"Those ills, that wait on all below, "When lightnings flash among the trees, "'Tis then I feel myself a wife, "But oh! if fickle and unchaste, "No need of lightning from on high, Denied the endearments of thine eye, Thus sang the sweet sequester'd bird, A FABLE. [Suggested by a circumstance which actually occurred in an orchard adjoining to the Poet's summer-house and study. The piece is first mentioned in a letter to Newton, and was written in the spring of 1780.] A RAVEN, while with glossy breast (A fault philosophers might blame Shook the young leaves about her ears, Can't prophesy themselves at all.) The morning came, when neighbour Hodge, Who long had mark'd her airy lodge, And destined all the treasure there A gift to his expecting fair, Climb'd like a squirrel to his dray, And bore the worthless prize away. MORAL. 'Tis Providence alone secures, In every change, both mine and yours: A COMPARISON. [Both of these beautiful little pieces were written in 1780. The young lady to whom the second is addressed, was Miss Shuttleworth, the sister of Mrs W. C. Unwin.] THE lapse of time and rivers is the same, Both speed their journey with a restless stream; And a wide ocean swallows both at last. A difference strikes at length the musing heart: ANOTHER. ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. SWEET stream, that winds through yonder glade, Apt emblem of a virtuous maid, Silent and chaste she steals along, Far from the world's gay busy throng; With gentle yet prevailing force, VERSES, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK, DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE IN THE ISLAND OF JÚAN FERNANDEZ. [Cowper's exquisite verses, and the admirable fiction of De Foe, have cast a romantic tenderness over the story of Selkirk's life, which it is painful to find unsustained by his natural dispositions. This adventurer, the son of a fisherman of Nether Largo, a village on the Fifeshire coast, was born in 1676, and in consequence of a family quarrel, arising out of his own irascible temper, went to sea. After several years' absence he returned, bringing with him the gun, chest, and drinking cup which he had used during his abode on Juan Fernandez: the two latter of these are still in possession of his surviving relative, a grand-niece, residing in the cottage where Alexander was born. He remained about nine months at home, leading a recluse life, going out only at night or early in the morning; and seems to have regretted his solitude, for he was often overheard lamenting the loss of "his island." This sentiment, the only poetical feeling which we can discover about the man, probably sent him out again a wanderer over the waste of waters; but of his subsequent fate, nothing was ever known.] I AM monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; I am lord of the fowl and the brute. That sages have seen in thy face? I am out of humanity's reach, I must finish my journey alone, Society, friendship, and love, Divinely bestow'd upon man, Oh, had I the wings of a dove, How soon would I taste you again! My sorrows I then might assuage Religion! what treasure untold Ye winds, that have made me your sport, Convey to this desolate shore Some cordial endearing report Of a land I shall visit no more. My friends, do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me? O tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see. How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-wing'd arrows of light. When I think of my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But, alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair. But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, And I to my cabin repair. And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace, And reconciles man to his lot. |