SB 25D 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
 
 GIFT OF THE PUBLISHER 
 
 No. 3S~, Received / 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OF 
 
 Class 
 

 
STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES 
 
 GOLDSMITH, GRAY, BURNS 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 ROMANTIC POETS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 COMPLETE CHARACTERISTIC SELECTIONS 
 
 EDITED WITH BIOGRAPHIES, NOTES AND HINTS FOR 
 TEACHING 
 
 UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK : - BOSTON . : . NEW ORLEANS 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY 
 UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 *** 2404 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERIOD v 
 
 HINTS TO TEACHERS vii 
 
 AUTHORS AND SELECTIONS. 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH BIOGRAPHY 1 
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE > 4 
 
 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR QUESTIONS ..... 18 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS .... 19 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR MEMORY WORK .... 19 
 
 THE TRAVELER 20 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR QUESTIONS 35 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS .... 37 
 
 ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE 37 
 
 ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG .... 38 
 
 EPITAPH ON EDMUND BURKE 39 
 
 THOMAS GRAY BIOGRAPHY 41 
 
 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD . . 42 
 
 QUESTIONS ON THE ELEGY 47 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITION WORK ... 48 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR MEMORY WORK .... 48 
 
 ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE ... 48 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS BIOGRAPHY 51 
 
 THE PASSIONS 52 
 
 How SLEEP THE BRAVE 55 
 
 228072 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ROBERT BURNS BIOGRAPHY ...... 57 
 
 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 59 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR QUESTIONS 67 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS .... 67 
 
 BANNOCKBURN 68 
 
 AFTON WATER 68 
 
 AULD LANG SYNE 69 
 
 WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST .... 70 
 
 JAMES THOMSON BIOGRAPHY 73 
 
 WINTER 74 
 
 HYMN TO GOD'S POWER 75 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER BIOGRAPHY ...... 77 
 
 RURAL SOUNDS 78 
 
 
 
 LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS .... 79 
 
 THE DIVERTING RIDE OF JOHN GILPIN . 80 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 THE literature of any period consists of the books written 
 during that period. These books are apt to be about the sub- 
 jects that the people of the period are interested in, and they 
 are apt to be written in the style that suits the period. So, 
 though in any period there may be one or more men of genius 
 who set a fashion of their own, we are generally able to find 
 some qualities that belong to the literature of the period taken 
 as a whole. 
 
 (_When you read the following poems, most of them will 
 probably strike you as "old-fashioned." Poems, nowadays 
 are not generally written in lines all exactly ten syllables long, 
 as are the " Traveler " and " Deserted Village." We do not 
 speak of young girls as nymphs, or of young men as swains. 
 We write poetry now without mentioning that we have "kin- 
 dled incense at the Muse's flame." But these same poems 
 seemed to the people who read them little over a hundred 
 years ago as a wonderfully new departure as the " new-fash- 
 ioned " poetry. Let us see what it is that was new in them, 
 and what they retained of the old. 
 
 The poetry that preceded these poems is called classic. It 
 was written by scholarly men who took great pains to follow 
 certain Latin and Greek models, and who cared much about 
 the manner in which they expressed themselves. In the eigh- 
 teenth century the chief poet of the classic period is Pope, 
 whom you will read in another volume of this series. Lowell, 
 an American poet, calls Pope's ten-syllabled line the " rocking- 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 horse " measure. These classic authors often packed a great 
 deal of good sense and philosophy into one of their couplets, 
 but not so much feeling. Their poetry sounds as if they had 
 written out essays and turned them into couplets, and indeed 
 that is what even Goldsmith did. 
 
 Many of the poets who followed Pope were very much influ- 
 enced by the forms of the classic school, but they put a new 
 spirit into their poetry the modern spirit the same spirit that 
 fills the poetry of our own day. Because these authors were 
 enthusiastic, full of interest in nature and in love, full of 
 admiration for all that is beautiful or wonderful, they are 
 called romantic poets. Because they are linked with the past 
 in form and with the present in spirit, their period is sometimes 
 called the transition period of English poetry. But, as might 
 have been expected, the new thoughts demanded new forms, 
 and so you will find the " rocking-horse " measure abandoned 
 by several poets for various metres, some of them even suitable 
 to be set to music. 
 
 This new spirit of the romantic poets arose partly from the 
 events of the times : 
 
 1. A spirit of democracy arose. There was much talk 
 about the " rights of man " and the " common brotherhood " 
 of man. You will find these sentiments best expressed in our 
 own Declaration of Independence, written during this very 
 period. 
 
 2. One of the greatest religious revivals the world has ever 
 seen occurred in this period, in the birth of Methodism, and 
 even those authors who took no part in the revival were some- 
 what influenced by it. 
 
 3. A great interest in the old songs and ballads of the 
 people was awakened, and the writing of love songs became 
 popular. 
 
 4. A strong love of nature developed during this period a 
 fondness for country life, and a desire to describe the beauties 
 of wood and vale, of mountain and river. The classic poets 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 had put in natural scenes as backgrounds for human figures; 
 the romantic poets filled reams of paper with the scene, often 
 adding the human figure only as a feature of the scene. 
 
 5. As an outgrowth of this interest in nature and of the 
 broader sympathy with man which distinguished the period, 
 arose a tenderness towards animals and plants, and so we find 
 Burns writing to a daisy: 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
 For I maun crush among the stour 
 
 Thy slender stem : 
 To spare thee now is past my power, 
 
 Thou bonnie gem. 
 
 And Cowper declares: 
 
 I would not enter on my list of friends 
 
 (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
 
 Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
 
 Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
 
 You will find it interesting to look through the poems in 
 this collection for evidences of these features of the new face 
 that the literature of the romantic period showed the world. 
 
 TEACHERS. 
 
 No specific method can be given for the teaching of any 
 literary selection in any special grade of school. You must 
 consult the requirements of your course of study, and must 
 fit the work to the needs and capacities of your pupils. The 
 teaching exercises given after the longer selections in this vol- 
 ume are, as their name implies, merely "suggestions" of 
 one way in which the difficult task of familiarizing young 
 students with good adult literature without disgusting them 
 may be attempted. 
 
 I. The notes are intended as aids in simplifying the poems. 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 They need not be memorized, but should be freely used in 
 class. In assigning a portion of the poem to be read for the 
 first time, have any additional unfamiliar words looked up by 
 the pupils. If there are so many of these as to make this first 
 reading drag, give more notes yourself. You are a better 
 judge of the amount of help needed than any editor can be. 
 The main value of having pupils make notes for themselves 
 is not that they should find meanings for words they have 
 been able to do that for years but that they should learn to 
 find the right meaning for each word as here used a valuable 
 exercise of judgment, leading to an intelligent understanding 
 of one element of style. 
 
 II. Make the second reading of each poem more rapid than 
 the first, and let it be for the purpose of answering the ques- 
 tions given and others which may suggest themselves. Some 
 of these questions maybe given for thought in preparation for 
 the reading; others may well be discussed impromptu during 
 the reading. 
 
 III. The third reading may be done out of class or silently 
 in class. It is for the purpose of enabling the pupil to write 
 the suggested daily theme. These themes should be short, 
 and originality of treatment should be encouraged. But their 
 main purpose is the training of the pupil to the use of language 
 suitable to his subject. A village churchyard does not require 
 the same descriptive adjective as the Swiss Alps. If one is 
 " grand, " the other is not. 
 
 IV. The introduction which precedes these hints is intended 
 for the teacher's reading before the selections are studied, and 
 for the pupil's reading after they are studied. A comparison 
 of selections and authors for the sake of verifying or refuting 
 the statements made in the introduction will unify the stu- 
 dents' knowledge of the period. 
 
 V. The biography of each author should be read after his 
 work has been studied. The work adds more interest to the 
 life than the life gives to the work. 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 VI. The pupil ought to leave each selection with a pleasant 
 taste in his mouth. Stop or improve any exercise, based 
 on good literature, that " bores " your pupils. 
 
 VII. While your pupils may be wearied by too much atten- 
 tion to detail, you will find that the closer your familiarity 
 with each author's work, the keener your appreciation of its 
 virtues. 
 
G-OLDSMITH, GRAY, BURNS, 
 
 AND OTHER ROMANTIC POETS OP THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 GOLDSMITH was born at Pallas, in the central part of Ireland, 
 on November 10, 1728. His father was a clergyman and his 
 elder brother became a clergyman, so though neither of them was 
 very well-to-do in the world, it was natural that Goldsmith should 
 have been destined for one of the ' ' learned " professions, and re- 
 ceived a good education. The only real drawback to his educa- 
 tion was his own careless character. He was clever enough at 
 studying, although not in talking ; but he could not manage to 
 go easily through the regular coarse of things that ordinary men 
 find not so very difficult. At Trinity College, Dublin, the educa- 
 tional center of Ireland, he quarreled with his tutor, neglected 
 the studies he did not like, got mixed up in riotous disturbances, 
 left the university for a time on account of some disgrace, and 
 finally managed to take a degree. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one his prospects could not have been bril- 
 liant in the eyes of his friends. He himself, on the other hand, 
 was most cheerful and light-hearted, a charming companion, and 
 full of agreeable affection. He agreed easily to the plan that he 
 should go into the Church ; but unfortunately, when he applied 
 to the Bishop for ordination, he was rejected. He consoled him- 
 self with thoughts of tutoring, but as soon as he had saved a little 
 money he was carried away by the idea of going to America. Of 
 course he did not get very far, and in a few weeks reappeared at 
 home. A kind uncle proposed the profession of the law and pro- 
 vided funds. Goldsmith started cheerfully for London, but lost 
 all his money by gambling on the way, and was shortly at home 
 
2 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 again. His family must' h'a've been in despair. His uncle sug- 
 gested medicine, and Goldsmith, of course, agreed. Here he actu- 
 ally made a beginning in life. He left home finally and forever. 
 He studied medicine and somehow acquired that title by which 
 he was afterward commonly known that of "Doctor." 
 
 It is not recorded that he pursued the studies of his profession 
 with very great diligence. He went to Edinburgh, where he re- 
 mained for two years. Then he started out for Leyden, in Hol- 
 land, where there had long been a famous university. How much 
 he did at Leyden is unknown; it is certain, however, that he used 
 up his money, for in no very long time we find him wandering 
 through France on foot. He managed in this way to see the 
 greater part of France and Italy, and finally found himself once 
 more in England. 
 
 As a matter of course he made for London. It was to London 
 that all who had no definite career turned their steps to seek their 
 fortunes, as the old saying is. Goldsmith does not seem to have 
 had the profession of an author especially in mind ; he tried his 
 hand with a company of strolling players as he tramped along the 
 road ; he took the position of usher or under-teacher at a boys' 
 school ; he corrected proof sheets ; he even endeavored to make a 
 beginning at his real profession of medicine. But none of these 
 ventures was successful or permanent. 
 
 Not till after about twelve months of experiment did his true 
 powers find a chance. He attracted the attention of the publish- 
 ers of one of the London magazines, and was engaged to supply 
 articles to the Monthly Review. He was to write anything the 
 editor needed to fill up with. 
 
 Although this particular engagement did not last very long, and 
 although Goldsmith tried teaching and medicine again, yet this 
 was his real beginning at his life-work. Certainly the writing 
 anything that might be called for was not a very dignified form 
 of the author's profession, but at least it kept him alive, and it 
 also led to something else. From this time (1757) to his death, 
 Goldsmith lived chiefly in London and made his living by his 
 pen. He never settled anywhere else, and, in spite of trying his 
 hand at medicine every now and then, he never really did any- 
 thing else but write. 
 
 In the next twenty years he wrote a great deal that was de- 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 3 
 
 manded of him by publishers and booksellers, and much of it had 
 no very great merit. But beside these things that he wrote for 
 money, he also found leisure to express his truer thoughts and 
 feelings, and thus wrote some of the best things in the literature 
 of the time. His essays attracted notice ; his poems, " The Trav- 
 eler" and "The Deserted Village," were the best that had ap- 
 peared sinca Pope; his play, "She Stoops to Conquer," was 
 successful in its day and has kept the stage since, and " The Vicar 
 of Wakefield " is one of the best novels of the century. This 
 would be a proud record for any author ; from it we understand 
 what Johnson meant when he said of Goldsmith that he left 
 scarcely any mode of writing untouched, and touched none that 
 he did not adorn. 
 
 But a list of his works gives no real idea of his life nor of his 
 character. His life in London for twenty years, although more 
 settled than his varied experiments in search of a profession, had 
 yet decided ups and downs. He never attained that steady habit 
 of life which is careful of the present and provident for the future. 
 He made a great deal of money, but he was generally in debt ; he 
 wrote exquisite and charming works, but he had also to toil days 
 and months upon. pieces of book- work which could have had but 
 little interest for him ; he had many of the most distinguished 
 men of his time as friends,. yet he was constantly doing careless 
 and foolish things, like beating booksellers and wearing clothes 
 of bloom-colored plush. 
 
 But there was one characteristic which nothing ever changed or 
 even obscured. This was his genuine goodness of nature and his 
 sweet charm of manner. He was often hasty, but never unkind, 
 and, in spite of his follies, everybody had a warm heart for him. 
 And his readers also for one hundred and fifty years have always 
 felt that, in spite of all failures, here was a man who truly ap- 
 pealed to the heart. 
 
 Goldsmith died in 1774, at the comparatively early age of forty- 
 six. He was deeply in debt when he died, but the stairway lead- 
 ing to his room was filled with mourners the poor with whom 
 he had shared whatever fortune brought him, and who loved him 
 as their benefactor and their friend. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 [Goldsmith, though of English descent, was brought up in Ire- 
 land, and saw there many scenes of distress and poverty among 
 the peasants. He had a very sympathetic nature, and the leave- 
 takings among the emigrants who left their Irish homes to come 
 to America must have saddened him. He came very near emi- 
 grating to America himself once, but the ship sailed without him. 
 
 In his later life he used to leave London, where he lived, and 
 make little trips into the country, where he saw the pleasures of 
 English village life. 
 
 In this poem he described the two kinds of villages as though 
 they were one. Macaulay, an English critic, says : 
 
 * ' The village in its happy days is a true English village. The 
 village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery 
 which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two differ- 
 ent countries, and to two different stages in the progress of society. 
 He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural 
 paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his 
 Auburn. He had assuredly never seen in England all the in- 
 habitants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day 
 and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had 
 probably seen in Kent ; the ejection he had probably seen in 
 Munster ; but by joining the two he has produced something 
 which never .was and never will be seen in any part of the world." 
 
 When he was a little boy, Goldsmith went to school to an old 
 soldier who taught him to read and write, and told him many 
 wonderful tales of his travels and his experiences in the army. 
 You will find a picture of this ' ' village master " in the poem. 
 
 Goldsmith's father was a clergyman. 
 
 Thackeray, an English novelist, describes the life of the family 
 thus : 
 
 " His father had a crowd of poor dependents besides those hun- 
 gry children. He kept an open table, round which sat flatterers, 
 and poor friends, who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes, 
 and ate the produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those who 
 have seen an Irish house in the present day can fancy that one 
 of Lissoy. The old beggar still has his allotted corner by the 
 kitchen turf ; the maimed old soldier still gets his potatoes and 
 buttermilk; the poor cotter still asks his honor's charity, and 
 prays God bless his Reverence for the sixpence ; the ragged pen- 
 sioner still takes his place by right and sufferance. There's still 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. O 
 
 a crowd in the kitchen, and a crowd round the parlor-table, 
 profusion, confusion, kindness, poverty. If an Irishman comes 
 to London to make his fortune, he has a half-dozen Irish depend- 
 ents who take a percentage of his earnings."] 
 
 SWEET AUBURN! loveliest village of the plain, 
 
 Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain! 
 
 Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 
 
 And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed : 
 
 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 5 
 
 Seats 2 of my youth, when every sport could please, 
 
 How often have I loitered o'er thy green, 
 
 Where humble happiness endeared each scene! 
 
 How often have I paused on every charm, 
 
 The sheltered cot, 3 the cultivated farm, 10 
 
 The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
 
 The decent church that topped the neighboring hill, 
 
 The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, 
 
 For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 
 
 How often have I blessed the coming day, 15 
 
 When toil remitting * lent its turn to play, 
 
 And all the village train, from labor free, 
 
 Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree; 
 
 While many a pastime circled in the shade, 
 
 The young contending as the old surveyed; 5 20 
 
 And many .a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 
 
 And sleights of art and feats of strength went found. 
 
 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, 8 
 
 While secret laughter tittered round the place ; 
 
 The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love, 
 
 1 Swain a young man living in the country. a Seats places where I lived. 
 
 3 Cot cottage. * Toil making less demands gave place to play. 
 
 6 The young people had matches of skill or strength, while the old people looked on. 
 6 not knowing that some one had blackened his face. 
 
6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 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! 35 
 
 Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn; 
 Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
 And desolation saddens all thy green: 
 One only master grasps the whole domain, 
 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain; 40 
 
 No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
 But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way; 
 Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
 The hollow sounding bittern 1 guards its nest; 
 Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 45 
 
 And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
 Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 
 And the long grass overtops the moldering wall, 
 And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, 
 Far, far away, thy children leave the land. 50 
 
 111 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, 55 
 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 
 A time there was, ere England's griefs began, 
 When every rood of ground maintained its man; 
 For him light labor spread her wholesome store, 
 Just gave what life required, but gave no more: 60 
 
 His best companions, innocence and health; 
 And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 2 
 
 1 The bittern is a wading bird which, makes a lonely-sounding, booming noise. 
 
 2 The best possession he has is contentment, for he does not know how many things 
 there are to wish for. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 7 
 
 But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train 
 Usurp the land and dispossess the swain; 
 Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,, 65 
 
 Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose; 
 And every want to opulence allied, 1 
 And every pang that folly pays to prided _ 
 Those gentle hours that plenty bade tcTbloom, 
 Those calm desires that asked but little room, 70 
 
 Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene, 
 Lived in each look, and brightened all the green; 
 These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, 
 And rural mirth and manners are no more. 
 
 Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour, 75 
 
 forlorn confess the tyrant's power. 
 
 Here, as I take my solitary rounds 
 
 Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
 
 And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
 
 Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 80 
 
 Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, 
 
 Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 
 
 In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
 In all my griefs and God has given my share 
 I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 85 
 
 Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; 
 To husband out life's taper at the close, 3 
 And keep the flame from wasting, by repose: 
 I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
 Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, 90 
 
 Around my fire an evening group to draw, 
 And tell of all I felt, and all I saw; 
 And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue 
 Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
 
 1 every desire that generally accompanies great riches. 
 3 Foolish people take great trouble and suffer much because they are proud. 
 3 Life is like the light of a taper. Goldsmith wishes to use his strength economically, 
 not waste it in work or excitement, toward the end of life, so that it may last longer. 
 2 
 
8 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 95 
 
 Here to return and die at home at last. 
 
 blest retirement, friend to life's decline, 
 Retreats from care that never must be mine, 
 How happy he who crowns in shades like these 
 
 A youth of labor with an age of ease; 100 
 
 Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
 
 And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! 
 
 For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
 
 Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; * 
 
 ISTo surly porter stands in guilty state, 105 
 
 To spurn imploring famine from the gate; 
 
 But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
 
 Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; 
 
 Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, 
 
 While resignation gently slopes the way; 110 
 
 And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
 
 His heaven commences ere the world be past! 
 
 Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close 
 flip yonder hill the village murmur rose; 
 There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, 115 
 
 The mingling notes came softened from below; 
 The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, 
 ^ The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, 
 r The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, 
 The playful children just let loose from school, 120 
 
 The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, 
 And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind; 
 These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, 
 And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 
 But now the sounds of population fail, 125 
 
 No cheerful murmurs fluctuate 2 in the gale, 
 
 1 Goldsmith thinks that toilers in mines and the sailors on the sea are at work to make 
 money for rich people. 
 
 2 rise and fall. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread, 
 
 For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. 
 
 All but yon widowed, solitary thing, 
 
 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring: 130 
 
 She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread, 
 
 To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 1 
 
 To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, 2 
 
 To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn; 
 
 She only left of all the harmless train, 135 
 
 The sad historian of the pensive plain. 
 
 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. 140 
 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year ; 
 Eernote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place; 
 TJnpracticed * he to fawn, or seek for power, 145 
 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 
 Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, 
 t/> ro.ipft till ft wrenched than to rise f 
 
 His house was known to all the vagrant train; 
 
 He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain: 150 
 
 The long remembered beggar was his guest, 
 
 Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; 
 
 The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
 
 Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; 4 
 
 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 155 
 
 Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, 
 
 Wept o'er his wounds or tales of sorrow done, 
 
 Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. 
 
 Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
 
 1 strip the cresses which grow like a green mantle on the water, in order to sell 
 them. 2 the hedges of thorny bushes. 
 
 3 He was not in the habit of fawning. 4 had his claims acknowledged as just. 
 
10 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 And quite forgot their vices in their woe; 160 
 
 Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
 His pity gave ere charity began. 
 
 Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
 And e'en his failings leaned to Virtue's side; 
 But in his duty prompt at every call, ' 165 
 
 He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; 
 And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
 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. 170 
 
 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, 175 
 
 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. 180 
 
 The service past, around the pious man, 
 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; 185 
 
 Their welfare; pleased him and their cares distressed: 
 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, 190 
 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 
 
 Beside yon straggling fence that skirts 1 the way, 
 
 1 borders the road. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 11 
 
 With blossomed furze l unprofitably gay, a 
 There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 195 
 
 The^village master taught his little school. 
 A man severe he was, and stern to view; 
 I knew him well; and every truant knew: 
 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 The day's disasters in his morning face; 200 
 
 IFull well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
 |At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; 
 Full well the busy whisper circling round 
 Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. 
 Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 205 
 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault; 
 The village all declared how much he knew : 
 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; 
 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 3 
 And even the story ran that he could gauge : 4 210 
 
 (In arguing, too, tho parson owned his skill, 
 For, even though vanquished, he could argue still; 
 While words of learned length and thundering sound 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 215 
 
 That one small head could carry all he knew. 
 
 But past is all his fame. The very spot 
 WlTere many a time he triumphed is forgot. 
 Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, 
 Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, 220 
 
 Low lies that house where nut-brown drafts 5 inspired, 
 Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired, 
 Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, 
 Arid news much older than their ale went round. 
 
 1 Furze a, thorny shrub. 
 
 2 gay with flowers that do no good. 
 
 3 Presage foretell. 
 
 4 Gauge to measure ; here probably to survey or measure land. 
 6 Drafts drinks of brown ale. 
 
12 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Imagination fondly stoops to trace 225 
 
 The parlor splendors of that festive place : 
 The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, 
 The varnished clock that clicked behind the door; 
 
 IThe chest contrived a double debt to pay/ 
 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 230 
 
 The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
 The twelve good rules, 2 the royal game of goose; 
 The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, 
 With, aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay; 
 While broken teacups, wisely kept for show, 235 
 
 Hanged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row. 
 
 Vain, transitory splendors! could not all 
 Eeprieve the tottering mansion from its fall ? 
 Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart 
 An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. 240 
 
 Thither no more the peasant shall repair 
 To sweet oblivion of his daily care; 
 No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, 
 No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; 
 No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 245 
 
 Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear; 
 The host himself no longer shall be found 
 Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; 3 
 Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed, 
 Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 250 
 
 Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
 These simple blessings of the lowly train; 
 To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 4 
 One native charm, than all the gloss of art; 
 Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play, 255 
 
 1 It served for two uses. 2 rules of behavior in the inn. 
 
 s the glass of beer or wine. Mantling may refer to the color of the drink or to the 
 color it causes in the face. Goldsmith calls it bliss, because he supposes that it makes 
 people happy. 
 
 4 One natural charm is pleasanter to his heart than all the polish of art is. 
 
THE DESEKTED VILLAGE. 13 
 
 The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway. 
 
 Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 
 
 Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. 
 
 But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 
 
 With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed 260 
 
 In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 
 
 The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; 
 
 And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 1 
 
 The heart distrusting asks if this be joy. 
 
 Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey 265 
 
 The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 
 'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand a 
 Between a splendid and a happy land. 
 Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 3 
 And shouting Folly hails them from her shore; 270 
 
 Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound, 
 And rich men flock from all the world around. 
 Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name 
 That leaves our useful products still the same. 
 Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 275 
 
 Takes up a space that many poor supplied; 4 
 Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 
 Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds; 
 The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 
 Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth; 5 280 
 His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 
 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green : 
 Around the world each needful product flies, 
 For all the luxuries the world supplies; 
 
 While thus the land adorned for pleasure all 285 
 
 In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. 
 
 As some fair female, unadorned and plain, 
 
 1 tempt. 2 What a great distance there is ; how far apart the boundaries are. 
 
 3 The ocean swells with pride because it carries boats full of gold. 
 
 4 that supplied many poor people with food. 
 
 5 Half the growth of the fields has been sold to buy the robe. 
 
14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 
 Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, 
 Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes; 290 
 
 But when those charms are past, for charms are frail, 
 When time advances, and when lovers fail, 
 She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, 
 In all the glaring impotence of dress. 
 
 Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed: 295 
 
 In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed, 
 But verging to decline, its splendors rise; 
 Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise: 
 While, scourged by famine from the smiling land, 
 The mournful peasant leads his humble band, , A 300 
 And while he sinks, without one arm to save, '^'^ ' 
 The country blooms a garden and a grave. 1 ( 
 Where then, ah! where, shall poverty reside, 
 To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ? 2 
 If to some common's fenceless limits strayed 305 
 
 He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, 
 Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, 
 And even the bare-worn common is denied. 
 If to the city sped what waits him there ? 
 To see profusion that he must not share; 310 
 
 To see ten thousand baneful arts combined 
 To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; 
 To see those joys the sons of pleasure know 
 Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. 
 
 Here while the courtier glitters in brocade, 315 
 
 There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; 
 Here while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, 
 There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. 
 The dome, where pleasure holds her midnight reign 
 Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train : 320 
 
 1 a pleasure garden, but all the prosperity of the poor peasant is destroyed to make 
 it, and so is buried in it. 2 pride that is its next-door neighbor. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 15 
 
 Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 
 
 The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 
 
 Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy! 
 
 Sure these denote one universal joy! 
 
 Are these thy serious thoughts ? Ah, turn thine eyes 325 
 
 Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. 
 
 She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed, 
 
 Has wept at tales of innocence distressed; 
 
 Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 
 
 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn: 330 
 
 Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled, 
 
 Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, 
 
 And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, 
 
 With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 
 
 When idly first, ambitious of the town, 335 
 
 She left her wheel and robes of country brown. 
 
 Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, 
 Do thy fair tribes participate 1 her pain ? 
 Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 
 At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. 340 
 
 Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene, 
 Where half the convex world intrudes between,* 
 Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 
 Where wild Altama 8 murmurs to their woe. 
 Far different there from all that charmed before, 345 
 
 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; 350 
 
 Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, 
 Where the dark scorpion gathers death around; 
 Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 
 
 1 share her pain. 2 Half the round world pushes itself in between. 
 
 3 Altama tine Altamaha River, in Georgia. 
 
16 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake; 
 
 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, 355 
 
 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, 360 
 
 The breezy covert of the warbling grove, 
 
 That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. 
 
 Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day, 
 That called them from their native walks away; 
 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 365 
 
 Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, 
 And took a long farewell, and wished in vain 
 For seats like these beyond the western main, 
 And shuddering still to face the distant deep, 
 Returned and wept, and still returned to weep. 370 
 
 The good old sire the first prepared to go 
 To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe; 
 But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, 
 He only wished for worlds beyond the grave. 
 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, 375 
 
 The fond companion of his helpless years, 
 Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, 
 And left a lover's for a father's arms. 
 With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 
 And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose, 380 
 
 And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear, 
 And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear, 
 Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief 
 In all the silent manliness of grief. 
 
 Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree, 385 
 
 How ill exchanged are things like these for thee ! 
 How do thy potions, 1 with insidious joy, 
 
 1 A potion is a drink. The potion doesn't have the insidious joy ; it gives a sly joy. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 17 
 
 Diffuse their pleasure only to destroy! l 
 
 Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, 
 
 Boast of a florid vigor not their own. 390 
 
 At every draft more large and large they grow, 
 
 A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe; 
 
 Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound, 
 
 Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. 
 
 Even now the devastation is begun, 395 
 
 And half the business of destruction done; 
 Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
 I see the rural virtues leave the land ; 
 Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, 
 That idly waiting flaps with every gale, 400 
 
 Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
 Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
 Contented toil, and hospitable care, 
 And kind connubial a tenderness are there; 
 And piety with wishes placed above, 405 
 
 And steady loyalty, and faithful love. 
 
