Beneath the lamp the lady bow'd, And slowly roll'd her eyes around; Then drawing in her breath aloud Like one that shudder'd, she unbound The cincture from beneath her breast; Her silken robe and inner vest, Dropt to her feet, and full in view, Behold! her bosom and half her side— A sight to dream of, not to tell! O shield her! shield sweet Christabel.

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs; Ah! what a stricken look was hers! Deep from within seems half-way To lift some weight with sick assay, And eyes the maid and seeks delay; Then suddenly as one defied Collects herself in scorn and pride, And lay down by the maiden's side!— And in her arms the maid she took, Ah, well-a-day! And with low voice and doleful look These words did say: "In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel! Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow; But vainly thou warrest, For this is alone in Thy power to declare, That in the dim forest Thou heardest a low moaning, And foundest a bright lady, surpassingly fair: And didst bring her home with thee in love and in charity, To shield her and shelter her from the damp air."

NOTES

The first part of the unfinished poem, "Christabel," was written in 1797, the second part which, however, left the story apparently as incomplete as before, in 1808. The two parts were first published in 1816. The poem is a picture of white innocence, purity, and truth, pursued and persecuted by the powers of evil. Its incompleteness seems to enhance its interest. "Completion could scarcely have failed to lessen its reality, for the reader could not have endured, neither could the poet's own theory have endured, the sacrifice of Christabel, the triumph of evil over good; and had she triumphed, there is a vulgar well-being in victory which has nothing to do with such a strain."

"Such is the unfinished and unfinishable tale of Christabel—a poem which, despite its broken notes and over-brevity, has raised its author to the highest rank of poets, and which in itself is at once one of the sweetest, loftiest, most spiritual utterances that has ever been framed in English words. We know of no existing poem in any language to which we can compare it. It stands by itself exquisite, celestial, ethereal,—a song of the spheres,—yet full of such pathos and tenderness and sorrowful beauty as only humanity can give."—Blackwood's Magazine, 1871.

It is worthy of note that "Christabel" was the immediate inspiration of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel." "It is to Mr. Coleridge," says Sir Walter, "that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due from the pupil to his master." "But certainly," says Hales, "Scott himself never succeeded in surrounding any one of his works with so fine an atmosphere of glamour and romance."

The language and metrical arrangement of this poem are not only peculiar but are in full accord with the weird and fantastic conception of the piece as a whole. The versification is based upon a principle not commonly practised—that of counting the number of accentuated words in a line instead of the number of syllables. Though the latter varies from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents never exceed four. The result is an irregular, but strangely beautiful harmony of a kind that can hardly be attained through the ordinary methods of versification.

This poem is to be studied for its exquisite beauty, for the true poetic qualities which it possesses and which distinguish it from mere verse. Hence, no explanatory notes are given with reference to any particular passage, nor is it desirable that it should be analyzed with a view to grammatical or philological study. It should be read and reread until the student is thoroughly in accord with the poetic spirit which breathes in and vivifies the entire production. "It was indolence, no doubt, that left the tale half told—indolence and misery—and a poetic instinct higher than all the better impulses of industry and virtuous gain. The subject by its very nature was incomplete; it had to be left a lovely, weird suggestion—a vision for every eye that could see."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born at Ottery Saint Mary, October 21, 1772. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Jesus College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-two he left the University without having taken a degree. He was an intimate friend of Charles Lamb and Southey, and with the latter formed a wild scheme for the founding of a "Pantisocratic State" in America, which, however, was soon abandoned. His first book of poetry was published in 1794. In 1796 he and Charles Lamb published a volume of poems together. He soon afterwards became acquainted with Wordsworth, and in 1798 the two brought out their famous volume of Lyrical Ballads, containing some of Wordsworth's best pieces and Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." "Christabel," after lying in manuscript for several years, was published in 1816, three editions being issued within twelve months. Coleridge's chief poems were published in 1817 in a collection entitled Sibylline Leaves, so called, he says, "in allusion to the fragmentary and wildly scattered state in which they had long been suffered to remain." At about the same time he was received into the house of Mr. Gillman, a surgeon residing at Highgate, in order to be cured if possible of his excessive use of opium. Here he produced his more important prose works, Aids to Reflection, and On the Constitution of Church and State; and here he died, July 25, 1834.

Coleridge was forever planning and designing,—beginning a work and leaving its completion until to-morrow—which never came. He devoted his attention only sparingly to poetry—and that chiefly during his youth. Later in life he was occupied with political, social, and religious questions. "He was a living Hamlet, full of the most splendid thoughts and the noblest purposes, but a most incompetent doer." "His mind," wrote Southey, "is a perpetual St. Vitus's dance—eternal activity without action."

"Of Coleridge's best verses," says Swinburne, "I venture to affirm that the world has nothing like them, and can never have; that they are of the highest kind, and of their own. They are jewels of the diamond's price, flowers of the rose's rank, but unlike any rose or diamond known."

"His best work is but little," says Stopford Brooke, "but of its kind it is perfect and unique. . . . All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in pure gold."

Other Poems to be Read: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni; Ode to France; Genevieve.

REFERENCES: Swinburne's Studies and Essays; Shairp's Studies in Poetry; Carlyle's Reminiscences; Coleridge's Biographia Literaria; De Quincey's Essays; Coleridge (English Men of Letters), by H. D. Traill; Hazlitt's English Poets; Hunt's Imagination and Fancy; Chorley's Authors of England; Walter Pater's Apprecia.



Percy Bysshe Shelley.



TO A SKYLARK

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse{1} strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still, and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The deep blue thou wingest,{2} And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun,{3} O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains{4} out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;— What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought{5} To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its arial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite{6} or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,{7} Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance Langour cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep; Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream— Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after, And pine for what is not:{8} Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught: Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures Of delight and sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

NOTES.

This is perhaps the most perfect lyric of its kind in the English language. Every verse is worthy of careful study, and it should be read and reread until its exquisite melody is felt and the subtle thoughts which it embodies fully understood. Yet there is little in the poem which requires annotation—the lark's song itself admits of no explanation.

"For sweetness the 'Ode to a Skylark' is inferior only to Coleridge, in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings,—enthusiastic, enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone,—small, but filling the heavens."—Leigh Hunt.

"Has any one, since Shakespeare and Spenser, lighted on such tender and such grand ecstasies?"—Taine.

The skylark is very generally distributed over the northern portions of the Old World, but is not found in America. Its song in the morning may often be heard when the bird is so high as to be entirely out of sight, and although not finely modulated is remarkably cheerful and prolonged. A person who is accustomed to the song can tell by its variations whether it be ascending, stationary, or descending.

1. profuse. Accent here on the first syllable. From Lat. profundo, to pour forth.

2. Explain the figures of rhetoric employed in this line. The meaning of blue; of wingest.

3. sunken sun. The sun is not yet above the horizon, but the bird has risen so high that it is visible to him, and he "floats and runs" in its golden light.

