140

FROM POPE'S SATIRES.

Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget?
Its causes were around me yet;
For wheresoe'er I look'd, the while
Was nature's everlasting smile.

Still came and linger'd on my sight,
Of flowers and stars, the bloom and light,
And glory of the stars and sun;—
And these and poetry are one;

They ere the world had held me long
Recall'd me to the love of song.

BRYANT.

FROM THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES ADDRESSED TO ARBUTHNOT BY POPE.

SHUT up the door, good John! fatigued, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick,-I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?

They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;

By land, by water, they renew the charge;
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free.
Even Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me;

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Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me just at dinner-time.

Is there a mortal much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross,
Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls?
All fly to Twick'nham, and in humble strain
Apply to me to keep them, mad or vain.
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped;

If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead.
Seized, and tied down to judge, how wretched I;
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:
To laugh were want of goodness and of grace;
And to be grave exceeds all power of face.
I sit with sad civility; I read

With honest anguish and with aching head,
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,
This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years."

POPE.

UNA.

UNA.

NOUGHT is there under heaven's wide hollowness That moves more dear compassion of the mind, Than beauty brought t' unworthy wretchedness Through envy's snares, or fortune's freaks unkind.

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I, whether lately through her brightness blind, Or through allegiance and fast fealty Which I do owe unto all womankind, Feel my heart pierced with so great agony When such I see, that all for pity I could die.

UNA.

And now it is empassioned so deep
For fairest Una's sake, of whom I sing,

That my frail eyes these lines with tears do steep, To think how she, through guilefull handeling, Though true as touch, though daughter of a king, Though fair as ever living wight was fair, Though nor in word nor deed ill meriting, Is from her knight divorced in despair; And her due loves derived to that vile witche's share.

Yet she, most woefull lady, all this while
Forsaken, woefull, solitary maid,

Far from all people's press as in exile,
In wilderness and wasteful deserts stray'd
To seek her knight; who, subtilly betray'd
Through that late vision which th' enchanter
wrought,

Had her abandon'd: she of nought affray'd, Through woods and wasteness wide him daily sought,

Yet wished tidings none of him unto her brought.

One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight,
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight;

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HYMN TO THE SEA.

From her fair head her fillet she undight, And laid her stole aside: her angel's face, As the great eye of heaven, shined bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place; Did never mortal eye behold such heav'nly grace.

It fortunèd, out of the thickest wood A ramping lion rushèd suddenly, Hunting full greedy after savage blood : Soon as the royal virgin he did spy, With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, To have at once devour'd her tender corse : But to the prey whenas he drew more nigh, His bloody rage assuaged with remorse, And with the sight amazed, forgot his furious force.

Instead thereof, he kist her weary feet,

And lick'd her lily hands with fawning tongue;
As he her wrongèd innocence did weet.
Oh, how can beauty master the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!

SPENSER.

HYMN TO THE SEA.

WHO shall declare the secret of thy birth,
Thou old companion of the circling earth?
And having reached with keen poetic sight
Ere beast or happy bird
Through the vast silence stirred,

Roll back the folded darkness of the primal night?

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HYMN TO THE SEA.

Corruption-like, thou teemedst in the graves
Of mouldering systems, with dark weltering waves
Troubling the peace of the first mother's womb;
Whose ancient awful form,
With inly-tossing storm,
Unquiet heavings kept—a birth-place and a tomb.

Till the life-giving Spirit moved above
The face of the waters, with creative love
Warming the hidden seeds of infant light:
What time the mighty word

Through thine abyss was heard,

And swam from out thy deeps the young day heavenly bright.

Thou and the earth, twin-sisters as they say,
In the old prime were fashioned in one day;
And therefore thou delightest evermore
With her to lie and play

The summer hours away, ·

Curling thy loving ripples up her quiet shore.

She is a married matron long ago,

With nations at her side; her milk doth flow Each year but thee no husband dares to tame; Thy wild will is thine own,

Thy sole and virgin throne

Thy mood is ever changing-thy resolve the same.

Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee;-
O'er the broad circle of the shoreless sea