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WILLIAM COLLINS.

While some, on earnest business bent,
Their murmuring labors ply
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty,

Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run, they look behind;
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possessed;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,

The sunshine of the breast.
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigor born;

The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn.

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Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,

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More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every laboring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand;
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,

Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies!
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

WILLIAM COLLINS.

[1720-1756.]

DIRGE IN CYMBELINE.

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, And rifle all the breathing spring.

No wailing ghost shall dare appear

To vex with shrieks this quiet grove; But shepherd lads assemble here,

And melting virgins own their love.

No withered witch shall here be seen,

No goblins lead their nightly crew; But female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew.

The redbreast oft at evening hours

Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss and gathered flowers
Todeck the ground where thou art laid.

When howling winds and beating rain
In tempest shake the sylvan cell,
Or midst the chase upon the plain,
The tender thought on thee shall dwell.

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Each lonely scene shall thee restore, For thee the tear be duly shed; Beloved till life can charm no more, And mourned till Pity's self be dead.

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop or pastoral song May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,

Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales, -

O nymph reserved, while now the brighthaired Sun

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With braid ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weakeyed bat,

With short, shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;

Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum;

Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit; As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial, loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp,
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy

scene;

Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill, blustering winds, or driving rain,

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut That from the mountain's side Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual, dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,

And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest
Eve!

While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;

Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,

Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes,

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling
Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favorite name!

JAMES MERRICK.

[1720 - 1769.]

THE CHAMELEON.

OFT has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark,
With eyes that hardly served at most
To guard their master 'gainst a post;
Yet round the world the blade has been,
To see whatever could be seen.
Returning from his finished tour,
Grown ten times perter than before;
Whatever word you chance to drop,
The travelled fool your mouth will stop:
"Sir, if my judgment you 'll allow-
I've seen- and sure I ought to know."
So begs you'd pay a due submission,
And acquiesce in his decision.

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