Poems and Extracts

Front matter

Wordsworth, 1839.

POEMS AND EXTRACTS

CHOSEN BY

Preface

PREFACE

In one of the most interesting chapters of his Gossip in a Library Mr. Gosse tells of the good luck by which he became possessor of a manuscript volume of the poems of Lady Winchelsea of about the year 1696. With what light-hearted pride he writes: 'If there is any person in the two hemispheres who has so fair a claim upon the ghost of Ardelia, let that man stand forth. Ardelia was uncultivated and unsung when I constituted myself, years ago, her champion!'

So far back, however, as 1815 Wordsworth, in his 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface' of his two-volume edition of Poems, referred to 'some delightful pictures in the Poems of Lady Winchelsea' as containing new images of external nature in an age sadly destitute of poetic recognition of 'the changes produced in the appearances of nature by the revolution of the year.' The year 1820 saw the publication of Wordsworth's sonnet: 'To the Lady Mary Lowther: With a selection from the Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea; and extracts of similar character from other Writers; transcribed by a female friend.' This poem is a favourite with many of Wordsworth's admirers who know nothing of the anthology to which it refers and for which it was written as introduction. It will doubtless interest many such admirers to have a faithful reproduction of the manuscript, that rests here in my library with other Wordsworth treasures.

It is a small quarto in whole citron morocco, heavily gilded on sides and edges, with blue watered silk linings, and has the letters M. F. B. stamped on both sides of the cover. Such, I think, would be a dealer's description of the volume. The inside of it is, however, what interests the Wordsworthian. A slip affixed to one of the blank pages carries the following particulars in the handwriting of Lady Mary Lowther after her marriage: 'These Poems and Extracts were selected by Wm. Wordsworth Esqre. for me (as may be seen by the dedication). The handwriting is that of his sister in law Mrs Hutchinson who wrote as he dictated in the winter evgs. of 1829—M. F. Bentinck.' The dedication referred to is that of the sonnet 'To the Lady Mary Lowther', which in the manuscript is dated from Rydal Mount, Dec. 21, 1819, and bears Wordsworth's autograph signature.

The connexion between the Wordsworths and Lowthers is well known, and need not be described: particulars of the loan by John Wordsworth the elder and the ultimate repayment of the amount to his children form part of every biography of the poet.

Prefixed to this unpublished volume is an original pen-and-ink portrait of Wordsworth which is here reproduced. It is an admirable likeness in profile of the poet, who is pictured crowned with a laurel wreath. It is dated 1839; but the artist's initials are so cunningly woven into monogram as to be undecipherable. Loosely inserted and facing this is a copy of the Richardson engraving of Milton's portrait which gave De Quincey a subject for one of the pleasantest bits of writing in his Lake Poets volume. This engraving of Milton, he says, is 'not only by far the best likeness of Wordsworth, but of Wordsworth in the prime of his powers.' The members of the poet's family were equally impressed with the resemblance. 'In two points only there was a deviation from the rigorous truth of Wordsworth's features—the face was a little too short and too broad, and the eyes were too large. There was also a wreath of laurel about the head, which (as Wordsworth remarked) disturbed the natural expression of the whole picture.'

Probably the artist of the pen-and-ink original before us had this dictum of Wordsworth in his mind, and was accordingly tempted to an endeavour to catch his 'natural expression' as it really would have been under a laurel crown. Or was it rather a friendly prophecy of the Laureateship which was to come to him in 1843?

The volume consists of ninety-two pages, thirty-two of which, it will be seen, are devoted to the Winchelsea extracts; those following being occupied by poems by various other writers. The contents are of interest as indicating Wordsworth's preferences among poems having direct dealing with natural objects and the charms of solitude.

Readers desiring further acquaintance with Lady Winchelsea will find something to their taste in the volume by Mr. Edmund Gosse to which we have referred. Wordsworth, some dozen years after compiling this Anthology, wrote to his friend Alexander Dyce, the editor of Shakespeare, a letter of Winchelsea criticism, in which he says: 'Her style in rhyme is often admirable, chaste, tender, and vigorous; and entirely free from sparkle, antithesis, and that over-culture which reminds one by its broad glare, its stiffness and heaviness, of the double daisies of the garden, compared with their modest and sensitive kindred of the fields.'

J. ROGERS REES.

Sarum.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The manuscript Album now reproduced was a Christmas gift in 1819 from Wordsworth to the Lady Mary Lowther, and the collection of poems need not be regarded as aiming at being more than its title states: 'Poems and Extracts from the Works of the Countess of Winchelsea and Others.' But even the formation of a private selection of poetical extracts demanded from Wordsworth 'the service of a mind and heart ... heroically fashioned.' The little volume bears ample witness to the care and judgement, the 'high and excellent seriousness' and the moral and didactic tendency of its compiler.

These Parnassian 'riflings' elucidate the Sonnet to the Lady Mary Lowther in an exceptionally satisfactory way.

The Parnassian ore may be only 'mildly gleaming,' not of the richest quality perhaps; but the true metal is there; the sparkle is of gold, not of any baser material. The poet has assayed it and can vouch for its genuineness and purity.

The tests that Wordsworth applied to poetry are well known, and need not be recapitulated; but Lady Winchelsea—therein differing from the artificial verse-writers of the eighteenth century—seemed to him to fulfil one of them to an exceptional degree. She kept her eye fixed upon her object. To do this was, in Wordsworth's view, essential for imaginative truth to nature.

In 1805, writing to Walter Scott, he declared that Dryden's 'cannot be the language of imagination,' because 'there is not a single image from nature in the whole of his works; and in his translation from Virgil, wherever Virgil can be said to have his eye upon his object, Dryden always spoils the passage.'

Ten years later Wordsworth uses almost identical words in his Essay Supplementary to the Preface:

'Now it is remarkable that, excepting a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, and some delightful pictures in the Poems of Lady Winchelsea, the Poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature; and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be inferred that the eye of the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination.'

Hence this collection has a value as showing Wordsworth's critical faculty at work, and thus affording fresh material for the estimate of his attitude towards poetry.

By displaying the poetical passages that most appealed to him, he unlocks his heart in a new and illuminating way.

The point of time at which the collection was completed is also noteworthy. In 1819 Byron was still near the zenith of his fame. It was something to convince a young lady of taste that the principles of true poetry were not the Byronian principles, but rather the Wordsworthian, as exemplified in the practice of poets older far than Wordsworth.

Incidentally too it might be added that the book is one more refutation of the stupid remark that Wordsworth cared for no one's poetry but his own. There is evidence in plenty that these pieces, though garnered in 1819 for a special purpose, were the tried and loved ingatherings of many years.

A few remarks on them in detail may close this short notice.

Passing over the dedicatory sonnet, of which we give a facsimile, one is rather inclined to wonder whether Wordsworth's first intention may not have been to limit the collection to the writings of Lady Winchelsea. The specimens from Lady Anne fill thirty-two of the ninety-two pages of the manuscript.

The 'Others,' in order of occurrence, are:—

Of Lady Winchelsea it may be said that Wordsworth rediscovered her. Even at the present day her writings have not all found their way into print. A large number—including those from the MS. in the possession of Dr. Edmund Gosse—have been collected in a scholarly edition by Myra Reynolds (Chicago, 1903). The Gosse MS. seems to contain her earlier writings. But there is still an unprinted MS. of her later poems in the possession of Professor Dowden, and these I gather are not inferior to her earlier work.

In the Introduction to the American edition of her poems, pp. lxxv-lxxix, the editor, after saying of the manuscript Album here given to the world that 'this book is probably still in existence somewhere, and the publication of it would be a most interesting addition to our stock of Wordsworthiana,' goes on to quote several letters of Wordsworth's in 1829 and 1830 to Alexander Dyce, in which the writings of Lady Winchelsea are commented on in some detail, and many of the pieces here extracted are mentioned with praise. The correspondence shows how deeply Wordsworth let his impressions sink into his mind. As he once said to Crabb Robinson, he quoted the poets that he loved, and of his love for these pieces of Lady Winchelsea's there can be no doubt.

The selections from George Wither suggest that Wordsworth's interest in his earlier writings may have been awakened, or at least stimulated, by Charles Lamb's Essay, as it is evident that (with the exception of the first passage) the transcription has been made from a copy of Lamb's Essay and not from a volume of Wither's works. It shows what Wordsworth must have thought of Lamb's taste and judgement on such a matter, and this is confirmed by the quotation from the Essay on p. 41 of the Album. The Webster extract is also perhaps due to Lamb.

