In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confin'd,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, fam'd for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer right;
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly vail the Heav'ns mysterious face;
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshen'd grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind and the bramble-

rose,

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And where the sleepy cowslip shelter'd grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scatter'd glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine,
Whilst Salisb'ry stands the test of every light
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright;
When odours which declin'd repelling day
Thro' temp'rate air uninterrupted stray;
When darken'd groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When thro' the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale;
When the loos'd horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing thro' th' adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace, and lengthen'd shade we fear,
Till torn up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine re-chew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village-walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their shortliv'd jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant-man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,

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And no fierce light disturb, whilst it reveals; 40

But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a compos'dness charm'd,
Finding the elements of rage disarm'd,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,

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Joys in th' inferior world and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain
Till morning breaks and all's confus'd again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renew'd,
Or pleasures, seldom reach'd, again pursu'd.

WILLIAM WALSH (1663-1708)

DEATH

From Dublin soon to London spread, 'Tis told at court, "the Dean is dead." And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen, Runs laughing up to tell the queen. The queen, so gracious, mild, and good, Cries, "Is he gone: 'tis time he should. He's dead, you say; then let him rot: I'm glad the medals were forgot. I promised him, I own; but when? I only was the princess then; But now, as consort of the king, You know, 'tis quite another thing." Now Chartres, at Sir Robert's levee, Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy: "Why, if he died without his shoes," Cries Bob, "I'm sorry for the news: O, were the wretch but living still, And in his place my good friend Will! Or had a mitre on his head, Provided Bolingbroke were dead!" Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains: Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains! And then, to make them pass the glibber, Revised by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber. He'll treat me as he does my betters, Publish my will, my life, my letters: Revive the libels born to die;

Which Pope must bear, as well as I.

Here shift the scene, to represent

How those I love my death lament.

Poor Pope would grieve a month, and Gay

A week, and Arbuthnot a day.

St. John himself will scarce forbear

To bite his pen, and drop a tear.

The rest will give a shrug, and cry, but we all must die!"

"I'm sorry

бо

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With favour some, and some without,
One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws:

"The Dean, if we believe report,
Was never ill-received at court.
As for his works in verse and prose,
I own myself no judge of those;
Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em,
But this I know, all people bought 'em.
As with a moral view design'd

To cure the vices of mankind,
His vein, ironically grave,

Exposed the fool, and lash'd the knave.
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own.

"He never thought an honour done him,
Because a duke was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes;

Despised the fools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
Nor persons held in admiration;
Of no man's greatness was afraid,
Because he sought for no man's aid.
Though trusted long in great affairs
He gave himself no haughty airs.
Without regarding private ends,
Spent all his credit for his friends;
And only chose the wise and good;
No flatterers; no allies in blood:
But succour'd virtue in distress,
And seldom fail'd of good success;
As numbers in their hearts must own,
Who, but for him, had been unknown.

"Perhaps I may allow the Dean

Had too much satire in his vein;

And seem'd determined not to starve it, Because no age could more deserve it.

Yet malice never was his aim;

He lash'd the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent,

Where thousands equally were meant;
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe:
He spared a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux./
True genuine dullness moved his pity,
Unless it offer'd to be witty.

Those who their ignorance confest, He ne'er offended with a jest;

But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote

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This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me.
This day then let us not be told
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.

Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can in spite of all decays
Support a few remaining days,
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

Altho' we now
ow can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.

Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain,
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice,
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes)
Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard
That virtue, styled its own reward

And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,

ΙΟ

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An innocent and absent friend;

That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express

For vice in all its glittering dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimæras in the mind,
That fly and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain ?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?
Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends
Than merely to oblige your friends;

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Your former actions claim their part,

And join to fortify your heart. For virtue in her daily race,

Like Janus, bears a double face; /
Looks back with joy where she has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on.
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suffering share,
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;

You, to whose care so oft I owe That I'm alive to tell you so.

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JOSEPH ADDISON (1672–1719)

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But age has rusted what the poet writ,
Worn out his language, and obscured his wit;
In vain he jests in his unpolished strain,
And tries to make his readers laugh, in vain.
Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amused a barbarous age;
An age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursued
Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleased at distance all the sights
Of arms and palfreys, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights;
But when we look too near, the shades decay, 30
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.

Great Cowley then, a mighty genius, wrote,
O'er-run with wit, and lavish of his thought:
His turns too closely on the reader press;
He more had pleased us, had he pleased us
less.

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One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes
With silent wonder, but new wonders rise;
As in the milky-way a shining white
O'er-flows the heavens with one continued light,
That not a single star can show his rays,
Whilst jointly all promote the common blaze.
Pardon, great poet, that I dare to name
The unnumbered beauties of thy verse with blame;
Thy fault is only wit in its excess,

But wit like thine in any shape will please.
What muse but thine can equal hints inspire,
And fit the deep-mouthed Pindar to thy lyre;
Pindar, whom others, in a laboured strain
And forced expression, imitate in vain?
Well-pleased in thee he soars with new delight, 50
And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a
nobler flight.

Blest man! whose spotless life and charming lays

Employed the tuneful prelate in thy praise:
Blest man! who now shalt be forever known
In Sprat's successful labours and thy own.

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And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, 249
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the
day.

Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores;
How has she oft exhausted all her stores,
How oft in fields of death thy presence sought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
On foreign mountains may the sun refine
The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine;-
With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil:
We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies,
Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,
Though o'er our heads the frogen Pleiads shine:
'Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak moun
tains smile.

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Others with towering piles may please the sight, And in their proud, aspiring domes delight; A nicer touch to the stretched canvas give, Or teach their animated rocks to live: 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, And hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold, presumptuous kings with war, And answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer. The Dane and Swede, roused up by fierce alarms, Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms: Soon as her fleets appear, their terrors cease, And all the northern world lies hushed in peace.