How sweet the coarsest food has tasted,
What cordial in the simple wave!1

Her courteous looks, her words caressing,
Shed comfort on the fainting soul;
Woman's the stranger's general blessing
From sultry India to the Pole!

Barbauld.

HUMAN FRAILTY.

WEAK and irresolute is man;
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,

To-morrow rends away.

The bow2 well bent, and smart the spring;
Vice seems already slain!

But passion rudely snaps the string,

And it revives again.

Some foe to his upright intent

Finds out his weaker part,

Virtue engages his assent,

But Pleasure wins his heart.

'Tis here the folly of the wise,
Through all his art3 we view;
And while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.

Bound on a voyage of awful length,
And dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,

Man vainly trusts his own.

Wave-The precise words of the journal are:-"These actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel with a double relish."

2 Bow-the "bow" is reason, whose decisions are too often thwarted by passion. 3 His art-the art with which he attempts to conceal his inconsistency and folly. Bound, &c.-These last two stanzas are beautifully simple; the figure is well carried out, and in the line "The breath of heaven, &c." becomes particularly striking.

8

But oars alone can ne'er prevail

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.

Cowper.

DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST.1

THE glories of our blood and state2
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;3
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still.+
Early or late,

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow:
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death's purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleeds!

Your heads must come

To the cold tomb,

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet,5 and blossom in the dust.

1 This poem was written about the beginning of the 17th century.

2 Blood and state-high birth and actual rank.

Shirley.

3 Where they kill-plant laurels for themselves on the blood they have spilt. 4 Tame, &c.-but cannot tame the great conqueror, death.

5 Smell sweet, &c.-The connection between these lines, and the beginning of the stanza, seems to be as follows:-The garlands of flowers-i. e. the honours of the conqueror-wither on his brow, but the garlands of the just-their virtuous actions-smell sweet while alive, and blossom when dead.

HELVELLYN.1

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And, starting, around me the echoes replied.

On the right Striden-edge round the Red-tarn2 was bending,
And Cathedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was impending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer3 had died.

Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the pilgrim1 of nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay :
Nor yet quite deserted though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourites attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long nights didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And oh! was it meet that—no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him;
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him—
Unhonoured the pilgrim from life should depart?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

1 Helvellyn-a lofty mountain in Cumberland. Striden-edge and Cathedicam are parts of it.

2 Red-tarn—a "tarn" is a small lake high up in the bosom of a mountain. 3 Wanderer-Mr. Charles Gough, of Manchester, perished in the spring of 1805, by losing his way over the mountain Helvellyn.

4 Pilgrim-from the Italian pellegrino, which is from the Latin peregrinus, i. e. one who goes about per agrum-through the country. Hence, originally, a pilgrim was, generally, a wanderer, a traveller; then, one who travelled with a devotional purpose to some sacred spot. A "pilgrim of nature," therefore, is one who visits the shrines, i. e. the choice beauties and sublimities, of nature. 5 Mute favourite-a terrier, who for three months guarded the dead body of her master.

6

Requiem--from the Latin requies, rest-strictly a mass for the dead, which begins with the words "Requiem æternam." It is used here with some latitude, for funeral service.

With scutcheons1 of silver the coffin is shielded,2

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall;

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,
When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam;

And more stately thy couch by this desert3 lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the gay plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Helvellyn and Cathedicam.

ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.5

Walter Scott.

THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,7
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

1 Scutcheon-from the Latin scutum, a shield-originally the actual shield worn in battle, on which, for the sake of distinction, various devices were engraven; hence it signifies any field or ground on which are blazoned the armorial bearings of a family.

2 Shielded--covered with shields or scutcheons. Something like tautology. 3 Desert for deserted, lonely.

Obsequies-funeral--A common interment is a funeral: obsequies are pompous funeral ceremonies, with processions, &c. To "sing obsequies" is scarcely a correct expression, even allowing for poetic licence.

5 This well-known poem is perhaps unequalled for the skill with which the pathetic and the picturesque are combined to excite our interest in the "simple annals of the poor." The language, too, is eminently tasteful and expressive, and furnishes a rich store of those apt quotations, which-like snatches of some favourite air-touch the heart with a momentary, yet most exquisite, pleasure. The "country churchyard" is said to be that of Stoke Pogeis, in Buckinghamshire, the scenery in and around which harmonizes well with that described in the poem. Gray spent much of his early life in the neighbourhood of this village, and here too he was buried. See Appendix, Note E.

6 Curfew-the "curfew" here simply means any bell-time indefinite-sounding in the evening, and fancifully considered as announcing the death of the day. 7 Lea-from the Anglo-Saxon leag, laid land-land that lies untilled, a meadow or pasture. Lea is connected with ley, leigh, and legh, which are found in proper names, as Elmsley, Stoneleigh, &c.

8 Darkness-not absolute darkness, but the shade of evening in contrast with the brightness of day. If taken strictly, it would be inconsistent with "fades" and "glimmering" in the second stanza, and "moon" in the third.

1

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,1
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save, that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,2
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms,3 that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call+ of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,5
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.6

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,?

7

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

Holds-i. e. the stillness holds or fills all the air.

2 Bower-from the Anglo-Saxon bure, a retired apartment-any place of retirement; hence a lady's bower is her own private room.

3 Beneath, &c. With this stanza, after the prelude of the three preceding, which are purely descriptive, that human interest is infused into the poem, which pervades it henceforth to its close.

↑ Breezy call, &c.—A beautiful stanza, though perhaps slightly marred by the echoing sounds of "breezy" and "breathing." A similar fault occurs in the last stanza, "heaves" and "heap."

5 The straw-built shed-i. e. the shed or shade formed by the projecting thatch. 6 Lowly bed-of course the actual bed is meant, but the expression has been mistaken for the bed of death-the grave.

7 Run-run home to tell the news.

Envied kiss, &c.-It is impossible not to quote here the beautiful lines of Lucretius, (iv, 907,) which probably suggested the above passage:

"At jam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati

Præripere."

How pretty is "oscula præripere"-to snatch the first kiss !

9 Oft did, &c.-Each line of this stanza aptly describes a class of agricultural labourers the reapers, the ploughmen, &c.