"A stranger, ignorant of the trade,
Would say, no meaning's there convey'd ;
For where's the middle, where's the border?
Thy carpet now is all disorder."
Quoth Dick, "My work is yet in bits:
But still in every part it fits:
Besides, you reason like a lout ;
Why, man, that carpet's inside out.”
Says John, "Thou say'st the thing I mean,
And now I hope to cure thy spleen :
This world, which clouds thy soul with doubt,
Is but a carpet inside out.
"As when we view these shreds and ends,
We know not what the whole intends;
So, when on earth things look but odd,
They're working still some scheme of God.
"No plan, no pattern, can we trace;
All wants proportion, truth, and grace;
The motley mixture we deride,
Nor see the beauteous upper side.
"But when we reach the world of light,
And view these works of God aright;
Then shall we see the whole design,
And own, the Workman is Divine.
"What now seem random strokes, will there
All order and design appear;
Then shall we praise what then we spurn'd,
For then the carpet will be turn'd."
"Thou'rt right," quoth Dick: "no more I'll grumble
That this world is so strange a jumble;
My impious doubts are put to flight,
For my own carpet sets me right.”
JOHN LOGAN.
BORN, 1748; DIED, 1788.
Principal Works.-Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Ode to the Cuckoo, Visit to the Country in Autumn, Braes of Yarrow.
HAIL, beauteous stranger of the
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.
What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.
The school-boy, wandering through the wood,
To pull the primrose gay,
Starts the new voice of Spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.
What time the pea puts on the bloom
Thou flyest thy vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!
Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.
GEORGE CRABBE.
BORN, 1754; DIED, 1832.
Principal Works.—The Library, The Village, The Parish Register, The Borough, Tales of the Hall.
THE MOTHER'S FUNERAL.
SLOWLY they bore, with solemn step, the dead;
When grief grew loud, and bitter tears were shed,
My part began: a crowd drew near the place,
Awe in each eye, alarm in every face;
So swift the ill, and of so fierce a kind,
That fear with pity mingled in each mind;
Friends with the husband came, their griefs to blend:
For good-man Frankford was to all a friend.
The last-born boy they held above the bier;
He knew not grief, but cries express'd his fear;
Each different age and sex reveal'd its pain,
In now a louder, now a lower strain:
While the meek father, listening to their tones,
Swell'd the full cadence of the grief by groans.
The elder sister strove her pangs to hide,
And soothing words to younger minds applied:
"Be still, be patient;" oft she strove to say;
But fail'd as oft, and weeping turn'd away.
Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill,
The village lads stood melancholy still;
And idle children, wandering to and fro,
As nature guided, took the tone of woe.
Arriv'd at home, how then they gaz'd around,
In every place-where she-no more, was found:-
The seat at table she was wont to fill;
The fire-side chair, still set, but vacant still;
The garden-walks, a labour all her own;
The lattic'd bower, with trailing shrubs o'ergrown ;
The Sunday pew she fill'd with all her race,—
Each place of her's, was now a sacred place,
That, while it call'd up sorrows in the eyes,
Pierc'd the full heart, and forc'd them still to rise.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
BORN, 1770; DIED, 1850.
Principal Works.-The Wagoner, Peter Bell, The White Doe of
Rylstone, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Yarrow Revisited,
The Excursion.
THE dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink;
I heard a voice; it said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!"
And looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied
A snow-white mountain lamb, with a maiden at its side.
No other sheep was near, the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone ;
With one knee on the grass did the little maiden kneel,
While to that mountain lamb she gave its evening meal.
The lamb, while from her hand he thus his supper took,
Seemed to feast with head and ears, and his tail with pleasure shook.
Now with her empty can the maiden turned away;
But ere ten yards were gone, her footsteps did she stay.
"What ails thee, young one, what? why pull so at thy cord?
Is it not well with thee, well both for bed and board?
Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be ;
Rest, little young one, rest, what is't that aileth thee?
Rest, little young one, rest; hast thou forgot the day
When my father found thee first in places far away?
Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none;
And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.
He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home:
A blessed day for thee! then whither would'st thou roam?
A faithful nurse thou hast, the dam that did thee yean
Upon the mountain tops no kinder could have been.
Thou know'st that twice a day I have brought thee in this can,
Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran :
And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew,
I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is, and new.
Why bleat so after me, why pull so at thy chain?
Sleep-and at break of day I will come to thee again.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
BORN, 1771; DIED, 1832.
Principal Works.-The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, Contributions to the Border Minstrelsy, Novels, Plays, and Poems.
HYMN OF THE HEBREW MAID.
WHEN Israel, of the Lord belov'd,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her mov'd,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along th' astonish'd lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands
Return'd the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen,
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priests' and warriors' voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.
But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosp'rous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.
And, oh! when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn;
But Thou hast said-the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.
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