To the last moment of his breath
On hope the wretch relies;
And e'en the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
O. GOLDSMITH (The Captivity).
403. WHEN LOVELY WOMAN STOOPS TO FOLLY
WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is-to die.
O. GOLDSMITH (The Vicar of Wakefield).
GIVE money me; take friendship whoso list!
For friends are gone, come once adversity;
When money yet remaineth safe in chest,
That quickly can thee bring from misery.
Fair face show friends, when riches do abound;
Come time of proof, 'Farewell, they must away!'
Believe me well, they are not to be found,
If God but send thee once a lowering day.
Gold never starts aside; but, in distress,
Finds ways enough to ease thy heaviness.
405. MY DEAR AND ONLY LOVE, I PRAY
My dear and only love, I pray
This noble world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchy;
For if confusion have a part,
(Which virtuous souls abhor),
And hold a Synod in thy heart,
I'll never love thee more.
Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone;
My thoughts did evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win, or lose, it all.
But I must rule and govern still
And always give the law,
And have each subject at my will
And all to stand in awe.
But 'gainst my battery, if I find
Thou shunn'st the prize so sore As that thou sett'st me up a blind,
I'll never love thee more!
Or in the empire of thy heart,
Where I should solely be,
Another do pretend a part
And dares to vie with me,
Or if Committees thou erect,
And go on such a score,
I'll sing and laugh at thy neglect,
And never love thee more.
But if thou wilt be constant then,
And faithful of thy word;
I'll make thee glorious by my pen
And famous by my sword,
I'll serve thee in such noble ways
Were never heard before!
I'll crown and deck thee all with
bays,
And love thee evermore.
GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.
406. IF DOUGHTY DEEDS MY LADY PLEASE
IF doughty deeds my lady please,
Right soon I'll mount my steed;
And strong his arm, and fast his
seat,
That bears frae me the meed.
I'll wear thy colours in my cap,
Thy picture in my heart;
And he that bends not to thine eye
Shall rue it to his smart!
Then tell me how to woo thee,
Love;
O tell me how to woo thee!
For thy dear sake, nae care
I'll take,
Tho' ne'er another trow me.
If gay attire delight thine eye,
I'll dight me in array;
I'll tend thy chamber door all
night,
And squire thee all the day.
If sweetest sounds can win thine
These sounds I'll strive to catch; Thy voice I'll steal to woo thysell,
That voice that nane can match. But if fond love thy heart can gain,
I never broke a vow;
Nae maiden lays her skaith to me,
I never loved but you.
For you alone I ride the ring,
For you I wear the blue;
For you alone I strive to sing,
O tell me how to woo !
O tell me how to woo thee,
Love;
O tell me how to woo thee!
For thy dear sake, nae care
Tho' ne'er another trow me.
R. GRAHAM (afterwards Cunninghame-Graham).
407. FROM THE HYMN TO ADVERSITY'
DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was thou bad'st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.
Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there
To soften, not to wound, my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are, to feel, and know myself a Man.
408. 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 strayed,
To Him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless Child
Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled.
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 Ecstasy,
The secrets of the Abyss to spy.
He passed 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,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
But ah! 'tis 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, unborrowed 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.
409. ODE TO THE SPRING
Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care:
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows:
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon;
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day,
In fortune's varying colours dressed :
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display ;
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-
We frolic, while 'tis May.
410. OPENING PARADISE
SEE the wretch that long has tossed
On the thorny bed of pain
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again :
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.
411. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd 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, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
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