Page images
PDF
EPUB

He, whofe arrefting hand fublimely wrought
Each bold conception in the sphere of thought;
Who from the quarried mafs, like Phidias drew
Forms ever fair, creations ever new!
But as he fondly fnatch'd the wreath of Fame,
The fpectre Poverty unnerv'd his frame.
Cold was her grafp, a withering fcowl fhe wore;
And Hope's foft energies were felt no more.
Yet ftill how fweet the foothings of his art!
From the rude ftone what bright ideas start!
Ev'n now he claims the amaranthine wreath,
With fcenes that glow, with images that breathe!
And whence thefe fcenes, thefe images declare,
Whence but from her who triumphs o'erdefpair?
Awake, arife! with grateful fervour fraught,
Go fpring the mine of elevated thought.
He who thro' Nature's various walk, furveys
The good and fair her faultlefs line pourtrays;
Whole mind, prophan'd by no unhallow'dgueft,
Calls from the crowd the pureft and the beft;
May range, at will, bright Fancy's golden clime,
Or mufing, mount where Science fits fublime,
Or wake the fpirit of departed Time.
Who acts thus wifely, mark the moral muse,
A blooming Eden in his life reviews!
So richly cultur'd ev'ry native grace:
Its feanty limits he forgets to trace:
But the fond fool, when evening fhades the fky,
Turns but to ftart, and gazes but to figh!
The weary wafte, that lengthen'd as he ran,
Fades to a blank, and dwindles to a fpan!
Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind,
By truth illumin'd, and by tafte refin'd?
When age has quench'd the eye and clos'dtheear,
Still nerv'd for action in her native sphere,
Oit will the rise-with fearching glance purfue
Some long-lov'd image vanith'd from her view;
Dart thro' the deep receffes of the past,
O'er dusky forms in chains of flumber caft;
With giant-grafp fling back the folds of night,
And fnatch the faithlefs fugitive to light.
So thro' the grove th' impatient mother flies,
Each funlefs glade, each fecret pathway tries;
Till the light leaves the truant-boy difclose,
Long on the wood-mofs ftretch'd in fweet repofe.

§ 148. From the Same.

OFT may the fpirits of the dead defcend,
To watch the filent flumbers of a friend;
To hover round his evening-walk unfeen,
To hail the fpot where firft their friendship grew,
And hold fweet converfe on the dusky green;
And heaven and nature open'd to their view!
Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and fees
A fmiling circle emulous to please;
There may thefe gentle guefts delight to dwell,
And blefs the fcene they lov'd in life fo well
O thou! with whom my heart was wont to
[care;
From Reafon's dawn each pleasure and each
With whom, alas! I fondly hop'd to know
The humble walks of happiness below;

fhare

If thy bleft nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preferve thy mild controul,
Correct my views, and elevate my foul:
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout yet chearful, active yet refign'd;
Grant me, like thee, whofe heart knewnodisguise,
Whofe blameless withes never aim'd to rife,
To meet the changes Time and Chance prefent,
With modeft dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere Nature funk to reft,
Thy meek fubmiflion to thy God exprefs'd;
When thy laft look, ere thought and feeling fied,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph flied;
What to thy foul its glad affurance gave,
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The fweet Remembrance of unblemish'd youth,
The infpiring voice of Innocence and Truth!

Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine!
Thought and her thadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are fubject to thy fway!
Thy pleasures moft we feel when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's fummer-vifions die,
If but a flecting cloud obfcure the sky;
If but a beam of iober Reafon play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy froft-work melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-fpent hour?
Thefe,when the trembling fpirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a ftream of living light;
And gild thofe pure and perfect realns of reft,
Where Virtue triumphs, and her fons are bleft.

$149. Verfes on a Tear. From the Same.

OH!

that the Chemift's magic art
Long thould it glitter near my heart,
Could cryftallize this facred treafure!
A fecret fource of penfive pleasure.
The little brilliant ere it fell,

Its luftre caught from Chloe's eye;
Then trembling, left its coral cell-
The fpring of Sensibility!

Sweet drop of pure and pearly light,
In thee the rays of Virtue fhine;
Than any gem that gilds the mine."
More calmly clear, more mildly bright,
Benign reftorer of the foul!

When firft the feels the rude controul
Who ever fly' to bring relief,
Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.
The fage's and the poet's theme,
In every clime, in every age;
Thou charm'ft in Fancy's idle dream,
In Reafon's philofophic page.
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its fource,
That law preferves the earth a fphere,
And guides the planets in their courfe.

The law of Gravitation.

§ 150.

$150. A Sketch of the Alps at Day-break. From the Same.

THE fun beams ftreak the azure skies,

And line with light the mountain's brow:
With hounds and horns the hunters rife,
And chafe the roe-buck thro' the fnow.
From rock to rock, with giant bound,
High on their iron poles they pafs;
Mute, left the air, convuls'd by found,
Rend from above a frozen mafs.*

The goats wind flow their wonted way,
Up craggy fteeps and ridges rude;
Mark'd by the wild wolf for his prey,
From defert cave or hanging wood.
And while the torrent thunders loud,
And as the echoing cliffs reply,
The huts peep o'er the morning cloud,
Perch'd, like an eagle's neft, on high.

$151. A Wish. From the Same.

MINE be a cot befide the hill;

A bee-hive's hum fhall footh my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall fhall linger near. The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch, Shall twitter from her clay-built neft; Oft fhall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a welcome guest. Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew; And Lucy at her wheel fhall fing, In ruffet gown and apron blue. The village-church, among the trees, Where first our marriage vows were giv'n, With merry peals fhall fwell the breeze, And point with taper fpire to heav'n.

