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Old times were changed, old manners gone;

A stranger filled the Stuarts'* throne;
The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.

A wandering harper, scorned and poor, He begged his bread from door to door; 25 And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, The harp a king had loved to hear.

*

He passed where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's* birchen bower:
The Minstrel gazed with wistful eye-
30 No humbler resting-place was nigh.
With hesitating step, at last,

The embattled* portal arch he passed,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
35 But never closed the iron door

Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess marked his weary pace,
His timid mien,* and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials* tell,
40 That they should tend the old man well:
For she had known adversity,

*

Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

45 When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And he began to talk anon,*

Of good Earl Francis,* dead and gone,
50 And of Earl Walter,* rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew,
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch :
And, would the noble Duchess deign

55 To listen to an old man's strain,

*

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He thought e'en yet, the sooth* to speak,
That, if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

60 The humble boon was soon obtained;
The aged Minstrel audience* gained.
But, when he reached the room of state,
Where she, with all her ladies, sate,

Stuarts, a line of kings who reigned over Scotland from 1370 to 1603, and over England and Scotland together, from 1603 to 1688.

Newark's stately tower, now a noble ruin, situated three miles from Selkirk. Farrow, a river in Selkirkshire.

Embattled. provided with a battlement or parapet on the top of the building.

The Duchess, Anne, the heiress of Buccleuch, who had been married to the Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II.

Mien, way of conducting one's self; appear

ance.

Menials, the servants. Adversity, misfortune.

Monmouth's bloody tomb, the Duke was beheaded for rebellion against James II. 1685. Anon, presently. Earl Francis, the father of the Duchess. Earl Walter, the Duchess's grandfather, a celebrated warrior.

The sooth, the truth.

Audience, permission to be heard; also means an assembly of hearers.

Security, being sure, certainty.

Wildering, perplex. ing, bewildering, confusing.

Chime, a sweet sound.

Perchance he wished his boon denied ;
For, when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease,
Which marks security * to please;
And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering* o'er his aged brain-
He tried to tune his harp in vain.
The pitying Duchess praised its chime,*
And gave him heart, and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee
Was blended into harmony.

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Churl, an ill-bred, surly fellow.

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And then, he said, he would full fain

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He could recall an ancient strain

He never thought to sing again.

It was not framed for village churls,*
But for high dames and mighty earls ;

He had played it to King Charles* the Good 80
When he kept court in Holyrood;

*

And much he wished, yet feared, to try
The long-forgotten melody.*

Amid the strings his fingers strayed,
And an uncertain warbling made—
And oft he shook his hoary* head:
But when he caught the measure wild,
The old man raised his face, and smiled;
And lightened up his faded eye
With all a poet's ecstasy ! *

In varying cadence,* soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords * along :
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot;
Cold diffidence,* and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied;
And, while his harp responsive* rung,
'Twas thus the LATEST MINSTREL sung.

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90

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100

THOUGHTLESS WORDS.-Scott.

Он, many a shaft, at random sent,
Finds mark, the archer little meant!
And many a word at random spoken,

May soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken!

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.* Gray.

THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771) was born in London. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he became Professor of Modern History. Gray left few works, but these are of the most perfect finish. Chief poems: The Elegy, Ode to Eton College, The Bard, and the Ode to Adversity.

YE distant spires, ye antique* towers,
That crown the watery glade,'
Where grateful science still adores
Her Henry's* holy shade;

5 And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's* heights th' expanse below

IO

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among,
Wanders the hoary* Thames * along.
His silver-winding way;

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ah, fields beloved in vain,

Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!

15 I feel the gales that from you blow
A momentary bliss bestow,

20

*

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent* of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent * green,
The paths of pleasure trace,

25 Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?

30

The captive linnet which enthral ? *

What idle progeny * succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,

Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent,

Their murm'ring labours ply,

'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty;

Antique, ancient.
Glade, an open space.

Henry's, Henry VI. was founder of the college.

Windsor Castle, one of the royal resid

ences.

Hoary, ancient, old. Thames, the chief river in England, rises in the Cotswold Hills, and flows into the German Ocean.

Momentary bliss,
great happiness last-
ing for a very short
time.
Redolent, full of.

Margent, the border or edge; here it means the banks of the river.

Enthral, to enslave.
Progeny, race.

* Eton College on the Thames, near Windsor, is a preparatory college for the Universities.

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Lo, in the vale of years beneath

A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of death,

More hideous than their queen :

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That ev'ry labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage;
Lo, poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand;
And slow-consuming * age.

To each his suffering; all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies;
Thought would destroy their paradise-
No more ;-where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

Keen, sharp, cutting. Remorse, the gnawing pain of guilt. Moody, gloomy, angry.

Consuming, wasting

away.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.—Goldsmith.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1744) was born in Ireland, and attended Trinity College, Dublin. After a roving life for some time spent on the Continent, he settled in London, living at one time as usher in a school. He died in distress and debt. The union of perfect refinement with perfect simplicity is the chief characteristic of his works. Chief works: The Traveller, and The Deserted Village, among his poems; and The Citizen of the World, and The Vicar of Wakefield, among his prose writings.

SWEET Auburn!* loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring
swain ;

*

Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed;
5 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!

"

Auburn, the "village described

here

probably is Lissoy, in West Meath, in Ireland, where

the poet spent his

boyhood.

Swain, a peasant,

a servant.

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