Puslapio vaizdai
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Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-toss'd,
Sails ripp'd, seams op'ning wide, and compass lost,
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosp'rous course.
Yet O the thought, that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not, that I deduce my birth
From loins enthron'd, and rulers of the earth,
But higher far my proud pretensions rise-
The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
And now, farewell-Time unrevok'd has run
His wonted course, yet what I wish'd is done,
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem t' have liv'd my childhood o'er again;
To have renew'd the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;

And, while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft-
Thyself remov'd, thy pow'r to soothe me left.

CATHARINA.

ADDRESSED TO MISS STAPLETON.

SHE came-she is gone-we have met—
And meet perhaps never again;

The sun of that moment is set,

And seems to have risen in vain.
Catharina has fled like a dream-
(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)
But has left a regret and esteem,
That will not so suddenly pass.

The last evening ramble we made,
Catharina, Maria, and I,
Our progress was often delayed

By the nightingale warbling nigh.

We paused under many a tree,

And much she was charmed with a tone

Less sweet to Maria and me,

Who so lately had witnessed her own.

My numbers that day she had sung,
And gave them a grace so divine,
As only her musical tongue

Could infuse into numbers of mine.

The longer I heard, I esteemed

The work of my fancy the more, And even to myself never seemed So tuneful a poet before.

1

Though the pleasures of London exceed
In number the days of the year,
Catharina, did nothing impede,

Would feel herself happier here:
For the close woven arches of limes
On the banks of our river, I know,
Are sweeter to her many times

Than aught that the city can show.

So it is, when the mind is endued
With a well-judging taste from above,
Then, whether embellished or rude,
'T is nature alone that we love.
The achievements of art may amuse,
May even our wonder excite,
But groves, hills, and vallies, diffuse
A lasting, a sacred delight.

Since then in the rural recess
Catharina alone can rejoice,
May it still be her lot to possess
The scene of her sensible choice!

To inhabit a mansion remote

From the clatter of street-pacing steeds,

And by Philomel's annual note

To measure the life that she leads:

With her book, and her voice, and her lyre,
To wing all her moments at home,
And with scenes that new rapture inspire
As oft as it suits her to roam.

She will have just the life she prefers,
With little to hope or to fear,
And ours would be pleasant as hers,
Might we view her enjoying it here.

THE COLUBRIAD.

CLOSE by the threshold of a door nail'd fast
Three kittens sat; each kitten look'd aghast.
I passing swift, and inattentive by,

At the three kittens cast a careless eye;

Not much concern'd to know what they did there; Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care.

But presently a loud and furious hiss

Caused me to stop, and to exclaim "what's this?"

When lo! upon the threshold met my view,

With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue,

A viper, long as Count de Grasse's cue

Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws,
Darting it full against a kitten's nose;

Who, having never seen, in field or house,
The like, sat still and silent as a mouse:
Only projecting, with attention due,

Her whisker'd face, she ask'd him, "who are you?"
On to the hall went I, with pace not slow,
But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe:
With which well arm'd, I hasten'd to the spot,
To find the viper, but I found him not;
And turning up the leaves, and shrubs around,
Found only, that he was not to be found.
But still the kittens sitting as before,
Sat watching close the bottom of the door.
"I hope," said 1, "the villain I would kill,
Has slipp'd between the door, and the door sill;
And if I make despatch, and follow hard,
No doubt but I shall find him in the yard;"
For long ere now it should have been rehearsed,
"T was in the garden that I found him first.
Even there I found him, there the full-grown cat
His head, with velvet paw, did gently pat;
As curious as the kittens erst had been
To learn what this phenomenon might mean,
Fill'd with heroic ardour at the sight,
And fearing every moment he would bite,
And rob our household of our only cat,
That was of age to combat with a rat;
With outstretch'd hoe I slew him at the door,
And taught him never to come there no more.

JAMES BEATTIE.

Born 1735-Died 1803.