$152. An Ode on Claffic Education†.
Down the fteep abrupt of hills

Furious foams the headlong tide.
Thro' the meads the streamlet trills,
Swelling flow in gentle pride.
Ruin vaft and dread difmay
Mark the clam'rous cataract's way.
Glad increase and fweets benign
Round the riv'let's margin fhine.

Youth! with steadfast eye perufe
Scenes to lefion thee display'd;
Yes-in these the moral Mufe
Bids thee fee thyfe portray'd.
Thou with headstrong wasteful force
May't reflect the torrent's course;
Or resemble streams, that flow
Bleft and bleffing as they go.

Infant fenfe to all our kind

Pure the young ideas brings,

From within the fountain mind

Iffuing at a thousand springs.

ANON.

Who fhall make the current stray
Smooth along the channell'd way?
Who fhall, as it runs, refine?
Who? but CLASSIC DISCIPLINE.
She, whatever fond defire,
Stubborn deed or guileful fpeech,
Inexperience might infpire,
Or abfurd indulgence teach,
Timely cautious fhall restrain,
Bidding childhood heart the rein
She with fport fhall labour mix,
She excurfive fancy fix.

Prime fupport of learned lore, PERSEVERENCE joins her train, Pages oft turn'd o'er and o'er Turning o'er and o'er again; Giving, in due form of school, Speech its meafure, pow'r, and rule: Meanwhile memory's treasures grow Great tho' gradual; fure, tho' flow. Patient CARE by just degrees Word and image learns to clafs; Thofe compounds, and fep'rates these, As in strict review they pass; Joins, as various features strike, Fit to fit and like to like, Till in meek array advance Concord, Method, Elegance.

TIME meanwhile, from day to day, Fixes deeper Virtue's root; Whence, in long fucceffion gay, Bloffoms many a lively thoot: Meek OBEDIENCE, following fill, Frank and glad, a Mafter's will; Modeft CANDOUR, hearing prone Any judgment fave its own:

EMULATION, whofe keen eye Forward ftill and forward strains, Nothing ever deeming high While a higher hope rerrains: SHAME ingenuous, native, free, Source of confcious dignity": ZEAL impartial to purfue Right, and juft, and good and true. Thefe and ev'ry kindred grace More and more perfection gain; While ATTENTION toils to trace Grave record or lofty ftrain; Learning how, in Virtue's pride, Sages liv'd or heroes died;" Marking how in virtue's caufe Genius gave and won applause. Thus with EARLY CULTURE blest, Thus to early rule inur'd, Infancy's expanding breaft Glows with fenfe and pow'rs matur'd, Whence, if future merit raise Private love or public praife,

Thine is all the work-be thine

The glory-CLASSIC DISCIPLINE.

There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing,

lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above. GRAY, sect. v. let. 4. Spoken in the year 1794, at the annual Visitation of Dr. Knox's School at Tunbridge.

Audit currus habenas. VIRGIL.

END OF THE SECOND BOOK.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][ocr errors]

Suit the Action to the Word & the Word to the Action; with this special observance, that you o'erftep not the Modefty of Nature.

Shakespeare.

POETICAL.

BOOK THE THIRD:

DRAMATIC, CHIEFLY

FROM SHAKSPEARE.

§1. ALL's WELL THAT ENDS WELL. | Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull

[blocks in formation]

few;

Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than ufe; and keep thyfriend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for
filence

more will

But never tax'd for fpeech. What heaven
[down,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck
Fall on thy head!

Too ambitious Love.

I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I fhould love a bright particular ftar,
And think to wed it, he is fo above me!
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Muft I be comforted, not in his sphere,
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itfelf:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty tho' a plague,
To fee him every hour; to fit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table: heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his fweet favour!
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Muft fanctify his relics.

A parafitical, vain Coward

I know him a notorious liar;

Our flow defigns, when we ourfelves are dull.
Impoffible be ftrange attempts to thofe
That weigh their pain in fenfe, and do suppose
What hath been cannot be. Who ever ftrove

To fhew her merit, that did mifs her love?
Character of a noble Courtier, by an old

Cotemporary.

King. I would I had that corporal foundness

now,

As when thy father and myself in friendship
Firft tried our foldierfhip! He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Difcipled of the braveft. He lafted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father. In his youth
He had the wit which I can well obferve
To day in our young Lords; but they may jeft
Till their own fcorn return to them unnoted,
Ere thy can hide their levity in honour:
So like a courtier, no contempt or bitterness
Were in his pride or fharpnefs; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them: and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him fpeak; and at that time
His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below
He us'd as creatures of another place, Chim
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility.
In their poor praife he humbled: fuch a man
Might be a copy to thefe younger times,
Which,follow'dwell, would demonftrate them
But goers backward.
[now
Would I were with him!-He would always
fay-

(Methinks I hear him now) his plaufive words He fcatter'd not in ears; but grafted them To grow there, and to bear; 'Let me not live' fteelyThus his good melancholy oft began,

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward;
Yet thefe fix'd evils fit fo fit in him,
That they take place, when virtue's
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft

bones

we fee

On the catastrophe and heel of paftime, [he, When it was out-Let me not live, quoth 'After my flame lacks oil; to be the fnuff Of younger fpirits, whofe apprehenfive fenfes All but new things difdain; whofe judg [ftancies 'Mere fathers of their garments; whofe conWhich we afcribe to Heaven. The fated fky Expire before their fashions.-This hewifhed

Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.
The Remedy of Evils generally in yourselves.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

ments are

N n

I, after

« PreviousContinue »