Thou
loveliest
offspring of the year !
Carey - Practice English Prosody Exercises
.
.
587
Not that I contemn your father's mildness;
But force becomes the diadem.
588
Nor happier they, where sundy wastes extend,
Where Arabs tend their parch'd cattle;
589
And Fame's trumpet shall tell to the world,
Nelson fell in Vict'ry's arms.
590
The hand of Time may heal perchance
The guilty pangs, the remorse I feel.
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? Versification. 181
591
To this thore we bid thee welcome,
Whereadverse winds no more shall thwart thy course.
592
'Tvras night. The chiefs lie beside their vessel,
Till morn had purpled o'er the sky ;
Then launch, and hoist the mast: gales,
By Phoebus supplied, fill the sails.
593
The quarrels of the mortal state
Are far unworthy of your debate, Gods!
Let men employ their days in strife,
We * in constant joy and peace.
594
The woodbine, faintly streak'd with red, blows here,
And rests its head on ev'iy bough :
Its branches meet round the young ash,
Or crown the hawthorn with its odors.
595
The prophet spoke ; and, with a frown,
From his throne the monarch started :
? My young readers will observe, that this passage, though
from the pen of Mr. Pope, is not grammatically correct; for,
On supplying the ellipsis, they will find, " let we employ our
days which is a solecism. It should have been us: but, as
a>>, standi< g singly in this place, would have been harsh and
? ukward, he oujiht to have either repeated the verb Let, with an
infinitive alter as, or adopted the other form of the imperative,
in some such manner as the following--
Pass we our years in constant peace and joy.
0
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? 182 Versification.
Choler fill'd his breast, that boil'd with ire ;
And the^re flash'd from his eye-balls.
The prey, in each conquest, is thine;
Though the danger and sweat of (he clay [be*] mine.
1 bear to my ships some trivial present;
Or praises pay the wounds of war.
597
Let not Britannia's sons deem ignoble
The task that guides the team or sows the corn,
That watches o'er the grain, anxious,
And clothes the plain with crops.
598
Now has Autumn assum'd her reign,
And the mists remain upon the hills:
The whirlwind roars o'er the heath;
The torrent pours through rocky vales.
599. -- The lost Child.
The mother flies through ev'ry grove,
Tries each glade, each path-way,
'Till the light leaves disclose the boy,
Long stretch'd in repose on the wood-moss.
600
They press'd the ground, laid close by each other;
Their bosoms pierc'd with many a wound.
Nor were they well alive, nor wholly dead :
But some signs of life appear.
? The word between crotchets is to be omitted.
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? Versification.
601
Should sleep surprise, on Missisippi's bank,
The peasant, in ambush close lies
The alligator, gorg'd with blood:
Beneath the flood he lurks concTeal'd,
Or ranges around the shore, fierce,
Climbs the bank,and crouches on the ground.
602
Beneath the hawthorn shade I oft have seen
A rustic maid reclin'd on the turf,
With anxious eye watching her lambs
Sporting round their dams in circles;
H ave heard her, o'ercome with heat, hail
The freshness of the rising gale.
60S. --'Rooks and Crows.
The flock goes increasing from field to field,
Most formidable foes to level crops.
The plunderers well know their clanger,
And, on some bough, place a watch.
Yet oft, bv surprise, the gunner,
As they rise, will scatter ieath among them.
60+
May the spirits of the dea. : descend oft,
To -watch the slumbers ol a friend ;
Round his ev'ning walk, unseen, to hover,
And, on the green, hold converse;
To hail the spot where firsi grew their fi iendshi
And nature and heav'n open'd to their view.
605
O'er dale and hill, Night extends her wings,
9<<
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? 184 Versification.
And spreads aveil on shadowy earth;
The pictur'd forms of nature fade,
And sink in shade, melting.
The dews descend, unheard : the show'rs, unseen,
Cool the earth, revive theJlow'rs. . . .
606
The laborers bless their home now,
When midnight and the tempest come.
The farmer wakes, and, with dread, sees
The shafts of heav'n gleam round his head.
The cloud roars re-iterated,
Shakes his roof, and jars his doors.
607
O'er the village green steal twilight's dews,
To harmonise the scene with magic tints.
The hum is still, that broke through the hamlet,
When, round the ruins of their oak,
To hear the minstrel play, the peasants flock'd,
And carols and games clos'd the day.
608. --To Memory.
His ev'ning ray when Joy's sun has shed,
And Hope's meteors cease to play ;
When clouds on clouds close the prospect,
Thy star still glows serenely through the gloom:.
She gilds the brow ol night, like yon orb*,
With the magic of reflected light.
609
Distracting thoughts rul'd his bosom by turns,
Now fir'd by wrath, and now cool'd by reason.
? The Moon.
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? Versification. 185
That prompts his hand to draw the sword,
Force through the Greeks, and pierce their lord;
This whispers soft, to control his vengeance,
And calm the tempest of his soul.
610
Achilles bore not his loss so :
But, returning to the shore, sad,
He hung o'er the margin of the deep,
That kindred deep, from which sprung his mother ;
There, bath'd in tears of disdain and anger,
Lamented loud to the main, thus.
6iI. -- The Farmers Boy.
He hies, with many a shrug, from the fire-side,.
Glad, if the moon salute his eyes,
And, through the stillness of the night,
Shed her beams of light on his path.
The distant stile he climbs with saunt'ring step,
Whilst all wears a smile around him ;
There views the clouds driv'n in clusters,
And all the pageantry of heav'n.
