O tremulous elf, reach me a hollow pipe, The best and smoothest of thy mellow store! Now I may blow till Time be hoary ripe, And listening streams forsake the paths they wore: And so, come freely forth, and through the sedge And thou didst safely win the breathless race.- LETHE From 'Fair Shadow Land.' Copyright 1893, by Edith M. Thomas. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers R EMEMBRANCE followed him into the skies. They met. Awhile mute Sorrow held him thrall. Then broke he forth in spirit words and sighs:"Great was my sin, but at my contrite call Came pardon and the hope of Paradise; If this be Heaven, thy blessing on me fall!» SUNSET From A Winter Swallow: With Other Verse. Copyright 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons HAT pageants have I seen, what plenitude WHAT Of pomp, what hosts in Tyrian rich array, What silent hosts, pursuing or pursued, And all their track with wealthy wreckage strewed! What seas that roll in waves of gold and gray, What flowers, what flame, what gems in blent display,What wide-spread pinions of the phoenix brood! Give me a window opening on the west, And the full splendor of the setting sun. There let me stand and gaze, and think no more If I be poor, or old, or all unblest; And when my sands of life are quite outrun, May my soul follow through the day's wide door! CYBELE AND HER CHILDREN From Fair Shadow Land.' Copyright 1893, by Edith M. Thomas. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers HE Mother has eternal youth; THE Yet in the fading of the year, For sake of what must fade, in ruth She wears a crown of oak-leaves sear. By whistling woods, by naked rocks, That long have lost the summer heat, She calls the wild, unfolded flocks, And points them to their shelter meet. In her deep bosom sink they all; The hunter and the prey are there; No ravin-cry, no hunger-call: These do not fear, and those forbear. The winding serpent watches not; Unwatched, the field-mouse trembles not; Weak hyla, quiet in his grot, So rests, nor changes line or spot. For food the Mother gives them sleep, Against the cold she gives them sleep, The Mother has eternal youth, And therefrom, in the wakening year THE GRASSHOPPER From A New-Year's Masque, and Other Poems. Copyright 1884, by Edith M. Thomas. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers HUTTLE of the sunburnt grass, SH Fifer in the dun cuirass, Fifing shrilly in the morn, Shrilly still at eve unworn; Now to rear, now in the van, Gayest of the elfin clan: Though I watch their rustling flight, I can never guess aright Where their lodging-places are: 'Mid some daisy's golden star, On mid-August afternoons; And through all the harvest moons, Nights brimmed up with honeyed peace, Thy gainsaying doth not cease. When the frost comes thou art dead: We along the stubble tread, On blue, frozen morns, and note No least murmur is afloat; Wondrous still our fields are then, Fifer of the elfin men. WINTER SLEEP From A Winter Swallow.' Copyright 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons XXV-929 I KNOW it must be winter (though I sleep) — I know it must be winter, for I dream I dip my bare feet in the running stream, And flowers are many and the grass grows deep. I know I must be old (how age deceives!) — My heart grows young, as autumn fields grow green I know I must be tired (and tired souls err) — To deeds of daring beats a glad faint roll, I know I must be dying (Death draws near) – I know I must be dying, for I crave Life life, strong life, and think not of the grave And turf-bound silence in the frosty year. JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748) AMES THOMSON occupies a significant position among English poets, less by virtue of his poetical gifts-although these are of no mean order-than by the wholesome influence of his recognition of nature in an artificial age. He was a contemporary of Pope, yet he struck a note in his poems which was to be amplified later in the works of Wordsworth and Coleridge, of Shelley and Keats. He was the father of the natural school, as opposed to the pseudo-classical school of which Pope was the complete embodiment. When Thomson was growing up amid the wild scenery of the Scottish Border country, literary England was dominated by an ideal of verse in contrast to which even Shakespeare's measures were held to be barbarous. The rhyming iambic pentameter, the favorite verse form, had been developed by Pope to such a point of polished perfection that imitation alone was possible. Moreover, it was employed only on a limited range of subjects. These might be either classical or urbane: nothing so vulgar as nature or the common people was worthy of the Muse. The genius of poetry had been brought from the fresh air of the fields into the vitiated air of the drawing-rooms; had been laced and powdered and encased in stiff brocades, which hindered all freedom of motion. JAMES THOMSON But of this Thomson knew nothing. It was his good fortune to have been born far from London, and to have been brought up amid the simple influences of country life. He was born in 1700 in the parish of Ednam, in Roxburghshire, of which his father was minister. He received his early education at Jedburgh school. It was at Jedburgh that he met a Mr. Riccalton, who was accustomed to teach the boys Latin in the aisle of his church. He had written a poem on 'A Winter's Day,' from which Thomson obtained his first idea for the 'Seasons.' The future poet's education was received more from nature than from books. The magnificent panorama of the year was unrolled continually before him, and he was not indifferent |