 And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, 
 Still first to fly where sensual joys invade; 
 Unfit in these degenerate times of shame 
 To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame; 410 
 
 Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, 
 My shame in crowds, my solitary pride; 
 Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, 
 That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so; 
 Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel, 415 
 
 Thou nurse of every virtue fare thee well! 
 Farewell, and oh ! where'er thy voice be tried, 
 On Torno's 3 cliffs, or Pambamarca's 4 side, 
 
 1 Goldsmith is comparing the pleasure gained from riches with that gained from strong 
 drink, which he now says pleases at first, but injures afterwards. 
 
 2 the tenderness of husband and wife. 
 
 3 the 'heights around a lake in northern Sweden. 
 
 4 a mountain in Ecuador. 
 
18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Whether where equinoctial fervors glow, 
 
 Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,, 420 
 
 Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
 
 Eedress the rigors of the inclement clime; l 
 
 Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain; 
 
 (Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain; 
 
 (Teach him, that states of native strength possessed, 425 
 
 Though very poor, may still be very blest; 
 
 That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
 
 As ocean sweeps the labored mole away; 
 
 While self-dependent power can time defy, 
 
 As rocks resist the billows and the sky. 430 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR QUESTIONS. 
 
 42. Is the line easy to read aloud ? 
 
 Does it describe a movement which is easy ? 
 Find out what alliteration is. 
 52. Accumulate here means to grow greater. 
 
 What does decay here mean ? Find out what antithesis is. 
 66. How does the expression "Unwieldy wealth " create the 
 impression which the author wishes to make ? Compare with 
 line 42. 
 
 76. How do the glades "confess the tyrant's power " ? 
 100. What figure of speech is in this line ? 
 136. Find an example of alliteration. 
 
 148. See what evidence of the poet's skill you can find in this 
 line. 
 
 180. What figure of speech is in this line ? 
 302. What figure is here ? 
 
 Find other instances of antithesis, of alliteration, and of 
 lines whose sound suits their meaning in the poem. 
 
 10-14. Make a list of the things mentioned in these lines. 
 Shut your eyes and try to see the whole picture. 
 
 1 soften the severities of the harsh climate. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 19 
 
 41-48. Count the features enumerated in this scene. 
 Try to see the picture. 
 
 100-130. Find within these lines a picture painted by enumer- 
 ating its parts. 
 
 (Teach other figures of speech. See Standard Literature 
 Series, Nos. 26 and 47.) 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS. 
 (Daily themes.) 
 
 1. Write a paragraph describing the preacher. 
 
 2. Write a paragraph describing the schoolmaster. 
 
 3. Write a paragraph describing a scene in the village tavern. 
 
 4. Write a paragraph describing the village as it used to be. 
 
 5. Write a paragraph describing the scene when the village 
 people left their homes. 
 
 6. Write a comparison between the English home that the 
 people left and the land in the colonies to which they went. 
 
 ^ 7. What lesson did Goldsmith wish to teach in this poem ? 
 
 8. Write a paragraph telling whether you think Goldsmith 
 was right or not, and why. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOE MEMORY WORK. 
 
 1. Learn lines 51-56. 
 
 2. Learn lines 99-102. 
 
 3. Learn lines 167-170. 
 
 4. Learn lines 187-192. 
 
20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 THE TRAVELER; 
 
 OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY. 
 
 [GOLDSMITH, when he was a young man, wandered from village 
 to village through Europe, playing his flute for the amusement 
 of the peasants, and thus earning food and lodging. During this 
 trip he wrote a poetical letter to his brother, describing the various 
 countries which he saw, but years afterwards, when he was an 
 older man, he re- wrote the poem, "The Traveler," adding the 
 thoughts and morals which you will find scattered through it. 
 
 Thackeray, himself a great author, who lived shortly after Gold- 
 smith, in a lecture which he gave on Goldsmith, says : 
 
 "Who, of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't love 
 him ? To be the most beloved of English writers, what a title 
 that is for a man ! A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness 
 and affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has 
 been passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to 
 see the great world out of doors, and achieve name and fortune 
 after years of dire struggle and neglect and poverty, his heart 
 turning back as fondly to his native place, as it had longed 
 eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes a poem, full 
 of the recollections and feelings of home. . . . Wander he must, 
 but he carries away a home-relic with him, and dies with it on 
 his breast. His nature is truant ; in repose it longs for change, 
 as on the journey it looks back for friends and quiet. . . . Your 
 love for him is half pity. You come hot and tired from the day's 
 battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could harm 
 the kind vagrant harper ? Whom did he ever hurt ? He carries 
 no weapon save the harp on which he plays to you ; and with 
 which he delights great and humble, young and old. . . . Not 
 one of us, however busy or hard, but once or twice in our lives, 
 has passed an evening with him, and undergone the charm of his 
 delightful music."] 
 
 REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow, 
 Or * by the lazy Scheld 2 or wandering Po; 3 
 Or onward, 4 where the rude Carinthian boor 6 
 Against the houseless stranger shuts the door; 
 
 1 Or here means either. 2 slow-flowing river of Belgium and Holland. 
 
 3 largest river of Italy. < further. 6 peasant of Carinthia, a part of Austro-Hungary. 
 
THE TRAVELER. 21 
 
 Or where Campania's l plain forsaken lies, 5 
 
 A weary waste expanding to the skies; 
 
 Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
 
 My heart untraveled 2 fondly turns to thee: 
 
 Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, 
 
 And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 3 10 
 
 Eternal blessings crown 4 my earliest friend, 
 And round his dwelling guardian saints attend; 
 Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
 To pause from toil, and trim, their evening fire: 
 Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, 6 15 
 
 And every stranger finds a ready chair : 
 Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned, 
 Where all the ruddy family around 
 Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 
 Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale; 20 
 
 Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
 And learn the luxury of doing good. 
 
 But me, not destined such delights to share, 
 My prime of life in wandering spent and care; 
 Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue 25 
 
 Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view; 
 That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, 
 Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies; 6 
 My fortune leads 7 to traverse realms alone, 
 
 And find no spot of all the world my own. 30 
 
 c. **r 
 Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, 
 
 I sit me down a pensive hour to spend; 
 And, placed on high above the storm's career, 
 Look downward where a hundred realms appear; 
 
 1 a central province of Italy. 
 
 2 His heart did not travel with his body, but remained with his brother. 
 
 3 Criminals often had chains attached to their ankles. His heart was bound to home 
 by a chain of memories. 
 
 4 May they crown. 5 where those suffering want and pain go for help. 
 
 6 The horizon moves away as we approach it. 
 
 7 leads me ; object in line 23. 
 
22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide, 35 
 
 The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. 
 
 When thus creation's charms around combine, 
 Amidst the store should thankless pride repine ? 
 Say, should the philosophic mind disdain 
 That good, which makes each humbler bosom vain ? l 40 
 
 Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, 
 These little things are great to little man; 
 And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind 
 Exults in all the good of all mankind. 
 
 Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor crowned ; 45 
 Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round; 
 Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale; 
 Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale; 
 For me your tributary stores combine: 
 Creation's, heir, the i world, the-world is mine ! 3 50 
 
 As some lone miser visiting his store, 
 Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er; 
 Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, 
 Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still: 
 Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, 3 55 
 
 Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies : 
 Yet of t a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, 
 To see the hoard of human bliss so small ; 
 And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find 
 Some spot to real happiness consigned, 60 
 
 Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest, 
 May gather bliss to see my fellows blest. 
 
 But where to find that happiest spot below, 
 Who can direct, when all pretend to know ? 
 The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 65 
 
 Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; 
 Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, 
 And his long nights of revelry and ease; 
 
 1 Philosophers pretend to despise the riches of the world. 
 
 3 In one way he owns what he enjoys. 3 First one feeling and then another rises. 
 
THE TRAVELER. 23 
 
 The naked negro, panting at the line/ 
 
 Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, 70 
 
 Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, 
 
 And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
 
 Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, 
 
 His first, best country ever is at home. 
 
 And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, 75 
 
 And estimate the blessings which they share, 
 
 Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom 2 find 
 
 An equal portion dealt to all mankind; 
 
 As different good, by Art or Nature given, 
 
 To different nations makes their blessings even. 80 
 
 Nature, a mother kind alike to all, 
 Still grants her bliss at labor's earnest call; 
 With food as well the peasant is supplied 
 On Idra's 3 cliffs as ArnoV shelvy side; 
 
 And though the rocky crested summits frown, 85 
 
 These rocks, by custom 6 turn to beds of down. 
 From Art more various 6 are the blessings sent; 
 Wealth, commerce, honor, liberty, content. 
 Yet these each other's power so strong 7 contest, 
 That either 8 seems destructive of the rest. 90 
 
 Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails, 
 And honor sinks where commerce long prevails. 
 Hence every state, to one loved blessing prone, 
 Conforms and models life to that alone. 
 
 Each to the favorite happiness attends, 95 
 
 And spurns the plan that aims to other ends; 
 'Till, carried to excess in each domain, 
 This favorite good begets peculiar pain. 9 
 
 1 the equator. 2 Each patriot flatters his own land, but the wise man finds, etc. 
 
 3 Idria in the Austrian Empire. The town is among the mountains. 
 
 4 important river of central Italy. 
 
 6 " Custom " here means trade. There are quicksilver mines near Idria, and by trade 
 the rocks furnish comforts to the people. 
 
 6 more various from Art than from Nature (see lines 79 and 81). 
 
 7 strongly. 8 either here means each. 9 pain peculiar to itself. 
 
 3 
 
24: OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 But let us try these truths with closer eyes, 
 And trace them through the prospect as it lies: 100 
 
 Here for a while my proper cares l resigned, 
 Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind; 
 Like yon neglected shrub at random cast, 
 That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast. 
 
 Far to the right where Apennine ascends, 105 
 
 Bright as the summer, Italy extends; 
 Its uplands, sloping, deck the mountain's side, 
 Woods over woods in gay theatric pride; 
 While oft some temple's moldering tops between a 
 With venerable grandeur mark the scene. 110 
 
 Could, 3 JN"ature's bounty satisfy the breast, 
 The sons of Italy were surely blest. 
 Whatever fruits in different climes are found, 
 That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground; 
 Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, 115 
 
 Whose bright succession decks the varied year; 
 Whatever sweets salute the northern sky 
 With vernal lives that blossom but to die; 
 These here disporting own the kindred soil, 
 Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil: 120 
 
 While sea-born gales their gelid * wings expand 
 To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. 
 
 But small the bliss 6 that sense alone bestows, 
 And sensual bliss is all the nation 6 knows. 
 In florid beauty groves and fields appear; 125 
 
 Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. 
 Contrasted faults 7 through all his manners reign: 
 Though poor, luxurious; 8 though submissive, vaio; 
 
 1 " my proper cares "cares peculiar to me. 
 
 2 seen between the trees; there are many old churches in Italy. 3 if it could. 
 
 4 cold; congealed. 
 
 5 The bliss is small. Goldsmith means that we get much less pleasure through the 
 body than through the mind. 
 
 * the Italian nation ; the nation that lives amid these scenes. 
 
 7 faults just the opposite of each other. 
 
 8 Although the Italian is poor, he loves his ease. 
 
THE TRAVELER. 25 
 
 Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; 
 
 And even in penance planning sins anew. 1 130 
 
 All evils here contaminate the mind, 
 
 That opulence departed leaves behind ; 2 
 
 For wealth was theirs, not far removed the date 3 
 
 When commerce proudly flourished through the state; 
 
 At her command the palace learned to rise, 135 
 
 Again the long-fallen column sought the skies: 
 
 The canvas glowed, beyond e'en nature warm, 
 
 The pregnant quarry teemed with human form ; 4 
 
 Till, more unsteady 6 than the southern gale, 
 
 Commerce on other shores displayed her sail; 140 
 
 While nought remained of all that riches gave, 
 
 But towns unmanned and lords without a slave; 
 
 And late the nation found with fruitless skill 
 
 Its former strength was but plethoric ill. 8 
 
 Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied 145 
 
 By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride; 
 From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind 
 An easy compensation seem to find. 
 Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed, 
 The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade; 7 150 
 
 Processions formed for piety and love, 
 A mistress 8 or a saint in every grove. 
 
 1 While he performs penance for one sin, he plans another. 
 
 2 People who once had riches, but have lost them, are apt to be proud and lazy. 
 
 3 at a time not far past. 
 
 4 The human forms are all in the stone quarry, but it takes the sculptor to set them 
 free to cut them out. He refers to the work of the noted sculptors ; the marble came 
 from the quarries at Carrara. 
 
 8 If people find goods at a new place better or cheaper, they trade at the new place. 
 So commerce is unsteady. 
 
 * As eating too much gives unhealthy fat, rather than muscular strength, so being too 
 rich makes a nation seem great without giving real strength. The Italian cities were at 
 the height of their commercial activity about the close of the Middle Ages. The dis- 
 covery of America and of the sea-route to India were the main causes of the decay of 
 Italian commerce. 
 
 T Triumphant processions in Italy used to be in steel armor, after bloody battles; now 
 they are in pasteboard helmets and fancy dresses for pleasure. 
 
 8 Mistress means lady-love. 
 
26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 
 The sports of children satisfy the child. 1 
 
 Each nobler aim, repressed by long control, 155 
 
 Now sinks at last, or feebly mans 2 the soul; 
 While low delights, succeeding fast behind, 
 In happier meanness 3 occupy the mind: 
 As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway, 
 Defaced by time and tottering in decay, 160 
 
 There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, 
 The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed, 
 And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 4 
 Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. 
 
 My soul turn from them, turn we to survey 165 
 
 Where rougher climes a nobler race display, 
 Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, 
 And force a churlish soil for scanty bread; 
 No product here the barren hills afford, 
 
 But man and steel, the soldier and the sword. 5 170 
 
 No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, 
 But winter lingering chills the lap of May; 
 No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, 
 But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. 
 
 Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, 175 
 
 Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. 
 Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small, 
 He sees his little lot the lot of all ; 6 
 Sees no contiguous 7 palace rear its head 
 
 To shame the meanness of his humble shed; 180 
 
 No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal, 8 
 To make him loathe his vegetable meal, 
 But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, 
 
 1 He calls the Italians children. 
 
 2 controls. 3 lowness. 4 building. 
 
