122

ORLANDO AND ADAM.

That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe* primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.

Milton.

ORLANDO AND ADAM.

Orlan. WHO's there?

Adam. What! my young master? O, my gentle

master!

O, my sweet master-O, you memory

Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here?
Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
Why would
you be so fond to overcome

The bony priser of the humorous duke?

Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men
Their graces serve them but as enemies?

No more do yours; your virtues, gentle master,
Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.

O, what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it!

Orlan. Why, what's the matter?
Adam.

O, unhappy youth,

*Rathe, early; hence the comparative, rather, which, in its iginal sense, signifies sooner.

ORLANDO AND ADAM.

Come not within these doors; within this roof
The enemy of all your graces lives;

Your brother-no, no brother; yet the son-
Yet not the son,—I will not call him son
Of him I was about to call his father-

Hath heard your praises, and this night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
And you within it if he fail of that,

He will have other means to cut you off.

I overheard him, and his practices.

This is no place; this house is but a butchery;
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.

123

Orlan. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?

Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here. Orlan. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food?

Or, with a base and boisterous sword, enforce

A thievish living on the common road?
This I must do, or know not what to do;
Yet this I will not do, do how I can ;

I rather will subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.

Adam. But do not so; I have five hundred crowns, The thrifty hire I saved under

Which I did store to be

your father,

my foster-nurse

When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown:
Take that; and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold:
All this I give you. Let me be your servant :
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,

Frosty, but kindly let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.

Orlan. O, good old man; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world,

When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion,
And having that, do choke their service up
Even with the having: it is not so with thee.
But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree,
That cannot so much as a blossom yield,
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry:
But come thy ways, we'll go along together,
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We'll light upon some settled low content.

Adam. Master, go on; and I will follow thee,
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Here lived I, but now live here no more.
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
But at fourscore it is too late a week:
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better,
Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

Shakspeare.

THE HERMIT.

Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove:
"Twas thus by the cave of the mountain afar,

While his heart rung symphonious, a hermit began; No more with himself or with nature at war,

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man:

THE HERMIT.

"Ah! why, all abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For Spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthral.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,

125

Mourn, sweetest complainer, Man calls thee to mourn; O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away: Full quickly they pass-but they never return.

"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky, The moon, half-extinguish'd, her crescent displays: But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high

She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendour again: But man's faded glory what change shall renew! Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

“”Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:

I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew:

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;

Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save:
But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

""Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me and sorrow behind.

'O pity, great Father of light,' then I cried,

เ

Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee;

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free.'

"And darkness and doubt are now flying away; No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.

126

THE WINTRY SMILE OF SORROW.

So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom! On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb!"

Beattie.

THE WINTRY SMILE OF SORROW.

As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow, While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below, So the cheek may be ting'd with a warm sunny smile, Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.

One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring,
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting!

Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay
Like a dead leafless branch in the summer's bright ray;
The beams of the warm sun play round it in vain,
It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.

Moore.

THE SWEET VALE OF AVOCA.

THERE is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.