It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground:

And there a season atween June and May,

Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,

No living wight could work, ne carèd even for play.

3. Was nought around but images of rest :

Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;
And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest,
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played,
And hurled everywhere their waters sheen;
That, as they bickered through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

4. Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds yblent inclinèd all to sleep.

5. Full in the passage of the vale, above,

A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;

Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move,
As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood:

And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,

Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;

And where this valley winded out, below,

The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

6. A pleasing land of drowsihead it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer sky:
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly

Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of noyance, or unrest, Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest.

'This poem being writ in the manner of Spenser [cf. my master Spenser' (Canto ii., stanza 52)], the obsolete words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the ludicrous, were necessary, to make the imitation more perfect' (Advertisement).

THE CASTLE PORTER.

(From The Castle of Indolence, Canto i.)

[In this delicious nest' has Indolence, a most enchanting wizard' (stanza 2), 'close-hid his castle mid embowering trees' (7). He sits at the massy gate with his lute, and charms the listening throng' of passers-by to enter within his gates.]

24. Waked by the crowd, slow from his bench arose
A comely full-spread porter, swoln with sleep:
His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breathed repose;
And in sweet torpor he was plungèd deep,

Ne could himself from ceaseless yawning keep;
While o'er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran,

Through which his half-waked soul would faintly peep.
Then taking his black staff he called his man,
And roused himself as much as rouse himself he can.

25. The lad leaped lightly at his master's call.
He was, to weet, a little roguish page,

Save sleep and play who minded nought at all,
Like most the untaught striplings of his age.
This boy he kept each band to disengage,
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit,
But ill-becoming his grave personage,

And which his portly paunch would not permit,
So this same limber page to all performèd it.

26. Meantime the master-porter wide displayed
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns ;
Wherewith he those that entered in, arrayed
Loose as the breeze that plays along the downs,
And waves the summer-woods when evening frowns.
O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,

And heightens ease with grace. This done, right fain, Sir porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again.

Compare Thomson's stanzas with Spenser's.

WILLIAM COLLINS.-1720-1759.

WILLIAM COLLINS, the son of a hatter and alderman of Chichester, studied at Winchester and Oxford. In 1744 he went to London,' with many projects in his head, and little money in his pocket.' After suffering severely from poverty, he fell heir to £2000 by the death of an uncle; but his health was completely shattered, and his mind gave way.

While in residence at Magdalen College, Oxford, Collins published his Oriental Eclogues. The Odes appeared in 1747, but were unsuccessful. Yet I should conceive that Collins had a much greater poetical genius than Gray' (Hazlitt).

ODE TO EVENING.

If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song

May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,

Like thy own brawling springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired Sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

5

With brede ethereal wove,

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding star arising shews
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and elves

Who slept in buds the day,

10

15

20

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, 25 And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car;

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,

30

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut

That from the mountain's side

35

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil,

40

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!

While Summer loves to sport

Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy favourite name!

NOTES.

The

I. Oaten stop... pastoral song. beginning of Vergil's first Eclogue represents the shepherd Tityrus practising in the cool of the evening a 'pastoral song,' or 'woodland tune' (Lat. silvestrem musam), on the stops of his 'slender reed,' pipe, or flageolet (Lat. avěna, lit. oaten straw or stalk).

7. Brede, braid. Cf. em-broider. From
old bredan (to weave).-Wove,
poetical loss of ending, for 'woven'
(part.).

10. Observe the alliteration.
9-14. Cf. Gray's Elegy, 5-12.
21. Folding, indicating that it is time
to put the flocks and herds into their
folds.

45

50

22. Paly, somewhat, slightly pale.
23. Hours. Personification. Cf. Gray,
Ode on the Spring, 1-4:
'Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year.'
25. Many a nymph &c. The rivers,
brooks, lakes, &c., personified.
27. Pensive, lit. weighing, pondering;
thoughtful-with a dash of sadness
or melancholy. From Lat. pensum
(to suspend, weigh, ponder).
45. Autumn, the season of increase or
abundance, the harvest-time. From
Lat. auctumnus, from auctus (part.
of augeo), 'increased,' and thus
'plentiful,' 'abundant.'

THOMAS GRAY.-1716-1771.

THOMAS GRAY, the son of a London money-scrivener, was educated at Eton, and at Peter-House, Cambridge (1734-8). In 1739, he accompanied Horace Walpole to the Continent, where he devoted much attention to various branches of the Fine Arts-architecture, painting, music, &c.; but a rupture took place between them, and Gray returned to England in 1741. After coquetting a short time with law, Gray settled down at Cambridge to diligent study of the classics, and to elaborate poetical composition. In 1757, he was