4. What is the meaning of rains? of rain in the next stanza?

5. wrought. Influenced. A.-S. worhte, wyrcan, to work.

6. sprite. Spirit. In the first stanza he calls the lark a spirit and says it never was a bird; here he calls it "bird or sprite."

7. Chorus hymeneal. See note on "Prothalamion," page 241.

8. Compare this thought with the ideas contained in Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality."

pine. From A.-S. pinan, to pain. Our word pain is derived from the same root.



HYMN OF PAN.

From the forests and highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle-bushes, The cicale above in the lime, And the lizards below in the grass, Were as silent as ever old Tmolus{1} was, Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus{2} was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing The light of the dying day, Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni{3} and Sylvans and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, To the edge of the moist river-lawns, And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then attend and follow, Were silent with love,—as you now, Apollo,{4} With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the ddal{5} earth, And of heaven, and the Giant wars,{6} And love, and death, and birth, And then I changed my pipings,— Singing how down the vale of Mnalus I pursued a maiden,{7} and clasped a reed: Gods and men, we are all deluded thus; It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed. All wept—as I think both ye now would, If envy or age had not frozen your blood— At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

NOTES.

Pan, as described in the Homeric hymns, is "lord of all the hills and dales": sometimes he ranges along the tops of the mountains; sometimes pursues the game in the valleys, roams through the woods, or floats along the streams; or drives his sheep into a cave, and there plays on his reeds music not to be excelled by that of the sweetest singing birds; and

"With him the clear-singing mountain-nymphs Move quick their feet, by the dark-watered spring In the soft mead, where crocus, hyacinths, Fragrant and blooming, mingle with the grass Confused, and sing, while echo peals around The mountain's top."

Keats, in "Endymion," thus apostrophizes Pan:

"O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears, While ever and anon to his shorn peers A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn, When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn Anger our huntsmen: Breather round our farms, To keep off mildews, and all weather harms: Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, And wither drearily on barren moors: Dread opener of the mysterious doors Leading to universal knowledge—see, Great son of Dryope, The many that are come to pay their vows With leaves about their brows!"

1. Tmolus. It was Tmolus who acted as umpire in the musical contest between Pan and Apollo. This contest is directly referred to throughout this poem.

2. Peneus. The chief river of Thessaly. It flows through the Vale of Tempe, and between the mountains Ossa and Pelion, emptying finally into the gean Sea. (See map of ancient Greece.)

3. Sileni. A name applied to the older satyrs. They were fond of wine and of every kind of sensual pleasure, and hence represented the luxuriant powers of nature, and were connected with the worship of Bacchus.

Sylvans. Deities of the fields and forests.

Fauns. Gods of the shepherds, flocks, and fields. A faun was usually represented as half man and half goat.

4. Apollo. One of the chief divinities of the Greeks; the god of music and song, of prophecy, of the flocks and herds, of the founding of towns, and of the sun. He was the son of Zeus and Leto, and was born on the island of Delos. His favorite oracle was at Delphi.

5. ddal. Labyrinthine, wonderful. From Ddalus, a famous Athenian architect, who designed the labyrinth at Crete in which the Minotaur was kept.

6. Giant wars. The wars of the Titans,—the contest in which Zeus overcame and deposed his father, Chronos, and made himself supreme ruler of the universe. The Titans, who were opposed to him, were overcome, and hurled into the lowest depths of Tartarus.

Mnalus. A mountain in Arcadia, celebrated as the favorite haunt of Pan.

7. maiden. Syrinx, a nymph of Arcadia, devoted to the service of Artemis. "As she was returning one day from the chase, Pan saw and loved her; but when he would address her, she fled. The god pursued. She reached the river Ladon, and, unable to cross it, implored the aid of her sister nymphs; and when Pan thought to grasp the object of his pursuit, he found his arms filled with reeds. At that moment the wind began to agitate the reeds and produced a low musical sound. The god took the hint, cut seven of the twigs, and formed from them his syrinx, or pastoral pipe." See Ovid's Metamorphoses.



FROM "EPIPSYCHIDION."

Emily, A ship is floating in the harbor now; A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor,— No keel has ever ploughed that path before; The halcyons{1} brood around the foamless isles; The treacherous ocean has forsworn its wiles; The merry mariners are bold and free: Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? Our bark is as an albatross whose nest Is a far Eden of the purple east; And we between her wings will sit, while Night And Day and Storm and Calm pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless sea, Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an isle under Ionian{2} skies, Beautiful as a wreck of paradise; And, for{3} the harbors are not safe and good, This land would have remained a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,{4}— Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. The blue gean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide. There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air. And far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails, Accompany the noonday nightingales. And all the place is peopled with sweet airs.{5} The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odor through the brain, Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odor, beam, and tone, With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soul,—they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream.{6} It is an isle 'twixt heaven, air, earth, and sea, Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer,{7} Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air.{8} It is a favored place. Famine or blight, Pestilence, war, and earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way. The wingd storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight: Which sun or moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess. Yet, like a buried lamp, a soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude. And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden eastern air, And level with the living winds which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn; and therefore still Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ringdove in the embowering ivy yet Keeps up her love-lament; and the owls flit Round the evening tower; and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate; and the slow silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life; and, when years heap Their withered hours like leaves on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul, of this elysian isle— Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise and sit and walk together Under the roof of blue Ionian weather; And wander in the meadows; or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds to touch their paramour;{9} Or linger where the pebble-paven shore Under the quick faint kisses of the sea Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy;— Possessing and possessed by all that is Within that calm circumference of bliss, And by each other, till to love and live Be one. . . . We shall become the same, we shall be one Spirit within two frames, oh wherefore two? One passion in twin hearts, which grows and grew Till, like two meteors of expanding flame, Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still Burning, yet ever inconsumable; In one another's substance finding food, Light flames too pure and light and unimbued To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, Which point to heaven and cannot pass away: One hope within two wills, one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, One heaven, one hell, one immortality, And one annihilation!

Woe is me! The wingd words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare universe Are chains of lead around its flight of fire— I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!

NOTES.

"A clever but disreputable professor at Pisa one day related to Shelley the sad story of a beautiful and noble lady, the Contessina Emilia Viviani, who had been confined by her father in a dismal convent of the suburbs, to await her marriage with a distasteful husband." Shelley, fired as ever by a tale of tyranny, was eager to visit the fair captive. The professor accompanied him and Medwin to the convent parlor, where they found her more lovely than even the most glowing descriptions had led them to expect. Nor was she only beautiful. Shelley soon discovered that she had "cultivated her mind beyond what I have ever met with in Italian women"; and a rhapsody composed by her upon the subject of Uranian Love—"Il Vero Amore"—justifies the belief that she possessed an intellect of more than ordinary elevation. He took Mrs. Shelley to see her; and both did all they could to make her convent prison less irksome by frequent visits, by letters, by presents of flowers and books. It was not long before Shelley's sympathy for this unfortunate lady took the form of love, which, however spiritual and Platonic, was not the less passionate. The result was the composition of "Epipsychidion," the most unintelligible of all his poems to those who have not assimilated the spirit of Plato's Symposium and Dante's Vita Nuova.—J. A. Symonds.

