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With well-timed croupe1 the nimble coursers veer;
On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes;
Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear:
He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes;
Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes.
Again he comes;-nor lance nor darts avail,
Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse;
Though man and man's avenging arms assail,
Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force.
One gallant steed is stretched a mangled corse;
Another, hideous sight! unseamed appears,
His gory chest unveils life's panting source;
Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears;
Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unarmed he bears.

Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last,
Full in the centre stands the hull at bay,

Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast,3
And foes disabled in the brutal fray :

And now the Matadores around him play,

Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand:

Once more through all he bursts his thundering way—
Vain rage! the mantle quits the cunning hand,
Wraps his fierce eye-'tis past-he sinks upon the sand!

Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine,
Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies.
He stops-he starts-disdaining to decline:
Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries,
Without a groan, without a struggle dies.
The decorated car appears-on high

The corse is piled-sweet sight for vulgar eyes!
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy,
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by.

Such the ungentle sport that oft invites

The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain.

(1) Croupe or croupade-a particular leap, taught in the manège, or ridingschool-it is higher than that called the curvet.

(2) Foiled-to foil, is thus distinguished from to baffle; to foil, signifies to defeat one's adversary by disabling him; to baffle, to defeat him by perplexing or counteracting his plans.

(3) Brast-an old form of burst, from the Anglo-Saxon berst-an, to break out or forth, or generally, to break; hence, "brast " is broken.

Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights
In vengeance, gloating on another's pain.
What private feuds the troubled village stain!
Though now one phalanxed host2 should meet the foe,
Enough, alas! in humbler homes remain,

To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow,

For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must

flow.

Byron.

SPRING.

MINDFUL of disaster past,

And shrinking at the northern blast,
The sleety storm returning still,
The morning hoar, the evening chill,
Reluctant comes the timid Spring:
Scarce a bee, with airy ring,

Murmurs the blossomed boughs around

That clothe the garden's southern bound :3

Scarce the hardy primrose peeps

From the dark dell's entangled steeps:

O'er the field of waving broom

Slowly shoots the golden bloom:

And but by fits the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the transitory gale.

Scant along the ridgy land

The beans their new-born ranks expand;

The fresh-turned soil, with tender blades,
Thinly the sprouting barley shades;
Fringing the forest's devious" edge

Half-robed appears the hawthorn hedge;

(1) Gloating-connected with glowing-looking at anything with ardent or eager eyes, that indicate pleasure in the sight.

(2) Phalanxed host-an army drawn up in a phalanx or dense square body. (3) Southern bound-it has been objected to this line, that the wall which has the southern aspect will be the northern, not the southern boundary.

(4) Peeps, shoots-these words serve well to show the animation that is given to language by the use of metaphors. It might have been said that the primrose could scarcely be "seen" or "found" in the dark dell, but this would have been tame and inexpressive; whereas a sort of human interest is conferred upon the little flower by the word " peeps. Again, how vividly is the sudden effect of the blossoming broom on the eye painted by the word "shoots!"

(5) Devious-see note 3, p. 15.

Or to the distant eye displays,
Weakly green,' its budding sprays.
The swallow, for a moment seen,
Skims in haste the village green ;
From the gray moor, on feeble wing,
The screaming plovers idly spring;
The butterfly, gay-painted, soon
Explores awhile the tepid noon;
And fondly trusts its tender dyes
To fickle suns and flattering skies.
Fraught with a transient frozen shower,
If a cloud should haply lower,*
Sailing o'er the landscape dark,
Mute on a sudden is the lark;
But, when gleams the sun again
O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain,
And from behind his watery veil
Looks through the thin descending hail,
She mounts, and lessening to the sight,
Salutes the blithe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues
Mid the dim rainbow's scattered hues.5
Beneath a willow long forsook

The fisher seeks his 'ccustomed nook,
And, bursting through the crackling sedge
That crowns the current's caverned edge,
Startles from the bordering wood
The bashful wild-duck's early brood.
His free-born vigour yet unbroke,

By lordly man's usurping yoke,

(1) Weakly green-The poet Gray, in one of his letters, speaks of "that tender emerald green, which one usually sees only a fortnight in the opening of the spring." (2) Fondly-foolishly-this is the ancient meaning of the word. Chaucer says: "The rich man full fond is, I wis,

That weneth (fancies) that he loved is."

