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PATRIOTIC APOSTROPHE TO GREAT BRITAIN.

Island of bliss! amid the subject seas,
That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight,
Of distant nations, whose remotest shores
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm;
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.

THE PATRIOT'S PRAYER FOR THE VIRTUES OF PEACE, LOVE,
CHARITY, TRUTH, COURAGE, TEMPERANCE, CHASTITY, IN-
DESTRY, AND PUBLIC SPIRIT.

O Thou! by whose Almighty nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls,

Send forth the saving Virtues round the land,
In bright patrol: white Peace, and social Love;
The tender-looking Charity, intent

On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles;
Undaunted Truth, and Dignity of Mind;
Courage composed, and keen; sound Temperance,
Healthful in heart and look ; ̧ clear Chastity,
With blushes reddening as she moves along,
Disordered at the deep regard she draws;
Rough Industry; Activity untired,
With copious life informed, and all awake;
While in the radiant front superior shines
That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal;
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, ever musing on the common weal,
Still labors glorious with some great design.

A SUMMER SUNSET.

Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train,

In all their pomp attend his setting throne.
Air, earth and ocean smile immense. And now,
As if his weary chariot sought the bowers.
Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs
(So Grecian fable sung), he dips his orb;
Now half-immersed, and now a golden curve,
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.

A LIFE OF SELFISHNESS AND OF BENEFICENCE CONTRASTED.

Forever running an enchanted round, Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void; As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain, This moment hurrying wild the impassioned soul, The next in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him, The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank : A sight of horror to the cruel wretch, Who all day long in sordid pleasure rolled, Himself a useless load, has squandered vile, Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheered A drooping family of modest worth. But to the generous, still-improving mind, That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy, Diffusing kind beneficence around, Boastless, as now descends the silent dew; To him the long review of ordered life

Is inward rapture, only to be felt.

A SUMMER EVENING. THE EVENING SHADOWS AND BREEZE. -THE QUAIL; WAFTED SEEDS.

Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds,
All ether softening, sober Evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air;

A thousand shadows at her beck. First this
She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
While the quail clamors for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care
Of Nature naught disdains: thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field the feathered seed she wings.

THE SHEPHERD AND MILKMAID RETURNING FROM WORK. — FAIRIES. THE SUICIDE'S GRAVE. THE GHOST TOWER.

His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail ; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mixed anguish means, Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry, to pass The summer night, as village-stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urged Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunned; whose mournful chambers hold, So night-struck Fancy dreams, the yelling ghost.

A SUMMER NIGHT. THE GLOW-WORM. THE EVENING

STAR.

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, [dark, The glow-worm lights his gems; and, through the A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields The world to Night; not in her winter robe Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray, Glanced from th' imperfect surfaces of things, Flings half an image on the straining eye; While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to Heaven Thence weary vision turns, where, leading soft The silent hours of love, with purest ray Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise, When daylight sickens till it springs afresh, Unrivalled reigns, the fairest lamp of Night.

METEORS OF A SUMMER NIGHT; 'HEAT-LIGHTNING'; SHOOTING STARS.STARS; COMETS; REACH OF SCIENCE; USE OF COMETS.

As thus th' effulgence tremulous I drink,
With cherished gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot
Across the sky, or horizontal dart

In wondrous shapes by fearful murmuring crowds
Portentous deemed. Amid the radiant orbs
That more than deck, that animate the sky,
The life-infusing suns of other worlds;
Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,
The rushing comet to the sun descends;
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble. But, above
Those superstitious horrors that enslave
The fond, sequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, the enlightened few,
Whose godlike minds Philosophy exalts,
The glorious stranger hail. Thy feel a joy
Divinely great; they in their powers exult, -
That wondrous force of thought, which mounting,
This dusky spot, and measures all the sky; [spurns
While, from his far excursion through the wilds
Of barren ether, faithful to his time,
They see the blazing wonder rise anew,
In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent
To work the will of all-sustaining Love:
From his huge vapory train perhaps to shake
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs,
Through which his long ellipsis winds; perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining suns,

To light up worlds, and feed the eternal fire.

