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The beasts, that under the warm hedges slept, | § 80. The Love of our Country the greatest And weather'd out the cold bleak night, are

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more;

Warbling she charms it each returning night,
And loves it with a mother's dear delight.

$79. A worthless Person can claim no Merit
from the Virtues of his Ancestors. Rowe.
WERE honor to be scann'd by long descent
From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt
A lineage of the greatest; and recount,
Among my fathers, names of ancient story,
Heroes and godlike patriots, who subdu'd
The world by arms and virtue.
But that be their own praise;

Nor will I borrow merit from the dead,
Myself an undeserver.

Virtue.

THOMSON.

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try:

And lo! the righteous gods have now chastis'd him

Even by the hands of those for whom he fought.

Whatever private views and passions plead,
No cause can justify so black a deed:
These, when the angry tempest clouds the soul,
May darken reason and her course control;
But when the prospect clears, her startled eye
Must from the treach'rous gulf with horror fly,
On whose wide wave by stormy passions tost,
Then be this truth the star by which we steer:
So many helpless wretches have been lost.
Above ourselves our country shall be dear.

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By nature lavish'd on her, that mankind
Might see the virtue of a hero tried
Almost beyond the stretch of human force.
Soft as she pass'd along, with downcast eyes,
Where gentle sorrows swell'd, and now and then
Dropp'd o'er her modest cheek a trickling tear,
The Roman legions languish'd, and hard war
Felt more than pity. E'en their chief himself,
As on his high tribunal rais'd he sat,

Turn'd from the dang'rous sight, and chiding ask'd

His officers, if by this gift they meant

To cloud his virtue in its very dawn.

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Our seas with commerce throng'd, our busy ports

With cheerful toil. Our Enna blooms afresh;
Afresh the sweets of thymy Hyblá blow.
Our nymphs and shepherds, sporting in each
vale,

Inspire new song, and wake the pastoral reed.

$85. Providence. THOMSON:
-THERE is a Pow'r

Unseen, that rules th' illimitable world,
That guides its motions from the brightest star
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould;
While man, who madly deems himself the
lord

Of all, is nought but weakness and depend

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And at their roots grew floating palaces,
Whose out-blow'd bellies cut the yielding seas.
Montezuma. What divine monsters, O ye
gods! are these,

That float in air, and fly upon the seas? THOMSON. Came they alive, or dead, upon the shore? Guiom. Alas! they liv'd too sure: I heard

- BEAUTEOUS Peace! Sweet union of a state! what else but thou Gives safety, strength, and glory, to a people? I bow, Lord Constable, be cath the snow Of many years; yet in my breast revives A youthful flame. Methinks I see again Those gentle days renew'd, that bless'd our isle Ere by this wasteful fury of division, Worse than our Ætna's most destructive fires, It desolated sunk. I see our plains Unbounded waving with the gifts of harvest:

them roar:

All turn'd their sides, and to each other spoke: I saw their words break out in fire and smoke. Sure 'tis their voice that thunders from on high, And these the younger brothers of the sky: Deaf with the noise, I took my hasty flight; No mortal courage can support the fright.

§83. Virtue preferable to Rank. ROWE. WHAT tho' no gaudy titles grace my birth; Titles, the servile courtier's lean reward!

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ELEGANT EXTRACTS.

POETICAL.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

SENTIMENTAL, LYRICAL, AND LUDICROUS.

CONSISTING OF

ODES, SONNETS, CLASSICAL SONGS, ANCIENT AND MODERN BALLADS, COMIC TALES, EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, VARIOUS AMUSING LITTLE POEMS, PROLOGUES, AND EPILOGUES.

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Sport, that wrinkled care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides:
Come, and trip it as you go,
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous To live with her and live with thee,

wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd As ragged as thy locks,

[rocks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou goddess, fair and free,
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sages sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair;
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek ;

In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dapple dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-brier or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill :
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,

The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,

And the milk-maid singing blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe,
And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Tow'rs and battlements it sees,
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage-chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savory dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses:
And then in haste her bow'r she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets cat;
She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said,
And he by friar's lanthorn led;
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tow'red cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend:
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

§ 2. IL PENSEROSO. MILTON. HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly, without father bred, How little you bestead,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail, thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!

Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight;
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem:
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended:
Yet thou art higher far descended;
Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain.)
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:

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