 6 The Swiss were the chief mercenary soldiers of Europe from the fifteenth century 
 through the French Kevolution. 
 
 6 His life is like the life of all his neighbors. 
 
 7 adjacent ; close at hand. 8 He sees no lord deal a banquet. 
 
THE TRAVELER. . 27 
 
 Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. 
 
 Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, 185 
 
 Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes; 
 
 With patient angle trolls the finny deep, 
 
 Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep; 
 
 Or seeks the den where snow tracks mark the way, 
 
 And drags the struggling savage 1 into day. 190 
 
 At night returning, every labor sped, 
 
 He sits him down the monarch of a shed; 
 
 Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys 
 
 His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze; 
 
 While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, 195 
 
 Displays her cleanly platter on the board; 
 
 And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, 
 
 With many a tale repays the nightly bed. 
 
 Thus every good his native wilds impart, 
 Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; a 200 
 
 And even those ills, that round his mansion rise, 
 Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. 
 Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 3 
 And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; 
 And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 205 
 
 Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
 So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, 
 But bind him to his native mountains more. 
 
 Such are the charms to barren states assigned; 
 Their wants but few, their wishes all confined. 210 
 
 Yet let them only share the praises due, 
 If few their wants, their pleasures are but few; 
 For every want that stimulates the breast 
 Becomes a source of pleasure when redressed. 
 
 1 Bears abound in Switzerland. Savage, as a noun, now applies only to members of 
 the human family. 
 
 2 Every good thing that his country gives impresses on his heart a love for that 
 country. 
 
 8 His desires remain small as his home 
 
28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Whence from sucli lands each pleasing science flies, 215 
 
 That first excites desire, and then supplies; 
 
 Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, 
 
 To fill the languid pause with finer joy; 
 
 Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, 
 
 Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. 220 
 
 Their level life is but a smoldering fire, 
 
 Unquenched by want, unf anned by strong desire : 
 
 Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer 
 
 On some high festival of once a year, 
 
 In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, 225 
 
 Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire. 
 
 Bat not their joys alone thus coarsely flow: 
 Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low; 
 For, as refinement stops, from sire to son, 
 Unaltered, unimproved, the manners run; 230 
 
 And love's and friendship's finely-pointed dart 
 Fall blunted from each indurated 1 heart. 
 Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast 
 May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest; 
 But all the gentler morals, such as play 235 
 
 Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way, 
 These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly, 
 To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. 
 
 To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, 
 I turn; and France displays her bright domain. 240 
 
 Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
 Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
 How often have I led thy sportive choir, 
 With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ? a 
 Where shading elms along the margin grew, 245 
 
 And, freshened from the wave, the zephyr flew ; 
 And haply, 3 though my harsh touch faltering still, 
 But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill, 
 
 1 hardened. 2 largest purely French river. 3 perhaps. 
 
THE TRAVELER. 29 
 
 Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
 
 And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 250 
 
 Alike all ages. 1 Dames of ancient days 
 
 Have led their children through the mirthful maze, 
 
 And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic a lore, 
 
 Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore. 
 
 So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, 255 
 
 Thus idly busy rolls their world away: 
 Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, 
 For honor forms the social temper here : 
 Honor, that praise which real merit gains, 
 Or even imaginary worth obtains, 260 
 
 Here passes current; paid from hand to hand, 
 It shifts in splendid traffic round the land : 
 From courts to camps, to cottages it strays, 
 And all are taught an avarice of praise ; 
 
 They please, are pleased, they give to get 3 esteem; 265 
 
 Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. 4 
 
 But while this softer art their bliss supplies, 
 It gives their follies also room to rise; 
 For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought, 
 Enfeebles all internal strength of thought; 5 270 
 
 And the weak soul, within itself unblest, 
 Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. 
 Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art, 
 Pants for the vulgar praise which' fools impart; 
 Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, 275 
 
 And trims her robes of frieze 6 with copper lace; 7 
 Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer, 
 To boast one splendid banquet once a year; 8 
 
 1 People of all ages are alike. 
 
 2 an adjective for the noun gesture a reference to the custom of the French of using 
 gestures to emphasize their speech. 
 
 They give praise in order to get it. 4 They grow to be what they seem to be. 
 
 6 Those who desire praise too much cannot do what they think right if that would 
 cause them to lose it. coarse woolen cloth. 7 to imitate gold. 
 
 8 starves all the year for the sake of one feast. 
 
30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws, 
 
 Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. 1 280 
 
 To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
 Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies. 
 Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
 Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
 And, sedulous 2 to stop the coming tide, 285 
 
 Lift the tall rampire's 3 artificial pride. 
 Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 
 The firm connected bulwark seems to grow; 
 Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, 
 Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 290 
 
 While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, 
 Sees an amphibious 4 world beneath him smile; 
 The slow canal, the yellow blossomed vale, 
 The willow tufted bank, the gliding sail, 
 The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 295 
 
 A new creation rescued from his reign. 
 
 Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil 
 Impels the native to repeated toil, 
 Industrious habits in each bosom reign, 
 
 And industry begets a love of gain. 300 
 
 Hence all the good from opulence that springs, 
 With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, 
 Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts 
 Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts; 
 But view them closer, craft and fraud appear, 305 
 
 E'en liberty itself is bartered here. 
 At gold's superior charms all freedom flies, 
 The needy sell it, and the rich man buys; 
 A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves, 
 
 Here wretches seek dishonorable graves, 310 
 
 And calmly bent, to servitude conform, 
 Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm. 
 
 1 does not see the value of self -approval. 2 perseveringly industrious. 
 
 8 rampart or bulwark ; dike. * both of land and of water. 
 
THE TRAVELER. 31 
 
 Heavens! how unlike their Belgic 1 sires of old! 
 
 Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold; 
 
 War in each breast, and freedom on each brow; 315 
 
 How much unlike the sons of Britain now! 
 
 Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing, 
 
 And flies where Britain courts the western spring; 
 
 Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian 2 pride, 
 
 And brighter streams than famed Hydaspis 3 glide. 320 
 
 There all around the gentlest breezes stray, 
 
 There gentle music melts on every spray; 
 
 Creation's mildest charms are there combined, 
 
 Extremes 4 are only in the master's mind! 
 
 Stern o'er each bosom Eeason holds her state. 325 
 
 With daring aims irregularly great, 
 
 Pride in their port, 6 defiance in their eye, 
 
 I see the lords of human kind pass by; 
 
 Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, 
 jBy forms unfashioned, 6 fresh from Nature's hand, 330 
 
 [Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 
 (True to imagined right, above control, 
 
 While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, 7 
 
 And learns to venerate himself as man. 
 
 Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here, 335 
 
 Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear; 
 
 Too blest 8 indeed, were such without alloy, 
 
 But fostered even by freedom ills annoy; 9 
 
 That independence Britons prize 10 too high, 
 
 1 The Belgae included a large number of various tribes lying between the Seine, 
 Marne, and Rhine rivers. Goldsmith refers to them as the ancestors of the Dutch. The 
 Dutch and English are brothers, with languages closely resembling each other. 
 Arcadia is an imaginary country filled with beauty and happiness. 
 Hydaspis was a river which was the subject of many wild tales ; one was that it ran 
 gold and gems. In Goldsmith's time there was a touch of silver in the Thames. 
 Extremes are only imaginary ; there are none in the climate, 
 deportment. 6 not controlled by formalities, 
 
 boasts of his power to criticize the government, etc.; i.e., he takes a part in public 
 discussions and has a voice in the making of the laws. 
 
 8 The people would be too blest. * Even freedom creates some ills. 
 
 10 That independence which Britons prize too highly. 
 
32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie; 340 
 
 The self-dependent lordlings stand alone, 
 
 All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown. 
 
 Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held, 
 
 Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled. 
 
 Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar, 345 
 
 Kepressed ambition struggles round her shore, 
 
 Till over-wrought, the general system feels 
 
 Its motion stop, or frenzy fire the wheels. 
 
 Nor this the worst. 1 As nature's ties decay, 
 As duty, love, and honor fail to sway, 350 
 
 Fictitious 2 bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, 
 Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. 3 
 Hence all obedience bows to these alone, 
 And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown; 
 Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms, 355 
 
 The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, 
 Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, 4 
 Where kings have toiled, and poets wrote for fame, 
 One sink of level avarice shall lie, 
 And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonored die. 5 360 
 
 Yet think not, thus when freedom's ills I state, 
 I mean to flatter kings, or court the great; 
 Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, 
 Far from my bosom drive the low desire; 
 And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 365 
 
 The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel; 8 
 
 1 Nor is this the worst. 2 unnatural. 
 
 3 The Englishman is so independent that he will not obey his family, yet yields 
 to those who have more wealth and position than he, and so loses his independence 
 after all. 
 
 4 " Noble stems transmit the patriot flame " means noble families teach love of country 
 from father to son. A family is often likened to a tree. 
 
 6 Goldsmith thinks that if the English people worship money and title too much they 
 will cease to honor people of talent. 
 
 ' A free people, Goldsmith thinks, are always in danger of being governed foolishly 
 by the excited ignorant poor people, or by some one soldier who may become a tyrant 
 and take possession of the government. 
 
THE TRAVELER. 33 
 
 Thou transitory flower, alike undone 
 
 By proud contempt or favor's fostering sun, 1 
 
 Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure; 
 
 I only would repress them to secure: 2 370 
 
 I For just experience tells in every soil, 
 That those who think must govern those that toil; 
 And all that freedom's highest aims can reach, 
 Is but to lay proportioned loads on each. 
 Hence, should one order 3 disproportioned grow, 375 
 
 Its double weight must ruin all below. 
 
 then how blind to all that truth requires, 
 Who think it freedom when a part aspires ! 4 
 Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms, 
 
 Except when fast-approaching danger warms: 380 
 
 But when contending chiefs blockade the throne, 
 
 Contracting regal power to stretch their own, 5 
 / When I behold a factious band agree 
 \ To call it freedom when themselves are free; 
 
 Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, 385 
 
 Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law; 
 
 The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam, 
 
 Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home, 6 
 
 Fear, pity, justice, indignation start, 7 
 
 Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; 390 
 
 'Till half a patriot, half a coward grown, 
 
 1 fly from petty tyrants to the throne. 
 
 1 We need to guard our freedom well, for if we either neglect it or boast of it, we are 
 apt to lose it. 
 
 2 As we trim flowers from a plant to secure more blooms later, or as a parent chides a 
 child to make him better, so Goldsmith warns the English against wanting too much free- 
 dom, in order that he may help them to be really free. 
 
 3 if one part of society should grow too strong. 
 
 4 How blind people are to think a whole nation is free when only part of the people 
 are anxious to rise! 
 
 6 Goldsmith objects to the power of the king being lessened if that means more power 
 to the nobles. 
 
 * He thinks that if rich men make the Jaws which poor men must obey, then the poor 
 men are really slaves. 7 They start when all these things happen. 
 
34: OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful 1 hour, 
 
 When first ambition struck at regal power; a 
 
 And thus polluting honor in its source, 3 395 
 
 Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. 
 
 Have we not seen, round Briton's peopled shore, 
 \Iier useful sons exchanged for useless ore? 
 
 Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, 
 
 Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste; 400 
 
 Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain, 
 
 Lead stern depopulation in her train, 
 
 And over fields where scattered hamlets rose, 
 
 In barren solitary pomp repose ? 4 
 
 Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call, 405 
 
 The smiling long-frequented village fall ? B 
 
 Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed, 
 
 The modest matron, and the blushing maid, 
 
 Forced from their homes, a melancholy train, 
 
 To traverse climes beyond the western main; 410 
 
 Where wild Oswego 6 spreads her swamps around, 
 J And Niagara stuns with thundering sound ? 
 
 Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays 
 
 Through tangled forest, and through dangerous ways; 
 
 Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 415 
 
 And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim; 
 
 There, while above the giddy tempest flies, 
 
 And all around distressful yells arise, 
 
 The pensive exile, bending with his woe, 
 
 To stop too fearful, and too faint to go, 7 420 
 
 Casts a long look where England's glories shine, 
 
 And bids his bosom sympathize with mine. 
 
 ill-starred ; unfortunate. 2 Possibly he has Oliver Cromwell in mind. 
 
 He thinks the king, not the rich, should be the source of honor. 
 
 seen opulence repose there. 
 
 seen villages depopulated that the land might be turned into the pleasure grounds of 
 
 the 
 
 wealthy. 
 
 river flowing from Lake Oneida to Lake Ontario, 
 afraid to stop, but too weak to go on. 
 
THE TKAVELEK. 35 
 
 Vain, very vain, my weary search to find 
 That bliss which only centers in the mind: 
 Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose, 425 
 
 To seek a good each government bestows? 
 In every government, though terrors reign, 
 Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain, 
 How small, 1 of all that human hearts endure, 
 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. 430 
 
 Still to ourselves in every place consigned, 
 Our own felicity 8 we make or find; 
 With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, 
 Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. 
 The lifted ax, the agonizing wheel, 435 
 
 Luke's iron crown, 3 and DamienV bed of steel, 
 To men remote from power 6 but rarely known, 
 Leave reason, faith, and conscience all oar own. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOE QUESTIONS. 
 
 10. Why a lengthening chain ? 
 
 33. Why does he say that he was ' ' above the storm's career " ? 
 
 47. What is the " busy gale" doing ? 
 
 48. How are the swains dressing the vale ? 
 
 91. Are rich people less contented than poor people ? 
 Are free people less contented than slaves ? 
 
 92. What does this line mean ? 
 
 1 That part of our happiness which depends on anything outside of our own souls is 
 small. 
 
 3 happiness. 
 
 3 The poet is in error. Two brothers, Luke and George Dosa, engaged in a desperate 
 peasant war in Hungary in 1514. George, not Luke, suffered the torture of the iron 
 crown. The crown, heated red hot, was put upon the head of the victim, a punishment 
 for rebels and regicides. 
 
 4 executed in 1757 for his attempt on the life of Louis XV. His limbs were torn with 
 red-hot pincers. 
 
 5 All these terrible things are little known to men who are humble and poor. 
 
36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 114. Name some fruits that ' ' proudly rise " ; name some that 
 "humbly court the ground." 
 
