When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate, Then taking his black staff, he called his man, And gives the untasted portion you have And roused himself as much as rouse him The lad leaped lightly at his master's call. He was, to weet, a little roguish page, Save sleep and play who minded nought at all, Like most the untaught striplings of his age. This boy he kept each band to disengage, Garters and buckles, task for him unfit, But ill-becoming his grave personage, And which his portly paunch would not permit, The deep vibrations of his 'witching song; So this same limber page to all performed That, by a kind of magic power, con strained Toenter in, pell-mell, the listeningthrong, Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped along, In silent ease; as when beneath the beam Of summer-moons the distant woods among, Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam, The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream. [THE PORTER OF INDOLENCE.] XXI. Waked by the crowd, slow from his bench arose A comely full-spread porter, swollen with sleep; His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breathed repose; And in sweet torpor he was plunged deep, Ne could himself from ceaseless yawning keep; While o'er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran, Through which his half-waked soul would faintly peep, it. THE poem on which alone rest Blair's claims to rank as a poet, from its title The Grave, could hardly be expected to yield other than a melancholy pleasure; and yet, like Gray's famous Elegy almost on the same subject, but published six years later, it has been largely popular; though not nearly to the same extent, nor with the same permanence. Though somewhat sermonizing in its tone, it contains many noble passages, and is perhaps the nearest approach to the style of Thomson's blank verse that we possess: a resemblance no doubt owing to its being written immediately after the Seasons. The style, however, is all that it owes to Thomson. Blair was born in Edinburgh in 1699, and was the son of the Rev. David Blair, one of the ministers of the city. He was named after his grandfather, who was chaplain to Charles I., and was destined for the ministry of the Church of Scotland. Having completed his studies at the University of his native city, he travelled for some time on the Continent; and on his return was appointed to the parish of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian. His settlement took place in 1731; but The Grave must have been mostly written before this, as he informs Dr Doddridge, with whom, and with Dr Isaac Watts, he corresponded in 1742, as to its publication, that the greater part of it was written before his appointment to the ministry. Blair owed his introduction to his two distinguished English correspondents to their mutual friend, his neighbour, the celebrated Colonel Gardiner, whose death forms one of the most touching incidents of the battle of Prestonpans, and whose piety and valour are commemorated by his friend Dr Doddridge. Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults, The mansions of the dead. Roused from In grim array the grisly spectres rise, The Grave was published in 1743, and its author died in 1746, leaving a numerous family, one of whom became Lord President of the Court of Session, and the intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott. Blair's successor in Athelstane- I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood ford was John Home, the author of the tragedy of Douglas. The The Grave is a poem of over 800 lines, in paragraphs whose illustrations have no necessary sequence, and may therefore be read in any order. specimens given are in the order of the poem, though not consecutive; yet they read almost as if they were. They have been selected as the best examples of the author's powers and style. Again the screech-owl shrieks :-ungracious sound! By run chill. Oft, in the lone churchyard at night glimpse of moonshine, chequering The school-boy, with his satchel in his Whistling aloud to bear his courage up, stones (With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown) That tell in homely phrase who lie below: Sudden he starts! and hears, or thinks he hears, The sound of something purring at his heels: Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him, Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows, Who gather round, and wonder at the tale Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly, That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand O'er some new-opened grave; and, strange to tell! Evanishes at crowing of the cock. Invidious grave! how dost thou rend in sunder Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one ! A tie more stubborn far than nature's band. Friendship! mysterious cement of the And glittering in the sun! Triumphant en Mended his song of love; the sooty black- What would offend the eye in a good pic bird Mellowed his pipe, and softened every note; Vied with its fellow-plant in luxury day O! then the longest summer's ture, The painter casts discreetly into shades. Beauty! thou pretty plaything! dear deceit ! That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart, And gives it a new pulse unknown before! Seemed too, too much in haste: still the The Grave discredits thee. Thy charms Coarse fare and carrion please thee full as well, And leave as keen a relish on the sense. Look, how the fair one weeps! the conscious tears Never to think of death and of ourselves For creatures of a day in gamesome mood Stand thick as dewdrops on the bells of To frolic on eternity's dread brink, flowers: Honest effusion! the swoln heart in vain Tell us, ye Dead! will none of you in pity To those you left behind, disclose the secret? Oh! that some courteous ghost would blab it out What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be. I've heard that souls departed have sometimes Unapprehensive; when, for aught we know, The very first swoln surge shall sweep us Think we, or think we not, time hurries on That slides his hand under the miser's And carries off his prize. What is this world? Forewarned men of their death. 'Twas What, but a spacious burial-field unwalled, Strewed with death's spoils, the spoils of animals kindly done To knock and give the alarm. But what Into fantastic schemes, which the long And celebrated masters of the balance, livers Deep read in stratagems and wiles of Could scarce have leisure for. Fools that Now vain their treaty-skill! Death scorns we are! to treat. |