CONCLUDING APOSTROPHE TO PHILOSOPHY.— REASON AND FANCY POETRY.

With thee, serene Philosophy, with thee, And thy bright garland, let me crown my song! Effusive source of evidence, and truth! A lustre shedding o'er the ennobled mind, Stronger than summer-noon; and pure as that Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul, New to the dawning of celestial day. [thee, Hence, through her nourished powers, enlarged by She springs aloft, with elevated pride, Above the tangling mass of low desires, That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-winged, The heights of science and of virtue gains, Where all is calm and clear; with Nature round, Or in the starry regions, or the abyss, To Reason's and to Fancy's eye displayed: The First up-tracing, from the dreary void, The chain of causes and effects to Him, The world-producing essence, who alone Possesses being; while the Last receives The whole magnificence of heaven and earth, And every beauty, delicate or bold, Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense, Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

Tutored by thee, hence Poetry exalts

Her voice to ages, and informs the page
With music, image, sentiment, and thought,
Never to die! the treasure of mankind!
Their highest honor, and their truest joy!

MAN WITHOUT PHILOSOPHY IS DESTITUTE OF HOME, SOCIETY,
AND ARTS. CIVILIZATION.

Without thee what were unenlightened man?
A savage roaming through the woods and wilds
In quest of prey; and with th' unfashioned fur
Rough clad; devoid of every finer art,
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care,
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,

Nor guardian law were his; nor various skill
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic, nor the heaven-conducted prow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line or dares the wintry pole;
Mother severe of infinite delights!
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile,
And woes on woes, a still-revolving train !
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse: but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy and peace,
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all
Embellish life.

PHILOSOPHY GUIDES SOCIETY, EXPLORES CREATION, REVEALS
GOD, AND EXPLAINS MAN.

While thus laborious crowds
Ply the tough oar, Philosophy directs
The ruling helm; or, like the liberal breath
Of potent Heaven, invisible, the sail
Swells out, and bears th' inferior world along.
Nor to this evanescent speck of earth
Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high
Are her exalted range; intent to gaze
Creation through; and, from that full complex
Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

Of the Sole Being right, who spoke the Word,
And Nature moved complete. With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and, instant, at her powerful glance,
Th' obedient phantoms vanish or appear;
Compound, divide, and into order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train:
To reason then, deducing truth from truth;
And notion quite abstract; where first begins
The world of spirits, action all, and life
Unfettered and unmixed.

DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM EVER PROGRESSIVE.

But here the cloud (So wills eternal Providence) sits deep. Enough for us to know that this dark state, In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits, This Infancy of Being, cannot prove The final issue of the works of God, By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom formed, And ever rising with the rising mind.

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Pastorals for June.

CUNNINGHAM'S "DAY."

MORNING.

In the barn the tenant cock,

Close to Partlet perched on high, Briskly crows (the shepherd's clock !), Jocund that the morning's nigh. Swiftly from the mountain's brow Shadows, nursed by night, retire ; And the peeping sunbeam now

Paints with gold the village spire. Philomel forsakes the thorn,

Plaintive where she prates at night; And the lark, to meet the morn, Soars beyond the shepherd's sight. From the low-roofed cottage ridge

See the chatt'ring swallow spring; Darting through the one-arched bridge, Quick she dips her dappled wing.

Now the pine-tree's waving top

Gently greets the morning gale!
Kidlings now begin to crop

Daisies in the dewy vale.
From the balmy sweets, uncloyed
(Restless till her task be done),
Now the busy bee's employed
Sipping dew before the sun.
Trickling through the creviced rock,
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock

When 't is sun-drove from the hills. Anxious for the promised corn

(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe), Colin hears the huntsman's horn,

Boldly sounding, drown his pipe. Sweet, O sweet, the warbling throng, On the white emblossomed spray! Nature's universal song

Echoes to the rising day.

NOON.

