who, scornful of the bowers of sweet repose,
through these my waves advance your daring prows
regardless of the lengthening watery way

and all the storms that own my sovereign sway, who mid surrounding rocks and shelves explore where never hero braved my rage before; ye sons of Lusus, who with eyes profane have viewed the secrets of my awful reign, have passed the bounds which jealous Nature drew to veil her secret shrine from mortal view; hear from my lips what direful woes attend, and bursting soon shall o'er your race descend. 904 With every bounding keel that dares my rage eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage; the next proud fleet that through my drear domain, with daring search shall hoist the streaming våne, that gallant navy by my whirlwinds tost and raging seas, shall perish on my coast: then He who first my secret reign descried a naked corse wide floating o'er the tide shall drive. Unless my heart's full raptures fail, O Lusus, oft shalt thou thy children wail; each year thy shipwrecked sons shalt thou deplore, each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore. W. J. MICKLE

905

I

ADDRESS TO BACON AND NEWTON

LLUSTRIOUS souls, if any tender cares
affect angelic breasts for man's affairs;
if in your present happy heavenly state
you're not regardless quite of Britain's fate,
let this degenerate land again be blest

with that true vigour which she once possest;
compel us to unfold her slumbering eyes,

and to our ancient dignity to rise.

Such wondrous powers as these must sure be given
for most important purposes by Heaven;

who bids these stars as bright examples shine,
besprinkled thinly by the hand divine,

to form to virtue each degenerate time,
and point out to the soul its origin sublime.

S. JENYNS

906

KING ARTHUR FORGIVES QUEEN GUINEVERE

YET

FET think not that I come to urge thy crimes,
I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,

I, whose vast pity almost makes me die

to see thee laying there thy golden head,
my pride in happier summers, at my feet.

The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,
the doom of treason and the flaming death,
(when first I learnt thee hidden there) is past:
the pang-which, while I weighed thy heart with one
too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
made my tears burn-is also past, in part:
and all is past, the sin is sinn'd and I,
lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God

forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.

A. TENNYSON

907

PHARMAKEUS

Pharmakeus of

whom Hell with seeming fear, and fiends obey : full easly would he know each past effect,

and things to come with double guess foresay, by slain beasts' entrails, and fowls' marked flight: thereto he tempests rais'd by many a spright, and charm'd the sun and moon, and chang'd the day and night.

So when the south (dipping his sablest wings in humid ocean) sweeps with's dropping beard th' air, earth and seas; his lips' loud thunderings and flashing eyes make all the world afeard:

light with dark clouds, waters with fires are met; the Sun but now is rising, now is set;

and finds west-shades in east, and seas in airs wet.

908

N

P. FLETCHER

THE VARIOUS BEAUTY OF TREES

O tree in all the grove but has its charms, though each its hue peculiar; paler some, and of a wannish grey: the willow such,

and poplar that with silver lines his leaf,
and ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm;
of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.
Some glossy-leaved and shining in the sun,
the maple, and the beech of oily nuts
prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass
the sycamore, capricious in attire,

now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet
have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright.

W. COWPER

OME men employ their health, an ugly trick,

909 So

in making known how oft they have been sick, and give us in recitals of disease

a doctor's trouble, but without the fees:

relate how many weeks they kept their bed,
how an emetic or cathartic sped:

nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot;
nose, ears, and eyes seem present on the spot.
Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill,
victorious seemed, and now the doctor's skill:
and now-alas for unforeseen mishaps!

they put on a damp night-cap, and relapse:
they thought they must have died, they were so bad!
their peevish hearers almost wish they had.

W. COWPER

910

A WISH

Now

OW when the height of heaven bright Phœbus
gains,

and level rays cleave wide the thirsty plains;
when heifers seek the shade and cooling lake,
and in the middle pathway basks the snake:
O lead me, guard me from the sultry hours,
hide me, ye forests, in your closest bow'rs:
where the tall oak his spreading arms entwines,
and with the beech a mutual shade combines;
where flows the murmuring brook inviting dreams,
where bordering hazel overhangs the streams,

whose rolling current, winding round and round,
with frequent falls makes all the wood resound;
upon the mossy couch my limbs I cast,

and e'en at noon the sweets of evening taste.

J. GAY

911

THE CREATION OF THE FIFTH DAY

ORTHWITH the sounds and seas, each creek

FORT
Fand bay

with fry innumerable swarm, and shoals

of fish, that, with their fins and shining scales,
glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft
bank the mid-sea. Part single or with mate

graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves
of coral stray, or, sporting with quick glance,
shew to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold;
or, in their pearly shells at ease, attend
moist nutriment; or under rocks their food
in jointed armour watch: on smooth the seal
and bended dolphins play; part huge of bulk,
wallowing unwieldly, enormous in their gait,
tempest the ocean.

J. MILTON

912 VIEW OF LONDON FROM ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

NDER his proud survey the city lies,

UNDER

and like a mist beneath a hill doth rise;

whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd,

seem at this distance but a darker cloud,

and is, to him who rightly things esteems,
no other in effect than what it seems;

where with like haste though several ways they run,
some to undo and some to be undone,

while luxury and wealth, like war and peace,
are each the other's ruin and increase;

as rivers lost in seas some secret vein
thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
O happiness of sweet retired content,

to be at once secure and innocent!

SIR J. DENHAM

913

S

THE ALPS

TIFF with eternal ice and hidden snow,
that fell a thousand centuries ago,
the mountain stands; nor can the rising sun
unfix her frosts, and teach them how to run:
no spring nor summer, on the mountain seen,
smiles with gay fruits or with delightful green;
but hoary winter, unadorned and bare,

dwells in the dire retreat and freezes there;
there she assembles all her blackest storms,
and the rude hail in rattling tempests forms;
thither the loud tumultuous winds resort,
and on the mountain keep their boisterous court,
that in thick showers her rocky summit shrouds,
and darkens all the broken view with clouds.

J. ADDISON

914

915

A VISION

NOT long I had observed, when from afar

the neighing coursers, and the soldiers' cry,
and sounding trumps that seemed to tear the sky.
I saw soon after this, behind the grove
from whence the ladies did in order move,
come issuing out in arms a warrior train,
that like a deluge poured upon the plain;
on barbéd steeds they rode in proud array,
thick as the college of the bees in May,
when swarming o'er the dusky fields they fly,
new to the flowers, and intercept the sky.
So fierce they drove, their coursers were so fleet,
that the turf trembled underneath their feet.

THE SERPENT IN PARADISE

J. DRYDEN

UCH he the place admired, the person more,

MUCH the person,

where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe
among the pleasant villages and farms

adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight,