George Crabbe: 1754-1832.

A Cottage.-From The Parish Register.'

Behold the cot! where thrives the industrious swain,
Source of his pride, his pleasure, and his gain;
Screened from the winter's wind, the sun's last ray
Smiles on the window, and prolongs the day;
Projecting thatch the woodbine's branches stop,
And turn their blossoms to the casement's top:-
All need requires is in that cot contained,
And much that taste, untaught and unrestrained,
Surveys delighted; there she loves to trace,
In one gay picture, all the royal race;

Around the walls are heroes, lovers, kings;

The print that shews them, and the verse that sings.

On shelf of deal beside the cuckoo-clock,
Of cottage-reading rests the chosen stock;
Learning we lack, not books, but have a kind
For all our wants, a meat for every mind:
The tale for wonder, and the joke for whim,
The half-sung sermon, and the half-groaned hymn.

No need of classing; each within its place,
The feeling finger in the dark can trace;
"First from the corner, farthest from the wall;'
Such all the rules, and they suffice for all.

There pious works for Sunday's use are found,
Companions for that Bible newly bound;
That Bible, bought by sixpence weekly saved,
Has choicest prints by famous hands engraved ;
Has choicest notes by many a famous head,
Such as to doubt have rustic readers led;
Have made them stop to reason why? and how?
And where they once agreed, to cavil now.

Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun;
Who simple truth with nine-fold reasons back,
And guard the point no enemies attack.

Bunyan's famed Pilgrim rests that shelf upon:
A genius rare but rude was honest John;
Not one who, early by the muse beguiled,
Drank from her well, the waters undefiled;
Not one who slowly gained the hill sublime,
Then often sipped, and little at a time;
But one who dabbled in the sacred springs,
And drank them muddy, mixed with baser things.

Samuel Rogers: 1763-1855.

Human Life.

The lark has sung his carol in the sky,
The bees have hummed their noontide lullaby;
Still in the vale the village bells ring round,
Still in Llewellyn Hall the jests resound;
For now the caudle-cup is circling there,

Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer,
And, crowding, stop the cradle to admire

The babe, the sleeping image of his sire.

A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail
The day again, and gladness fill the vale;
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran.

Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin;
The ale, now brewed, in floods of amber shine;
And, basking in the chimney's ample blaze,
'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days,
The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled:
"Twas on her knees he sat so oft and smiled.'

And soon again shall music swell the breeze; Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung, And violets scattered round; and old and young, In every cottage-porch with garlands green, Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene, While, her dark eyes declining, by his side, Moves in her virgin veil the gentle bride.

And once, alas! nor in a distant hour, Another voice shall come from yonder tower; When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen, And weeping heard where only joy has been ; When, by his children borne, and from his door, Slowly departing to return no more,

He rests in holy earth with them that went before.

And such is human life; so gliding on,

It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!
Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;
As any sung of old, in hall or bower,

To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour!

William Wordsworth: 1770-1850.

A Peasant Youth.-From The Excursion.'

The mountain ash

No eye can overlook, when 'mid a grove

Of yet unfaded trees she lifts her head
Decked with autumnal berries, that outshine
Spring's richest blossoms; and ye may have marked
By a brook-side or solitary tarn,

How she her station doth adorn. The pool
Glows at her feet, and all the gloomy rocks
Are brightened round her. In his native vale,
Such and so glorious did this youth appear;
A sight that kindled pleasure in all hearts
By his ingenuous beauty, by the gleam
Of his fair eyes, by his capacious brow,
By all the graces with which nature's hand
Had lavishly arrayed him.

As old bards

Tell in their idle songs of wandering gods,
Pan or Apollo, veiled in human form;

Yet, like the sweet-breathed violet of the shade,
Discovered in their own despite to sense
Of mortals-if such fables without blame

May find chance mention on this sacred ground---
So, through a simple rustic garb's disguise,
And through the impediment of rural cares,
In him revealed a scholar's genius shone;
And so, not wholly hidden from men's sight,
In him the spirit of a hero walked

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Our unpretending valley. How the quoit

Whizzed from the stripling's arm! If touched by him,

The inglorious football mounted to the pitch

Of the lark's flight, or shaped a rainbow curve,

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Aloft, in prospect of the shouting field!

The indefatigable fox had learned

To dread his perseverance in the chase.
With admiration would he lift his eyes
To the wide-ruling eagle, and his hand
Was loath to assault the majesty he loved,
Else had the strongest fastnesses proved weak
To guard the royal brood. The sailing glede,
The wheeling swallow, and the darting snipe,
The sporting sea-gull dancing with the waves,
And cautious waterfowl, from distant climes,
Fixed at their seat, the centre of the mere,
Were subject to young Oswald's steady aim,
And lived by his forbearance.

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