The piece from Cowper is typical of his retired life rather than of his writings, but it harmonizes with the succeeding themes of peace, solitude, and quiet meditation, so as to suggest that Wordsworth is illustrating these Wordsworthian aspects of life rather than the poet's general outlook.

James Thomson is represented by three pieces, for 'the sweet-souled Poet of the Seasons' was a favourite, as the 'Stanzas written in a copy of the Castle of Indolence' sufficiently attest. The subject matter of the extracts is again 'mildly-pleasing solitude,' then 'the retired life' (p. 49), and last (p. 83) the gradual loss of the wealth of life as friends pass away and we are left alone. A fragment from Beattie's poem on Retirement comes next, then some lines by Langhorne on the contemplative life, the second piece by Thomson, and Pope's Ode on Solitude, quoted partly perhaps as a curiosity of literature because 'written at about twelve years old.'

W. J. Mickle, Wordsworth told Miss Fenwick, 'as it appears from his poem on Sir Martin, was not without poetic feelings,' and thirty-two lines of natural description from the poem here illustrate this estimate. Mickle was one of the Spenserians, and his attempt to revive the spirit of Spenser has the touch of incongruity that marred all their work. It is possible that a passage (not here given) in Sir Martyn may have influenced Wordsworth's portrait of the 'youth from Georgia's shore' in Ruth.

The extract from Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health is from that 'sublime apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth,' which Wordsworth mentions (Knight's ed. 1882–4, vol. vi. p. 352). In the note on the Sonnet 'Not like his great compeers' (1820) Wordsworth also expresses his admiration for 'those sublime images which Armstrong has so finely described.'

The selections from Akenside exemplify a form of poetry that is now seemingly extinct, but that once suited the 'pensive' mood of poetic meditation. Wordsworth himself wrote and translated some good 'Inscriptions,' and here we see the models that he approved. They too deal with the life of quiet meditation, and the disturbing effect of passion.

In connexion with the three sonnets from Shakespeare that follow, it is enough to refer to Wordsworth's remarks in his 'Essay supplementary to the Preface' (1815). In 1819 people had still to be educated into reading Shakespeare's sonnets.

Marvell's beautiful lines on the dewdrop show the great significance of Wordsworth's remark somewhere that the sonnet should resemble a drop of dew.

Passing the short extract from Anne Killigrew—again on the theme of the glory of solitary communion with the divine in nature—we come to four pages of extracts from John Dyer's Ruins of Rome. The notes will give evidence of the selective skill shown by Wordsworth in dealing with this poem, and reference to Wordsworth's own writings will attest his appreciation of Dyer's work. In Professor Knights Life of W. (Works, x. 324), Wordsworth says: 'a beautiful instance of the modifying and investive power of imagination may be seen in that noble passage in Dyer's Ruins of Rome, where the poet hears the voice of Time; and in Thomson's description of the streets of Cairo, expecting the arrival of the caravan which has perished in the storm.' The 'noble passage' from Dyer will be found below, p. 71; and the description of the Caravan (from Summer, 1. 980) is prefixed to The Waggoner.

Wordsworth thought that Dyer was undeservedly neglected. Reference may be made to the 'Bard of the Fleece' sonnet, and note; and to notes on Excursion, Book viii, and on the Duddon Sonnets.

The second extract from Waller has an interesting change that seems due to Wordsworth's dissatisfaction with the wording of the original. Waller wrote (II. 11–12, p. 73):

'And then what wonders shall you do, Whose dawning beauty warms us so?'

But Wordsworth chastens this to

'If such thy dawning beauty's power Who shall abide its noon-tide hour?'

Two 'Eminent Ladies' follow, Mrs. Pilkington and Miss Warton. The tone of both is elegiac and sad, but their verse is touched with real sorrow, and not merely by the 'pensiveness' of the mid-eighteenth century. An epitaph by Thomas Carew sustains the ordering of subject-matter already noticed, as do some noble elegiac lines by Sir John Beaumont.

Wordsworth's friend Sir George came from this old poetic Beaumont stock, and probably it was at Coleorton that the poet first happened on that scarce little volume 'Bosworth Field, with a taste of the variety of other poems, left by Sir John Beaumont, Baronet, deceased,' 1629. These touching lines are at p. 165.

