Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

You'll have with creditors no tête-à-tête,
So leave the bull-dog bailiffs all behind;
Who, hunt you with what noise they may,
Must hunt for needles in a stack of hay.

DOCTOR JOHN WOLCOT (Vers 1790).

TO THE DAISY.

In youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill, in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy:
But now my own delights I make,
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake
Of thee, sweet Daisy!

When soothed awhile my milder airs,
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few grey hairs;
Spring cannot shun thee;

Whole Summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
If welcomed once thou count'st it gain;
Thou are not daunted,

Nor car'st if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,

When such are wanted,

Be Violets in their secret mews

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud by the Rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art! a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, Have I derived from thy sweet power Some apprehension;

Some steady love; Some brief delight; Some memory that had taken flight; Some chime of fancy wrong or right; Or stray invention.

Child of the Year! that round dost run
Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun

As morning leveret,

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;

Dear thou shalt be to future men

As in old time; thou not in vain,

Art Nature's favourite.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (Lyrical Ballads. 1798).

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

Ye mariners of England!

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep

While the stormy tempests blow;

While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.

The spirits of your father

Shall start from every wave!

For the deck it was their field of fame,

And ocean was their grave;

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep
While the stormy tempests blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,,
And the stormy tempests blow.

Britannia needs no bulwark,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below,

As they roar on the shore

When the stormy tempests blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.

The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;

When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow!

THOMAS CAMPBELL (1801).

LOVE, HOPE AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION.

O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces;
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it, so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of education-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks I see them grouped in seemly show,
The straitened arms upraised, the palms aslope,

[ocr errors]

And robes that touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snow.
O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.
But Love in subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,
Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies;
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love.
Yet haply there will come a weary day,

When overtasked at length

Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loath,
And both supporting, does the work of both.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (Vers 1806).

DEATH OF MARMION.

When, doff'd his casque, he felt free air,
Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare :

[ocr errors]

'Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where?
Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare!

Redeem my pennon, charge again!
Cry-Marmion. to the rescue! '-Vain!

Last of my race, on battle-plain
That shout shall ne'er be heard again?—
Yet my last thought is England's:-fly,
To Dacre bear my signet-ring:

Tell him his squadrons up to bring :—

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »