For thee, who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead,
Dost in those lines their artless tale relate,
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate.
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.

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old fantastic root so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward 7 fancies, he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the accustom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came, nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he:

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the churchway-path we saw him borne.
Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn:"

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send :

He gave to misery all he had-a tear;

He gain'd from Heaven-'twas all he wish'd-a friend.

7. Wayward, O. E. vaevärd, is not generally traced to way but to woe, though it might possibly be referred to the

former, in the sense of one who goes his own way

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God.

168. From THE PROGRESS OF POESY.'

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 smiled.

This pencil 2 take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year;

Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates 3 of Joy,

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.

Nor second He that rode sublime 4
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy;
The secrets of the 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,

Closed 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 clothed and long-resounding pace.

Hark! his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,

1. Nature's darling, Shakespeare. Darling, O. E. deorling, is a diminutive of dear.

2. Pencil, from Lat. penicillus, a little tail, is more correctly applicable to what SPECS. ENG. LIT.

we call a "camel's-hair pencil."

3. Gates: derivatively speaking, a gate (or gait) is a going; "go thy gate"

is go thy way, Gk. βαίνειν βάσιν.

4. He that rode sublime, Milton.
R

Scatters from her pictured urn

Thoughts that breathe and words that burn;
But ah! 'tis heard no more.

O lyre divine! what dying spirit

Wakes thee now? though he inherit

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.

5. The Theban eagle, Pindar. 6. Orient: once used in the pure sense of bright.

William Cowper. 1731-1800. (History, p. 203.)

169. From 'THE TASK.'

MERCY TO ANIMALS.

I would not enter on my list of friends

(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,

Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,

And charged, perhaps, with venom, that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome into scenes

Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,

The chamber, or refectory, may die:

A necessary act incurs no blame.

Not so when, held within their proper bounds,

1

And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field:
There they are privileged; and he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm,
Who, when she form'd, design'd them an abode.
The sum is this: If man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all-the meanest things that are,
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too.

1. Guiltless: the word guilt leads us at once to the judicial institutions of our forefathers. It simply means a liability

to pay, from gildan, to pay; and belongs to the same class of words as gold, gild, guild, wer-gild.

170. PLEASURES OF A WINTER EVENING.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

Not such his evening who, with shining face,
Sweats in the crowded theatre, and, squeezed

1

And bored with elbow-points through both his sides,
Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage:

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb,
And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath

Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage,
Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles.
This folio of four pages, happy work!

1. Elbow-points: the elbow is the bow or bend of the ell or arm, Lat. ulna.

Which not e'en critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention, while I read,

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break;
What is it, but a map 2 of busy life,

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge,
That tempts Ambition. On the summit see
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them? At his heels,
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,

And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,
And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.

Here rills of oily eloquence, in soft

Meanders lubricate the course they take;
The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved
To engross a moment's notice; and yet begs,
Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,
However trivial all that he conceives.
Sweet bashfulness! it claims at least this praise:
The dearth of information and good sense,
That it foretells us, always comes to pass.
Cataracts of declamation thunder here;
There forests of no meaning spread the page,
In which all comprehension wanders lost;
While fields of pleasantry amuse us there
With merry descants on a nation's woes.
The rest appears a wilderness of strange
But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks,
And lilies for the brows of faded age,
Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,
Heaven, earth, and ocean, plunder'd of their sweets,
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,

Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs,

Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits,

2. Map, more fully in Fr. mappemonde, comes from Lat. mappa, a table-cloth, owing to the resemblance that a large

chart of the world bears to a cover of this kind.