In the first Coleorton Inscription Wordsworth alludes to

'him who sang how spear and shield In civil conflict met on Bosworth Field,'

and other references to Beaumont occur.

Wordsworth had some thoughts of republishing Sir John Beaumonts Poems, but Chalmers did so instead.

Like Beaumont, Doddridge meditates on the life beyond life.

The pathetic lines by Captain Thomas James have an additional interest as connecting Wordsworth with a book that in some particulars may have inspired the author of the Ancient Mariner. The question is a thorny one, and I can only refer the student to Mr. Ivor James's 'The Source of the Ancient Mariner,' and to the later commentators on that poem. It has been conjectured that Coleridge had come across Captain James's 'Strange and Dangerous Voyage' (1633) in the Bristol Library, and here at least we have proof that in 1819 one of the authors of Lyrical Ballads had in his possession a correct transcript of a poem from James's book, and that he valued the poem so highly as to include it in his Parnassian collection.

The extract from Samuel—not William—Daniel is the longest in the volume, and in some respects the most Wordsworthian. Of the interest Wordsworth felt in Daniel's poems there are many traces. One such has not been noticed hitherto, in the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, where the line 'Filling from time to time his "hum'rous stage"' echoes Daniel's 'I do not here upon this hum'rous stage Bring my transformed muse' (Works, ed. Grosart, i. 223). Again, in the Inscriptions ('Beneath yon eastern ridge') a line is quoted from Daniel, to illustrate line 18 of the Inscription (1811) So early as Oct. 24, 1801, Dorothy notes in her Grasmere Journal, 'We sat by the fire without work for some time, then Mary read a poem of Daniel.' In the Excursion (Book iv. II. 326–333) are quoted II. 89–96 (page 89 below) from this poem to the Countess of Cumberland, and commented on in Wordsworth's note.

Last comes Christopher Smart, the prosaic person who for one moment touched 'the superhuman poet pair,' Milton and Keats. Browning cannot understand the madness of Smart; at least he would know 'Why only once the fireflame was.' Wordsworth is not so inquisitive into souls, and accepts the legendary tale that Smart's lines were 'written whilst confined in a madhouse, with a key on a wainscot. The rest of them are lost.' The key and wainscot tradition comes from Hawkesworth, quoted in Anderson's British Poets, xi. 122, where (p. 203) are given five 'Stanzas, in a song to David.' Quite possibly Smart did write some stanzas on the wall of his place of confinement, but lunatics are not usually provided with keys, and the story is suspiciously reminiscent of Pope's

'Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls?'

The whole of Smart's poem was reprinted in 1819; and again (with an interesting preface by Mr. Streatfield) in 1901. In the full text the three stanzas Wordsworth gives occur as Nos. 18, 21, and 40. Thus the diapason closes with an impassioned hymn of praise to

'the Mighty Source Of all things, the stupendous force On which all things depend.'

We may turn back to the Dedicatory sonnet to see how the poet surveys his work:

'a grotto bright—and clear From stain or taint.'

As regards the present impression. Miss Hutchinson's beautiful transcript of these Poems and Extracts is here faithfully reproduced in print, page for page and line for line, even to the smallest slips of her pen. The pages and lines have been numbered for convenience of reference, otherwise no change has been made in pp. 1–92.

Lovers of Wordsworth will appreciate the generosity of Mr. John Rogers Rees, in letting me 'rifle' this treasure from that Parnassian Cave, his Library. Mr. Rogers Rees has increased the obligation by contributing an interesting preface, and Miss Rogers Rees by making an admirably executed type-written copy for working purposes.

To the Lady Mary Lowther

To the Lady Mary Lowther

Lady, I rifled a Parnassian Cave (But seldom trod) of mildly-gleaming ore; And cull'd, from sundry beds, a lucid store Of genuine crystals, pure as those that pave The azure brooks where Dian joys to lave Her spotless limbs; and ventured to explore Dim shades—for reliques, upon Lethe's shore, Cast up at random by the sullen wave. To female hands the treasures were resign'd And lo! this work—a grotto bright—and clear From stain or taint, in which thy blameless mind May feed on thoughts tho' pensive not austere; And if thy deeper spirit be inclined To holy musings, it may enter here.