W. M. Rossetti characterizes this poem as "a pure outpouring of poetry; a brimming and bubbling fountain of freshness and music, magical with its own spray rainbows."

A year after its composition, Shelley wrote: "The 'Epipsychidion' I cannot look at. If you are curious, however, to hear what I am and have been, it will tell you something thereof. It is an idealized history of my life and feelings."

Epipsychidion. From Gr. epi, upon, and psyche, the soul. This poem is addressed "to the noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia Viviani, now imprisoned in the Convent of St. Anne, Pisa," and was written in 1821.

1. halcyons. Kingfishers. Halcyone was the daughter of olus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died she was changed into a bird,—the kingfisher,—and, floating over the sea, she still calls for the lost Ceyx in tones full of plaining and tears. And "whensoever she makes her nest, a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon's weather—days distinguishable among all others for their serenity."

2. Ionian. Greek. See the expression "Under the roof of blue Ionian weather," below. Explain its meaning.

3. for. Since, because.

elysian. Heavenly. Pertaining to Elysium, the islands of the blest, the Elysian fields.

4. age of gold. Compare Milton, "Hymn on the Nativity" (see note 36, page 192. See, also, poem by John Lydgate, page 275).

5. peopled with sweet airs. Filled with sweet music.

6. antenatal dream. See Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" (also, note 13, page 47).

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting."

7. Lucifer. Venus when seen in the morning, rising before the sun is called Lucifer, the light-bearer. From Lat. lux, light, and fero, to bear (see note 18, page 189). The same star when seen in the evening, following the sun, is called Hesperus.

8. blue oceans of young air. Explain.

9. paramour. See Milton's "Ode on the Nativity," stanza i.

"It was no reason then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour."

Milton makes the sun the paramour of the earth; Shelley, the earth the paramour of the sky.



A LAMENT.

Swifter far than summer's flight, Swifter far than youth's delight, Swifter far than happy night, Art thou come and gone: As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am left alone, alone.

The swallow Summer comes again, The owlet Night resumes her reign, But the wild swan Youth is fain To fly with thee, false as thou. My heart each day desires the morrow, Sleep itself is turned to sorrow, Vainly would my winter borrow Sunny leaves from any bough.

Lilies for a bridal bed, Roses for a matron's head, Violets for a maiden dead, Pansies let my flowers be: On the living grave I bear, Scatter them without a tear, Let no friend, however dear, Waste one hope, one fear, for me.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY was born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex, August 4, 1792. He was educated at Eton and at Oxford. While a student at the latter place, he wrote a pamphlet, entitled The Necessity of Atheism, which caused his expulsion from college. This occurred in 1811, and in the same year he married Harriet Westbrook, from whom, three years later, he separated. In 1816 he married Mary Godwin. In 1818 he left England for Italy, where he remained until his death by drowning in the gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822. His first considerable poem, "Queen Mab," was published in 1813; "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude," in 1816; "The Revolt of Islam," in 1818; and "Epipsychidion" and "Adonais" in 1821. His two dramas, the "Cenci" and "Prometheus Unbound," were issued, the former in 1819, the latter in 1821.

"Shelley's early rupture with the English world," says Hales, "lost him all the advantages which a fuller experience of it and a longer intercourse with it might have given. That world was no less estranged from him than he from it. It misunderstood and misinterpreted him throughout his career. It covered him with its opprobrium. Assuredly, he was not the man that world painted. It by no means follows that because Shelley did not repeat the ordinary creeds, and even mocked at them, that he believed nothing. Shelley was never in his soul an atheist: it was simply impossible with his nature that he should be; what he did deny and defy was a deity whose worship seemed, as he saw the world, consistent with the reign of selfishness and bigotry."

Lord Macaulay says: "We doubt whether any modern poet has possessed in an equal degree some of the highest qualities of the great ancient masters. The words bard and inspiration, which seem so cold and affected when applied to other modern writers, have a perfect propriety when applied to him. He was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not improbably, have given to the world some great work of the very highest rank in design and execution."

Leigh Hunt says: "Assuredly, had he lived, he would have been the greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth. In general, if Coleridge is the sweetest of our poets, Shelley is at once the most ethereal and most gorgeous—the one who has clothed his thoughts in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent words and imagery. His poetry is as full of mountains, seas, and skies, of light, and darkness, and the seasons, and all the elements of our being, as if Nature herself had written it, with the Creation and its hopes newly cast around her, not, it must be confessed, without too indiscriminate a mixture of great and small, and a want of sufficient shade—a certain chaotic brilliancy, 'dark with excess of light.'"

Another English poet says: "Shelley outsang all poets on record but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as divine as nature's, and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing-god; his thoughts, words, deeds, all sang together."

"The poet who creates a new ideal, and fills men's hearts with the flame of a divine desire, is a practical force in the stream of human development—and this Shelley has done. So much of his poetry is full of the tender melancholy of the moonlight he loved, that the world is still half blind to his highest bardic character, as the poet of a spiritual dawn, the eager spirit who flies forward—

"Calling the lapsd soul, And weeping in the morning dew."

Even his moonlight seems to reflect the beams of some unrisen sun; and his sunlight has all the ethereal exhilaration of that of the first hours of a glorious day."—John Todhunter.

Other Poems to be Read: Adonais; The Sensitive Plant; The Cloud; Mount Blanc; To Wordsworth; The Euganean Hills; Liberty; Alastor; Prometheus Unbound.

REFERENCES: De Quincey's Essays; Jeaffreson's The Real Shelley; Shelley (English Men of Letters), by J. A. Symonds; Leigh Hunt's Imagination and Fancy; Rossetti's Memoir of Shelley; Dowden's Life of P. B. Shelley; Moore's Life of Lord Byron; Middleton's Shelley and his Writings; Medwin's Life of Shelley; Trelawney's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron; Todhunter's Shelley: A Study.



John Keats.



ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

I

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards{1} had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad{2} of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provenal song,{3} and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,{4} With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

III.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

IV.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,{5} But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

V.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;{6} Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eyes.

VI.

Darkling{7} I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem{8} become a sod.

VII.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn{9}; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

NOTES.

"This poem," says Leigh Hunt, "was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter."

1. Lethe-wards. That is, towards Lethe. Lethe was one of the rivers of Hell. Its name means "forgetfulness." Milton describes it thus:

"A slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets— Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain."

—Paradise Lost, ii, 583.

2. Dryad. A wood-nymph. From Gr. drus, an oak tree. The life of the Dryad was supposed to be bound up with that of her tree.

