That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,
And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,
Who, with a generous though mistaken zeal,
Withstood a brutal tyrant's useful rage,
Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor 1,
A dauntless soul erect, who smil'd on death.
Frugal, and wise, a Walsingham is thine;
A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep,
And bore thy name in thunder round the world.
Then flam'd thy spirit high; but who can speak
The numerous worthies of the maiden reign?
In Raleigh, mark their ev'ry glory mix'd;
Raleigh the scourge of Spain! whose breast with all
The sage, the patriot, and the hero burn'd,
Nor sunk his vigour when a coward reign
The warrior fetter'd, and at last resigned,
To glut the vengeance of a vanquished foe.
Then, active still and unrestrain’d, his mind
Explor'd the vast extent of ages past,
And with his prison hours enrich'd the world2;
Yet found no times, in all the long research,
So glorious, or so base, as those he prov'd,
In which he conquer'd and in which he bled.
Nor can the Muse the gallant Sidney3 pass,
The plume of war! with early laurels crown'd,
The lover's myrtle and the poet's bay.
A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land!
Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul.
Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew
The grave where Russel+ lies; whose temper'd blood,
With calmest cheerfulness for thee resign'd,
Stain'd the sad annals of a giddy reign;
Aiming at lawless power, though meanly sunk
In loose inglorious luxury. With him
His friend, the British Cassius 5, fearless bled;
Of high determin'd spirit, roughly brave,
By ancient learning to th' enlighten'd love
1 Cato and Cincinnatus. Greece.
See History of Rome. Aristides, History of
2 Sir Walter Raleigh wrote his History of the World in prison.
3 Sir Philip Sidney, not less famous for humanity than genius.
4 Lord W. Russel. See reign of Charles II.
5 For the character of Cassius see the Roman history. Algernon Sydney, who is here described, tarnished his high character by accepting money from the French king.
Of ancient freedom warm'd. Fair thy renown
In awful sages and in noble bards;
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and wak'd the Muses' song.
Thine is a Bacon; him for studious shade
Kind Nature form'd, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact, and elegant, in one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite1, and Tully join'd.
The great deliverer he! who from the gloom
Of cloister'd monks, and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true Philosophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms,
And definitions void: he led her forth,
Daughter of heaven! that slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things,
With radiant finger points to heaven again.
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search,
Amid the dark recesses of his works,
The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke,
Who made the whole internal world his own?
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God
To mortals lent to trace his boundless works
From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast?
Is not each great, each amiable Muse
Of classic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime.
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son:
Who, like a copious river, pour'd his song
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground:
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,
Well moraliz'd, shines through the gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.
The Stagyrite, Aristotle, born at Stagyra, in Macedonia.
2 Tully, M. Tullius Cicero, the great orator and philosopher of Rome.
ADVANTAGES OF EXERCISE TO HEALTH.
Ah, what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,
When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless, then, whatever can be given:
Health is the vital principle of bliss,
And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch who flings his life away,
Soon swallow'd in disease's sad abyss;
While he whom toil has brac'd, or manly play,
Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.
Oh, who can speak the vigorous joys of health!
Unclogg'd the body, unobscur'd the mind;
The morning rises gay; with pleasing stealth
The temperate ev'ning falls serene and kind.
In health the wiser brutes true gladness find:
See how the young lambs frisk along the meads,
As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind;
Rampant with joy, their joy all joy exceeds:
Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasure breeds!
LEGEND OF THE KNIGHT OF ARTS AND INDUSTRY.
AN ALLEGORY, IN IMITATION OF SPENSER.
1. Amid the green-wood shade this boy was bred,
And grew at last a Knight of muckle1 fame,
Of active mind and vigorous lustyhed2,
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.3
2. So pass'd his youthful morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that through his 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 Nine5 disdain a gentle look.
Muckle, great. 4 Wonne, habitation.
3. Of fertile genius him they nurtur'd well, In 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;
Ne were the goodly exercises spar'd,
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 compar'd.
4. 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 compe
5. At other times he pry'd 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 rous'd from sleep
Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap.
6. 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 ply'd the strong mechanic tool,
Or reared the fabric from the finest draught;
And oft he put himself to Neptune's school,
Fighting with winds and waves on the vext ocean pool.
7. To solace then these rougher toils, he try'd 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 grac'd Pygmalion's wife,
He hew'd the marble; or, with varied fire,
He rous'd the trumpet and the martial fife:
Or bade the lute sweet tenderness inspire;
Or verses fram'd that well might wake Apollo's lyre.
8. Accomplish'd thus, he from the woods issu'd,
Full of great aims, and bent on bold emprize;
The work which long he in bis breast had brew'd
Now to perform he ardent did devise,
To wit, a barbarous world to civilize.
Earth was till then a boundless forest wild,
Nought to be seen but savage wood and skies;
No cities nourish'd arts, no culture smil'd,
No government, no laws, no gentle manners mild.
9. A rugged wight, the worst of brutes was man;
On his own wretched kind he, ruthless, prey'd;
The strongest still the weakest over-ran;
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!
10. It would exceed the purport of my song,
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.
11. 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 thro' the glade;
They lodg'd at large, and liv'd at Nature's cost;
Save spear and bow, withouten other aid,
Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast dismay'd.
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