMENT-DAY. Amazing period ! when each mountain height Outburns Vesuvius ; rocks eternal pour Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd ; Stars rush ; and final ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o'er creation ! while aloft More than astonishment ! if more can be ! For other firmaments than e'er was seen, Than e'er was thought by man ! for other stars ! Stars animate, that govern these, of fire — For other Sun ! A Sun, O how unlike The Babe of Bethlehem! how unlike the man That groan'd on Calvary ! yet He it is ; That Man of Sorrows ! O how changed ! "What pomp ! In grandeur terrible, all Heaven descends ! And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train. A swift archangel, with his golden wing, As blot and clouds, that darken and disgrace The scene divine, sweeps suns and stars aside. And now, all dross removed, Heaven's own pure day, Full on the confines of our ether, flames ; While (dreadful contrast) far, how far beneath, Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas, And storms sulphureous ; her voracious jaws Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey ! EDWARD YOUNG, D. D. 87 Lorenzo ! welcome to this scene ; the last In Nature's course ; the first in wisdom's thought. This strikes, if aught can strike thee ; this awakes The most supine; this snatches man from death. Night Ninth. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. Eetire ; the world shut out ; thy thoughts call home ; Imagination's airy wing repress ; — Lock up thy senses ; — let no passion stir ; — "Wake all to reason ; let her reign alone ; Then in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth Of Nature's silence, midnight, then inquire, As I have done ; and shall inquire no more, In Nature's charnel, thus the questions run : — " What am I? and from whence? I nothing know But that / am ; and since I am, conclude Something eternal ; had there e'er been naught, Naught still had been ; eternal there must be. But what eternal ? "Why not human race ? And Adam's ancestors, without an end ? That 's hard to be conceived, since every link Of that long-chain'd succession is so frail. Can every part depend, and not the whole ? Yet, grant it true, new difficulties rise ; I 'm still quite out at sea, nor see the shore. Whence earth, and these bright orbs? — Eternal too? Grant matter was eternal, still these orbs "Would want some other father ; — much design Is seen in all their motions, all their makes ; Design implies intelligence and art ; 88 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. That can 't be from themselves, or man ; that art Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow ? And nothing greater, yet allow'd than man. "Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain, Shot through vast masses of enormous weight ? Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly ? Has matter innate motion ? — then each atom, Asserting its indisputable right To dance, would form an universe of dust ; Has matter none ? Then whence these glorious forms And boundless flights, from shapeless and reposed ? Has matter more than motion ? has it thought, Judgment, and genius ? Is it deeply learn'd In mathematics ? Has it form'd such laws, Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal? If so, how each sage atom laughs at me ! Who think a clod inferior to a man ! If art to form, and counsel to conduct, And that with greater far than human skill. Resides not in each block, a Godhead reigns. Night Ninth. ALEXANDER POPE. 89 1688—1744. This celebrated poet was born near London. His father was a merchant in easy circumstances, and descended from a noble family. The poet began to write at an early age, and from his childhood evinced a remarkable love for classical studies and English verse. When but twelve years old he wrote an " Ode on Solitude," which does not com- pare unfavourably with many of his later efforts; and he composed the " Pastorals" at sixteen. Dur- ing most of his life he suffered severely, and almost constantly, from ill-health ; but, notwithstanding, accomplished much in the paths of general literature and poetry. He was a communicant in the Roman Catholic Church, and was a member of the Tory party, both of which connexions operated to exclude him from court patronage. At the age of thirty the profits received from the sale of his works enabled him to purchase a beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, which he adorned and fitted up with exquisite taste. Thither his parents removed with him, and he spent the remainder of his life in retire- ment. He died at the age of fifty-six. His works are, the "Pastorals," "Odes," "Epistles:' an "Essay 90 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. on Criticism," written before lie was twenty-one; "Essay on Man," "Rape of the Lock," &c, together with numerous translations, among which are the works of Homer. PROVIDENCE. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate ; All but the page prescribed their present state ; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know, Or who coiild suffer being here below ? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. O, blindness to the future ! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven ; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall ; Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore ; — What future bliss he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; Man never is, but always to oe bless'd ; The soul uneasy, and confined from home, Bests and expatiates in a life to come. ALEXANDER POPE. 91 Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind, His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way. Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topp'd hill an humbler heaven. Some safer world, in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the wat'ry waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To he, contents his natural desire ; He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense, "Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such ; Say here he gives too little, there too much. In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies ; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies ; Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels men rebel ; And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins 'gainst the Eternal Cause. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great : With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between ; in doubt to act, or rest ; In doubt to deem himself a God or beast ; 92 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. In doubt his mind or body to prefer : Born but to die, and reasoning but to err ; Alike in ignorance, bis reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much ; Chaos of thought and passion, all confused ; Still by himself abused or disabused ; Created half to rise, or half to fall ; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all ; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd ; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world ! Go, wond'rous creature ! mount where science guides ; Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides ; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, • Correct old time, and regulate the sun ; Go, soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere,- To the first good, first perfect, and first fair ; ' Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, , And quitting sense call imitating God ; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule — Then drop into thyself, and be a fool ! Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all nature's law, Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, And show'd a Newton as we show an ape. Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his mind? Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, Explain his own beginning or his end ? Alas, what wonder ! Man's superior part Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art ; But when his own great work is but begun, What reason weaves, by passion is undone. ALEXANDER POPE. 93 Trace science, then, with modesty thy guide ; First strip off all her equipage of pride : Deduct what is but vanity or dress, Or learning's luxury, or idleness ; Or tricks to sIioav the stretch of human brain, Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain : Expunge the whole, or lop the excrescent parts Of all our vices have created arts : Then see how little the remaining sum "Which served the past, and must the times to come ! Two principles in human nature reign : Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain : Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all : And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all good to their improper ill. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul ; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. Man, but for that, no action could attend, And, but for this, were active to no end: Eix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot ; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Destroying others, by himself destroy'd. Most strength the moving principle requires; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, Form'd but to check, deliberate, and advise. Self-love still stronger, as its object's nigh; Reason 's at distance, and in prospect lie : That sees immediate good by present sense ; Reason the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments temptations throng, At best more watchful this, but that more strong. 94 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. The action of the stronger to suspend, Reason still use, to reason still attend. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds ; Another still, and still another spreads ; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace ; His country next, and next all human race ; "Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in, of every kind ; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty bless'd, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast. Essay on Man. THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. Father of all ! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! Thou Great First Cause, least understood, "Who all my sense confined, To know but this, That thou art good, And that myself am blind ; Yet give me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill ; And binding Nature fast in Fate, Left free the human will ; What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue. ALEXANDER POPE. 95 What blessings thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away ; For God is paid when man receives ; To enjoy is to obey. Yet not to earth's contracted span, Thy goodness let me bound; Or think thee Lord alone of man, "When thousand worlds are round. Let not this weak, unknowing hand, Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land, On each I judge thy foe. If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in thy grace to stay ; If I am wrong, ! teach my heart To find that better way. Save me alike from foolish pride, Or impious discontent, At aught thy wisdom has denied, Or aught thy goodness lent. Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see ; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me. Mean though I am, not wholly so, Since quicken'd by thy breath ; O lead me, wheresoe'er I go, Through this day's life or death. This day be bread and peace my lot ; All else beneath the sun, Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, And let thy will be done. 96 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. To thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar, earth, sea, skies! One chorus let all beings raise ! All Nature's incense rise! THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. Vital spark of heavenly flame, Quit, O quit this mortal frame. Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, the pain, the bliss of dying ! Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark ! they whisper : angels say, — Sister spirit, come away ! What is this absorbs me quite, — Steals my senses, shuts my sight, — Drowns my spirit, draws my breath ? Tell me, my soul, can this be death ? The world recedes : it disappears ; Heaven opens on my eyes ; my ears With sounds seraphic ring. Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I flyl grave, where is thy victory? death, where is thy sting? JAMES THOMSON. 