The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, 40 With vermil cheek, and whisper soft The sleeping fragrance from the ground; New-born flocks, in rustic dance, What others are to feel, and know myself Yesterday the sullen year a man. SONNET ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST [Written in 1742, the year of West's death; publ. posthumously by Mason.] IN vain to me the smiling mornings shine, And redd'ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire; The birds in vain their amorous descant join; Or cheerful fields resume their green attire: These ears, alas! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require: My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear: To warm their little loves the birds complain: I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more, because I weep in vain. ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE [Written perhaps 1754, publ. posthumously by Mason.] Now the golden morn aloft Waves her dew-bespangled wing, Saw the snowy whirlwind fly; Mute was the music of the air, The herd stood drooping by: Their raptures now that wildly flow, No yesterday, nor morrow know; 'Tis man alone that joy descries With forward, and reverted eyes. Smiles on past misfortune's brow Soft reflection's hand can trace; And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw A melancholy grace; While hope prolongs our happier hour, Or deepest shades, that dimly lower And blacken round our weary way, Gilds with a gleam of distant day. Still, where rosy pleasure leads, See a kindred grief pursue; Behind the steps that misery treads Approaching comfort view: The hues of bliss more brightly glow, Chastised by sabler tints of woe; And blended form, with artful strife The strength and harmony of life. See the wretch, that long has tost To him are opening Paradise. 10 20 30 40 OLIVER GOLDSMITH THE TRAVELLER OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY [Publ. 1765] TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH DEAR SIR,-I am sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands that it is addressed to a man, who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year. I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favour once shown to her, and, though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birthright. Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests, and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say: for error is ever talkative. But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean Party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contrib utes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man, after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes ever after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet: his tawdry lampoons are called satires; his turbulence is said to be force, and his frenzy fire. What reception a poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse, to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to show, that there may be equal happiness in states that are differently governed from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness, and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge better than yourself how far these positions are illustrated in this poem. I am, dear sir, your most affectionate brother, REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow, door; prone, Hence every state, to one loved blessing All evils here contaminate the mind, Conforms and models life to that alone: Till, carried to excess in each domain, When commerce proudly flourish'd through the state; At her command the palace learn'd to rise, Again the long fallen column sought the skies; The canvass glow'd, beyond e'en Nature warm, The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form: Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, Commerce on other shores display'd her sail; . 140 |