(3) Fraught-connected in derivation with freight-laden, completely filled. (4) Lower, or lour-from low-to become low as if about to fall, hence to be heavy, dark, stormy, or threatening.

(5) Hues-A beautiful couplet: the lark just before mute, now tunefully pursues her flight amongst the very fragments, as it were, of the rainbow, floating about in the air.

(6) Long forsook-that is, only throughout the winter, for it was the fisherman's accustomed nook.

The bounding colt forgets to play,
Basking beneath the noon-tide ray,
And stretched among the daisies pied1
Of a green dingle's sloping side:
While far beneath, where nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loose luxuriance taught to stray,
A thousand tumbling rills inlay2
With silver veins the vale, or pass
Redundant through the sparkling grass.

3

Yet, in these presages rude,
Midst her pensive solitude,
Fancy, with prophetic glance,
Sees the teeming months advance;
The field, the forest, green and gay,
The dappled slope, the tedded hay;
Sees the reddening orchard blow,
The harvest wave, the vintage flow;
Sees June unfold his glossy robe
Of thousand hues o'er all the globe;
Sees Ceres grasp
her crown of corn,
And Plenty load her ample horn.7

T. Warton.

1) Pied-party-coloured or variegated like the pie, a bird so named. (2) Inlay—a beautiful fancy; the rills, like veins of silver, inlay the vale. The passage, however, is much marred by the sudden abandonment of the metaphor -the expression "pass through," which follows, being purely literal.

(3) Fancy, &c.-i. e. fancy discovers the future in the present. She sees in the opening buds of spring the full-blown flowers of summer, and the ripe fruits of autumn.

(4) Teeming-from the Anglo-Saxon tym-an, to bring forth abundantly.

(5) Dappled-some derive this word from apple, as if streaked or spotted like an apple; but this etymology is doubtful. The word is more probably a diminutive of dab or daub, to spot or smear, as nibble of nip, and waddle of wade; hence, to dabble or dapple, is to spot or streak many times, or in many places.

(6) Crown of corn-Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, is usually represented with a chaplet of wheat around her temples.

(7) Ample horn-the horn of plenty, also called Cornucopiæ. The allusion is derived from ancient mythology, which informs us that Jupiter's nurse filled a goat's horn, which had been accidentally broken off, with fruits, and wreathing it with flowers, gave it to the babe, who, when he grew up and became powerful, made the horn the emblem of fertility. See Ovid. Fasti. lib. v. 115–128.

THE DYING MOTHER AND HER BABE.1

THE room I well remember, and the bed
On which she lay; and all the faces, too,
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there, and mother, bending stood;
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness. Her husband too was there,
And brothers, and they wept; her sisters, too,
Did weep and sorrow comfortless; and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.
This I remember well-but better still
I do remember, and will ne'er forget,
The dying eye! That eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew, as nearer death approached;
As I have seen the gentle little flower
Look fairest in the silver beam, which fell
Reflected from the thunder-cloud, that soon
Came down, and o'er the desert scattered far

And wide its loveliness.

She made a sign

To bring her babe ;-'twas brought, and by her placed.
She looked upon its face, that neither smiled

Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon it; and laid
Her hand upon its little breast, and sought

For it-with looks that seemed to penetrate
The heavens-unutterable blessings, such
As God to dying parents only grants

For infants left behind them in the world.

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God keep my child!" we heard her say, and heard
No more. The Angel of the covenant

Was come, and, faithful to his promise, stood

Prepared to walk with her through death's dark vale.3
And now her eyes grew bright, and brighter still-
Too bright for ours to look upon, suffused

(1),This passage, though occasionally deformed by prosaic expressions, and unmusical rhythm, depicts a deeply interesting scene in a very touching manner. (2) The interruption of the narrative at such a point, by a long simile, is in very questionable taste. The effect of the supernatural brightness of the "dying eye," upon the reader's mind, ought not to have been thus neutralized.

(3) "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.' Psalm xxiii. 4.

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