10 And I answer, "Though it be,
Why should that discomfort me?
No endeavour is in vain ;
Its reward is in the doing,
And the rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquish'd gain."
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW: 1807
1 IN Fairy Land there lived a knight of old,
Of feature stern, Selvaggio well ycleped,1
A rough unpolish'd man, robust and bold,
But wondrous poor: he neither sow'd nor reap'd,
Ne2 stores in Summer for cold Winter heap'd;
In hunting all his days away he wore ;
Now scorch'd by June, now in November steep'd,
Now pinch'd by biting January sore,
He still in woods pursued the libbard3 and the boar.
1 Ycleped is an old word for is called, or is named Thomson here affects the antique language of Spenser.
2 Ne is an ancient substitute for nor. See page 330, note 2.
So the leopard was often called.
2 As he one morning, long before the dawn,
Prick'd through the forest to dislodge his prey,
Deep in the winding bosom of a lawn,
With wood wild fringed, he mark'd a taper's ray,
That from the beating rain, and wintry fray,
Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy ;
There, up to earn the needments of the day,
He found dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy :
He wedded her, and him she bore a lusty boy.
3 Amid the greenwood shade this boy was bred,
And grew at last a knight of muchel fame,
Of active mind and vigorous lustyhed,"
The Knight of Arts and Industry by name :
Earth was his bed, the boughs his roof did frame;
He knew no beverage but the flowing stream;
His tasteful well-earn'd food the sylvan game,
Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem :
The same to him glad Summer, or the Winter breme."
4 So pass'd his youthly morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that through the commons run :
For him no tender parents troubled were,
He of the forest seem'd to be the son;
And, certes, had been utterly undone,
But that Minerva pity of him took,
With all the gods that love the rural wonne,
That teach to tame the soil and rule the crook ;
Ne did the sacred Nine' disdain a gentle look.
5 Of fertile genius, him they nurtured well
every science and in every art
By which mankind the thoughtless brutes excel,
That can or use or joy or grace impart,
Disclosing all the powers of head and heart;
4 To prick was often used for to ride briskly. From spurring the horse.
5 Lustyhed for what we should call lustyhood, or lustiness. See page 332, note 6.
6 Breme is a Saxon word, meaning fierce or sharp.
7 "The sacred Nine" are the nine Muses. So those blessed girls of the olden time were often designated.
Ne were the goodly exercises spared
That brace the nerves, or make the limbs alert,
And mix elastic force with firmness hard:
Was never knight on ground mote be with him compared.
6 Sometimes, with early morn, he mounted gay
The hunter steed, exulting o'er the dale,
And drew the roseate breath of orient day;
Sometimes, retiring to the secret vale,
Yclad in steel, and bright with burnish'd mail,
He strain'd the bow, or toss'd the sounding spear,
Or, darting on the goal, outstripp'd the gale,
Or wheel'd the chariot in its mid career,
Or strenuous wrestled hard with many a tough compeer.
7 At other times he pried through Nature's store,
Whate'er she in th' ethereal round contains,
Whate'er she hides beneath her verdant floor,
The vegetable and the mineral reigns ;
Or else he scann'd the globe, those small domains
Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,
Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains;
But more he search'd the mind, and roused from sleep
Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap.
8 Nor would he scorn to stoop from high pursuits
Of heavenly truth, and practise what she taught :
Vain is the tree of knowledge without fruits!
Sometimes in hand the spade or plough he caught,
Forth calling all with which boon earth is fraught;
Sometimes he plied the strong mechanic tool,
Or rear'd the fabric from the finest draught;
And oft he put himself to Neptune's school,
Fighting with winds and waves on the vex'd ocean pool.
9 To solace then these rougher toils, he tried
To touch the kindling canvas into life;
With Nature his creating pencil vied,
With Nature joyous at the mimic strife:
Or to such shapes as graced Pygmalion's wife
He hew'd the marble; or, with varied fire,
He roused the trumpet and the martial fife,
Or bade the lute sweet tenderness inspire,
Or verses framed that well might wake Apollo's lyre,
10 Accomplish'd thus, he from the woods issúed,
Full of great aims, and bent on bold emprise ;
The work which long he in his breast had brew'd,
Now to perform he ardent did devise;
To wit, a barbarous world to civilise.
Earth was still then a boundless forest wild;
Nought to be seen but savage wood, and skies;
No cities nourish'd arts, no culture smiled,
No government, no laws, no gentle manners mild.
11 A rugged wight, the worst of brutes, was man ;
On his own wretched kind he ruthless prey'd ;
The strongest still the weakest overran ;
In every country mighty robbers sway'd,
And guile and ruffian force were all their trade :
Life was a scene of rapine, want, and woe;
Which this brave knight, in noble anger, made
To swear he would the rascal rout o'erthrow,
For, by the powers divine, it should no more be so.
12 It would exceed the purport of my song
Το
say
how this best Sun, from orient climes,
Came beaming life and beauty all along,
Before him chasing indolence and crimes.
Still as he pass'd, the nations he sublimes,
And calls forth arts and virtues with his ray:
Then Egypt, Greece, and Rome their golden times,
Successive, had; but now in ruins gray
They lie, to slavish sloth and tyranny a prey.
• Pygmalion, King of Cyprus, was said to have made an ivory image of a maiden so surpassingly beautiful, that he fell desperately in love with it. He prayed so hard to the goddess Aphrodite to have it inspired with life, that his prayer was granted; whereupon he married the maiden.
9 Emprise is merely an old syncopated form of enterprise. Used by Spenser.
13 To crown his toils, Sir Industry then spread
The swelling sail, and made for Britain's coast,
A sylvan life till then the natives led,
In the brown shades and greenwood forest lost,
All careless rambling where it liked them most;
Their wealth the wild deer bouncing through the glade;
They lodged at large, and lived at Nature's cost,
Save
spear and bow, withouten other aid;
Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast dismay'd.
14 He liked the soil, he liked the clement skies,
He liked the verdant hills and flowery plains: "Be this my great, my chosen isle," he cries, "This, whilst my labours Liberty sustains, This queen of ocean all assault disdains." Nor liked he less the genius of the land, To freedom apt and persevering pains, Mild to obey, and generous to command, Temper'd by forming Heaven with kindest, firmest hand.
15 Here, by degrees, his master-work arose,
Whatever arts and industry can frame;
Whatever finish'd agriculture knows,
Fair queen of arts! from Heaven itself who came,
When Eden flourish'd in unspotted fame;
And still with her sweet innocence we find,
And tender peace, and joys without a name,
That, while they ravish, tranquillise the mind:
Nature and art at once, delight and use combined.
16 Then towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts,
And bade the fervent city glow with toil;
Bade social commerce raise renowned marts,
Join land to land, and marry soil to soil;
Unite the poles, and without bloody spoil
Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stores;
Or, should despotic rage the world embroil,
Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores,
While o'er th' encircling deep Britannia's thunder roars.
JAMES THOMSON: 1700-1748.
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