1 SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea!
2 Nor I alone: a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretch'd beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!-
3 Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,
Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wild old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning from the innumerable boughs
The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast:
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where th' o'ershadowing branches sweep the
4 The faint old man shall lean his silver head
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moisten'd curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep:
And they who stand about the sick man's bed
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.
5 Go, but the circle of eternal change,
Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,
BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birth-place of the deep once more;
Sweet odours of the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT: 1794
BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
1 NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
2 We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
3 No useless coffin inclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
4 Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
5 We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed
And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!
6 Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that 's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he 'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
7 But half of our heavy task was done
When the clock toll'd the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
8 Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.
CHARLES WOLFE: 1791-1823.
LORD, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,
Pulpits and Sundays; sorrow, dogging sin;
Afflictions sorted ; anguish of all sizes ;
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in ;
Bibles laid open; millions of surprises;
Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness ;
The sound of glory ringing in our ears;
Without, our shame; within, our consciences;
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears:
Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.
GEORGE HERBERT: 1593-1632.
TO A NIGHTINGALE.
SWEET bird, that sing'st away the early hours
Of Winters past or coming, void of care,
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Sir John Moore, a very brave, capable, and amiable general, fell, while gallantly animating his men to a charge, in the battle of Corunna, Jan. 16, 1809. The British army, though they had decidedly repulsed the attacks of the French under Marshals Soult and Ney, could hardly hope to retain the place, as this was without fortifications, and the French had large reinforcements within call. In the hurry of embarkation, there was not time for the customary rites and honours of burial. Wolfe's poem has probably conferred more fame ir John than any history of his deeds would have done.
A VISION OF ANCIENT ATHENS.
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers;
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lours.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs -
Attired in sweetness -sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget Earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverent eye and thought to Heaven?
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to Angels' lays.
WILLIAM DRUMMOND: 1585-1649.
A VISION OF ANCIENT ATHENS.
Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold,
Where on th' Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil, -
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the Summer long:
There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound.
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls
His whispering stream. Within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; his, who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world;7
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
▾ Aristotle was the chief preceptor of Alexander the Great, and the founder of one of the Greek schools of philosophy. In the next line, Stoa, literally signifying porch, gave the name of Stoics to another of those famous schools. Zeno, the founder of it, delivered his instructions in the Porch.
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes;
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions and high passions best describing.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.
To sage philosophy next lend thine ear,
From Heaven descended to the low-roof'd house
Of Socrates: see there his tenement,
Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that water'd all the schools
Of Academics, new and old.
1 WHO loves not knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail !
2 But on her forehead sits a fire:
She sets her forward countenance,
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
8 Dorian, or Doric, was applied to one of the ancient musical keys or modes. Its character was severe and solid, inspiring a sort of awful joy, and adapted both to religious uses and to the stern calls of war.
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