97 fauus ®|0ms0tL 1699—1746. James Thomson, emphatically styled " the poet of nature," was a native of Ednam, in Roxburghshire, the son of a clergyman, and was educated for the ministry, which he soon abandoned for the pur- suits of poetry and general literature. He went to London in 1725 in search of fame and fortune, and, like many before and after him, obtained the ap- plause of men without the substantial evidence of their praise. He was, however, rescued from deep poverty by the exertions of his friends, and the latter part of his life was spent in ease and comfort near London. He died at the age of forty-seven. His most celebrated works are " The Seasons " and the " Castle of Indolence," the first of which is apt- ly described by Montgomery as a " biograjxhical memoir of the infancy, maturity, and old age of an English year." The poem on Indolence, it is said, the poet wrote as a satire upon his own " besetting sin." 98 SELECTION'S FROM THE BRITISH POETS. A MAN PERISHING IN THE SNOW. As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce All winter drives along the darken'd air, In his own loose-revolving fields tlie swain Disaster'd stands ; sees other hills ascend, Of unknown, joyless brow ; and other scenes, Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain ; Nor finds the river, nor the forest hid Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray, Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts of home Bush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul ! What black despair, what horror fills his heart ! When for the dusky spot Avhich fancy feign'd. His tufted cottage, rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track, and bless'd abode of man; While round him night resistless closes fast, And ev'ry tempest howling o'er his head, Benders the savage wilderness more wild. Then throng the busy shapes into his mind Of cover'd pits unfathomably deep, A dire descent beyond the power of frost ! Of faithless bogs, of precipices huge, Smooth'd up with snow ; and what is land unknown, What water, of the still, unfrozen spring, In the loose marsh, or solitary lake, Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils, These check his fearful steps, and down he sinks JAMES THOMSON. 99 Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man, His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. In vain for him th' officious wife prepares The fire fair blazing and the vestment warm; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingled storm, demand their sire "With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! Nor wife nor children more shall he behold, Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve The deadly winter seizes ; shuts up sense, And o'er his inmost vitals, creeping cold, Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse. THE AFFLICTED. Ah ! little think the gay licentious proud "Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround ; They who their thoughtless hours in giddy rnirth, And wanton, often cruel riot, waste ; Ah ! little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death, And all the sad variety of pain ! How many sink in the devouring flood, Or more devouring flame ! How many bleed By shameful variance 'twixt man and man ! How many pine in want and dungeon glooms, Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs ! How many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery ! Sore pierced by wint'ry winds, 100 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheerless poverty ! How many shake "With all the fiercer torture of the mind — Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse; "Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life, They furnish matter for the tragic muse! E'en in the vale where wisdom loves to dwell, With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd, How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop In deep-retired distress ! How many stand Around the death-bed of their dearest friends And point the parting anguish ! Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills That one incessant struggle render life One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate, • Vice in his high career would stand appall'd, And heedless, rambling Impulse, learn to think ; The conscious heart of Ohazity would warm, And her wide wish Benevolence dilate ; The social tear would rise, the social sigh, And into clear perfection, gradual bliss, Eefining still, the social passions work. A WINTER'S STORM. Then comes the father of the tempest forth, Wrapp'd in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure Drive through the mingling skies with vapor foul ; Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, That grumbling wave below. Th' unsightly plain Lies a brown deluge ; as the low-bent clouds Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still Combine, and, deepening into night, shut up JAMES THOMSON. 101 The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven Each to his home retire ; save those that love To take their pastime in the troubled air, Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool. The cattle from th' untasted fields return, And ask, with moaning low, their wonted stalls, Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. Thither the household feathery people crowd, The crested cock, with all his female train, , Pensive and dripping ; while the cottage hind Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there Eecounts his simple frolic ; much he talks And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows Without, and rattles on his humble roof. Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swell'd, And the mis'd ruin of its banks o'erspread, At last the roused-up river pours along ; Eesistless, roaring dreadful, down it comes, From the rude mountain and the mossy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far ; Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd Between two meeting hills, it bursts away Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream : There gathering triple force, rapid and deep, It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through. When from the pallid sky the sun descends, With many a spot that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stain'd ; red, flery streaks Begin to flash around. The reeling clouds Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Which master to obey : while rising slow, Blank, in the leaden-cnlour'd east, the moon 102 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. "Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Seen through the turbid, fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray ; Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom, And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. Ocean, unequal press' d, with broken tide And blind commotion heaves ; while from the shore, Eat into caverns by the restless wave, And forest-nestling mountain, comes a voice That, solemn sounding, bids the world prepare. Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, And hurls the whole precipitated air Down in a torrent. On the passive main Descends the ethereal force, and with strong gust Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep. Through the black night, that sits immense around, Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn ; Meantime, the mountain billows to the clouds In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge, Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, And anchor'd navies from their stations drive, "Wild as the winds, across the howling waste Of mighty waters ; now th' inflated wave Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot Into the secret chambers of the deep, The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head. Emerging thence, again before the breath Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course, And dart on distant coasts, if some sharp rock, Or shoal insidious, break not their career, And in loose fragments fling them floating round. Nor less on land the loosen'd tempest reigns, JAMES THOMSON. 103 The mountain thunders, and its sturdy sons Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade, Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast, The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils, And often falling, climbs against the blast. Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds What of its tarnish'd honours yet remain; Dash'd down and scattered by the tearing wind's Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs. Thus struggling through the dissipated grove, The whirling tempest raves along the plain ; And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof, Keen fastening, shakes them to the solid base. Sleep frighted flies, and round the rocking dome For entrance, eager howls the savage blast ; Then too, they say, through all the burden'd air Long groans are heard, shrill shrieks and distant sighs, That, utter'd by the demon of the night, "Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death. Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds commix'd, "With stars swift gliding, sweep along the sky. All nature reels. Till nature's King, who oft Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone, And on the wings of the careening wind Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ; Then straight air, sea, and earth are hush'd at once. 'T is done ! dread "Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies ! How dumb the tuneful ! Horror wide extends His desolate domain. Behold, fond man ! See here thy pictured life ; pass some few years, Thy flowering spring, thy summer's ardent strength, 104 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Thy sober autumn, fading into age, And pale concluding winter conies at last And shuts the scene. Ah ! whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness ? those unsolid hopes Of happiness? those longings after fame? Those restless cares ? those busy, bustling days ? Those gay-spent, festive nights ? those veering thoughts Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life ? All now are vanish'd ! Virtue sole survives, Immortal, never-failing friend of man, His guide to happiness on high. And see ! 'T is come, the glorious morn ! the second birth Of heaven and earth ! awak'ning nature hears The new creating word, and starts to life In every heightened form, from pain and death - Forever free. The great eternal scheme, Involving all, and in a perfect whole Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads, To Season's eye refined, clears up apace. Ye vainly wise ! ye blind presumptuous ! now Confounded in the dust, adore that power And wisdom oft arraign'd ; see now the cause Why unassuming worth in secret lived, And died neglected ; why the good man's share In life was gall and bitterness of soul ; Why the lone widow and her orphans pined In starving solitude ; while luxury In palaces lay straining her low thought To form unreal wants ; why heaven-born Truth And Moderation fair wore the red marks Of Superstition's scourge ; why licensed pain, That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe, Embitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd ! Ye noble few ! who here unbending stand Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile, JAMES THOMSON. 105 And what your bounded view, which only saw A little part, deem'd evil, is no more ; The storms of wintry time will quickly pass, And one unbounded spring encircle all. — "Winter. FROM THE "CASTLE OF INDOLENCE." Their only labour was to kill the time ; And labour dire it is, and weary woe. They sit, and loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme ; Then rising sudden, to the glass they go, To saunter forth, with tott'ring step and slow. This soon too rude an exercise they find ; Straight on the couch their limbs again they throw, Where hours on hours they sighing he reclined, And court the vapoury god soft breathing in the wind. 5* 106 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. S^mas 7* 154 SELECTIONS FKOM THE BEITISH POETS. foatttta §aillw* 1765—1851. This lady, celebrated as a dramatic writer, was born in Scotland, but resided for many years near London. She wrote many short poems of great beauty. THE KITTEN. "Wanton droll, whose harmless play Bewiles the rustic's closing day, "When drawn the evening fire about, Sits aged crone, and thoughtless lout, And child, upon his three-foot stool, "Waiting till his supper cool ; And maid, whose cheek outblooms the rose, As bright the blazing faggot glows, Who, bending to the friendly light, Plies her task with busy sleight ; Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces, Thus circled round with merry faces. Backward coiled, and crouching low, With glaring eye-balls watch thy foe. The housewife's spindle whirling round, Or thread, or straw, that on the ground JOANNA BAILLIE. 