BARD. BARGAIN.

Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood; (Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air;) And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

All to nothing swiftly tend,

All waste, all vanish, all have end;
All sink, all wither: rose soon fadeth,
Palfrey stumbleth, cloth abraideth,
Man dies, sword rusteth; every thing
Doth time and change to ruin bring.
Then listen well to what I say,
Listen soothly, clerk and lay;
For when death hath driven ye down,
Whither wendeth your renown?
If the bard no record give,
Scantly shall your praises live.

1.-I am a bard

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Gray.

From the French of Wace.

2.-Peace, peace! I know you well,

I've heard your verses by the hour, sir, twanged
To rascal viols, through rogues' noses-pah!

Just at my hour of sleep. I'll have thee banged
For scurvy rhymes. Thou'st spread a plague so foul,
So foolish, that our women learn to spell;"

Nay, kings decipher, and our lords are mad
Until they can write nonsense. Till thou cam'st

We were all pure in happy ignorance,

Content-with love, sport, wine; and thought of nothing, Save what should be for dinner.

Procter.

BARGAIN.

I'LL give thrice so much land

To any well-deserving friend;

But in the way of bargain, mark ye now,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Shakspere.

80

BARGAIN. BARGE. BARK.

Henry is able to enrich his queen;

And not to seek a queen to make him rich.
So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,
As market men for oxen, sheep, or horses.

The age of bargaining, said Burke,
Has come to-day, the turbaned Turk
Is England's friend and fast ally.

Shakspere.

Halleck.

BARGE.

THE barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,

Which to the time of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of the strokes.

* * *

At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swells with the touches of these flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs.

Shakspere.

Placed in a gilded barge, Proud with the burden of so sweet a charge; With painted oars the youths began to sweep Neptune's smooth face.

Waller.

BARK.

How like a younker, or a prodigal,
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet-wind!
How like a prodigal doth she return;
With over-weather'd ribs, and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet-wind!

Shakspere.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Who to a woman trusts his peace of mind,
Trusts a frail bark with a tempestuous wind.

81

Milton.

Granville.

Oh, youth, and love, which is the light of youth,
Why pass ye as the morning?
Life goes on,
But like a bark that first in carelessness,
And afterwards in fear of each rough gale,
Has flung her richest freightage overboard.

Miss Landon.

See, see, my friends, this light and tiny bark,
Upon the waves of life launched forth anew;
Its fair and tender passenger remark;

Be we the first to serve her as a crew.
Even now the billows waft her from the shore;
On may she float all gently evermore!

Let us who see the voyage commencing here,
With songs essay her onward course to cheer.
Beranger.

By time deciduous, scooped by worms,
Docked in ravines, and launched by storms,
The bark that skulked from nook to nook,
And feared a wreck in every brook,
Bore in her rotten womb the plan
That changed the destinies of man-
Dominion gave-and bid him roll
The thunderer's peal from pole to pole.

C. C. Colton.

BASHFULNESS.

UNTO the ground she cast her modest eye,
And, ever and anon, with rosy red,

The bashful blush her snowy cheeks did dye.

I never tempted her with word too large;
But, as a brother to his sister, shewed
Bashful sincerity and comely love.

G

Spenser.

Shakspere.

82

BASHFULNESS. BATH.

Such looks, such bashfulness might well adorn
The cheeks of youth that are more nobly born.

Our author, anxious for his fame to-night,
And bashful in his first attempt to write,
Lies cautiously obscure.

Dryden.

Addison.

I pity bashful men who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn, and undeserved disdain;
And bear the marks upon a blushing face,
Of needless shame, and self-imposed disgrace.

So bright the tear in beauty's eye,
Love half regrets to kiss it dry;
So sweet the blush of bashfulness,
Even pity scarce can wish it less.

Cowper.

Byron.

Her walk is like the wind; her smiles more sweet
Than sunshine when it gilds the buds of May.
Rare words she has, and merry, like the lark,
And songs, which were too sweet, but that sometimes
They droop, and sadden like the pining flute;
And then her eyes, (soft planets,) lose their light
In bashful rain, o'er which her cloudy hair
Hangs, like the night protecting.

Procter.

BATH-BATHING.

THE delighted spirit.

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.--Shakspere.

The gallants dancing by the river's side,
They bathe in summer, and in winter slide.

We do our nature wrong,
Neglecting over long

The bodily joys that help to make us wise;
The ramble up the slope

Of the high mountain cope--

The long day's walk, the vigorous exercise,

Waller.

BATH. BATTLE.

The fresh, luxurious bath,
Far from the trodden path,

83

Or 'mid the ocean waves dashing with harmless roar, Lifting us off our feet upon the sandy shore.

Wordsworth.

BATTLE.

THEREWITH they 'gan, both furious and fell,
To thunder blowes, and fiercely to assaile
Each other, bent his enemy to quell,

That with their force they perst both plate and maile,
And made wide furrows in their fleshes fraile,
That it would pity any living eye.

Large floods of blood adowne their sides did raile,
But floods of blood could not them satisfie:

Both hungred after death; both chose to win or die.

Spenser.

Much work for tears in many an English mother,
Whose sons lie scatter'd on the bleeding ground:
Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
Coldly embracing the discolour'd earth:
And victory, with little loss, doth play

Upon the dancing banners of the French.-Shakspere.

The shout

Of battle now began, and rushing sound
Of onset ended soon each milder thought.

And now, their mightiest quell'd, the battle swerv'd
With many an inroad gor'd; deformed rout
Enter'd and foul disorder; all the ground
With shiver'd armour strown, and on a heap
Chariot and charioteer lay overturn'd,

And fiery foaming steeds.

Now night her course began, and over heaven
Inducing darkness, grateful truce, imposed
Her silence on the odious din of war;
Under her cloudy covert hath retir'd
Victor and vanquished.

Milton.