In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.

But O! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!

Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail. All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail!

“Girt with many a baron bold

Sublime their starry fronts they rear;

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear.

In the midst a form divine!

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-Line: 1
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace.

What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
What strains of vocal transport round her play.
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and, soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heaven her many-color'd wings.

"The verse adorn again

Fierce war, and faithful love,

And truth severe by fairy fiction drest.

In buskin'd measures move

Pale grief, and pleasing pain,

With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.

A voice, as of the cherub-choir,

Gales from blooming Eden bear;

And distant warblings lessen on my ear,

That lost in long futurity expire.

1 Queen Elizabeth.

Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me, with joy I see

The different doom our fates assign.

Be thine despair and sceptred care,

To triumph, and to die, are mine."

He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

THOMAS GRAY.

ODE WRITTEN IN MDCCXLVI.1

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 hallow'd 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 Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair

To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

This was the period of the war between Great Britain and Spain.

2 WILLIAM COLLINS was born in Chichester in 1720, and edutated at Winchester School and Oxford. While still in college ne wrote some of his best poems, the Persian Eclogues. He did not succeed, however, as a literary man, and the effects of his fail.

ON A FAVORITE CAT, DROWNED IN A
TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

"T'WAS on a lofty vase's side
Where China's gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,

The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr'd applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,

She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?

What Cat's averse to fish?

are and his irregular life brought on a settled melancholy. He travelled on the Continent, but returned only to become the in mate of a lunatic asylum, and died soon after his discharge, in 1756. His life was sad and an apparent failure, but his lyrics hold a high place in English literature

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled.)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to every watery God
Some speedy aid to send :
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd,
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A fav'rite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,

And be with caution bold.

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,

Nor all, that glisters, gold!

THOMAS GRAY.

ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.

GOOD people all, of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man.

Of whom the world might say,

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends,
But then a pique began ;

The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.

Around from all the neighboring streets
The wondering neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seem'd both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;

And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That show'd the rogues they lied:

The man recover'd of the bite,

The dog it was that died.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.1

1 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, the son of a clergyman, was born in

Longford County, Ireland, in 1728.

After such an education as