*

*

7

Near to this dome is found a patch so green, Redress'd affronts, for vile affronts there pass'd;
On which the tribe their gambols do display; And warn'd them not the fretful to deride,
And at the door imprisoning-board is seen, But love each other dear, whatever them betide.
Lest weakly wights of smaller size should

stray;

Right well she knew each temper to descry; Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day!

To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise; The noises intermixed, which thence resound, Some with vile copper-prize exalt on high, Do Learning's little tenement betray;

And some entice with pittance small of praise, Where sits the dame, disguis'd in look pro- And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays:

found,

E'en absent, she the reins of power doth hold, And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she around.

sways:

Forewarn'd, if little bird their pranks behold, Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,

'T will whisper in her ear, and all the scene Emblem right meet of decency does yield:

unfold. Her apron dy'd in grain, as blue, I trowe, As is the hare-bell that adorns the field :

Lo now with state she utters the command! And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield

Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair; Tway birchen sprays; with anxious fear en

Their books of stature small they take in hand, twin'd,

Which with pellucid horn secured are, With dark distrust, and sad repentance fill'd;

To save from finger wet the letters fair: And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction join'd,

The work so gay that on their back is seen, And fury uncontroul'd, and chastisement unkind.

St. George's high achievements does declare;

On which thilk wight that has y-gazing been,

Kens the forth-coming rod, unpleasing sight, A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown;

I ween! A russet kirtle fenc'd the nipping air; 'Twas simple russet, but it was her own; 'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair! 'Twas her own labour did the fleece prepare;

But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle skie, And, sooth to say, her pupils, rang'd around,

And Liberty unbars her prison-door; Through pious awe, did term it passing rare;

And like a rushing torrent out they fly, For they in gaping wonderment abound,

And now the grassy cirque had cover'd o'er And think, no doubt, she been the greatest

With boisterous revel-rout and wild uproar; wight on ground.

A thousand ways in wanton rings they run,

Heaven shield their short-liv'd pastimes, I Albeit no flattery did corrupt her truth,

implore! Ne pompous title did debauch her ear;

For well may freedom erst so dearly won, Goody, good-woman, gossip, n’aunt, forsooth, Appear to British elf more gladsome than the sun. Or dame, the sole additions she did hear; Yet these she challenged, these she held right

Enjoy, poor imps! enjoy your sportive trade, dear:

And chase gay flies, and cull the fairest Ne would esteem him act as mought behove,

flowers; Who should not honour'd eld with these revere:

For when my bones in grass-green sods are For never title yet so mean could prove,

laid, But there was eke a mind which did that title

For never may ye taste more careless hours love.

In knightly castles, or in ladies' bowers.
O vain to seek delight in earthly thing!

But most in courts where proud Ambition In elbow-chair, like that of Scottish stem

towers; By the sharp tooth of cankering eld defac'd,

Deluded wight! who weens fair Peace can In which, when he receives bis diadem,

spring Our sovereign prince and liefest liege is plac'd, Beneath the pompous dome of kesar or of king. The matron sate; and some with rank she

grac'd (The source of children's and of courtiers

pride!),

本

II ope.

I have found out a gift for my fair;
A Pastoral Ballad.

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed: My banks they are furnish'd with bees,

But let me that plunder forbear, Whose murmur invites one to sleep;

She will say ’t was a barbarous deed, My grottoes are shaded with trees,

For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd, And my hills are white over with sheep.

Who would rob a poor bird of its young:

And I loy'd her the more when I heard
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do my fountains bestow:

Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
My fountains all border'd with moss,
Where the hare-bells and violets grow.

I have heard her with sweetness unfold

How that pity was due to - a dove: Not a pine in my grove is there seen,

That it ever attended the bold; But with tendrils of woodbine is bound:

And she call'd it the sister of love. Not a beech's more beautiful green,

But her words such a pleasure convey, But a sweet-brier entwincs it around.