———— Wm Wordsworth

Rydal Mount Dec. 21, 1819.

"In the Muse's paths I stray"

In the Muse's paths I stray; Among their groves and by their sacred springs My haul delights to trace unusual things, And deviates from the known and common way: Nor will in fading skills compose, Faintly the inimitable rose, Fill up an ill-drawn bird, or paint on glass The treat'ning angel, and the speaking ass.

———— Anne, Countess of Winchelsea.

Petition for an absolute Retreat

Petition for an absolute Retreat.

Give me, O indulgent Fate! Give me yet before I die A sweet but absolute Retreat, 'Mongst paths so lost and trees so high, That the world may ne'er invade, Through such windings and such shade. My unshaken liberty.

No intruders thither come! Who visit but to be from home. None who their vain moments pass, Only studious of their glass News, that charm to listening ears That false alarm to hopes and fears,

That common theme for every fop From the Statesman to the shop In those coverts ne'er be spread. Of who's deceased or who's to wed Be no tidings hither brought But silent as a midnight thought, Where the world may ne'er invade, Be those windings and that shade:

Courteous Fate! afford me there A table spread without my care, With what the neighb'ring fields impart, Whose cleanliness be all their art; Courteous Fate then give me there Only plain and wholesome fare. Fruits indeed (would heaven bestow) All that did in Eden grow; All but the Forbidden Tree, Would be covetted by me;

Grapes with juice so crowded up, As breaking through their native cup, Figs, yet growing, candied o'er, By the sun's attracting power; Cherries, with the downy peach All within my easy reach; Whilst creeping near the humble ground, Should the strawberry be found Springing wheresoe'er I strayed Through those windings and that shade.

Give me there (since heaven has shewn It was not good to be alone) A partner suited to my mind, Solitary, pleased, and kind; Who, partially, may something see Preferred to all the world in me; Slighting by my humble side Fame and splendor, wealth and pride.

When but two the earth possesst 'Twas their happiest days and best; They by business, nor by wars, They by no domestic cares, From each other e'er were drawn, But in some grove or flowery lawn, Spent the swiftly-flying time Spent their own and natures prime In love; that only passion given To perfect man whilst friends with heaven.— Rage and jealousies and hate, Transports of his fallen state, When by Satan's wiles betrayed Fly those windings and that shade.

Anne, Countess of Winchelsea

Song

Song

Would we attain the happiest state, That is design'd us here No joy a rapture must create No grief beget despair.

No injury fierce anger raise, No honour tempt to pride No vain desires of empty praise Must in the soul abide.

No charms of youth or beauty move The constant settled breast; Who leaves a passage free to love, Shall let in all the rest.

In such a heart soft peace will live, Where none of these abound; The greatest blessing heaven does give Or can on earth be found.

"Where is that World to which the fancy flies"

Where is that World to which the fancy flies When sleep excludes the Present from our eyes; Whose map no voyager could e'er design, Nor to description its wild parts confine? Yet such a Land of Dreams, we must allow, Who nightly trace it, though we know not how: Unfetter'd by the days obtruded rules. We all enjoy that Paradise of fools; And find a sorrow in resuming sense, Which breaks some free delight, and snatches us from thence.

Nocturnal Reverie

A Nocturnal Reverie

In such a night when every louder wind Is to its' distant cavern safe confined, 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 wanderer right: In such a night when passing clouds give place, Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face; When in some river, overhung with green, The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen; When freshened grass now bears itself upright, And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite, Whence springs the woodbine and the bramble-rose, And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;

Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes And chequers still with red the dusky brakes: When odours which declined repelling day, Thro' temperate air uninterrupted stray; When darken'ed groves their softest shadows wear And falling waters we distinctly hear; When through the gloom more venerable shows Some ancient Fabric, awful in repose, While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal, And swelling hay-cocks thicken up the vale: When the loos'd horse now, as his pasture leads, Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads, Whose stealing pace, and lengthened 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 short-lived jubilee the creatures keep.

Which but endures while tyrant man does sleep: When a sedate content the spirit feels, And no fierce light disturbs whilst it reveals; But silent musings urge the mind to seek Something too high for syllables to speak; 'Till the free soul to a compos'edness charm'd. Finding the elements of rage disarmed, O'er all below a solemn quiet grown, Joys in the 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 renewed, Our pleasures, seldom reach'd, again pursued.

