The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate and lathefu'," scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 70 And, weary, o'er the moor his course does hameward bend. What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn 's respected like the lave.12 O happy love!--where love like this is found!- If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale. 80 90 100 110 120 11 Blate and lathefu', bashful and shy. 1 Stacher, stagger. 2 Flichterin', fluttering; specially applied to the gleeful running of children towards those to whom they are much attached. 3 Ingle, fire. Tentie rin, attentively run. 7 Uncos, strange things. Haflins, half. 12 The lave, the rest. 13 Hawkie, cow. 14 Hallan, inner wall between the fire-place and door. See Note 31, page 392. 15 Her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell, her well-saved stinging cheese. 16 A twelvemonth old since flax was in flower. 4 Beluve, quickly. 6 Spiers, asks. 8 Eydent (or "ithand "), diligent. 10 Ben, within the house. Or nobly die, the second glorious part, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! The volume printed at Kilmarnock found friends strong enough to keep Burns within his native Scotland. In April, 1787, a new edition of his poems was published at Edinburgh, and handsomely subscribed for. Thus encouraged, Burns was now able to send £200 to help his brother Gilbert at Mossgiel, take a farm of his own at Elliesland in March, 1787, and five months afterwards marry Jean Armour. He still poured out music; sending his lyrics as free gifts to Johnson's "Museum of Scottish Song," and giving his "Tam o' Shanter" to Captain Grose, as a legend of Alloway Kirk. The farm being unfruitful, he The youngling cottagers retire to rest: The parent-pair their secret homage pay, From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, The cottage leaves the palace far behind. O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 160 170 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content; 1 "See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs And mounts exulting on triumphant wings." (Pope's "Windsor Forest," lines 111, 112.) "A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod; (Pope's "Essay on Man," Ep. iv., line 247.) ROBERT BURNS. From a Sketch by A. Nasmyth. Engraved for Lockhart's "Life of Burns" in "Constable's Miscellany" (1828). tried to supplement it with a place in the Excise; but the duties of exciseman weakened still more his chance of thriving as a farmer, and in 1791 Burns gave up Elliesland, and obtained for the whole maintenance of his family a post in the Dumfries division of the Excise, with a salary of seventy pounds a year. Society at Dumfries had little sympathy with Burns's fervid interest in the French Revolution then afoot. Sad days of poverty and failing health came to their end for him in July, 1796, and those who had neglected him in life then found themselves a day's pleasure by making a great show of his funeral Wordsworth there was also Burns. The return of the sonnet-which had taken its flight from our shores on the establishment of French influence-was at the close of the last century one of the pleasant signs of a new spring for literature, and the first of the new sonnet writers were Charlotte Smith and W. L. Bowles. Of the sonnets also of Charlotte Smith, Coleridge had grateful recollection. Her life was a sad one, and its griefs intensified in all her verse the gloom that was in fashion. She was born in 1749, daughter of Mr. Nicholas Turner, of Stoke House, Surrey, and Bignor Park, Sussex. Her mother died when she was four years old. She was ill-educated at a fashionable school in Kensington till twelve years old, then brought into society, and married at fifteen to the stupid and dissipated son of a West India merchant, who took her to a dull house in the City. Her husband found his way into prison, where she spent seven months with him; she suffered poverty, she wrote for bread; parted from her husband, she worked for her family, and saw all her children die as they came to maturity. She was hasty, generous, romantic, and still patient in duty, writing sonnets in the character of Werter, whose sentimental sorrows represented faithfully the sickness of the time, and writing novels to support her children while they lived. In 1806 she followed all she had loved to the grave. She addressed one of her sonnets Queen of the silver bow!-by thy pale beam, That in thy orb the wretched may have rest: 10 Nymph of the rock! whose dauntless spirit braves That still misleads the wanderers of the earth! TO A YOUNG MAN ENTERING THE WORLD. Go now, ingenuous youth!-The trying hour Not where mistaken Glory in the field 10 William Lisle Bowles, son of the vicar of King's Sutton, in Northamptonshire, was born in 1762 His sonnets were first published in 1789, and when Coleridge felt his young genius quickened by them. their author was a curate in Wiltshire. He obtained in 1833 a canonry in Salisbury Cathedral, and soon afterwards became rector of Bremhill, in Wiltshire. So he remained until his death in 1850. These are four of his sonnets: AT DOVER CLIFFS. On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood Sail'd slow, has thought of all his heart must leave THE TOUCH OF TIME. O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 10 DE LI On Thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, I may look back on every sorrow past, And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile— As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient show'r Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while :Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure, Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure! HOPE. As one who, long by wasting sickness worn, Weary has watch'd the ling'ring night, and heard He the green slope and level meadow views, Or marks the clouds, that o'er the mountain's head Or turns his ear to every random song, Heard the green river's winding marge along, The whilst each sense is steep'd in still delight: With such delight, o'er all my heart I feel, 10 10 Sweet Hope! thy fragrance pure and healing incense steal! DEATH IN THE HOME. How blest with thee the path could I have trod In youth and beauty, go to thy death-bed; (Tho' sometimes the unbidden thought must start, 10 And half unman the miserable heart) The cold dew I shall wipe from my sad brow, And say, since hopes of bliss on earth are vain, "Best friend, farewell, till we do meet again!" The tone of sadness here also is partly reflected from the time, although it is the unaffected tone of a true voice that can blend hope with its sorrow. Let us compare with it the artificial verse of sentimentalists who think themselves sincere, and doubtless are so, but wanting power for deep thought or feeling, cut worthless thought into the patterns they admire as honest followers of fashion. There was a Mr. Merry, who wrote verse in a newspaper called The World, published by John Bell, Librarian to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. He called himself Della Crusca. There was a Countess Cowper, who metrically adored Della Crusca through that journal, and was in like manner adored by him. She called herself Anna Matilda. There was Mr. Parsons, who called himself Arley; Mr. Greathead, who called himself Bertie; Mr. Adney, who turned his name upside down, and was Yenda; Mr. Williams, who was Pasquin; Mrs. Robinson lisped verse with them as Julia, and all these people deluged The World with sentimental poems which the fashionable world of London greatly praised. They were collected by Mr. Bell, in 1790, into two volumes, as "The British Album." Young Goethe's "Sorrows of the Young Werter," published in 1774, and young Schiller's "Robbers," published in 1781, were not without influence upon the feelings of these ladies and gentlemen. In The World of the 26th of July, 1787, Della Crusca produced this ELEGY Written after reading the Sorrows of Werter. Alas, poor Werter! to himself a prey, The heart's excessive workings could not bear; But sought his native heaven the nearest way, And fled from grief, from anguish, and despair. The joys of prejudice he scorned to own, To view the moon's pale glimpse illume the wave, An isolated being here he stood, His strong sensations with how few could blend! The wise, the great, the gay, perhaps the good, They knew him not--they could not comprehend. Charlotte alone, by nature was designed To fill the vacuum of his generous breast; And since there are, amid this wond'rous world, Th' Eternal Power, to whom all thoughts arise, Anna Matilda had said to Della Crusca"O! seize again thy golden quill, And with its point my bosom thrill." 10 20 30 By such invitations he was roused as much as an idle sentimentalist can be roused. This is, if 1 may so entitle the lines DELLA CRUSCA ROUSED. And the curled surf was tinged with golden spray. |