155 Its shadow throws, by urchin sly Held out, to lure thy roving eye ; Then, onward stealing, fiercely spring Upon the futile, faithless thing. Now, wheeling round with bootless skill, Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still, As oft beyond thy curving side Its jetty tip is seen to glide, Till from thy centre, starting fair, Thou sidelong rear'st with back in air, Erected stiff, and gate awry, Like madam in her tantrums high ; Though ne'er a madam of them all, "Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall, More varied trick and whim displays To catch th' admiring stranger's gaze. The featest tumbler, stage-bedight, To thee is but a clumsy wight, Whose every limb and sinew strains To do what costs thee little pains: For which, I trow, the gaping crowd Kequites him oft with plaudits loud. But, stopped the while thy wanton play, Applauses, too, thy feats repay ; For then beneath some urchin's hand, With modest pride thou tak'st thy stand, "While many a stroke of fondness glides Along thy back and tabby sides ; Dilated, swells thy glossy fur, And loudly sings thy busy purr, As, timing well the equal sound, Thy clutching feet bepat the ground, And all their harmless claws disclose, Like prickles of an early rose : 156 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. While softly from thy whisker'd cheek Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek. But not alone by cottage fire, Do rustics rude thy feats admire ; The learned sage, whose thoughts explore The widest range of human lore, Or with unfettered fancy fly Through airy heights of poesy, Pausing, smiles with altered air, To see thee climb his elbow chair, Or, struggling on the mat below, Hold warfare with his slipper'd toe. The widowed dame, or lonely maid, Who, in the still but cheerless shade Of home unsocial, spends her age, And rarely turns a letter'd page, Upon her hearth, for thee, lets fall The rounded cork, or paper-ball, Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch The ends of ravelled skein to catch ; 'But lets thee have thy wayward will, Perplexing oft her sober skill. Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent, In lonely tower, or prison pent, Eeviews the coil of former days, And loathes the world and all its ways — What time the lamp's unsteady gleam, Doth rouse him from his moody dream, Feels, as thou gamboll'st round his seat, His heart with pride less fiercely beat, And smiles, a link in thee to find That joins him still to living kind. Whence hast thou, then, thou witless Puss, The magic power to charm us thus ? JOANNA BAILLIE. 157 Is it that in thy glaring eye And rapid movements we descry, "While we at ease, secure from ill, The chimney-corner snugly fill, A lion, darting on the prey, A tiger, at his ruthless play? Or is it that in thee we trace, "With all thy varied wanton grace, An emblem viewed with kindred eye, Of tricksy, restless infancy ? Ah ! many a lightly sportive child, Who hath like thee our wits beguiled, To dull and sober manhood grown, "With strange recoil our hearts disown. E'en so, poor Kit, must thou endure, When thou becom'st a cat demure, Full many a cuff and angry word, Chid roughly from the tempting board ; And yet, for that thou hast, I ween, So oft our favour'd playmate been, Soft be the change which thou shalt prove. "When time hath spoiled thee of our love, Still be thou deemed, by housewife fat, A comely, careful, mousing cat, Whose dish is, for the " public good," Replenish'd oft with savoury food. Nor, when thy span of fife is past, Be thou to pond or dunghill cast ; But, gently borne on good man's spade, Beneath the decent sod be laid ; And children show, with glistening eyes, The place where poor old Pussy lies. 158 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. SONG. The gowan glitters on the sward, The lavrock's in the sky; And Oolley in my plaid keeps ward, And time is passing by. O, no ! sad and slow ! I hear no welcome sound, In the shadow of our trysting bush, It wears so slowly round. My sheep-bells tinkle frae the west, My lambs are bleating near ; But still the sound that I lo'e best, Alack! I canna hear. O, no ! sad and slow, The shadow lingers still, And like a lanely ghaist I stand, And croon upon the hill. I hear below the water roar, The mill wi' clacking din ; And Suckey scolding frae her door To bring the bairnies in. O, no ! sad and slow ! These are nae sounds for me ; The shadow of our trysting bush, It creeps sae drearily. I coft yestreen, frae Chapman Tarn, A snood of bonny blue ; And promised, when our trysting came, To tie it round her brow. JOANNA BAILLIE. 159 O, no ! sad and slow ! The time it winna pass ; The shadow of that weary thorn Is tether'd on the grass. My book o' grace I '11 try to read, Though conn'd wi' little skill ; When Oolley barks I '11 raise my head. And find her on the hill. O, no ! sad and slow ! The time will ne'er be gane ; The shadow of that trysting bush Is fixed, like ony stane. 160 SELECTION'S FEOM THE BEITISH POETS. illtam Hartotoflrtjf* 1770— 1850 This great poet was born in 1770, was educated at Cambridge, and lived for many years in seclu- sion in the Lake country amid the mountains of Westmoreland. He was a man of great amiability of character, and of stern moral principles. His longest work is the "Excursion," a very unequal poem, but replete with noble sentiments. Words- worth, Southey, and Coleridge, at one time, all lived in the Lake country together ; and hence the term "Lake Poets," first applied in ridicule by some short-brained reviewer, but now a title of fame. ODE. INTIMATIONS OP IMMORTALITY, FEOM " RECOLLECTIONS OP EARLY CHILDHOOD." There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light ; WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 161 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. Ye blessed 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. 0, evil day ! if I Avere sullen, While the earth herself is adorning, This sweet May morning, And the children are pulling On eveiy 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 a one, A single field which I have look'd upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone ; 162 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat, Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? "Where is it now, the glory and dream ? Our hirth is hut 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. The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benedictions ; 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 songs of thanks and praise, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 163 But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings ; Blank misgivings of a creature, Moving about in worlds not realized, 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 Aveather, 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 ! 164 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. "What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever 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, Think not of any severing of your loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret, E'en more than when I tripped, 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. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 165 A SIMILE. Within the soul a faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal that they become Contingencies of pomp, and serve to exalt Her native brightness. As the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer eve, Eising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns like an unconsuming fire of light In the green trees ; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own, Tea, with her own incorporated, by power Capacious and serene ; — like power abides In man's celestial spirit ; Virtue thus Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds A calm, a beautiful, a silent fire, From the encumbrances of mortal life, From error, disappointment, nay, from guilt ; And sometimes, so relenting Justice will, From palpable oppressions of despair. CHANGE. And what are things eternal ? Powers depart, ^: ^ :t; :(: H= * * * * Possessions vanish, and opinions change, And passions hold a fluctuating seat ; But by the storms of circumstance unshaken, And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, 166 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Duty exists. Immutably survive, For our support, the measures and the forms Which an abstract intelligence supplies, Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not ; Of other converse, which mind, soul, and heart, Do with united urgency require, What more that may not perish ? Thou dread Source, Prime, self-existing Cause, the end of all That in the scale of being fill their place, Above our human region, or below, Set and sustain'd ; Thou, who did'st wrap the cloud Of infancy around us, that Thyself Therein with our simplicity awhile Might'st hold on earth communion undisturb'd ; Who, from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, And touch as gentle as the morning light, Restor'st us daily to the powers of sense, And reason's steadfast rule ; Thou, Thou alone, Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits Which thou includest, as the sea her waves ; For adoration thou endur'st ; endure For consciousness the motions of Thy will ; For apprehension, those transcendent truths Of the pure Intellect, that stand as laws (Submission constituting strength and power) Even to Thy being's infinite majesty ! This universe shall pass away— a work Glorious, because the shadow of Thy might ; A step, a link, for intercourse with thee. Ah ! if the time must come, in which my feet No more shall stray where meditation leads, By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild, Loved haunts like these ; the unimprisoned mind May yet have scope to range among her own, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 1Q1 Her thoughts, her images, her high desires. If the dear faculty of sight should fail, Still it may be allow'd me to remember What visionary powers of eye and soul In youth were mine ; when stationed on the top Of some huge hill, expectant I beheld The sun rise up, from distant climes return'd, Darkness to chase, and sleep, and bring the day, His bounteous gift ! or saw him toward the deep Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds Attended ; then my spirit was entranced With joy exalted to beatitude; The measure of my soul was fill'd with bliss, And holiest love ; as earth, sea, air, with light, With pomp, with glory, with magnificence ! Fkom " The Excursion," Book Foxjeth. LONDON B.EFORE SUNRISE. Earth hath not anything to show more fair, Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty. JThis 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 its own sweet will. Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; And all that mighty heart ia lying still! 16S SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. THE POWER OF SOUND AT NIGHT. Has not the soul, the being of your life, Eeceived a shock of awful consciousness, In some calm season, when these lofty rocks, At night's approach, bring down the unclouded sky, To rest upon their circumambient walls : A temple framing of dimensions vast, And yet not too enormous for the sound Of human anthems, — choral song, or burst Sublime of instrumental harmony, To glorify the Eternal? What if these Did never break the stillness that prevails Here ; if the solemn nightingale be mute, And the soft woodlark here did never chant Her vespers. Nature fails not to provide Impulse and utterance. The whispering air Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights, And blind recesses of the cavern'd rocks : The little rills and waters numberless, Inaudible by daylighh, blend their notes With the loud streams ; and often at the hour When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard Within the circuit of this fabric huge, One voice — one solitary raven, flying Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, Unseen, perchance above the power of sight, — An iron knell! with echoes from afar, Faint, and still fainter. — " Excursion." WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 169 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, heneath the trees, Flutt'ring 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, while 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. 