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All now are vanished! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man,

His guide to happiness on high. And see!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death
Forever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uuiting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refined, clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraigned: see now the cause,
Why unassuming worth in secret lived,

And died, neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined

In starving solitude! while Luxury,

In palaces, lay straining her low thought,

To form unreal wants: why heaven-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge: why licensed Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that imbosomed foe,
Imbittered all our bliss. Ye good distressed!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deemed evil is no more:

The storms of wintry Time will quickly pass.
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

229. FROM "THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE."

O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date,
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,'
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,

1 Calamity.

A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground:

And there a season atween June and May,

Half-prankt with spring, with summer half-imbrowned,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,

No living wight could work, ne caréd e'en for play.

Was nought around but images of rest;

Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest," From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime, unnumbered glittering streamlets played, And hurléd everywhere their waters sheen; That as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

Joined to the prattle of the purling rills

Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves 'plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil3 the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds yblent inclinéd all to sleep.

2 Cast.

8 A murmur, or noise.

4 Blended.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE. 1714-1763. (Manual, p. 353 )

230. THE SHEPHERD'S HOME.

My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottos are shaded with trees,

And my hills are white over with sheep.

I seldom have met with a loss,

Such health do my fountains bestow;
My fountains are bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets blow.

Not a p'ne in my grove is there seen,

But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;

Not a beech's more beautiful green,

But a sweet-brier entwines it around.

Not my fields, in the prime of the year,
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.

One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have labored to rear;
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
O, how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love

To prune the wild branches away.

From the plains, from the woodlands, and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

In a concert so soft and so clear,

As she may not be fond to resign.

I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;

But let me such plunder forbear,

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed;
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who would rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to a dove;
That it ever attended the bold,

And she called it the sister of love.
But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accent adore,

Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.

WILLIAM COLLINS. 1721-1759. (Manual, p. 353.)

231. ODE TO FEAR.

Thou, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown,
Who seest appalled the unreal scene,

While Fancy lifts the veil between :

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I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee disordered fly,
For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fixed behold?
Who stalks his round, a hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:
And with him thousand phantoms joined,
Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind:
And those, the fiends, who near allied,
O'er nature's wounds and wrecks preside;
While Vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
On whom that ravening brood of fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

MARK AKENSIDE. 1721-1770. (Manuai, p. 354.)

FROM "THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION."
232. GENIUS.

From Heaven my strains begin; from Heaven descends

The flame of genius to the human breast,

And love, and beauty, and poetic joy,

And inspiration. Ere the radiant Sun

Sprang from the east, or 'midst the vault of night

The Moon suspended her serener lamp;

Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorned the globe,

Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore;

Then lived th' almighty One; then, deep retired

In his unfathomed essence, viewed the forms,

The forms eternal of created things;

The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,

The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe, And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first

Of days on them his love divine he fixed,

His admiration: till in time complete,

What he admired, and loved, his vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame;

Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves;

Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold; And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers; And all the fair variety of things.

But not alike to every mortal eye

Is this great scene unveiled. For since the claims
Of social life to different labors urge

The active powers of man; with wise intent
The hand of Nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a different bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil.
To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,
The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars,
The golden zones of Heaven: to some she gave
To weigh the moment of eternal things,

Of time, and space, and fate's unbroken chain;
And will's quick impulse: others by the hand
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore
What healing virtue swells the tender veins
Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn
Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind
In balmy tears. But some to higher hopes
Were destined: some within a finer mould
She wrought and tempered with a purer flame.
To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds
The world's harmonious volume, there to read
The transcript of himself. On every part
They trace the bright impressions of his hand,
In earth, or air, the meadow's purple stores,
The moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's form
Blooming with rosy smiles, they see portrayed
That uncreated Beauty which delights

The Mind supreme. They also feel her charms,
Enamoured: they partake th' eternal joy.

THOMAS GRAY. 1716-1771. (Manual, p. 355-) 233. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD,

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homewards plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds :

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