Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active pow's
To brisker measures: witness the neglect
Of all familiar prospects, though bebeld
With transport once ;: the fond attentive gaze
Of

young astonishment; the sober zeal
Of age, commenting on prodigious things.
For such the bounteous providence of Heav'n,
In every breast implanting this desire
Of objects new and strange, to arge us on.
With anremitted labour lo pursue
Those sacred stores, that wait the ripening soul,
In Truth's exhaustless bosom.. What peed words
To paint its pow'r?: For this, the daring youth
Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms,
In foreign climes to rove; the pensive sage,
Heedless of sleep, or midnight's harmful damp,
Hangs o'er the sickly taper; and untir'd
The virgin follows, with enchanted step,
The mazes of some wild and wondrous tale,
From morn to eve, unmindful of her form,
Unmindful of the happy dress that stole
The wishes of the youth, when every maid'
With envy pin’d. Hence, finally, by night,
The village matron, round the blazing hearth,
Suspends the infant-audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes,
And evil spirits; of the death-bed call.
of him who robb’d the widow, and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls
Ris'n from the grave to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceald; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and ware
The torch of hell around the murd'rer's bed.
At every solemnn pause the crowd recoil,
Gazing each other speechless, and congeala
With shiv’ring sighs; till eager for th' events
Around the beldanı all erect they hang,
Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'a.

AKENSIDH

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE HAMLET,

WRITTEN IN WHICHWOOD FOREST.

The hinds how blest, who, ne'er beguilla To quit their hamlei's hawthorn-wild, Nor haunt the crowil; nor tempt the main, For splendid care and guilly gain!

When morning's twilight-inctur'd beam Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam,, They rove abroad in ether blue, To dip ihe sithe in fragrant dew; The sheat' to bind, the beech to fell, That nodding shades a craggy dell.

Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild Nature's sweetest notes they hear:
On green untrodden-banks they view

The hyacinth's neglected hue :
In their lone haunts and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds;
And startle from her asheo spray,
Across the glen, the screaning jay;
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequester'd store.

For them the moon with cloudless ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:
Their weary spirits to relieve,
The meadows' incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare
That oíer a glimm’ring hearth they share :
But when the curfew's measur'd roar
Duly, the dark’ning valleys o'er,
Has echo'd from the distant town,
They wish ná beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health, around the clay-built room,
Or through the primros'd coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or hasten from the sultry hill
To loiter at the shady rill;
Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest
To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honey'd flow'rs
The curling woodbine's shade embow'rs:
From the trim garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound.
Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime;
But when their lemples long have wore,
The silver crown of wesses hoar;
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flow'ry turf they sleep.

WARTON.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE VAGRANT.

For him, who, lost to ev'ry hope of life,
Has long with fortune beld unequal strife,
Known to no human love, no human care,
The friendless, homeless object of despair ;
For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains,
Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.

Perhaps on some inhospitable shores
The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore ;
Who, then no more by golden prospects led,
Of the poor Indian begg'd a leafy bed.
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourn'd ber soldier slain :

Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk be drew;
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptiz'd in tears!

Asos

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PARISH POOR-HOUSE.

BEHOLD yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours flagging play..
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day :
There children dwell who know no parents' care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joy less bed, ,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never: wed ;,
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood fears!
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot, and the madınan gay.

Here too the sick their final doom:receive,
Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve:
Where the loud groans froní soine sad chamber flow,
Mix'd with the clamours of the crowd below;
Here sorrowing they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:
Whose laws indeed for ruin'd age provide,
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.

Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And vakedórafters form the sloping sides ;
Where the vile bands that bind the thaich are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between ;;
Sare one dull pane, that, coarsely patch'd, gives way
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day :

Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes ;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Nor promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SPORTING CLERGYMAN.

But ere his death some pious doubts arise,
Some simple fears which “bold bad” men despise ;
Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove
Ilis title certain to the joys abore ;
For this be sends the murmuring nurse, who calls
The holy stranger to these dismal walls ;
And doth not he, the pious man, appear,
He, “passing rich with forty pounds a year
Ah no! a shepherd of a different stock,
And far unlike him, feeds this little flock;
A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task
As much as God or man can fairly ask ;
The rest he gives to loves and labours light,
To fields the morning, and to feasts the night;
None better skill'd ihe noisy pack to guide,
To
urge

their chase, to cheer Theni, or to chide
Sure in his shot, his game he seldom miss'd,
And seldom faild to win his game at whist;
Then, while such honours bloom around his head,
Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's bed,
To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal
To combat fears that ev'n the pious feel?

CRABBE.