Parent of nature! master of the world!
Where'er thy Providence directs, behold
My steps with cheerful resignation turn.
Fate leads the willing, drags the backward on.
Why should I grieve, when grieving I must
bear?

Or take with guilt, what guiltless I might share?

Thus let us speak, and thus let us act. Resignation to the will of God is true magnanimity. But the sure mark of a pusillanimous and base spirit, is to struggle against, to censure the order of Providence, and instead of mending our own conduct, to set up for correcting that of our Maker.

THE FORERUNNERS OF THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL

Thomas Parnell

1679-1718

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH
(Published, 1721)

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er:
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.
How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide!
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass, with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,

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Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God;
A port of calms, a state of ease
From the rough rage of swelling seas.

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"Why then thy flowing sable stoles,
Deep pendant cypress, mourning poles,
Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds,
And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
Nod o'er the scutcheons of the dead?

"Nor can the parted body know,
Nor wants the soul, these forms of woe.
As men who long in prison dwell,
With lamps that glimmer round the cell,
Whene'er their suffering years are run,
Spring forth to greet the glittering sun:
Such joy, though far transcending sense,
Have pious souls at parting hence.
On earth, and in the body plac'd,
A few and evil years they waste;
But when their chains are cast aside,
See the glad scene unfolding wide,
Clap the glad wing, and tower away,
And mingle with the blaze of day."

A HYMN TO CONTENTMENT (Published, 1721)

Lovely, lasting peace of mind! Sweet delight of human kind! Heavenly-born, and bred on high, To crown the favorites of the sky

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With more of happiness below,
Than victors in a triumph know!
Whither, O whither art thou fled,
To lay thy meek, contented head;
What happy region dost thou please
To make the seat of calms and ease!

Ambition searches all its sphere
Of pomp and state, to meet thee there.
Encreasing Avarice would find
Thy presence in its gold enshrin'd.
The bold adventurer ploughs his way
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,
To gain thy love; and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves.
The silent heart, which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,
Sees daisies open, rivers run,

And seeks, as I have vainly done,
Amusing thought; but learns to know
That solitude's the nurse of woe.
No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o'er the ground;

Or in a soul exalted high,

To range the circuit of the sky,

Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below;
The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,

And doubts at last, for knowledge, rise.

Lovely, lasting peace, appear! This world itself, if thou art here, Is once again with Eden blest, And man contains it in his breast.

Wing'd with heat, to reach the sky. See the time for sleep has run,

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Rise before or with the sun,

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Illustrates all the tracts of air,

The sacred Spirit so may rest

With quickening beams upon thy breast,
And kindly clean it all within
From darker blemishes of sin,

And shine with grace, until we view
The realm it gilds with glory too.
See the day that dawns in air,
Brings along its toil and care,
From the lap of Night it springs
With heaps of business on its wings;
Prepare to meet them in a mind
That bows submissively resign'd,
That would to works appointed fall,
And knows that God has order'd all.
And whether with a small repast
We break the sober morning fast,
Or in our thoughts and houses lay
The future methods of the day,
Or early walk abroad to meet
Our business, with industrious feet,
Whate'er we think, whate'er we do,
His glory still be kept in view.
O Giver of eternal bliss!

Heavenly Father! grant me this,
Grant it all as well as me,

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All whose hearts are fix'd on Thee,

Who revere thy Son above,

Who thy sacred Spirit love.

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder HE, who made him such!
Who center'd in our make such strange ex-
tremes!

From diff'rent natures marvellously mix'd,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sully'd, and absorpt!
Tho' sully'd and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

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A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! At home a stranger, 70
Thought wanders up and down, surpriz'd,
aghast,

And wond'ring at her own: how reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man!
Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what

dread!

Not ev'n Philander had bespoke his shroud. Nor had he cause; a warning was deny'd, How many fall as sudden, not as safe!

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As sudden, though for years admonish'd, home.
Of human ills, the last extreme beware;
Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange? 130
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,

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Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found.

As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. 166

George Berkeley

1685-1753

VERSES ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANT-
ING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA

The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime,
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame:

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true:

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

Allan Ramsay

1686-1758

AN ODE TO PH-1
(1721)

Look up to Pentland's tow'ring top,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap,*
As high as any Roman wa'.5

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SONG "MY PEGGY IS A YOUNG THING"
(From The Gentle Shepherd, 1725)
My Peggy is a young thing,
Just enter'd in her teens,

Fair as the day and sweet as May,
Fair as the day and always gay.
My Peggy is a young thing,
And I'm nae very auld,
Yet well I like to meet her at
The wauking of the fauld.1

My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
Whene'er we meet alane,

I wish nae mair to lay my care,-
I wish nae mair o' a' that's rare.
My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
To a' the lave2 I'm cauld,
But she gars3 a' my spirits glow,
At wauking o' the fauld.

My Peggy smiles sae kindly,
Whene'er I whisper love,
That I look down on a' the town,-
That I look down upon a crown.
My Peggy smiles sae kindly,

It makes me blithe and bauld,
And naething gies me sic delyte,
As wauking o' the fauld.

My Peggy sings sae saftly,
When on my pipe I play,

By a' the rest it is confest,-
By a' the rest that she sings best.
My Peggy sings sae saftly,
And in her sangs are tauld,
Wi' innocence, the wale' o' sense,
At wauking o' the fauld.

7 Furze bushes.

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8 Golfers.

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Balls. More sober or sedate folk, directing or sending to one side.

10 The bowls or balls, used in the game of bowling.

11 Poke the grate.

William Somerville

1692-1742

FIELD-SPORTS

(From The Chase, Pub. 1742)

'Tis instinct that directs the jealous hare To choose her soft abode: With step revers'd She forms the doubling maze: then, ere the

morn

Peeps through the clouds, leaps to her close

No settled residence observe, but shift
Their moving camp, now on some cooler hill
With cedars crown'd, court the refreshing

breeze;