612
The goddess flies swift* to the seas,
Jove to his mansion in the skies.
* As some grammarians loudly condemn an adjective thus
employed in conjunction with a verb, and maintain, that, in alt
such cases, in poetry equally as in prose, the adverb alone is
correctly admissible, viz. " the goddess flies swiftly"--let me
caution my young readers against that doctrine, which, if
adopted, would prove the ruin of poetry, and debase it to the.
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? 18G Versification.
The synod of th' immortals wait
The god coming, and, from their thrones of state.
Arising silent, rapt in/ear,
Appear before the Majesty of heav'n.
While Jove assumes the throne, they stand trembling,
All but the god's queen alone.
low level of tame, vulgar prose. In poetry, an adjective maj
very properly be thus used--agreeing, of course, with the nomi-
native to the verb, as here, " the goddess, swift in her motion,
flies:" and, in cases innumerable, it is by far more elegant and
poetic than the adverb. That such has ever been the unanimous
opinion of our best and most admired poets--in short, of all our
poets most distiuguiihed for correctness of diction and taste--is
evident from their own practice, in which they have judiciously
copied the example of the Greek and Roman bards, who, much
oftener than our English writers, use the adjective in lieu of the
adverb, and with very fine poetic effect, asmust be acknowledged
by every reader who is capable of perceiving and relishing their
beauties. To my conception, the mode or quality, thus ex-
pressed by the adjective, appears more perfectly identified with
the substantive--becoming, for the moment at least, one of its
characteristic features, and forming with it a more complete uuity
of object, than could possibly result from the addition of the ad-
verb. --At the same time, I cannot approve the improper substi-
tution of the adjective for the adverb, which too often takes
place in careless conversation, as when a person says he is " very
iad," instead. of" very ill:" and, although Dr. Johnson (without
authority) has inadvertently suffered Bad, for Sick, to steal into
his dictionary, I advise my young readers to avoid the phrase,
test they lay themselves open to such answer as a gentleman of
my acquaintance jocularly made to a lady w ho complained that
she was " very bad"--"I alwajs thought you bad: but now,
that you confess it, I cannot doubt of your badness. "
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? Versification. 18/
613
Lo! Faith's visions burst upon the sight,
And put to flight the host of Fear.
Terror's Myrmidons recede afar,
Before the beams of Hope's star,
That shoots rays, for ever clear sparkling,
Through Sorrow's realms, and Doubt's hemisphere;
Cheers the pilgrim on his way,
With a happier day, and finer prospects;
And points the sage, oppress'd by toils,
To lasting pleasures, and a land of rest.
614
From this cliff, whose impending rough brow
Frowns o'er the cataract that foams below,
I view the plain, where many a hand
Tills the land for another's gain.
Borne on the ev'ning breeze, their song
Stamps images of ease on my soul.
Ah ! why, dead to man and social converse,
Do I alone tread the mountain,
Where Nature, stubborn and coy, seems to fly
The human race, and defy all approach ?
615
When gates diffuse on closing flow'rs
The fragrant tribute of the dews,
When, at her pail, the milkmaid chants,
And, o'er the vale, reapers whistle,
Charm'd by the murmurs of the shade,
I stray'd along the liver's banks,
And, through the twilight way, calmly musing,
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? 188 Versification.
I fratn'd my rustic lay in pensive mood;
When lo ! a golden gleam, from clouds,
O'er ihe shadowy stream ponr'd splendors,
And its guardian queen arose from the wave,
Known by her stole of green,
6l6
Oh ! say, Muse, whose purer birth
Disdains the low ties of earth,
By what images shall be defin'd
The nature of th' eiernal mind ?
Or how shall thought explore the height,
When to adore is all that r ason can i
Through the tracts of space,
Go, Muse, and trace present Godhead
Could thy fond flight beyond the starry sphere
The morning's lucid pinions bear,
His presence should shine confess'd there,
His arm arrest thy course there.
617. --The impi ironed Debtor.
Hear the debtor's pray'r, O stranger !
From despair let pity snatch him.
Though here guilt and folly revel,
Many a tear the guiltless oft shed ;
And they devour many a wrong iu silence,
And feel the hand ofpow'r.
For aid, my woes, my wants, cry loud in vain,
Since laws are obey'd with rigor.
On sickly and damp bed my wife lies there,
Her spirits and youth rled, her peace destroy'd.
She saw her child expire, with tearless eye--
Indiff'rent to all--her sole desire, death.
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? Versification. 189
618
0 lasting infamy! O disgrace
To chiefs of manly race, and youth !
In you and the gods I trusted, to see
Greece victorious, and her navy free.
Ah no! you disclaim the combat,
And one day clouds all her former fame.
Heav'ns ! what a prodigy these -eyes survey,
Unseen, unthought, 'till this day !
Fly we at length from Troy's bands oft conquer'd ?
And falls our fleet by such hands--
A straggling train, a rout,
Not bom to glories of the plain ;
Like fawns, pursu'd from hill to hill,
A prey to ev'ry savage of the wood ?
619
1 dart ni)' eye, with look erect,
Seem wing'd to part, and gain my native sky.
I strive, but, alas! strive in vain, to mount,
Tied with magic chain to this globe.
Now from pole to pole I range with swift thought,
View worlds roll around their centres;
What pow'rs guide their motions
Through the same paths of void.
I trace the comet's tail,
And in a scale weigh the planets.
While I eager pursue these thoughts,
Some trifle, offer'd to my view,
A gnat, an insect of the meanest kind,
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? 190 Versification.
