To walk together to the kirk, and all together pray He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast . She glides along the solitary-hearted They burn'd his cottage to the ground For many a thousand bodies there On Linden's hills of stained snow The sign of battle flew on the lofty British line My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er With uncontroll'd meanderings The Cuckoo She answerd "Seven are we" And often after sunset, sir . Let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy Mine be a cot beside the hill. Sleep on, and dream of Heaven There is a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream They come! the merry summer months. It is a gracious boon for thought-crazed wight} like me I remember, I remember, the house where I was born Another morn than ours Oh! give me my lowly thatched cottage again. Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush HARRISON WEIR BIRKET FOSTER GEORGE THOMAS EDMUND WARREN 591 Never doleful dream again shall break the happy HARRISON WEIR HARRISON WEIR . ***** New every morning is the love. The last faint pulse of quivering light While Memory, by thy grave, lives o'er thy funeral day The Rainbow E. M. WIMPERIS PERCIVAL SKELTON E. M. WIMPERIS You must wake and call me early, call me early, E. V. B.. mother dear As I came up the valley, whom think ye should The honeysuckle round the porch has worn its wavy bowers The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass Tailpiece (Floral) Vignette To night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind mer o'er the wave Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face . But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set To die before the snowdrop came When the night and morning meet Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your} breast Tailpiece thy} than} S the scope of the present volume has been planned few introductory remarks are required in order to obtain a retrospective glance at earlier English poetry.' The first poem of any note in the language, and which is the most remarkable specimen of the class of verse that found general favour with the great body of the people at the time of its production, is the famous "Vision of Piers Ploughman," or, as it is given in the Latin title, "Visio Willielmi de Petro Plouhman," the Vision concerning Peter or Piers Ploughman. It appeared about 1365, thus preceding the "Canterbury Pilgrims" of Chaucer by about twenty years, and even most of the writings of Wycliffe. The construction of the poem is in The Editor is indebted for much of the substance of this introduction to Mr. Friswell's admirable little volume of Essays on "English Literature," London, 1868. I B alliterative verse without rhyme, and the subject is a description of the sufferings and temptations that beset the soul in its passage through this mortal life. The treatment is allegorical, like Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," but there is at the same time running through it a severe and satirical attack on the viciousness of the clergy, and an exposure of the general corruption of manners of the period, which placed it at the head of the anti-clerical effusions that culminated at length in the great work of Chaucer. The authorship of the poem is generally ascribed to Robert Langland (or Langlande), a monk, of whom it may be said there is little or nothing known in the way of personal history. Much of the language that he uses is very similar to that of Chaucer.' The following passage, where Piers Ploughman is first brought under the notice of the reader, may be quoted as affording a good general idea of the poem. A number of people have been induced by the advice of two symbolical personages, Hope and Repentance, to set forth in quest of Truth: A thousand of men tho And to his clean moder, To have grace to go with them Truthe to seek. Ac3 there was wight none so wise The way thider couth," But blustreden forth as beasts That they a leed" met, 1 Mr. Thos. Wright's edition may be quoted as able and trustworthy. 2 Then. 3 But. 4 Knew. 5 Wandered ignorantly. 6 Person. And many a crouch on his cloak And the Vernicle1 before, For men shold know And see by his signs "From Sinai," he said, "And from our Lord's sepulchre : In Bethlem and in Babiloyn, In Armony and in Alisandre, In many other places. Ye may see by my signs That sitten on my hat, In weet and in dry, And sought good saints For my soul's health." "KnowestowR aught a corsaint That men call Truth? 9 Coudestow 10 aught wissen" us the way Where that wye 12 dwelleth?"” "Nay, so me God help," Said the gome 13 then, |