 116. How does the year vary in climate in the Torrid Zone ? 
 
 119. Why, do you think, Goldsmith calls the soil kindred to the 
 plants ? 
 
 120. What does this line mean ? 
 
 122. How does the wind ' ' winnow fragrance " ? What sort of 
 land is a " smiling land " ? 
 
 124. Mention some kinds of happiness which Americans can 
 get which are not sensual. 
 
 135. What does this line mean ? 
 
 136. What does this line mean ? 
 
 167. Are the Swiss really bleak ? Are their houses stormy ? 
 What does the line mean ? 
 
 174. Find what meteors are. Do you think they are oftener 
 seen in Switzerland than elsewhere ? 
 
 181. Find an adjective in this line used as bleak is in line 167. 
 
 221-222. Try to tell what these lines mean to you. 
 
 233-238. Write a paragraph giving this thought in your own 
 words. 
 
 251. What does ' ' Dames of ancient days " mean ? 
 
 256. How can a person be "idly busy " ? 
 
 264. What is an "avarice of praise " ? 
 
 279. What is " shifting fashion " ? 
 
 282. Why does he say that Holland is "embosomed in the 
 deep"? 
 
 284. Find a pretty figure of speech in this line. 
 
 290. What does "scoops out an empire " mean ? 
 
 297-312. Does this description agree with anything you have 
 learned in geography or history of the Dutch people ? 
 
 331-332. Can you think of any event in American history 
 when English people proved these lines true ? 
 
 372. In the elections in our country who has a vote ? 
 
 398. Can you think of any way in which men may be sacri- 
 ficed for money without being sold ? 
 
 413-422. Do you think that this is a true picture of the condi- 
 tion of the colonists ? 
 
ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE. 37 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS. 
 (Daily themes.) 
 
 1. Describe Goldsmith's feelings while he was writing this 
 poem. 
 
 2. As Goldsmith passes the countries of the world before his 
 imagination, what does he profess to be looking for, and what is 
 his real expectation about it ? 
 
 3. Give some of the good things that he sees in Italy; some of 
 the bad. 
 
 4. Give some of the good and bad features of Switzerland. 
 
 5. Give the virtues and vices of France as he sees them. 
 
 6. Give the good and bad features that he finds in Holland. 
 
 7. Give the good and bad features that he finds in England. 
 _8. What is Goldsmith's opinion about the things which affect 
 
 real happiness ? Do you agree with him or not ? Why ? 
 
 AN ELEGY ON" THAT GLOEY OF HER SEX, MRS. 
 MARY BLAIZE. 
 
 GOOD people all, with one accord, 
 
 Lament for Madam Blaize, 
 Who never wanted a good word 
 
 From those who spoke her praise. 
 
 The needy seldom passed her door, 
 
 And always found her kind; 
 She freely lent to all the poor 
 
 Who left a pledge behind. 
 
 She strove the neighborhood to please, 
 With manners wondrous winning; 
 
 And never followed wicked ways 
 Unless when she was sinning. 
 
38 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 At church, in silks and satins new, 
 With hoop of monstrous size; 
 
 She never slumbered in her pew 
 But when she shut her eyes. 
 
 Her love was sought, I do aver, 
 By twenty beaux and more; 
 
 The king himself had followed her 
 When she has walked before. 
 
 But now her wealth and finery fled, 
 Her hangers-on cut short all; 
 
 The doctors found, when she was dead 
 Her last disorder mortal. 
 
 Let us lament, in sorrow sore, 
 For Kent Street well may say, 
 
 That had she lived a twelvemonth more 
 She had not died to-day. 
 
 ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG. 
 
 GOOD people all, of every sort, 
 
 Give ear unto my song; 
 And if you find it wondrous short, 
 
 It cannot hold you long. 
 
 In Islington there was a man, 
 
 Of whom the world might say, 
 That still a godly race he ran, 
 
 Whene'er he went to pray. 
 
 A kind and gentle heart he had, 
 
 To comfort friends and foes; 
 The naked every day he clad, 
 
 When he put on his clothes. 
 
EPITAPH ON EDMUND BUKKE. 39 
 
 And in that town a dog was found, 
 
 As many dogs there be, 
 Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 
 
 And curs of low degree. 
 
 This dog and man at first were friends; 
 
 But when a pique began, 
 The dog, to gain some private ends, 
 
 Went mad, and bit the man. 
 
 Around from all the neighboring streets, 
 
 The wondering neighbors ran, 
 And swore the dog had lost his wits 
 
 To bite so good a man. 
 
 The wound it seemed both sore and sad, 
 
 To every Christian eye; 
 And while they swore the dog was mad, 
 
 They swore the man would die. 
 
 But soon a wonder came to light, 
 That showed the rogues they lied; 
 
 The man recovered of the bite, 
 
 The dog it was that died. % 
 
 EPITAPH ON EDMUND BCJEKE. 
 
 HERE lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, 
 We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much; 
 
 I Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, 
 And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 
 Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat 
 To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote. 
 
THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 THE poet Thomas Gray combined a great love and knowledge 
 of literature and art with an almost equal fondness for nature and 
 natural sciences. He was, in fact, one of the most accomplished 
 men of his times. 
 
 He was born in London in the early part of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury (1716), of middle-class parents. His father was a man of 
 violent temper, who took little interest in his son's up-bringing or 
 welfare ; but his mother, though forced to earn her son's living at 
 millinery, early appreciated his abilities and contrived to have 
 him educated first at the great Eton school, and then at Cam- 
 bridge University. Eton is yet so proud of her son Thomas Gray 
 that each graduate of the school is presented, at his departure, 
 with a copy of Gray's works, and Cambridge honored him by 
 giving him the chair of Modern Literature and Modern Languages. 
 
 There seemed no branch of knowledge which he did not easily 
 master, except mathematics, which he detested, and could not be 
 induced to study. Sir Thomas Mackintosh said of him, " He was 
 the first discoverer of the beauties of nature in England, " and his 
 letters to his literary friends, written while traveling through 
 England and Scotland, prove him a worthy " pioneer of Words- 
 worth," the foremost of the Lake Poets. 
 
 He lived for many years at Cambridge in a college room fitted 
 up daintily with plants and ornaments, but he was so quiet, re- 
 served, and shy that he made few- friends, and dreaded the gaze 
 of strangers. He never married. He died in 1771. 
 
 His fame as a writer rests upon a few poems none of them of 
 any great length. His ode on a distant prospect of Eton contains 
 fine bits of description and much of the philosophy of life, but 
 his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is undoubtedly 
 his masterpiece, and to the present day maintains a high position 
 among the English classics. For musical harmony and pathetic 
 sentiment it stands as one of the most perfect of English poems . 
 
4:2 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 ELEGY 
 
 WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 
 
 [Thomas Gray, like the true poet that he was, could never write 
 except when inspired by some particular circumstances. He 
 began the " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard " in 1742, at 
 the time of the death of a near relative, and added to it on several 
 such occasions, until it was finished seven years after it was begun. 
 He had a notion that it was beneath him to receive money for 
 anything that he wrote, and consequently his publisher received 
 the 1,000 which came from the "Elegy." This poem has been 
 translated into many languages.] 
 
 1. THE curfew 1 tolls the knell of parting day, 
 
 The lowing herd winds 2 slowly o'er the lea, 3 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning 4 flight, 
 And drowsy tinkliugs lull the distant folds; B 
 
 3. Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tow^ir, 
 
 The moping owl does to the moon complain 
 Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, 
 Molest her ancient solitary reign. 6 
 
 4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
 
 Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, 
 Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 
 
 The rude 7 forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 8 
 
 1 Fire-cover. At the ringing of the curfew-bell all household fires were to be put out 
 for the night. The custom was introduced into England by the Norman conquerors as a 
 safeguard against fire. 2 wends its way ; moves in a curving path. s meadow. 
 
 4 making a dull humming sound. 6 flocks. 6 realm. 7 poor, of the peasant class. 
 
 8 The well-to-do were interred inside the church, and the poorer people in the church- 
 yard. Gray is thinking of the latter class. 
 
ELEGY. 43 
 
 5. The breezy call of incense-breathing 1 Morn, 
 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
 ~No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
 
 Or busy housewife ply 2 her evening care; 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
 Or climb his knee the envied kiss to share. 
 
 7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe 3 has broke; 
 How jocund * did they drive their team afield! 
 
 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 
 
 8. Let not Ambition 6 mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 
 Nor Grandeur 6 hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short and simple annals 7 of the poor. 
 
 9. The boast of heraldry, 8 the pomp of pow'r, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 Await alike th' inevitable hour. 9 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 10. Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault, 
 If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
 Where through the long-drawn isle and fretted vault 10 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
 
 1 sweet smelling. 2 attend to. 3 soil; ground. 
 
 4 here an adverb, meaning cheerfully. 
 
 6 here those who would like to be of a higher class. 
 
 6 here those who are of a higher class. 
 
 T chronicles ; history. 
 
 8 of the noble ancestry recorded in the College of Heralds ; of the coat of arms and 
 shield telling of the deeds of some brave ancestor. 
 
 9 death. 
 
 10 vault in an arched roof ; fretted, ornamented with slats intersecting each other at 
 right angles. 
 
44 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 11. Can storied urn, 1 or animated bust, 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 Can Honor's voice provoke 2 the silent dust, 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death ? 
 
 12. Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 3 
 Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, 4 
 Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. 5 
 
 13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 
 
 Eich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 
 Chill Penury 6 repressed their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current 7 of the soul. 
 
 14. Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 
 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 15. Some village Hampden, 8 that, with dauntless breast, 
 
 The little Tyrant of his fields withstood, 
 Some mute inglorious Milton 9 here may rest, 
 Some Cromwell 10 guiltless of his country's blood. 
 
 1 a vessel for holding the ashes of the dead. 
 
 2 call to life again. 
 
 8 filled with heavenly inspiration. 
 
 4 hands that might have swayed the rod of empire ; abilities that might have been 
 powerful to govern. 
 
 5 hands that might have waked the living lyre to ecstasy ; abilities that might have 
 roused some human hearts. 
 
 6 poverty ; want of resources. 
 
 7 stopped the generous impulses. 
 
 8 In 1636 John Hampden of Buckinghamshire refused to pay the ship-money tax 
 imposed by Charles I. Hampden withstood the tyrant king. 
 
 9 John Milton, noted poet and statesman (1608-1674). 
 
 1 Oliver Cromwell was the leader of the parliamentary army that finally overthrew the 
 king's power and brought him to death on the scaffold. This line indicates the strong 
 prejudice that existed against Cromwell in the eighteenth century. 
 
ELEGY. 45 
 
 16. The applause of listening senates to command, 1 
 
 The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 And read their history in a nation's eyes, 
 
 17. Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone 
 
 but their crimes confined^ 
 Forbade to wade through slaughter 2 to a throne, 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, 
 
 18. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
 
 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
 With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 
 
 19. Far from the madding 3 crowd's ignoble strife, 
 
 Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 
 Along the cool sequestered vale of life 
 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 
 
 20. Yet even these bones from insult to protect 
 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 
 
 21. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse, 4 
 
 The place of fame and elegy supply: 
 
 And many a holy text around she strews, 
 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 22. For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, 
 
 This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, 6 
 
 1 The age was one of oratory. The elder Pitt was already famous at the time the 
 poem was published. 
 
 2 to reach a throne by warfare. 3 raging, furious. 4 poet. 
 6 who, when resigning his life here, reconciled himself to being forgotten. 
 
46 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind ? 
 
 23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies/ 
 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 
 Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
 Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. 
 
 24. For thee, who mindful of the unhonored Dead 
 
 Dost in these lines their artless tales relate, 
 If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, 
 Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, 
 
 25. 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. 
 
 26. " There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
 
 That wreathes its old fantastic a roots so high, 
 His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
 And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 
 
 27. " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
 
 Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; 
 Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, 
 Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 
 
 28. "One morn I missed him on the customed hill, 
 
 Along the heath and near his favorite tree; 
 Another came; nor yet beside the rill, 
 Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; 
 
 1 The poet now answers the question of the preceding stanza. While a spark of life 
 remains we crave remembrance. We hope that when we are turned to dust we may 
 still be remembered. 
 
 2 growing into strange, odd shapes. 
 
ELEGY. 47 
 
 29. " The next, with dirges due in sad array 
 
 Slow through the church-way * path we saw him borne. 
 Approach and read (for thou canst read 2 ) the lay 3 
 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn/' 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 30. Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, 
 
 A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown: 
 Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, 4 
 And Melancholy marked him for her own. 
 
 31. . 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 gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. 
 
 32. No farther 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. 
 
 QUESTIONS ON THE ELEGY. 
 
 1. With whom does Gray sympathize in this poem ? 
 
 2. What classes of people does he reprove ? 
 
 3. Of what does he remind all classes ? 
 
 4. Does he think it the fault of these poor village people that 
 they were not great and famous ? 
 
 5. To what does he attribute their lowly lives ? 
 
 6. Find some sentiments in which he agrees with Goldsmith. 
 
 1 churchward ; along the path toward the church. 
 
 2 Reading was not such a common accomplishment as to be taken for granted. 
 
 3 here inscription. 
 
 4 The poet is thinking of himself in these closing lines. 
 
48 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITION WORK. 
 
 1. Write a paragraph describing the parting day and the vil- 
 lage churchyard. 
 
 2. Write a paragraph explaining the application of the four- 
 teenth stanza to the twelfth and thirteenth. 
 
 3. What is meant by the last two lines of the nineteenth stanza ? 
 
 4. Write in prose the meaning of the epitaph. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR MEMORY WORK. 
 
 Memorize the first four stanzas. 
 
 Memorize the ninth stanza. 
 
 Memorize the eleventh stanza. 
 
 Memorize the fourteenth stanza. 
 
 Memorize the twenty-second and twenty-third stanzas. 
 
 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 strayed 
 
 A stranger yet to pain ! 
 
 
ON A DISTANT PKOSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. 49 
 
 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 ? 
 
 While some on earnest business bent 
 
 Their murmuring labors 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 possessed ; 
 
 The tear forgot as soon as shed, 
 The sunshine of the breast : 
 
50 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, 
 Wild wit, invention ever new, 
 
 And lively cheer of vigor born ; 
 The thoughtless day, the easy night, 
 The spirits pure, the slumbers light, 
 
 That fly the approach of morn. 
 
WILLIAM COLLINS. 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS was born on Christmas Day, in the year 1720. 
 His father was a hatter, not very well off, but of a good reputation. 
 
 Collins had a college education and improved himself by much 
 reading and study. He knew not only thw-ancitii I ' Idiig usges]* 
 Greek and Latin, but also French, Italian, and Spanish. 
 
