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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13535 ***
+
+SELECTIONS FROM
+
+FIVE ENGLISH POETS
+
+
+EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
+
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY E. LITCHFIELD
+
+
+
+
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+   I. DRYDEN
+      A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY
+
+  II. GRAY
+      ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
+
+ III. GOLDSMITH
+      THE TRAVELLER
+      THE DESERTED VILLAGE
+
+  IV. BURNS
+      THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT
+
+   V. COLERIDGE
+      THE ANCIENT MARINER
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+When a poem is read aloud it is easy to realize that poetry is closely
+related to music.  Like music it awakens vague, mysterious feelings
+which cannot be expressed in ordinary speech; and the person who fails
+to catch the subtle melody of a poem gets but little from it even
+though he understands perfectly the meaning of the words. To illustrate
+this, put into commonplace prose a passage of beautiful verse,--for
+instance, lines 358-372 of _The Ancient Mariner_, beginning, "Sometimes
+a-dropping from the sky,"--and then compare the prose version with the
+original.  The two will be found as unlike as the flower after it has
+been dissected by the botanist, and the same flower still on the stalk,
+opening its petals to the morning sun.
+
+The Greeks divided all poetry into three kinds,--lyric, epic, and
+dramatic poetry, and there is no better general division.  The lyric,
+which is properly a song, expresses the transient feeling or mood of
+the writer, and therefore is never very long.  One must be sensitive to
+the music of verse to care for a poem of this kind, because it tells no
+story.  Dryden's _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_ and Gray's _Elegy_, both
+included in the present volume, are lyrics.  Among the most beautiful
+of English lyrics are Milton's _Lycidas_, Wordsworth's _Ode on
+Intimations of Immortality_, and Shelley's _To a Skylark_ and
+_Adonais_; while of American poems of the same kind none is nobler than
+Lowell's _Commemoration Ode_.  Short lyrics, among which are songs and
+sonnets, can be found in the works of almost every poet of note,
+whether English or American.  Under the head of epic or narrative
+poetry are included long productions like the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_
+of Homer and the _Paradise Lost_ of Milton, and shorter poems, such as
+Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_ and _Longfellow's _Evangeline_.  Indeed,
+every piece of verse that tells a story, however short it may be,
+belongs with the epics or narratives.  Dramatic poetry includes
+well-known plays like Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_ and _Julius
+Caesar_, and also certain poems not written for the stage, such as
+Browning's _Pippa Passes_ and Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_.  In a
+dramatic production the poet goes out of himself for the time being,
+and expresses the thoughts and feelings of other characters.
+
+It may have been noticed that in this description of the principal
+kinds of poetry, only three of the poems included in this book have
+been mentioned.  This is because the other three--_The Traveller_, _The
+Deserted Village_, and _The Cotter's Saturday Night_--do not fit
+exactly into any of the divisions.  One would class them with the epics
+rather than with the lyrics or the dramas, but they are not properly
+narratives, because they tell no story; they are really descriptive and
+reflective poems.  One often comes upon a difficulty of this kind when
+attempting to classify a poem, and the truth is that several smaller
+divisions are necessary if every production is to be placed where it
+belongs.  But while it is desirable to know whether one is reading a
+lyric, an epic, or a drama, it is far more important to enjoy a
+beautiful poem than to be able properly to classify it.
+
+The following list may prove useful to those who wish to know more of
+the poets represented in this volume than can be learned from the short
+sketches of their lives which it includes:
+
+J. R. Green: _Short History of the English People_; Stopford Brooke:
+_English Literature_; Frederick Ryland: _Chronological Outlines of
+English Literature_; Edmund Gosse: _A History of Eighteenth-Century
+Literature_; _Dictionary of National Biography_ (British); G.
+Saintsbury: _Dryden_ (English Men of Letters Series); James Russell
+Lowell: essay on Dryden in _Among my Books_, vol. i; W. L. Phelps:
+_Gray_ (Athenaeum Press Series); Matthew Arnold: essay on Gray in
+_Essays in Criticism_, second series; James Russell Lowell: essay on
+Gray in _Latest Literary Essays_; Austin Dobson: _Life of Goldsmith_
+(Great Writers Series), William Black: _Goldsmith_ (E. M. L. Series);
+J. C.  Shairp: _Burns_ (E. M. L. Series); Thomas Carlyle: essay on
+Burns in _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, and [Burns] "The Hero as
+Man of Letters" in _Heroes and Hero Worship_; H. D.  Traill:
+_Coleridge_ (E. M. L. Series); T. Hall Caine: _Life of Coleridge_
+(Great Writers Series); J. C. Shairp: "Coleridge as Poet and
+Philosopher" in _Studies in Poetry and Philosophy_; James Russell
+Lowell: "Address in Westminster Abbey, 7th May, 1885" [Coleridge], in
+_Democracy and Other Essays_; A. C. Swinburne; _Essays and Studies_;
+Walter Pater: "Coleridge," in _Appreciations_.
+
+
+
+
+FIVE ENGLISH POETS
+
+
+JOHN DRYDEN
+
+1631-1700
+
+Although Dryden is but little read in these days, he fills an important
+place in the history of English literature.  As the foremost writer of
+the last third of the seventeenth century, he is the connecting link
+between Milton, "the last of the Elizabethans," and Pope, the chief
+poet of the age of Queen Anne.  He was born in Northamptonshire, and
+had the good fortune to live in the country until his thirteenth year,
+when he was sent to the famous Westminster School, in what is now the
+heart of London.  A few years after finishing his course at Cambridge
+University he went back to London, and lived there chiefly during the
+rest of his long and busy life.  At the age of thirty-nine he was made
+poet-laureate and historiographer-royal, although his best work was not
+done until after he was fifty years old.  From Milton's death, 1674,
+until his own in 1700, "Glorious John," as he was called, reigned
+without a rival in English letters; and one can picture him as a short,
+stout, somewhat ruddy-faced gentleman, sitting in Will's Coffee House
+surrounded by younger authors who vie with one another for the honor of
+a pinch out of his snuffbox.  He died at the age of sixty-nine, and was
+buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer and
+Cowley.
+
+Dryden is often called "the first of the moderns."  This is because he
+was one of the earliest to write clear, strong English prose, and
+because as a poet he was thoughtful and brilliant rather than highly
+imaginative.  Lowell says of him: "He had, beyond most, the gift of the
+right word. . . .  In ripeness of mind and bluff heartiness of
+expression he takes rank with the best."  Beside prose works and dramas
+he wrote poems of many kinds, including translations and paraphrases.
+His satires are unrivaled.  The finest is, perhaps, the first part of
+_Absalom and Achitophel_.  He is now best known by two lyric poems,
+_Alexander's Feast_ and the _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_; while his
+_Palamon and Arcite_, a paraphrase of Chaucer's _Knightes Tale_, still
+delights the reader who cares for a good story in verse.
+
+
+
+A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY
+
+  1
+
+  From harmony,[1] from heavenly harmony
+      This universal frame[2] began.
+    When Nature underneath a heap
+      Of jarring atoms lay,
+    And could not heave her head,                          5
+  The tuneful voice was heard from high:
+      "Arise, ye more than dead!"
+  Then cold and hot and moist and dry
+    In order to their stations leap,
+      And Music's power obey.                             10
+  From harmony, from heavenly harmony
+      This universal frame began;
+      From harmony to harmony
+  Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
+  The diapason closing full in Man.[3]                    15
+
+
+  2
+
+  What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
+      When Jubal[4] struck the corded shell,[5]
+    His list'ning brethren stood around,
+      And, wond'ring, on their faces fell
+    To worship that celestial sound,                      20
+  Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
+      Within the hollow of that shell
+      That spoke so sweetly and so well.
+  What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
+
+
+  3
+
+      The trumpet's loud clangor                          25
+        Excites us to arms,
+      With shrill notes of anger
+        And mortal alarms.[6]
+      The double double double beat
+        Of the thundering drum                            30
+        Cries, "Hark, the foes come!
+  Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat!"
+
+
+  4
+
+      The soft complaining flute
+      In dying notes discovers[7]
+      The woes of hopeless lovers,                        35
+  Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.
+
+
+  5
+
+      Sharp violins proclaim
+  Their jealous pangs and desperation,
+  Fury, frantic indignation,
+  Depth of pains and height of passion,                   40
+      For the fair disdainful dame.
+
+
+  6
+
+      But oh! what art can teach,
+      What human voice can reach
+        The sacred organ's praise?
+      Notes inspiring holy love,                          45
+  Notes that wing their heavenly ways
+      To mend[8] the choirs above.
+
+
+  7
+
+  Orpheus[9] could lead the savage race,
+  And trees unrooted left their place,
+      Sequacious of the lyre;                             50
+  But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
+  When to her organ vocal breath was given,
+  An angel heard, and straight[10] appeared--
+      Mistaking earth for heaven.
+
+
+  GRAND CHORUS
+
+    As from the power of sacred lays                      55
+      The spheres began to move,
+    And sung the great Creator's praise
+      To all the blest above:
+    So, when the last and dreadful hour[11]
+    This crumbling pageant shall devour,                  60
+    The trumpet shall be heard on high,
+    The dead shall live, the living die,
+    And Music shall untune the sky.
+
+
+NOTE.--Dryden wrote this song in 1687 for the festival of St. Cecilia,
+the patron saint of music.  To be appreciated it must be read aloud,
+for it is full of musical effects, especially stanzas 3-6.  St. Cecilia
+has been represented by Raphael and other artists as playing upon some
+instrument, surrounded by listening angels.
+
+
+[1.] From harmony, etc.  Some of the ancients believed that music
+helped in the creation of the heavenly bodies, and that their motions
+were accompanied by a harmony known as "the music of the spheres."
+
+[2.] This universal frame, the visible universe.
+
+[3.] The diapason, etc.  _The diapason_ means here _the entire compass
+of tones_.  The idea is that in man, the highest of God's creatures,
+are included all the virtues and powers of the lower creation.
+
+[4.] Jubal.  It is said of Jubal: "He was the father of all such as
+handle the harp and organ."--Genesis iv, 21.
+
+[5.] The corded shell, _i.e._ the lyre.  The first lyre was supposed to
+have been formed by drawing strings over a tortoise shell.
+
+[6.] Mortal alarms, _i.e._ notes that rouse men to deadly conflict.
+
+[7.] Discovers, reveals.
+
+[8.] Mend, amend, improve.
+
+[9.] Orpheus is said to have been a Thracian poet who moved rocks and
+trees and tamed wild beasts by playing upon his lyre.
+
+[10.] Straight, straightway, immediately.
+
+[11.] The last and dreadful hour, the Day of Judgment.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS GRAY
+
+1716-1771
+
+In speaking of Gray, some one has said that no other writer has come
+down to posterity with such a small book under his arm; and to this may
+be added the statement that every piece in his book shows careful
+finish.  His fame rests mainly on three poems: the _Elegy_, _The
+Progress of Poesy_, and _The Bard_.  Of these the _Elegy_ is by far the
+most popular, because it expresses in simple and beautiful language
+sentiments which appeal to all, whatever their condition.
+
+In character Gray was high-minded, and in temperament reserved and shy.
+It is said that after he was acknowledged to be the greatest poet
+living in England, people used to watch eagerly for a glimpse of him;
+but he usually managed to elude them and to slip away unnoticed.  His
+sensitiveness may have been due in part to the fact that his health was
+delicate and that he was much alone when a child--for all his brothers
+and sisters died in infancy.  Although unfortunate in his father, he
+was blessed with a devoted mother, who by her exertions enabled him to
+go to Cambridge University.  It is pleasant to know that he warmly
+returned her love and that he now rests by her side in the churchyard
+at Stoke Poges, which is always associated with the _Elegy_.  On her
+tomb he placed the inscription "--mother of many children, one of whom
+alone had the misfortune to survive her."  Gray's friends were warmly
+attached to him.  With one of them, Horace Walpole, the well-known
+author and collector, he traveled on the continent soon after leaving
+the university; and although they quarreled and separated the
+friendship was renewed later.  Gray never married.  In 1742 he returned
+to Cambridge and lived there during the rest of his life, with the
+exception of two years spent in London.  After he became famous the
+laureateship was offered to him, but his dislike of publicity caused
+him to refuse it.  In 1768 he was made Professor of Modern History and
+Languages at Cambridge.  All his life he was a student; indeed he was
+the most learned of the English poets, except possibly Milton.  In some
+respects he was in advance of his age.  He appreciated certain kinds of
+poetry that no one else liked in his time, and he cared greatly for
+wild nature.  In these days, when almost every one loves rugged
+mountains and remote regions by the sea, it is hard to realize that
+there ever was a time when most persons preferred to look upon trim or
+even stiff gardens or the cultivated grounds of a country seat; but
+such was the case.  Gray's admiration for wild nature comes out in his
+prose, especially in his letters, and in his _Journal in the Lakes_
+written in 1769; but later writers, Wordsworth above all, have
+expressed the same feeling in delightful verse.
+
+As a poet Gray stands for beauty of form rather than for depth of
+thought or breadth of sympathy.  He is first of all an artist, and his
+poems are among the most perfect in the English language.
+
+
+
+  ELEGY
+
+  WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
+
+  The curfew[1] tolls the knell of parting day,
+    The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
+  The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
+    And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
+
+  Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,         5
+    And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
+  Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
+    And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
+
+  Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
+    The moping owl does to the moon complain              10
+  Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
+    Molest her ancient solitary reign.
+
+  Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
+    Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
+  Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,                  15
+    The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
+
+  The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,[2]
+    The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
+  The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
+    No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.        20
+
+  For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
+    Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
+  No children run to lisp their sire's return,
+    Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
+
+  Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,              25
+    Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe[3] has broke;
+  How jocund did they drive their team afield!
+    How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
+
+  Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
+    Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;               30
+  Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
+    The short and simple annals of the poor.
+
+  The boast of heraldry,[4] the pomp of pow'r,
+    And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
+  Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.                       35
+    The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
+
+  Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,
+    If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
+  Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault[5]
+    The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.         40
+
+  Can storied urn[6] or animated[7] bust
+    Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
+  Can Honour's voice provoke[8] the silent dust,
+    Or Flatt'ry sooth the dull cold ear of Death?
+
+  Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid                  45
+    Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
+  Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
+    Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
+
+  But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
+    Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;        50
+  Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
+    And froze the genial current of the soul.
