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134

STUD

TRY.

And keen remorse, with blood defil'd,
And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of death,

More hideous than their queen :
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ;-where ignorance is bliss,
"T is folly to be wise.

EXTRACT FROM THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

IN climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The muse has broke the twilight-gloom

To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.

And oft, beneath the od'rous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,
In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,

Glory pursues, and generous shame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

Isles, that crown the Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilyssus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves

In lingering lab'rinths creep,

How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute but to the voice of anguish!
Where each old poetic mountain

Inspiration breath'd around;
Every shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:

Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant power,
And coward vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.
This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy ;

Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

Nor second he, that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of ecstacy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time,

The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,

Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed fancy hovering o'er,

Scatters from her pictur'd urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah! 't is heard no more

Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit

Wakes thee now! Though he inherit

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun:

Yet shall he mount and keep his distant way,
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.

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EXTRACT FROM THE BARD, A PINDARIC ODE.

RUIN seize thee, ruthless king!

Confusion on thy banners wait;

Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,†
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowden's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechles trance:

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To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance..

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of woe,

With haggard eyes the Poet stood:
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair‍

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

"Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave,

Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, oh king! their hundred arms they wave,

* This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the first, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.

The original argument of this ode, as its author had set it down on one of the pages of his common-place book, was as follows: "The army of Edward I. as they march through a deep valley, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summi of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the misery and desolation which he had brought on his country; foretels the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares, that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardour of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting, to celebrate true virtue and valour in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at his foot.

The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion.

Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,

To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hush'd the stormy main :

Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
Modred, whose magic song

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,
Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail :
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by,
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries-
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,

I see them sit, they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land:

With me in dreadful harmony they join,

And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line."

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,. Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of Ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood,

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