 When a very young man, he was poor and ambitious, but he 
 planned much better than he accomplished. He proposed to write 
 a history, a tragedy, a translation ; but only a few short odes and 
 poems were ever written. These show that he had an imagination 
 that delighted in fairies, genii, giants, and all strange creations of 
 the fancy. 
 
 Before Collins had a chance either to succeed or fail in a liter- 
 ary career, he inherited about ten thousand dollars from an uncle 
 a fortunate occurrence, for soon afterward the poet's health, 
 both of mind and body, failed, so that hard work was impossible 
 for him. He was not violently insane, but his mind was so much 
 affected that he was at one time placed in an asylum. He was 
 conscious of his own infirmity, and tried at first to forget his 
 trouble in travel or to drown it in drink. Finally, he acknowl- 
 edged himself an invalid, and went to live with his sister, who 
 cared for him until he died at the early age of thirty-six. 
 
 Collins's odes were not successful during his life. His pub- 
 lishers lost money by them, and poor Collins made up the loss to 
 them and threw the unused copies into the fire. Within a gener- 
 ation after the death of their author, however, the odes were ac- 
 knowledged to be among the best of their kind in the language, 
 and they are still admired by all who like imaginative poetry. 
 
52 WILLIAM COLLINS. 
 
 THE PASSIONS. 
 
 [Music is supposed to be a goddess who lived in Greece, and 
 who sang and played very beautifully. She kept musical instru- 
 ments hanging round her on myrtle trees. The Passions the 
 various feelings of man, such as Fear, Anger, Despair, and Hope 
 are all personified also. They are male or female, according to 
 their nature. They are all excited by Music, and so taking her 
 instruments, they all show their skill, each in a characteristic way. 
 As there never was such a concert in reality, Collins felt at liberty 
 to make his personified Passions do anything he pleased, and you 
 will find them showing forth their natures without any regard for 
 appearances for "Madness ruled the hour."] 
 
 Music, heavenly maid, was young, 
 While yet in early Greece she sung, 
 The Passions oft, to hear her shell, 1 
 Thronged around her magic cell, 
 Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, 
 Possessed beyond the Muse's a painting; 
 By turns they felt the glowing mind 
 Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined: 
 Till once, His said, when all were fired, 
 Filled with fury, rapt, inspired, 
 From the supporting myrtles round 
 They snatched her instruments of sound; 
 And, as they oft had heard apart 
 Sweet lessons of her forceful art, 
 Each for Madness ruled the hour 
 Would prove his own expressive power. 
 
 First Fear, his hand, its skill to try, 
 Amid the chords bewildered laid; 
 
 And back recoiled, he knew not why, 
 E'en at the sound himself had made. 
 
 i She blew a shell. 
 
 a The Muse is the spirit of poetry. No poet can describe how excited they were. 
 
THE PASSIONS. 53 
 
 Next Anger rushed his eyes on fire, 
 
 In lightnings owned his secret stings: 
 In one rude clash he struck the lyre, 
 
 And swept, with hurried hand, the strings. 
 With woeful measures, wan Despair 
 
 Low sullen sounds! his grief beguiled; 
 A solemn, strange, and mingled air; 
 
 'Twas sad, by fits by starts, 'twas wild. 
 
 But thou, Hope! with eyes so fair, 
 
 What was thy delighted measure ? 
 
 Still it whispered promised pleasure, 
 And bade the lovely scenes at distance 1 haili 
 
 Still would her touch the strain prolong; 
 And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 
 
 She called on Echo still, through all her gong; 
 And where her sweetest theme she chose, 
 A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; 
 And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair. 
 
 And longer had she sung but with a frown, 
 
 Eevenge impatient rose. 
 He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down; 
 
 And with a withering look, 
 
 The war-denouncing trumpet took, 
 And blew a blast so loud and dread, 
 
 Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woes; 2 
 
 And ever and anon, he beat 
 
 The doubling drum with furious heat; 
 And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between,, 
 
 Dejected Pity, at his side, 
 
 Her soul-subduing voice applied, 
 
 1 hailed the lovely scenes in the future hoped for. 
 
 2 There never were prophetic sounds which were so full of woes. 
 
54 WILLIAM COLLINS. 
 
 Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien, 
 
 While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his 
 head. 
 
 Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed 
 
 Sad proof 1 of thy distressful state ! 
 Of differing themes the veering song was mixed; 
 And now it courted Love now, raving, called on Hate. 
 With eyes upraised, as one inspired, 
 Pale Melancholy sat retired, 
 And from her wild, sequestered seat, 
 In notes by distance made more sweet, 
 Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul; 
 And dashing soft from rocks around, 
 Bubbling runnels joined the sound; 
 Through glares and glooms the mingled measure stole, 
 Or o'er some haunted streams, with fond delay, 
 Eound a holy calm diffusing, 
 Love of peace, and lonely musing, 
 In hollow murmurs died away. 
 
 But, oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone, 
 
 When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, 
 Her bow across her shoulder flung, 
 
 Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, 
 
 Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, 
 The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known ! 
 
 The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen, 
 
 Satyrs, and sylvan boys were seen, 
 
 Peeping from forth their alleys green : 
 Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; 
 And Sport leaped up, and seized the beechen spear. 
 
 1 Jealousy played no fixed tune. Jealous people both love and hate the person about 
 whom they feel jealous. 
 
HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE. 55 
 
 Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: 
 
 He, with viny crown, advancing, 
 First, to the lively pipe his hand addressed; 
 
 But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, 1 
 Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. 
 They would have thought, who heard the strain, 
 
 They saw in Tempers vale her native maids, 
 Amid the festal-sounding shades, 
 
 To some unwearied minstrel dancing; 
 
 While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, 
 Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round ; 2 
 Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; 
 And he, amid his frolic play, 
 As if he would the charming air repay, 
 
 Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. 
 
 HOW SLEEP THE BKAVE. 
 
 How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
 By all their country's wishes blest! 
 When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
 Eeturns to deck their hallowed mold, 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
 Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 
 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung; 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung; 
 There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 
 And Freedom shall a while repair, 
 To dwell, a weeping hermit, there. 
 
 1 the viol that awakens makes people lively. 
 
 2 They danced together. 
 5 
 
ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 "ROBERT BURNS was a plowman and the son of a plowman. 
 He was born (in 1759) in a clay cottage built by his father. It 
 consisted of a kitchen in one end, and a room in the other, with 
 a fireplace and a chimney, and there was a concealed bed in the 
 kitchen, with a small closet at the end ; and when altogether cast 
 over (whitewashed) inside and outside with lime, it had a neat 
 and comfortable appearance." 
 
 His parents were honest, industrious, and intelligent, but not well 
 educated. He went to school when a very little boy, and studied 
 the spelling-book, the Bible, a collection of poems, and an English 
 grammar. His teacher made him learn the poems by heart, and 
 write out the meanings of the stanzas in prose. His love of learn- 
 ing prompted him to read the few books his father possessed. 
 Among these was a "Select Collection of English Songs." To 
 quote his own words, 1 1 1 pored over them, driving my cart or 
 walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting 
 the true, tender, or sublime from affectation and fustian. I am 
 convinced that I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, 
 such as it is." He used even to eat his meals book in hand. He 
 sharpened his wits at a little village debating society, and it is said 
 that he once won in a debate with his schoolmaster in the presence 
 of the school. 
 
 He very early in life had love affairs. He says of himself, 
 " My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up 
 by some goddess or other." And so among his first attempts at 
 writing are poems of love. 
 
 Among the earliest books that he read were a life of Hannibal 
 and a life of Wallace, and inspired by them he began to write 
 patriotic verses. 
 
 When still a young man, he left the farm and went to a sea- 
 port town to learn the trade of flax dresser. He did not prosper 
 
58 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 at the trade, but he learned wild ways from the sailors who fre- 
 quented the town, and he wrote some poems in which he bragged 
 of his own vice in a reckless way, and others in which he showed 
 how wretched it made him to have done wrong. 
 
 A dispute arising in the church, Burns applied his art of verse- 
 writing and his skill in disputation to the subject. He wrote 
 several sarcastic poems that amazed the good church people by 
 their cleverness and their boldness. 
 
 Burns had two very serious love affairs, and, it is sad to relate, 
 indulged in both of them at the same time. One of his lady loves 
 was Jean, a village maiden whose acquaintance he made at a 
 dance, and who finally became his wife ; the other was Highland 
 Mary, "a sprightly, blue-eyed creature," who comforted him 
 during a period when he was at odds with his Jean, and whom 
 also he promised to marry. But she died before the promise could 
 be fulfilled. His poems are full of allusions to these love affairs. 
 
 All this time he was wretchedly poor, and he even thought, 
 like Goldsmith, of emigrating to America ; but finally his poems 
 were published, and their merit recognized, so that he was brought 
 to Edinburgh, introduced to literary people, and to society very 
 superior to what he was used to ; he even dined with a lord, and 
 wrote a humorous poem about it : 
 
 " I sidling shelter'd in a nook, 
 And at his Lordship stealt a look, 
 
 Like some portentous omen; 
 Except good sense and social glee, 
 And (what surprised me) modesty, 
 
 I markit nought uncommon." 
 
 In Edinburgh he was much petted ; his portrait was painted, 
 and several pen-portraits were made of him, so that we know him 
 to have been a large man, with a slight stoop caused by following 
 the plow, with brilliant eyes, and a very simple, modest manner 
 neither awkward nor pretentious. 
 
 He finally returned to country life, marrying his Jean, who, 
 he says, had "placid good-nature, vigorous health," and "a more 
 than commonly handsome figure." He went to farming, at which 
 he did not succeed very well, and later got a place as exciseman. 
 
59 
 
 He worked hard, drank heavily, and occasionally found time to 
 write verses, which, as his mood varied, were sometimes gay, 
 sometimes sad. 
 
 He was now, as he had always heen, energetic, kind-hearted, and 
 indiscreet. A story is told of him as exciseman which illustrates 
 all these qualities. It was his business to see that no one sold 
 liquor without a license. A poor woman whom he knew to be 
 breaking the law was startled one morning by his sudden appear- 
 ance, with, " Kate, are you mad ? Don't you know that the super- 
 visor and I will be in upon you in forty minutes ? " Of course, 
 when they came, there was no strong drink about. 
 
 In 1796 Burns died from a cold taken while under the influence 
 of liquor. He showed courage in facing death, great distress at 
 leaving his family poor, and regret at not having destroyed many 
 of his poems which were struck off in the heat of the moment and 
 which he felt did not express his best sentiments. 
 
 He is a poet much loved by the Scotch and by the plain people 
 everywhere. His writings show what genius can do for a man 
 who lacks thorough education and culture. But they also show 
 how lack of refinement and of steadfast high principle can injure 
 a man of genius. Not all of his poems are fit to read, but some of 
 them are among the most admired and popular poems in the lan- 
 guage. 
 
 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 
 
 [Burns was the son of a poor Scotch farmer, and, when his 
 father died, became the head of the family and a farmer himself. 
 The father used to have family prayers every night, and after his 
 death Robert, although often a wild lad, and sometimes given to 
 railing at religious forms, used to conduct family worship just as 
 his father did. He used to say to his brother that he thought 
 there was something peculiarly beautiful in the expression, " Let 
 us worship God," with which the evening prayers were generally 
 begun. So he wrote a poem describing the scene in a poor 
 farmer's cottage. 
 
 He read this poem to an uneducated Scotch woman, and she 
 remarked that she didn't call that poetry it just told the truth. 
 Burns thought her criticism high praise, for that was just what he 
 
60 EGBERT BURNS. 
 
 had tried to do to give a true picture of the humble life around 
 him.] 
 
 MY loved, my honored, much respected friend ! ' 
 
 No mercenary bard 2 his homage pays: 
 With honest pride I scorn each selfish end, 
 
 My dearest meed, 3 a friend's esteem and praise: 
 To you I sing in simple Scottish lays 4 5 
 
 The lowly train 5 in life's sequestered 6 scene; 
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; 
 
 What Aiken 7 in a cottage would have been; 
 Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. 8 
 
 November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 9 10 
 
 The short'ning winter-day is near a close; 
 The miry beasts retreating frae 10 the pleugh; n 
 
 The black'ning trains o' craws 13 to their repose: 
 The toil-worn Cotter 13 frae his labor goes, 
 
 This night his weekly moil 14 is at an end, 15 
 
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
 
 Hoping the morn 18 in ease and rest to spend, 
 And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. 
 
 At length his lonely cot 16 appears in view, 
 
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; 20 
 
 1 It used to be the fashion to begin a poem or a book of any sort with a dedication 
 to some one loved or honored by the author. 
 
 2 A mercenary bard is a poet who dedicates a poem to a person who he thinks will 
 give him some favor to pay for the compliment. 
 
 3 A friend's praise is my dearest reward. 4 songs. 
 
 5 Train here means something like procession. Burns will introduce a procession of 
 humble people. 
 
 6 removed from busy life. Burns says that he is going to sing a song that is, write 
 a poem about humble people living quiet lives. 
 
 7 Aiken was a literary friend to whom Burns dedicated the poem. Burns thinks that 
 Aiken would have been very happy if he had lived in a cottage and had not been famous. 
 
 8 believe. * a rushing noise. 
 10 from. n plow. 
 
 12 crows. 18 a farmer who rents a small farm. 
 
 14 toil. 16 to-morrow. ** cottage. 
 
61 
 
 The expectant wee-things, toddling stacher 1 through 
 To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' 2 noise an' glee. 
 
 His wee bit ingle/ blinkin' bonilie, 
 
 His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 
 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 25 
 
 Does a' his weary kiaugh 4 and cares beguile, 
 
 An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil. 
 
 Belyve 5 the elder bairns come drapping in, 
 
 At service out amang the farmers roun' ; 6 
 Some ca' 7 the pleugh, some herd, 8 some tentie rin 9 30 
 
 A cannie 10 errand to a neebor town: 
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown, 
 
 In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in. her e'e, 
 Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw ll new gown, 
 
 Or deposite her sair-won 12 penny-fee, 13 35 
 
 To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 
 
 Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, 
 
 An' each for other's weelfare kindly speirs: 14 
 The social hours, swift- winged, unnoticed fleet; 
 
 Each tells the uncos 15 that he sees or hears; 40 
 
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; 
 
 Anticipation forward points the view. 
 The mother wi' her needle an' her sheers 
 
 Gars auld claes look amaist 16 as weel's the new; 
 The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 17 45 
 
 1 stagger. The expectant little children toddle to meet him. 
 
 2 fluttering, like birds. 
 
 3 little fireplace. The fire blinks prettily. 
 
 4 cark, worry. 5 by-and-by. 
 
 6 This is only a cotter. His elder children are servants to the more wealthy farmers 
 of the neighborhood. 
 
 7 drive with calling or shouting. 8 take care of the cattle. 
 9 attentive run. They are careful in running errands. 
 
 10 private errand. n brave, meaning fine. 12 hard-earned. 
 
 13 payment in money. J4 inquires. is strange things ; news, 
 
 16 makes old clothes look almost as well as new. 
 
 1 7 The father mixes his partiality with proper advice and scolding. 
 
62 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 Their master's and their mistress's command 
 
 The younkers l a' are warned to obey; 
 An' mind their labors wi' an eydent 2 hand, 
 
 An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk 3 or play; 
 An' 0! be sure to fear the Lord alway, 50 
 
 " An' mind your duty, duely, morn an' night! 
 Lest in temptation's path ye gang 4 astray, 
 
 Implore His counsel and assisting might: 
 They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright! " 
 
 But hark! a rap comes gently to the door; 55 
 
 Jenny, wha kens B the meaning o' the same, 
 Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor 
 
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame 6 
 
 Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flash her cheek; 60 
 
 With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name, 
 
 While Jenny hafflins 7 is afraid to speak; 
 Weel pleased the mother hears, it's nae wild, worthless rake. 
 
 Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben; 8 
 
 A strappan 9 youth; he takes the mother's eye; 65 
 
 Ely the Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; 
 
 The father cracks 10 of horses, pleughs, and kye. 11 
 The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 
 
 But, blate 12 and laithfu', 13 scarce can weel behave; 
 The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 70 
 
 What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; 
 Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's 14 respected like the lave. 15 
 
 happy love! where love like this is found! 
 
 heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! 
 I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 75 
 
 And sage experience bids me this declare 
 
 1 young ones. 2 diligent. s idle, trifle. 4 go. 6 knows. 6 blush. 7 half way. 
 8 into the inner part of the house, 'strapping. 10 talks. n cattle. 12 bashful. 
 * 3 shy. H child. J* the rest; like other girls. 
 
63 
 
 " If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare/ 
 
 One cordial 2 in this melancholy vale/ 
 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair 
 
 In other's 4 arms breathe out the tender tale 80 
 
 Beneath the milk-whito thorn that scents the evening gale." 
 
 Is there, in human form, that bears a heart 
 
 A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! 
 That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art 
 
 Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 5 85 
 
 Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth ! 
 
 Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? 
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth/ 
 
 Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
 Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild! 90 
 
 But now the supper crowns their simple board, 
 
 The healsome parritch, 7 chief of Scotia's food: 
 The soupe 8 their only hawkie 9 does afford, 
 
 That 'yont 10 the hallen " snugly chows her cood; 12 
 The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 95 
 
 To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd 13 kebbuck, 14 fell, 15 
 An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid; 
 
 The frugal wifie, garrulous, 16 will tell, 
 How 'twas a towmond auld, 17 sin' lint was i' the bell. 18 
 
 The cheerfu' supper done, wl' serious face 100 
 
 They round the ingle form a circle wide; 
 
 1 does spare if Heaven does spare, or give, to earth. 
 
 2 Cordial means here a warming drink. 
 
 3 Burns calls this earth a melancholy vale; that is, a valley of sorrow. 
 
 4 in each other's arms. 
 
 6 Is there a man with a heart who could intentionally (with studied art) win Jenny's 
 love and cast it away ? 
 
 6 no tenderness that points. 
 
 T porridge. 8 the sup that which they drink, milk. 9 cow. 
 
 10 beyond. ll porch. 12 cud. 13 well -matured. 
 
 14 cheese. 18 of fine flavor. 16 talkative. 1T a twelvemonth old. 
 
 18 since flax was in flower. The cheese was a year old last flax blossoming. 
 
64 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace 
 
 The big ha'-bible, 1 ance 2 his father's pride: 
 His bonnet 3 reverently is laid aside, 
 
 His lyart haffets 4 wearing thin an' bare; 105 
 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 
 He wales 6 a portion with judicious care; 
 And " Let us worship God! " he says, with solemn air. 
 
 They chant their artless notes in simple guise; 
 
 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; 110 
 
 Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, 
 
 Or plaintive Martyrs, 6 worthy of the name; 
 Or noble Elgin beets 7 the heavenward flame, 
 
 The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: 
 Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; 115 
 
 The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; 
 Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 
 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high; 
 Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 120 
 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny; 
 Or how the royal Bard 8 did groaning lie 
 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; 
 Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; 
 
 Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic x fire; 125 
 
 Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme; 
 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 
 How He, who bore in heaven the sacred name, 
 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head; 130 
 
 hall Bible, the Bible kept in the chief room. 
 
 once. 3 his cap. 4 gray sidelocks. 
 
 selects. 6 " Dundee " and " Martyrs " are two hymn tunes, 
 
 feeds. The tune called Elgin feeds the aspiring flame in their hearts. 
 King David, who wrote the Psalms. 
 
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 65 
 
 How His first followers and servants sped ; 
 
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land; 
 How he, 1 who lone in Patmos banished, 
 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; 2 
 
 And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's 
 command. 135 
 
 Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King 
 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
 Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," 
 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days: 
 There ever bask in uncreated rays, 140 
 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
 
 In such society, yet still more dear; 
 While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 145 
 
 In all the pomp of method, and of art, 
 When men display to congregations wide 
 
 Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart! 
 The Pow'r, 3 incensed, the pageant will desert, 
 
 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; 4 150 
 
 But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
 
 May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul, 
 And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll. 
 
 Then homeward all take off 6 their sev'ral way; 
 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest; 155 
 
 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 
 And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, 
 
 1 the Apostle John, who was banished to the island of Patmos in the Mediterranean. 
 
 3 Read Revelation xviii. 8 God. 
 
 4 the priestly scarf the scarf worn in the Church of England by the clergymen. 
 6 go off, depart. 
 
66 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 That He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 
 
 And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 
 Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 160 
 
 For them and for their little ones provide; 
 But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. 
 
 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 
 That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; 
 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 165 
 
 "An honest man's the noblest work of God: " 
 And certes, 1 in fair virtue's heavenly road, 
 
 The cottage leaves the palace far behind; 
 What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 
 
 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 170 
 
 Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! 
 
 Scotia! my dear, my native soil! 
 
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 
 
 Be blest with health and peace and sweet content! 175 
 
 And, oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 
 From luxury's contagion weak and vile; 
 Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 
 A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
 And stand a wall of fire around their much -loved Isle. 180 
 
 Thou ! who poured the patriotic tide 
 
 That streamed through Wallace's 2 undaunted heart; 
 Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 
 
 Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
 (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, 185 
 
 His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) 
 never, never, Scotia's realm desert, 
 
 But still the patriot and the patriot-bard 
 In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! 
 
 1 truly. 2 a scotch hero. 
 
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 67 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR QUESTIONS. 
 
 11. Why shortening f 
 
 12. What does the word miry tell you about the horses ? 
 39. Why are the hours called social ? Why swift-winged ? 
 41. What are hopeful years ? 
 
 46-54. Why is the second half of this stanza enclosed in quota- 
 tion marks, but not the first half ? 
 75. What does this line mean ? 
 
 95. What does "in complimental mood " mean? 
 
 96. What does " to grace the lad " mean? 
 116. What does " the tickled ears" mean ? 
 123. What is ' ' Heaven's avenging ire " ? 
 
 132. Who are "the saint, the father, and the husband" ? 
 
 140. What does this line mean ? 
 
 145-154. Give this stanza in your own words. 
 
 165. What line of Goldsmith does this remind you of ? 
 
 180. What does this line mean ? 
 
 184. Explain the meaning of ' ' the second glorious part. " 
 
 189. Which is the ornament, and which the guard $ 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS. 
 (Daily themes.) 
 
 1. Why should the first stanza be in English and the Scotch 
 dialect begin in the second stanza ? Where does English begin 
 again to be employed ? Can you think of a reason for this ? 
 
 2. Write a description of the cotter going home. 
 
 3. Write a description of the scene at his arrival. 
 
 4. Write a description of the scene in his home when the chil- 
 dren and Jenny's lover had all arrived. 
 
 5. What does Burns think about the comparative virtues of the 
 rich and the poor ? How do he and Goldsmith agree on this 
 subject ? 
 
68 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 BANNOCKBUEK 
 
 SCOTS! wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots! wham Bruce has aften led, 
 Welcome to your gory bed, 
 
 Or to victory ! 
 
 Now's the day, and now's the hour; 
 See the front o' battle lour: 
 See approach proud Edward's power 
 
 Chains and slavery! 
 
 Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
 Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
 Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
 
 Let him turn and flee! 
 Wha for Scotland's king and law 
 Freedom's sword will strongly draw ? 
 Freeman stand, or freeman fa' ? 
 
 Let him follow me ! 
 
 By oppression's woes and pains! 
 By your sons in servile chains! 
 We will drain our dearest veins, 
 
 But they shall be free! 
 Lay the proud usurpers low! 
 Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
 Liberty's in every blow! 
 
 Let us do or die ! 
 
 AFTON WATER. 
 
 FLOW gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
 Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise; 
 My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 
 
AULD LANG SYNE. 69 
 
 Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds through the glen, 
 Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
 Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear, 
 I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 
 
 How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills, 
 Far marked with the courses of clear, winding rills; 
 There daily I wander as noon rises high, 
 My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 
 
 How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, 
 Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow; 
 There oft as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea, 
 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 
 
 Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, 
 And winds by the cot where my Mary resides; 
 How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
 As gathering sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wave. 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
 Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; 
 My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 
 
 AULD LANG SYNE. 
 
 SHOULD auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And never brought to mind ? 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And auld lang syne! 
 
 CHORUS, For auld lang syne, my dear, 
 
 For auld lang syne, 
 We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
70 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 And surely ye'll be your pint stowpi 
 
 And surely I'll be mine! 
 And we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
 For auld, etc. 
 
 We twa hae run about the braes, 
 And pou'd the go wans fine; 
 
 But we've wandered mony a weary fit, 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 
 For auld, etc. 
 
 We twa hae paidled in the burn, 
 Frae morning sun till dine; 
 
 But seas between us braid hae roared 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 
 For auld, etc. 
 
 And there's a hand, my trusty fere! 
 
 And gie's a hand o' thine! 
 And we'll tak' a right gude-willie waught, 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
 For auld, etc. 
 
 WEET THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST 
 
 WERT thou in the cauld blast, 
 
 On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
 My plaidie to the angry airt, 
 
 I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee; 
 Or did Misfortune's bitter storms 
 
 Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
 Thy shield should be my bosom, 
 
 To share it a', to share it a'. 
 
O WERT THOU IN THE CATJLD BLAST. 71 
 
 Or were I in the wildest waste, 
 
 Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, 
 The desert were a Paradise, 
 
 If thou wert there, if thou wert there; 
 Or were I Monarch o' the globe, 
 
 Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
 The brightest jewel in my crown 
 
 "Wad be my Queen, wad be my Queen. 
 
JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON, a Scotch poet, was the son of a Preshyterian 
 minister, and was born in 1700. 
 
 A friend of his father, also a clergyman, early saw ability in 
 the little boy, and obtained permission to oversee his education. 
 Thomson studied with this friend for a number of years, arid 
 during this time wrote excellent articles and poems, but he made 
 it a point on January 1st of each year to destroy everything that 
 he had written during the previous year. 
 
 When he grew older, he was sent to Edinburgh University to 
 study for the ministry ; but his intense love of literature, his vivid 
 imagination, and the fact that at this time these qualities were 
 not appreciated in the pulpit, caused him to give up the Church 
 and take to writing. 
 
 He removed from Edinburgh to London, where he gradually 
 gained fame as a poet, but he remained a poor man always. He 
 declared that poetry was the cause of his never marrying. 
 
 Thomson possessed the power of making friends, and, what is 
 still better, of keeping them. He was very shy in society, but 
 delightfully witty and entertaining among his intimate friends. 
 He was very superstitious. Even when he was a young man at 
 college his fear of ghosts led his fellow students to play pranks 
 upon him. 
 
 The chief of his poems are "The Seasons," "Liberty," and 
 "The Castle of Indolence." "The Seasons" is much read by 
 students of literature. In it Thomson shows his reverence for 
 nature and his great descriptive power. 
 
 Bulwer, the novelist who wrote " The Last Days of Pompeii," 
 said of Thomson's writings that they contain "No line which 
 dying he could wish to blot." 
 
74 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 WINTER 
 From The Seasons. * 
 
 As thus the snows arise ; and foul, and fierce, 
 All Winter drives along the darkened air : 
 In his own loose revolving fields/ the swain 
 Disastered stands ; sees other hills ascend, 3 
 Of unknown joyless brow ; and other scenes, 
 Of horrid prospect, shag 3 the trackless plain: 
 Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid 
 Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on 
 From hill to dale, still more and more astray ; 
 Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, 
 Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts of home 
 Kush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth 
 In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul ! 
 What black despair, what horror fills his heart ! 
 When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned 
 His tufted cottage 4 rising through the snow, 
 He meets the roughness of the middle waste, 
 Far from the track and blessed abode of man ; 
 While round him night resistless closes fast, 
 And every tempest, howling o'er his head, 
 Eenders the savage wilderness more wild. 
 Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, 
 Of covered pits, unfathomably deep, 
 A dire descent ! beyond the power of frost ; 
 Of faithless bogs ; of precipices huge, 
 Smoothed up with snow ; and, what is land, unknown, 
 What water, of the still unfrozen spring, 
 In the loose marsh or solitary lake, 
 Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. 
 
 1 fields of snow, loose from the earth, revolving in the wind. 
 
 2 hills of snow. 8 roughen 
 
 4 Cottages in England are often thatched -covered with tufts of straw. 
 
These check his fearful steps ; and down he sinks, 
 Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, 
 Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death ; 
 Mixed with the tender anguish nature shoots 
 Through the wrung bosom of the dying man, 
 His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. 
 In vain for him the officious 1 wife prepares 
 The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment 2 warm ; 
 In vain his little children, peeping out 
 Into the mingling storm, demand their sire, 3 
 With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! 
 Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, 
 Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve 
 The deadly winter seizes ; shuts up sense ; 
 And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, 
 Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corse, 
 Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast. 
 