So much I her accents adore, Not my fields, in the prime of the year,

Let her speak, and whatever she say,
More charms than my cattle unfold;

Methinks I should love her the more.
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.

Can a bosom so gentle remain
One would think she might like to retire

Unmov'd when her Corydon sighs ? To the bower I have labour'd to rear;

Will a nymph that is fond of the plain, Not a shrub that I heard her admire,

These plains and this valley despise? But I hasted and planted it there.

Dear regions of silence and shade! O how sudden the jessamine strove

Soft scenes of contentment and ease! With the lilac to render it gay!

Where I could have pleasingly stray'd, Already it calls for my love,

If aught, in her absence, could please. To prune the wild branches away. From the plains, from the woodlands and groves, But where does my Phillida stray ? What strains of wild melody flow!

And where are her grots and her bowers? How the nightingales warble their loves

Are the groves and the valleys as gay,
From thickets of roses that blow!

And the shepherds as gentle as ours ?
And when her bright form shall appear, The groves may perhaps be as fair,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

And the face of the valleys as fine;
In a concert so oft and so clear,

The swains may in manners compare, As she may not be fond to resign.

But their love is not equal to mine.

Gr a y.

Thomas Gray ward 1716 in London geboren, erhielt seine Erziehung in Eton und studirte dann in Cambridge die Rechte, worauf er, um sich für die Praxis auszubilden, nach London ging. Später begleitete er Horace Walpole auf einer Reise nach dem Continent, überwarf sich jedoch mit demselben und kehrte allein nach England zurück. Er liess sich nun in Cambridge nieder, das er, einige Reiseausflüge abgerechnet, nicht wieder verliess und wo er 1768 die Professur der Geschichte erhielt, jedoch bereits 1771 starb.

Gray hatte den Ruf eines der gelehrtesten Männer seiner Zeit, und hat eigentlich kein Werk hinterlassen, das diesen Ruf rechtfertigte; er galt für einen der besten und talentvollsten Dichter und seine hinterlassenen Gedichte sind der Zahl nach sehr unbedeutend, da er Vieles unvollendet hinterliess. Gedankenreichthum, Begeisterung, tiefes Gefühl und seltene Correctheit und Anmuth der Darstellung sind ihm in hohem Grade eigen und weisen ihm allerdings den ersten Rang unter seinen Zeitgenossen an; namentlich werden zwei seiner lyrischen Poesieen, die unten mitgetheilte Ode auf die Schule zu Eton und die so vielfach in das Deutsche übersetzte Elegie auf einen Dorfkirchhof die wir um der Beschränktheit des Raumes und ihrer allgemeinen Verbreitung willen wegliessen, sein Andenken erhalten, so lange es Freunde der englischen Poesie giebt. Er erweiterte das Gebiet der englischen Ode dadurch, dass er altvaterländische Sagenstoffe in ihren Kreis zog und wenn auch nicht ganz frei von Ueberladung, doch mit feinem Geschmack behandelte. Seine Gedichte erschienen zuerst von Horace Walpole herausgegeben London 1787 und seitdem sehr oft; die beste Edition ist die mit Anmerkungen von W. Mitford, London 1816-1819, 2 Bde in 4.; ferner befinden sie sich im 56. Bde von Johnson's, im 103. Bde von Bell's und im 10. Bde von Anderson's Sammlung.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

And frantic passions, hear thy soft control: Then whirl the wretch from high,

On Thracia's hills the lord of war To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

Has curb'd the fury of his car, And grinning Infamy.

