WO varying races are in Britain born,
One courts a nation's praises, one her scorn;
Those pant her sons o'er tented fields to guide,
Or steer her thunders thro' the foaming tide;
Whilst these, disgraceful born in luckless hour,
Burn but to guide with skill a coach-and-four.
Το guess their sires each a sure clue affords,
These are the coachman's sons, and those my Lord's!
Both follow Fame, pursuing different courses;
Those, Britain, scourge thy foes-and these thy horses;
Give them their due, nor let occasion slip;
On those thy laurels lay-on these the whip!
ON BEING CONFINED TO SCHOOL ONE PLEASANT
MORNING IN SPRING.
WRITTEN BY MR. H. KIRKE WHITE, AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN.
[From the Remains of Henry Kirke White, late of St. John's College,
HE morning sun's enchanting rays
Now call forth every songster's praise:
Now the lark, with upward flight,
Gayly ushers in the light;
While wildly warbling from each tree,
The birds sing songs to Liberty.
But for me no songster sings,
For me no joyous lark up-springs;
For I, confin'd in gloomy school,
Must own the pedant's iron rule,
And far from sylvan shades and bowers,
In durance vile must pass the hours;
There can the scholiast's dreary lines,
Where no bright ray of genius shines,
And close to rugged learning cling,
While laughs around the jocund spring.
How gladly would my soul forego
All that arithmeticians know,
Or stiff grammarians quaintly teach,
Or all that industry can reach,
To taste each morn of all the joys
That with the laughing sun arise;
And unconstrain'd to rove along
The bushy brakes and glens among;
And woo the muse's gentle power,
In unfrequented rural bower!
But ah! such heav'n-approaching joys
Will never greet my longing eyes:
Still will they cheat in vision fine,
Yet never but in fancy shine.
Oh! that I were the little wren
That shrilly chirps from yonder glen!
Oh far away I then would rove,
To some secluded bushy grove;
There hop and sing with careless glee,
Hop and sing at liberty;
And till death shall stop my lays,
Far from men would spend my days.
WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. [From the same.]
NOFTLY, softly blow, ye breezes,
Gently o'er my Edwy fly!
Lo! he slumbers, slumbers sweetly;
Softly, zephyrs, pass him by!
My love is asleep,
He lies by the deep,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
II.
I have cover'd him with rushes,
Water-flags, and branches dry.
Edwy, long have been thy slumbers;
Edwy, Edwy, ope thine eye!
My love is asleep,
He lies by the deep,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
Still he sleeps; he will not waken,
Fastly closed is his eye;
Paler is his cheek, and chiller
Than the icy moon on high,
Alas he is dead,
He has chose his death-bed,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
WHEN the winter wind whistles along the wild moor,
When the chilling tear stands in my comfortless eye!
Oh! how hard is the lot of the wandering boy!
The winter is cold. and I have no vest,
And my heart it is cold as it beats in my breast;
No father, no mother, no kindred have Ï,
For I am a parentless wandering boy!
Yet I had a home, and I once had a sire,
A mother who granted each infant desire;
Our cottage it stood in a wood-embower'd vale,
Where the ring-dove would warble its sorrowful tale.
But my father and mother were summon'd away,
And they left me to hard-hearted strangers a prey;
I fled from their rigour with many a sigh,
And now I'm a poor little wandering boy!
The wind it is keen, and the snow loads the gale,
And no one will list to my innocent tale;
I'll go to the grave where my parents both lie,
And death shall befriend the poor wandering boy!
DESCRIPTION OF A SUMMER'S EVE.
OWN the sultry arc of day,
The burning wheels have urg'd their way
And eve along the western skies
Sheds her intermingling dyes.
Down the deep, the miry lane,
Creeking comes the empty wain,
And driver on the shaft-horse sits,
Whistling now-and-then by fits;
And oft, with his accustom'd call,
Urging on the sluggish Ball,
The barn is still, the master's
gone,
And thresher puts his jacket on,
While Dick upon the ladder tall,
Nails the dead kite to the wall,
Here comes shepherd Jack at last,
He has penn'd the sheep-cote fast,
For 'twas but two nights before,
A lamb was eaten on the moor;
His empty wallet Rover carries.
Nor for Jack, when near home tarries,
With lolling tongue he runs to try,
If the horse-trough be not dry.
The milk is settled in the pans.
And supper-messes in the cans;
In the hovel carts are wheel'd,
And both the colts are drove a-field;
The horses are all bedded up,
And the ewe is with the tup.
The snare for Mister Fox is set,
The leaven laid, the thatching wet,
And Bess has slink'd away to talk
With Roger in the holly-walk.
Now on the settle all, but Bess
Are set to eat their supper-mess;
And little Tom, and roguish Kate,
Are swinging on the meadow gate.
Now they chat of various things,
Of taxes, ministers, and kings,
Or else tell all the village news,
How madam did the 'squire refuse;
How parson on his tythes was bent,
And landlord oft distrain'd for rent.
Thus do they talk, till in the sky
The pale-ey'd moon is mounted high,
And from the ale-house drunken Ned
Had reel'd-then hasten all to bed.
The mistress sees that lazy Kate
The happing coal on kitchen grate
Has laid-while master goes throughout,
Sees shutters fast, the mastiff out,
The candles safe, the hearths all clear,
And nought from thieves or fire to fear;
Then both to bed together creep,
And join the general troop of sleep.
[From Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming.]
N Susquehana's side, fair Wyoming,
Although the wild flower on thy ruin'd wall
And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring
Of what thy gentle people did befall,
Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.
Sweet land! may I thy lost delights recall,
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore,
Whose beauty was the love of Pensylvania's shore!
It was beneath thy skies that, but to prune.
His Autumn fruits, or skim the light canoe,
Perchance along thy river calm at noon,
The happy shepherd swain had nought to do
From morn till evening's sweeter pastime grew;
Their timbrel, in the dance of forests brown
When lovely maidens prankt in flowret new,
And aye, those sunny mountains half way down
Would echo flageolet from some romantic town.
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