WILLIAM SHENSTONE. 1714-1763. Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Written on a Window of an Inn. So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return. A Pastoral. Parti. I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed. Ibid. Part ii. Hope. For seldom shall she hear a tale So sad, so tender, and so true. Jemmy Dawson. Her far whiter than the driven snow, cap, Emblems right meet of decency does yield. The Schoolmistress. St. 5. Pun-provoking thyme. Ibid. St. II. A little bench of heedless bishops here, Ibid. St. 28. 1 There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. — Johnson, Boswell's Life, 1766. Archbishop Leighton often said, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn. Vol. i. p. 76. Works, THOMAS GRAY. 1716–1771. Ye distant spires, ye antique towers. On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 1. Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields belov'd in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, I feel the gales that from ye blow They hear a voice in every wind, The tear forgot as soon as shed, Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play; No sense they have of ills to come, Nor care beyond to-day. Stanza 2. Stanza 4. Stanza 5. Ah, tell them they are men ! Stanza 6. And moody madness laughing wild, Amid severest woe. Stanza 8. To each his sufferings; all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan, The tender for another's pain, The unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; 'Tis folly to be wise.1 Stanza 10. Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Hymn to Adversity. From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take. Glance their many-twinkling feet. I. 3. Line 11. O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move The bloom of young Desire and purple light of I. 3. Line 16. Love. Her track, where'er the goddess roves, Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame, The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame. II. 2. Line 10. III. I. Line 12. Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. 1 From ignorance our comfort flows. The only wretched are the wise. Prior, To the Hon. Charles Montague. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. — Ecclesiastes i. 18. He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, The Progress of Poesy. III. 2. Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er, Scatters from her pictured urn Line 4 Confusion on thy banners wait! Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. The Bard. I. 1. Line 1. Loose his beard and hoary hair Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air.2 I. 2. Line 5. To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay. I. 2. Line 14. 1 Words that weep and tears that speak. Cowley, The Prophet. 2 An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair, The imperial ensign, which, full high advanced, Milton, Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 536. Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes; Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The characters of hell to trace. Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his ev'ning II. 2. Line 9. Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed. prey. II. 2. Line 11. Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! III. 1. Line 11. And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. III. 3. Line 3. 1 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 1. Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life; 2 Like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more. Dryden, Don Sebastian, Act i. Sc. 1. |