As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Seek'st thou the plashy1 brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, There is a power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast3— Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, And soon that toil shall end, Thou'rt gone the abyss of heaven He, who from zone to zone Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright. Bryant. 1 Plashy-from the noun plash. "The termination ash," says Dr. Wallis, "denotes a sharp, sudden motion, gradually subsiding, as in crash, flash, plash, &e." 2 There is a power, &c.—i. e. the inquiries in the last stanza seem to impute vagueness and indecision to thy movements, but such is not their character;— there is a power that teaches thee thy way, &c. 3 Coast-A peculiar but striking use of the word, as if the bird were skirting the very vault of the sky. ALEXANDER SELKIRK'S SOLILOQUY.' I AM monarch2 of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; That sages have seen in thy face? I am out of humanity's3 reach, Society, friendship, and love, Divinely bestowed upon man, Religion! what treasure untold Or all that this earth can afford. Alexander Selkirk was a sailor, who, having quarrelled with his captain, was set on shore by him, in the year 1704, on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, and remained there more than four years. 2 Monarch, sovereign-The former word-from the Greek ovog, alone, and agxos, a governor-signifies one who has sole authority; sovereign-from the Latin supremus; highest-one who has the highest authority. As there was no question of rank in Selkirk's case, the aptness of the word "monarch" is obvious. 3 Humanity-human nature, mankind. ▲ Divinely-as the Latin divinitus, by divine providence, from heaven. But the sound of the church-going bell1 Of a land I shall visit no more. And the swift-winged arrows of light. Soon hurries me back to despair. But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, THE HAPPY MAN.1 How happy is he born and taught5 Cowper. 1 The church-going bell-This expression ought by analogy to mean, the bell that goes to church, and is therefore to be condemned. 2 Sport-This implies that the author supposed that Selkirk had been shipwrecked, which, as before explained, was not the fact. 3 Lair-see note 1, p. 4. 4 Sir Henry Wotton, the author of this quaint, but not common-place, poem, was a friend and contemporary of Milton. 5 Born and taught-i. e. both by birth and education. 6 Honest thought-honesty of purpose. Whose soul is still prepared for death; Of public fame or private breath; Who envies none, that chance doth raise, How deepest wounds are given with praise ;3 Who hath his life from rumours freed ;5 Who God doth late and early pray, With a religious book or friend : This man is freed6 from servile bands Sir H.Wotton. ODE ON THE SPRING." Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,8 1 Still-always. See note 3, p. 64. 2 Untied, &c.-not connected with the world by anxiety about either public or private applause. 3 Praise-flattery 4 Nor, &c.-i. e. who never understood rules of policy, but rules of right. 5 Rumours freed-free from cares and anxieties." The remaining lines of this stanza are at once simple and vigorous. 6 Freed, &c.-from the slavish bonds both of hope and fear, for hope is no less enthralling than fear. "The Ode on the Spring is an epitome of every thing beautiful upon this subject:" Gilbert Wakefield. 8 Hours-These fair damsels are represented in Homer and Hesiod, with the epithets "golden-armed" and "fair-haired," as forming the train of Venus. Their office here-opening the flowers and waking the year, as messengers of the Queen of Beauty-is most tastefully conceived. "Rosy-bosomed," says Wakefield, means "with bosoms full of roses," perhaps rather, beautifulCosomed. Disclose the long-expecting' flowers, The untaught harmony of spring; Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch Beside some water's rushy brink Still is the toiling hand of care; 1 Expecting-In some editions "expected" is found; obviously a very inferior reading. 2 Purple-Virgil uses the expression, "ver purpureum", meaning nothing more than the "bright and beautiful spring," and this is probably the sense in which the word "purple" is often employed by poets of the 18th century. 3 Attic warbler-the nightingale. We find in Milton, "Paradise Regained," iv, 245: "the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long." It is called the "Attic bird," because Philomela, who was changed, as the fables say, into a nightingale, was an Athenian maiden. Harmony, melody-The difference between these words is that the latter denotes a succession, the former a combination, of musical notes. 5 Ardour of the crowd-equivalent to the "madding crowd's ignoble strife," in the "Elegy." See note 1, p. 64. 6 How low, &c.-These lines appeared thus in the first edition: "How low, how indigent the proud, How little are the great!" but were subsequently altered, "to avoid the sort of pun upon 'little' and great."" 7 Indigent because they lack the pure pleasures of nature. 8 Panting-It may perhaps be objected to this epithet, and to parts of the last stanza, "at ease reclined, &c.," that they are more suitable to summer than to spring. |