"The quickening power of the soul, like Martha, is 'busy about many things,' or, like a Dryad, living in a tree."—Sir John Davis.

3. Provenal song. Song of the troubadours, a school of lyric poets that flourished in Provence, in the south of France, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. A love song.

4. Hippocrene. The "Fountain of the Horse" (Fons Caballinus). A fountain on Mount Helicon, Boeotia, sacred to the Muses. It was said to have been produced by the horse Pegasus striking the ground with his feet. Its waters were supposed to be a source of poetical inspiration.

Longfellow, in "The Goblet of Life," says:

"No purple flowers—no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe."

5. Bacchus and his pards. Bacchus was frequently represented as riding on the back of a leopard, a tiger, or a lion, or in a chariot drawn by panthers.

pards. Spotted beasts.

See Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," third stanza, page 160.

6. Compare with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act ii, sc. i:

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."

7. darkling. In the dark. The word is very rarely used.

8. requiem. A dirge, or funeral song. "So called from the first word in the Catholic mass for the dead, Requiem ternum dona iis Domine (Give eternal rest to them, O Lord)."—Brand.

become a sod. Compare with Ecclesiastes, xii, 7: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was."

9. alien corn. See Ruth, ii. Why alien corn? Longfellow, in his poem on "Flowers," says:

"Everywhere about us they are glowing— Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn."



FROM "THE EVE OF ST. AGNES."

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees: Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, In sort of wakeful swoon, perplexed she lay, Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away; Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day; Blissfully havened both from joy and pain; Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray: Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced, Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress, And listened to her breathing, if it chanced To wake into a slumberous tenderness; Which when he heard, that minute did he bless, And breathed himself: then from the closet crept, Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness, And over the hushed carpet, silent, stept, And 'tween the curtains peeped, where, lo!—how fast she slept.

Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set A table, and, half anguished, threw thereon A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:— O for some drowsy Morphean amulet! The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:— The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep, In blanched linen, smooth, and lavendered, While he from forth the closet brought a heap Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; With jellies soother than the creamy curd, And lucent syrups, tinct with cinnamon; Manna and dates, in argosy transferred From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.

These delicates he heaped with glowing hand On golden dishes and in baskets bright Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand In the retired quiet of the night, Filling the chilly room with perfume light.— "And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake! Thou art mine heaven, and I thine eremite: Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes' sake, Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache."

Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream By the dusk curtains:—'twas a midnight charm Impossible to melt as iced stream: The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam; Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies: It seemed he never, never could redeem From such a steadfast spell his lady's eyes; So mused awhile, entoiled in woofed phantasies.

Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,— Tumultuous,—and, in chords that tenderest be, He play'd an ancient ditty, long since mute, In Provence called "La belle dame sans mercy": Close to her ear touching the melody;— Wherewith disturbed, she uttered a soft moan: He ceased—she panted quick—and suddenly Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone: Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep: There was a painful change, that nigh expelled The blisses of her dream so pure and deep. At which fair Madeline began to weep, And moan forth witless words with many a sigh While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep; Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye, Fearing to move or speak, she looked so dreamingly.

"Ah, Porphyro!" said she, "but even now Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, Made tuneable with every sweetest vow; And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear: How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear! Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! Oh leave me not in this eternal woe, For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go."

Beyond a mortal man impassioned far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odor with the violet,— Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set.

'Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet: "This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!" 'Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat: "No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine! Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.— Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring? I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine, Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;— A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing."

"My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride! Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil dyed? Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest After so many hours of toil and quest, A famished pilgrim,—saved by miracle. Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest, Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel."

"Hark!'tis an elfin-storm from faery land, Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed: Arise—arise! the morning is at hand;— The bloated wassailers will never heed:— Let us away, my love, with happy speed; There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,— Drowned all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead: Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be, For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee."

She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps with ready spears— Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found, In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall! Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide, Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl, With a huge empty flagon by his side: The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, But his sagacious eye an inmate owns: By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:— The chains lie silent on the footworn stones; The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm. That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe, And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch and demon and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmared. Angela, the old, Died palsy-twitch'd with meagre face deform; The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.

NOTES.

"The Eve of St. Agnes" is one of the finest of Keats's shorter poems. Leigh Hunt describes it as "the most complete specimen of his genius; exquisitely loving; young, but full-grown poetry of the rarest description; graceful as the beardless Apollo; glowing and gorgeous with the colors of romance." The stanzas here quoted, while comprising the main portion of the story, are not quite half of the entire poem.

Madeline, the beautiful daughter of a rude and rich old baron, is secretly betrothed to Porphyro, a young man whom her father has sworn to slay. On the eve of St. Agnes a great feast is in progress in the baron's castle. Porphyro, at the risk of his life, "comes across the moors, with heart on fire for Madeline." With the aid of the old nurse, Angela, he gains admission into the castle and is concealed in a closet, where he conceives the plan for their elopement. In the meanwhile, Madeline, having danced with her father's guests, retires to her room, her mind full of the thought of Porphyro, and intent upon testing the truth of the belief, then current, that on this evening, maidens might, if they performed certain ceremonies and forms, be vouchsafed a sight of their future husbands.

St. Agnes was a young virgin of Palermo, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of thirteen, in the Diocletian persecution, about A.D. 304. Her feast was celebrated on the 21st of January.

With reference to the versification of this poem, see what is said of the Spenserian stanza, page 232. There are many imitations of Spenser in these verses.

The student is desired to discover for himself the peculiarities of thought, of feeling, of expression, which give interest and beauty to this production. The following are a few of the words and expressions whose meaning he should study: "Gules"; "taint"; "vespers"; "poppied"; "Swart Paynims"; "Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness"; "Morphean amulet"; "affray"; "azure-lidded sleep"; "argosy"; "missal"; "tinct"; "Fez"; "Samarcand"; "Lebanon"; "eremite"; "witless"; "alarum"; "entoiled in woofed phantasies"; "La belle dame sans mercy"; "heart-shaped and vermeil dyed"; "Of haggard seeming"; "arras."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

JOHN KEATS was born October 29, 1795, in Moorfields, London. He was sent to school at Enfield, where he gained the rudiments of a classical education; but, his father having died when John was a mere child, he was apprenticed at an early age to a surgeon in Edmonton. When seventeen years old a copy of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" fell into his hands, and the perusal of that great poem was the beginning, for him, of a new life. He felt the poetic instinct within him, and resolved that he too would be a poet. In 1817 he published a small volume of poems, which attracted but little attention; and in 1818 his more ambitious effort, "Endymion," was presented to the world. The latter poem was unkindly received by the great reviews. The author was advised to "go back to his gallipots," and told that "a starved apothecary was better than a starved poet." A story was long current that these severe criticisms induced Keats's early death, but this is entirely improbable. He continued writing, although consumption, a hereditary disease in his family, had already begun its work upon him. He published "The Eve of St. Agnes" in 1820, and had made some progress with a noble poem, entitled "Hyperion," which Lord Byron declared to be "actually inspired by the Titans, and as sublime as schylus." In September of that year he sailed for Italy, but the hope of prolonging life by a change of climate proved to be vain. On the 27th of February, 1821, he died at Rome.