+
+  Full many a gem of purest ray serene[9]
+    The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
+  Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,             55
+    And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
+
+  Some village-Hampden,[10] that with dauntless breast,
+    The little Tyrant of his fields withstood,
+  Some mute inglorious Milton[11] here may rest,
+    Some Cromwell[12] guiltless of his country's blood.   60
+
+  Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
+    The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
+  To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
+    And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,
+
+  Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone              65
+    Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
+  Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
+    And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
+
+  The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
+    To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,             70
+  Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
+    With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
+
+  Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
+    Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
+  Along the cool sequestered vale of life                 75
+    They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
+
+  Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
+    Some frail memorial still[13] erected nigh,
+  With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
+    Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.               80
+
+  Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,[14]
+    The place of fame and elegy supply:
+  And many a holy text around she strews,
+    That teach the rustic moralist to die.
+
+  For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,                  85
+    This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
+  Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
+    Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?
+
+  On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
+    Some pious drops the closing eye requires;            90
+  Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
+    Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.
+
+  For thee, who mindful of th' unhonored Dead[15]
+    Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
+  If chance,[16] by lonely Contemplation led,             95
+    Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
+
+  Haply some hoary-headed swain[17] may say,
+    "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
+  Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
+    To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.[18]            100
+
+  "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
+    That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
+  His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
+    And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
+
+  "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,            105
+    Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove;
+  Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
+    Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.
+
+  "One morn I missed him on the customed hill,
+    Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;          110
+  Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
+    Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
+
+  "The next, with dirges due in sad array
+    Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
+  Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay        115
+    Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
+
+
+  THE EPITAPH
+
+  Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
+    A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
+  Fair Science[19] frowned not on his humble birth,
+    And Melancholy marked him for her own.               120
+
+  Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
+    Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
+  He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
+  He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend.
+
+  No farther seek his merits to disclose,                125
+    Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
+  (There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
+    The bosom of his Father and his God.
+
+
+
+NOTE.--The _Elegy_ was finished at Stoke Poges in 1750, when the poet
+was thirty-four years old.  It was so popular that one edition followed
+quickly upon another, and it was even translated into foreign languages.
+
+Notice that throughout the poem the lines are of equal length, each
+consisting of five feet or measures, and that in a stanza the alternate
+lines rhyme.
+
+
+[1.] The curfew was an evening bell which originally warned people to
+cover their fires, put out their lights, and go to bed.  It was
+instituted in England after the Norman Conquest.  The word comes from
+the French _couvrir_ (cover) and _feu_ (fire).
+
+[2.] Incense-breathing Morn.  The poet regards the morning as a person;
+that is, he personifies morning.  Personification is seldom used now,
+but the eighteenth-century poets delighted in it.  It is frequently
+employed in this poem.
+
+[3.] Glebe, soil, ground.
+
+[4.] The boast of heraldry, _i.e._ whatever has to do with high rank or
+pride of birth.
+
+[5.] Where through the long-drawn aisle, etc.  It was the custom to
+bury the poorer people of a village in the churchyard, and the rich or
+high-born in the church.
+
+[6.] Storied urn.  Funeral urns such as were used by the ancients were
+frequently decorated with scenes from the life of the deceased.
+
+[7.] Animated, _i.e._ life-like.
+
+[8.] Provoke, call forth, call back to life.
+
+[9.] Full many a gem, etc.  One of the best-known stanzas in English
+poetry.
+
+[10.] Village-Hampden.  John Hampden was an English patriot who refused
+to pay taxes levied by the king without the consent of Parliament, and
+who died in 1643 from a wound received while fighting for the liberties
+of England.
+
+[11.] Milton.  John Milton (1608-1674), the author of _Paradise Lost_,
+is generally ranked as the greatest English poet after Shakespeare.
+
+[12.] Cromwell.  Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), the famous Protector, is
+now regarded by historians in general as one of the foremost champions
+of English liberty.
+
+[13.] Still, always.
+
+[14.] Th' unlettered Muse.  In Greek mythology the Muses were nine
+goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences, song, and the
+different kinds of poetry.  The true poet was supposed to be inspired
+by them.  Gray imagines a new kind of Muse who inspires the writers of
+crude epitaphs.
+
+[15.] For thee, who mindful, etc.  Gray refers to himself as the writer
+of this poem.
+
+[16.] Chance, perchance.
+
+[17.] Swain, countryman.  By _swain_ the poets usually mean a country
+gallant or lover.
+
+[18.] Lawn, a cleared place in a wood, not cultivated.  Now, of course,
+the word always means grassland near a house which is kept closely cut.
+
+[19.] Science, knowledge in general, not natural science only.
+
+
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH
+
+1728-1774
+
+Goldsmith was born in Pallas, an out-of-the-way hamlet in Longford
+County, Ireland, where his father, the curate, was looked upon as
+"passing rich, with forty pounds a year."  Not long after, the family
+removed to Lissoy, in the County of Westmeath, where they lived in much
+comfort.  Here Oliver passed his childhood and youth, and it is
+doubtless to Lissoy that his thoughts returned when he wrote of "Sweet
+Auburn, loveliest village of the plain."  As a boy he had his share of
+troubles.  In school he was pronounced "a stupid, heavy blockhead," and
+he was often made sport of by his companions on account of his awkward
+figure and his homely face, pitted with the smallpox.  In his
+eighteenth year he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, that
+is, a poor student who pays in part for his tuition by doing certain
+kinds of work.  After four years devoted to study--spiced with a good
+deal of fun--he graduated at the foot of his class.
+
+At twenty-one he showed no special bent.  For a while he lived with his
+mother, now a widow, and idled his time away with gay companions.
+After being refused a position in the church, he resolved to try
+teaching; but this occupation proved so little to his taste that he
+decided to give it up and study medicine.  With the help of a generous
+uncle he entered the medical school at Edinburgh, leaving Ireland never
+to return.  At the end of a year and a half he concluded that foreign
+travel would do more for him than a longer stay in Scotland.  His uncle
+sent him twenty pounds, and with this he reached Leyden, where, if he
+possibly attended a few lectures, he certainly associated with wild
+companions who helped him to get rid of his money.  Having succeeded in
+borrowing a small sum, he was about to leave Leyden, when in a
+florist's garden he saw a rare, high-priced flower which he felt sure
+would delight his kind uncle, who was an enthusiast in flower culture.
+Without a thought of his own needs he ran in, bought a parcel of the
+roots, and sent them off to Ireland; then, with a guinea in his pocket,
+he started on his travels.  Although his uncle may have sent him small
+sums occasionally, it is not easy to see how he managed to wander as he
+did from country to country.  It is said that he paid his way among the
+peasants by flute playing, and that he returned the hospitality of
+convents by disputing on learned subjects; but these stories are
+doubtless fictitious.  One thing is certain, he arrived in London in
+February, 1756, having reached the age of twenty-eight, with a medical
+degree, but with no money in his pocket.
+
+For two years he lived in the great city poor and unknown.  He was in
+turn apothecary's assistant, poor physician, proof-reader, usher in a
+"classical school," and hack writer.  At last, almost discouraged, he
+decided to obtain if possible the position of factory surgeon on the
+Coromandel coast, in India.  He failed to get the place, and was also
+unsuccessful in his efforts to pass the examination at Surgeon's Hall
+for the humble post of hospital mate.
+
+At this point there was a turn in the tide of his fortunes.  While
+seeking employment as a physician, he had been engaged upon a work
+called _Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_,
+and with its publication in 1759 his career as an author began.  His
+essays, which appeared in numerous magazines, brought him into further
+notice, especially a series collected later under the title, _The
+Citizen of the World_.  In 1764 he became a member of Dr. Johnson's
+famous "Literary Club" that met at the "Turk's Head."  It was to
+Johnson that he once said, alluding to his heavy style,--"If you were
+to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."  But there
+was no malice in this remark, for the doctor was one of his stanch
+friends.  Among the other nine original members of the club were Sir
+Joshua Reynolds, the artist, and Edmund Burke, the noted statesman.
+Before long _The Traveller_ and _The Deserted Village_ gave Goldsmith a
+foremost place among the poets of the time, and _The Vicar of
+Wakefield_, published in 1776, brought him fame as a novelist.  This
+book remains to-day, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half,
+one of the most widely read of English novels.  Two comedies, _The
+Good-natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, complete the list of his
+well-known works, while he wrote many others that were enjoyed by his
+contemporaries.  He died of a fever at the age of forty-six, and was
+buried in the burial ground of the Temple Church.  Two years later a
+monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
+
+This short sketch of Goldsmith's life makes it clear that he lacked
+strength of character and was wanting also in practical wisdom.  Even
+after he became a successful author his extravagance kept him poor, and
+he died largely in debt.  Many stories are told illustrating his
+innocent vanity and the love of gay clothing which made him conspicuous
+even in an age of ruffled shirts and silver knee-buckles.  One of his
+biographers describes him as arriving at a friend's house where he was
+to dine, "with his new wig, with his coat of Tyrian bloom and blue silk
+breeches, with a smart sword at his side, his gold-headed cane in his
+hand, and his hat under his elbow."  But while he had more than his
+share of weaknesses, it must be granted that "e'en his failings leaned
+to Virtue's side."  He was sensitive, open-hearted, generous, and
+kindly--always ready to help those less fortunate than himself.  If in
+Parson Primrose and in the "village preacher" of _The Deserted Village_
+he has painted portraits of his father, the country curate, there is
+something of himself as well in these lovable characters.  Both in
+poetry and in prose his style is easy and delightful; his humor has no
+sting.  Everything that comes from his pen has the flavor of his quaint
+personality.  In spite of his failings--or possibly in part because of
+them--this son of Ireland is one of the most popular of English writers.
+
+
+  THE TRAVELLER;
+
+  OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY
+
+  Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
+  Or by the lazy Scheld[1] or wandering Po;
+  Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor[2]
+  Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
+  Or where Campania's plain[3] forsaken lies,              5
+  A weary waste expanding to the skies;
+  Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
+  My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee;
+  Still to my brother[4] turns, with ceaseless pain,
+  And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.           10
+
+  Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
+  And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
+  Blest be that spot where cheerful guests retire
+  To pause from toil, and trim their ev'ning fire:
+  Blest that abode where want and pain repair,            15
+  And every stranger finds a ready chair:
+  Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned,
+  Where all the ruddy family around
+  Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
+  Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale;                20
+  Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
+  And learn the luxury of doing good.
+
+  But me, not destined such delights to share,
+  My prime of life in wand'ring spent and care;
+  Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue               25
+  Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view;
+  That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
+  Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
+  My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
+  And find no spot of all the world my own.               30
+
+  Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
+  I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
+  And placed on high above the storm's career,
+  Look downward where an hundred realms appear;
+  Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,          35
+  The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride.
+
+  When thus Creation's charms around combine,
+  Amidst the store should thankless pride repine?
+  Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
+  That good which makes each humbler bosom vain?          40
+  Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,[5]
+  These little things are great to little man;
+  And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
+  Exults in all the good of all mankind.
+  Ye glitt'ring towns, with wealth and splendor crowned;  45
+  Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round;
+  Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale;
+  Ye bending swains,[6] that dress the flow'ry vale;
+  For me your tributary stores combine:
+  Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine.          50
+
+  As some lone miser, visiting his store,
+  Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er;
+  Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
+  Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
+  Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,              55
+  Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies:
+  Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
+  To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
+  And oft I wish amidst the scene to find
+  Some spot to real happiness consigned,                  60
+  Where my worn soul, each wand'ring hope at rest,
+  May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
+
+  But where to find that happiest spot below
+  Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
+  The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone                65
+  Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
+  Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
+  And his long nights of revelry and ease:
+  The naked negro, panting at the line,[7]
+  Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,              70
+  Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
+  And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
+  Such is the patriot's boast where'er we roam;
+  His first, best country ever is at home.
+  And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,              75
+  And estimate the blessings which they share,
+  Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
+  An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
+  As different good, by Art or Nature given,
+  To different nations makes their blessings even.        80
+
+  Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
+  Still grants her bliss at Labor's earnest call:
+  With food as well the peasant is supplied
+  On Idra's cliffs[8] as Arno's shelvy side;[9]
+  And though the rocky crested summits frown,             85
+  These rocks by custom turn to beds of down.
+  From Art more various are the blessings sent;
+  Wealth, commerce, honor, liberty, content.
+  Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
+  That either seems destructive of the rest.[10]          90
+  Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails
+  And honor sinks where commerce long prevails.[11]
+  Hence every state, to one loved blessing prone,
+  Conforms and models life to that alone.
+  Each to the favorite happiness attends,                 95
+  And spurns the plan that aims at other ends:
+  Till carried to excess in each domain,
+  This fav'rite good begets peculiar pain.
+
+  But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
+  And trace them through the prospect as it lies:        100
+  Here for a while my proper cares[12] resigned,
+  Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
+  Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
+  That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
+
+  Far to the right, where Apennine ascends,              105
+  Bright as the summer, Italy extends:
+  Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
+  Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
+  While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between
+  With venerable grandeur mark the scene,                110
+
+  Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
+  The sons of Italy were surely blest.
+  Whatever fruits in different climes were found,
+  That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
+  Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,               115
+  Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
+  Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
+  With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
+  These, here disporting, own the kindred soil,
+  Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;            120
+  While sea-born gales their gelid[13] wings expand
+  To winnow[14] fragrance round the smiling land.
+
+  But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
+  And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.[15]
+  In florid beauty groves and fields appear;             125
+  Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
+  Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
+  Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
+  Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
+  And ev'n in penance planning sins anew.                130
+  All evils here contaminate the mind
+  That opulence departed leaves behind;
+  For wealth was theirs,[16] not far removed the date
+  When commerce proudly nourished through the state,
+  At her command the palace learnt to rise,[17]          135
+  Again the long-fallen column sought the skies,[18]
+  The canvas glowed, beyond e'en nature warm,[19]
+  The pregnant quarry teemed with human form;
+  Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
+  Commerce on other shores displayed her sail;[20]       140
+  While nought remained of all that riches gave,
+  But towns unmanned, and lords without a slave:
+  And late the nation found with fruitless skill
+  Its former strength was but plethoric ill.[21]
+
+  Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied          145
+  By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
+  From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind
+  An easy compensation seem to find.
+  Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed,
+  The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade,             150
+  Processions formed for piety and love,
+  A mistress or a saint in every grove.
+  By sports like these are all their cares beguiled;
+  The sports of children satisfy the child.
+  Each nobler aim, repressed by long control,            155
+  Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
+  While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
+  In happier meanness occupy the mind:
+  As in those domes where Caesars[22] once bore sway,
+  Defaced by time and tottering in decay,                160
+  There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
+  The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
+  And, wond'ring man could want the larger pile,
+  Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.
+  My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey,            165
+  Where rougher climes a nobler race display;
+  Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
+  And force a churlish soil[23] for scanty bread.
+  No product here the barren hills afford,
+  But man and steel, the soldier and his sword:[24]      170
+  No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
+  But winter ling'ring chills the lap of May:
+  No Zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
+  But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
+
+  Yet, still, even here content can spread a charm,      175
+  Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
+  Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho' small,
+  He sees his little lot the lot of all;
+  Sees no contiguous palace[25] rear its head
+  To shame the meanness of his humble shed;              180
+  No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
+  To make him loath his vegetable meal;
+  But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,[26]
+  Each wish contracting fits him to the soil.
