DRAM-SHOPS ARE SCHOOLS. Behold the schools in which plebeian minds, Once simple, are initiated in arts, Which some may practise with politer grace, But none with readier skill!—'t is here they learn The road that leads from competence and peace To indigence and rapine; till at last Society, grown weary of the load, Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out. WHY THE DRAM-SHOP CANNOT BE SUPPRESSED; IT HELPS THE PUBLIC REVENUE. BESOTTED PATRIOTISM. But censure profits little vain the attempt That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds Drink, and be mad, then; 't is your country bids! ARCADIAN INNOCENCE AND HAPPINESS. Would I had fallen upon those happier days, That poets celebrate; those golden times, And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose! Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts That felt their virtues innocence, it seems, From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves; The footsteps of simplicity, impressed Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing), Then were not all effaced: then speech profane, And manners profligate, were rarely found, Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed. THE GOLDEN AGE INCREDIBLE NOW. Vain wish! those days were never airy dreams Sat for the picture: and the poet's hand, Imparting substance to an empty shade, Imposed a gay delirium for a truth. Grant it I still must envy them an age, That favored such a dream; in days like these Impossible, when virtue is so scarce, That to suppose a scene where she presides Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief. THE RURAL LASS NO MORE. THE MODERN COUNTRY GIRL IN HER STEAD. For more than half the tresses it sustains; THE TOWN HAS STAINED THE COUNTRY.-FASHION HAS USURPED RURAL MANNERS. SAFETY. The town has tinged the country; and the stain Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe, The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs THE SECURITY OF THE COUNTRY HAS CEASED. CAUSES OF DEGENERACY.-WEALTH. — LUXURY. Lamented change! to which full many a cause Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, conspires. The course of human things from good to ill, From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. Increase of power begets increase of wealth; Wealth luxury, and luxury excess ; Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague, That seizes first the opulent, descends To the next rank contagious, and in time Taints downward all the graduated scale Of order, from the chariot to the plough. THE RICH DESERT THEIR DUTY FOR PLEASURE. The rich, and they that have an arm to check The license of the lowest in degree, Desert their office; and themselves, intent On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus To all the violence of lawless hands Resign the scenes their presence might protect. Authority herself not seldom sleeps, Though resident, and witness of the wrong. SLOTH OF SOME OF THE CLERGY. — CORRUPTION. The plump convivial parson often bears The magisterial sword in vain, and lays When he should strike he trembles, and sets free, THE MILITARY SPIRIT A CURSE. THE RUSTIC RECRUIT. But faster far, and more than all the rest, A noble cause, which none, who bears a spark Of public virtue, ever wished removed, Works the deplored and mischievous effect. 'Tis universal soldiership has stabbed The heart of merit in the meaner class. Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage Of those that bear them, in whatever cause, Seem most at variance with all moral good, And incompatible with serious thought. The clown, the child of nature, without guile, Blessed with an infant's ignorance of all But his own simple pleasures; now and then A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair; Is ballotted, and trembles at the news: Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears A Bible-oath to be whate'er they please, To do he knows not what. The task performed, That instant he becomes the sergeant's care, His pupil, and his torment, and his jest. His awkward gait, his introverted toes, Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks, Procure him many a curse. THE CLOWN TURNED SOLDIER. By slow degrees, Unapt to learn, and formed of stubborn stuff, He yet by slow degrees puts off himself, Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well: He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form and movement; is as smart above As meal and larded locks can make him; wears His hat, or his plumed helmet, with a grace; And, his three years of heroship expired, Returns indignant to the slighted plough. He hates the field in which no fife or drum Attends him; drives his cattle to a march; And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. 'T were well if his exterior change were all But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost His ignorance and harmless manners too. THE SOLDIER'S VICES. To swear, to game, to drink; to show at home, By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath-breach, The great proficiency he made abroad; MAN IN THE FAMILY AND IN THE ARMY.- A SIMILE. Man in society is like a flower Blown in its native bed: 't is there alone CORPORATIONS NOT SO CONSCIENTIOUS AS INDIVIDUALS. — COMMERCIAL WARS. Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combined, Become a loathsome body, only fit For dissolution, hurtful to the main. Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin Against the charities of domestic life, Incorporated seem at once to lose Their nature; and, disclaiming all regard For mercy and the common rights of man, Build factories with blood, conducting trade At the sword's point, and dying the white robe Of innocent commercial justice red. THE FIELD OF GLORY A SCHOOL. Hence too the field of glory, as the world THE COUNTRY, WITH ALL ITS DRAWBACKS, STILL ATTRACTIVE. But slighted as it is, and by the great Had found me, or the hope of being free. CHARMS OF RURAL POETRY.—VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES. — MILTON. Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers. The rustic throng beneath his favorite beech. As twice seven years, his beauties had then first COWLEY. CHERTSEY PLACE. There too, enamored of the life I loved, I studied, prized, and wished that I had known, I still revere thee, courtly though retired! THE LOVE OF NATURE A UNIVERSAL ENDOWMENT. "T is born with all the love of Nature's works Is an ingredient in the compound man, Infused at the creation of the kind. And, though the Almighty Maker has throughout And all can taste them: minds that have been formed But none without some relish, none unmoved. It is a flame that dies not even there, LOVE OF NATURE AS DISPLAYED IN CITIES. — VILLAS. The villas, with which London stands begirt, The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer 1 A character of the Bucolics of Virgil, see p. 15. * Even in the stifling bosom of the town, A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed, THE POOREST CIT TRIES TO CULTIVATE SOME PLANT OR The most unfurnished with the means of life, And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds, To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air, Yet feel the burning instinct: over head Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick, And watered duly. There the pitcher stands A fragment, and the spoutless teapot there; Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets The country, with what ardor he contrives A peep at nature, when he can no more. APOSTROPHE TO RURAL LIFE. Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease, I shall not add myself to such a chase, EACH HUMAN BEING HAS HIS SPECIAL PLACE AND USE. — Some must be great. Great offices will have To me, an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life, that early felt A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long 1 Mignonette. Ballad for January. HAMILTON'S "BRAES OF YARROW." A. BUSK ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, Where gat ye that winsome marrow? Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow. Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow. Why does she weep, thy winsome marrow? Lang maun she weep with dule and sorrow, Her lover dear, the cause of sorrow, That e'er poued birks on the Braes of Yarrow. Hung on the bonny birks of Yarrow? What's yonder floats on the rueful rueful flude, What's yonder floats? O dule and sorrow! "Tis he, the comely swain I slew Upon the duleful Braes of Yarrow. Wash, O, wash his wounds, his wounds in tears, His helpless fate on the Braes of Yarrow. His comely breast, on the Braes of Yarrow. And warn from fight, but to my sorrow; Thou met'st, and fell on the Braes of Yarrow. Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, As green its grass, its gowan as yellow, The apple from the rock as mellow. Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow, How can I busk a winsome marrow? That slew my love on the Braes of Yarrow? My love, as he had not been a lover. The boy took out his milk-white milk-white Unheedful of my dule and sorrow, But e'er the to-fall of the night, He lay a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow. Much rejoiced that waeful waeful day; I sang, my voice the woods returning, That slew my love, and left me mourning. How canst thou, barbarous man, then, woo me? May bid me seek in Yarrow Braes My lover nailed in his coffin. My brother Douglas may upbraid, upbraid, And strive with threatening words to move me; My lover's blood is on thy spear, How canst thou ever bid me love thee? Yes, yes, prepare the bed, the bed of love, With bridal sheets my body cover, Unbar, ye bridal maids, the door, Let in the expected husband-lover. But who the expected husband, husband is! Comes in his pale shroud, bleeding after? And crown my care-full head with willow. Pale though thou art, yet best, yet best beloved, O, could my warmth to life restore thee! Ye'd lie all night between my breasts, No youth lay ever there before thee. Pale, pale indeed, O lovely, lovely youth, Forgive, forgive so foul a slaughter, And lie all night between my breasts, No youth shall ever lie there after. A. Return, return, O mournful, mournful bride, Return and dry thy useless sorrow : Thy lover heeds naught of thy sighs, He lies a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow. Hymn of Praise for January. COLERIDGE'S "MONT BLANC." A HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Yet like some sweet beguiling melody, As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven! Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink! And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered, and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, And who commanded (and the silence came), Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, To rise before me-Rise, O, ever rise; |