"We can hardly be wrong in believing," says Masson, "that had Keats lived to the ordinary age of man, he would have been one of the greatest of all our poets. As it is, I believe we shall all be disposed to place him very near indeed to our very best."

"That which was deepest in his mind," says Stopford Brooke, "was the love of loveliness for its own sake, the sense of its rightful and pre-eminent power; and, in the singleness of worship which he gave to Beauty, Keats is especially the artist, and the true father of the latest modern school of poetry."

Other Poems to be Read: Endymion; Ode on a Grecian Urn; Lamia; Hyperion; To Autumn; Hymn to Apollo; Isabella.

REFERENCES: Keats (English Men of Letters), by Sidney Colvin; Keats, by W. M. Rossetti; Matthew Arnold's Essay on Keats, in Ward's English Poets; Shairp's Studies in Poetry.



The Eighteenth Century.

"The influence of the poetry of the past lasted; new elements were added to poetry, and new forms of it took shape. The study of the Greek and Latin classics revived, and with it a more artistic poetry. Not only correct form, for which Pope sought, but beautiful form was sought after. Men like Thomas Gray and William Collins strove to pour into their work that simplicity of beauty which the Greek poets and Italians like Petrarca had reached as the last result of genius restrained by art. . . . Two things had been learned. First, that artistic rules were necessary, and, secondly, that natural feeling was necessary in order that poetry should have a style fitted to express nobly the emotions and thoughts of man. The way was therefore now made ready for a style in which the Art should itself be Nature, and it sprang at once into being in the work of the poets of this time. The style of Gray is polished to the finest point, and yet it is instinct with natural feeling. Goldsmith is natural even to simplicity, and yet his verse is even more accurate than Pope's. Cowper's style, in such poems as the 'Lines to my Mother's Picture,' arises out of the simplest pathos, and yet it is as pure in expression as Greek poetry."—STOPFORD BROOKE.

"At last there started up an unfortunate Scotch peasant (Burns), rebelling against the world, and in love, with the yearnings, lusts, greatness, and irrationality of modern genius. Now and then behind his plough, he lighted on genuine verses, verses such as Heine and Alfred de Musset have written in our own days. In those few words, combined after a new fashion, there was a revolution."—TAINE.

Poets of the Eighteenth Century.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744). See biographical note, page 155.

Thomas Parnell (1679-1718). "The Hermit"; short poems.

Edward Young (1684-1765), "Night Thoughts"; "The Last Day"; "Resignation."

Allan Ramsay (1686-1758). "The Gentle Shepherd": "Scots Songs"; "Fables and Tales."

John Gay (1688-1732). "The Beggar's Opera"; "The Shepherd's Week"; "Trivia"; "Rural Sports"; fables, and other short poems.

Matthew Green (1696-1737). "The Grotto"; "The Spleen."

John Dyer (1698-1758). "Grongar Hill"; "The Fleece."

Robert Blair (1699-1746). "The Grave."

James Thomson (1700-1748). "The Seasons"; "The Castle of Indolence."

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), "The Vanity of Human Wishes"; "London."

Richard Glover (1712-1785). "Leonidas"; "Admiral Hosier's Ghost"; "The Athenaid."

William Shenstone (1714-1763). "The Schoolmistress"; "Pastoral Ballads."

Thomas Gray (1716-1771). See biographical note, page 139.

William Collins (1721-1759). Odes and other short poems.

Mark Akenside (1721-1770). "The Pleasures of the Imagination."

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). See biographical note, page 128.

Thomas Warton (1728-1790). "The Pleasures of Melancholy"; "The Triumph of Isis"; short poems.

William Cowper (1731-1800). See biographical note, page 122.

Charles Churchill (1731-1764). "The Prophecy of Famine"; "The Rosciad."

James Beattie (1735-1803). "The Minstrel."

Robert Fergusson (1750-1774). Short Scottish poems.

Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770). "Poems of Thomas Rowlie"; short poems.

George Crabbe (1754-1832). "Tales of the Hall"; "The Village"; "The Parish Register"; "Tales in Verse."

William Blake (1757-1827). "Songs of Innocence"; "Songs of Experience"; "Poetical Sketches."

Robert Burns (1759-1796). See biographical note, page 111.



Robert Burns.



THE COTTER'S{1} SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ.{2}

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short but simple annals of the Poor.{3}—Gray.

My loved, my honored, much respected friend! No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,{4} The lowly train{5} in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there I ween.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;{6} The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,— This night his weekly moil is at an end,— Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.{7}

At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee things toddlin', stacher thro' To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wine's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.{8}

Belyve, the elder bairns{9} come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun'; Some ca'{10} the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neibor{11} town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, Or deposit{12} her sair-won penny-fee,{13} To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years, Anticipation forward points the view. The mother wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's and their mistress's command, The younkers a' are warned to obey; And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, And ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: "And, oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway, And mind your duty, duly, morn and night! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"{14}

But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neibor lad came o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Wi' heart-struck anxious care inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel pleased the mother hears, it's nae wild worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;{15} A strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.{16} The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But, blate and lathefu', scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found! O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare:— If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale!

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild!

But now the supper crowns their simple board,— The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food: The sowpe their only hawkie{17} does afford, That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.{18}

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha'-Bible,{19} ance his father's pride; His bonnet{20} rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps "Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name, Or noble "Elgin" beets{21} the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compared with these, Italian trills are tame, The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: How His first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"{22} That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole{23}; But, haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in His book of life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings; "An honest man's the noblest work of God:"{24} And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp?—a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And, oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide That streamed thro' Wallace's{25} undaunted heart, Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

NOTES.

This poem, composed in 1785, is written partly in the Scottish dialect, partly in English. The livelier passages are in the poet's vernacular; the loftier or more solemn parts in the language of books. This distinction was doubtless made because Burns disliked to treat his higher themes in a merely colloquial manner, fearing to belittle them by so doing. The household described was probably that of the poet's own father; it was at least a typical Scotch peasant's household, with which no one was more familiar. Gilbert Burns, in a letter to Dr. Currie, says: "Although the 'Cotter' in the Saturday Night, is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotions, and exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us ever went 'At service out amang the neibors roun'.' Instead of our depositing our 'sair-won penny-fee' with our parents, my father labored hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home."

The influence of Gray and Goldsmith is very apparent in more than one passage in this poem.

"Robert had frequently remarked to me," said his brother, "that there was something particularly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship God,' used by a decent, sober head of a family introducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for 'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' The hint of the plan and title of the poem is taken from Ferguson's 'Farmer's Ingle.'"

