Part 10
While some, on earnest business bent Their murmuring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty: Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind And snatch a fearful joy.
Gay Hope is theirs by fancy fed, Less pleasing when possest; The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast: Theirs buxom Health, of rosy hue, Wild Wit, Invention ever new, And lively Cheer, of Vigour born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light That fly th' approach of morn.
Alas! regardless of their doom The little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come Nor care beyond to-day: Yet see how all around 'em wait The ministers of human fate And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah shew them where in ambush stand To seize their prey, the murderous band! Ah, tell them they are men!
These shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.
Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high To bitter Scorn a sacrifice And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye, That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.
Lo, in the Vale of Years beneath A griesly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their Queen: This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every labouring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo, Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand, And slow-consuming Age.
To each his sufferings: all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise! No more;--where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.
T. GRAY.
159. HYMN TO ADVERSITY.
Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy Sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, To thee he gave the heavenly birth And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.
Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer Friend, the flattering Foe; By vain Prosperity received To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.
And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye, that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the general friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread Goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen) With thundering voice, and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:
Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.
T. GRAY.
160. THE SOLITUDE OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK.
I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute; From the centre all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute. O Solitude! Where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms Than reign in this horrible place.
I am out of humanity's reach, I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech; I start at the sound of my own. The beasts that roam over the plain My form with indifference see; They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me.
Society, Friendship, and Love Divinely bestow'd upon man, O had I the wings of a dove How soon would I taste you again! My sorrows I then might assuage In the ways of religion and truth, Might learn from the wisdom of age, And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.
Ye winds that have made me your sport, Convey to this desolate shore Some cordial endearing report Of a land I shall visit no more: My friends, do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me? O tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see.
How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-wingéd arrows of light. When I think of my own native land In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.
But the seafowl is gone to her nest, The beast is laid down in his lair; Even here is a season of rest, And I to my cabin repair. There's mercy in every place, And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace And reconciles man to his lot.
W. COWPER.
161. TO MARY UNWIN.
Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That ere through age or woe I shed my wings I may record thy worth with honour due, In verse as musical as thou art true And that immortalizes whom it sings:--
But thou hast little need. There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright-- There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And since, thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
W. COWPER.
162. TO MARY.
The twentieth year is well nigh past Since first our sky was overcast; Ah would that this might be the last! My Mary!
Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow-- 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, My Mary!
Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, Now rust disused, and shine no more; My Mary!
For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil The same kind office for me still, Thy sight now seconds not thy will, My Mary!
But well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary!
Thy indistinct expressions seem Like language utter'd in a dream; Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme, My Mary!
Thy silver locks, once auburn bright Are still more lovely in my sight Than golden beams of orient light, My Mary!
For could I view nor them nor thee, What sight worth seeing could I see? The sun would rise in vain for me, My Mary!
Partakers of thy sad decline Thy hands their little force resign; Yet gently press'd, press gently mine, My Mary!
Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st That now at every step thou mov'st Upheld by two; yet still thou lov'st, My Mary!
And still to love, though press'd with ill, In wintry age to feel no chill, With me is to be lovely still, My Mary!
But ah! by constant heed I know How oft the sadness that I show Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe, My Mary!
And should my future lot be cast With much resemblance of the past Thy worn-out heart will break at last-- My Mary!
W. COWPER.
163. THE DYING MAN IN HIS GARDEN.
Why, Damon, with the forward day Dost thou thy little spot survey, From tree to tree, with doubtful cheer, Pursue the progress of the year, What winds arise, what rains descend, When thou before that year shalt end?
What do thy noontide walks avail, To clear the leaf, and pick the snail, Then wantonly to death decree An insect usefuller than thee? Thou and the worm are brother-kind, As low, as earthy, and as blind.
Vain wretch! canst thou expect to see The downy peach make court to thee? Or that thy sense shall ever meet The bean-flower's deep-embosom'd sweet Exhaling with an evening blast? Thy evenings then will all be past!
Thy narrow pride, thy fancied green (For vanity's in little seen), All must be left when Death appears, In spite of wishes, groans, and tears; Nor one of all thy plants that grow But Rosemary will with thee go.
G. SEWELL.
164. TO-MORROW.
In the downhill of life, when I find I'm declining, May my lot no less fortunate be Than a snug elbow-chair can afford for reclining, And a cot that o'erlooks the wide sea; With an ambling pad-pony to pace o'er the lawn, While I carol away idle sorrow, And blithe as the lark that each day hails the dawn Look forward with hope for to-morrow.
With a porch at my door, both for shelter and shade too, As the sunshine or rain may prevail; And a small spot of ground for the use of the spade too, With a barn for the use of the flail: A cow for my dairy, a dog for my game, And a purse when a friend wants to borrow; I'll envy no nabob his riches or fame, Nor what honours await him to-morrow.
From the bleak northern blast may my cot be completely Secured by a neighbouring hill; And at night may repose steal upon me more sweetly By the sound of a murmuring rill: And while peace and plenty I find at my board, With a heart free from sickness and sorrow, With my friends may I share what to-day may afford, And let them spread the table to-morrow.
And when I at last must throw off this frail covering Which I've worn for three-score years and ten, On the brink of the grave I'll not seek to keep hovering, Nor my thread wish to spin o'er again: But my face in the glass I'll serenely survey, And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow; As this old worn-out stuff, which is threadbare to-day May become everlasting to-morrow.
-- COLLINS.
