Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew; And Lucy at her wheel shall sing, In russet gown and apron blue.
The village-church, among the trees, Where first our marriage vows were giv❜n, With merry peals shall swell the breeze, And point with taper spire to heav'n.
TIME meanwhile, from day to day, Fixes deeper Virtue's root; Whence, in long succession gay, Blossoms many a lively shoot: Meek OBEDIENCE, following still, Frank and glad, a Master's will; Modest CANDOR, hearing prone Any judgement save its own: EMULATION, whose keen eye Forward still and forward strains,
§ 146. An Ode on Classic Education*. ANON. Nothing ever deeming high
Down the steep abrupt of hills Furious foams the headlong tide, Through the meads the streamlet trills, Swelling slow in gentle pride. Ruin vast and dread dismay Mark the clam'rous cataract's way; Glad increase and sweets benign Round the riv'let's margin shine. Youth! with stedfast eye peruse Scenes to lesson thee display'd; Yes-in these the moral Muse Bids thee see thyself portray'd. Thou with headstrong wasteful force Mayst reflect the torrent's course; Or resemble streams, that flow Blest and blessing as they go.
Infant sense to all our kind Pure the young idea brings, From within the fountain mind Issuing at a thousand springs. Who shall make the current stray Smooth along the channell'd way? Who shall, as it runs, refine? Who? but CLASSIC DISCIPLINE.
She, whatever fond desire, Stubborn deed or guileful speech, Inexperience might inspire, Or absurd indulgence teach, Timely cautious shall restrain, Bidding childhood heart the rein; She with sport shall labor mix, She excursive fancy fix.
Prime support of learned lore, PERSEVERANCE joins her train, Pages oft turn'd o'er and o'er Turning o'er and o'er again; Giving, in due form of school, Speech its measure, pow'r, and rule: Meanwhile memory's treasures grow Great, though gradual; sure, though slow. Patient CARE by just degrees Word and image learns to class; Those compounds, and sep'rates these, As in strict review they pass; Joins, as various features strike, Fit to fit and like to like,
Till in meek array advance
Concord, Method, Elegance.
While a higher hope remains : SHAME ingenuous, native, free, Source of conscious dignity: ZEAL impartial to pursue Right, and just, and good, and true. These and ev'ry kindred grace More and more perfection gain; While ATTENTION toils to trace Grave record or lofty strain; Learning how, in Virtue's pride, Sages liv'd or heroes died; Marking how in virtue's cause Genius gave and won applause.
Thus with EARLY CULTURE blest, Thus to early rule inur'd, Infancy's expanding breast
Glows with sense and pow'rs matur'd, Whence, if future merit raise Private love or public praise, Thine is all the work-be thine
The glory-CLASSIC DISCIPLine.
The subject proposed.-Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect of the fields ready for harvest.-Reflections in praise of industry raised by that view-Reaping.-A tale relative to it.-An harvest storm.-Shooting and hunting, their barbarity—A ludicrous account of fox-hunting —A view of an orchard.-Wall-fruit.-A vineyard.-A description of fogs, frequent in the latter part of Autumn whence a digression, inquiring into the reason of fountains and rivers -Birds of season considered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western isles of Scotland.-Hence a view of the country.-A prospect of the discolored, fading woods.After a gentle dusty day, moon-light.—Autumnal meteors.-Morning: to which succeeds a calm, pure, sun-shiny day, such as usually shuts up the season.-The harvest being gathered in, the country dissolved in joy. -The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical country life.
* Spoken in the year 1794, at the annual Visitation of Dr. Knox's school at Tunbridge. ↑ Audit currus habenas. VIRGIL.
CROWN'D with the sickle and the wheaten | Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more, Well pleas'd I tune. Whate'er the Wintry frost Nitrous prepar'd: the various blossom'd Spring Put in white promise forth; and Summer suns Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view, Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme. Onslow! the Muse, ambitious of thy name, To grace, inspire, and dignify her song, Would from the public voice thy gentle ear A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows, The patriot virtues that distend thy thought, Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow; While list'ning senates hang upon thy tongue, Devolving through the maze of eloquence, A roll of periods, sweeter than her song, But she too pants for public virtue, she, Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart, Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame. When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year; From heaven's high cope the fierce cffulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue, With golden light enliven'd, wide invests The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise, Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm: while broad and brown, below, Extensive harvests hang the heavy head: Rich, silent, deep, they stand: for not a gale Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain : A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky; The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun By fits effulgent gilds the illumin'd field, And black by fits the shadows sweep along. A gaily-chequer'd heart-expanding view, Far as the circling eye can shoot around, Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn. These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!
Whom labor still attends, and sweat and pain; Yet the kind source of every gentle art, And all the soft civility of life;
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast, Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods And wilds, to rude inclement elements ! With various seeds of art deep in the mind Implanted, and profusely pour'd around Materials infinite; but idle all.
Still unexerted in the unconscious breast, Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still, Voracious, swallow'd what the liberal hand Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year; And still the sad barbarian, roving, mix'd With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal
Aghast and comfortless, when the bleak north, With Winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempest fly, Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost: Then to the shelter of the hut he fled; And the wild season, sordid, pin'd away: For home he had not; home is the resort Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, Supporting and supported, polish'd friends, And dear relations mingle into bliss; But this the rugged savage never felt, E'en desolate in crowds; and thus his days Roll'd heavy, dark, and unenjoy'd along: A waste of time! till Industry approach'd, And rous'd him from his miserable sloth; His faculties unfolded; pointed out, Where lavish Nature the directing hand Of Art demanded; show'd him how to raise His feeble force by the mechanic powers, To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth; On what to turn the piercing rage of fire, On what the torrent, and the gather'd blast; Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe; Taught him to chip the wood, and hew the
Till by degrees the finish'd fabric rose; Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur, And wrapt them in the woolly-vestment warm, Or bright in glossy silk, and flowing lawn; With wholesome viands fill'd his table, pour'd The generous glass around, inspir'd to wake The life-refining soul of decent wit: Nor stopp'd at barren bare necessity; But still advancing bolder, led him on To pomp, to pleasure, elegance, and grace; And, breathing high ambition through his soul, Set science, wisdom, glory in his view, And bade him be the lord of all below.
Then, gathering men their natural pow'n combin'd,
And form'd a Public; to the general good Submitting, aiming, and conducting all. For this the Patriot Council met, the full, The free, and fairly-represented whole; For this they plann'd the holy guardian laws, Distinguish'd orders, animated arts, And with joint force, Oppression chaining, set Imperial justice at the helm; yet still To them accountable: nor slavish dream'd That toiling millions must resign their weal, And all the honey of their search, to such As for themselves alone themselves have rais'd. Hence every form of cultivated life In order set, protected, and inspir'd, Into perfection wrought. Uniting all, Society grew numerous, high, polite, And happy. Nurse of art! the city rear'd In beauteous pride her tower-encircled head: And, stretching street on street, by thousands drew,
From twining woody haunts, or the tough yew, To bows strong-straining, her aspiring sons.
Then Commerce brought into the public walk
The busy merchant; the big warehouse built; | For, in her helpless years depriv'd of all; Rais'd the strong crane; choak'd up the loaded
With foreign plenty; and thy stream, O Thames! Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods! Chose for his grand resort. On either hand, Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts Shot up their spires; the bellying sheet between Possess'd the breezy void: the sooty hulk Steer'd sluggish on: the splendid barge along Row'd, regular, to harmony; around, The boat light-skimming, stretch'd its oary wings;
While deep the various voice of fervent toil From bank to bank increas'd; whence ribb'd with oak,
To bear the British Thunder, black, and bold, The roaring vessel rush'd into the main.
Then too the pillar'd dome, magnific heav'd Its ample roof, and luxury within [smooth, Pour'd out the glittering stores: the canvass With glowing life protuberant, to the view Embodied rose; the statue seem'd to breathe, And soften into flesh, beneath the touch Of forming art, imagination-flush'd.
All is the gift of Industry: whate'er Exalts, embellishes, and renders life Delightful. Pensive Winter cheer'd by him Sits at the social fire, and happy hears Th' excluded tempest idly rave along. His harden'd fingers deck the gaudy Spring, Without him Summer were an arid waste, Nor to th' Autumnal months could thus transmit
Those full, mature, immeasurable stores, That waving round, recal my wandering song.