+  Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose,           185
+  Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
+  With patient angle trolls the finny deep;
+  Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep;
+  Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
+  And drags the struggling savage[27] into day.          190
+  At night returning, every labor sped,
+  He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
+  Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
+  His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
+  While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,        195
+  Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
+  And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
+  With many a tale repays the nightly bed.[28]
+
+  Thus every good his native wilds impart
+  Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;             200
+  And ev'n those ills that round his mansion rise
+  Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
+  Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
+  And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
+  And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,            205
+  Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
+  So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar
+  But bind him to his native mountains more.
+
+  Such are the charms to barren states assigned;[29]
+  Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.        210
+  Yet let them only share the praises due:
+  If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
+  For every want that stimulates the breast
+  Becomes a source of pleasure when redressed;
+  Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies     215
+  That first excites desire, and then supplies;
+  Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
+  To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
+  Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
+  Catch every nerve, and vibrate 'through the frame.     220
+  Their level life is but a smould'ring fire,
+  Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire;
+  Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
+  On some high festival of once a year,
+  In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,           225
+  Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.
+
+  But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
+  Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
+  For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
+  Unaltered, unimproved, the manners run,                230
+  And love's and friendship's finely-pointed dart
+  Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
+  Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
+  May sit, like falcons, cow'ring on the nest;
+  But all the gentler morals, such as play               235
+  Thro' life's more cultured walks, and charm the way,
+  These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly,
+  To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.
+
+  To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
+  I turn; and France displays her bright domain.         240
+  Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
+  Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
+  How often have I led thy sportive choir,
+  With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire?
+  Where shading elms along the margin grew,              245
+  And freshened from the wave the Zephyr flew;
+  And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
+  But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill,
+  Yet would the village praise my wonderous power,
+  And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.             250
+  Alike all ages.  Dames of ancient days
+  Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
+  And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,[30]
+  Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore.
+
+  So blest a life these thoughtless realms display;      255
+  Thus idly busy rolls their world away;[31]
+  Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
+  For honor forms the social temper here.
+  Honor, that praise which real merit gains,
+  Or even imaginary worth obtains,                       260
+  Here passes current: paid from hand to hand,
+  It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
+  From courts to camps, to cottages, it strays,
+  And all are taught an avarice of praise.
+  They please, are pleased; they give to get esteem;     265
+  Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
+
+  But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
+  It gives their follies also room to rise;
+  For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,
+  Enfeebles all internal strength of thought,            270
+  And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
+  Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
+  Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
+  Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
+  Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,                  275
+  And trims her robes of frieze[32] with copper lace;
+  Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
+  To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
+  The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
+  Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.           280
+
+  To men of other minds my fancy flies,
+  Embosomed in the deep where Holland[33] lies.
+  Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
+  Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
+  And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,                 285
+  Lift the tall rampire's[34] artificial pride.
+  Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
+  The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
+  Spreads its long arms amidst the wat'ry roar,
+  Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.            290
+  While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
+  Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile:
+  The slow canal, the yellow blossomed vale,
+  The willow tufted bank, the gliding sail,
+  The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,--              295
+  A new creation rescued from his reign.
+
+  Thus while around the wave-subjected soil
+  Impels the native to repeated toil,
+  Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
+  And industry begets a love of gain.                    300
+  Hence all the good from opulence that springs,[35]
+  With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
+  Are here displayed.  Their much-loved wealth imparts
+  Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts:
+  But view them closer, craft and fraud appear;          305
+  E'en liberty itself is bartered here.
+  At gold's superior charms all freedom flies;
+  The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
+  A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,
+  Here wretches seek dishonorable graves,                310
+  And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
+  Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.[36]
+  Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires[37] of old,
+  Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
+  War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;          315
+  How much unlike the sons of Britain now!
+
+  Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
+  And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
+  Where lawns[38] extend that scorn Arcadian pride,[39]
+  And brighter streams than famed Hydaspis[40] glide.    320
+  There all around the gentlest breezes stray;
+  There gentle music melts on every spray;
+  Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
+  Extremes are only in the master's mind!
+  Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,          325
+  With daring aims irregularly great;
+  Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
+  I see the lords of human kind pass by;
+  Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
+  By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand,        330
+  Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
+  True to imagined right, above control,
+  While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
+  And learns to venerate himself as man.
+
+  Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here;     335
+  Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear:
+  Too blest indeed, were such without alloy:
+  But fostered even by Freedom ills annoy:
+  That independence Britons prize too high
+  Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;         340
+  The self-dependent lordlings[41] stand alone,
+  All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown.
+  Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held,
+  Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled;[42]
+  Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar,              345
+  Repressed ambition struggles round her shore,
+  Till, over-wrought, the general system feels
+  Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.
+
+  Nor this the worst.  As nature's ties decay,
+  As duty, love, and honor fail to sway,                 350
+  Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
+  Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
+  Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
+  And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown:
+  Till time may come, when, stripped of all her charms,  355
+  The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,
+  Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
+  Where kings have toiled and poets wrote for fame,
+  One sink of level avarice[43] shall lie,
+  And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonored die.          360
+
+  Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state,
+  I mean to flatter kings, or court the great:
+  Ye powers of truth that bid my soul aspire,
+  Far from my bosom drive the low desire.
+  And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel           365
+  The rabble's rage and tyrant's angry steel;
+  Thou transitory flower, alike undone
+  By proud contempt or favor's fostering sun,
+  Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure!
+  I only would repress them to secure:                   370
+  For just experience tells, in every soil,
+  That those who think must govern those that toil;[44]
+  And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach
+  Is but to lay proportioned loads on each.
+  Hence, should one order disproportioned grow,          375
+  Its double weight must ruin all below.
+
+  O then how blind to all that truth requires,
+  Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
+  Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
+  Except when fast approaching danger warms;             380
+  But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
+  Contracting regal power to stretch their own,
+  When I behold a factious band agree
+  To call it freedom when themselves are free,
+  Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,             385
+  Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law,[45]
+  The wealth of climes where savage nations roam[46]
+  Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home,
+  Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
+  Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;          390
+  Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
+  I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
+
+  Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour
+  When first ambition struck at regal power;
+  And thus polluting honor in its source,                395
+  Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
+  Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
+  Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore,[47]
+  Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
+  Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste?         400
+  Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
+  Lead stern depopulation in her train,
+  And over fields where scattered hamlets rose
+  In barren solitary pomp repose?
+  Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call             405
+  The smiling long-frequented village fall?
+  Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,[48]
+  The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
+  Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,[49]
+  To traverse climes beyond the western main;            410
+  Where wild Oswego[50] spreads her swamps around,
+  And Niagara[50] stuns with thund'ring sound?
+
+  Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
+  Through tangled forests and through dangerous ways,
+  Where beasts with man divided empire claim,            415
+  And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
+  There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
+  And all around distressful yells arise,
+  The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
+  To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,              420
+  Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
+  And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.
+
+  Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
+  That bliss which only centers in the mind:
+  Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose,           425
+  To seek a good each government bestows?[51]
+  In every government, though terrors reign,
+  Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
+  How small, of all that human hearts endure,
+  That part which laws or kings can cause or cure;       430
+  Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
+  Our own felicity we make or find:
+  With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
+  Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
+  The lifted ax, the agonizing wheel,                    435
+  Luke's iron crown,[52] and Damiens' bed of steel,[53]
+  To men remote from power but rarely known,
+  Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.
+
+
+
+NOTE.--Although many of the poet's statements are greatly exaggerated,
+_The Traveller_ is interesting because it contains beautiful
+descriptions and apt expressions of thought.  The verse employed is the
+heroic couplet, the favorite verse of the eighteenth-century poets.
+The lines rhyme in pairs, and often a couplet expresses a complete
+thought.  Each line contains five feet, or measures.
+
+[1.] Scheld.  The Schelde, or Scheldt, empties into the North Sea near
+Antwerp.
+
+[2.] Carinthian boor.  Carinthia is a province of Austria.
+
+[3.] Campania's plain.  Campania includes, among other districts, the
+province of Naples.
+
+[4.] My brother.  Probably the poet alludes to his elder brother,
+Henry, who lived in Ireland.  To him he is said to have sent the first
+part of his poem, from Switzerland.
+
+[5.] Let school-taught pride, etc. _i.e._ let the philosopher pretend,
+if he will, that material things are of small importance.
+
+[6.] Swains, a name used by poets for young men living in the country,
+especially lovers.
+
+[7.] The line, the equinoctial line, the equator.
+
+[8.] Idra's cliffs.  Idria is a town among the mountains in Camiola,
+Austria.  Near it are mines of quicksilver.
+
+[9.] Arno's shelvy side.  _Shelvy_, or _shelving_, means _sloping
+gradually_.  Florence is on the Arno.
+
+[10.] Either seems, etc.  _Either_ properly signifies _one of two_; it
+has occasionally been used for _one of several_, as Goldsmith uses it
+here.
+
+[11.] And honor sinks, etc., a sentiment common in the poet's day, but
+entertained by few persons in these times.  Formerly, in many European
+countries, trade, even on a large scale, was considered belittling.  A
+gentleman's son might enter the Church, the army, or the navy, but he
+must not become a merchant.
+
+[12.] My proper cares, my own, my personal cares.
+
+[13.] Gelid, cold.
+
+[14.] To winnow, to fan.
+
+[15.] Sensual bliss is all the nation knows.  This has never been true
+of the Italians.  At the end of the fifteenth century Italy was the
+center of European civilization; at the close of the sixteenth she was
+exhausted and helpless; in 1748, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, she
+was divided among various European powers; after a long struggle the
+greater part of the country was united under Victor Emmanuel, who was
+proclaimed king in 1861.  Italy has now, besides elementary and higher
+schools, twenty-one universities.
+
+[16.] For wealth was theirs.  Venice, Genoa, and Florence were cities
+of great wealth during the latter part of the Middle Ages.
+
+[17.] The palace learnt to rise.  Beside palaces, there are in Italy
+many noted buildings which the poet must have seen.  Among these are
+St. Peter's in Rome, the cathedral in Milan, and St. Mark's in Venice.
+
+[18.] Again the long-fallen column, etc.  When architecture began to
+flourish anew in Italy, early in the Middle Ages, many of the columns
+used were taken from the ruins of buildings erected during the days of
+the Roman Empire.
+
+[19.] The canvas glowed.  Giotto, born about 1266, was one of the first
+of the Italian painters who gained distinction.  Later came Leonardo da
+Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and many others.  Michelangelo
+(1475-1564) was sculptor, architect, and writer, as well as painter.
+Benvenuto Cellini, born in 1500, was noted as goldsmith, sculptor, and
+writer.
+
+[20.] More unsteady than the southern gale, etc.  The discovery of
+America and the opening of a route to India by the way of the Cape of
+Good Hope, seriously affected the commerce of the Italian seaports.
+
+[21.] Plethoric ill, ill caused by excess.
+
+[22.] Caesars.  The name _Caesar_ was assumed by all the Roman
+emperors.  _Kaiser_ and _tsar_, or _csar_, come from the word.
+
+[23.] A churlish soil.  Nearly three-quarters of the soil of
+Switzerland is productive.  [Transcriber's note: the word "productive"
+may be incorrect, given Switzerland's mountainous terrain, but it is
+what was printed in the original book.]
+
+[24.] The soldier and his sword.  In former times the Swiss frequently
+served as soldiers in different European countries as a means of
+earning a living.  Many monarchs had Swiss guards for their personal
+safety.
+
+[25.] Sees no contiguous palace.  The peasant now sees hotels, if not
+palaces.  The Swiss hotels, like the Swiss roads, are among the best in
+the world.
+
+[26.] Bred in ignorance and toil.  Switzerland has at present, beside
+lower schools, seven institutions of higher learning, five of which are
+universities.
+
+[27.] Savage, savage beast.  Few of these can be found in Switzerland
+now.
+
+[28.] With many a tale, etc.  Possibly the poet alludes to his own
+experiences.
+
+[29.] Such are the charms, etc.  In this and the following lines the
+poet paints a picture that has not for centuries been true of the Swiss
+a people.  Their principal cities have long been centers of refinement
+and of intellectual activity.
+
+[30.] Gestic lore, the art of dancing.
+
+[31.] Thus idly busy, etc.  The French peasant has always been noted
+for his industry and economy.  This picture was drawn before the French
+revolution, when the lower classes were miserably poor and the nobles
+reckless in their extravagance.  France has now a remarkable system of
+public instruction and many large institutions of higher learning.  In
+matters where taste is concerned she still leads the world.
+
+[32.] Frieze, coarse woolen cloth.
+
+[33.] Holland is now known as The Netherlands.  The sovereign is the
+young queen Wilhelmina, who began to reign in 1898.
+
+[34.] Rampire, a dam or dike.
+
+[35.] From opulence that springs.  Holland was a great commercial power
+during the seventh [Transcriber's note: should probably be
+"seventeenth"] century; then her commerce dwindled, and after 1713 she
+was of small political importance.  Of course the poet's description is
+greatly exaggerated.
+
+[36.] Dull as their lakes.  The Netherlands can at present boast of
+four public universities.
+
+[37.] Belgic sires.  _Belgae_ was the name given to the early
+inhabitants of Holland and certain regions near that country.
+
+[38.] Lawns, cleared places in a wood; not cultivated grassland near a
+house, as now.
+
+[39.] Arcadian pride.  Arcadia is an inland country in Greece, often
+mentioned by poets as a place of ideal beauty.
+
+[40.] Famed Hydaspis.  The river Jhelum, or Jhelam, in India, about
+which many fabulous stories used to be told.  One was, that its sands
+were of gold.
+
+[41.] The self-dependent lordlings.  Probably in no country in the
+world have the nobility been so popular as in England.  It has been
+said that an Englishman "dearly loves a lord."
+
+[42.] Repelling and repelled.  Goldsmith, who grew up among the
+warm-hearted people of Lissoy, was doubtless often hurt by the apparent
+coldness of his English friends.
+
+[43.] One sink of level avarice.  At the time _The Traveller_ was
+written many noted English statesmen had low moral standards and were
+willing to use corrupt means to gain their ends.  Still, the great body
+of the people were but slightly affected by this state of things, and
+England was soon to enter upon a new and better era.
+
+[44.] Those who think, etc.  Americans believe that the thinkers should
+toil and the toilers think.  When Goldsmith's line was written great
+ignorance prevailed among the working classes in all European countries.
+
+[45.] Rich men rule the law.  Bribery was common in England at the
+time.  Although conditions gradually improved, many abuses remained
+until they were swept away by the famous Reform Bill of 1832.