Erase* from my mind the image:
Some want, importunate, craving,
Vile as the mastiff at my gate,
Calls off this reas'ning me from truth,
And tells me I'm a brute as much as \fe,
620. -- May.
Hail, May, dear to nature's vot'ries!
Thou loveliest offspring of the year !
In thy train advance the Graces,
Move their feet, and form the dance.
Village maids bring their garlands to thee,
Feel the spring, and biush with health--
A little space, ere years o'ershkde,
To flourish like thee, and to tarle like thee.
Hail, chosen month of old, when skoic'rs
Nurs'd ihejiow'rs, and enrich'd the mends ;
When fruits ran in disorder, uncropp'd,
God conversed with man, and on earth peace dwelt;
What time, from dark, wild, and stormy Chaos,
Sprang creation, and spring smil'd;
When the air, shedding health and life,
Chas'd all darkness ; at whose breath, Despair
Might feel a sullen joy, and Disease
Spring from her couch, to catch the breeze.
The Zephyrs stray'd through th' Elysian fields thus,
And sooih'd the hero's shade, murm'ring;
Sigh'd, -adly pleasing, through the cypress wood,
Whose branches wav'd o'er Lethe's flood.
* Grammar is here sacrificed to metre. The verb should have
keen in the singular number, Ertscs.
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? Versification. 191
621. --To the Deity.
Let Israel praise tliec potent,
And raise their homage to lay name.
Let Egypt's land declare thee potent God,
That teit ihy awfully severe justice.
How did tliy frown benight the land,
Nature revers'd, how own thy command,
When elements forgot their use,
And the sun felt thy blot;
When earth produc'd the pestilential brood,
And into blood the stream was crimson'd !
How deep the horrors of that night,
The fright how wild, arid the terror how strong,
When thy sword pass'd o'er the land,
And infants and men breath'd their last at once!
How did thy arm convey thy favor'd tribes,
Thy light paint the way,
Ocean divide to their march,
The wat'ry wall on either side distinct,
While the procession sped through the deep,
Aud saw the wonders of its bed!
Nor long they march'd, 'till, in the rear, black'ning,
The tyrant and his host appear,
Plunge down the steep--the waves obey thy nod,
And whelm the, storm beneath the sea.
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? J 92
Versification.
Iambics of eight syllables, with alternate rhime. --
Epithets to be added to the words printed in Italic,
622 " .
Zephyrs fan the grove now,
And scatter perfumes around;
And feather'd songsters, warbling love,
Are found in ev'ry bush.
623
Oh ! is there not, when eve
Spreads o'er the vale her light texture,
Some fay, that loves to leave
Her pastime in the dale,
And, where sits the poet
To view the misls spread around,
Flits across his mental vision,
And wraps in peace his thoughts r
Iambics of ten syllables, with alternate rhime. -- Epi-
thets to be added to the words printed in Italic.
624. -- On the Death- of a Daughter.
So fair, so gay, where is fled my blossom?
Ah ! see ! by Death 'tis ravag'd :
See her honors spread in the dust,
All pale, and blasted by his breath.
fi25
Go, rose, and on Ella's breast bloom ;
And, while thy buds adorn the maid,
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? Verification.
blesl beneath the sunshine of her eyes:
But, ah ! fair flow'r, conceal thy thorn.
626
When, in Utopian dreams, youth
On the sea of life first launches,
He trusts to sail on pleasure's streams. --
Alas! to woe and scenes of strife he wakes.
627. -- Evening.
The shades o'crspread the west:
Before the breeze, the clouds sweep on:
Labor leaves his sons to rest;
And, among the trees, murmurs sound.
628. -- Night.
The poor enjoy now within yon hamlet
The bliss that flies the great and rich.
No factious cares annoy their breasts,
No sorrows agitate, no guilt disturbs.
629
Verdure adorns the plain here,
There the team, and the grey fallows,
The farm's mansion, and the village fane,
Whose towW reflects the solar beam.
630. -- Spring.
Spring! I taste thy gales:
Pregnant with life, they cheer my soul.
Creation smiles : the dales, the hills, the woods,
Hail the morning of the new-born year.
Expand your bloom, ye groves:
Ye streams, warble: ye buds, -unfold :
Waft all the plenty of your perfume;
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? 194 Versification.
1
And wave, wave your leaves of gold, ye flovv'teii,
631. -- To a Snow-drop.
Harbinger of spring, welcome!
Thy beauties caught my eye.
Solitary flow'r, I've pluck'd thee, to bring
Thy tender frame where no blasts are nigh.
1 see, thou canst scarce rear thy head;
For frosts pierce thy lovely form :
But to a safer bed I'll transplant thee:
My fire shall warm, and my hand shall raise thee.
652
Behold ! past is the storm :
The sun relumes the face of day:
Each flow'r, that shrunk before the blast,
Spreads to the cheering ray its bosom.
Its reviving tints glow bright and more bright;
Its petals catch the gale:
Zephyis blow o'er its breast,
And through the vale waft new fragrance.
633. --Summer.
Spring withdraws now her milder-beaming ray,
And summer, glowing o'er the corn,
To these northern climes leads the day,
Borne refulgent from Afric's plains.
No cloud steers its course across the welkin,
To pour its show'rs upon the earth :
No fount in bubbles from its source:
No dews refresh thefow'rs.
634
O Nature! may thy sway ever
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? Versification. 195
Lead me a vot'ry to thy shrine.