Of every stay, save Innocence and Heav'n, She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old, And poor, liv'd in a cottage far retir'd Among the windings of a woody vale: By solitude and deep surrounding shades, But more by bashful modesty conceal'd. Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet From giddy passion and low-minded pride: Almost on Nature's common bounty fed: Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare. Her form was fresher than the morning-rose, When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd and pure
As is the lily, or the mountain-snow. The modest virtues mingled in her eyes, Still on the ground dejected, darting all Their humid beams into the blooming flowers: Or when the mournful tale her mother told, Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once, Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace Sat fair proportion'd on her polish'd limbs, Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire, Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is, when unadorn'd, adorned the most. Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self, Recluse amid the close-embowering woods. As in the hollow breast of Apennine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, A myrtle rises far from human eye, And breathes its baliny fragrance o'er the wild; So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all, The sweet Lavinia, till, at length, compell'd By strong necessity's supreme command, With smiling patience in her looks, she went To glean Palemon's field. The pride of swains Palemon was, the generous, and the rich; Who led the rural life in all its joy And elegance, such as Arcadian song Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times; When tyrant custom had not shackled man, But free to follow nature was the mode. He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes Amusing, chanc'd beside his reaper train To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye: Unconscious of her power, and turning quick With unaffected blushes from his gaze; He saw her charming, but he saw not half The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd. That very moment love and chaste desire Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown; For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh, (Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,) Should his heart own a gleaner in the field, And thus in secret to his soul he sigh'd: "What pity! that so delicate a form, By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell, "Should be devoted to the rude embrace'
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky, And, unperceiv'd unfolds the spreading day; Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand, In fair array; each by the lass he loves, To bear the rougher part, and mitigate By nameless gentle offices her toil. At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves; While through their cheerful band the rural The rural scandal, and the rural jest, [talk, Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time, And steal unfelt the sultry hours away. Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks; And, conscious, glancing oft' on every side His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy. The gleaners spread around, and here and there, Spike after spike, their scanty harvest, pick. Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think! How good the God of Harvest is to you: Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields; While these unhappy partners of your kind Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, And ask their humble dole. The various turns Of fortune ponder: that your sons may want What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give." The lovely young Lavinia once had friends; And fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.
"Of some indecent clown! She looks, me- | Express'd the sacred triumph of his soul,
"Of old Acasto's line: and to my mind "Recals that patron of my happy life, "From whom my liberal fortune took its rise; "Now to the dust gone down; his houses, lands, "And once fair-spreading family, dissolv'd. ""Tis said, that in some lone obscure retreat, Urg'd by remembrance sad, and decent pride, "Far from those scenes which knew their bet"ter days,
"His aged widow and his daughter live, "Whom yet my fruitless search could never "find. [were!" "Romantic wish! would this the daughter When, strict inquiring, from herself he found She was the same, the daughter of his friend, Of bountiful Acasto; who can speak The mingled passions that surpris'd his heart, And through his nerves in shivering transport [bold, Then blaz'd his smother'd flame, avow' ow'd, and And as he view'd her ardent, o'er and o'er, Love, gratitude, and pity wept at once. Confus'd, and frighten'd at his sudden tears, Her rising beauties flush'd a higher bloom, As thus Palemon, passionate and just, Pour'd out the pious rapture of his soul:
"And art thou then Acasto's dear remains? "She, whom my restless gratitude has sought "So long in vain? O heavens! the very same, "The soften'd image of my noble friend : "Alive his every look, his every feature, "More elegantly touch'd. Sweeter than Spring!
"Thou sole surviving blossom from the root "That nourish'd up my fortune! Say, ah "where,
"In what sequester'd desert, hast thou drawn "The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven? "Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair; Though poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain,
"Beat keen, and heavy on thy tender years? "O let me now, into a richer soil, [showers "Transplant thee safe; where vernal suns and "Diffuse their warmest, largest influence: "And of my garden be the pride, and joy !` "Ill it befits thee, oh it ill befits "Acasto's daughter, his whose open stores, Though vast, were little to his ampler heart, "The father of a country, thus to pick "The very refuse of those harvest-fields, "Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy. "Then throw that shameful pittance from thy "hand,
"But ill applied to such a rugged task! "The fields, the master, all, my Fair!