+
+[46.] The wealth of climes, etc.  It will be remembered that England
+was having serious trouble at the time this poem was written, both with
+the people of India and with the American colonists.
+
+[47.]  Her useful sons, etc.  The slave trade was not abolished in the
+British Empire until 1807.
+
+[48.] Decayed, fallen as to social condition.
+
+[49.] Forced from their homes.  Many Englishmen came to America
+willingly.  The poet fails to understand the adventurous spirit of the
+emigrant.
+
+[50.] Oswego; Niagara.  At this time the regions named were in the
+wilderness.  Note the poet's pronunciation of _Niagara_.
+
+[51.] A good each government bestows.  It would not be easy to mention
+the special good bestowed by certain governments; by that of Turkey,
+for instance.
+
+[52.] Luke's iron crown.  George Dosia, with his brother Luke, headed
+an unsuccessful revolt in Hungary in the sixteenth century.
+George--not Luke--was put to death by means of a red-hot iron crown.
+In the Middle Ages this punishment was sometimes employed in the case
+of persons who had attempted to seize the royal power.
+
+[53.] Damiens' bed of steel.  Robert Francois Damiens attempted to
+assassinate Louis XV in 1757.  Before being put to death he was cruelly
+tortured, but the "bed of steel" was not used.
+
+
+
+
+  THE DESERTED VILLAGE
+
+  Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain;
+  Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
+  Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
+  And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed:
+  Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,                5
+  Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
+  How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
+  Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
+  How often have I paused on every charm,
+  The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,                 10
+  The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
+  The decent[1] church that topped the neighboring hill,
+  The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
+  For talking age and whispering lovers made!
+  How often have I blessed the coming day,                15
+  When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
+  And all the village train, from labor free,
+  Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
+  While many a pastime circled in the shade,
+  The young contending as the old surveyed;               20
+  And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
+  And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
+  And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
+  Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired,
+  The dancing pair that simply sought renown              25
+  By holding out to tire each other down;
+  The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
+  While secret laughter tittered round the place;
+  The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
+  The matron's glance that would those looks reprove,     30
+  These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
+  With sweet succession, taught even toil to please:
+  These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed:
+  These were thy charms--but all these charms are fled.
+
+  Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,[2]        35
+  Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
+  Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
+  And desolation saddens all thy green:
+  One only master[3] grasps the whole domain,
+  And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.            40
+  No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
+  But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
+  Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
+  The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest;
+  Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,              45
+  And tires their echoes with unvaried cries;
+  Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
+  And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
+  And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
+  Far, far away thy children leave the land.              50
+
+  Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
+  Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:[4]
+  Princes and lords may nourish, or may fade;
+  A breath can make them, as a breath has made:[5]
+  But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,            55
+  When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
+
+  A time there was, ere England's griefs began,[6]
+  When every rood of ground maintained its man;
+  For him light labor spread her wholesome store,
+  Just gave what life required, but gave no more:         60
+  His best companions, innocence and health;
+  And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
+
+  But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
+  Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;
+  Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,           65
+  Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose,
+  And every want to opulence allied,
+  And every pang that folly pays to pride.
+  These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
+  Those calm desires that asked but little room,          70
+  Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
+  Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
+  These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
+  And rural mirth and manners are no more.
+
+  Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,              75
+  Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
+  Here, as I take my solitary rounds
+  Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
+  And, many a year elapsed, return to view
+  Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,        80
+  Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
+  Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain,
+  In all my wanderings round this world of care,
+  In all my griefs--and GOD has given my share--
+  I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,            85
+  Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
+  To husband out[7] life's taper at the close,
+  And keep the flame from wasting by repose:
+  I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
+  Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,        90
+  Around my fire an evening group to draw,
+  And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
+  And, as an hare[8] whom hounds and horns pursue
+  Pants to[9] the place from whence at first she flew,
+  I still had hopes, my long vexations past,              95
+  Here to return--and die at home at last.
+
+  O blest retirement, friend to life's decline,
+  Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
+  How happy he who crowns in shades like these
+  A youth of labor with an age of ease;                  100
+  Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
+  And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly!
+  For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
+  Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
+  No surly porter stands in guilty state,[3]             105
+  To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
+  But on he moves to meet his latter end,
+  Angels around befriending Virtue's friend;
+  Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
+  While resignation gently slopes the way;               110
+  And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
+  His heaven commences ere the world be past!
+
+  Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
+  Up, yonder hill the village murmur rose.
+  There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,       115
+  The mingling notes came softened from below;
+  The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
+  The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,
+  The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
+  The playful children just let loose from school,       120
+  The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
+  And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;--
+  These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
+  And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
+  But now the sounds of population fail,                 125
+  No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
+  No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread,
+  For all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
+  All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
+  That feebly bends beside the plashy spring:            130
+  She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,
+  To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
+  To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
+  To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
+  She only left of all the harmless train,               135
+  The sad historian of the pensive plain.
+
+  Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
+  And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
+  There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
+  The village preacher's modest mansion rose.[11]        140
+  A man he was to all the country dear,
+  And passing[12] rich with forty pounds a year;
+  Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
+  Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
+  Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power,             145
+  By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;[13]
+  Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
+  More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
+  His house was known to all the vagrant train;
+  He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain:      150
+  The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
+  Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
+  The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
+  Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
+  The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,               155
+  Sat by his fire, and talked the night away,
+  Wept o'er his wounds or tales of sorrow done,
+  Shouldered his crutch and shewed how fields were won,
+  Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
+  And quite forgot their vices in their woe;             160
+  Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
+  His pity gave ere charity began.[14]
+
+  Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
+  And e'en his failings leaned to Virtue's side;
+  But in his duty prompt at every call,                  165
+  He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
+  And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
+  To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
+  He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
+  Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.           170
+
+  Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
+  And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed,
+  The reverend champion stood.  At his control
+  Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;[15]
+  Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,       175
+  And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
+
+  At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
+  His looks adorned the venerable place;
+  Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
+  And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.        180
+  The service past, around the pious man,
+  With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran,
+  Even children followed with endearing wile,
+  And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.
+  His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed;           185
+  Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed:
+  To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
+  But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
+  As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,[16]
+  Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,     190
+  Tho' round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
+  Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
+
+  Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
+  With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
+  There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,          195
+  The village master taught his little school.
+  A man severe he was, and stern to view;
+  I knew him well, and every truant knew:
+  Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
+  The day's disasters in his morning face;               200
+  Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
+  At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
+  Full well the busy whisper circling round
+  Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
+  Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,               205
+  The love he bore to learning was in fault;
+  The village all declared how much he knew:
+  'Twas certain he could write, and cypher[17] too;
+  Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,[18]
+  And even the story ran that he could gauge:[19]        210
+  In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
+  For, even though vanquished, he could argue still;
+  While words of learned length and thundering sound
+  Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
+  And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,       215
+  That one small head could carry all he knew.
+
+  But past is all his fame.  The very spot
+  Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.
+  Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
+  Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,       220
+  Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired,
+  Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retired,
+  Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
+  And news much older than their ale went round.
+  Imagination fondly stoops to trace                     225
+  The parlor splendors of that festive place:
+  The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
+  The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
+  The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
+  A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;             230
+  The pictures placed for ornament and use,
+  The twelve good rules,[20] the royal game of goose;
+  The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
+  With aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay;
+  While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for shew,           235
+  Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.
+
+  Vain transitory splendors! could not all
+  Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?
+  Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
+  An hour's importance to the poor man's heart.          240
+  Thither no more the peasant shall repair
+  To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
+  No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
+  No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
+  No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,          245
+  Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
+  The host himself no longer shall be found
+  Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
+  Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed,
+  Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.             250
+
+  Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
+  These simple blessings of the lowly train;
+  To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
+  One native charm, than all the gloss of art;
+  Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play,           255
+  The soul adopts, and owns their firstborn sway;
+  Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
+  Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
+  But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
+  With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed--         260
+  In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
+  The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
+  And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
+  The heart distrusting asks if this be joy.
+
+  Ye friends to truth, ye statesman who survey           265
+  The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
+  'T is yours to judge how wide the limits stand
+  Between a splendid and an happy land.
+  Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
+  And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;          270
+  Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound,[21]
+  And rich men flock from all the world around.
+  Yet count our gains.  This wealth is but a name
+  That leaves our useful products still the same.
+  Not so the loss.  The man of wealth and pride          275
+  Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
+  Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
+  Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
+  The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
+  Has robbed the neighboring fields of half
+          their growth;[22]                              280
+  His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
+  Indignant spurns the cottage from the green:
+  Around the world each needful product flies,
+  For all the luxuries the world supplies;
+  While thus the land adorned for pleasure all           285
+  In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.
+
+  As some fair female unadorned and plain,
+  Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
+  Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
+  Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;           290
+  But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
+  When time advances, and when lovers fail,
+  She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
+  In all the glaring impotence of dress.
+  Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed:                295
+  In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed,
+  But verging to decline, its splendors rise;
+  Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise:
+  While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
+  The mournful peasant leads his humble band,            300
+  And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
+  The country blooms--a garden and a grave.
+
+  Where then, ah! where, shall poverty reside,
+  To scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
+  If to some common's fenceless limits strayed           305
+  He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
+  Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
+  And even the bare-worn common is denied.
+
+  If to the city sped--what waits him there?
+  To see profusion that he must not share,               310
+  To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
+  To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;[23]
+  To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
+  Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.
+  Here while the courtier glitters in brocade,           315
+  There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
+  Here while the proud their long-drawn pomps display,
+  There the black gibbet glooms beside the way,
+  The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign
+  Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train:        320
+  Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
+  The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
+  Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
+  Sure these denote one universal joy!
+  Are these thy serious thoughts?--Ah, turn thine eyes   325
+  Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
+  She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
+  Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
+  Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
+  Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:         330
+  Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
+  Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
+  And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
+  With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
+  When idly first, ambitious of the town,                335
+  She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
+
+  Do thine, sweet Auburn,--thine, the loveliest train,--
+  Do thy fair tribes participate[24] her pain?
+  Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
+  At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!          340
+
+  Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene,
+  Where half the convex world intrudes between,
+  Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
+  Where wild Altama[25] murmurs to their woe.
+  Far different there from all that charmed before       345
+  The various terrors of that horrid shore;
+  Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
+  And fiercely shed intolerable day;
+  Those matted woods, where birds forget to sing,
+  But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;              350
+  Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
+  Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
+  Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
+  The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
+  Where crouching tigers[26] wait their hapless prey,    355
+  And savage men more murderous still than they;
+  While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
+  Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
+  Far different these from every former scene,
+  The cooling brook, the grassy vested green,            360
+  The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
+  That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.
+
+  Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day,
+  That called them from their native walks away;
+  When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,             365
+  Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
+  And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
+  For seats like these beyond the western main,
+  And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
+  Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.         370
+  The good old sire the first prepared to go
+  To new found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
+  But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
+  He only wished for worlds beyond the grave.
+  His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,            375
+  The fond companion of his helpless years,
+  Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
+  And left a lover's for a father's arms.
+  With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
+  And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose,         380
+  And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
+  And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear,
+  Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
+  In all the silent manliness of grief.
+
+  O luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree,              385
+  How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
+  How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
+  Diffuse their pleasure only to destroy!
+  Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
+  Boast of a florid vigor not their own.                 390
+  At every draught more large and large they grow,
+  A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
+  Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
+  Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
+
+  Even now the devastation is begun,                     395
+  And half the business of destruction done;
+  Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
+  I see the rural virtues leave the land.
+  Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
+  That idly waiting flaps with every gale,               400
+  Downward they move, a melancholy band,
+  Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
+  Contented toil, and hospitable care,
+  And kind connubial tenderness, are there;
+  And piety with wishes placed above,                    405
+  And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
+  And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
+  Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
+  Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
+  To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;         410
+  Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
+  My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
+  Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
+  That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
+  Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,             415
+  Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
+  Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be tried,
+  On Torno's cliffs,[27] or Pambamarca's side,[28]
+  Whether where equinoctial fervors glow,
+  Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,               420
+  Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
+  Redress the rigors of the inclement clime;
+  Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
+  Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
+  Teach him, that states of native strength possessed,   425
+  Though very poor, may still be very blest;
+  That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
+  As ocean sweeps the labored mole[29] away;
+  While self-dependent power can time defy,
+  As rocks resist the billows and the sky.               430
+
+
+
+NOTE.--_The Deserted Village_, published in 1770, was immediately
+popular, and to-day few English poems are so widely read or so often
+quoted.  If the poet had in mind any special place when writing of
+"Sweet Auburn," it was probably Lissoy, in Ireland, where he grew up;
+but the village of his imagination is lovelier than any actual spot,
+and there is no use in hunting for it on the map.  See the first note
+on _The Traveller_ for remarks on metre, etc.
+
+[1.] Decent, appropriate, fitting.  Consult the dictionary for the
+present meanings of the word.
+
+[2.] Lawn, a cleared space in a wood.
+
+[3.] One only master, etc.  Sometimes, in England or in Ireland a
+wealthy man would buy a large tract of land, pull down the house and
+turn the entire region into parks or hunting grounds.  Such a man was
+not necessarily a tyrant.  In many cases the villages demolished were
+deserted because the inhabitants had left them to seek more comfortable
+homes across the ocean.
+
+[4.] Decay, _i.e._ deteriorate, lose their high moral character.
+Although this is not the inevitable consequence of great wealth, it is
+certainly one of its dangers.
+
+[5.] A breath can make them.  Breath was used by older writers in the
+sense of words.  The poet's meaning is, that kings can easily make new
+lords by conferring titles upon their favorites.  This was a common
+practice in former times.  Now, in England, titles are usually given as
+a reward for distinguished merit, as in the case of Alfred Lord
+Tennyson, the famous poet.
+
+[6.] Ere England's griefs began.  The student of history finds that
+there never was such a time.  Although there are serious evils in all
+civilized countries to-day, especially in the condition of the poorest
+people in large cities, the workingman is, on the whole, far better off
+than he was hundreds of years ago, or even at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+[7.] To husband out, to use or manage with economy.  The _out_ is
+superfluous in prose.
+
+[8.] An hare.  _An_ was formerly used before words beginning with _h_,
+even when that letter was sounded, and also before words beginning with
+a vowel.
+
+[9.] Pants to, eagerly longs for.
+
+[10.] No surly porter, etc.  While the poet was exaggerating when he
+said this, nevertheless it is true that the feeling of responsibility
+for poor and the unfortunate was less widespread among the well-to-do
+in his day than it is now.
+
+[11.] The village preacher's, etc.  There is no doubt that the poet was
+thinking of his own father when he drew the sketch that follows--one of
+the most charming character sketches in English literature.  To find
+its like in poetry one must go back to Chaucer's picture of the "poor
+parson" in the _Prologue to the Canterbury Tales_.  Goldsmith's
+"village preacher" first appeared in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, in that
+delightful character, Parson Primrose.
+
+[12.] Passing, surpassingly.
