Class Book of Prose and Poetry

Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds.
Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height,
And valley sunk and unfrequented; where
At fall of eve the fairy people throng,
In various game and revelry, to pass
The summer night, as village stories tell.
But far about they wander from the grave
Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urged
Against his own sad breast to lift the hand
Of impious violence. The lonely tower

Is also shunned; whose mournful chambers hold,
So night-struck fancy dreams, the yelling ghost.

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,

The glow-worm lights his gem; and through the dark,
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields
The world to Night; not in her winter robe
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed
In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,
Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the straining eye;
While waving woods, and villages, and streams,
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained
The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld.

EXERCISE XXIX.

The True Philosopher.-POLLOK.

Nor yet in common glory blazing, stood
The true philosopher, decided friend
Of truth and man. Determined foe of all

Deception, calm, collected, patient, wise,

And humble, undeceived by outward shape
Of things, by fashion's revelry uncharmed,
By honor unbewitched- he left the chase
Of vanity, and all the quackeries

Of life, to fools and heroes, or whoe'er

Desired them; and with reason, much despised,
Traduced, yet heavenly reason, to the shade
Retired retired, but not to dream, or build

Of ghostly fancies, seen in the deep noon
Of sleep, ill-balanced theories; retired,
But did not leave mankind; in pity, not

In wrath, retired; and still, though distant, kept

His eye on men; at proper angle took
His stand to see them better, and, beyond
The clamor which the bells of folly made,
That most had hung about them, to consult
With nature, how their madness might be cured,
And how their true substantial comforts might
Be multiplied. Religious man! what God
By prophets, priests, evangelists, revealed
Of sacred truth, he thankfully received,
And, by its light directed, went in search
Of more. Before him, darkness fled; and all
The goblin tribe, that hung upon the breasts
Of Night, and haunted still the moral gloom
With shapeless forms, and blue, infernal lights,
And indistinct and devilish whisperings,
That the miseducated fancies vexed

Of superstitious men

at his approach

Dispersed, invisible. Where'er he went,
This lesson still he taught,—to fear no ill
But sin, no being but Almighty God.
All-comprehending sage! too hard alone
For him was man's salvation; all besides,
Of use or comfort, that distinction made

Between the desperate savage, scarcely raised
Above the beast whose flesh he ate, undressed,
And the most polished of the human race,
Was product of his persevering search.
Religion owed him much, as from the false
She suffered much; for still his main design,
In all his contemplations, was to trace

The wisdom, providence, and love of God,

And to his fellows, less observant, show

Them forth. From prejudice redeemed, with all
His passions still, above the common world,
Sublime in reason and in aim sublime,
He sat, and on the marvellous works of God
Sedately thought; now glancing up his eye,
Intelligent, through all the starry dance,
And penetrating now the deep remote
Of central causes in the womb opaque
Of matter hid; now, with inspection nice,
Entering the mystic labyrinths of the mind,
Where thought, of notice ever shy, behind
Thought, disappearing, still retired; and still,

Thought meeting thought, and thought awakening thought,
And mingling still with thought in endless maze, -
Bewildered observation; now, with eye

Yet more severely purged, looking far down
Into, the heart, where passion wove a web

Of thousand, thousand threads, in grain and hue
All different; then upward venturing whiles,
But reverently, and in his hand, the light
Revealed, near the eternal Throne, he gazed,
Philosophizing less than worshipping.
Most truly great! his intellectual strength
And knowledge, vast, to men of lesser mind,
Seemed infinite; yet, from his high pursuits,
And reasonings most profound, he still returned

Home, with an humbler and a warmer heart:
And none so lowly bowed before his God,
As none so well His awful majesty
And goodness comprehended; or so well
His own dependency and weakness knew.
How glorious now, with vision purified
At the Essential Truth, entirely free
From error, he, investigating still, -

For knowledge is not found, unsought, in heaven, –
From world to world, at pleasure, roves on wing

Of golden ray upborne; or, at the feet

Of heaven's most ancient sages, sitting, hears

New wonders of the wondrous works of God!

EXERCISE XXX.

Morning Hymn to Mont Blanc.-COLERIDGE.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star

In his steep course?

so long he seems to pause

On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc !
The Arve and Aveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial black, —

An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,

It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thoughts,

Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy,

Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing — there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven.
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake
Green vales and icy cliffs all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!

Oh! struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, O wake! and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded, — and the silence came, "Here, let the billows stiffen, and have rest"?

Adown enormous ravines slope amain,

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,

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Class Book of Prose and Poetry: Consisting of Selections from the Best ...