May no passion chase away that sense,
That feels a bliss in charms like thine;
Whether, enshrin'd in autumn's clouds,
You* touch the /eaves with yellow tints,
Or raise, before the reaper's mind,
Grain to fill his future sheaves ;
The wand'rer with the Zephyr's breeze
Whether you cheer 'mid summer's blaze,
Or paint the trees with liveliest green,
When Spring's warmth endears her milder dayi.
635. -- Evening.
When eve, fair child of day,
Throws o'er the verdant ground her mantle,
* I wish my young readers to observe, that, after Thy and
Thine prectding, uniformity requires tSou I ouchest,raisest,$lc
in the singular number; and that a sudden transition from Thou
and Thy to You and Your, or the reverse, ought, if possible, to
be avoided; though metrical necessity, and a regard to euphony
occasionally compel poets to fall into that irregularity, wliieh
however, is much less blamable than Mr. Pope's ungrimmatic
change of number in the following passage, where the nominative
is singular, and the verbs plural--
Thou first great cause, least understood,
Who all my stnse confin'd
To know hut this, that thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
Yet gum me, in this dark estate,
To see the geod from ill, ,
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will. . . . . .
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? 196 Versification.
How sweet to stray adown the vale,
While Cynthia sheds her radiance round !
How sweet to hear the bird of woe*
Pour to the grove her murmurs,
As the warbled numbers flow through the air,
Fraught with the melody of love!
How sweet to mark the landscape near,
The tow'r, and the cottage!
How sweet to hear the village peal,
Borne on the gale at this silent soft hour !
The first line to rhime with the fourth -- the second
with the third.
636
Ah! pleasing scenes, where my childhood slray'd once,
Securely blest in innocence!
No passions inspir'd my breast then ;
No fears sway'd my bosom.
Iambics of eight syllables. -- The Italic words to be
altered to other expressions, either synonymous or in
some degree equivalent.
637
Why can no poet, with magical strain,
Steep the heart of pain in sleep?
* The Nightingale.
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? Versification. 1 97
638
Possess'd of conscious rectitude,
Can grief pierce the good man's bosom'?
639
Justice shall yet open her eyes,
Yet arise terrific in anger,
And tread on the tyrant's bosom,
And make oppression groan oppress'd.
Iambics of ten syllables. -- The Italic words to be
altered, as above; and the elided syllables to be disco-
vered by the pupil's own sagacity*.
640
While former desires still continue within,
Repentance is only want of power to commit sins.
641
The white-robed priest stretches forth his upraised
hands:
Every voice is hushed : attention bends, leaning.
* N. B. When two or more Italic words come together with-
out a line separating them, they are to he taken collectively, and
altered to some other word or phrase of similar import. But,
when they are divided by a perpendicular line interposed, each
division is to he separately taken, and altered independently of
the other. The following example will make this plain--
She receives with gratitude what heaven has sent,
And, rich in poverty, possesses | contentment--
She gratefully receives what heav'n has sent,
And, rich in poverty, enjoys content--
in which lines, the words, with gratitude, are together, altered to
gratefully --possesses, separately altered to enjoys -- and coulait*
went, to content.
H3
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? 198 Versification.
642
Whence flows the strain that salutes the dawn of
morning ?
The Red-breast sings in the flowering haw-thorn.
643
Now unbounded snows disfigure the withered heatk,
And the dim sun hardly wanders through the storm.
644
When her husband \ dies, the widowed Indian
Mounts the dreadful pile, and braves the funeral fires.
645
Alas! how un-availing is pity's tear with thee,
The orphan's terror, or the widow's anguish !
646
Not by the assistance that marble or brass affords,
Lives the remembrance of the noble patriot.
647
I would soon, with pleasure, | exchange existence
For the lasting sleep of one endless night.
648
Courageous and undismayed as the god of war,
When prostrate legions fall round hi3 chariot.
649
Here early rest makes early rising certain:
Disease or does not come, or finds easy cure,--
Much prevented by neat and simple diet,
Or speedily starved out again, if it enter.
650
He comes! tremendous Brama shakes the sunless sky
With murmuring anger, and thunders from above.
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? Versification. 199
Under his warrior form, heaven's fiery horse
Gallops on the tempest, and paws the light clouds.
051
He ceased; and the crowd st\\\ continued silent,
While rapt* attention acknowledged the power of
music:
Then, loud as when the whirlwinds of winter blow,
The thundering applauses flow fro 11 all voices.
652
When the Egyptians, a rude untutored people,
Learned to ornament the obelisk with wild figure*,
And fashion the idol godf in ductile clay,
The polished needle and loom took their origin.
* Let niy young readers carefully distinguish this elegant and
expressive Latin word from the common English Wrapped, with
which it is too often confounded;--a circumstance, to which it
perhaps owes its exclusion from some of our modern dictionaries,
auder the mistaken idea of its being only a corruption . of the
English word. -- Rapt (of the same origin as Rapture, Rapid,
Rapine, and Rapacious, which have no connexion with wrapping)
signifies snatched or hurried away, transported, enraptured, ec-
stusied. Thus Pope --
Rapt into future times, the bard begun :
" A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son. "
f Idol god. -- This expression, which I print as two separate
words, suggtsts to me that it may not be improper in this place
to notice the hyphen, which has, of late years, bten employed in
our typography to a truly blamahle excess, and, on some occa-
sions, to the utter perversion of die syntax and the sense, as, for
example, in Each other and One another, which we sometimes
see improperly coupled with the hyphen as compounds, though
totally distinct in the grammatical construction; since, in those
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587
Not that I contemn your father's mildness;
But force becomes the diadem.