+
+[13.] Unpracticed he, etc.  Clergymen have in some instances changed
+their creeds to gain favor with those in authority.
+
+[14.] His pity gave, etc., _i.e._ he gave from warm human sympathy
+rather than from a religious, and perhaps a colder, sentiment.
+
+[15.] Fled the struggling soul.  _Fled_ is sometimes used transitively
+by older writers.
+
+[16.] Awful form.  Notice how effective _awful_ is when properly used.
+
+[17.] Cypher, do sums in arithmetic; not often used now.
+
+[18.] Terms and tides presage, _i.e._ the schoolmaster could tell when
+courts were to be held and when certain tides (times), such as
+Whitsuntide or Easter, would come.
+
+[19.] Gauge, measure.  The word is applied especially to determining
+the capacity of casks and other vessels containing alcoholic liquors.
+These had to be carefully measured, so that the government should
+receive the specified tax.
+
+[20.] The twelve good rules.  Among these are: "Reveal no secrets,"
+"Keep no bad company."  They can be found in Hales' _Longer English
+Poems_, p. 353.
+
+[24.] Participate, share.
+
+[25.] Altama, the Altamaha, a river in Georgia.
+
+[26.] Crouching tigers.  It is evident that the poet is indulging his
+imagination.  The people of Georgia doubtless find this description of
+their country amusing if not accurate.
+
+[27.] Torno's cliffs.  Perhaps the poet refers to some region near the
+river Torneo, or Tornea, which flows into the Gulf of Bothnia.
+
+[28.] Pambamarca's side.  Pambamarca is a mountain in Ecuador.
+
+[29.] Labored mole, carefully constructed breakwater.
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS
+
+1759-1796
+
+Probably the poetry of "Robbie Burns, the Ayrshire Ploughman," is known
+to more English-speaking people than that of any other writer--not
+excepting even Shakespeare, for many a person who never reads a book is
+familiar with _John Anderson_, _My Jo_, _Auld Lang Syne_, and _Bonie
+Doon_, though he may not know or care who wrote these famous songs.
+
+The Scotch poet was born at Alloway in Ayrshire, where his father
+cultivated a small farm.  He was the eldest of seven children.  Before
+he was eight years old the family removed to Mt. Oliphant, and later to
+Lochlea.  Here, in 1784, the father died, worn out with incessant toil,
+which ended only in disappointment.  The family were so poor that
+Robert was obliged to work hard even when very young, and at fifteen he
+was his father's chief helper.  In later years he described his life at
+Mt. Oliphant as combining "the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the
+unceasing moil of a galley slave."  But poets are given to
+exaggeration, and doubtless the attractive picture of home life which
+he afterwards painted in the _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is true in the
+main of the life in his father's cottage.
+
+In his father, Burns was most fortunate, for he was a man of strict
+integrity, and strong religious faith.  The education of his children
+was, in his judgment, so important that when they were unable to attend
+school he taught them himself, notwithstanding his exhausting labors on
+the farm.  The family as a whole were fond of reading.  Among their
+books the poet mentions certain plays of Shakespeare, Pope's
+works,--including his translation of Homer,--the _Spectator_, Allan
+Ramsay's writings, and several volumes on religious and philosophical
+subjects.  Probably in this list the Bible should stand first.  He
+himself studied the art of verse-making in a collection of songs.  He
+says: "I pored over them, driving my cart or walking to labor, song by
+song, carefully noting the true tender or sublime from affectation or
+fustian.  I am convinced that I owe to this practice much of my
+critic-craft, such as it is!"  His first song, composed when he was
+fifteen, was inspired by a young girl who worked at his side in the
+harvest field.
+
+Robert and his brother Gilbert had taken a farm at Mossgiel, not far
+away, while their father was still living, and after his death they
+removed there, taking with them the rest of the family.  Unfortunately
+the farm did not prosper.  On reaching the age of twenty-seven the poet
+determined to go to Jamaica where he had been promised a position as
+overseer of an estate.  In order to raise money to pay his passage he
+published a volume of poems.  The returns were small, but the fame of
+the writer spread so rapidly that he was persuaded to remain in his own
+country and publish a second edition of his poems in Edinburgh.
+
+The two winters which he spent in the Scotch capital at this time form
+an interesting episode in his life.  He was the lion of the day in
+literary circles.  Many persons who met him have told how he impressed
+them; but the most interesting account is that of Walter Scott, then a
+youth of sixteen.  He says of Burns: "His person was strong and robust;
+his manner rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and
+simplicity.  His countenance was more massive than it looks in any of
+the portraits. . .  There was a strong expression of sense and
+shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the
+poetical character and temperament.  It was large, and of a dark cast,
+which glowed (I say literally glowed), when he spoke, with feeling or
+interest.  I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have
+seen the most distinguished men of my time."
+
+In 1788 the poet married Jane Armour, and the following year settled
+with her on a farm at Ellisland, near Dumfries.  Finding it impossible
+to make a living for his increasing family as a farmer, he obtained
+through friends the place of exciseman for the surrounding region.
+This position obliged him to ride more than two hundred miles a week,
+collecting government taxes.  In 1791 he moved to the town of Dumfries.
+The following year he came near losing his place through an act of
+indiscretion which proved him to be more poet than exciseman.  He
+bought four guns which had come into the possession of the government
+through the seizure of a smuggling vessel, and sent them with
+expressions of admiration and sympathy to the French Legislative
+Assembly.  These were the early days of the Revolution when young men
+in many parts of the world were enthusiastic in their support of the
+movement.  Fortunately the guns failed to reach their destination, and
+the poet having made his peace with the authorities kept his position
+until failing health obliged him to give it up.  During his later years
+he wrote little but songs, and for these he would take no money,
+although he was, as ever, a poor man.  He died in 1796, at the age of
+thirty-seven.  In 1815 his remains were transferred to a mausoleum
+built as a tribute to his genius.
+
+As a man, Burns was far from perfect.  His passions were strong and he
+never learned to control them, and in consequence he had reason to
+repent bitterly many a rash act.  Yet he was brave and honest; he had a
+righteous hatred of hypocrisy; as the champion of the humble, he
+claimed for the poorest the full privileges of sturdy manhood; he cared
+heartily for his fellowmen and had a place in his affections even for
+the field-mouse and the daisy.  Because his verse beats with the
+passions of his fiery and sympathetic nature, the world loves him as it
+loves few other poets.  Among the best known of his productions are
+_The Cotter's Saturday Night_, _Tam o' Shanter_, _Address to the Unco
+Guid_, _To a Mouse_, and _To a Mountain Daisy_.  In speaking of his
+songs, one might mention first, _Scots Wha Hae_,--composed in the midst
+of tempests, while the poet was riding over a wild Galloway moor,--and
+next, _Highland Mary_ and _A Man's a Man for a' That_; but there is no
+need of enumerating the songs of Burns.  As Emerson has said, "The wind
+whispers them, the birds whistle them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes
+hoarsely rustle them. . . .  They are the property and the solace of
+mankind."
+
+
+  THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT[*]
+
+  My loved, my honored, much respected friend![1]
+    No mercenary bard his homage pays;
+  With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,
+    My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
+  To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,                        5
+    The lowly train in life's sequestered scene;
+  The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
+    What Aikin in a cottage would have been;
+  Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween![2]
+
+  November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;[3]                  10
+    The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
+  The miry beasts retreating frae[4] the pleugh;[5]
+    The black'ning trains o' craws[6] to their repose:
+  The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,
+    This night his weekly moil[7] is at an end,                 15
+  Collects his spades, his mattocks,[8] and his hoes,
+    Hoping the morn[9] in ease and rest to spend,
+  And weary, o'er the moor, his course does homeward[10] bend.
+
+  At length his lonely cot appears in view,
+    Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;                        20
+  Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher[11] through
+    To meet their dad, wi' flichterin'[12] noise and glee.
+  His wee bit ingle,[13] blinkin bonilie,[14]
+    His clean hearth-stane,[15] his thrifty wine's smile,
+  The lisping infant prattling on his knee,                     25
+    Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,[16]
+  And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil,
+
+  Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,[17]
+    At service out, amang the farmers roun';
+  Some ca'[18] the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin           30
+    A cannie errand to a neebor town:[19]
+  Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
+    In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,[20]
+  Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw[21] new gown,
+    Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,[22]                     35
+  To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
+
+  With joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet,
+    And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:[23]
+  The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet;
+    Each tells the uncos[24] that he sees or hears.             40
+  The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
+    Anticipation forward points the view;
+  The mother wi' her needle and her sheers[25]
+    Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new;[26]
+  The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.                       45
+
+  Their master's and their mistress's command
+    The younkers[27] a' are warned to obey;
+  And mind their labors wi' an eydent[28] hand,
+    And ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk[29] or play:
+  "And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,                       50
+    And mind your duty, duly, morn and night;
+  Lest in temptation's path ye gang[30] astray,
+    Implore His counsel and assisting might:
+  They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"
+
+  But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;                     55
+    Jenny, wha kens[31] the meaning o' the same,
+  Tells how a neebor[32] lad came o'er the moor
+    To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
+  The wily mother sees the conscious flame
+    Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;                60
+  With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name,
+    While Jenny hafflins[33] is afraid to speak;
+  Weel pleased the mother hears, it's nae[34]
+         wild, worthless rake.
+
+  With kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;[35]
+    A strappin' youth, he takes the mother's eye;               65
+  Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill taen;[36]
+    The father cracks[37] of horses, pleughs, and kye.[38]
+  The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
+    But blate and laithfu',[39] scarce can weel behave;
+  The mother, wi' a woman's wiles,[40] can spy                  70
+    What makes the youth sae[41] bashfu' and sae grave;
+  Weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.[42]
+
+  O happy love! where love like this is found:
+    O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
+  I've paced much this weary, mortal round,                     75
+    And sage experience bids me this declare,--
+  "If Heaven a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare,
+    One cordial, in this melancholy vale,
+  'T is when a youthful, loving, modest pair
+    In other's arms breathe out the tender tale                 80
+  Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."
+
+  Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
+    A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
+  That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art
+    Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?                    85
+  Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling, smooth!
+    Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
+  Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,[43]
+    Points to the parents fondling' o'er their child?
+  Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild!      90
+
+  But now the supper crowns their simple board,
+    The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food;[44]
+  The soupe[45] their only hawkie[46] does afford,
+    That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood;[47]
+  The dame brings forth in complimental mood,          95
+    To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell;[48]
+  And aft he's pressed, and aft he ca's it guid;[49]
+    The frugal wine, garrulous, will tell,
+  How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.[50]
+
+  The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face                   100
+    They round the ingle form a circle wide;
+  The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace
+    The big ha'-Bible,[51] ance[52] his father's pride.
+  His bonnet[53] rev'rently is laid aside,
+    His lyart haffets[54] wearing thin and bare;               105
+  Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,[55]
+    He wales[56] a portion with judicious care;
+  And, "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
+
+  They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
+    They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:            110
+  Perhaps _Dundee's_[57] wild warbling measures rise,
+    Or plaintive _Martyrs_,[57] worthy of the name;
+  Or noble _Elgin_[57] beets[58] the heavenward flame,
+    The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays.
+  Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;                115
+    The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise,
+  Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.[59]
+
+  The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
+    How Abram was the friend of God on high;[60]
+  Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage                          120
+    With Amalek's ungracious progeny;[61]
+  Or, how the royal Bard[62] did groaning lie
+    Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
+  Or Job's pathetic plaint,[63] and wailing cry;
+    Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;                      125
+  Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre.
+
+  Perhaps the Christian volume[64] is the theme:
+    How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
+  How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
+    Had not on earth whereon to lay His head;                  130
+  How His first followers and servants sped;[65]
+    The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:[66]
+  How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
+    Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
+  And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced
+       by Heaven's command.[67]                                135
+
+  Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
+    The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
+  Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"[68]
+    That thus they all shall meet in future days,
+  There ever bask in uncreated rays,                           140
+    No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
+  Together hymning their Creator's praise,
+    In such society, yet still more dear;
+  While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
+
+  Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,               145
+    In all the pomp of method, and of art;
+  When men display to congregations wide
+    Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart,
+  The Power,[69] incensed, the pageant will desert,
+    The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;                  150
+  But haply,[70] in some cottage far apart,
+    May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul,
+  And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.
+
+  Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
+    The youngling cottagers retire to rest:                    155
+  The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
+    And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
+  That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
+    And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
+  Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,                  160
+    For them and for their little ones provide;
+  But, chiefly, in their hearts with Grace Divine preside.
+
+  From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
+    That makes her loved at home, revered abroad;
+  Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,[71]           165
+    "An honest man's the noblest work of God:"[72]
+  And certes,[73] in fair Virtue's heavenly road,
+    The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
+  What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
+    Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,                   170
+  Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!
+
+  O Scotia[1] my dear, my native soil!
+    For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
+  Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
+    Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!        175
+  And, O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
+    From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
+  Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
+    A virtuous populace may rise the while,
+  And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.       180
+
+  O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide
+    That streamed thro' Wallace's undaunted heart,[74]
+  Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
+    Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
+  (The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art,                      185
+    His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
+  O never, never, Scotia's realm desert,
+    But still the patriot and the patriot-bard
+  In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!
+
+
+
+[*]In printing this poem, it has seemed best to follow the text as
+given in the scholarly _Centenary Burns_ (1896), edited by Messrs.
+Henley and Henderson.
+
+NOTE.--_The Cotter's Saturday Night_ was written in 1785 or the
+beginning of 1786.  In all English poetry there are few pictures of
+home life so charming as that portrayed in this poem.  The stanza
+employed is the Spenserian stanza, named for Edmund Spenser, who first
+used it.  The first eight lines have five feet each, while the last has
+six feet.
+
+Cotter, as used by Burns, means _peasant farmer_.
+
+[1.] Much respected friend, Robert Aiken, an early friend of the
+poet's, to whom the poem was inscribed.
+
+[2.] Ween, think, fancy.
+
+[3.] Sugh (pronounced much like sook, with the _k_ softened; _i.e._
+like _such_ in German), wail, sough.
+
+[4.] Frae, from.
+
+[5.] Pleugh (the _gh_ has a guttural sound), plough.
+
+[6.] Trains o' craws, trains of crows.
+
+[7.] Moil, toil.
+
+[8.] Mattocks, implements for digging.
+
+[9.] The morn, to-morrow.
+
+[10.] Hameward, homeward.
+
+[11.] Stacher, totter.
+
+[12.] Flichterin', fluttering.
+
+[13.] Ingle, fireplace.
+
+[14.] Bonilie, cheerfully, attractively.
+
+[15.] Hearth-stane, hearth-stone.