165.
Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; And when, or how, or where we met I own to me's a secret yet.
Life! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear-- Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; --Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good Night,--but in some brighter clime Bid me Good Morning.
A L. BARBAULD.
FOURTH BOOK.
SUMMARY.
It proves sufficiently the lavish wealth of our own age in Poetry, that the pieces which, without conscious departure from the standard of Excellence, render this Book by far the longest, were with very few exceptions composed during the first thirty years the nineteenth century. Exhaustive reasons can hardly be given for the strangely sudden appearance of individual genius: but none, in the Editor's judgment, can be less adequate than that which assigns the splendid national achievements of our recent poetry, to an impulse from the frantic follies and criminal wars that at the time disgraced the least essentially civilised of our foreign neighbours. The first French Revolution was rather, in his opinion, one result, and in itself by no means the most important, of that far wider and greater spirit which through enquiry and doubt, through pain and triumph, sweeps mankind round the circles of its gradual development: and it is to this that we must trace the literature of modern Europe. But, without more detailed discussion on the motive causes of Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, Keats, and Shelley, we may observe that these Poets, with others, carried to further perfection the later tendencies of the Century preceding, in simplicity of narrative, reverence for human Passion and Character in every sphere, and impassioned love of Nature:--that, whilst maintaining on the whole the advances in art made since the Restoration, they renewed the half-forgotten melody and depth of tone which marked the best Elizabethan writers:--that, lastly, to what was thus inherited they added a richness in language and a variety in metre, a force and fire in narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, an insight into the finer passages of the Soul and the inner meanings of the landscape, a larger and wiser Humanity,--hitherto hardly attained, and perhaps unattainable even by predecessors of not inferior individual genius. In a word, the Nation which, after the Greeks in their glory, has been the most gifted of all nations for Poetry, expressed in these men the highest strength and prodigality of its nature. They interpreted the age to itself--hence the many phases of thought and style they present:--to sympathise with each, fervently and impartially, without fear and without fancifulness, is no doubtful step in the higher education of the Soul. For, as with the Affections and the Conscience, Purity in Taste is absolutely proportionate to Strength:--and when once the mind has raised itself to grasp and to delight in Excellence, those who love most will be found to love most wisely.
166. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
--Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
J. KEATS.
167. ODE ON THE POETS.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Doubled-lived in regions new? --Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains wonderous And the parle of voices thunderous; With the whisper of heaven's trees And one another, in soft ease Seated on Elysian lawns Browsed by none but Dian's fawns; Underneath large blue-bells tented, Where the daisies are rose-scented, And the rose herself has got Perfume which on earth is not; Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, trancéd thing, But divine melodious truth; Philosophic numbers smooth; Tales and golden histories Of heaven and its mysteries.
Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim:-- Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!
J. KEATS.
168. LOVE.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay Beside the ruin'd tower.
The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!
She lean'd against the arméd man, The statue of the arméd knight; She stood and listen'd to my lay, Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve.
I play'd a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story-- An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace; For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he woo'd The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own.
She listen'd with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace; And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face.
But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade.
There came and look'd him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight!
And that unknowing what he did, He leap'd amid a murderous band, And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land;
And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; And how she tended him in vain; And ever strove to expiate The scorn that crazed his brain;
And that she nursed him in a cave, And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay;
--His dying words--but when I reach'd That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturb'd her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve; The music and the doleful tale, The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng, And gentle wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherish'd long!
She wept with pity and delight, She blush'd with love, and virgin shame; And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved--she stepp'd aside, As conscious of my look she stept-- Then suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see. The swelling of her heart.
I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve, My bright and beauteous Bride.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
169. ALL FOR LOVE.
O talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.
What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? 'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled: Then away with all such from the head that is hoary-- What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?
O Fame!--if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.
LORD BYRON.
170. THE OUTLAW.
O Brignall banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there Would grace a summer-queen. And as I rode by Dalton-Hall Beneath the turrets high, A Maiden on the castle-wall Was singing merrily: "O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green; I'd rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English queen."
"If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me, To leave both tower and town, Thou first must guess what life lead we That dwell by dale and down. And if thou canst that riddle read, As read full well you may, Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed As blithe as Queen of May." Yet sung she "Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are green; I'd rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English queen.
"I read you by your bugle-horn And by your palfrey good, I read you for a ranger sworn To keep the King's greenwood." "A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn, And 'tis at peep of light; His blast is heard at merry morn, And mine at dead of night." Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are gay; I would I were with Edmund there To reign his Queen of May!
"With burnish'd brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum." "I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear; But when the beetle sounds his hum My comrades take the spear. And O! though Brignall banks be fair, And Greta woods be gay, Yet mickle must the maiden dare, Would reign my Queen of May!
"Maiden! a nameless life I lead, A nameless death I'll die; The fiend whose lantern lights the mead Were better mate than I! And when I'm with my comrades met Beneath the greenwood bough, What once we were we all forget, Nor think what we are now.
_Chorus._
Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather flowers there Would grace a summer-queen.
SIR W. SCOTT.
171.
There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like Thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing The charméd ocean's pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lull'd winds seem dreaming And the midnight moon is weaving Her bright chain o'er the deep, Whose breast is gently heaving, As an infant's asleep: So the spirit bows before thee To listen and adore thee; With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
LORD BYRON.
172. LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR.
I arise from dreams of Thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Hath led me--who knows how? To thy chamber-window, Sweet!