BEATTIE, whose father was a respectable Scottish farmer, was educated at the university of Aberdeen. In 1754 at the age of nineteen he commenced the study of Divinity, supporting himself at the same time by teaching an obscure school. Not long afterwards he was appointed one of the instructers in the high school of Aberdeen. In 1761 he published a volume of poems which were then highly commended, but which he afterwards, and perhaps rightly, judged were not worthy of preservation. At the age of twentysix he was appointed profsesor of Moral Philosophy in Aberdeen University, and held this office forty years. In 1770 appeared his Essay on Truth, the most extensively popular of his prose works, and a year after he published the first part of The Ministrel. The second part appeared in 1774.

He was unfortunate in his family, whose peace was destroyed by the insanity of his wife; and the last years of his existence were peculiarly calamitous. The loss of his two sons, both youths of extraordinary promise, and one for a short period associate professor with his father, injured his health, and depressed his spirits, even to the temporary derangement of his reason. "Yet amidst the depth of his melancholy he would sometimes acquiesce in his childless fate, and exclaim 'how could I have borne to see their clegant minds mangled with madness.'

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It is upon the Ministrel that the poetical celebrity of Beattie exclusively rests; and this poem displays a sweet fancy, and abounds in passages of great beauty, both in description and sentiment. A vein of pathetic moral reflection runs through the whole of it, which is of the purest kind, and very elevating in its influence. We have a fine instance of his descriptive power in the stanzas upon morning, especially in the line "Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings, -a very striking circumstance, and expressed in the most vivid language possible. In the romantic character of Edwin he has exhibited the youthful meditation and fancies of genius, as it unfolds in retirement, and is afterwards strengthened by study, in a manner which is not only interesting but instructive.

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EDWIN.

THERE liv'd in gothic days, as legends tell,
A shepherd-swain, a man of low degree;
Whose sires, perchance, in Fairyland might dwell,
Sicilian groves, or vales of Arcady.

But he, I ween, was of the north countrie:
A nation fam'd for song, and beauty's charms;
Zealous, yet modest: innocent, though free;
Patient of toil; serene, amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith; invincible in arms.

The shepherd-swain of whom I mention made,
On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock;
The sickle, scythe, or plough, he never sway'd;
An honest heart was almost all his stock;
His drink the living water from the rock:
The milky dams supplied his board, and lent
Their kindly fleece to baffle winter's shock;

And he, though oft with dust and sweat besprent,

Did guide and guard their wanderings, wheresoe'er they went

From labour health, from health contentment springs,
Contentment opes the source of every joy;
He envied not, he never thought of, kings;
Nor from those appetites sustain❜d annoy,

That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy:
Nor Fate his calm and humble hopes beguil'd;
He mourn'd no recreant friend, nor mistress coy,
For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smil'd,

And her alone he lov'd, and lov'd her from a child.

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No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast,

Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife;
Each season, look'd delightful, as it past,
To the fond husband, and the faithful wife;
Beyond the lowly vale of shepherd life
They never roam'd; secure beneath the storm
Which in ambition's lofty land is rife,

Where peace and love are canker'd by the worm
Of pride, each bud of joy industrious to deform.

The wight, whose tales these artless lines unfold,
Was all the offspring of this humble pair:
His birth no oracle or seer foretold:
No prodigy appear'd in earth or air,

Nor aught that might a strange event declare.
You guess each circumstance of Edwin's birth;
The parent's transport, and the parent's care;
The gossip's prayer for wealth, and wit, and worth;
And one long summer-day of indolence and mirth.

And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy;
Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his infant eye:
Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy,
Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy.
Silent, when glad; affectionate, though shy;
And now his look was most demurely sad,

And now he laugh'd aloud, yet none knew why;
The neighbours star'd and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad;
Some deem'd him wondrous wise, and some believ'd him mad.

But why should I his childish feats display?
Concourse, and noise, and toil he ever fled;
Nor car'd to mingle in the clamorous fray
Of squabbling imps, but to the forest sped,
Or roam'd at large the lonely mountain's head;
Or, where the maze of some bewilder'd stream
To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led,
There would he wander wild, till Phoebus' beam,
Shot from the western cliff, releas'd the weary team.

Th' exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed,
To him nor vanity nor joy could bring:

His heart, from cruel sport estrang'd, would bleed
To work the woe of any living thing,

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