170 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. xr WLzlttx JSoii 1771—1832. THE TOMB OF MICHAEL SCOTT. By a steel-clinch'd postern door They entered now the chancel tall ; The darken' d roof rose high aloof On pillars lofty, light, and small ; The key-stone that lock'd each rihbed aisle "Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre feuille ; The corbels were carved grotesque and grim ; And the pillars, with cluster'd shafts so trim, Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had wound. Full many a scutcheon and banner riven, Shook to the cold night- wind of heaven, Around the screened altars pale ; And there the dying lamps did burn, Before thy low and lonely urn, O gallant chief of Otterburne ! And thine, dark knight of Liddesdale ! O fading honours of the dead ! O high ambition lowly laid ! The moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely, stone, SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1*71 By foliage tracery combined ; Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand, 'Twist poplars straight the ozier wand, In many a freakish knot had twined ; Then framed a spell when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone. The silver light, so pale and faint, Showed many a prophet and many a saint, "Whose image on the glass was dyed ; Full in the midst his cross of red Triumphant Michael brandished, And trampled the apostate pride. The moonbeam kiss'd the holy pane, And threw on the pavement a bloody stain. They sate them down on a marble stone, A Scottish monarch slept below ; Thus spoke the monk, in solemn tone : — " I was not always a man of woe ; For Paynim countries I have trod, And fought beneath the cross of God ; Now strange to mine eyes thine arms appear, And their iron clang sounds strange to mine ear. " In these fair climes, it was my lot To meet the wondrous Michael Scott ; A wizard of such dreaded fame, That when, in Salamanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in Notre Dame ! Some of his skill he taught to me ; And, warrior, I could say to thee The words that cleft Eildon hills in three. 172 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone; But to speak them were a deadly sin, And for having but thought them my heart within A treble penance must be done. " "When Michael lay on his dying bed His conscience was awakened ; He bethought him of his sinful deed, And he gave me a sign to come with speed. I was in Spain when the morning rose, But I stood by his bed ere evening close. The words may not again be said That he spoke to me on death-bed laid ; They would rend this abbey's massy nave, And pile it in heaps above his grave. " I swore to bury his mighty Book, That never mortal might therein look ; And never to tell where it was hid, Save at his chief of Branksome's need ; And when that need was past and o'er, Again the volume to restore. I buried him on St. Michael's night "When the bell toll'd one, and the moon was bright ; And I dug his chamber among the dead, "When the floor of the chancel was stained red, That his patron's cross might o'er him wave, And scare the fiends from the wizard's grave. " It was a night of woe and dread When Michael in the .tomb I laid ! Strange sounds around the chancel past, The banners waved without a blast ! — " Still spoke the monk when the bell toll'd one ! I tell you that a braver man SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1 73 Than William of Deloraine, good at need, Against a foe ne'er spurred a steed ; Yet somewhat was he chill'd with dread, And his hair did hristle upon his head. " Lo, warrior ! now the cross of red Points to the grave of the mighty dead ! Within it burns a wondrous light, To chase the spirits that love the night ; That lamp shall burn unquenchably Until the eternal doom shall be ! " Slow moved the monk to the broad flag-stone, Which the bloody cross was traced upon ; He pointed to a secret nook ; An iron bar the warrior took ; And the monk made a sign with his wither'd hand, The grave's huge portal to expand. With beating heart to the task he went, His sinewy frame o'er the grave-stone bent ; With bar of iron heaved amain, Till the toil-drops fell from his brow like rain. It was by dint of passing strength That he moved the massy stone at length. I would you had been there to see How the light broke forth so gloriously — Streamed upward to the chancel roof, And through the galleries ran aloof I No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright : It shone like the heaven's own blessed light ; And issuing from the tomb, Show'd the monk's cowl, and visage pale, Danced on the dark-brow'd warrior's mail, And kiss'd his waving plume. Before their eyes the wizard lay, As if he had not been dead a day ! 174 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. His hoary beard in silver roll'd, He seem'd some seventy winters old ; A palmer's amice wrapp'd him round, "With a wrought Spanish baldric bound, Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea. His left hand held his Book of Might, A silver cross was in his right ; The lamp was placed beside his knee. High and majestic was his look, At which the fellest fiends had shook ; And all unruffled was his face : They trusted his soul had gotten grace. Oft had "William of Deloraine Eode through the battle's bloody plain, And trampled down the warriors slain, And neither known remorse or awe ; Yet now remorse and awe he own'd ; His breath came thick, his head swam round, "When this strange scene of death he saw. Bewilder'd and unnerved he stood, And the priest pray'd fervently and loud ; "With eyes averted, prayed he ; He might not endure the sight to see, Of the man he had loved so brotherly. And when the priest his death-prayer had pray'd, Thus unto Deloraine he said : — " Now speed thee what thou hast to do, Or, warrior, we may dearly rue ; For those thou may'st not look upon Are gathering fast round the yawning-stone!" Then Deloraine, in terror, took From the cold hand the mighty Book, "With iron clasp, and with iron bound ; He thought, as be took it, the dead man frown'd ; SIR WALTER SCOTT. 175 But the glare of the sepulchral light, Perchance, had dazzled the warrior's sight. "When the huge stone sank o'er the tomb, The night return'd in double gloom ; For the moon had gone down, and the stars were few ; And, as the knight and the priest withdrew, With wavering steps and dizzy brain, They hardly might the postern gain. 'T is said, as through the aisles they pass'd, They heard strange noises in the blast; And through the cloister-galleries small, Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall, Loud sobs, and laughter louder, ran, And voices unlike the voice of man; As if the fiends kept holiday Because these spells were brought to day. A DIRGE He is gone on the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a summer-dried fountain, When our need was the sorest. The font, reappearing, From the rain-drops shall borrow; But to us comes no cheering, To Duncan no morrow! The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, But the voice of the weeper Wails manhood in glory ; 176 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BEITISH POETS. The autumn winds rushing, Waft the leaves that are searest ; 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 forever ! BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE. There is no breeze upon the fern, No ripple on the lake ; Upon the eyrie nods the erne, The deer has sought the brake ; The small birds will not sing aloud, The springing trout lies still, So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud, That swathes, as with a purple shroud, Benledi's distant hill. Is it the thunder's solemn sound That mutters deep and dread, Or echoes from the groaning ground The warrior's measured tread ? Is it the lightning's quivering glance That on the thicket streams, Or do they flash on spear and lance The sun's retiring beams? SIR WALTER SCOTT. HI — I see the dagger crest of Mar, I see the Moray's silver star Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war, That up the lake comes winding far ! Their light-arm'd archers, far and near, Surveyed the tangled ground ; Their centre ranks, with pikes and spears, A twilight forest frowned ; Their barbed horsemen, in the rear, The stern battalia crown'd. No cymbal clash'd, no clarion rang, Still were the pipe and drum ; Save heavy tread, and armour's clang, The sullen march was dumb ; There breathed no wind their crests to shake, Or wave their flags abroad ; Scarce the frail aspen seem'd to quake, That shadow'd o'er their road. Their vanward scouts no tidings bring, Can rouse no lurking foe ; Nor spy a trace of living thing, Save where they stirr'd the roe. The host moves like a deep sea wave, Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, High-swelling, dark, and slow. The lake is pass'd, and now they gain A narrow and a broken plain, Before the Trosach's rugged jaws ; And here, the horse and spearmen pause, While, to explore the dangerous glen, Dive through the pass the archer-men. At once there rose so wild a yell, Within that dark and narrow dell, b* 178 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. As all the fiends from heaven that fell, Had peal'd the banner-cry of hell ! Forth from the pass, in tumult driven, Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear : For life ! for life ! their flight they ply — And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in their rear. Onward they drive, in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued ; Before that tide of flight and chase, How shall it keep its rooted place, The spearmen's twilight wood ? " Down ! down ! " cried Mar, " your lances down ' Bear back, both friend and foe ! " Like reeds before the tempest's frown, That serried grove of lances brown At once lay levell'd low! And closely shouldering side by side, The bristling ranks the onset bide. Feom " Lady of the Lake." JAMES MONTGOMERY. 179 1771—1854. " The Moravian Poet " was a native of North Britain. During many years of .his life lie suffered severely from imprisonment and poverty, and as a poet he was supposed to be annihilated by the criticism ,pf Johnson; but he outlived both his political and literary persecutors. Amid all his trials his virtue and piety remained unshaken. His old age was spent in quiet retirement, and he died beloved and revered by all. His poems have been published in one volume. THE GRAVE. There is a calm for those who weep, A rest for weary pilgrims found : They softly lie, and sweetly sleep, Low in the ground ! The storm that wrecks the winter sky No more disturbs their deep repose Than summer evening's latest sigh That shuts the rose. 180 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. I long to lay this painful head, And aching heart, beneath the soil ; To slumber in that dreamless bed From all my toil. Art thou a wand'rer ? hast thou seen O'erwhelming tempests drown thy bark ? A shipwreek'd sufferer hast thou been — Misfortune's mark? Though long of winds and waves the sport, Condemn'd in wretchedness to roam, Live ! thou shalt reach a shelt'ring port, A quiet home ! There is a calm for those who weep, A rest for weary pilgrims found : And while the mould'ring ashes sleep Low in the ground : — The soul, of origin divine, God's glorious image, freed from clay, In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine A star of day ! The sttn is but a spake of fire — A transient meteor in the sky ; The soul, immortal as its Sire, Shall never die. JAMES MONTGOMERY. 181 LIFE. Life is the transmigration of a soul Through various bodies, various states of being ; New manners, passions, new pursuits in each ; In nothing, save in consciousness, the same. Infancy, adolescence, manhood, age, Are alway moving onward, alway losing Themselves in one another, lost at length Like undulations on the strand of death. The Child ! we know no more of happy childhood Than happy childhood knows of wretched eld ; And all our dreams of its felicity Are incoherent as its own crude visions : We but begin to live from that fine point Which memory dwells on, with the morning star ; The earliest note we heard the cuckoo sing, Or the first daisy that we ever plucked ; When thoughts themselves were stars, and birds, and flowers, Pure brilliance, simplest music, wild perfume. Then the gray Elder ! — leaning on his staff, And bound beneath a weight of years that steal Upon him with the secrecy of sleep, (No snow falls lighter than the snow of age, — None with such subtlety benumbs the frame,) Till he forgets sensation, and lies down Dead in the lap of his primeval mother. She throws a shroud of turf and flowers around him, Then calls the worms, and bids them do their office! Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? 182 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BKITISH POETS. NIGHT. Night is the time for rest ; How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed. Night is the time for dreams ; The gay romance of life, When truth that is, and truth that seems, Blend in fantastic strife ; Ah ! visions less beguiling far Than waking dreams by daylight are. Night is the time for toil ; To plough the classic field, Intent to find the buried spoil Its wealthy furrows yield ; Till all is ours that sages taught, That poets sang, or heroes wrought. Night is the time to weep ; To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory, where sleep The joys of other years — Hopes that were angels in their birth, But perish'd young like things on earth. Night is the time to watch On ocean's dark expanse ; Or hail the Pleiades, or catch The full moon's earliest glance, JAMES MONTGOMERY. 183 That brings into the home-sick mind All we have loved and left behind. Night is the time for care ; Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of despair Come to our lonely tent ; I^;e Brutus, 'mid his slumbering host, Startled by Caesar's stalwart ghost. » Night is the time to muse ; Then from the eye the soul Takes flight, and with expanding views Beyond the starry pole Descries athwart th' abyss of night, The dawn of uncreated light. Night is the time to pray ; Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away; So will his followers do : — Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, And hold communion there with God. Night is the time for death ; When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath, From sin and suffering cease, Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends — such death be mine ! 184 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. FROM "THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD." Deep was that valley, girt with rock and wood ; In rural groups the scattered hamlets stood : Tents, arbours, cottages, adorned the scene ; Gardens and fields, and shepherd-walks bjtween ; Through all, a streamlet from its mountain-source, Seen but by stealth, pursued its willowy course. "When first the mingling sons of God and man The demon-sacrifice of war began, Self-exiled, here, the family of Setb Eenounced a world of violence and death ; Faithful alone amid the faithless found, And innocent, while murder cursed the ground. Here, in retirement from profane mankind, They worshipp'd God with purity of mind ; Fed their small flocks, and till'd their narrow soil, Like parent Adam, with submissive toil — Adam, whose eyes their pious hands had closed, Whose bones beneath their quiet turf reposed. No glen like this, unstain'd with human blood, Could youthful Nature boast before the flood ; Far less shall earth, now hastening to decay, A scene of sweeter loneliness display, Where naught was heard but sounds of peace and love, Nor seen but woods around, and heaven above. Yet not in cold and unconcern'd content Their years in that delicious range were spent ; Oft from their haunts the fervent patriarchs broke, In strong affection to their kindred spoke ; With tears and prayers reproved their growing crimes, Or told th' impending judgments of the times. JAMES MONTGOMERY 185 In vain ! the world despis'd the warning word, With scorn "belied it, or with mockery heard, Forbade the zealous monitors to roam, And stoned or chased them to their forest-home. There, from the depth of solitude, their sighs Pleaded with Heaven in ceaseless sacrifice ; And long did righteous Heaven the guilty spare, Won by the holy violence of prayer. ENOCH'S ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF ADAM. The sun went down amid an angry glare Of flushing clouds, that crimson'd all the air ; The winds broke loose, the forest-boughs were torn, And dark aloof the eddying foliage borne ; Cattle to shelter scudded in affright, The florid evening vanish'd into night; Then burst the hurricane upon the vale In peals of thunder, and thick-volley'd hail ; Prone rushing rain with torrents whelm'd the land, Our cot amid a river seem'd to stand ; Around its base the foaming-crested streams Flash'd through the darkness to the lightnings gleams ; With monstrous throes an earthquake heaved the ground, The rocks were rent, the mountains trembled round ; Never since Nature into being came, Had such mysterious motion shook her frame ; We thought, engulf 'd in floods, or wrapp'd in fire, The world itself would perish with our sire. Amid this war of elements, within More dreadful grew the sacrifice of sin, 186 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. "Whose victim on his bed of torture lay, Breathing the slow remains of life away. Ere while victorious Faith sublimer rose Beneath the pressure of collected woes. But now his spirit waver'd, went and came, Like the loose vapour of departing flame, Till, at the point when comfort seem'd to die, Forever, in his fixed, unclosing eye, Bright through the smouldering ashes of the man, The saint brake forth, and Adam thus began : — " O ye that shudder at this awful strife, This wrestling agony of death and life, Think not that He, on whom my soul is cast, "Will leave me thus forsaken to the last. Nature's infirmity alone you see ; My chains are breaking, I shall soon be free ! Though firm in God, the spirit holds her trust ; The flesh is frail, and trembles into dust. Horror and anguish seize me ; 'tis the hour Of darkness, and I mourn beneath its power ; The tempter plies me with his direst art, I feel the serpent coiling round my heart ; He stirs the wound he once inflicted there, Instils the deadening poison of despair ; Belies the truth of God's delaying grace, And bids me curse my Maker to his face. I will not curse Him, though his grace delay ; — I will not cease to trust Him, though He slay ; Full on his promised mercy I rely, For God hath spoken — God who cannot lie. — Thou, of my faith the Author and the end ! Mine early, late, and everlasting Friend ! The joy that once Thy presence gave, restore Ere I am summoned hence, and seen no more ! JAMES MONTGOMERY. 187 Down to the dust returns this earthly frame, Keceive my spirit, Lord ! from whom it came ! Rebuke the tempter, show Thy power to save ; O ! let Thy glory light me to the grave ! That these, who witness my departing breath, May learn to triumph in the grasp of death." He closed his eyelids with a tranquil smile, And seemed to rest in silent prayer awhile ; Around his couch with filial awe we kneeled, "When suddenly, a light from heaven revealed A spirit, that stood within the unopen'd door ; The sword of God in his right hand he bore ; His countenance was lightning, and his vest Like snow at sunrise, on the mountain's crest; Yet so benignly beautiful his form, His presence stilled the fury of the storm. At once the winds retire, the waters cease, His look was love, his salutation, "Peace !" %%%:,*%:%% Adam look'd up, his visage changed its hue ; Transformed into an angel's at the view : "I come !" he cried, with faith's full triumph fired, And in a sigh of ecstasy expired. The light was vanish'd, and the vision fled ; "We stood alone, the living with the dead ; The ruddy embers, glimm'ring round the room, Displayed the corse amid the solemn gloom ; But o'er the scene a holy calm reposed — The gate of Heaven had opened there, and closed. The World before the Flood. 188 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. 1772—1834. This great poet was born in Devonshire. His father, whom he had the misfortune to lose while in early youth, was a minister of the Established Church. The poet was the youngest of thirteen children. At the age of fifteen he selected the trade of shoemaker as his occupation. Failing in this, he commenced the study of medicine, and ob- tained an entrance into Cambridge University in 1791, but soon left in despair or disgust. His habits of study were ill suited to the regular routine of the schools ; he indulged much in speculative reading and thought, to the neglect of the tasks imposed upon him as a pupil. Upon leaving the University he went to London, and enlisted in the army. After his discharge he married a sister of the wife of Southey. His religious opinions in youth were unsettled, but in the prime of his manhood he became a firm believer in orthodox Christianity. His writings on theology have affected the English mind more profoundly, perhaps, than those of any man of the present age. He wrote " Christab el," "The Ancient Mariner," "Fears in Solitude," SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 189 " Ode to the Departing Year," and a tragedy on "Remorse," previous to his twenty-sixth year. In poetic diction and in melody of verse, he is sur- passed, it is thought, by no English writer, except Milton. His prose writings consist of Essays on Theology, Politics, History, Criticism, and "The Transcendental Metaphysics," &c. For some years he lived with Robert Southey, who showed him the most generous kindness and the tenderest char- ity. He died in the sixty-second year of his age, at Highgate. FROM "THE ANCIENT MARINER." The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow follow'd free ; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'T was sad as sad could be ; And we did speak, only to break The silence of the sea ! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun, at noon, Eight up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon. 190 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Day after day, day after day, "We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; A3 idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water everywhere, And all the boards did shrink ; Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot : — O Christ I That ever this should be. Tea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea. About, about, in reel and rout, The death-fires danced at night ; The water, like a witch's oils, Burn'd green, and blue, and white. FROM "CHMSTABEL." Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; But whispering tongues can poison truth ; And constancy lives in realms above ; And life is thorny, and youth is vain ; And to be wroth with one we love, Doth work like madness on the brain. And thus it chanced, as I divine, With Roland and Sir Leoline. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 191 Each spoke words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother : They parted — ne'er to meet again ! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining — They stood aloof, the scars remaining ; Like cliffs Avhich had been rent asunder ; A dreary sea now flows between : — But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been. YOUTH AND AGE. Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — Both were mine! Life went a maying With 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 airy cliffs and glitt'ring 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 ! Naught cared this body for wind or weather When youth and I lived in 't together. 192 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Flowers are lovely ; love is flower-like ; Friendship is a sheltering tree ; O ! the joys that come down shower-like, Of friendship, love, and liberty, Ere I was old ! "Which tells me, Youth 's no longer here ! Youth! for years so many and sweet, 'T is known that you and I were one ; 1 '11 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 spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes I 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 I 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 dismiss'd, Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 193 HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sov'reign Blanc! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Eave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form ! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silent! Around thee and above, Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge ! But when I look again It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity ! dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thoughts : entranced in prayer 1 worshipp'd the Invisible alone; Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, Till the dilating soid, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing — there, As in her natural form, swell'st vast to heaven ! Awake my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song ! x\wake, my heart, awake ! Green vales and icy cliffs all join my nymn! Thou first and chief, sole sov'reign of tho vale ! O, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, 9 194 SELECTIONS PROM THE BRITISH POETS. Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink : Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise ! "Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual springs ? And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! Who called you forth from night and utter death? From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth, Down those precipitous, black jagged rocks, Forever shatter'd, and the same forever ? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ? And who commanded, (and the silence came,) Here let the billows stiffen and have rest ? Ye icefalls ! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain — Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers Of liveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo God ! God ! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice ! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous falls shall thunder, God ! Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild-goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm ! THE NIGHTINGALE. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 195 Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the element ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! Thou too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky -pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glitt'ring through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast — Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow trav'ling with dim eyes, suffused with tears, Solemnly seem'st like a vapoury cloud To rise before me. Rise, 0, ever rise ! Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth ! Thou kingly Spirit, throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, Great hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, -And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God ! THE NIGHTINGALE. No cloud, no relic of the sunken day Distinguishes the West ; no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge ! - You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, But hear no murmuring ; it flows silently O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green earth, and we shall find 196 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS- A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. And hark ! the Nightingale begins its song, " Most musical, most melancholy " bird ! A melancholy bird ? ! idle thought ! In Nature there is nothing melancholy. But some night-wand'ring man, whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love, And so, poor wretch ! fill'd all things with himself, And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrow ; he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain : And many a poet echoes the conceit — Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs' Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell, By sun or moonlight, to the influxes Of shapes, and sounds, and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit — of his song And of his fame forgetful. So his fame Should share in Nature's immortality, A venerable thing ! and so his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature ! But 't will not be so ; And youths and maidens most poetical, Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still, Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My friend, and thou, our sister ! we have learnt A different lore : we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance ! 'T is the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates, With fast, thick warble his delicious notes, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 197 As he "were fearful that an April night "Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chaunt, and disburden his full soul Of all its music. And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge Which the great lord inhabits not ; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups, grow" within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many Nightingales : and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's songs With skirmish and capricious passagings, And nmrrnurs musical, and swift jug jug. And one, low piping, sounds more sweet than all, Stirring the air with such an harmony That, should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day ! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch. A most gentle maicl, Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (E'en like a lady vowed and dedicate To something more than Nature, in the grove) Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes. That gentle maid! and oft a moment's space, What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence ; till the moon 198 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky "With one sensation, and these wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if one quick and sudden gale had swept An hundred airy harps ! And she hath watch'd Many a Nightingale perch giddily, On bloss'my twig still swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his wanton song, Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. Farewell, O warbler ! till to-morrow eve ; And you, my friends, farewell ! a short farewell ! "We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes. That strain again ? Full fain it would delay me ! My dear babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, And bid us listen ! And I deem it wise To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well The evening star ; and once, when he awoke In most distressful mood, (some inward pain Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream,) I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, And he beheld the moon, and, hush'd at once, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, While his fair eyes, that swam with undropt tears, Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam ! Well ! — It is a father's tale : but if that Heaven Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up Familiar with these songs, that with the night He may associate joy ! Once more farewell, Sweet Nightingale ! Once more, my friends, farewell ! ROBERT SOUTHEY. 109 1774—1843. Robert Southey, the kindred spirit in many re- spects, and the brother-in-law of Coleridge, was the son of a linen-draper, and a native of Bristol. After a roving and vacillating yonth, he settled down upon the shores of the Greta, and for many years applied himself to severe study with unre- mitting vigour and intensity. For many years he was one of the principal contributors to the Quarterly Review, and that journal owed much of its great repute to him. He seems to have worn out his intellect, and for several years previous to his death was in a state of helpless idiocy. THE HOLLY-TREE. O reader ! hast thou ever stood to see The holly-tree ? The eye that contemplates it well perceives Its glossy leaves, Order'd by an Intelligence so wise, As might confound the atheist's sophistries. 200 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BEITISH POETS. Below a circling fence, its leaves are seen "Wrinkled and keen : No grazing cattle through their prickly round Can reach to wound. But as they grow where nothing is to fear, Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear. I love to view these things with curious eyes, And moralize : And in this wisdom of the holly-tree Can emblems see "Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme, One which may profit in the after time. Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear Harsh and austere ; To those who on my leisure would intrude, Beserved and rude ; Gentle at home amid my friends I 'd be, Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree. And should my youth, as youth is apt to know, Some harshness show, All vain asperities I day by day "Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree. And as, when all the summer-trees are seen So bright and green, The holly leaves a sober hue display Less bright than they ; But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the holly-tree? MOONLIGHT. ROBERT SOUTHEY. 201 So serious should my youth appear among The thoughtless throng ; So would I seem amid the young and gay More grave than they ; That in my age as cheerful I might be As the green winter of the holly-tree. MOONLIGHT. How calmly, gliding through the dark blue sky, The midnight moon ascends ! Her placid beams Through thinly-scattered leaves and boughs grotesque Mottle with mazy shades the orchard slope. Here, o'er the chestnut's fretted foliage gray, And massy, motionless they spread ; here shine Upon the crags, deepening with blacker night Then- chasms ; and there the glittering argentry Ripples and glances on the confluent streams. A lovelier, purer light than that of day Rests on the hills ; and how awfully, Into that deep and tranquil firmament, The summits of Anseva rise serene ! The watchman on the battlements partakes The stillness of the solemn hour ; he feels The silence of the earth ; the endless sound Of flowing waters soothes him ; and the stars Which, in that brightest moonlight, well-nigh quench'd, Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth Of yonder sapphire infinite, are seen, Draw on with elevating influence, Toward eternity, the attemper'd mind. Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands, And to the Virgin Mother silently Breathes forth her hymn of praii e 9* 202 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. mn dkmjrfalL 1777—1844. The author of "The Pleasures of Hope," "Theo- dric," and " Gertrude of "Wyoming," was a native of Glasgow, Scotland. His father was a merchant, then in humble circumstances, having lost his for- mer wealth by commercial embarrassments. The son displayed an active mind, and a strong attach- ment to learning, from very early life. He was educated at the University of his native city, where he excelled as a scholar, particularly in the Greek classics. He spent some years of his youth in Edin- burgh, where his talents were at once recognised. In 1799, at the age of twenty-one, he published "The Pleasures of Hope," which almost immediately gained for him a wide celebrity. Subsequently he married his cousin, and settled near London. The death of one of his sons, and the madness of another, together with poverty and ill health, made his life a scene of sorrow and constant struggle. Notwith- standing, he generously maintained his mother and sisters. In 1828 his wife, whom he loved with true THOMAS CAMPBELL. 203 affection, was taken from him by death. The latter years of his life were only saved from poverty by a pension from the government. His writings are remarkable for their strict morality — among them all there is not a line which is either infidel or impure. It now is generally known that the other- wise unspotted reputation of his private life was sullied by habits of inebriety. THE LAST MAN. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its immortality ! I saw a vision in my sleep That gave my spirit strength to sweep Adown the gulf of time ! I saw the last of human mould That shall Creation's death behold, As Adam saw her prime ! The Sun's eye had a sickly glare, The Earth with age was wan; The skeletons of nations were Around that lonely man ! Some had expired in fight — the brands Still rusted in their bony hands ; 204 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. In plague and famine some ! Earth's cities had no sound nor tread, And ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb ! Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood, With dauntless words, and high, That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm pass'd by, Saying, "We are twins in death, proud Sun ! Thy face is cold, thy race is run, ' T is Mercy bids thee go ; For thou ten thousand thousand years Hast seen the tide of human tears, That shall no longer flow. What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill, And arts that made fire, flood, and earth The vassals of his will, — Yet mourn not I thy parted sway, Thou dim, discrowned king of day ; For all those trophied arts And triumphs that beneath thee sprang Heal'd not a passion or a pang Entail'd on human hearts. Go ! let Oblivion's curtain fall Upon the stage of men, Nor with thy rising beams recall Life's tragedy again, — Its piteous pageant bring not back, Nor waken flesh upon the rack THOMAS CAMPBELL. 205 Of pain anew to writhe — Stretch'd in disease's shapes abhorr'd, Or mown in battle by the sword, Like grass beneath the scythe. E'en I am weary in yon skies To watch thy fading fire ; Test of all sumless agonies, Behold not me expire! My lips that speak thy dirge of death, — Theii sounded gasp and gurgling breath, To see, thou shalt not boast. Th' eclipse of Nature spreads my pall, — The majesty of Darkness shall Receive my parting ghost! This spirit shall return to Him That gave its heavenly spark ; Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim When thou thyself art dark ! No ! it shall live again, and shine In bliss unknown to beams of thine, By Him recall'd to breath, "Who captive led captivity, Who robb'd the Grave of victory, And took the sting from Death ! Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up On Nature's awful waste, To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste — Go, tell that night that hides thy face Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race On Earth's sepulchral clod ; The dark'ning Universe defy To quench his Immortality, Or shako bis trust in God ! 206 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. THE RAINBOW. The evening was glorious, and light through the trees Play'd in sunshine the raindrops, the birds, and the breeze ; • The landscape, outstretching, in loveliness lay, On the lap of the year, in the beauty of May. For the bright Queen of Spring, as she pass'd down the vale, Left her robe on the trees, and her breath on the gale ; And the smile of her promise gave joy to the hours, And fresh in her footsteps sprang herbage and flowers. The skies, like a banner in sunset unroll'd, O'er the west threw their splendour of azure and gold ; But one cloud, at a distance, rose dense, and increas'd Till its margin of black touch'd the zenith and east. "We gazed on these scenes, while around us they glow'd, When a vision of beauty appeared on the cloud ; 'T was not like the sun as at midday we view, Nor the moon that rolls lightly through star-light and blue. Like a spirit it came in the van of a storm, And the eye and the heart hail'd its beautiful form ; For it look'd not severe, like an angel of wrath, But its garments of brightness illumed its dark path. In the hues of its grandeur sublimely it stood, O'er the river, the village, the field, and the wood ; And the river, field, village, and woodland grew bright, As conscious they felt and afforded delight. 'T was the bow of Omnipotence, bent in His hand, Whose grasp at creation the universe spann'd ; 'T was the presence of God in a symbol sublime ; His vow from the flood to the exit of time. THOMAS CAMPBELL. 207 Not dreadful, as when in a whirlwind he pleads, When storms are his chariot, and lightning his steeds, The black cloud of vengeance his banner unfurl'd, And thunder his voice to a guilt-stricken world ! In the breath of his presence, when thousands expire, And seas boil with fury, and rocks burn with fire ; And the sword and the plague-spot with death strew the plain, And vultures and wolves are the graves of the slain — Not such was that Kainbow, that beautiful one ! Whose arch was refraction, its key-stone the sun ; A pavilion it seem'd, with a deity graced, And Justice and Mercy met there and embraced. Awhile, and it sWeetly bent over the gloom, Like Love o'er a death-couch, or Hope o'er the tomb ; Then left the dark scene, whence it slowly retired, As Love had just vanished, or Hope had expired. I gazed not alone on that source of my song ; To all who beheld it these verses belong ; Its presence to all was the path of the Lord! Each full heart expanded, grew warm, and adored. Like a visit — the converse of friends — or a day, That Bow from my sight pass'd forever away ; Like that visit, that converse, that day, to my heart, That Bow from remembrance can never depart. 'Tis a picture in memory, distinctly defined, With the stroug and imperishing colours of mind : A part of my being beyond my control, Beheld on tbat cloud, and transcribed on my soul. 208 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. THE SCEPTIC. O ! lives there, Heaven ! beneath thy dread expanse, One hopeless, dark Idolater of Chance, Content to feed, with pleasures unrefin'd, The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind ; Who, mould'ring earthward, reft of every trust, In joyless union wedded to the dust, Could all his parting energy dismiss, And call this barren world sufficient bliss ? There live, alas ! of Heaven-directed mien, Of cultured soul, and sapient eye serene, Who hail thee, man! the pilgrim of a day, Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay ! Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower, Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower ! A friendless slave, a child without a sire, Whose mortal life and momentary fire, Lights to the grave his chance-created form, As ocean- wrecks illuminate the storm ; And when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er, To night and silence sink for evermore ! Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim, Lights of the world, and demi-gods of Fame ? Is this your triumph, this your proud applause, Children of Truth, and champions of her cause ? For this hath Science search'd on weary wing, By shore and sea, each mute and living thing ? Launch'd with Iberia's pilot from the steep, To world's unknown, and isles beyond the deep ? Or round the cape her living chariot driven, And wheel'd in triumph through the signs of heaven ? THOMAS CAMPBELL. 209 star-eyed Science ! hast thou wander'd there, To waft us home the message of despair ? Then bind the palm, thy sages' brow to suit, Of blasted leaf and death-distilling fruit ! Ah me ! the laurel'd wreath that nmrder rears, Blood-nursed and water'd by the widow's tears, Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread, As waves the night-shade round the sceptic's head. What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain ? — 1 smile on death, if heav'nward Hope remain ! But if the warring winds of Nature's strife Be all the faithless charter of my life ; If Chance awaked, inexorable pow'r! This frail and feverish being of an hour, Doom'd o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep, Swift as the tempest travels on the deep, To know Delight but by her parting smile, And toil, and wish, and weep a little while ; Then melt, ye elements, that form'd in vain This troubled pulse, and visionary brain ! Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom ! And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb ! Truth, ever lovely, since the world began, The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man, — How can thy words from balmy slumber start Beposing Virtue, pillow'd on the heart! Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder roll'd, And that were true which Nature never told, Let wisdom smile not on her conquer'd field ; No rapture dawns, no treasure is reveal'd ! O ! let her read, nor loudly, nor elate, The doom that bars us from a better fate ; But, sad as angels for the good man's sin, "Weep to record, and blush to give it in ! 210 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Cease every joy to glimmer on my mind, But leave — O leave the light of Hope behind ! What though my winged hours of bliss have been Like angel- visits, few and far between ! Her musing mood shall every pang appease, And charm — when pleasures lose the power to please ! Eternal Hope ! when yonder spheres sublime Peal'd their first note to sound the march of time, Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade. "When all the sister planets have decay'd, When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below ; Thou, undismay'd, shalt o'er the ruin smile, And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile ! "Pleasures of Hope." THE ROSE OE THE WILDERNESS. At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour I have mused, in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower Where the home of my forefather's stood. All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree ; And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea. Yet, wand'ring, I found on my ruinous walk, By the dial-stone, aged and green, One rose of the wilderness, left on its stalk, To mark where a garden had been. WILDERNESS THOMAS CAMPBELL. 211 Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, All wild in the silence of Nature, it drew From each wandering sunbeam a lonely embrace, For the night-weed and thorn over-shadow'd the place "Where the flower of my forefathers grew. Sweet Bud of the Wilderness ! emblem of all That remains in this desolate heart! The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall, But patience shall never depart! Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright In the days of delusion, by fancy combined, "With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns "When the faint and the feeble deplore ; Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore ! Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain, May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate ; Tea, even the name I have worshipp'd in vain, Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again, To bear is to conquer our fate. 212 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BEITISH POETS. THE EXILE OF ERIN. There came to the heach a poor Exile of Erin, The dew on his thin rohe hung heavy and chill ; For his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing, To wander alone hy the wind-beaten hill ; But the day-star attracted his eyes' sad devotion, For it rose o'er his own native Isle of the Ocean, Where once, in the glow of his youthful emotion. He sung the bold anthem of Erin go Bragh ! O sad is my fate ! said the heart-broken stranger ; The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee ; But I have no refuge from famine or danger, A home and a country remains not for me. Ah ! never again in the green sunny bowers, Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours, Or cover my harp with the wild woven flowers, Or strike to the numbers of Erin go Bragh ! .0! where is my cottage that stood by the wild wood? Sisters and sires, did ye weep for its fall ? O ! where is the mother that watch'd o'er my childhood ? And where is the bosom friend, dearer than all? Ah ! my sad soul, long abandon'd by pleasure, O ! why did it doat on a fast-fading treasure ? Tears like the rain-drops may fall without measure, But rapture and beauty they cannot recall ! Erin, my country, though sad and forsaken, In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore ; But alas ! in a far distant land I awaken, And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more? THOMAS CAMPBELL. 213 O hard, cruel fate ! wilt thou never replace me, In a mansion of peace, where no peril can chase me ? Ah ! never again shall my brothers embrace me, They died to defend me — or live to deplore ! But yet, all its fond recollections suppressing, One dying wish my lone bosom shall draw ; Erin, an exile bequeaths thee his blessing ! Land of my forefathers, Eein go Bragh ! Buried and cold, when my heart stills its motion, Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean, And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion, O Eein ma Voueneen ! Eein go Beagh ! 214 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. 1780—1848. The author of " Lalla Rookh " was a native of Dublin. He wrote many songs, ballads, &c, together with a number of prose works, among which are the lives of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Lord Byron. THOSE EVENING BELLS. Those evening bells ! those evening bells ! How many a tale their mnsic tells, Of youth, and home, and that sweet time, "When last I heard their soothing chime. Those joyous hours are passed away ; And many a heart that then was gay, Within the tomb now darkly dwells, And hears no more those evening bells. And so 'twill be when I am gone; That tuneful peal will still ring on ; While other bards shall walk these dells, And sing your praise, sweet evening bells ! THOMAS MOORE. 215 A REFLECTION AT SEA. See how, beneath the moonbeam's smile, Yon little billow heaves its breast ; And foams and sparkles for awhile, Then, murmuring, subsides to rest. Thus man, the sport of bliss and care, Rises on Time's eventful sea ; And, having swell'd a moment there, Thus melts into eternity ! DIRGE OF HINDA. Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter ! (Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea ;) No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee. ! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing, How light was thy heart till love's witchery came ; Like the wind of the South o'er a summer lute blowing, And hush'd all its music, and wither'd its frame. But long upon Araby's green, sunny highlands, Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, With naught but the sea-star to light up her tomb. 216 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Nor shall Iran, beloved of her Hero, forget thee, Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start ; Close, close by the side of that Hero she '11 set thee, Embalm'd in the innermost shrine of her heart. Farewell ! be it ours to embellish thy pillow With everything beauteous that grows in the deep ; — Each flower of the rock, and each gem of the billow, Shall sweeten thy bed, and illumine thy sleep. Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber That ever the sorrowing sea-bird has wept ; With many a shell, in whose hollow-wreathed chamber, We Peris of ocean by moonlight have slept. We'll dive where the gardens of coral lie darkling, And plant all the rosiest stems at thy head ; We '11 seek where the sands of the Caspian are sparkling, And gather their gold to strew over thy bed. Farewell — farewell, until Pity's sweet fountain Is lost in the hearts of the fair and the brave ; They '11 weep for the chieftain who died on that mountain, They '11 weep for the maiden who sleeps in this wave. 0! BREATHE NOT HIS NAME. O ! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid ; Sad, silent, and dark be the tears that we shed, As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head. THOMAS MOORE. 217 But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps, Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps ; And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls. HIDDEN SORROW. As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow, While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below ; So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile, Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while. LITTLE THINGS. Alas ! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love ! Hearts, that the world in vain has tried, And sorrow but more closely tied : That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea When heaven was all tranquillity ! A something light as air, — a look, — A word unkind, or wrongly take?i, — O ! love, that tempest never shook, A breath, a touch like this, hath shaken. 10 218 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. lUgiualfr jftfor, 1783—1826. This distinguished divine and poet was a native of Malpas, in Cheshire, and received his education at Oxford. Before leaving the University he was looked upon as a youth of sterling poetic talent, as well as of genuine piety. After travelling quite extensively for the improvement of his mind, as much as for the gratification of his curiosity, he returned to England, where he was settled over a charge in his native diocese, and at the age of forty was appointed Bishop of Calcutta, whither he went. He was ardently devoted to the missionary work, and contemplated the beginning of great labours and severe toil ; but died in the midst of his hopes and his usefulness. His disease was ^apoplexy, and his death sudden. His works con- sist of poems, of which "Palestine" is the most celebrated; a volume of "Travels," one of "Ser- mons," and another of " Lectures," with a " Life of Bishop Taylor." REGINALD HEBER, D. D. 219 MISSIONARY HYMN. From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand ; Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand ; From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain. "What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle ; Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile : In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown ; The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone. Shall we whose souls are lighted "With wisdom from on high, Shall we to men benighted The lamp of life deny? Salvation — 0, salvation! The joyful sound proclaim, Till earth's remotest nation Has learn'd Messiah's name. Waft, waft, ye winds His story, And you, ye waters, roll, Till, like a sea of glory, It spreads from pole to pole : 220 SELECTION'S FKOM THE BRITISH POETS. Till o'er our ransom'd nature The Lamb for sinners slain, Kedeemer, King, Creator, In bliss returns to reign. HYMN. O blest were the accents of early creation, When the word of Jehovah came down from above ; In the clouds of the earth to infuse animation, And wake their cold atoms to life and to love ! And mighty the tones which the firmament rended, When on wheels of the thunder, and wings of the wind, By lightning, and hail, and thick darkness attended, He utter'd on Sinai his laws to mankind. And sweet was the voice of the First-born of Heaven, (Though poor His apparel, though earthly His form,) Who said to the mourner, "Thy sins are forgiven! " " Be whole," to the sick, and "Be still," to the storm. O Judge of the world ! when array'd in thy glory, Thy summons again shall be heard from on high ; While Nature stands trembling and naked before thee, And waits on thy sentence to live or to die ; When the heavens shall fly fast from the sound of thy thunder, And the sun, in thy lightnings, grow languid and pale, And the sea yield her dead, and the tomb cleave asunder, In the hour of thy terrors let mercy prevail ! REGINALD HEBER, D. D. 221 THE JUDGMENT. In the sun,'and moon, and stars, Signs and wonders there shall be ; Earth shall quake with inward wars, Nations with perplexity. Soon shall Ocean's hoary deep, Toss'd with stronger tempests rise ; Wilder storms the mountains sweep, Louder thunders rock the skies. Dread alarms shall shake the proud, Pale amazement, restless fear ; And amid the thunder-cloud Shall the Judge of men appear. But though from His awful face Heaven shah fade, and earth shall fly, Fear not ye, His chosen race, Your redemption draweth nigh. LIFE FADING. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, Bridal of earth and sky! The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou, alas ! must die ! Sweet rose in air whose odours wave, And colour charms the eye, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou, alas ! must die ! 222 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. Sweet spring, of days and roses made, Whose charms for beauty vie, Thy days depart, thy roses fade, Thou too, alas! must die! Be wise, then, Christian, while you may, For swiftly time is flying ; The thoughtless man that laughs to-day To-morrow will be dying ! EARLY PIETY. By cool Siloam's shady rill, How sweet the lily grows; How sweet the breath, beneath the hill, Of Sharon's dewy rose. Lo! such the child whose early feet The paths of peace have trod ; Whose secret heart, with influence sweet, Is upward drawn to God. By cool Siloam's shady rill The lily must decay ; The rose that blooms beneath the hill Must shortly fade away. And soon, too soon, the wintry hour Of man's maturer age Will shake the soul with sorrow's power, And stormy passions rage. EEGINALD HEBER, D. D. 223 O Thou whose infant feet were found "Within thy Father's shrine ! "Whose years, with changeless virtue crown'd, Were all alike divine, Dependent on Thy bounteous breath, We seek Thy grace alone ; In childhood, manhood, age and death, To keep us still Thine own. DEATH. Beneath our feet, and o'er our head, Is equal warning given ; Beneath us lie the countless dead, — Above us is the heaven. Death rides on every passing breeze, And lurks in every flower ; Each season has its own disease, — Its peril every hour. Our eyes have seen the rosy light Of youth's soft cheek decay ; And fate descend in sudden night On manhood's middle day. Our eyes have seen the steps of age Halt feebly to the tomb ; And shall earth still our hearts engage, And dreams of days to come? 224 SELECTIONS PROM THE BRITISH POETS. Turn, mortal, turn; thy danger know; Where'er thy foot can tread, The earth rings hollow from below, And warns thee by her dead. Turn, mortal, turn ; thy soul apply To truths divinely given ; The dead who underneath thee lie Shall live for hell or heaven. AFFLICTION. O ! God, who madest earth and sky, The darkness and the day, Give ear to this thy family, And help us when we pray. For wild the waves of bitterness Around our vessel roar, And heavy grows the pilot's heart To view the rocky shore. The cross our Master bore for us For Him we fain would bear ; But mortal strength to weakness turns, And courage to despair. Have mercy on our failings, Lord ! Our sinking faith renew : And when thy sorrows visit us, O send thy patience too ! REGINALD HEBER, D. D. 225 THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on oiu- darkness, and lend us thine aid ; Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where the infant Redeemer was laid. Cold on His cradle the dew-drops are shining, Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall ; Angels adore Him, in slumber reclining, Maker, and Monarch, and Saviour of all. Say, shall we yield Him in costly devotion, Odours of Eden, and off rings divine ? Gems from the mountain, and pearls from the ocean, Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine ? Vainly we offer each ample oblation ; "Vainly with gifts would His favour secure; Richer, by far, is the heart's adoration ; Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood, Nor bath'd a fetlock in the nauseous flood ; He comes — their leader comes ! tbe man of God, O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod, 10* 226 SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS. And onward treads. The circling waves retreat In hoarse, deep murmurs, from his holy feet ; And the chased surges, inly roaring, show The hard wet sand and coral hills below. "With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell, Down, down they pass — a steep and slippery dell ; Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd, The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world ; And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green, And caves, the sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are seen. Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread ; The beetling waters storm above their head : "While far behind retires the sinking day, And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray. Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light, Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night. Still in their van, along that dreadful road, Blazed broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of God. Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave, On the long mirror of the rosy wave ; While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply, Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye. — To them alone, for Misraim's wizard train Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain : Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight confine, And tenfold darkness broods above their line. Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led, And range, unconscious, through the ocean's bed : Till midway, now — that strange and fiery form Show'd his dread visage lightning through the storm ; With withering splendour blasted all their might, And brake their chariot- wheels, and marr'd their coursers' flight. " Fly, Misraim, fly ! " The ravenous floods they see, And fiercer than the floods the Deity. KEGINALD HEBER, D. D. 227 "Fly, Misraiin, fly!" From Edom's coral strand Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand : "With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep, And all is waves, a dark and lonely deep — Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past, As mortal waning swell'd the nightly hlast ; And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore. 228 SELECTIONS FEOM THE BRITISH POETS. 3 Op