susceptible of both. But passages might be pointed out, in which the rude minstrel has melted in natural pathos, or risen into rude energy. Even where these graces are totally wanting, the interest of the stories themselves, and the curious picture of manners which they frequently present, authorise them to claim some respect from the public.
From the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802). The first work in which Scott showed his peculiar tastes and acquirements.
Within this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries:
Happiest they of human race,
To whom their God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch-to force the way;
But better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt or read to scorn.
'There's a gude time coming.'
214. James Montgomery, 1771-1854. (Handbook, par. 236.)
The Love of Country and of Home.
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night,
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;
In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest:
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend:
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life;
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie:
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
'Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?'
Art thou a man?—a patriot ?-look around;
Oh thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land THY COUNTRY, and that spot THY HOME!
The West Indies.
That joy and grief and hope and fear,
Alternate triumph in his breast;
His bliss and woe-a smile, a tear,
Oblivion ides the rest.
He suffered-but his pangs are o'er ;
Enjoyed-but his delights are fled;
Had friends-his friends are now no more;
And foes-his foes are dead.
He saw whatever thou hast seen,
Encountered all that troubles thee;
He was-whatever thou hast been,
He is what thou shalt be.
The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of him afford no other trace
Than this-there lived a man!
215. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834. (Handbook, pars. 233, 286.)
'One of the most imaginative of modern poets.' His poems are written in language of great clearness and exquisite melody. As a prose-writer, he is profound and comprehensive, though his thoughts are not always clearly expressed, nor has he left any adequate results of his genius.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
"Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
To William Wordsworth.
O great bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air
With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll than those of old.
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame,
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linkéd lay of Truth;
Of Truth profound, a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew :a
And, even as life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains—
Keen pangs of love, awakening as a babe,
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope,
And hope that scarce would know itself from fear
See the notice of Wordsworth, supra.
Sense of passed youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
And all which I have culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out-but flowers
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave! . . .
Sybilline Leaves: written on Wordsworth's recitation of a poem on the Growth of an individual mind.'
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain ;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining—
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between ;—
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
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