+
+[16.] Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, Does all his weary
+cark (fret) and care beguile.  _A'_ has the sound of _a_ in _all_;
+pronounce _kiaugh_ something like _kee-owch'_, giving the _ch_ a harsh,
+guttural sound.  (In later editions, _carking cares_ was substituted
+for _kiaugh_ and _care_.)
+
+[17.] Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, Presently the older
+children come dropping in.  (The vowel sound in _bairns_ is like that
+in _care_.)
+
+[18.] Ca', follow.
+
+[19.] Some tentie rin a cannie errand to a neebor town, some, heedful,
+run on a quiet errand to a neighboring town.
+
+[20.] E'e, eye.
+
+[21.] Braw, fine.
+
+[22.] Sair-won penny-fee, hard-earned wages.
+
+[23.] Spiers, asks.
+
+[24.] Uncos, wonders, news.
+
+[25.] Sheers, scissors.
+
+[26.] Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new, makes old cloth
+look almost as well as the new.
+
+[27.] Younkers, young people.
+
+[28.] Eydent, diligent.
+
+[29.] Jauk, trifle.
+
+[30.] Gang, go.
+
+[31.] Wha kens, who knows.
+
+[32.] Neebor, neighbor.
+
+[33.] Hafflins, half.
+
+[34.] Nae, no.
+
+[36.] Ben, inside.
+
+[36.] No ill taen, not ill taken; _i.e._ Jenny's parents are pleased to
+have the young man come in.
+
+[37.] Cracks, chats.
+
+[38.] Kye, cattle.
+
+[39.] Blate and laithfu', shy and sheepish.
+
+[40.] Wi' a woman's wiles, with a woman's penetration.
+
+[41.] Sae, so.
+
+[42.] The lave, the rest.
+
+[43.] Ruth, pity, tenderness.
+
+[44.] Healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food, wholesome porridge,
+chief of Scotland's food.
+
+[45.] Soupe, milk.
+
+[46.] Hawkie, cow.
+
+[47.] That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood, that beyond the wall
+snugly chews her cud.  In a cottage of this kind the cow lives under
+the same roof with the family.
+
+[48.] Her weel-hained kebbuck, fell, her well-saved cheese, pungent;
+_i.e._ her carefully saved, or kept, strong cheese.
+
+[49.] And aft he's pressed, and aft he ca's (pronounced like _cause_)
+it guid, And oft he's urged, and oft he calls it good.
+
+[50.] 'T was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell, it was a
+twelve-month old since flax was in flower; _i.e._ when the flax was
+last in bloom it was a year old.
+
+[51.] The big ha'-Bible (pronounced _haw_), the big hall-Bible.  The
+name originated in the fact that large Bibles were first used in the
+hall, or principal room, of the noble's castle, where all the household
+assembled for worship.
+
+[52.] Ance, once.
+
+[53.] Bonnet, a soft cap made of seamless woolen stuff.
+
+[54.] Lyart haffets, gray side-locks.
+
+[55.] Those strains that once, etc., _i.e._ the _Psalms_, which were
+sung in Jerusalem.  _Zion_ is really the hill on which the old city of
+Jerusalem was built.
+
+[56.] Wales, selects.
+
+[57.] Dundee, Martyrs, Elgin, well-known psalm tunes.
+
+[58.] Beets, fans or feeds.
+
+[59.] Nae unison hae they, no unison have they; _i.e._ they are not in
+harmony with.
+
+[60.] Abram, or Abraham.  See _Genesis_.
+
+[61.] Moses bade, etc.  See _Exodus_ xvii.
+
+[62.] The royal Bard, King David.  Probably Burns refers to certain of
+the Psalms which express suffering and repentance.
+
+[63.] Job's pathetic plaint.  The "plaint" begins with _Job_ iii.
+
+[64.] The Christian volume, i.e. the New Testament.
+
+[65.] How His first followers, etc.  See _Acts of the Apostles_.
+
+[66.] The precepts sage.  See the _Epistles_.
+
+[67.] He, who lone in Patmos, etc.  St. John the Evangelist is said to
+have been exiled to the island of Patmos, or Patmo, west of Asia Minor,
+and there to have written the _Apocalypse_, or _Book of Revelation_.
+The doom of Babylon is pronounced in Chapter xviii of that book.
+
+[68.] Hope springs exulting, etc.  See Pope's _Essay on Man_, Epistle
+I, l. 95, and his _Windsor Forest_, l. 112.
+
+[69.] The Power, the Almighty.
+
+[70.] Haply, perhaps, perchance.
+
+[71.] Princes and lords, etc.  See _The Deserted Village_, lines 53 and
+54.
+
+[72.] An honest man's, etc.  Pope's _Essay on Man_, Epistle IV, l. 247.
+
+[73.] Certes, truly.
+
+[74.] Wallace's undaunted heart.  Sir William Wallace, born about 1274,
+is one of the most famous of Scotch heroes.  For a time he was a
+successful opponent of Edward I of England, but he finally suffered
+defeat, and in 1305 was captured and taken to London, where he was
+tried, condemned, and beheaded.  One of Burns's most celebrated songs
+begins: "Scots, wha hae (who have) wi' Wallace bled."  Scott tells of
+Wallace in his _Tales of a Grandfather_.
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
+
+1772-1834
+
+Coleridge was born in Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire England, and spent
+his early years in the midst of a large family.  His father, who was
+vicar of the town and master of the grammar school, died when the son
+was only nine years old.  His character must, however, have impressed
+Coleridge deeply, for he said, in after years: "The memory of my
+father--my reverend, kind, learned, simple-hearted father--is a
+religion to me."  Soon after his father's death he left his happy home
+in the country to enter a school it=n London, known as Christ's
+Hospital.  Charles Lamb, who was a schoolmate of his, has sketched the
+life there in two well-known essays.  In one of them, _Christ's
+Hospital Fifty Years Ago_, he describes the summer holidays, so
+delightful for himself with his family near, and so dreary for the
+country boy with no friends in the city; and he pictures Coleridge as
+forlorn and half-starved, declaring that in those days the food of the
+"Blue-coat boys" was cruelly insufficient.  From early childhood the
+future poet had been passionately fond of reading, and an occurrence
+which took place during his early years in London enabled him for a
+time to gratify his taste.  One day while walking down the Strand, he
+put out his arms as if in the act of swimming, and in so doing touched
+a passer-by.  The man, taking him for a thief, seized him, crying,
+"What, so young and so wicked!"  "I am not a pickpocket," replied the
+boy; "I only thought I was Leander swimming the Hellespont!"  After
+making some inquiries, his chance acquaintance subscribed to a library
+for him, and the story runs that in a short time the young bookworm had
+read "right through the catalogue."
+
+In 1791 Coleridge entered Cambridge University.  While there he was
+deeply stirred by events in France--for the Revolution was in
+progress--and ran some risk of being expelled by the open expression of
+his radical views on politics.  His fine ode, _France_, written several
+years later, was the expression of this intense interest.  During his
+second year of study, while suffering from a fit of despondency, he
+suddenly left the university--just why, no one knows--and went to
+London.  There he enlisted in the 15th dragoons under the name of Silas
+Tompkyn Comberback.  While he was in the service his awkwardness in
+doing manual labor, especially in grooming his horse, led to his
+exchanging tasks with his comrades: they performed his mechanical
+duties, while he wrote letters for them to their wives or sweethearts.
+A Latin inscription which he placed above his saddle in the stable led
+to the discovery of his true condition, and about the same time his
+friends learned of his whereabouts.  At the end of four months in the
+dragoons he was bought out and enabled to return to his studies.  He
+remained in Cambridge but a short time, however, leaving in 1794
+without taking a degree.
+
+The following year he married Miss Sara Fricker.  This important step
+was taken on the strength of a small sum promised by a bookseller for a
+volume of poems which he was then writing.  A month later his friend
+Robert Southey--afterwards well known as an author--married his wife's
+sister.  Some time before this, the two young men had conceived the
+idea of crossing the sea with a few congenial acquaintances and forming
+an ideal community on the bank of the Susquehanna.  Fortunately the
+scheme was abandoned and the two dreamers turned their attention to
+literary projects.
+
+Coleridge's best work as a poet was done in 1797 and 1798, and probably
+the inspiration came largely from his friendship with William
+Wordsworth.  During these two years the poets lived near each other in
+the beautiful Cumberland country, and while taking long rambles over
+the Quantock Hills they talked, planned, and wrote.  The first result
+of this intercourse was a joint volume of poems called _Lyrical
+Ballads_, published in 1798.  This included Coleridge's _Ancient
+Mariner_ and Wordsworth's _We are Seven_.  About the same time
+Coleridge wrote the first part of _Christabel_, the ode _France_,
+_Kubla Khan_, and a few other well-known poems.  The impression which
+he made at this period of his life upon Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's
+sister, was recorded by her in a letter.  She says of him: "He is a
+wonderful man.  His conversation teems with soul and mind. . . .  His
+eye is large and full, and not very dark but gray, such an eye as would
+receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every
+emotion of his animated mind; it has more of the poet's eye in a fine
+frenzy rolling than I ever witnessed.  He has fine dark eyebrows and an
+overhanging forehead."
+
+Of Coleridge as poet there is unfortunately little more to relate, for
+during the remainder of his life he devoted himself mainly to
+philosophy and literary criticism, with occasional work in journalism.
+After a stay in Germany he brought back to England a knowledge of
+German metaphysics and an enthusiasm for German literature which
+enabled him to do much towards awakening in his own countrymen an
+interest in these subjects.  He had never been strong, and from the age
+of thirty-four he suffered seriously from ill-health and from his
+practice of using opium--a habit begun by his taking the dangerous drug
+to relieve acute pain.  No doubt his powers were impaired by these
+causes.  In 1804, hoping to benefit by change of climate, he went to
+Malta, and before his return spent some months in Italy.  With the
+exception of a short tour on the Rhine with the Wordsworths, the last
+sixteen years of his life were passed quietly at Highgate, a village
+near London, where through the kind care of friends he was enabled to
+control the opium habit and do a fair amount of intellectual work.  His
+mind dwelt much on religious subjects, and the faith which had earlier
+found expression in his noble _Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_ brought
+light and consolation as the end drew near.  Many young men came to see
+him during these last years, drawn by his fame as a poet and still more
+by his remarkable powers as a talker.  One of them has said of him in
+this connection: "Throughout a long summer's day would this man talk to
+you in low, equable, but clear and musical tones, concerning things
+human and divine."  And the same person has described a day spent with
+him as "a Sabbath past expression, deep, tranquil, and serene."  The
+poet died at Highgate in 1834, at the age of sixty-two.
+
+Coleridge was a many-sided genius, and perhaps the world has benefited
+as largely by his powers as a thinker as by his gift for poetry.  He
+did much both by talking and writing to broaden English thought, and
+his keen and suggestive criticism of other authors, of Shakespeare
+especially, has been of high value to lovers of literature.  As a poet
+he is distinguished for the rare quality of his imagination and the
+wonderful music of his verse.
+
+
+ARGUMENT OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
+
+The argument, or plot, of the poem is as follows:[*]
+
+Three guests were on their way to a wedding, when one of them--the
+bridegroom's nearest relative--was stopped by a Mariner with long gray
+beard and glittering eye, who constrained him to listen to his story.
+The Mariner once set sail in a ship bound southward.  After crossing
+the equator the vessel was driven by strong winds toward the south
+pole, and was finally hemmed in by icebergs.  An albatross which
+appeared at this time brought good luck: the ice split and the ship
+sailed northward.  The Mariner, for no apparent reason, shot the bird
+of good omen.  At first his comrades declared that he had done a
+hellish deed, but when the fog cleared away they justified him,
+believing that the fog had been brought by the bird.  In this way they
+became accomplices in his crime.  By killing the albatross the Mariner
+had offended the Spirit of the South Pole, who now followed the ship
+"nine fathom deep" to make sure that vengeance was meted out to the
+guilty man.  As a sign of the Mariner's guilt the sailors fastened
+about his neck the dead bird.  The vessel was now in the Pacific Ocean.
+On nearing the equator she was becalmed, and before long all the
+sailors were dying of thirst.  Suddenly a skeleton ship appeared in
+sight, having on board Death and Life-in-Death.  The two spectres were
+throwing dice to see which should possess the doomed Mariner.
+Life-in-Death won, and the Mariner was hers.  If Death had won, his
+life would soon have ended; as it was, existence for him was to
+mean--for a time at least--life in the midst of the dead.  No sooner
+had the spectre bark shot by than his comrades, four times fifty living
+men, dropped lifeless one by one.  For seven days and seven nights he
+suffered agonies from the curse in their stony eyes; but he could not
+die, and he could not pray.
+
+One day, while watching some water snakes at play, he was charmed with
+their beauty and blessed them unawares--a sure sign that love for God's
+lower creatures was springing up in his heart.  The next instant the
+spell began to break: the albatross fell from his neck into the sea and
+he could move his lips in prayer.  He slept, and the Holy Mother sent
+rain; and when he awoke the wind was blowing.  A troop of angelic
+spirits now entered the bodies of the dead sailors and worked the
+ropes, and, obedient to the angels, the Spirit of the South Pole helped
+the ship onward.  As she sped on, the Mariner, who lay in a swoon,
+learned from the talk of two spirits that his penance was not yet
+accomplished.  Soon after waking he beheld the shores of his native
+country.  As the vessel neared the land the angels left the bodies of
+the sailors, and at the same time a small boat approached bringing a
+pilot and his boy, and a pious hermit--all known to the Mariner.
+Suddenly there was a dreadful sound, and the ship sank.  On coming to
+his senses the Mariner found himself in the pilot's boat.  When the
+hermit asked him, "What manner of man art thou?" his agony was fearful
+until he had found relief in telling his experience.  As a punishment
+for his crime in shooting the albatross the agony was to return at
+intervals and compel him to travel from land to land relating his
+strange tale.  After admonishing the wedding guest to love well both
+man and beast, the ancient Mariner departed.  The poet says of his
+listener,
+
+  "A sadder and a wiser man
+  He rose the morrow morn."
+
+
+
+[*]When The Ancient Mariner was reprinted in 1800, the poet added
+explanatory notes in the margin.  These have been found useful in
+writing this argument.  The poet's notes are given in his _Poetical
+Works_, edited by James Dykes Campbell (1893).
+
+
+
+  THE ANCIENT MARINER
+
+  PART I
+
+  It is an ancient Mariner,
+  And he stoppeth one of three,
+  "By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
+  Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
+
+  "The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,                 5
+  And I am next of kin;[1]
+  The guests are met, the feast is set:
+  Mayst hear the merry din."
+
+  He holds him with his skinny hand,
+  "There was a ship," quoth[2] he.                        10
+  "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"[3]
+  Eftsoons[4] his hand dropped he.
