11.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light:

12.

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes:

13.

So long, sure found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipped Health,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And hymn thy favourite name.

William Shenstone: 1714-1763.
From Hope.'
1.

My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottos are shaded with trees,

And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,

Such health do my fountains bestow;
My fountains, all bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets grow.
2.

Not a pine in my grove is there seen,
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green,

But a sweetbrier entwines it around.
Not my fields in the prime of the year
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.

3.

One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have laboured to rear;
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
O how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love

To prune the wild branches away.

4.

From the plains, from the woodlands, and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!

How the nightingales warble their loves,
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

In a concert so soft and so clear,
As-she may not be fond to resign.

N

Oliver Goldsmith: 1728-1774.

From The Deserted Village.'
The Village.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,

Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain;
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed:

Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,

5

Where humble happiness endeared each scene!

How often have I paused on every charm:

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,

10

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill;

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,

And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;

And still as each repeated pleasure tired,

Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired

The dancing pair that simply sought renown,

25

By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,

While secret laughter tittered round the place;

The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love;

The matron's glance, that would those looks reprove:

30

These were thy charms, sweet village: sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms-but all these charms are fled.
Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And Desolation saddens all thy green:

And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;

And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.

50

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade:
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;

There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung;
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool;

55

60

The playful children just let loose from school;

The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind;

65

And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind:

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden-flower grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

80

A man he was to all the country dear,

5

And passing rich with forty pounds a year;

Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;

Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;

10

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,

More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,

He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain:

The long-remembered beggar was his guest,

15

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,

Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bid to stay,

Sat by his fire, and talked the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,

20

Shouldered his crutch, and shewed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

25

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings leaned to virtue's side;

But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all :
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,

30

To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,

35

40

45

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;

Even children followed, with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile:

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed;

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed:

50

To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

The Poor compelled to Emigrate.

To distant climes, a dreary scene,

Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Far different there from all that charmed before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;

Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;

Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,

But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;

10

Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crowned,

Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;

Where at each step the stranger fears to wake

The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murderous still than they:
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.

15

20