What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green; Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood; The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what sense, so subtly true, From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew! How Instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine! "Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier! For ever separate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and Reflection, how allied;
What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide! And Middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never pass the insuperable line! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? The powers of all, subdued by thee alone, Is not thy Reason all these powers in one?
OMNIPRESENCE OF THE DEITY.
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 th' 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 a 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.
Gay was a native of Devonshire. He was apprenticed to a silk-mercer in London, but disliking his employment, he finally got his discharge. His poetical talents soon attracted attention. In 1713 he was appointed secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and in the following year he accompanied the embassy to Hanover. After his return, he wrote several plays, the most successful of which was The Beggar's Opera, still a favourite on the stage, and which gave rise to the English opera, a species of light comedy, enlivened by songs and music. Of Gay's poems, the most popular are his Fables, which in liveliness and point have never been matched, and his song of Black-eyed Susan.
THE HARE AND MANY FRIENDS. From his Fables.
Friendship, like love, is but a name, Unless to one you stint the flame. The child whom many fathers share, Hath seldom known a father's care. 'Tis thus in friendship; who depend On many, rarely find a friend.
A Hare, who in a civil way, Complied with everything, like GAY, Was known by all the bestial train, Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain. Her care was never to offend, And every creature was her friend.
As forth she went at early dawn, To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn, Behind she hears the hunter's cries, And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies: She starts, she stops, she pants for breath; She hears the near advance of death; She doubles, to mislead the hound, And measures back her mazy round; Till, fainting in the public way, Half dead with fear she gasping lay; What transport in her bosom grew, When first the Horse appeared in view ! 'Let me,' says she, 'your back ascend, And owe my safety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight; To friendship every burden's light.' The Horse replied: 'Poor honest Puss, It grieves my heart to see thee thus ; Be comforted; relief is near,
For all your friends are in the rear.'
She next the stately Bull implored, And thus replied the mighty lord: 'Since every beast alive can tell That I sincerely wish you well, I may, without offence, pretend To take the freedom of a friend. Love calls me hence; a favourite cow Expects me near yon barley-mow; And when a lady's in the case,
You know, all other things give place. To leave you thus might seem unkind; But see, the Goat is just behind.'
The Goat remarked her pulse was high, Her languid head, her heavy eye; 'My back,' says he, 'may do you harm; The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm.'
The Sheep was feeble, and complained His sides a load of wool sustained: Said he was slow, confessed his fears, For hounds eat sheep as well as hares. She now the trotting Calf addressed, To save from death a friend distressed. 'Shall I,' says he, 'of tender age, In this important care engage ? Older and abler passed you by ; How strong are those, how weak am I! Should I presume to bear you hence, Those friends of mine may take offence. Excuse me, then. You know my heart; But dearest friends, alas! must part. How shall we all lament! Adieu! For, see, the hounds are just in view!'
JAMES THOMSON: 1700-1748.
Thomson was the son of a Scottish clergyman in Roxburghshire. On the death of his father he went to London, where, in 1726, he published his poem of Winter. Three other compositions, Summer, Spring, and Autumn followed, and the four were afterwards published under the title of The Seasons. Besides some tragedies, which met with considerable success, Thomson wrote a long poem called Liberty, and The Castle of Indolence, a poem in imitation of Spenser, which is considered the most perfect of all his works.
A TRAVELLER LOST IN THE SNOW.
As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce, All Winter drives along the darkened air, In his own loose-revolving fields the swain Disastered 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 Rush 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, which fancy feigned His tufted cottage rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track and blest abode of man: While round him night resistless closes fast, And every tempest, howling o'er his head, Renders the savage wilderness more wild. Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, Of covered pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost ; Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smoothed 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 Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mixed 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 the officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling 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 snow, a stiffened corse, Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY WINTER.
"Tis done !—Dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
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