"If to the various blessings which thy house "Has on me lavish'd, thou wilt add that bliss, "That dearest bliss, the power of blessing "' thee !" [eye Here ceas'd the youth: yet still his speaking
With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love, Above the vulgar joy divinely rais'd. Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm Of goodness irresistible, and all In sweet disorder lost, she blushi'd consent. The news immediate to her mother brought, While, pierc'd with anxious thought, she pin'd
The lonely moments for Lavinia's fate: Amaz'd, and scarce believing what she heard, Joy seiz'd her wither'd veins, and one bright gleam
Of setting life shone on her evening hours: Not less enraptur'd than the happy pair! Who flourish'd long in tender bliss, and rear'd A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves, And good, the grace of all the country round. Defeating oft the labors of the year, The sultry south collects a potent blast. At first the groves are scarcely seen to stir Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs Along the soft inclining fields of corn. But as the aerial tempest fuller swells, And in one mighty stream, invisible, Immense, the whole excited atmosphere Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world; Strain'd to the root, the stooping forest pours A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves. High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in, From the bare wild, the dissipated storm, And send it in a torrent down the vale. Expos'd, and naked, to its utmost rage, Through all the sea of harvest rolling round, The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade, Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force: Or whirl'd in air, or into vacant chaff Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends In one continuous flood. Still over head The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens; till the fields around Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave. Sudden the ditches swell, the meadows swim, Red, from the hills, innumerable streams Tumultuous roar; and high above its banks The river lift; before whose rushing tide, Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains, Roll mingled down; all that the winds had spar'd
In one wild moment ruin'd; the big hopes, And well-earn'd treasures of the painful year. Fled to some eminence, the husbandman Helpless beholds the miserable wreck Driving along; his drowning ox at once Descending, with his labors scatter'd round, He sees; and instant o'er his shiv'ring thought Comes winter unprovided, and a train Of claimant children dear. Ye masters, then, Be mindful of the rough laborious hand, That sinks you soft in elegance and ease; Be mindful of those limbs in russet clad,
Whose toil to yours is warmth, and graceful | In act to spring away. The scented dew
And, oh! be mindful of that sparing board, Which covers yours with luxury profuse, Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice; Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains, And all-involving winds have swept away. Here the rude clamor of the sportsman's joy, The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn, Would tempt the Muse to sing the rural game: How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck, Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose, Outstretch'd, and finely sensible, draws full, Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey; As in the sun the circling covey bask Their varied plumes, and watchful every way, Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye. Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat Their idle wings, intangled more and more: Nor on the surges of the boundless air, [gun, Though borne triumphant, are they safe: the Glanc'd just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye O'ertakes their sounding pinions; and again, Immediate, brings them from the towering wing, [pers'd, Dead to the ground: or drives them wide-dis- Wounded; and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful Muse, Nor will she stain with such her spotless song: Then most delighted, when she social sees The whole mix'd animal creation round Alive, and happy. "Tis not joy to her, This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death; This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn; When beasts of prey retire, that all night long, Urg'd by necessity, had rang'd the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunn'd the light, Asham'd. Not so the steady tyrant man, Who with the thoughtless insolence of power Inflam'd, beyond the most infuriate wrath Of the worst monster that e'er roam'd the waste, For sport alone pursues the cruel chace, Amid the bearings of the gentle day. Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage, For hunger kindles you, and lawless want; But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty roll'd, To joy at anguish, and delight in blood, Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare! Scar'd from the corn, and now to some lone seat Retir'd, the rushy fen; the ragged furze, Stretch'd o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt;
The thistly lawn; the thick-entangled broom; Of the same friendly hue, the wither'd fern; The fallow ground laid open to the sun, Concoctive; and the nodding sandy bank, Hung'o'er the mazes of the mountain brook. Vain is her best precaution; though she sits Conceal'd with folded ears, unsleeping eyes, By Nature rais'd to take the horizon in; And head couch'd close betwixt her hairy feet,
Betrays her early labyrinth; and deep, In scatter'd sullen op'nings, far behind, With every breeze she hears the coming storm. But nearer and more frequent, as it loads The sighing gale, she springs amaz'd, and all The savage soul of game is up at once: The pack full-opening, various; the shrill horn Resounding from the hills; the neighing steed, Wild for the chace; and the loud hunter's
O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all Mix'd in mad tumult, and discordant joy.
The stag, too, singled from the herd, where long
He rang'd the branching monarch of the shades, Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed He, sprightly, puts his faith; and, rous'd by fear, Gives all his swift aërial soul to flight; Against the breeze he darts, that way the more To leave the lessening murderous cry behind : Deception short! though fleeter than the winds Blown o'er the keen-air'd mountain by the north, [glades, He bursts the thickets, glances through the And plunges deep into the wildest wood; If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track Hot-steaming up behind him come again Th' inhuman rout, and from the shady depth Expel him, circling through his every shift. He sweeps the forest oft, and sobbing sees The glades mild-opening to the golden day; Where, in kind contest, with his butting friends He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy. Oft in the full-descending flood he tries To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides: Oft seeks the herd; the watchful herd alarm'd, With selfish care avoid a brother's woe. What shall he do? His once so vivid nerves, So full of buoyant spirit, now no more Inspire the course; but fainting breathless toil, Sick, seizes on his heart: he stands at bay; And puts his last weak refuge in despair. The big round tears run down his dappled face He groans in anguish; while the growling pack, Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest, And mark his beauteous chequer'd sides with
Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth, Whose fervent blood boils into violence, Must have the chace; behold, despising flight, The rous'd-up lion, resolute, and slow, Advancing full on the protended spear, And coward-band, that circling wheel aloof. Slunk from the cavern, and the troubled wood, See the grim wolf, on him his shaggy foe Vindictive fix, and let the ruffian die : Or, growling horrid, as the brindled boar Grins fell destruction, to the monster's heart Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm. These Britain knows not; give, ye Britons, Your sportive fury, pitiless to pour [then, Loose on the nightly robber of the fold: Him, from his craggy winding haunts unearth'd,
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