588
Nor happier they, where sundy wastes extend,
Where Arabs tend their parch'd cattle;
589
And Fame's trumpet shall tell to the world,
Nelson fell in Vict'ry's arms.
590
The hand of Time may heal perchance
The guilty pangs, the remorse I feel.
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? Versification. 181
591
To this thore we bid thee welcome,
Whereadverse winds no more shall thwart thy course.
592
'Tvras night. The chiefs lie beside their vessel,
Till morn had purpled o'er the sky ;
Then launch, and hoist the mast: gales,
By Phoebus supplied, fill the sails.
593
The quarrels of the mortal state
Are far unworthy of your debate, Gods!
Let men employ their days in strife,
We * in constant joy and peace.
594
The woodbine, faintly streak'd with red, blows here,
And rests its head on ev'iy bough :
Its branches meet round the young ash,
Or crown the hawthorn with its odors.
595
The prophet spoke ; and, with a frown,
From his throne the monarch started :
? My young readers will observe, that this passage, though
from the pen of Mr. Pope, is not grammatically correct; for,
On supplying the ellipsis, they will find, " let we employ our
days which is a solecism. It should have been us: but, as
a>>, standi< g singly in this place, would have been harsh and
? ukward, he oujiht to have either repeated the verb Let, with an
infinitive alter as, or adopted the other form of the imperative,
in some such manner as the following--
Pass we our years in constant peace and joy.
0
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? 182 Versification.
Choler fill'd his breast, that boil'd with ire ;
And the^re flash'd from his eye-balls.
The prey, in each conquest, is thine;
Though the danger and sweat of (he clay [be*] mine.
1 bear to my ships some trivial present;
Or praises pay the wounds of war.
597
Let not Britannia's sons deem ignoble
The task that guides the team or sows the corn,
That watches o'er the grain, anxious,
And clothes the plain with crops.
598
Now has Autumn assum'd her reign,
And the mists remain upon the hills:
The whirlwind roars o'er the heath;
The torrent pours through rocky vales.
599. -- The lost Child.
The mother flies through ev'ry grove,
Tries each glade, each path-way,
'Till the light leaves disclose the boy,
Long stretch'd in repose on the wood-moss.
600
They press'd the ground, laid close by each other;
Their bosoms pierc'd with many a wound.
Nor were they well alive, nor wholly dead :
But some signs of life appear.
? The word between crotchets is to be omitted.
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? Versification.
601
Should sleep surprise, on Missisippi's bank,
The peasant, in ambush close lies
The alligator, gorg'd with blood:
Beneath the flood he lurks concTeal'd,
Or ranges around the shore, fierce,
Climbs the bank,and crouches on the ground.
602
Beneath the hawthorn shade I oft have seen
A rustic maid reclin'd on the turf,
With anxious eye watching her lambs
Sporting round their dams in circles;
H ave heard her, o'ercome with heat, hail
The freshness of the rising gale.
60S. --'Rooks and Crows.
The flock goes increasing from field to field,
Most formidable foes to level crops.
The plunderers well know their clanger,
And, on some bough, place a watch.
Yet oft, bv surprise, the gunner,
As they rise, will scatter ieath among them.
60+
May the spirits of the dea. : descend oft,
To -watch the slumbers ol a friend ;
Round his ev'ning walk, unseen, to hover,
And, on the green, hold converse;
To hail the spot where firsi grew their fi iendshi
And nature and heav'n open'd to their view.
605
O'er dale and hill, Night extends her wings,
9<<
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? 184 Versification.
And spreads aveil on shadowy earth;
The pictur'd forms of nature fade,
And sink in shade, melting.
The dews descend, unheard : the show'rs, unseen,
Cool the earth, revive theJlow'rs. . . .
606
The laborers bless their home now,
When midnight and the tempest come.
The farmer wakes, and, with dread, sees
The shafts of heav'n gleam round his head.
The cloud roars re-iterated,
Shakes his roof, and jars his doors.
607
O'er the village green steal twilight's dews,
To harmonise the scene with magic tints.
The hum is still, that broke through the hamlet,
When, round the ruins of their oak,
To hear the minstrel play, the peasants flock'd,
And carols and games clos'd the day.
608. --To Memory.
His ev'ning ray when Joy's sun has shed,
And Hope's meteors cease to play ;
When clouds on clouds close the prospect,
Thy star still glows serenely through the gloom:.
She gilds the brow ol night, like yon orb*,
With the magic of reflected light.
609
Distracting thoughts rul'd his bosom by turns,
Now fir'd by wrath, and now cool'd by reason.
? The Moon.
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? Versification. 185
That prompts his hand to draw the sword,
Force through the Greeks, and pierce their lord;
This whispers soft, to control his vengeance,
And calm the tempest of his soul.
610
Achilles bore not his loss so :
But, returning to the shore, sad,
He hung o'er the margin of the deep,
That kindred deep, from which sprung his mother ;
There, bath'd in tears of disdain and anger,
Lamented loud to the main, thus.
6iI. -- The Farmers Boy.
He hies, with many a shrug, from the fire-side,.
Glad, if the moon salute his eyes,
And, through the stillness of the night,
Shed her beams of light on his path.
The distant stile he climbs with saunt'ring step,
Whilst all wears a smile around him ;
There views the clouds driv'n in clusters,
And all the pageantry of heav'n.
612
The goddess flies swift* to the seas,
Jove to his mansion in the skies.
