Drove modest merit from its proper state:
Nor into distant climes would avarice roam,
To fetch delights for luxury at home.
Bound by no ties which kept the soul in awe,
They dwelt at liberty, and love was law!"
"Mistaken youth! each nation first was rude,
Each man a cheerless son of solitude,
To whom no joys of social life were known:
None felt a care that was not all his own;
Or in some languid clime his abject soul
Bowed to a little tyrant's stern control;
A slave, with slaves his monarch's throne he raised,
And in rude song his ruder idol praised;
The meaner cares of life were all he knew,
Bounded his pleasures, and his wishes few:
But when by slow degrees the arts arose,
And science waken'd from her long repose;
When commerce, rising from the bed of ease,
Ran round the land and pointed to the seas;
When emulation, born with jealous eye,
And avarice, lent their spurs to industry;
Then one by one the numerous laws were made,
Those to control, and these to succour trade;
To curb the insolence of rude command,
To snatch the victim from the usurer's hand;
To awe the bold, to yield the wrong'd redress,
And feed the poor with luxury's excess."
Like some vast flood, unbounded, fierce, and strong,
His nature leads ungoverned man along;
Like mighty bulwarks, made to stem that tide,
The laws are form'd and placed on every side:
Whene'er it breaks the bounds by these decreed,
New statutes rise, and stronger laws succeed.
CRABBE. From 1754 to 1832.
THEN sing, ye birds-sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!
We, in thought, will join your throng
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance, which was once so bright,
Be now for ever taken from my sight;
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy,
Which, having been, must ever be ;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Forbode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish'd one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway;
I love the brooks which down their channels fret
Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born day
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears;
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
WORDSWORTH.
A CHILD of earth, I rested, in that stage
Of my past course to which these thoughts advert,
Upon earth's native energies; forgetting
That mine was a condition which required
Nor energy, nor fortitude-a calm
Without vicissitude, which, if the like
Had been presented to my view elsewhere,
I might have even been tempted to despise.
But that which was serene was also bright;
Enliven'd happiness with joy o'erflowing.
With joy, and-oh! that memory should survive
To speak the word—with rapture! Nature's boon,
Life's genuine inspiration, happiness
Above what rules can teach, or fancy feign;
Abused, as all possessions are abused
That are not prized according to their worth.
And yet, what worth? what good is given to men,
More solid than the gilded clouds of heaven?
What joy more lasting than a vernal flower?
None; 'tis the general plaint of human kind
In solitude, and mutually addressed
From each to all, for wisdom's sake :-This truth
The priest announces from his holy seat;
And, crowned with garlands in the summer grove,
The poet fits it to his pensive lyre.
Yet, ere that final resting-place be gained,
Sharp contradictions may arise by doom
Of this same life, compelling us to grieve
That the prosperities of love and joy
Should be permitted, ofttimes, to endure
So long, and be at once cast down for ever.
Oh! tremble ye to whom hath been assigned
A course of days composing happy months,
And they as happy years; the present still
So like the past; and both so firm a pledge
Of a congenial future, that the wheels
Of pleasure move without the aid of hope:
For mutability is nature's bane,
And slighted hope will be avenged; and, when
Ye need her favours, ye shall find her not;
But, in her stead,-fear,-doubt,-and agony !
EARTH has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty.
This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep,
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,
Is marked by no distinguishable line:
The turf unites, the pathways intertwine;
And wheresoe'er the stealing footstep tends,
Garden and that domain where kindred, friends,
And neighbours rest together, here confound
Their several features, mingled like the sound
Of many waters, or as evening blends
With shady night. Soft airs, from shrub and flower,
Waft fragrant greeting to each silent grave;
And while those lofty poplars gently wave
Their tops, between them comes and goes a sky
Bright as the glimpses of eternity,
To saints accorded in their mortal hour.
Tax not the royal saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the architect who planned,
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed scholars only this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more:
So deemed the Man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars spread, that branching roof,
Self-poised and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells,
Lingering and wandering on, as loth to die,
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
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