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22 For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

Their pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

23 On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

24 For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If, 'chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,-

25 Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

"Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn,
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the Sun upon the upland lawn.

26 There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

27 Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

6 He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill;
But that is fancy: for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love distil,
Weeping themselves away till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

217

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.

2 Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away, and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river;
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown;
Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this Earth

Such gloom; why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope.

3 No voice from some sublimer world hath ever

To sage or poet these responses given:

Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven Remain the records of their vain endeavour;

Frail spells, whose utter'd charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see,

Doubt, chance, and mutability.

Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent

Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

4 Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
Thou messenger of sympathies

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes;

Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,

Like darkness to a dying flame,

Depart not as thy shadow came !
Depart not, lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

5 While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.

I call'd on poisonous names with which our youth is fed:
I was not heard, I saw them not:

When musing deeply on the lot

Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring

News of birds and blossoming,

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me :

I shriek'd, and clasp'd my hands in ecstasy!

6 I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow?

With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours

Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatch'd with me the envious night:
They know that never joy illumed my brow,
Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free
This world from its dark slavery;

That thou, O awful LOVELINESS!
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

7 The day becomes more solemn and serene

When noon is past: there is a harmony

In Autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which through the Summer is not heard nor seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!

Thus let thy power, which, like the truth
Of Nature, on my passive youth

Descended, to my onward life supply

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JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS.

JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS.

219

I AM very much the biographer's humble admirer. His uncommon share of good sense, and his forcible expression, secure to him that tribute from all his readers. He has a penetrating insight into character, and a happy talent of correcting the popular opinion, upon all occasions where it is erroneous; and this he does with the boldness of a man who will think for himself, but, at the same time, with a justness of sentiment that convinces us he does not differ from others through affectation, but because he has a sounder judgment. This remark, however, has his narrative for its object, rather than his critical performance. In the latter, I do not think him always just, when he departs from the general opinion.

He finds no beauties in Milton's Lycidas. His treatment of Milton is unmerciful to the last degree. A pensioner is not likely to spare a republican; and the Doctor, in order, I suppose, to convince his royal patron of the sincerity of his monarchical principles, has belaboured that great poet's character with the most industrious cruelty. As a man, he has hardly left him the shadow of one good quality. Churlishness in his private life, and a rancorous hatred of every thing royal in his public, are the two colours with which he has smeared all the canvas. If he had any virtues, they are not to be found in the Doctor's picture of him; and it is well for Milton, that some sourness in his temper is the only vice with which his memory has been charged: it is evident enough that if his biographer could have discovered more, he would not have spared him. As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse's wing, and trampled them under his great foot. He has passed sentence of condemnation upon Lycidas, and has taken occasion, from that charming poem, to expose to ridicule (what is indeed ridiculous enough) the childish prattlement of pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was the prototype and pattern of them all. The liveliness of the description, the sweetness of the numbers, the classical spirit of antiquity that prevails in it, go for nothing.

I am convinced, by the way, that he has no ear for poetical numbers, or that it was stopped by prejudice against the harmony of Milton's. Was there ever any thing so delightful as the music

of the Paradise Lost? It is like that of a fine organ; has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute. Variety without end and never equalled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the unfitness of the English language for blank-verse, and how apt it is, in the mouth of some readers, to degenerate into declamation. O! I could thresh his old jacket, till I made his pension jingle in his pocket.

There are

He pours contempt upon Prior, to such a degree, that, were he really as undeserving of notice as he represents him, he ought no longer to be numbered among the poets. These, indeed, are the two capital instances in which he has offended me. others less important, which I have not room to enumerate, and in which I am less confident that he is wrong. What suggested to him the thought that the Alma was written in imitation of Hudibras, I cannot conceive. In former years, they were both favourites of mine, and I often read them; but never saw in them the least resemblance to each other; nor do I now, except that they are composed in verse of the same measure.

After all, it is a melancholy observation, which it is impossible not to make, after having run through this series of poetical lives, that, where there were such shining talents, there should be so little virtue. These luminaries of our country seem to have been kindled into a brighter blaze than others, only that their spots might be more noticed! So much can Nature do for our intellectual part, and so little for our moral. What vanity, what petulance in Pope! How painfully sensible of censure, and yet how restless in provocation! To what mean artifices could Addison stoop, in hopes of injuring the reputation of his friend! Savage, how sordidly vicious! and the more condemned for the pains that are taken to palliate his vices. Offensive as they appear through a veil, how would they disgust without one! What a sycophant to the public taste was Dryden! sinning against his feelings, lewd in his writings, though chaste in his conversation. I know not but one might search these eight volumes with a candle, as the Prophet says, to find a man, and not find one, unless, perhaps, Arbuthnot were he.

WILLIAM COWPER: 1731-1800.

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