Fervid on the glittering flood
Now the noontide radiance glows;
Drooping o'er its infant bud,

Not a dew-drop's left the rose.
By the brook the shepherd dines;
From the fierce meridian heat
Sheltered by the branching pines,
Pendent o'er his grassy seat.

Now the flock forsakes the glade,

Where, unchecked, the sunbeams fall; Sure to find a pleasing shade

By the ivied abbey-wall.

Echo, in her airy round,

O'er the river, rock, and hill, Cannot catch a single sound

Save the clack of yonder mill.
Cattle court the zephyrs bland,
Where the streamlet wanders cool;
Or with languid silence stand
Midway in the marshy pool.

But from mountain, dell, or stream,
Not a fluttering zephyr springs;
Fearful lest the noontide beam
Scorch its soft, its silken wings.
Not a leaf has leave to stir,

Nature's lulled, serene, and still!
Quiet e'en the shepherd's cur,
Sleeping on the heath-clad hill.
Languid is the landscape round,
Till the fresh descending shower,
Grateful to the thirsty ground,

Raises every fainting flower. Now the hill, the hedge is green,

Now the warbler's throat 's in tune, Blithesome is the verdant scene, Brightened by the beams of noon!

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As the lark with varied tune
Carols to the evening loud,
Mark the mild, resplendent moon
Breaking through a parted cloud!

Now the hermit howlet peeps
From the barn, or twisted brake;
And the blue mist slowly creeps,
Curling on the silver lake.

As the trout, in speckled pride,
Playful from its bosom springs,
To the banks a ruffled tide
Verges in successive rings.

Tripping through the silken grass,
O'er the path-divided dale,
Mark the rose-complexioned lass,
With her well-poised milking-pail.

Linnets, with unnumbered notes,

And the cuckoo-bird with two, Tuning sweet their mellow throats, Bid the setting sun adieu.

SHENSTONE'S "HOPE."

My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,

Such health do my fountains bestow; My fountains all bordered with moss, Where the hare-bells and violets grow.

Not a pine in my grove is there seen,

But with tendrils of woodbine is bound : Not a beech's more beautiful green,

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

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

To prune the wild branches away.

From the plains, from the woodlands and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves

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

OTWAY.

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

I have found out a gift for my fair;

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed: But let me that plunder forbear,

She will say 't was a barbarous deed.
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young:
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

I have heard her with sweetness unfold' How that pity was due to a dove : That it ever attended the bold;

And she called it the sister of love. But her words such a pleasure convey, So much I her accents adore, Let her speak, and whatever she say, Methinks I should love her the more.

Can a bosom so gentle remain

Unmoved, when her Corydon sighs? Will a nymph that is fond of the plain, These plains and this valley despise? Dear regions of silence and shade !

Soft scenes of contentment and ease! Where I could have pleasingly strayed, If aught in her absence could please.

But where does my Phyllida stray?

And where are her grots and her bowers? Are the groves and the valleys as gay,

And the shepherds as gentle as ours? The groves may perhaps be as fair,

And the face of the valleys as fine, The swains may in manners compare, But their love is not equal to mine.

OTWAY'S "MORNING."

WISHED morning's come; and now upon the plains And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks, The happy shepherds leave their homely huts, And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day. The lusty swain comes, with his well-filled scrip Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls, With much content and appetite he eats, To follow in the field his daily toil, And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits. The beasts that under the warm hedges slept, And weathered out the cold bleak night, are up; And looking towards the neighboring pastures, raise Their voice, and bid their fellow brutes good-morThe cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees, [row. Assemble all in choirs; and with their notes Salute and welcome up the rising sun.

Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals."

EXTRACTS.

THE PREFACE.1

I THAT Whilere near Tavy's 2 straggling spring
Unto my silly sheep did use to sing,
And played to please myself, on rustic reed,
Nor sought for bays (the learned shepherd's meed),
But as a swain unknown fed on the plains,
And made the echo umpire of my strains:
And drawn by time (although the weak'st of many),
To sing those lays as yet unsung of any -
What need I tune the swains of Thessaly?
Or, bootless, add to them of Arcady?
No fair Arcadia cannot be completer,

My praise may lessen, but not make thee greater.
My muse for lofty pitches shall not roam,
But homely pipen of her native home.
To swains who love the rural minstrelsy;
Thus, dear Britannia, will I sing of thee.

DESCRIPTION OF CELANDINE AND MARINA; SHE LOVES HIM,
BUT HE SLIGHTS HER; RESTLESS GRIEF OF THE LOVE-
LORN SHEPHERDESS.

High on the plains of that renowned isle, 3
Which all men beauty's garden-plot instile,
A shepherd dwelt, whom fortune had made rich
With all the gifts that silly men bewitch.
Near him a shepherdess, for beauty's store
Unparalleled of any age before.

Within those breasts her face a flame did move, Which never knew before what 't was to love, Dazzling each shepherd's sight that viewed her eyes. And as the Persians did idolatrize

Unto the sun they thought that Cynthia's light Might well be spared, where she appeared in night; And as when many to the goal do run,

The prize is given never but to one :

So first and only Celandine was led,

Of destinies and heaven much favoréd,

To gain this beauty, which I here do offer

To memory: his pains (who would not proffer
Pains for such pleasures?) were not great nor much,
But that his labor's recompense was such
As countervailéd all for she whose passion
(And passion oft is love), whose inclination
Bent all her course to him-wards, let him know

1 The scenes of these pastorals are laid in the south part of primitive England; rivers, the sea, and other natural objects, are prettily personified after the classical manner. The plot is incoherent; but the whole poem, of more than three hundred pages, though tedious, is yet full of quaint beauties, poetic imagery, and sunny pictures. Book I. was published in 1613, Book II. in 1616; both were reprinted in 1625. William Browne died, probably, in 1665.

2 Tavy is a river, having his head in Dartmoor in Devon, some few miles from Mary-Tavy, and falls southward into Tamar. 3 Great Britain.

He was the elm whereby her vine did grow:
Yea, told him, when his tongue began this task,
She knew not to deny when he would ask.
Finding his suit as quickly got as moved,
Celandine, in his thoughts not well approved
What none could disallow, his love grew feigned,
And what he once affected, now disdained.
But fair Marina (for so was she called)
Having in Celandine her love installed,
Affected so this faithless shepherd's boy,
That she was rapt beyond degree of joy.
Briefly, she could not live one hour without him,
And thought no joy like theirs that lived about him.
This variable shepherd for a while

Did nature's jewel, by his craft, beguile :
And still the perfecter her love did grow,
His did appear more counterfeit in show.
Which she perceiving that his flame did slake,
And loved her only for his trophy's sake:

For he that's stuffed with a faithless tumor,
Loves only for his lust and for his humor;'
And that he often in his merry fit
Would say, his good came ere he hoped for it :
His thoughts for other subjects being pressed,
Esteeming that as naught which he possessed:
For what is gotten but with little pain,

As little grief we take to lose again :'
Well-minded Marine, grieving, thought it strange
That her ungrateful swain did seek for change.
Still by degrees her cares grew to the full,
Joys, to the wane heart-rending grief did pull
Her from herself, and she abandoned all

To cries and tears, fruits of a funeral:
Running the mountains, fields, by watery springs,
Filling each cave with woful echoings;
Making in thousand places her complaint,

And uttering to the trees what her tears meant. **

THE LOVE-SICK MARINA THROWS HERSELF INTO A RIVER;
PART OF THE RIVER-GOD'S ADDRESS TO HER THEREUPON.
-VARIOUS FISHES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS.

'Would she be won with me to stay,
My waters should bring from the sea
The coral red, as tribute due,
And roundest pearls of orient hue:
Or in the richer veins of ground
Should seek for her the diamond;
And whereas now unto my spring
They nothing else but gravel bring,
They should within a mine of gold
In piercing manner long time hold,
And having it to dust well wrought,
By them it hither should be brought;

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