And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command;
The stings of Falsehood those shall try, Perching on the scepter'd hand
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
And keen Remorse, with blood defil'd, Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
And moody Madness laughing wild

The terrour of his beak, and lightning of his eye. Amid severest woe.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Temper'd to thy warbled lay, Lo, in the vale of years beneath

O'er Italia's velvet-green A grisly troop are seen

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen, The painful family of Death,

On Cytherea's day
More hideous than their queen:

With antic sports and blue-ey'd pleasures,
This racks the joints, this fires the vains, Frisking light in frolic measures;
That every labouring sinew strains,

Now pursuing, now retreating,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Now in circling troops they meet, Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,

To brisk notes in cadence beating That numbs the soul with icy hand,

Glance their many-twinkling feet. And slow-consuming Age.

Slow-melting strains their queen’s approach de

clare: To each his sufferings : all are men,

Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay, Condemn'd alike to groan;

With arts sublime, that float upon the air, The tender for another's pain,

In gliding state she wins her easy way: The unfeeling for his own.

O’er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move Yet ah! why should they know their fate? The bloom of young Desire, and purple of Love. Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their Paradise.

II.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

Man's feeble race what ills await,
Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of

Fate!
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.
The Progress of Poesy.

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?

Night, and all her sickly dews, 1.

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,

He gives to range the dreary sky: And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. Till down the eastern cliffs afar From Helicon's harmonious springs

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts A thousand rills their mazy progress take;

of war. The laughing flowers that round them blow, In climes beyond the solar road, Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains Now the rich stream of music winds along,

roam, Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

The Muse has broke the twilight gloom Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign: To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. Now rolling down the steep amain,

And oft, beneath the odorous shade
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour :

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

In loose numbers wildly sweet,
Oh! sovereign of the willing soul,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Enchanting shell! the sullen cares,

Glory pursue,
and generous shame,

ine

roar.

Th' unconquerable inind, and Freedom's holy This can unlock the gates of Joy;

flame.

Of Horrour that, and thrilling fears, Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." Isles, that crown th' Aegean deep,

Nor second he, that rode sublime Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, Or where Maeander's amber waves

The secrets of th' abyss to spy. In lingering labyrinths creep,

He pass’d the flaming bounds of place and time; How do your tuneful echoes languish

The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?

Where angels tremble, while they gaze, Where each old poetic mountain

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Inspiration breath'd around:

Clos'd his eyes in endless night. Every shade and hallow'd fountain

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,

Two coursers of ethereal race Left their Parnassus, for the Latian plains With necks in thunder cloth’d, and long-resoundAlike they scorn the pomp of tyrant-power,

ing pace. And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. Hark, his hands the lyre explore! When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

Bright-ey'd Fancy, hovering o'er, They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled Scatters from her pictur'd urn

coast.

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah! 'tis heard no more
Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit

Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Far from the sun and summer-gale,

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid, That the Theban eagle bear, What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

Sailing with supreme dominion To him the mighty mother did unveil

Through the azure deep of air: Her aweful face: the dauntless child

Yet soft before his infant eyes would run Stretch'd forth his litte

arms,

and smil'd. Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray “This pencil take”, she said, “whose colours With orient hues, unborrow'd of the Sun:

clear

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Richly paint the vernal year:

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! Beneath the good how far - but far above great.

Collins.

William Collins, der Sohn eines Hutmachers und Alderman zu Chichester, ward daselbst am 25. December 1721 geboren, erhielt seine Erziehung in Winchester, studirte dann in Oxford und ging darauf nach London, wo er allein literarischen Beschäftigungen lebte. Im Jahre 1750 zwang ihn seine leidende Gesundheit Heilung unter einem milderen Himmelsstriche zu suchen, er kehrte aber krank zurück, verfiel in Wahnsinn und starb 1756 an seinem Geburtsort.

Erst lange nach seinem Tode fand Collins als Dichter bei seinen Landsleuten die Anerkennang welche er namentlich in seinen lyrischen Poesieen, durchaus verdiente. Zartheit, Innigkeit, Eleganz, Würde und Correctheit geben denselben einen hohen Werth; minder glücklich war er in seinen orientalischen Eklogen, die vom Morgenlande weiter Nichts als den Namen hatten. Seine poeti