And dinning and spinning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And heaving and cleaving,
And thundering and floundering;
And falling and crawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;
And gleaming and steaming and streaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And thumping and flumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar-
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own-my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel's raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung!
GOD, THE ONLY COMFORTER!
OH, thou! that driest the mourner's tear,
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee!
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone.
But thou wilt heal the broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.
When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And even the hope that threw
A moment's sparkle o'er our tears,
Is dimmed and vanished too;
Then sorrow, touched by thee, grows bright
With more than rapture's ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We could not see by day.
FRIEND after friend departs;
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end:
Were this frail world our final rest,
Living or dying none were blest.
(1) As darkness shows, &c.—A most ingenious and striking adaptation of a scien
tific truth to a moral purpose.
Beyond the flight of time-
Beyond the reign of death—
There surely is some blessed clime
Where life is not a breath;
Nor life's affections transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upward and expire!
There is a world above
Where parting is unknown—
A long eternity of love,
Formed for the good alone;
And faith beholds the dying here
Translated to that glorious sphere.
Thus star1 by star declines,
Till all are passed away;
As morning high and higher shines
Το pure and perfect day:
Nor sink those stars in empty night,
But hide themselves in Heaven's own light.
O NE'ER enchained, nor wholly vile,
O Albion! O my Mother Isle!
Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers!
Thy grassy upland's gentle swells
Echo to the bleat of flocks;
Those grassy hills, those glittering delts,
Proudly ramparted with rocks:
And OCEAN, mid his uproar wild,
Speaks safety to his ISLAND-CHILD!
Hence, through many a fearless age,
Has social Freedom loved the Land,
Nor alien Despot's jealous rage,
Or warped thy growth, or stamped the servile brand.
(1) Thus star, &c.-The close of this beautiful stanza has been already charac
terized. (See note 1, p. 34.)
RISE, honest muse! and sing the Man of Ross:
Pleased Vaga2 echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless,3 pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The Man of Ross!" each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate;
Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blest,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives.
Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Baulked are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines, to swell that boundless charity?
Of debts, and taxes, wife and children clear,
This man possessed-five hundred pounds a year!
(1) Ross is a town on the banks of the Wye, in Herefordshire; and the Man of Ross was a philanthropic individual, of the name of John Kyrle, who, after a life of benevolence, died in the year 1724, at the age of 90.
(2) Vaga-the Latin name of the Wye.
(3) Artless-i, e. not forced by art into fountains or cascades. This word is generally applied to persons, not to things, as here.
(4) Of debts, &c.-This line is ambiguous; it may mean either that he had no wife and children, or that after their expenses were paid, he had £500 a year. The former is the more probable interpretation.
Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze;
Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays.
And what! no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost unknown?
Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there, where1 to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough, that virtue filled the space between;
Proved, by the ends of being, to have been.
THE TRAVELLER'S HYMN OF GRATITUDE.2
How are thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defence!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help, Omnipotence.
In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,
Through burning climes I passed unhurt,
And breathed in tainted air.
Thy mercy sweetened every soil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,
And smoothed the Tyrrhene seas.3
Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep
In all its horrors rise:
(1) There, where, &c.-i. e. in the parish registry.
(2) "The earliest composition," says Burns, speaking of his eleventh or twelfth year, "that I recollect taking pleasure in, was the 'Vision of Mirza,' and a hymn of Addison's beginning:
'How are thy servants blest, O Lord!'
I particularly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my ear:
For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave.""
(3) Tyrrhene sea-this sea, called also the Tuscan Sea, was accounted very dangerous by the Romans. It means here, of course, any dangerous sea,
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