Encompassed round with winds and tempests bleak.-Glover.
In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown, joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home. How sinks his soul !
What black despair, what horrour, fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and blest abode of Man ;
While round him night resistless closes fast.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold.-Thomson.
RIVERS arise; whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th' indented meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death,
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal tower'd Thame.-Milton.
Under the Protection of Neptune.
Neptunique ipsâ deducant origine gentem.-Virgil.
My eye descending from the Hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton vallies strays,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet Eternity.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold;
His genuine, and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore;
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing Spring.
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave :
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows ;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free, and common, as the sea or wind.
He roams the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.-Denham.
My soul, time posts away,
And thou, yet in that frost
Which flower and fruit hath lost,
As if all here immortal were, dost stay.-Drummond.
His plough and harness by his side.-Spenser.
OBSERVE the daily circle of the sun,
And the short year of each revolving moon.
When first the moon appears, if then she shrouds
Her silver crescent, tipp'd with sable clouds,
Conclude she bodes a tempest on the main,
And brews, for fields, impetuous floods of rain.
Or, if her face with fiery flushing glow,
Expect the rattling winds aloft to blow.
Above the rest, the sun, who never lies,
Foretells the change of weather in the skies.
For, if he rise unwilling to his race,
Clouds on his brow, and spots upon his face,
Or if through mists, he shoots his sullen beams,
Frugal of light, in loose and straggling streams;
Suspect a drizzling day, with southern rain,
Fatal to fruits, and flocks, and promis'd grain.
But, more than all, the setting sun survey,
When down the steep of heaven he drives the day:
If dusky spots are varied on his brow,
And, streak'd with red, a troubled colour show,
What desp'rate madman, then, would venture o'er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore?-Georgicks.
HAIL, Bishop Valentine! whose day this is;
All the air is thy diocese,
And all the chirping choristers,
And other birds, are thy parishioners.
Thou marriest every year
The lyrick lark, and the grave whispering dove,
The sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird, with the red stomacher;
Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon,
As doth the goldfinch, or the halcyon;
The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped,
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.-Donne.
And such is human life; so gliding on,
It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!
THE WORLD, wherein we play, is but a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms :
Then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: and then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow: then, a soldier ;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth and then, the justice;
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part: the sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon ;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion ;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
His plough and harness by his side.-Spenser.
OBSERVE the daily circle of the sun,
And the short year of each revolving moon.
When first the moon appears, if then she shrouds
Her silver crescent, tipp'd with sable clouds,
Conclude she bodes a tempest on the main,
And brews, for fields, impetuous floods of rain.
Or, if her face with fiery flushing glow,
Expect the rattling winds aloft to blow.
Above the rest, the sun, who never lies,
Foretells the change of weather in the skies.
For, if he rise unwilling to his race,
Clouds on his brow, and spots upon his face,
Or if through mists, he shoots his sullen beams,
Frugal of light, in loose and straggling streams;
Suspect a drizzling day, with southern rain,
Fatal to fruits, and flocks, and promis'd grain.
But, more than all, the setting sun survey,
When down the steep of heaven he drives the day:
If dusky spots are varied on his brow,
And, streak'd with red, a troubled colour show,
What desp'rate madman, then, would venture o'er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore?-Georgicks.
HAIL, Bishop Valentine! whose day this is;
All the air is thy diocese,
And all the chirping choristers,
And other birds, are thy parishioners.
Thou marriest every year
The lyrick lark, and the grave whispering dove,
The sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird, with the red stomacher ;
Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon,
As doth the goldfinch, or the halcyon;
The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped,
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.—Donne.
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