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Narrative.

Livelier.

Garrulity.

With courtly politeness.

In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, |
Had wept | o'er Monmouth's | bloody tomb! |
When kindness | had | his wants | supplied, |
And the old man | was gratified, |

Began to rise his minstrel pride: |
And he began to talk anon,
Of good Earl Francis, | dead and gone; |
And of Earl Walter-❘ rest him, | God! |
A braver ne'er | to battle | rode; |
And how | full many a tale | he knew |
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch: |
And, would the noble Duchess | deign |
To listen to an old man's strain, |

Though stiff his hand, | his voice | though weak, |

He thought even yet, | the sooth to speak,

That, if she loved | the harp to hear, |

Bowing low.

He could make music | to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtained; |

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The aged Minstrel | audience gained. |

But, when he reached | the room of state,

Where she, with all her ladies, | sate, |
Perchance he wished his boon denied: :1

Disappointment. For, | when | to tune his harp | he tried, |

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44 Monmouth, the Duke of Monmouth, 50 Earl Walter, the Duchess's grand

father, the Earl of Buccleuch. Buccleuch, the clan of Scott, which became in course of time the most powerful on the Scottish Borders. 54 Deign, condescend. 57 Sooth, truth.

a natural son of Charles II., and
the Duchess's husband; beheaded 53
1685 for trying to take the throne
from James II, the last of the
Stuart kings, who was deposed
when William III. became king.
(See line 20 of this poem.)

48 Anon, presently.

60 Boon, favour; prayer.
61 Audience, a hearing.

49 Earl Francis, the Duchess's father, 62 Room of state, the great hall of the

the Earl of Buccleuch.

64 Perchance, maybe.

[castle.

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confidence.

And an uncertain warbling | made, |
And ofthe shook his hoary head. |

Gratification and But | when he caught the measure wild, |
The old man | raised his face | and smiled; |

And lightened up | his faded eye |

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69 Wildering, bewildering; confusing. 80 King Charles the Good. Charles I.;

71 Chime, sound; tone.

73 According, agreeing.

74 Harmony, agreement of sounds. 75 Fain, gladly.

78 Churls, rustics; country people of little or no education.

81 Holyrood, a royal palace at Edin 83 Melody, air; song.

86 Hoary, gray-haired.

[burgh.

87 Measure, the tune of the song he

had spoken about.

90 Ecstasy, great joy.

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THE POEM.-The Deserted Village was published in 1770. It gives a delightful and touching description of a decayed village, and of the recollections which it recalls. The village, "Sweet Auburn," is supposed to be the little hamlet of Lissoy in West Meath, Ireland, where Goldsmith spent his boyhood.

The following lines contain a description of the village parson and the village schoolmaster. The "village preacher" is a portrait of the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, the poet's father, whose income at one time was actually "forty pounds a-year.' THE AUTHOR.-Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), poet and novelist, was the son of an Irish clergyman. He led an irregular and adventurous life. Without money he travelled over Europe, paying his way with his flute. After his return he was successively a strolling player, a teacher, a doctor, and an author. He wrote The Vicar of Wakefield, The Deserted Village, The Traveller, etc. A monument is erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Simple narrative.

Sweet was the sound, | when oft, | at evening's close, | Up yonder hill | the village murmur | rose.

There, as I passed | with careless steps | and slow, |

The mingling notes | came | softened | from below; |

Enumera. The swain | responsive | as the milk-maid sung, I

tion of

particulars.

The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, |

The noisy geese that gabbled | o'er the pool, |

The playful children | just let loose from school, |

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The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, | And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind: | These all in sweet confusion | sought the shade, | And filled each pause | the nightingale had made. Sad contrast. But now | the sounds of population | fail, | No cheerful murmurs | fluctuate | in the gale, | No busy steps | the grass-grown foot-way | tread, | For all the bloomy flush of life | is fled | All | but yon widowed, | solitary thing, |

General.

Special.

Descriptive.

That feebly bends | beside the plashing spring: |

She, ! wretched matron, | forced, | in age, | for bread, |
To strip the brook | with mantling cresses | spread, |

To pick her wintry fagot | 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.

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15

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Near yonder copse, | where once | the garden | smiled, | 25
And still where many a garden-flower | grows wild, |
There, where a few torn shrubs | the place | disclose, |
The village preacher's | modest mansion | rose.

5 Swain, country lover.
Responsive, answering; singing in
9 Bayed, barked at.

[turn.

10 Vacant, empty; thoughtless.
13 Sounds of population, stir of busy

life.

20 Mantling, overspreading; covering as with a mantle.

21 Fagot, fire-wood.

24 Historian, story-teller; one who
tells stories of the past.
Pensive, sad; melancholy.

14 Fluctuate, rise and fall; wave-like 25 Copse, brushwood; growth of undermotion.

[wood.

27 Disclose, mark; point out.

Goldsmith, the poet's father.

19 For bread, picked and sold water- 28 Village preacher, the Rev. Charles

cresses to earn a living.

Contented.

A man he was to all the country | dear,

Descriptive

And passing rich | with forty pounds a-year; |

Remote from towns he ran his godly race, |

Nor e'er had changed, | nor wished to change | his place; |
Unskilful | 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 | kindly | bade to stay, |

Sat | by his fire, | and talked the night away; |

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Wept | o'er his wounds, or, | tales of sorrow done, ¡ Shouldered his crutch, | and showed | how fields were won. Sympathetic. 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,

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