Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable!
Come, then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.
FROM "THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE."
O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.
I ween, a lovely spot of ground:
And there a season atween June and May,
Half pranked with spring, with summer half imbrowned, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.
THE lovely young Lavinia once had friends;
And fortune smiled deceitful on her birth:
For, in her helpless years deprived of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widowed mother, feeble, old,
And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep-surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, concealed.
Together thus they shunned the cruel scorn,
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride;
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves; unstained and pure,
As is the lily or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers;
Or when the mournful tale her mother told
Of what her faithless fortune promised once,
Thrilled in her thought, they like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair-proportioned on her polished limbs,
Veiled in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorned, adorned the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods:
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes in balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourished, blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia.
RULE BRITANNIA.
WHEN Britain first at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain : Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! Britons never shall be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule Britannia, &c.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Rule Britannia, &c.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe and thy renown.
Rule Britannia, &c.
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All shall be subject to the main,
And every shore it circles thine.
Rule Britannia, &c.
The muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule Britannia, &c.
He wrote some tragedies, especially one in conjunction with Thomson, in which occurs the famous song "Rule Britannia," which is generally believed, however, to have been the composition of Thomson. His best title to the name of poet is derived from his ballads. He died in London, 21st April 1765.
WILLIAM AND MARGARET.
"TWAS at the silent solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.
Her face was like an April morn
Clad in a wintry cloud;
And clay-cold was her lily hand
That held her sable shroud.
So shall the fairest face appear
When youth and years are flown:
Such is the robe that kings must wear,
When death has reft their crown.
Her bloom was like the springing flower,
That sips the silver dew;
The rose was budded in her cheek,
Just opening to the view.
But love had, like the canker-worm,
Consumed her early prime;
The rose grew pale, and left her cheek-
She died before her time.
"Awake!" she cried, "thy true love calls, Come from her midnight grave:
Now let thy pity hear the maid
Thy love refused to save.
"This is the dark and dreary hour
When injured ghosts complain;
When yawning graves give up their dead,
To haunt the faithless swain.
"Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,
Thy pledge and broken oath!
And give me back my maiden vow,
And give me back my troth.
"Why did you promise love to me,
And not that promise keep?
Why did you swear my eyes were bright,
Yet leave those eyes to weep?
"How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?
"Why did you say my lip was sweet,
And made the scarlet pale?
And why did I, young witless maid!
Believe the flattering tale?
"That face, alas! no more is fair,
Those lips no longer red:
Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,
And every charm is fled.
"The hungry worm my sister is;
This winding-sheet I wear:
And cold and weary lasts our night,
Till that last morn appear.
"But hark! the cock has warned me hence;
A long and last adieu!
Come see, false man, how low she lies,
Who died for love of you."
The lark sung loud; the morning smiled.
With beams of rosy red:
Pale William quaked in every limb,
And raving left his bed.
He hied him to the fatal place
Where Margaret's body lay;
And stretched him on the green-grass turf
That wrapt her breathless clay.
And thrice he called on Margaret's name,
And thrice he wept full sore;
Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,
And word spake never more!
THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY.
THE smiling morn, the breathing spring,
Invite the tunefu' birds to sing;
And, while they warble from the spray,
Love melts the universal lay.
Let us, Amanda, timely wise,
Like them, improve the hour that flies;
And in soft raptures waste the day,
Among the birks of Invermay.
For soon the winter of the year,
And age, life's winter, will appear;
At this thy living bloom will fade,
As that will strip the verdant shade.
Our taste of pleasure then is o'er,
The feathered songsters are no more;
And when they drop and we decay,
Adieu the birks of Invermay!
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