High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down. To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood,
my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand !
Epitaph on a Jacobite
To my true king I offer'd free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain. For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away, And one dear hope, that was more prized than they. For him I languish'd in a foreign clime, Grey-hair'd with sorrow in my manhood's prime ; Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees; Beheld each night my home in fever'd sleep, Each morning started from the dream to weep; Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave The resting-place I ask'd, an early grave.
O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone, From that proud country which was once mine own,
concentred] pronounce concenter'd.
By those white cliffs I never more must see, By that dear language which I spake like thee, Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.
107 Bolingbroke (afterwards Henry IV.), having beard from the King his sentence of banishment for six years, stands silent. His father, John of Gaunt, would comfort bim.
GAUNT. Oh, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends? BOLING. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the tongue's office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. BOLING. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. GAUNT. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. BOLING. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten. GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure. BOLING. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an inforced pilgrimage.
GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem a foil wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLING. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make Will but remember me what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love. Must I not serve a long apprenticehood To foreign passages, and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a journeyman to grief?
GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus ; There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the king did banish thee,
But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit, Where it perceives it is but faintly borne. Go say I sent thee forth to purchase honour And not the king exiled thee; or suppose Devouring pestilence hangs in our air And thou art flying to a fresher clime: Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest: Suppose the singing birds musicians,
The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd, The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure or a dance; For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light. BOLING. Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer's heat? Oh, no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse: Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore. GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way: Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
journeyman] one who has served his apprenticeship and may work under a master for hire. There is a play here on the word journey= travel.
BOLING. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet
My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.
A THING of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms : And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read : An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, They alway must be with us, or we die..
109 Spirit's Song in Prometheus
ON a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the aëral kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see, what things they be ;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality! One of these awaken'd me,
And I sped to succour thee.
Thou art light and thou art free,
And to live rejoiceth thee,
Where the splendours greatest be.
adept] one completely skilled in all the secrets of his art.
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