* As some grammarians loudly condemn an adjective thus
employed in conjunction with a verb, and maintain, that, in alt
such cases, in poetry equally as in prose, the adverb alone is
correctly admissible, viz. " the goddess flies swiftly"--let me
caution my young readers against that doctrine, which, if
adopted, would prove the ruin of poetry, and debase it to the.
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? 18G Versification.
The synod of th' immortals wait
The god coming, and, from their thrones of state.
Arising silent, rapt in/ear,
Appear before the Majesty of heav'n.
While Jove assumes the throne, they stand trembling,
All but the god's queen alone.
low level of tame, vulgar prose. In poetry, an adjective maj
very properly be thus used--agreeing, of course, with the nomi-
native to the verb, as here, " the goddess, swift in her motion,
flies:" and, in cases innumerable, it is by far more elegant and
poetic than the adverb. That such has ever been the unanimous
opinion of our best and most admired poets--in short, of all our
poets most distiuguiihed for correctness of diction and taste--is
evident from their own practice, in which they have judiciously
copied the example of the Greek and Roman bards, who, much
oftener than our English writers, use the adjective in lieu of the
adverb, and with very fine poetic effect, asmust be acknowledged
by every reader who is capable of perceiving and relishing their
beauties. To my conception, the mode or quality, thus ex-
pressed by the adjective, appears more perfectly identified with
the substantive--becoming, for the moment at least, one of its
characteristic features, and forming with it a more complete uuity
of object, than could possibly result from the addition of the ad-
verb. --At the same time, I cannot approve the improper substi-
tution of the adjective for the adverb, which too often takes
place in careless conversation, as when a person says he is " very
iad," instead. of" very ill:" and, although Dr. Johnson (without
authority) has inadvertently suffered Bad, for Sick, to steal into
his dictionary, I advise my young readers to avoid the phrase,
test they lay themselves open to such answer as a gentleman of
my acquaintance jocularly made to a lady w ho complained that
she was " very bad"--"I alwajs thought you bad: but now,
that you confess it, I cannot doubt of your badness. "
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? Versification. 18/
613
Lo! Faith's visions burst upon the sight,
And put to flight the host of Fear.
Terror's Myrmidons recede afar,
Before the beams of Hope's star,
That shoots rays, for ever clear sparkling,
Through Sorrow's realms, and Doubt's hemisphere;
Cheers the pilgrim on his way,
With a happier day, and finer prospects;
And points the sage, oppress'd by toils,
To lasting pleasures, and a land of rest.
614
From this cliff, whose impending rough brow
Frowns o'er the cataract that foams below,
I view the plain, where many a hand
Tills the land for another's gain.
Borne on the ev'ning breeze, their song
Stamps images of ease on my soul.
Ah ! why, dead to man and social converse,
Do I alone tread the mountain,
Where Nature, stubborn and coy, seems to fly
The human race, and defy all approach ?
615
When gates diffuse on closing flow'rs
The fragrant tribute of the dews,
When, at her pail, the milkmaid chants,
And, o'er the vale, reapers whistle,
Charm'd by the murmurs of the shade,
I stray'd along the liver's banks,
And, through the twilight way, calmly musing,
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? 188 Versification.
I fratn'd my rustic lay in pensive mood;
When lo ! a golden gleam, from clouds,
O'er ihe shadowy stream ponr'd splendors,
And its guardian queen arose from the wave,
Known by her stole of green,
6l6
Oh ! say, Muse, whose purer birth
Disdains the low ties of earth,
By what images shall be defin'd
The nature of th' eiernal mind ?
Or how shall thought explore the height,
When to adore is all that r ason can i
Through the tracts of space,
Go, Muse, and trace present Godhead
Could thy fond flight beyond the starry sphere
The morning's lucid pinions bear,
His presence should shine confess'd there,
His arm arrest thy course there.
617. --The impi ironed Debtor.
Hear the debtor's pray'r, O stranger !
From despair let pity snatch him.
Though here guilt and folly revel,
Many a tear the guiltless oft shed ;
And they devour many a wrong iu silence,
And feel the hand ofpow'r.
For aid, my woes, my wants, cry loud in vain,
Since laws are obey'd with rigor.
On sickly and damp bed my wife lies there,
Her spirits and youth rled, her peace destroy'd.
She saw her child expire, with tearless eye--
Indiff'rent to all--her sole desire, death.
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? Versification. 189
618
0 lasting infamy! O disgrace
To chiefs of manly race, and youth !
In you and the gods I trusted, to see
Greece victorious, and her navy free.
Ah no! you disclaim the combat,
And one day clouds all her former fame.
Heav'ns ! what a prodigy these -eyes survey,
Unseen, unthought, 'till this day !
Fly we at length from Troy's bands oft conquer'd ?
And falls our fleet by such hands--
A straggling train, a rout,
Not bom to glories of the plain ;
Like fawns, pursu'd from hill to hill,
A prey to ev'ry savage of the wood ?
619
1 dart ni)' eye, with look erect,
Seem wing'd to part, and gain my native sky.
I strive, but, alas! strive in vain, to mount,
Tied with magic chain to this globe.
Now from pole to pole I range with swift thought,
View worlds roll around their centres;
What pow'rs guide their motions
Through the same paths of void.
I trace the comet's tail,
And in a scale weigh the planets.
While I eager pursue these thoughts,
Some trifle, offer'd to my view,
A gnat, an insect of the meanest kind,
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? 190 Versification.
Erase* from my mind the image:
Some want, importunate, craving,
Vile as the mastiff at my gate,
Calls off this reas'ning me from truth,
And tells me I'm a brute as much as \fe,
620. -- May.
Hail, May, dear to nature's vot'ries!
Thou loveliest offspring of the year !
In thy train advance the Graces,
Move their feet, and form the dance.
Village maids bring their garlands to thee,
Feel the spring, and biush with health--
A little space, ere years o'ershkde,
To flourish like thee, and to tarle like thee.
Hail, chosen month of old, when skoic'rs
Nurs'd ihejiow'rs, and enrich'd the mends ;
When fruits ran in disorder, uncropp'd,
God conversed with man, and on earth peace dwelt;
What time, from dark, wild, and stormy Chaos,
Sprang creation, and spring smil'd;
When the air, shedding health and life,
Chas'd all darkness ; at whose breath, Despair
Might feel a sullen joy, and Disease
Spring from her couch, to catch the breeze.
The Zephyrs stray'd through th' Elysian fields thus,
And sooih'd the hero's shade, murm'ring;
Sigh'd, -adly pleasing, through the cypress wood,
Whose branches wav'd o'er Lethe's flood.
* Grammar is here sacrificed to metre. The verb should have
keen in the singular number, Ertscs.
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? Versification. 191
621. --To the Deity.
Let Israel praise tliec potent,
And raise their homage to lay name.
Let Egypt's land declare thee potent God,
That teit ihy awfully severe justice.
How did tliy frown benight the land,
Nature revers'd, how own thy command,
When elements forgot their use,
And the sun felt thy blot;
When earth produc'd the pestilential brood,
And into blood the stream was crimson'd !
How deep the horrors of that night,
The fright how wild, arid the terror how strong,
When thy sword pass'd o'er the land,
And infants and men breath'd their last at once!
How did thy arm convey thy favor'd tribes,
Thy light paint the way,
Ocean divide to their march,
The wat'ry wall on either side distinct,
While the procession sped through the deep,
Aud saw the wonders of its bed!
Nor long they march'd, 'till, in the rear, black'ning,
The tyrant and his host appear,
Plunge down the steep--the waves obey thy nod,
And whelm the, storm beneath the sea.
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? J 92
Versification.
Iambics of eight syllables, with alternate rhime. --
Epithets to be added to the words printed in Italic,
622 " .
Zephyrs fan the grove now,
And scatter perfumes around;
And feather'd songsters, warbling love,
Are found in ev'ry bush.
623
Oh ! is there not, when eve
Spreads o'er the vale her light texture,
Some fay, that loves to leave
Her pastime in the dale,
And, where sits the poet
To view the misls spread around,
Flits across his mental vision,
And wraps in peace his thoughts r
Iambics of ten syllables, with alternate rhime. -- Epi-
thets to be added to the words printed in Italic.
624. -- On the Death- of a Daughter.
So fair, so gay, where is fled my blossom?
Ah ! see ! by Death 'tis ravag'd :
See her honors spread in the dust,
All pale, and blasted by his breath.
fi25
Go, rose, and on Ella's breast bloom ;
And, while thy buds adorn the maid,
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? Verification.
blesl beneath the sunshine of her eyes:
But, ah ! fair flow'r, conceal thy thorn.
626
When, in Utopian dreams, youth
On the sea of life first launches,
He trusts to sail on pleasure's streams. --
Alas! to woe and scenes of strife he wakes.
627. -- Evening.
The shades o'crspread the west:
Before the breeze, the clouds sweep on:
Labor leaves his sons to rest;
And, among the trees, murmurs sound.
628. -- Night.
The poor enjoy now within yon hamlet
The bliss that flies the great and rich.
No factious cares annoy their breasts,
No sorrows agitate, no guilt disturbs.
629
Verdure adorns the plain here,
There the team, and the grey fallows,
The farm's mansion, and the village fane,
Whose towW reflects the solar beam.
630. -- Spring.
Spring! I taste thy gales:
Pregnant with life, they cheer my soul.
Creation smiles : the dales, the hills, the woods,
Hail the morning of the new-born year.
Expand your bloom, ye groves:
Ye streams, warble: ye buds, -unfold :
Waft all the plenty of your perfume;
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? 194 Versification.
1
And wave, wave your leaves of gold, ye flovv'teii,
631. -- To a Snow-drop.
Harbinger of spring, welcome!
Thy beauties caught my eye.
Solitary flow'r, I've pluck'd thee, to bring
Thy tender frame where no blasts are nigh.
1 see, thou canst scarce rear thy head;
For frosts pierce thy lovely form :
But to a safer bed I'll transplant thee:
My fire shall warm, and my hand shall raise thee.
652
Behold ! past is the storm :
The sun relumes the face of day:
Each flow'r, that shrunk before the blast,
Spreads to the cheering ray its bosom.
Its reviving tints glow bright and more bright;
Its petals catch the gale:
Zephyis blow o'er its breast,
And through the vale waft new fragrance.
633. --Summer.
Spring withdraws now her milder-beaming ray,
And summer, glowing o'er the corn,
To these northern climes leads the day,
Borne refulgent from Afric's plains.
No cloud steers its course across the welkin,
To pour its show'rs upon the earth :
No fount in bubbles from its source:
No dews refresh thefow'rs.
634
O Nature! may thy sway ever
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? Versification. 195
Lead me a vot'ry to thy shrine.
