WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

SHENSTONE, WILLIAM, an English poet; born at the Leasowes, Halesowen, Worcestershire, November 13, 1714; died there, Febru ary 11, 1763. He studied at Pembroke College, Oxford, but did not take a degree. At the age of thirty the paternal estate of Leasowes came into his hand, and, as Johnson says, "he began to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters." He is known almost wholly by his poem "The Schoolmistress," consisting of nearly forty stanzas in the Spenserian measure. This poem was published in 1742, and so was written while he was a student at Oxford.

PASTORAL BALLAD.

SINCE Phyllis vouchsafed me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine:
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine!

I prized every hour that went by,

Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh;

And I grieve that I prize them no more.

But why do I languish in vain;

Why wander thus pensively here?
Oh! why did I come from the plain
Where I fed on the smiles of my dear?

They tell me my favorite maid,

The pride of that valley, is flown:
Alas! where with her I have strayed,
I could wander with pleasure alone.

When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought - but it might not be so
"T was with pain that she saw me depart.

She gazed as I slowly withdrew,
My path I could hardly discern:
So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far distant shrine,
If he bear but a relic away

Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus widely removed from the fair
Where my vows, my devotion, I owe,-
Soft Hope is the relic I bear,

And my solace wherever I go.

SONG.

I TOLD my nymph, I told her true,
My fields were small, my flocks were few;
While faltering accents spoke my fear
That Flavia might not prove sincere.

Of crops destroyed by vernal cold,
And vagrant sheep that left my fold,—
Of these she heard, yet bore to hear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, changed by Fortune's fickle wind,
The friends I loved became unkind,
She heard, and shed a generous tear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, if she deigned my love to bless,
My Flavia must not hope for dress,
This too she heard, and smiled to hear:
And Flavia, sure, must be sincere.

Go shear your flocks, ye jovial swains!
Go reap the plenty of your plains;
Despoiled of all which you revere,
I know my Flavia's love sincere.

DISAPPOINTMENT.

(From "A Pastoral.")

YE shepherds! give ear to my lay,
And take no more heed of my sheep:
They have nothing to do but to stray,
I have nothing to do but to weep.

Yet do not my folly reprove:

She was fair and my passion begun; She smiled and I could not but love;

Perhaps I was void of all thought;
Perhaps it was plain to foresee

That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire:

It banishes wisdom the while,
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems forever adorned with a smil

She is faithless, and I am undone :
Ye that witness the woes I endure,
Let reason instruct you to shun

What it cannot instruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain

Amid nymphs of a higher degree: It is not for me to explain

How fair and how fickle they be.

Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes,
When I cannot endure to forget

The glance that undid my repose?
Yet time may diminish the pain;

The flower, and the shrub, and the tree, Which I reared for her pleasure in vain, In time may have comfort for me.

The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,
The sound of a murmuring stream,
The peace which from solitude flows,

Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme.
High transports are shown to the sight,
But we 're not to find them our own:
Fate never bestowed such delight

As I with my Phyllis had known.

O ye woods, spread your branches apace!
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chase,
I would vanish from every eye.

Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun:
How she smiled, and I could not but love!
Was faithless, and I am undone !

THE DAME AND HER SCHOOL.

(From "The Schoolmistress.")

A RUSSET stole was o'er her shoulders thrown,
A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air;
'T was simple russet, but it was her own:

'T was her own country bred the flock so fair; "T was her own labor did the fleece prepare: And sooth to say, her pupils, ranged around,

Through pious awe did term it passing rare; For they in gaping wonderment abound,

And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground!

Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth,

Ne pompous title did debauch her ear; Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth, Or dame, the sole additions she did hear:

Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear; Ne would esteem him act as mought behoove,

Who should not honored eld with these revere :

For never title yet so mean could prove,

But there was eke a mind which did that title love.

One ancient hen she took delight to feed,
The plodding pattern of the busy dame;
Which ever and anon, impelled by need,
Into her school, begirt with chickens, came!
Such favor did her past deportment claim:
And if Neglect had lavished on the ground

Fragment of bread, she would collect the same;
For well she knew, and quaintly could expound,
What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found.

Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak,
That in her garden sipped the silvery dew,
Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak;
But herbs for use and physic not a few,
Of gray renown, within these borders grew,
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,

Fresh balm, and marygold of cheerful hue,
The lowly gill that never dares to climb:

And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.

Yet euphrasy may not be left unsung,

That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around; And pungent radish, biting infant's tongue;

And plantain ribbed, that heals the reaper's wound; And marjoram sweet, in shepherd's posie found; And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom

Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,

To lurk amid the labors of her loom,

And crown her kerchiefs clean with mickle rare perfume.

And here trim rosemarine, that whilom crowned
The daintiest garden of the proudest peer,
Ere, driven from its envied site, it found

A sacred shelter for its branches here,

Where edged with gold its glittering skirts appear. O wassel days! O customs meet and well!

Ere this was banished from its lofty sphere! Simplicity then sought this humble cell,

Nor ever would she more with thane and lordling dwell.