 HYMN TO GOD'S POWEE. 
 
 HAIL! Power Divine, who by thy sole command, 
 
 From the dark empty space, 
 Made the broad sea and solid land 
 
 Smile with a heavenly grace; 
 
 Made the high mountain and firm rock, 
 
 Where bleating cattle stray ; 
 And the strong, stately, spreading oak 
 
 That intercepts the day. 
 
 The rolling planets thou madest move, 
 
 By thy effective will ; 
 And the revolving globes above, 
 
 Their destined course fulfill. 
 
 * bustlingly anxious to serve. 2 clothing. father. 
 
76 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 His mighty power, ye thunders, praise, 
 As through the heavens you roll ; 
 
 And his great name, ye lightnings, blaze 
 Unto the distant pole. 
 
 Ye seas, in your eternal roar, 
 His sacred praise proclaim ; 
 
 While the inactive sluggish shore 
 Eeaches to the same. 
 
 Ye howling winds, howl out his praise, 
 
 And make the forests bow ; 
 While through the air, the earth, the seas, 
 
 His solemn praise ye blow. 
 
 you high harmonious spheres, 
 Your powerful mover sing ; 
 
 To him your circling course that steers, 
 Your tuneful praises bring. 
 
 "Ungrateful mortals, catch the sound, 
 And in your numerous lays, 
 
 To all the listening world around, 
 The God of nature praise. 
 
WILLIAM GOWPER. 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER was born in 1731. He was the son of a 
 clergyman, and belonged to an aristocratic family. 
 
 The death of his mother when he was only six years old im- 
 pressed him sadly, and he mourned her all his life. After her 
 death he was sent to school, where, at the age of fourteen, he be- 
 gan to "dabble in rhyme." 
 
 He studied law, with little success, writing while a student 
 several popular ballads and a long translation from the French. 
 
 While Cowper was still a young man his father died, leaving 
 only a small estate. His friends secured for him a desirable posi- 
 tion under the government, but he was so fearful of not being 
 qualified for the office that he fell into despondency and lost his 
 reason. A short confinement restored him, but he was unfitted 
 for business life. He was evidently inclined to melancholy from 
 childhood; several times during his life insanity assailed him, 
 and his last six years were shrouded in pitiful gloom. When he 
 recovered from his first attack, he retired to the country, becom- 
 ing an inmate of the family of the Unwins, where he won the 
 lifelong friendship and tender care of Mrs. Unwin. Here he cul- 
 tivated his literary tastes. 
 
 The grace and originality of his compositions brought him 
 reputation, and what he had first taken up as a pastime, he pur- 
 sued as a profession. He published a volume of poems, "Table 
 Talk, Conversation," etc. Lady Austin, whom he met about this 
 time, and other friends, urged him to try his pen on brighter 
 themes. The story of "John Gilpin " was told him, and the next 
 morning he brought his famous ballad to his friend. She gave 
 him ' ' The Sofa " as a theme, and he began the composition of ' ' The 
 Task," which ran into many thousand pleasing, graceful lines. 
 The success of the new volume was instant and decided. The 
 public recognized in it the true voice of poetry and nature. ' ' The 
 best didactic poems," said Southey, "when compared with 'The 
 
78 WILLIAM COWPEK. 
 
 Task,' are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland 
 scenery." The publication of " The Task " evidently had a great 
 effect on the literary tastes of the time. 
 
 Cowper was a delightful conversationalist and letter writer, 
 and he had several very charming women friends who encouraged 
 him in writing. He was at times full of humor, and so we have 
 from the same hand, humorous poems, such as "John Gilpin's 
 Ride," and religious hymns. The celebrated hymn given in this 
 book has a peculiar interest because it was written just before an 
 attack of insanity. 
 
 Cowper did not begin to publish until after his fiftieth year, 
 and he died at the age of sixty-nine. In these nineteen years he 
 wrote a great deal of poetry, including some poems which have a 
 firm hold on the hearts of all English-speaking people. 
 
 KUKAL SOUNDS. 
 
 (From The Task, Boole I.) 
 
 NOR rural sights alone, but rural sounds, 
 Exhilarate the spirit, and restore 
 The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, 
 That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood, 
 Of ancient growth, make music not unlike 
 The dash of Ocean on his winding shore, 
 And lull the spirit while they fill the mind ; 
 Unnumbered branches waving in the blast, 
 And" all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once. 
 Nor less composure waits upon the roar 
 Of distant floods, or on the softer voice 
 Of neighboring fountain, or of rills that slip 
 Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall 
 Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length 
 In matted grass, that with a livelier green 
 Betrays the secret of their silent course. 
 Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, 
 
LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS. 79 
 
 But animated nature sweeter still, 
 
 To soothe and satisfy the human ear. 
 
 Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 
 
 The livelong night ; nor these alone, whose notes 
 
 Nice-fingered Art must emulate in vain, 
 
 But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime 
 
 In still-repeated circles, screaming Ioud 3 
 
 The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl, 
 
 That hails the rising moon, have charms for me, 
 
 Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, 
 
 Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 
 
 And only there, please highly for their sake. 
 
 LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS. 
 
 GOD moves in a mysterious way 
 
 His wonders to perform ; 
 He plants His footsteps in the sea 
 
 And rides upon the storm. 
 
 Deep in unfathomable mines 
 
 Of never-failing skill, 
 He treasures up His bright designs, 
 
 And works His sovereign will. 
 
 Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take ; 
 
 The clouds ye so much dread 
 Are big with mercy, and shall break 
 
 In blessings on your head. 
 
 Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 
 But trust Him for His grace; 
 
 Behind a frowning providence 
 He hides a smiling face. 
 
80 WILLIAM COWPEK. 
 
 His purposes will ripen fast, 
 
 Unfolding every hour ; 
 The bud may have a bitter taste, 
 
 But sweet will be the flower. 
 
 Blind unbelief is sure to err, 
 
 And scan His work in vain : 
 God is His own interpreter, 
 
 And He will make it plain. 
 
 THE DIVERTING EIDE OF JOHN GILPIN. 
 
 JOHN GILPIN was a citizen of credit and renown ; 
 
 A train-band captain eke was he of famous London town. 
 
 John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, " Though wedded we 
 
 have been 
 These twice ten tedious years, yet we no holiday have seen. 
 
 " To-morrow is our wedding day, and we will then repair 
 Unto the Bell at Edmonton, all in a chaise and pair. 
 My sister and my sister's child, myself and children three, 
 Will fill the chaise; so you must ride on horseback after me." 
 
 He soon replied, " I do admire of womankind but one, 
 
 And you are she, my dearest dear, therefore it shall be 
 
 done. 
 
 I am a linen draper bold, as all the world doth know; 
 And my good friend the calender will lend his horse to go." 
 
 Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, "That's well said; and, for that wine is 
 
 dear, 
 We will be furnished with our own, which is both bright and 
 
 clear." 
 John Gilpin kissed his loving wife; o'erjoyed was he to 
 
 find 
 That, though on pleasure she was bent, she had a frugal mind. 
 
THE DIVERTING RIDE OF JOHN GILPIN. 81 
 
 The morning came, the chaise was brought, but yet was not 
 
 allowed 
 To drive up to the door, lest all should say that she was 
 
 proud. 
 So three doors off the chaise was stayed, where they did all 
 
 get in; 
 Six precious souls, and all agog to dash through thick and 
 
 thin. 
 
 Smack went the whip, round went the wheels; were never 
 
 folks so glad; 
 
 The stones did rattle underneath, as if Cheapside were mad. 
 John Gilpin at his horse's side seized fast the flowing mane, 
 And up he got, in haste to ride, but soon came down again. 
 
 For saddle-tree scarce reached had he, his journey to begin, 
 When, turning round his head, he saw three customers come 
 
 in. 
 So down he came; for loss of time, although it grieved him 
 
 sore, 
 Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, would trouble him much 
 
 more. 
 
 ? Twas long before the customers were suited to their mind, 
 When Betty, screaming, came down stairs, "The wine is left 
 
 behind!" 
 " Good lack! " quoth he; " yet bring it me, my leathern belt 
 
 likewise, 
 In which I bear my trusty sword when I do exercise." 
 
 Now Mrs. Gilpin (careful soul!) had two stone bottles found, 
 To hold the liquor that she loved, and keep it safe and sound. 
 Each bottle had a curling ear, through which the belt he 
 
 drew, 
 And hung a bottle on each side, to make his balance true. 
 
82 WILLIAM COWPEK. 
 
 Then over all, that he might be equipped from top to toe, 
 His long red cloak, well brushed and neat, he manfully did 
 
 throw. 
 
 Now see him mounted once again upon his nimble steed, 
 Full slowly pacing o'er the stones with caution and good 
 
 heed. 
 
 But finding soon a smoother road beneath his well-shod feet, 
 The snorting beast began to trot, which galled him in his seat. 
 So, "Fair and softly/' 'John he cried, but John he cried in 
 
 vain; 
 The trot became a gallop soon, in spite of curb and rein. 
 
 So, stooping down, as needs he must, who cannot sit up- 
 right, 
 
 He grasped the mane with both his hands, and eke with all 
 his might. 
 
 His horse, which never in that sort had handled been before, 
 
 What thing upon his back had got did wonder more and more. 
 
 Away went Gilpin, neck or naught; away went hat and wig; 
 He little dreamed when he set out of running such a rig. 
 The wind did blow, the cloak did fly like streamer long and 
 
 gay, 
 Till, loop and button failing both, at last it flew away. 
 
 Then might all people well discern the bottles he had slung; 
 
 A bottle swinging at each side, as hath been said or sung. 
 
 The dogs did bark, the children screamed, up flew the win- 
 dows all, 
 
 And every soul cried out, " Well done! " as loud as he could 
 bawl. 
 
THE DIVERTING RIDE OF JOHN GILPIN. 83 
 
 Away went Gilpin, who but lie! his fame soon spread around; 
 "He carries weight! He rides a race! 'Tis for a thousand 
 
 pound! " 
 
 And still, as fast as he drew near, 'twas wonderful to view 
 How in a trice the turnpike men their gates wide open 
 
 threw. 
 
 And now, as he went bowing down his reeking head full low, 
 The bottles twain, behind his back, were shattered at a blow. 
 Down ran the wine into the road, most piteous to be seen, 
 Which made his horse's flanks to smoke as they had basted 
 been. 
 
 But still he seemed to carry weight, with leathern girdle 
 
 braced, 
 
 For all might see the bottle necks still dangling at his waist. 
 Thus all through merry Islington these gambols he did play, 
 And till he came unto the Wash of Edmonton so gay. 
 
 And there he threw the wash about on both sides of the way, 
 Just like unto a trundling mop, or a wild goose at play. 
 At Edmonton his loving wife from the balcony spied 
 Her tender husband, wondering much to see how he did ride. 
 
 " Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! Here's the house ! " they all at 
 
 once did cry ; 
 "The dinner waits, and we are tired !" Said Gilpin, "So 
 
 am I ! " 
 
 But yet his horse was not a whit inclined to tarry there; 
 For why ? his owner had a house, full ten miles off, at Ware. 
 
 So like an arrow swift he flew, shot by an archer strong; 
 So did he fly which brings me to the middle of my song. 
 
84 WILLIAM COWPER. 
 
 Away went Gilpin out of breath, and sore against his will, 
 Till at his friend the calender's his horse at last stood still. 
 
 The calender, amazed to see his neighbor in such trim, 
 Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, and thus accosted him: 
 "What news? what news? your tidings tell; tell me you 
 
 must and shall; 
 Say why bareheaded you are come, or why you come at all ? " 
 
 Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, and loved a timely joke; 
 And thus unto the calender in merry guise he spoke: 
 " I came because your horse would come: and, if I well fore- 
 bode, 
 My hat and wig will soon be here, they are upon the road." 
 
 The calender, right glad to find his friend in merry pin, 
 Eeturned him not a single word, but to the house went in; 
 Whence straight he came with hat and wig a wig that flowed 
 
 behind, 
 A hat not much the worse for wear, each comely in its kind. 
 
 He held them up, and in his turn thus showed his ready 
 
 wit, 
 " My head is twice as big as yours; they therefore needs must 
 
 fit. 
 
 But let me scrape the dirt away that hangs upon your face; 
 And stop and eat, for well you may be in a hungry case." 
 
 Said John, "It is my wedding day, and all the world would 
 
 stare 
 
 If wife should dine at Edmonton and I should dine at Ware." 
 So, turning, to his horse he said, " I am in haste to dine: 
 'Twas for your pleasure you came here, you shall go back for 
 
 mine ! " 
 
THE DIVERTING lilDE OF JCIIN GILPITST. > > 85 
 
 Ah, luckless speech and bootless boast! for which he paid full 
 
 dear; 
 For, while he spoke, a braying ass did sing most loud and 
 
 clear; 
 
 Whereat his horse did snort, as he had heard a lion roar, 
 And galloped off with all his might, as he had done before. 
 
 Away went Gilpiu, and away went Gilpin's hat and wig: 
 
 He lost them sooner than the first; for why ? they were too 
 
 big. 
 
 Now Mrs. Gilpin, when she saw her husband posting down 
 Into the country far away, she pulled out half a crown; 
 
 And thus unto the youth she said, that drove them to the 
 
 Bell, 
 " This shall be yours, when you bring back my husband safe 
 
 and well." 
 The youth did ride, and soon did meet John coming back 
 
 amain, 
 Whom in a trice he tried to stop, by catching at his rein; 
 
 But not performing what he meant, and gladly would have 
 
 done, 
 The frightened steed he frightened more, and made him 
 
 faster run. 
 
 Away went Gilpin, and away went postboy at his heels; 
 The postboy's horse right glad to miss the lumbering of the 
 
 wheels. 
 
 Six gentlemen upon the road thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
 
 With postboy scampering in the rear, they raised the hue and 
 cry: 
 
 " Stop thief! stop thief! a highwayman! " not one of them 
 was mute, 
 
 And all and each that passed that way did join in the pur- 
 suit. 
 
86 WILLIAM ' COWPER. 
 
 And now the turnpike gates flew open in short space, 
 The tollmen thinking as before that Gilpin rode a race. 
 And so he did, and won it too, for he got first to town, 
 Nor stopped till where he had got up he did again get down. 
 
 Now let us sing, " Long live the king," and Gilpin, long live- 
 he, 
 And when he next doth ride abroad may I be there to see. 
 
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