And, sooth to say, her pupils ranged around,
Through pious awe, did term it passing rare;
For they in gaping wonderment abound,

And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.

Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth,
Ne pompous title did debauch her ear;

Goody, good woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth,

Or dame, the sole additions she did hear;

Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear;
Ne would esteem him act as mought behove,
Who should not honoured eld with these revere;
For never title yet so mean could prove,

But there was eke a mind which did that title love.

One ancient hen she took delight to feed,
The plodding pattern of the busy dame;
Which, ever and anon, impelled by need,
Into her school, begirt with chickens, came;
Such favour did her past deportment claim;
And, if neglect had lavished on the ground
Fragment of bread, she would collect the same;
For well she knew, and quaintly could expound,
What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found.

Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak,

That in her garden sipped the silvery dew;

Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak,

But herbs for use and physick, not a few,
Of grey renown, within those borders grew:
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
Fresh baum, and marygold of chearful hue:
The lowly gill, that never dares to climb;

And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.

[From the poem of the same title.]

WILLIAM COLLINS [1721-1759]

ODE WRITTEN IN 1746

How sleep the Brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
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 Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

DIRGE1

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring

Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.

No wailing ghost shall dare appear
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove;

But shepherd lads assembled here,

And melting virgins own their love.

No withered witch shall here be seen; No goblins lead their nightly crew: The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew!

1 Cf. Shakspere's Dirge, page 96.

The redbreast oft, at evening hours,
Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gathered flowers,

To deck the ground where thou art laid.
When howling winds and beating rain,
In tempests shake the sylvan cell;
Or 'midst the chase, on every plain,

The tender thought on thee shall dwell;

Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved till life can charm no more,
And mourned till pity's self be dead.

ODE TO EVENING

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve! to soothe thy modest ear
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs and dying gales:

O Nymph reserved! while now the bright-hair'd Sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts
With brede ethereal wove

O'erhang his wavy bed

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum-

Now teach me, Maid composed!

To breathe some softened strain

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As musing slow I hail
Thy genial loved return.

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil,

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

Beneath thy lingering light;

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

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy fav'rite name!

ODE TO LIBERTY

Strophe

WHO shall awake the Spartan fife,

And call in solemn sounds to life,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,

At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding freedom loved of old to view?
What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,

Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,

At wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?)

Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing, It leaped in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound! O goddess, in that feeling hour,

When most its sounds would court thy ears,

Let not my shell's misguided power

E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.

No, freedom, no, I will not tell

How Rome, before thy weeping face,

With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,

Pushed by a wild and artless race

From off its wide ambitious base,

When time his northern sons of spoil awoke,

And all the blended work of strength and grace,

With many a rude repeated stroke,

And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke.

Epode

Yet, even where'er the least appeared,
Th' admiring world thy hand revered;
Still 'midst the scattered states around,

Some remnants of her strength were found;
They saw, by what escaped the storm,
How wondrous rose her perfect form;