Hence my life's maxims took their rise,
Hence grew my settled hate to vice.
The daily labours of the bee
Awake my soul to industry.
Who can observe the careful ant,
And not provide for future want?
My dog, the trustiest of his kind,
With gratitude inflames my mind:
I mark his true, his faithful way,
And in my service copy Tray.
In constancy and nuptial love,
I learn my duty from the dove:
The hen, who from the chilly air,
With pious wing, protects her care,
And every fowl that flies at large,
Instruct me in a parent's charge.

From Nature too I take my rule,
To shun contempt and ridicule.
I never, with important air,
In conversation overbear.

Can grave and formal pass for wise,
When men the solemn owl despise ?
My tongue within my lips I rein;
For who talks much must talk in vain.
We from the wordy torrent fly,
Who listens to the chattering pie?
Nor would I, with felonious slight,

By stealth invade my neighbour's right:

Rapacious animals we hate!

Kites, hawks, and wolves, deserve their fate.

Do not we just abhorrence find

Against the toad and serpent kind?

But envy, calumny, and spite,
Bear stronger venom in their bite.
Thus every object of creation
Can furnish hints to contemplation;
And, from the most minute and mean,
A virtuous mind can morals glean."

"Thy fame is just," the Sage replies,

66

Thy virtue proves thee truly wise. Pride often guides the author's pen, Books as affected are as men :

H

But he who studies Nature's laws,
From certain truth his maxims draws;
And those, without our schools, suffice
To make men moral, good, and wise."

BEES.1

Gay.

YE musical hounds of the fairy king,
Who hunt for the golden dew,

Who track for your game the green coverts of spring,
Till the echoes, that lurk in the flower-bells, ring
With the peal of your elfin2 crew!

How joyous your life, if its pleasures ye knew,
Singing ever from bloom to bloom!

Ye wander the summer year's paradise through,
The souls of the flowers are the viands for you,
And the air that you breathe, perfume.

But unenvied your joys, while the richest you miss,
And before you no brighter life lies:

Who would part with his cares for enjoyment like this,
When the tears3 that embitter the pure spirit's bliss
May be pearls in the crown of the skies!

MUSIC ON THE WATERS.4

THE foot of music is on the waters,
Hark! how fairily, sweetly it treads,

1 This little poem presents a new and graceful handling of a trite subject. The first and last stanzas are original and striking.

2 Elfin--from the Anglo-Saxon alfe, an elf, fairy. The Anglo-Saxons had their dun, or mountain elfs, wood elfs, water elfs, &c.

3 The tears, &c.-i. e. the sorrows of earth may be appointed by God, as the very means of fixing the affections on heaven.

4 The measure of these lines very aptly illustrates their subject; this is effected by an artful and ingenious intermingling of various metrical feet. following scheme of the first stanza will exemplify the remark. The out the accented syllables.

The points

The advancing and receding in the last line are most skilfully represented.

As in the dance of Orestes' daughters,1
Now it advances and now recedes.

Now it lingers among the billows,
Where some one fonder than the rest,
Clasps the rover in passing, and pillows
Her softly upon its heaving breast.

Oft she flies, and her steps though light
Make the green waves all tremble beneath her,
Now the quick ear cannot follow her flight,
And the flood is unstirred as the calm blue ether.

GREECE.2

He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled—
Before decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers;
And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,

The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,

And-but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not-wins not-weeps not-now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon-
Yes, but for these, and these alone,

Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;

1 Orestes' daughters-the Orestiades, or Oreads; mountain nymphs. 2 There is, perhaps, no instance in our poetical literature in which a continued simile is so beautifully sustained, as that which runs through these lines. The affecting picture of the lovely form, no longer animated by the living spirit, deeply touching in itself, derives a new interest from its exquisite adaptation to the subject which suggested it. The music of the rhythm too-so soft, so delicately modulated-floats like a requiem over the whole, and leaves nothing to be desired in consummating the effect.

3 Cold obstruction--This expression is taken from Shakspere, who speaks of the dead as lying in cold obstruction," in allusion to the stoppage of the animal functions.

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first-last look-by death revealed!
Such is the aspect of this shore-

'Tis Greece-but living Greece no more!1
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start- for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath,
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb-
Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of feeling past away!

Spark of that flame-that flame of heavenly birth—
Which gleams-but warms no more its cherished earth!

Clime of the unforgotten brave! 2
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was freedom's home or glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave,
Say, is not this Thermopyla? 3
These waters blue that round you lave,
Oh, servile offspring of the free-
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis ! 3
These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear

That tyranny shall quake to hear,

1 The following passage, from Gillies's "History of Greece," is thought to have suggested the above comparison:-" The present state of Greece, compared to the ancient, is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life."

2 The transition here to another variation of the same theme, by a change of key, as it were, is very striking. The energy of these lines is as remarkable as the pathos of the preceding.

3 Thermopyla, Salamis--An instance of the suggestive power of a name. No description is given of the deeds for which these places were remarkablethe simple mention of them is enough.

And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame:
For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye,
The graves of those that cannot die !-
"Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendour to disgrace;
Enough no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yes! self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot sway.

THERMOPYLÆ.1

THEY fell devoted, but undying;

The very gale their names seemed sighing;
The waters murmured of their name,

The woods were peopled with their fame ;
The silent pillar, lone and grey,
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay,
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain,
The meanest rill, the mightiest river
Rolls mingling with their fame for ever.

Byron.

Byron.

TO A SKYLARK.2

ETHERIAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth, where cares abound?

These lines exemplify the remark just made in note 3, p. 100.

2 It is difficult to conceive of anything more exquisitely graceful than these lines; the last two especially and that beginning, "A privacy of, &c." may be characterised as perfect.