May no passion chase away that sense,
That feels a bliss in charms like thine;
Whether, enshrin'd in autumn's clouds,
You* touch the /eaves with yellow tints,
Or raise, before the reaper's mind,
Grain to fill his future sheaves ;
The wand'rer with the Zephyr's breeze
Whether you cheer 'mid summer's blaze,
Or paint the trees with liveliest green,
When Spring's warmth endears her milder dayi.
635. -- Evening.
When eve, fair child of day,
Throws o'er the verdant ground her mantle,
* I wish my young readers to observe, that, after Thy and
Thine prectding, uniformity requires tSou I ouchest,raisest,$lc
in the singular number; and that a sudden transition from Thou
and Thy to You and Your, or the reverse, ought, if possible, to
be avoided; though metrical necessity, and a regard to euphony
occasionally compel poets to fall into that irregularity, wliieh
however, is much less blamable than Mr. Pope's ungrimmatic
change of number in the following passage, where the nominative
is singular, and the verbs plural--
Thou first great cause, least understood,
Who all my stnse confin'd
To know hut this, that thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
Yet gum me, in this dark estate,
To see the geod from ill, ,
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will. . . . . .
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? 196 Versification.
How sweet to stray adown the vale,
While Cynthia sheds her radiance round !
How sweet to hear the bird of woe*
Pour to the grove her murmurs,
As the warbled numbers flow through the air,
Fraught with the melody of love!
How sweet to mark the landscape near,
The tow'r, and the cottage!
How sweet to hear the village peal,
Borne on the gale at this silent soft hour !
The first line to rhime with the fourth -- the second
with the third.
636
Ah! pleasing scenes, where my childhood slray'd once,
Securely blest in innocence!
No passions inspir'd my breast then ;
No fears sway'd my bosom.
Iambics of eight syllables. -- The Italic words to be
altered to other expressions, either synonymous or in
some degree equivalent.
637
Why can no poet, with magical strain,
Steep the heart of pain in sleep?
* The Nightingale.
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? Versification. 1 97
638
Possess'd of conscious rectitude,
Can grief pierce the good man's bosom'?
639
Justice shall yet open her eyes,
Yet arise terrific in anger,
And tread on the tyrant's bosom,
And make oppression groan oppress'd.
Iambics of ten syllables. -- The Italic words to be
altered, as above; and the elided syllables to be disco-
vered by the pupil's own sagacity*.
640
While former desires still continue within,
Repentance is only want of power to commit sins.
641
The white-robed priest stretches forth his upraised
hands:
Every voice is hushed : attention bends, leaning.
* N. B. When two or more Italic words come together with-
out a line separating them, they are to he taken collectively, and
altered to some other word or phrase of similar import. But,
when they are divided by a perpendicular line interposed, each
division is to he separately taken, and altered independently of
the other. The following example will make this plain--
She receives with gratitude what heaven has sent,
And, rich in poverty, possesses | contentment--
She gratefully receives what heav'n has sent,
And, rich in poverty, enjoys content--
in which lines, the words, with gratitude, are together, altered to
gratefully --possesses, separately altered to enjoys -- and coulait*
went, to content.
H3
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? 198 Versification.
642
Whence flows the strain that salutes the dawn of
morning ?
The Red-breast sings in the flowering haw-thorn.
643
Now unbounded snows disfigure the withered heatk,
And the dim sun hardly wanders through the storm.
644
When her husband \ dies, the widowed Indian
Mounts the dreadful pile, and braves the funeral fires.
645
Alas! how un-availing is pity's tear with thee,
The orphan's terror, or the widow's anguish !
646
Not by the assistance that marble or brass affords,
Lives the remembrance of the noble patriot.
647
I would soon, with pleasure, | exchange existence
For the lasting sleep of one endless night.
648
Courageous and undismayed as the god of war,
When prostrate legions fall round hi3 chariot.
649
Here early rest makes early rising certain:
Disease or does not come, or finds easy cure,--
Much prevented by neat and simple diet,
Or speedily starved out again, if it enter.
650
He comes! tremendous Brama shakes the sunless sky
With murmuring anger, and thunders from above.
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? Versification. 199
Under his warrior form, heaven's fiery horse
Gallops on the tempest, and paws the light clouds.
051
He ceased; and the crowd st\\\ continued silent,
While rapt* attention acknowledged the power of
music:
Then, loud as when the whirlwinds of winter blow,
The thundering applauses flow fro 11 all voices.
652
When the Egyptians, a rude untutored people,
Learned to ornament the obelisk with wild figure*,
And fashion the idol godf in ductile clay,
The polished needle and loom took their origin.
* Let niy young readers carefully distinguish this elegant and
expressive Latin word from the common English Wrapped, with
which it is too often confounded;--a circumstance, to which it
perhaps owes its exclusion from some of our modern dictionaries,
auder the mistaken idea of its being only a corruption . of the
English word. -- Rapt (of the same origin as Rapture, Rapid,
Rapine, and Rapacious, which have no connexion with wrapping)
signifies snatched or hurried away, transported, enraptured, ec-
stusied. Thus Pope --
Rapt into future times, the bard begun :
" A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son. "
f Idol god. -- This expression, which I print as two separate
words, suggtsts to me that it may not be improper in this place
to notice the hyphen, which has, of late years, bten employed in
our typography to a truly blamahle excess, and, on some occa-
sions, to the utter perversion of die syntax and the sense, as, for
example, in Each other and One another, which we sometimes
see improperly coupled with the hyphen as compounds, though
totally distinct in the grammatical construction; since, in those
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 12:11 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/hvd. hxg8hz Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust.
