From brutes what men, from inen what spirits know.
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day
Had he thy reason, would he skip and pay?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flow'ry fo..
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav't,
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar,
Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.
What future bliss he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always To Be bless'd.
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind.
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the Solar Walk or Milky Way.
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste;
Where slaves once more their native land behold
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
TO BE, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such;
Say here he gives too little, there too much.
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes;
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against th' ETERNAL CAUSE.

SECTION VII.

THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771)

was professor of modern languages and history in the University of Cambridge. His most popular poem is his Elegy, written in a country church-yard, in 1750. The charm of his writings is to be traced to the naturally exquisite ear of the poet, having been trained to consummate skill in harmony, by long familiarity with the finest models in the most poetical of all languages, the Greek and Italian. In regard to the "Progress of Poetry," and "The Bard," it is said, that there is not an ode in the English language which is constructea like these two compositions; with such power, such. majesty, and such sweetness; with such proportioned pauses and just cadences; with such regulated measures of the verse.

ODE

ON THE DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE

Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,

Ah fields beloved in vain,

Where once my careless childhood play'd,
A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow

A momentary bliss bestow,

As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,

My weary soul they seem to soothe,

And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possess'd;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
There's buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigor born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day.

Yet see how, all around them, wait

The ministers of human fate,

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender, for another's pain,

The unfeeling, for his own.

Yet ah, why should they know their fate'
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies,
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss
"Tis folly to be wise.

AN ELEGY WRITTEN IN A CHURCH-YARD.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
Nor children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows,
While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm,

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,

Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

The Bard.

It would be idle to descant on the diction or imagerv of verses like these. We will only advert to the pro phetic intimation of the catastrophe in the last clause Had the poet described the tempest itself with the

power of Virgil in the first book of his Æneid, it would have failed in this instance to produce the effect of sublime and ineffable horror, of which a glimpse appears in the background, while the gallant vessel is sailing with wind, and tide, and sunshine, on a sea of glory. All the sweeping fury of the whirlwind, awake and ravening over "his evening prey," would have been less terrible than his "grim repose;" and the shrieks and struggles of drowning mariners less affect ing than the sight of

"Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm," regardless" of the inevitable doom on which they were already verging.

SECTION VIII.

JAMES BEATTIE (1736-1803),

a native of Scotland, was the last of those who can properly be placed in the first order of the poets of this time. In 1771, while professor of moral philosophy at Aberdeen, he published his celebrated poem, The Minstrel, which describes, in the stanza of Spenser, the progress of the imagination and feelings of a young and rustic poet. Beattie also wrote several philosophical and controversial works, which attracted considerable attention in their day. His poetry is characterized by a peculiar meditative pathos.

The contemplation of the works of Nature is recommended in the following stanzas:

Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven-

O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven !

X.

These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health,
And love and gentler ess, and joy impart ;

U

But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth
E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart;
For, ah! it poisons like a scorpion's dart;
Prompting th' ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme,
The stern resolve, unmoved by pity's smart;
The troublous day, and long distressful dream.

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SECTION IX.

THOMSON (1700-1748).'

The Seasons.

He has been justly called the great painter of Nature's scenery and Nature's joys. His chief merit consisted in describing her, and the pleasure afforded by a contemplation of her infinite and glorious varieties. "Touched by his more than magic pencil, every thing around us lives, and breathes, and speaksspeaks forth its Creator's praise: the little hills rejoice on every side; the trees of the fields clap their hands, and all creation joins in one general song."

He excelled in delineating, not the strong and boisterous passions of the human heart, but its gentler emotions and more pleasing traits. Of himself he says:

"I solitary court

The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book
Of Nature, ever open; aiming thence,

Warm from the heart, to pour the moral song."

The "Seasons" are the most read and generally admired of his works, yet not without its faults. The language is sometimes inflated-style sometimes monotonous, but from continued elevation. The digressions have been objected to as blemishes, but by others have been approved and admired as essential to the highest merit of the poem.

Some have pronounced his " Castle of Indolence" altogether superior to the "Seasons." It was designed as a satire upon his own indolent character, and an incentive to the young to put forth vigorous exertions.

Several tablets were erected to his memory, containing beautiful inscriptions. Beneath one of these