Rhymed Lessons for August. BEATTIE'S "HERMIT." Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove : "T was thus by the cave of the mountain afar, While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began: No more with himself or with nature at war, He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man. Ah! why, all abandoned to darkness and woe, Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall? For Spring shall return, and a lover bestow, And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthrall: But if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay, Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to 'Now gliding remote on the verge of the sky, The moon half-extinguished her crescent displays : But lately I marked, when majestic on high She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendor again; But man's faded glory what change shall renew? Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain! "Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. [shade, O pity, great Father of Light,' then I cried, "Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Lo, humbled in dust I relinquish my pride: [Thee; From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free!' And darkness and doubt are now flying away; The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom! On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb. POPE'S "UNIVERSAL ORDER." ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul; That changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent; Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in an hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all, Cease, then, nor order imperfection name : Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit. In this, or any other sphere, AUTUMN-SEPTEMBER. THOMSON'S "AUTUMN." ARGUMENT. The subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect of the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praise of industry raised by that view. Reaping. A tale relative to it. A harvest storm. Shooting and hunting; their barbarity. A ludicrous account of fox-hunting. A view of an orchard. Wall-fruit. A vineyard. A description of fogs, frequent in the latter part of autumn; whence a digression, inquiring into the rise of fountains and rivers. Birds of season considered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western isles of Scotland. Hence a view of the country. A prospect of the discolored, fading woods. After a gentle, dusky day, moonlight. Autumnal meteors. Morning; to which succeeds a calm, pure, sunshiny day, such as usually shuts up the season. The harvest being gathered in, the country dissolved in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical country life. THE AUTUMN OF THE YEAR. CROWNED with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more, Well-pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost Nitrous prepared; the various-blossomed Spring Put in white promise forth; and summer-suns Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view, Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme. DEDICATION TO MR. ONSLOW.PATRIOTISM. Onslow the Muse, ambitious of thy name, To grace, inspire, and dignify her song, Would from the public voice thy gentle ear A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows, The patriot virtues that distend thy thought, Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow; While listening senates hang upon thy tongue, Devolving through the maze of eloquence A roll of periods, sweeter than her song. But she too pants for public virtue; she, Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will, Whene'er her country rushes on her heart, Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame. THE SKY OF AUTUMN, BLUE, COOL, AND GOLDEN. — THE RIPE CROP. When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days, And Libra weighs in equal scales the year; From Heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook Of parting Summer, a serener blue, With golden light enlivened, wide invests The happy world. Attempered suns arise, Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid clouds A pleasing.calm; while broad, and brown, below Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun THE PRAISE OF INDUSTRY, THE CIVILIZER. These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power! Whom labor still attends, and sweat, and pain; Yet the kind source of every gentle art, And all the soft civility of life : Raiser of humankind! by nature cast, Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods And wilds, to rude inclement elements; With various seeds of art deep in the mind Implanted, and profusely poured around Materials infinite, but idle all. THE SAVAGE; EXPOSED; COMFORTLESS; HOMELESS. Still unexerted, in the unconscious breast, Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still, Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand Of bounty scattered o'er the savage year: And still the sad barbarian, roving, mixed With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch ! Aghast, and comfortless, when the bleak north, With Winter charged, let the mixed tempest fly, Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter breathing frost : Then to the shelter of the hut he fled; And the wild seasons, sordid, pined away. THE SWEETS OF HOME; PROGRESS OF THE SAVAGE, AIDED BY INDUSTRY, TO ART; AND THROUGH ART TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. For home he had not; home is the resort Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, Supporting and supported, polished friends, And dear relations, mingle into bliss. But this the rugged savage never felt, E'en desolate in crowds; and thus his days Rolled heavy, dark, and unenjoyed along, A waste of time! till Industry approached, And roused him from his miserable sloth; His faculties unfolded; pointed out, Where lavish Nature the directing hand Of Art demanded; showed him how to raise His feeble force by the mechanic powers; To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth; On what to turn the piercing rage of fire, On what the torrent, and the gathered blast; Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe; Taught him to chip the wood, and hew the stone, Till by degrees the finished fabric rose; THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT; CIVIL LIBERTY; JUSTICE. — REFINEMENT. CITIES NURSES OF ART. Then gathering men their natural powers comAnd formed a public; to the general good [bined, Submitting, aiming, and conducting all. For this the Patriot-Council met, the full, The free, and fairly represented Whole; For this they planned the holy guardian laws, Distinguished orders, animated arts, And, with joint force Oppression chaining, set Imperial Justice at the helm, yet still To them accountable: nor slavish dreamed That toiling millions must resign their weal, And all the honey of their search, to such As for themselves alone themselves have raised. Hence every form of cultivated life In order set, protected, and inspired, Into perfection wrought. Uniting all, Society grew numerous, high, polite, And happy. Nurse of art! the city reared In beauteous pride her tower-encircled head; And, stretching street on street, by thousands drew, From twining woody haunts, or the tough yew To bows strong-straining, her aspiring sons. COMMERCE; STORES; SHIPS; THE BRITISH NAVY. Then Commerce brought into the public walk The boat, light-skimming, stretched its oary wings; LUXURY; THE FINE ARTS. Then too the pillared dome, magnific, heaved Its ample roof; and Luxury within Poured out her glittering stores: the canvas smooth, With glowing life protuberant, to the view GIFTS OF INDUSTRY TO WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, AND All is the gift of industry; whate'er Exalts, embellishes, and renders life Delightful. Pensive Winter, cheered by him, Sits at the social fire, and happy hears The excluded tempest idly rave along; His hardened fingers deck the gaudy Spring; Without him Summer were an arid waste; Nor to the autumnal months could thus transmit Those full, mature, immeasurable stores, That, waving round, recall my wandering song. THE REAPERS, YOUTHS AND MAIDENS; THE HARVEST. At once they stoop, and swell the lusty sheaves; THE CLEANERS. — CHARITY TO THE POOR ENFORCED. The gleaners spread around, and here and there, Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick. Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, The liberal handful. Think, O grateful think! How good the God of Harvest is to you; Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields; While these unhappy partners of your kind Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, And ask their humble dole. The various turns Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give. STORY OF PALEMON AND LAVINIA. HER PARENTAGE AND The lovely young Lavinia once had friends; Almost on nature's common bounty fed; HER BEAUTY DESCRIBED. LOVELINESS UNADORNED. Her form was fresher than the morning rose, When the dew wets its leaves; unstained and pure As is the lily, or the mountain snow. The modest Virtues mingled in her eyes, Still on the ground dejected, darting all Their humid beams into the blooming flowers: Or when the mournful tale her mother told, Of what her faithless fortune promised once, Thrilled in her thought, they, like the dewy star Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace Sat fair-proportioned on her polished limbs, Veiled in a simple robe, their best attire, Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is, when unadorned, adorned the most. Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self, Recluse amid the close-embowering woods. LAVINIA GLEANS IN THE FIELDS OF PALEMON. PALEMON DESCRIBED. ARCADIAN LIFE. As in the hollow breast of Apennine, And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild; SOLILOQUY OF PALEMON. ACASTO. That very moment love and chaste desire Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown ; For still the world prevailed and its dread laugh, Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn, — Should his heart own a gleaner in the field; And thus in secret to his soul he sighed : What pity that so delicate a form, By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell, Should be devoted to the rude embrace Of some indecent clown! she looks, methinks, Of old Acasto's line; and to my mind Recalls that patron of my happy life, LAVINIA IS ACASTO'S DAughter. When, strict inquiring, from herself he found She was the same, the daughter of his friend, Of bountiful Acasto-who can speak The mingled passions that surprised his heart, And through his nerves in shivering transport ran? Then blazed his smothered flame, avowed, and bold; And as he viewed her, ardent, o'er and o'er, Love, gratitude, and pity, wept at once. Confused, and frightened at his sudden tears, Her rising beauties flushed a higher bloom, As thus Palemon, passionate and just, Poured out the pious rapture of his soul: PALEMON'S WOOING. And art thou, then, Acasto's dear remains? Transplant thee safe! where vernal suns and showers LAVINIA WON; DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. Here ceased the youth: yet still his speaking eye Expressed the sacred triumph of his soul, With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love, Above the vulgar joy divinely raised. Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm In sweet disorder lost, she blushed consent. THE SUMMER HURRICANE. Defeating oft the labors of the year, THE SUMMER TEMPEST. DELUGE OF RAIN. INUNDATION. And sometimes too a burst of rain, Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends THE DISAPPOINTED FARMER AND HIS LANDLORD. Fled to some eminence, the husbandman |