+
+  He holds him with his glittering eye--
+  The Wedding-Guest stood still,
+  And listens like a three years' child:[5]               15
+  The Mariner hath his will.
+
+  The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
+  He cannot choose but hear;
+  And thus spake on that ancient man,
+  The bright-eyed Mariner.                               20
+
+  "The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,
+  Merrily did we drop
+  Below the kirk,[6] below the hill,
+  Below the lighthouse top.
+
+  "The Sun came up upon the left,[7]
+  Out of the sea came he!                                 25
+  And he shone bright, and on the right
+  Went down into the sea.
+
+  "Higher and higher every day,
+  Till over the mast at noon------"                       30
+  The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
+  For he heard the loud bassoon.
+
+  The bride hath paced into the hall,
+  Red as a rose is she;
+  Nodding their heads before her goes                     35
+  The merry minstrelsy.
+
+  The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
+  Yet he cannot choose but hear;
+  And thus spake on that ancient man,
+  The bright-eyed Mariner.                                40
+
+  "And now the Storm-blast came, and he
+  Was tyrannous and strong:
+  He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
+  And chased us south along.
+
+  "With sloping masts and dipping prow,                   45
+  As who pursued with yell and blow
+  Still treads the shadow of his foe,
+  And forward bends his head,
+  The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
+  And southward aye we fled.                              50
+
+  "And now there came both mist and snow,[8]
+  And it grew wondrous cold:
+  And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
+  As green as emerald.
+
+  "And through the drifts the snowy clifts[9]             55
+  Did send a dismal sheen:
+  Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken[10]--
+  The ice was all between.
+
+  "The ice was here, the ice was there,
+  The ice was all around:                                 60
+  It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
+  Like noises in a swound![11]
+
+  "At length did cross an Albatross,[12]
+  Thorough[12] the fog it came;
+  As if it had been a Christian soul,                     65
+  We hailed it in God's name.
+
+  "It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
+  And round and round it flew.
+  The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
+  The helmsman steered us through.                        70
+
+  "And a good south wind sprung up behind;
+  The Albatross did follow,
+  And every day, for food or play,
+  Came to the mariner's hollo!
+
+  "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,[14]               75
+  It perched for vespers nine;[15]
+  Whiles[16] all the night, through fog-smoke white,
+  Glimmered the white moon-shine."
+
+  "God save thee, ancient Mariner!
+  From the fiends that plague thee thus!--                80
+  Why look'st thou so?"--"With my cross-bow
+  I shot the Albatross."
+
+
+  PART II
+
+  "The Sun now rose upon the right:[17]
+  Out of the sea came he,
+  Still hid in mist, and on the left                      85
+  Went down into the sea.
+
+  "And the good south wind still blew behind,
+  But no sweet bird did follow,
+  Nor any day for food or play
+  Come to the mariners' hollo!                            90
+
+  "And I had done a hellish thing,
+  And it would work 'em woe;
+  For all averred, I had killed the bird
+  That made the breeze to blow.
+  'Ah wretch!' said they, 'the bird to slay,              95
+  That made the breeze to blow!'
+
+  "Nor dim nor red, like God's own head
+  The glorious sun uprist:[18]
+  Then all averred, I had killed the bird
+  That brought the fog and mist.                         100
+  ''Twas right,' said they, 'such birds to slay,
+  That bring the fog and mist.'
+
+  "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
+  The furrow followed free;[19]
+  We were the first that ever burst
+  Into that silent sea.[20]                              105
+
+  "Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,
+  'T was sad as sad could be;
+  And we did speak only to break
+  The silence of the sea!                                110
+
+  "All in a hot and copper sky,
+  The bloody Sun, at noon,
+  Right up above the mast did stand,
+  No bigger than the Moon.
+
+  "Day after day, day after day,                         115
+  We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
+  As idle as a painted ship
+  Upon a painted ocean.
+
+  "Water, water, everywhere,
+  And all the boards did shrink;                         120
+  Water, water, everywhere,
+  Nor any drop to drink.
+
+  "The very deep did rot: O Christ!
+  That ever this should be!
+  Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs                  125
+  Upon the slimy sea.
+
+  "About, about, in reel and rout
+  The death-fires[21] danced at night;
+  The water, like a witch's oils,
+  Burnt green, and blue, and white,                      130
+
+  "And some in dreams assured were
+  Of the spirit that plagued us so;[22]
+  Nine fathom deep he had followed us
+  From the land of mist and snow.
+
+  "And every tongue, through utter drought,              135
+  Was withered at the root;
+  We could not speak, no more than if
+  We had been choked with soot.
+
+  "Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
+  Had I from old and young!                              140
+  Instead of the cross, the Albatross
+  About my neck was hung."
+
+  PART III
+
+  "There passed a weary time.  Each throat
+  Was parched, and glazed each eye.
+  A weary time! a weary time!                            145
+  How glazed each weary eye,
+  When, looking westward, I beheld
+  A something in the sky.
+
+  "At first it seemed a little speck,
+  And then it seemed a mist;                             150
+  It moved and moved, and took at last
+  A certain shape, I wist.[23]
+
+  "A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
+  And still it neared and neared;
+  As if it dodged a water-sprite,                        155
+  It plunged and tacked and veered,
+
+  "With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
+  We could nor laugh nor wail;
+  Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
+  I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,                      160
+  And cried, 'A sail! a sail!'
+
+  "With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
+  Agape[24] they heard me call:
+  Gramercy![25] they for joy did grin,
+  And all at once their breath drew in,                  165
+  As they were drinking all.
+
+  "See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
+  Hither to work us weal,[26]
+  Without a breeze, without a tide,
+  She steadies with upright keel!                        170
+
+  "The western wave was all a-flame,
+  The day was well-nigh done!
+  Almost upon the western wave
+  Rested the broad bright Sun;
+  When that strange shape drove suddenly                 175
+  Betwixt us and the Sun.
+
+  "And straight[27] the Sun was flecked with bars,[28]
+  (Heaven's Mother[29] send us grace!)
+  As if through a dungeon grate he peered
+  With broad and burning face.                           180
+
+  "Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
+  How fast she nears and nears!
+  Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
+  Like restless gossameres?[30]
+
+  "Are those her ribs through which the Sun              185
+  Did peer, as through a grate?
+  And is that Woman all her crew?
+  Is that a Death? and are there two?
+  Is Death that woman's mate?
+
+  "Her lips were red, her looks were free,               190
+  Her locks were yellow as gold:
+  Her skin was as white as leprosy,
+  The Nightmare Life-in-Death[31] was she
+  Who thicks man's blood with cold.
+
+  "The naked hulk alongside came,                        195
+  And the twain were casting dice;
+  'The game is done!  I've won, I've won!'
+  Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
+
+  "The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;
+  At one stride comes the dark;[32]                      200
+  With far-heard whisper o'er the sea
+  Off shot the spectre-bark.
+
+  "We listened and looked sideways up!
+  Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
+  My life-blood seemed to sip!                           205
+  The stars were dim, and thick the night,
+  The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
+  From the sails the dew did drip--
+  Till clomb[33] above the eastern bar
+  The horned Moon, with one bright star                  210
+  Within the nether tip.[34]
+
+  "One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
+  Too quick for groan or sigh,
+  Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
+  And cursed me with his eye.                            215
+
+  "Four times fifty living men,
+  (And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
+  With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
+  They dropped down one by one.
+
+  "The souls did from their bodies fly,--                220
+  They fled to bliss or woe!
+  And every soul, it passed me by,
+  Like the whizz of my cross-bow!"
+
+
+
+  PART IV
+
+  "I fear thee,[35] ancient Mariner!
+  I fear thy skinny hand!                                225
+  And thou art long, and lank, and brown,[36]
+  As is the ribbed sea-sand,
+
+  "I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
+  And thy skinny hand, so brown."--
+  "Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!               230
+  This body dropped not down.
+
+  "Alone, alone, all, all alone,
+  Alone on a wide, wide sea!
+  And never a saint took pity on
+  My soul in agony.                                      235
+
+  "The many men, so beautiful!
+  And they all dead did lie:
+  And a thousand thousand slimy things
+  Lived on; and so did I.
+
+  "I looked upon the rotting sea,                        240
+  And drew my eyes away;
+  I looked upon the rotting deck,
+  And there the dead men lay.
+
+  "I looked to heaven and tried to pray;
+  But or ever a prayer had gusht,                        245
+  A wicked whisper came, and made
+  My heart as dry as dust.
+
+  "I closed my lids, and kept them close,
+  And the balls like pulses beat;
+  For the sky and the sea, and the sea
+         and the sky,[37]                                250
+  Lay like a load on my weary eye,
+  And the dead were at my feet.
+
+  "The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
+  Nor rot nor reek did they:
+  The look with which they looked on me                  255
+  Had never passed away.
+
+  "An orphan's curse would drag to hell
+  A spirit from on high;
+  But oh! more horrible than that
+  Is a curse in a dead man's eye!                        260
+  Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
+  And yet I could not die.
+
+  "The moving Moon went up the sky,
+  And nowhere did abide:
+  Softly she was going up,                               265
+  And a star or two beside--
+
+  "Her beams bemocked the sultry main,[38]
+  Like April hoar-frost spread;
+  But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
+  The charmed water burnt alway                          270
+  A still and awful red.
+
+  "Beyond the shadow of the ship,
+  I watched the water-snakes:
+  They moved in tracks of shining white,
+  And when they reared, the elfish light                 275
+  Fell off in hoary flakes.[39]
+
+  "Within the shadow of the ship
+  I watched their rich attire:
+  Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
+  They coiled and swam; and every track                  280
+  Was a flash of golden fire.
+
+  "O happy living things! no tongue
+  Their beauty might declare:
+  A spring of love gushed from my heart,
+  And I blessed them unaware:                            285
+  Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
+  And I blessed them unaware.
+
+  "The selfsame moment I could pray;
+  And from my neck so free
+  The Albatross fell off, and sank                       290
+  Like lead into the sea."
+
+
+
+  PART V
+
+  "O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
+  Beloved from pole to pole!
+  To Mary Queen the praise be given!
+  She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,                 295
+  That slid into my soul.
+
+  "The silly[40] buckets on the deck,
+  That had so long remained,
+  I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
+  And when I awoke, it rained.                           300
+
+  "My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
+  My garments all were dank;[41]
+  Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
+  And still my body drank.
+
+  "I moved, and could not feel my limbs:                 305
+  I was so light--almost
+  I thought that I had died in sleep,
+  And was a blessed ghost.
+
+  "And soon I heard a roaring wind:
+  It did not come anear;                                 310
+  But with its sound it shook the sails,
+  That were so thin and sere.
+
+  "The upper air burst into life!
+  And a hundred fire-flags sheen,[42]
+  To and fro they were hurried about!                    315
+  And to and fro, and in and out,
+  The wan[43] stars danced between.
+
+  "And the coming wind did roar more loud,
+  And the sails did sigh like sedge;
+  And the rain poured down from one black cloud,         320
+  The Moon was at its edge.
+
+  "The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
+  The Moon was at its side:
+  Like waters shot from some high crag,
+  The lightning fell with never a jag,                   325
+  A river steep and wide.
+
+  "The loud wind never reached the ship,
+  Yet now the ship moved on!
+  Beneath the lightning and the Moon
+  The dead men gave a groan.                             330
+
+  "They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
+  Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
+  It had been strange, even in a dream,
+  To have seen those dead men rise.
+
+  "The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;              335
+  Yet never a breeze up blew;
+  The mariners all gan work[44] the ropes,
+  Where they were wont to do;
+  They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--
+  We were a ghastly crew.                                340
+
+  "The body of my brother's son
+  Stood by me, knee to knee:
+  The body and I pulled at one rope,
+  But he said nought to me."
+
+  "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!"                        345
+  "Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
+  'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
+  Which to their corses came again,
+  But a troop of spirits blest:
+
+  "For when it dawned--they dropped their arms,          350
+  And clustered round the mast;
+  Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
+  And from their bodies passed.
+
+  "Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
+  Then darted to the Sun;                                355
+  Slowly the sounds came back again,
+  Now mixed, now one by one.
+
+  "Sometimes a-dropping from the sky[45]
+  I heard the sky-lark sing;
+  Sometimes all little birds that are,                   360
+  How they seemed to fill the sea and air
+  With their sweet jargoning![46]
+
+  "And now 'twas like all instruments,
+  Now like a lonely flute;
+  And now it is an angel's song,                         365
+  That makes the heavens be mute.
+
+  "It ceased; yet still the sails made on
+  A pleasant noise till noon,
+  A noise like of a hidden brook
+  In the leafy month of June,                            370
+  That to the sleeping woods all night
+  Singeth a quiet tune.
+
+  "Till noon we quietly sailed on,
+  Yet never a breeze did breathe:
+  Slowly and smoothly went the ship,                     375
+  Moved onward from beneath.
+
+  "Under the keel nine fathom deep,
+  From the land of mist and snow,
+  The spirit slid: and it was he
+  That made the ship to go.                              380
+  The sails at noon left off their tune,
+  And the ship stood still also.
+
+  "The Sun, right up above the mast,
+  Had fixed her to the ocean:
+  But in a minute she gan stir,                          385
+  With a short uneasy motion--
+  Backwards and forwards half her length,
+  With a short uneasy motion.
+
+  "Then, like a pawing horse let go,
+  She made a sudden bound:                               390
+  It flung the blood into my head,
+  And I fell down in a swound.[47]
+
+  "How long in that same fit I lay,
+  I have not to declare;
+  But ere my living life returned,                       395
+  I heard, and in my soul discerned
+  Two voices in the air.[48]
+
+  "'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
+  By Him who died on cross,
+  With his cruel bow he laid full low                    400
+  The harmless Albatross.
+
+  "'The spirit who bideth by himself
+  In the land of mist and snow,
+  He loved the bird that loved the man
+  Who shot him with his bow.'                            405
+
+  "The other was a softer voice,
+  As soft as honey-dew;[49]
+  Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
+  And penance more will do.'"
+
+
+
+  PART VI
+
+  _First Voice_
+
+  "'But tell me, tell me! speak again,                   410
+  Thy soft response renewing--
+  What makes that ship drive on so fast?
+  What is the ocean doing?'"
+
+
+  _Second Voice_
+
+  "'Still as a slave before his lord,
+  The ocean hath no blast;                               415
+  His great bright eye most silently
+  Up to the Moon is cast--
+
+  "'If he may know[50] which way to go;
+  For she guides him smooth or grim.[51]
+  See, brother, see! how graciously                      420
+  She looketh down on him.'"
+
+
+  _First Voice_
+
+  "'But why drives on that ship so fast,
+  Without or wave or wind?'"