Fragment

Fragment

Peace! where art thou to be found? Were in all the spacious round, May thy footsteps be pursued? Where may thy calm seats be view'd? On some mountain dost thou lie, Serenely near the ambient sky, Smiling at the clouds below, Where rough storms and tempests grow? Or, in some retired plain, Undisturbed dost thou remain, Where no angry whirlwinds pass Where no floods oppress the grass. High above, or deep below, Fain I thy retreat would know; Fain I thee alone would find Balm to my o'er-wearied mind.

Fragment

Fragment

So here confined, and but to female clay, Ardelia's soul mistook the rightful way: Whilst the soft breeze of pleasure's tempting air Made her believe felicity was there; And basking in the warmth of early time, To vain amusements dedicate her prime. Ambition next allur'ed her tow'ring eye, For Paradise she heard was plac'd on high. Then thought the Court with all it's glorious show, Was sure above the rest and Paradise below. There plac'd too soon the flaming sword appeared Removed those powers, whom justly they rever'd Adher'd too in their wreck, and in their ruin shar'd.

Now by the wheels inevitable round,

With them thrown prostrate to the humble ground No more she takes (instructed by that fall) For fix'd, or worth her thought, this rolling ball: Towards a more certain station she aspires, Unshaken by revolts, and owns no less desires. But all in vain are prayers extatic thoughts, Recovered moments, and retracted faults, Retirement, which the world moroseness calls, Abandoned pleasures in monastic walls: These, but at distance towards that purpose tend, The lowly means to an exalted end; Which He must perfect who allots her stay And that, accomplish'd, will direct the way. Pity her restless cares, and weary strife, And point some issue to escaping life; Which so dismissed, no pen or human speech The ineffable recess can ever teach: The expanse, the light, the harmony, the throng, The Bride's attendance, and the bridal song,

The numerous mansions, and the immortal tree, No eye, unpurged by Death, must ever see, Or waves which through that wondrous city roll. Rest then content my too impatient soul; Observe but here the easy precepts given, Then wait with chearful hope, till heaven be known in heaven.

From a Poem for the Birthday of the Lady Cathrine Tufton

From a Poem for the Birthday of the Lady Cathrine Tufton.

Deep lines of honor all can hit, Or mark out a superior wit; Consummate goodness all can show And where such graces shine below: But the more tender strokes to trace, To express the promise of a face, When but the dawnings of the mind. We from an air unripen'd find; Which altering, as new moments rise. The pen or pencil's art defies; When flesh and blood in youth appears, Polish'd like what our marble wears; Fresh as that shade of opening green,

Which first upon our groves is seen; Enliven'd by a harmless fire, And brighten'd by each gay desire; These nicer touches would demand A Cowley's or a Waller's hand, To explain, with undisputed art, What 'tis affects the enlighten'd heart, When every darker thought gives way, Whilst blooming beauty we survey; To shew how all that's soft and sweet. Does in the fair Serena meet; To tell us with a sure presage, The charms of her maturer age.

Life's Progress

Life's Progress

How gaily is our Life begun Our life's uncertain race! Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun, With which we just set out to run, Enlightens all the place.

How soft the first Ideas prove. Which wander through our minds! How full the joys, how free the love. Which doth that early season move; As flowers the western winds!

Our sighs are then but vernal air; But April drops our tears, Which swiftly passing, all grows fair, Whilst beauty compensates our care, And youth each vapour clears.

But O! too soon alas, we climb; Scarce feeling we ascend The gently-rising hill of Time, From whence with grief we see that prime, And all its sweetness end.

The Tree

The Tree

Fair Tree! for thy delightful shade 'Tis just that some return be made; Sure some return is due from me To thy cool shadows, and to thee. When thou to Birds dost shelter give, Thou music dost from them receive; If Travellers beneath thee stay, Till storms have worn themselves away, That time in praising thee they spend, And thy protecting power commend: The Shepherd here, from scorching freed, Tunes to thy dancing leaves his reed, Whilst his lov'd Nymph, in thanks, bestows Her flow'ery chaplet on thy boughs. Shall I then only silent be,