1. Cotter. "One who inhabits a cot, or cottage, dependent on a farm."—Jamieson.

2. R. Aiken. A friend with whom Burns had been brought into contact during the Old and New Light Controversy.

3. See Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," eighth stanza.

4. lays. Songs; probably from the same root as the German lied. The word was originally applied to a form of elegiac French poetry, much imitated by the English.

5. train. A favorite word with the poets at this time. Goldsmith uses it no fewer than six times in the "Deserted Village." The original meaning is something drawn along; from Lat. traho, to draw.

6. sugh. Also spelled sough. Whistling sound, murmur. Derived from the same root as sigh, for which word it is used by Burns in his lines, "On the Battle of Sherriffmuir":

"My heart for fear gae sough for sough To hear the thuds," etc.

7. Compare with Gray's "Elegy," line 3:

"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way."

8. Toil was perhaps pronounced tile, thus properly rhyming with beguile. Johnson, in "London," says:

"On all thy hours security shall smile, And bless thine evening walk and morning toil."

9. bairns. From A.-S. bearns, children.

10. ca'. Drive, follow. Probably not from the same root as our common word call. Kingsley uses it in this sense in the line:

"Go, Mary, go, and call the cattle home."

11. neibor. Neighboring. Milton, in "Comus," uses the expressions: "Some neighbor woodman," "some neighbor villager"; and Shakespeare says: "A neighbor thicket" ("Love's Labour Lost"), and "neighbor room" ("Hamlet").

12. deposit. Pronounced here depo-zit.

13. penny-fee. Fee, wages, from A.-S. feoh, cattle. "Cattle," says Bosworth, "was the first kind of property; and, by bartering, this word came to signify money in general." So, too, the word penny is from A.-S. penig, Icelandic peningr, cattle. The word penny, as in this country the word dollar, is used indefinitely for money.

14. Observe that in quoting the words of the Cotter the poet partially drops the Ayrshire dialect and uses a purer English.

15. ben. Within. The inner part of the house; from O. E. binnan, within. Its opposite is but, the outside of the house.

16. kye. Cattle, from O.-E. cu, or kie. Kine is derived from the same root, and probably cow.

17. hawkie. This word, says Hales, "denotes, properly, a cow with a white face. So, in Northumberland, bawsand was used of an animal with a white spot on its forehead, and crummie of a cow with crooked horns."

18. sin' lint was i' the bell. Since flax was in bloom. That is, the cheese was a year old last flax-blossoming time.

19. ha'-Bible. The hall Bible—the Bible kept in the best room.

20. bonnet. This word in Scotch denotes a man's head-covering. In early English it was used in the same sense.

21. beets. Feeds,—that is, gives fuel to the flame.

"It warms me, it charms me, To mention but her name; It heats me, it beets me, And sets me a' on flame." —Burns's Epistle to Davie, a brother poet.

The word is probably from A.-S. betan, to better, to mend; from which, also, we have the words beat, to excel, better, best, etc.

22. Burns refers the reader to Pope's "Windsor Forest" for this quotation. He probably had in mind the line in the "Essay on Man":

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

23. sacerdotal stole. A long, narrow scarf with fringed ends, and richly embroidered, worn by the clergy upon special occasions. Sacerdotal, from Lat. sacerdos, a priest. Stole, from Lat. stola, a long dress worn by Roman women over their tunic and fastened with a girdle.

24. Pope's "Essay on Man," Epistle iv, line 247.

25. William Wallace (1270-1305), the Scotch national hero was, like Burns, a native of Ayrshire.

VOCABULARY.

aft, often. amaist, almost. amang, among. ance, once. auld, old. belyve, by and by. blate, bashful. blinkin, gleaming. blythe, happy. braw, brave, fine. cannie, easy. carking, fretting. certes, certain. chows, chews. claes, clothes. convoy, accompany. cracks, talks. craws, crows. drapping, dropping. eydent, diligent. fell, tasty. flichterin, fluttering. frae, from. gang, go. gars, makes. guid, good. hae, have. haffets, temples. hafflins, half. halesome, wholesome. hallan, partition wall. hameward, homeward. ingle, fire. jauk, trifle. kebbuck, cheese. kens, understands. lathefu', shy. lave, the rest. lyart, gray. miry, muddy, dusty. moil, labor. nae, no. parritch, porridge. pleugh, plough. rin, run. sair-won, hard-earned. sowpe, milk. spiers, inquires. stacher, stagger. strappin', strapping, stout. tentie, attentively. towmond, twelvemonth. uncos, unknown things, new. wales, chooses. wee bit, little. weel, well. wee things, little folks. weel-hained, well-kept. wiles, knowledge. wily, knowing. youngling, youthful. younkers, youngsters, children. 'yont, on the other side of.



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786.

Wee, modest, crimson-tippd flow'r, Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem. To spare thee now is past my power, Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet Wi' spreckled breast, When upward springing, blythe to greet The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Upon thy early humble birth; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce reared above the parent earth Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High sheltering woods an' wa's maun shield; But thou, beneath the random bield O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field, Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise: But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betrayed, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard, On life's rough ocean luckless starred! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given, Who long with wants and woes has striven, By human pride or cunning driven To misery's brink, Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, He, ruined, sink!

Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine—no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom.

VOCABULARY.

bield, protection. blythe, happy. bonnie, pretty. card, compass. glinted, passed quickly. histie, barren. maun, must. spreckled, speckled. stibble, stubble. stoure, dust. weet, wetness. wrenched, deprived.



FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT.

Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that?{1} The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure, and a' that; The rank is but the guinea's stamp,{2} The man's the gowd{3} for a' that!

What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin gray, and a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that; The honest man, though e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that!

Ye see yon birkie,{4} ca'd a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; Though hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof{5} for a' that; For a' that, and a' that, His riband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon{6} his might, Guid faith, he maunna fa'{7} that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that; The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher ranks than a' that!

Then let us pray that come it may— As come it will for a' that— That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree,{8} and a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's coming yet, for a' that, That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that!

NOTES.

1. Is there anything in honest poverty to cause one to hang his head, etc.?

2. Explain lines 7 and 8 fully.

3. gowd, gold.

4. birkie, fellow.

5. coof, fool.

6. aboon his might, above his power.

7. maunna fa', may not get.

8. gree, palm, supremacy.

"Burns was not only the poet of love, but also of the new excitement about man. Himself poor, he sang the poor. Neither poverty nor low birth made a man the worse—the man was 'a man for a' that.'"—Stopford Brooke.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

ROBERT BURNS was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1759. His childhood and youth were spent in poverty on his father's farm, where he learned to plough, reap, mow, and thresh in the barn, but where opportunities for education were such only as Scottish peasants know. In 1784 his father died, and he attempted to manage a farm of his own at Mossgiel. The experiment proving to be a failure, he resolved to leave Scotland, and secured an appointment to a clerkship in Jamaica. Just before the time set for his departure, he learned of the success of a volume of his poems which had just been published at Kilmarnock; and, instead of departing for the West Indies, he made a visit to Edinburgh. He was welcomed by the best society, and received at once into the literary circles of the Scottish capital. "His name and fame flashed like sunshine over the land: the shepherd on the hill, the maiden at her wheel, learned his songs by heart, and the first scholars of Scotland courted his acquaintance." A second edition of his poems was published in 1787, and with the proceeds—about $2500—he took a farm at Ellisland, in Nithsdale. But his habits were such that he made sad failure a second time in the experiment of farming; and, after two years of mismanagement, to eke out his scanty income he accepted an appointment as exciseman. In 1791, "unfortunately both for his health and for his reputation," he removed to Dumfries, where, five years later, he died.

"While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves, this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye; for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines."—Carlyle.

"Burns is not the poet's poet, which Shelley no doubt meant to be, or the philosopher's poet, which Wordsworth, in spite of himself, is. He is the poet of homely human nature, not half so homely or prosaic as it seems. His genius, in a manner all its own, associates itself with the fortunes, experiences, memorable moments, of human beings whose humanity is their sole patrimony; to whom 'liberty and whatever, like liberty, has the power

To raise a man above the brute, And mak him ken himsel,'

is their portion in life; for whom the great epochs and never-to-be-forgotten phases of existence are those which are occasioned by emotions inseparable from the consciousness of existence. For the great majority of his readers, and therefore for the mass of human beings, the sympathy which exists between him and them is sympathy relative to their strongest and deepest feelings, and this is sympathy out of which personal affection naturally springs, and in the strength of which it cannot but grow strong."—John Service.

"Burns was not like Shakespeare in the range of his genius, but there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and unaffected character about him. With but little of Shakespeare's imagination or inventive power, he had the same life of mind; within the narrow circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his poetry flows as healthily and vigorously. He had an eye to see, a heart to feel,—no more. His pictures of good fellowship, of social life, of quaint humor, are equal to anything; they come up to nature, and they cannot go beyond it."—Hazlitt.

"His is that language of the heart In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek.

"And his that music to whose tone The common pulse of man keeps time, In cot or castle's mirth or moan, In cold or sunny clime." —Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Other Poems to be Read: Bannockburn; Auld Lang Syne; Tam O' Shanter; To a Mouse; The Jolly Beggars; Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon; Highland Mary; Address to the Deil; To Mary in Heaven.

REFERENCES: Carlyle's Essay on Robert Burns; Burns (English Men of Letters), by J. C. Shairp; Hazlitt's English Poets.



William Cowper.



BOADICEA.

When the British warrior queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods, Sought, with an indignant mien, Counsel from her country's gods,

Sage beneath the spreading oak Sat the Druid, hoary chief; Every burning word he spoke Full of rage, and full of grief.

"Princess! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 'Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues.

"Rome shall perish—write that word In the blood that she has spilt; Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd, Deep in ruin as in guilt.

"Rome, for empire far renown'd, Tramples on a thousand states; Soon her pride shall kiss the ground,— Hark, the Gaul is at her gates!

"Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms,{1} shall win the prize; Harmony the path to fame.

"Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,{2} Shall a wider world command.

"Regions Csar never knew Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew None invincible as they."{3}

Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all the monarch's pride, Felt them in her bosom glow, Rush'd to battle, fought and died; Dying, hurled them{4} at the foe.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud, Heaven awards the vengeance due; Empire is on us bestowed, Shame and ruin wait for you.{5}

NOTES.

Boadicea was queen of the Iceni, a powerful and warlike tribe of Britons, about the middle of the first century. Upon the death of her husband, Prasutagus, her kingdom was seized by the Romans, and she herself, for some real or imaginary offence, was publicly scourged. During the absence of the Roman governor from that part of England, Boadicea raised an immense army, burned the city of London, and put 70,000 Romans to the sword. She afterwards, with 230,000 troops, met the Roman army, under Suetonius, in the field, and although the Romans could muster only 10,000 soldiers, the British army was defeated, and the queen, in despair, ended her own life by taking poison.

In this poem, Cowper represents the queen as, soon after her shameful treatment by the Romans, seeking counsel from one of the native priests. The Druid prophesies the destruction of Rome and the future greatness of Britain.

1. Sounds, not arms. Does the poet allude to the cultivation of oratory and poetry among the Romans and the neglect of military affairs?

2. Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings. What do these expressions mean? To what do they refer?

3. Explain the prophecy included in this stanza.

4. hurled them. Hurled what?

5. This stanza, evidently a part of the imprecation which Boadicea "hurled" at her enemies, ought to be enclosed with quotation marks, but in most versions of the poem it appears without them.



ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

Oh, that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, "Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!" The meek intelligence of those dear eyes (Blessed be the art that can immortalize, The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim To quench it) here shines on me still the same. Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, O welcome guest, though unexpected here! Who bidst me honor with an artless song, Affectionate, a mother lost so long, I will obey, not willingly alone, But gladly, as the precept were her own: And, while that face renews my filial grief, Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, Shall steep{1} me in Elysian reverie,{2} A momentary dream that thou art she. My mother! when I learnt{3} that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss. Ah! that maternal smile! It answers—Yes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such?—It was.—Where thou art gone Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting word shall pass my lips no more! The maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,{4} Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. What ardently I wished I long believed, And, disappointed still, was still deceived. By expectation every day beguiled, Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, I learned at last submission to my lot; But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession! but the record fair That memory keeps, of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many a storm that has effaced A thousand other themes less deeply traced.{5} Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, The biscuit, or confectionary plum;{6} The fragrant waters on my cheek bestowed By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed; All this, and more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes That humor interposed too often makes;{7} All this still legible in memory's page, And still to be so to my latest age, Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honors to thee as my numbers may; Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile), Could those few pleasant days again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? I would not trust my heart—the dear delight Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might.— But no—what here we call our life is such So little to be loved, and thou so much, That I should ill requite thee to constrain Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. Thou, as a gallant bark{8} from Albion's coast (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed) Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, There sits quiescent on the floods that show Her beauteous form reflected clear below, While airs impregnated with incense play Around her, fanning light her streamers gay; So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore, "Where tempests never beat nor billows roar."{9} And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchored by thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, Always from port withheld, always distressed— Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tost, Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost, And day by day some current's thwarting force, Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he! That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. My boast is not, that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth; But higher far my proud pretensions rise— The son of parents passed into the skies! And now, farewell—Time unrevoked has run His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again; To have renewed the joys that once were mine, Without the sin of violating thine: And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, And I can view this mimic show of thee,{10} Time has but half succeeded in his theft— Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

NOTES.

This, one of the most exquisite poems in the language, was written by Cowper in "the last glimmering of the evening light," before his mind was wholly overwhelmed by the final attack of insanity. "Every line is instinct with a profound and chastened feeling, to which it would be difficult to find a parallel. There is not a phrase, not a word, which jars upon the most susceptible ear, not a tinge of exaggeration, not a touch that is excessive. The fact that he who gave forth these supreme utterances of filial love was old himself when he did it, brings into the relationship a strange, tender equality which is marvellously touching."

1. steep. Imbue. From Ger. stippen. From the same root as dip, with the letter s prefixed.

2. Elysian reverie. Heavenly meditation. See note on Elysium, page 79.

3. when I learnt. Cowper was only six years old when his mother died.

4. concern. Distress, anxiety.

5. Nearly fifty years after his mother's death, Cowper wrote: "I can truly say that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day) in which I do not think of her; such was the impression her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short."

6. plum. Perhaps the gravest fault in this poem is the frequent intermixture, as in these two lines, of trivial thoughts and circumstances with those of a more noble character.

7. Explain the metaphor which the poet attempts to carry through these three lines. =Brakes= = breaks, interruptions. What is the meaning of humor?

8. as a gallant bark. Observe the beauty of the simile in these twelve lines, also of the simile which follows.

9. Probably misquoted from "The Dispensary," by Samuel Garth (1670-1719):

"To die is landing on some silent shore, Where billows never break nor tempests roar."

10. this mimic show. Explain the meaning of this expression.



EPITAPH ON A HARE.

Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue, Nor swifter greyhound follow, Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew, Nor ear heard huntsman's halloo;

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, Who, nursed with tender care, And to domestic bounds confined, Was still a wild Jack hare.

Though duly from my hand he took His pittance every night, He did it with a jealous look, And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of wheaten bread, And milk, and oats, and straw; Thistles, or lettuces instead, With sand to scour his maw.

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, On pippins' russet peel, And, when his juicy salads failed, Sliced carrot pleased him well.

A Turkey carpet was his lawn, Whereon he loved to bound, To skip and gambol like a fawn, And swing his rump around.

His frisking was at evening hours, For then he lost his fear, But most before approaching showers, Or when a storm drew near.

Eight years and five round-rolling moons He thus saw steal away, Dozing out all his idle noons, And every night at play.

I kept him for his humor's sake, For he would oft beguile My heart of thoughts that made it ache, And force me to a smile.

But now beneath this walnut shade He finds his long last home, And waits, in snug concealment laid, Till gentler Puss shall come.

He, still more agd, feels the shocks From which no care can save, And, partner once of Tiney's box, Must soon partake his grave.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

WILLIAM COWPER was born at Great Berkhamstead, November 26, 1731. His father was the rector of the parish, and his mother was Ann Donne of the family of the famous John Donne. Cowper was educated at a private school and afterwards at Westminster. It was intended that he should follow the profession of law, and, after the completion of his studies at Westminster, he entered the Middle Temple and was articled to a solicitor. At the age of twenty-two, through the influence of his uncle, Major Cowper, he was appointed to two clerkships in the House of Lords. The excitement brought on by this occurrence, together with an unhappy love affair, induced an attack of insanity, from which he suffered for more than a year. In 1773 he suffered from a second attack of insanity, which continued for sixteen months. It was not until 1780, when in his fiftieth year, that he began really to write poetry. His first volume was published in 1782, and comprised, besides several shorter pieces, the three poems, "Conversation," "Retirement," and "Table Talk." His second volume appeared in 1785, and contained "The Task," "Tirocinium," and the ballad of "John Gilpin," which had already become famous through the recitations of one Henderson, an actor. Cowper's translation of Homer was completed and published in 1791. From that time until his death in 1800 he suffered from hopeless dejection, regarding himself as an object of divine wrath, a condemned and forsaken outcast.

Cowper was not a great poet; but he was the first to abandon the mechanical versification and conventional phrases of the artificial poets, to find inspiration and guidance in nature. It may be said that he lacked creative power; but he possessed a quickness of thought, a depth of feeling, and a certain manliness and sincerity, which lifted him above the level of the ordinary versifiers of his time.

Other Poems to be Read: The Castaway; John Gilpin; The Task; The Loss of the Royal George.

REFERENCES: Southey's Life of William Cowper; Cowper (English Men of Letters), by Goldwin Smith; Hazlitt's English Poets; Macaulay's Essay on Moore's Life of Byron; Life of Cowper, in the "Globe Edition" of his works.



Oliver Goldsmith.



THREE PICTURES FROM "THE DESERTED VILLAGE."

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. There as I pass'd, with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came soften'd from below: The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that low'd to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, For all the bloomy flush of life is fled— All but yon widow'd, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; She, wretched matron—forc'd in age, for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn— She only left of all the harmless train, The sad historian of the pensive plain!

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden-flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's{1} modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing{2} rich with forty pounds{3} a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place; Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train; He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain: The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; The broken soldier,{4} kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, Wept o'er his wounds or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; But in his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; And, as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed, The reverend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whispered praise. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place: Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.{5}

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There in his noisy mansion,{6} skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding{7} tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper circling round Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village{8} all declared how much he knew; 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides{9} presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:{10} In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill; For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. But past is all his fame. The very spot Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.

NOTES.

1. The village preacher.—"This picture of the village pastor," says Irving, "which was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. . . . To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practise."

2. passing rich. Exceedingly rich. The word is a common one among the poets. "Is she not passing fair?" (Shakespeare, "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iv, sc. 4); "How passing sweet is solitude" (Cowper, "Retirement").

3. forty pounds. In his dedication of "The Traveller," Goldsmith refers to his brother Henry as "a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year."

4. broken soldier. See "The Soldier's Dream," Campbell.

"And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay!"

5. The simile included in these four lines, says Lord Lytton, is translated almost literally from a poem by the Abb de Chaulieu, who died in 1720. "Every one must own," adds he, "that, in copying, Goldsmith wonderfully improved the original."

6. The village master.—The portrait here drawn of the village schoolmaster is from Goldsmith's own teacher, Thomas Byrne, with whom he was placed when six years old. "Byrne had been educated for a pedagogue," says Irving, "but had enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy.

"There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories of which he was generally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for wandering and seeking adventure.

"Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore."

noisy mansion. The old-time school-room was a noisy place, the pupils studying their lessons aloud, and but little care being taken to secure quietness at any time.

7. boding. Foreboding; seeing that which is about to happen. From A.-S. bodian, to announce, to foretell.

8. village. Villagers.

9. terms and tides. Times and seasons. presage. Foreknow. From Lat. pre, before, and sagio, to perceive.

10. gauge. Measure liquids. The humor in this and in some other expressions in these verses is too apparent to require comment.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born at Pallas, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Leyden. After travelling on foot through portions of Western Europe, he made his way to London, where he was in turn assistant to a chemist, usher in a school at Peckham, and literary hack for one of the leading monthly publications. He afterwards contributed many articles, both in prose and poetry, to the leading periodicals of the time. He wrote "The Traveller" in 1764, and "The Deserted Village" and The Vicar of Wakefield in 1770. He died in his chambers in Brick Court, London, April 4, 1774. For a full account of his life, read Macaulay's Essay on Oliver Goldsmith.