But changed from what was first in view.
The juggler now, in grief of heart,
With this submission owned her art :
"Can I such matchless sleight withstand?
How practice hath improved your hand!
But now and then I cheat the throng;
You every day, and all day long."
THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.
IN full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand,
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand :
To him the church, the realm, their powers consign;
Through him the rays of regal bounty shine;
Turned by his nod the stream of honour flows,
His smile alone security bestows;
Still to new heights his restless wishes tower,
Claim leads to claim, and power advances power;
Till conquest, unresisted, ceased to please,
And rights submitted left him none to seize.
At length his sovereign's frowns-the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate.
Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye;
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly.
Now drops at once the pride of awful state,
The golden canopy, the glittering plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liveried army, and the menial lord.
ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.
YE distant spires! ye antique towers!
That crown the watery glade
Where grateful science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights the expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way:
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.
Say, Father Thames! for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral ?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?
"Henry:" King Henry VI., founder of the College.
While some, on earnest business bent,
Their murmuring labours ply,
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint, To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry;
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possess'd;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast;
There buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around them wait,
The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah! show them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey, the murderous band! Ah! tell them they are men!
These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind:
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim visaged, comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.
Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy:
The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse, with blood defiled, 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,
The 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
'Tis folly to be wise.
SURVIVOR Sole, and hardly such, of all
That once lived here, thy brethren; at my
(Since which I number threescore winters past),
A shatter'd veteran, hollow-trunk'd perhaps,
As now, and with excoriate forks deform;
Relics of ages! could a mind, imbued
With truth from Heaven, created thing adore,
I might with reverence kneel, and worship thee.
It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentic act
Of amnesty, the meed of blood Divine,
Loved not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom
Of thickest shades-like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscribed-as to a refuge, fled.
Thou wast a bauble once, a cup and ball
Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay,
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close folded latitude of boughs,
And all thine embryo vastness, at a gulp.
*This tree had been known by the name of Judith for many ages. Perhaps it received that name on being planted by the Countess Judith, niece to the Conqueror, whom he gave in marriage to the English Earl Waltheof, with the counties of Northampton and Huntingdon as her dower
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