And wait his proud disposal, let him prove, A deep humility which fears to tread Where the all-perfect, and unquestion'd God To tame the o'erweening soul! not give a cause My friend, I knew A man who liv'd in solitude: a dell A mossy dell, green, woody, hung around So oft on life's great Author, that at last "Religious meanings in the forms of nature," That a new presence stung him into thought Well! this poor man The RAVEN. SIR, I am not absolutely certain that the following Poem was written by EDMUND SPENSER, and found by an Angler, buried in a fishing box "Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar, "Mid the green alders, by the Mulla's shore.” But a learned Antiquarian of my acquaintance has given it as his opinion, that it resembles SPENSER's minor Poems as nearly as Vortigern and Rowena the Tragedies of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. This Poem must be read in recitative, in the same manner as the gloga Secunda of the Shepherd's Calendar. CUDDY. Under the arms of a goodly oak-tree, Then they trotted away: for the wind blew high- Next came a Raven, who lik'd not such folly : He belong'd, I believe, to the witch MELANCHOLY! Blacker was he than blackest jet; Flew low in the rain; his feathers were wet. He went high and low, Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go! I can't tell half his adventures. At length he return'd, and with him a she; And his wife she did die of a broken heart! The branches from off it the Woodman did sever And they floated it down on the course of the river : They saw'd it to planks, and its rind they did strip, P And with this tree and others they built up a ship. |