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One part, one little part, we dimly scan, Through the dark medium of life's feverish dream; Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan, If but that little part incongruous seem. Nor is that part perhaps what mortals deem ; Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise. O then, renounce that impious self-esteem, That aims to trace the secrets of the skies: For thou art but of dust ; be humble, and be wise.

EXTRACTS FROM COLLINS.

ODE TO EVENING.

Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,
Like thy own brawling springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales:

O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat,
With short, shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:

Now teach me, maid compos'd,

To breathe some soften'd strain.

Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit ;

As musing slow, I hail

Thy genial love return!

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet at his warning lamp,
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge,
And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy ling'ring light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy fav'rite name!

ODE,

WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

EXTRACTS FROM GRAY.

THE BARD.

The following Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward I., when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.

I. 1.

'RUIN seize thee, ruthless King,
Confusion on thy banners wait;

Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.1
Helm nor hauberk's twisted, mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant! shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears ;
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride3
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side +
He wound with toilsome march his long array:

Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance:

To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance.

I. 2.

On a rock, whose haughty brow

Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,

1 Mocking the air with colours idly spread. — Shaks. King John.

2 The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail.

3 Dryden's Indian Queen.

4 Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous track which the Welsh themselves call Cragianeryri: it included all the high lands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway.

5 Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward.

6 Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were Lords Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied Edward in this expedition.

Robed in the sable garb of Wo,
With haggard eye the poet stood;
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air1,)
And with a master's hand and prophet's fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

'Hark, how each giant oak and desert cave
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay.

I. 3.

'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hush'd the stormy main; Brave Urien sleeps upon

his craggy

Mountains! ye mourn in vain

Modred, whose magic song

bed:

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head.
On dreary Arvon's2 shore they lie,

Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale;
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail,
The famish'd eagle 3 screams and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart",
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries
No more I weep. They do not sleep;
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,

I see them sit; they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land;

With me in dreadful harmony they join,

And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.'

1 Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind. - Milton's Paradise Lost. 2 The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the Isle of Anglesey.

3 Camden and others observe, that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named, by the Welsh, Craigian eryri, or the Crags of the Eagles. At this day the highest point of Snowdon is called the Eagle's Nest. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, &c. can testify; it even has built its nest in the Peak of Derbyshire. As dear to me as the ruddy drops

4

That visit my sad heart. Shaks. Julius Cæsar.

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