+
+
+  _Second Voice_
+
+  "'The air is cut away before,
+  And closes from behind.                                425
+
+  "'Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
+  Or we shall be belated:
+  For slow and slow that ship will go,
+  When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
+
+  "I woke, and we were sailing on                        430
+  As in a gentle weather:
+  'T was night, calm night, the moon was high;
+  The dead men stood together.
+
+  "All stood together on the deck,
+  For a charnel-dungeon[52] fitter:                      435
+  All fixed on me their stony eyes,
+  That in the Moon did glitter.
+
+  "The pang, the curse, with which they died,
+  Had never passed away;
+  I could not draw my eyes from theirs,                  440
+  Nor turn them up to pray.
+
+  "And now this spell was snapped: once more
+  I viewed the ocean green,
+  And looked far forth, yet little saw
+  Of what had else been seen--                           445
+
+  "Like one that on a lonesome road
+  Doth walk in fear and dread,
+  And having once turned round walks on,
+  And turns no more his head;
+  Because he knows, a frightful fiend                    450
+  Doth close behind him tread.
+
+  "But soon there breathed a wind on me,
+  Nor sound nor motion made;
+  Its path was not upon the sea,
+  In ripple or in shade.                                 455
+
+  "It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek,
+  Like a meadow-gale of spring--
+  It mingled strangely with my fears,
+  Yet it felt like a welcoming.
+
+  "Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,                       460
+  Yet she sailed softly too:
+  Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
+  On me alone it blew.
+
+  "Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
+  The light-house top I see?                             465
+  Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
+  Is this mine own countree?[53]
+
+  "We drifted o'er the harbor bar,[54]
+  And I with sobs did pray--
+  O let me be awake, my God!                             470
+  Or let me sleep alway.
+
+  "The harbor bay was clear as glass,[55]
+  So smoothly it was strewn!
+  And on the bay the moonlight lay,
+  And the shadow of the Moon.                            475
+
+  "The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
+  That stands above the rock:
+  The moonlight steeped in silentness
+  The steady weathercock.
+
+  "And the bay was white with silent light,              480
+  Till, rising from the same,
+  Full many shapes, that shadows were,
+  In crimson colors came.
+
+  "A little distance from the prow
+  Those crimson shadows were:                            485
+  I turned my eyes upon the deck--
+  Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
+
+  "Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
+  And by the holy rood![56]
+  A man all light, a seraph-man,                         490
+  On every corse there stood.
+
+  "This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
+  It was a heavenly sight!
+  They stood as signals to the land,
+  Each one a lovely light;                               495
+
+  "This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
+  No voice did they impart[57]--
+  No voice; but oh! the silence sank
+  Like music on my heart.
+
+  "But soon I heard the dash of oars,                    500
+  I heard the Pilot's cheer;
+  My head was turned perforce, away,
+  And I saw a boat appear.
+
+  "The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
+  I heard them coming fast:                              505
+  Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy
+  The dead men could not blast.
+
+  "I saw a third--I heard his voice:
+  It is the Hermit good!
+  He singeth loud his godly hymns                        510
+  That he makes in the wood.
+  He'll shrieve[58] my soul, he'll wash away
+  The Albatross's blood."
+
+
+
+  PART VII
+
+  "This Hermit good lives in that wood
+  Which slopes down to the sea.                          515
+  How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
+  He loves to talk with marineres
+  That come from a far countree.
+
+  "He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve--
+  He hath a cushion plump:                               520
+  It is the moss that wholly hides
+  The rotted old oak-stump.
+
+  "The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
+  'Why, this is strange, I trow![59]
+  Where are those lights so many and fair,               525
+  That signal made but now?'
+
+  "'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said--
+  'And they answered not our cheer.
+  The planks look warped! and see those sails,
+  How thin they are and sere!                            530
+  I never saw aught like to them,
+  Unless perchance it were
+
+  "'Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
+  My forest-brook along;
+  When the ivy-tod[60] is heavy with snow,               535
+  And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
+  That eats the she-wolf's young.'
+
+  "'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look--
+  (The Pilot made reply)
+  I am afeared,'[61]--'Push on, push on!'                540
+  Said the Hermit cheerily.
+
+  "The boat came closer to the ship,
+  But I nor spake nor stirred;
+  The boat came close beneath the ship,
+  And straight a sound was heard.                        545
+
+  "Under the water it rumbled on,
+  Still louder and more dread:
+  It reached the ship, it split the bay:
+  The ship went down like lead.
+
+  "Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,              550
+  Which sky and ocean smote;
+  Like one that hath been seven days drowned
+  My body lay afloat;
+  But, swift as dreams, myself I found
+  Within the Pilot's boat.                               555
+
+  "Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
+  The boat spun round and round;
+  And all was still, save that the hill
+  Was telling of the sound.
+
+  "I moved my lips --the Pilot shrieked                  560
+  And fell down in a fit;
+  The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
+  And prayed where he did sit.
+
+  "I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
+  Who now doth crazy go,                                 565
+  Laughed loud and long, and all the while
+  His eyes went to and fro.
+  'Ha! Ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
+  The Devil knows how to row.'
+
+  "And now, all in my own countree,                      570
+  I stood on the firm land!
+  The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
+  And scarcely he could stand.
+
+  "'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
+  The Hermit crossed his brow.[62]                       575
+  'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say--
+  What manner of man art thou?'
+
+  "Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
+  With a woeful agony,
+  Which forced me to begin my tale;                      580
+  And then it left me free.
+
+  "Since then, at an uncertain hour,
+  That agony returns:
+  And till my ghastly tale is told,
+  This heart within me burns.                            585
+
+  "I pass, like night, from land to land;
+  I have strange power of speech;
+  That moment that his face I see,
+  I know the man that must hear me:
+  To him my tale I teach.                                590
+
+  "What loud uproar bursts from that door!
+  The wedding-guests are there:
+  But in the garden-bower the bride
+  And bride-maids singing are:
+  And hark the little vesper bell,[63]                   595
+  Which biddeth me to prayer.
+
+  "O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
+  Alone on a wide wide sea:
+  So lonely 't was, that God himself
+  Scarce seemed there to be.                             600
+
+  "O sweeter than the marriage feast,
+  'T is sweeter far to me,
+  To walk together to the kirk
+  With a goodly company!--
+
+  "To walk together to the kirk,                         605
+  And all together pray,
+  While each to his great Father bends,
+  Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
+  And youths and maidens gay!
+
+  "Farewell, farewell! but this I tell                   610
+  To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!--
+  He prayeth well, who loveth well
+  Both man and bird and beast.
+
+  "He prayeth best, who loveth best
+  All things both great and small;                       615
+  For the dear God who loveth us,
+  He made and loveth all."
+
+  The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
+  Whose beard with age is hoar,
+  Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest                     620
+  Turned from the Bridegroom's door.
+
+  He went like one that hath been stunned,
+  And is of sense forlorn:[64]
+  A sadder and a wiser man
+  He rose the morrow morn.                               625
+
+
+
+NOTE.--The Ancient Mariner was written in 1797.  The plot was suggested
+by a dream related to Coleridge by one of his friends.  While the story
+is his own invention, he took several points from Shelvocke's Voyages
+and accepted a few hints from Wordsworth, who furnished also two or
+three lines of verse.  In the beginning the two poets intended to work
+together, but this plan was found impracticable, and Coleridge
+proceeded by himself.  It is easy to believe that the plot originated
+in a dream, for the completed poem is one of the strangest, most
+fantastic dreams that ever formed themselves in a poet's brain.  So far
+as its moral import is concerned, the production will hardly bear close
+scrutiny, although it teaches the duty of loving all God's creatures,
+both great and small.  The prolonged suffering of the Mariner is a
+punishment far too severe for his thoughtless act, while his four times
+fifty comrades, who endure horrible tortures before dying, have been
+guilty of no crime whatsoever.  Still it is not necessary that every
+piece of literature should teach a consistent moral lesson, and _The
+Ancient Mariner_ can be enjoyed for its marvelous pictures and its
+weird melody.
+
+The form chosen by Coleridge for his production, that of the mediaeval
+ballad, is peculiarly adapted to story-telling on account of the
+freedom which it allows, and it has never been more artistically used
+than in this instance.  In harmony with the ballad form the poet uses
+certain old words, such as "trow," "wist," and "countree."  It will be
+seen that the stanzas vary in length, and that there are occasional
+irregularities in metre.  In general the first and third lines of a
+stanza have four feet each, while the second and fourth lines have
+three feet.  Only the second and fourth lines rhyme, unless the stanza
+consists of more than four lines.
+
+
+[1.] Next of kin, nearest relative.
+
+[2.] Quoth, said.
+
+[3.] Loon, worthless fellow.
+
+[4.] Eftsoons, at once, immediately; a favorite word with the poet
+Spenser.
+
+[5.] And listens, etc.  Wordsworth wrote this line and the line
+following.
+
+[6.] Kirk, church.
+
+[7.] The Sun came up upon the left.  This would be the case if a vessel
+were going from England, for instance, toward the equator; and each day
+the sun would be more nearly overhead.
+
+[8.] And now there came both mist and snow.  They were nearing the
+south pole.
+
+[9.] Clifts, clefts, cracks.
+
+[10.] Ken, discern.
+
+[11.] Swound, swoon, fainting fit.
+
+[12.] Albatross.  The albatross, the largest of sea birds, is found
+chiefly in the southern hemisphere, and because of its strength in
+flight is often seen far from land.
+
+[13.] Thorough, through.
+
+[14.] Shroud.  The shrouds are sets of ropes which serve as stays for
+the masts of a vessel.
+
+[15.] Vespers nine, _i.e._ nine evenings.  _Vesper_ and _Hesperus_ are
+names given to the evening star, especially to the planet Venus when it
+appears in the west soon after sunset.  Consult the dictionary for
+other meanings of the word _vesper_.
+
+[16.] Whiles, meanwhile.
+
+[17.] The Sun now rose upon the right.  This indicates that the vessel
+had turned about and was going northward.  The poet says in his notes
+that she soon entered the Pacific Ocean.
+
+[18.] Nor dim nor red, etc.  The sun now rose clear and bright, and not
+dim or red, as when seen through mist or fog; and the sailors justified
+the Mariner, thinking that by his act the fog had been dispersed.
+Uprist means _uprose_.
+
+[19.] The furrow followed free, i.e. the track, or wake, left by the
+ship appeared to be gladly following her.
+
+[20.] That silent sea.  The vessel had reached the equator.
+
+[21.] Death-fires.  There is a superstition that death is sometimes
+foreshadowed by death-fires or fetch-lights.  In this instance the
+fires presaged the death of the sailors.
+
+[22.] The spirit that plagued us so.  This was "the lonesome spirit
+from the south pole," who was seeking revenge for the death of the
+albatross.
+
+[23.] I wist, I knew.
+
+[24.] Agape, with mouths open as though surprised.
+
+[25.] Gramercy (from the French _grand-merci_), an exclamation formerly
+used to denote thankfulness with surprise.
+
+[26.] To work us weal, to do us good.
+
+[27.] Straight, straightway, immediately.
+
+[28.] The Sun was flecked with bars.  The frame of the skeleton ship
+showed clearly against the setting sun as she passed before it.
+
+[29.] Heaven's Mother, the Virgin Mary.
+
+[30.] Gossameres, gossamers, cobwebs.
+
+[31.] The Nightmare Life-in-Death.  In this strange being the poet
+personifies the state of a person who lives, as it were, in the shadow
+of death.  The condition called "nightmare" was formerly believed to be
+caused by the witch Nightmare, who oppressed people during sleep.
+
+[32.] At one stride comes the dark.  This is a wonderful picture of the
+sudden fall of night near the equator, where there is no twilight.
+
+[33.] Clomb, climbed; an old form.
+
+[34.] The horned moon, etc.  Coleridge says in a note: "It is a common
+superstition among sailors that something evil is about to happen
+whenever a star dogs the moon."
+
+[35.] I fear thee.  The wedding guest imagined that the Mariner died
+with the rest of the sailors and that he was talking with a ghost.
+
+[36.] And thou art long, etc.  This line and the line following were
+written by Wordsworth.
+
+[37.] For the sky, etc.  This line, with its repetitions, and the extra
+length of the stanza, tend to make one feel the load that was pressing
+upon the Mariner.
+
+[38.] Bemocked the sultry main, mocked the sultry ocean.
+
+[39.] They moved, etc.  This description is true of fish of all kinds
+on a dark night when there is a great deal of phosphorus in the water.
+
+[40.] Silly, frail.
+
+[41.] Dank, damp, wet; seldom used in prose.
+
+[42.] Sheen, bright, glittering.
+
+[43.] Wan, pale.
+
+[44.] Gan work, did work, or began to work.
+
+[45.] Sometimes a-dropping, etc.  Notice what a pleasant interlude is
+made by this stanza and the three which follow.
+
+[46.] Jargoning, confused sounds.
+
+[47.] I fell down in a swound.  The poet explains that the vessel,
+driven by angelic power, sped on with extreme rapidity, and that the
+Mariner was put into a trance because he could not have endured the
+motion.
+
+[48.] Two voices in the air.  These were the voices of spirits who felt
+the wrong that had been done to the Spirit of the South Pole by the
+killing of the albatross.
+
+[49.] Honey-dew, a sweet substance found in small drops on the leaves
+of trees and plants.
+
+[50.] If he may know, so that he may know.
+
+[51.] For she guides him, etc., _i.e._ whether smooth or rough, the
+ocean is always guided by the moon.
+
+[52.] Charnel-dungeon, a vault where the bones of the dead are kept.
+
+[53.] Countree, country; this form of the word occurs frequently in old
+ballads.
+
+[54.] Harbor bar, a bank of sand or other matter at the mouth of a
+harbor, which obstructs navigation.
+
+[55.] The harbor bay, etc.  Notice the effect of quietness produced by
+this line and the eight which follow.
+
+[56.] Holy rood, holy cross.
+
+[57.] Impart, give forth, send forth.
+
+[58.] Shrieve, shrive, hear confession and pronounce absolution.  In
+the earlier ages of the Christian Church it was not uncommon for men to
+live as hermits, devoting themselves to fasting, penance, and prayer.
+
+[59.] Trow (pronounced _tro_), think.
+
+[60.] Ivy-tod, ivy-bush.
+
+[61.] Afeared, afraid; an old form.
+
+[62.] The Hermit crossed his brow.  He did this to ward off evil, for
+he feared that the Mariner was a wicked spirit in human form.
+
+[63.] Vesper bell, a bell calling to evening prayer.  See note on l. 76.
+
+[64.] Of sense forlorn, deprived of sense, of feeling.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Selections from Five English Poets, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13535 ***