Page images
PDF
EPUB

1

[ocr errors]

Mind, mind alone, (bear witness earth and

heaven,)

The living fountains in itself, contains

Of beauteous and sublime: here hand in hand, Sit paramount the graces; here enthroned Celestial Venus with divinest airs

Invites the soul to never-fading joy.

[ocr errors][merged small]

In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
Is the bright eye of Hesper or the morn,
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? 2 as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes?
3 Or the mild majesty of private life,
Where *Peace, with ever-blooming olive, crowns
The gate; where Honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of Innocence and Love protect the scene?

AKENSIDE.

31. Curse of Kehama.

VEHEMENT MANNER:

Anger, Malice, and Exultation. Malice predominates, and the tone deepens to the end.

'I charm thy life

From the weapons of strife,

From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent's tooth,
And the beasts of blood;
From sickness I charm thee,
And time shall not harm thee,
2 But earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;

And the winds shall not touch thee

When they pass by thee;

And the dews shall not wet thee

When they fall nigh thee :
And thou shalt seek death
To release thee in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
3 While Kehama shall reign
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And sleep shall obey me,

4

And visit thee * never,

And the curse shall be on thee

For ever and ever.

SOUTHEY.

32. The Cur and the Mastiff.

LIVELY AND COLLOQUIAL EXPRESSION:

5

3

8

'Contempt, Plain narrative manner, Indignation, Narrative manner, Indignation and Anger, Eagerness," Anger, Narrative manner, Spiteful Anger, 10 Warning and Remonstrance, "Narrative manner.

9

1 A sneaking cur, the master's spy, Rewarded for his daily lie,

2 With secret jealousies and fears,
Set altogether by the ears.

Poor puss to day was in disgrace,—
Another cat supplied her place;

The hound was beat; the mastiff chid;
The monkey was the room forbid :
Each, to his dearest friend, grew shy,
And none could tell the reason why.
A plan to rob the house was laid,
The thief with love seduced the maid,
Cajoled the cur, and stroked his head,
And bought his secrecy with bread.
He next the mastiff's honour tried,

3

Whose honest jaws the bribe defied; * He stretched his hand to proffer more; 5 The surly dog his fingers tore. "Swift ran the cur: 'with indignation The master took his information:

66

Hang him; the villain's cursed," he cries, And round his neck the halter ties. The dog his humble suit preferred, And begged, in justice, to be heard. The master sat. On either hand The cited dogs confronting stand. The cur the bloody tale relates, And, like a tell-tale, aggravates.

66

10 Judge not unheard," the mastiff cried,
"But weigh the cause on either side:
"Think not that treachery can be just,
"Nor take informers' words on trust".
" He spoke, and all the truth appeared:
The cur was hanged; the mastiff cleared.

GAY.

33. Alexander on passing the Granicus.

VEHEMENT EXPRESSION:

3

4

'Exultation and Pride, Contempt, Exultation and Pride.

'Witness, ye heavenly powers, how Alexander Honours and loves a soldier. Oh! Oh! my Clitus, Say, was it not in passing the Granicus Thou didst preserve me from unequal force? It was, when Spithridates and Resaces Fell both upon me with two dreadful strokes, And clove my tempered helmet quite asunder; Then I remember, then thou didst me service:

2

And I am prouder to have passed that stream,
Than that I drove a million o'er the plain.
Can none remember? Yes, I know all must,

When glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood
Perched on my beaver in the Granic flood,
When fortune's self my standard trembling bore,
And the pale Fates stood frighted on the shore,
4 When the Immortals on the billows rode,
And I myself appeared the leading god.

LEE.

34. Richmond leading his Soldiers against Richard III.

VEHEMENT EXPRESSION:

5

6

3

4

8

'Narrative manner; rises into Indignation, Confidence; Warning, Encouraging; Mildness of manner; 'Fierceness; Resignation; Exultation, and the expression increases in force to the end.

9

Thus far into the bowels of the land

Have we marched on without impediment.
Richard, the bloody and devouring boar,

2 Whose ravenous appetite has spoiled your fields, Laid this rich country waste, and rudely cropped Its ripened hopes of fair posterity,

Is now even in the centre of the isle.

3 Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,

4

* And he but naked, though locked up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted:

K

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »