120

125

As sudden, though for years admonish'd, home.
Of human ills, the last extreme beware;
Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange? 130
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,

160

Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found.

As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. 166

George Berkeley

1685-1753

VERSES ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANT-
ING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA

The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime,
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame:

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

Allan Kamsay

1686-1758

AN ODE TO PH-1
(1721)

Look up to Pentland's tow'ring top,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh,2 ilk scar,3 and slap,1
As high as any Roman wa'.5

20

SONG "MY PEGGY IS A YOUNG THING"
(From The Gentle Shepherd, 1725)
My Peggy is a young thing,
Just enter'd in her teens,

Fair as the day and sweet as May,
Fair as the day and always gay.
My Peggy is a young thing,
And I'm nae very auld,
Yet well I like to meet her at
The wauking of the fauld.1

My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
Whene'er we meet alane,

I wish nae mair to lay my care,-
I wish nae mair o' a' that's rare.
My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
To a' the lave2 I'm cauld,
But she gars3 a' my spirits glow,
At wauking o' the fauld.

My Peggy smiles sae kindly,
Whene'er I whisper love,

That I look down on a' the town,-
That I look down upon a crown.
My Peggy smiles sae kindly,

It makes me blithe and bauld,
And naething gies me sic delyte,
As wauking o' the fauld.

My Peggy sings sae saftly,
When on my pipe I play,

By a' the rest it is confest,-
By a' the rest that she sings best.
My Peggy sings sae saftly,
And in her sangs are tauld,
Wi' innocence, the wale' o' sense,
At wauking o' the fauld.

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10

15

20

25

30

More sober or sedate folk, directing or sending to one

William Somerville

1692-1742

FIELD-SPORTS

(From The Chase, Pub. 1742)

'Tis instinct that directs the jealous hare To choose her soft abode: With step revers'd She forms the doubling maze: then, ere the

morn

Peeps through the clouds, leaps to her close

recess.

As wandering shepherds on th' Arabian plains

No settled residence observe, but shift

5

Their moving camp, now on some cooler hill With cedars crown'd, court the refreshing breeze;

And then, below, where trickling streams distil From some penurious source, their thirst allay,

10

And feed their fainting flocks: so the wise hares Oft quit their seats, lest some more curious eye Should mark their haunts, and by dark treach

erous wiles,

15

Plot their destruction; or perchance in hopes
Of plenteous forage, near the ranker mead,
Or matted blade, wary and close they sit.
When spring shines forth, season of love and

joy,

In the moist marsh, 'mong beds of rushes hid, They cool their boiling blood: When summer

Thy velvet robe, which pleas'd my sires of yore!
'Tis thus capricious fortune wheels us round;
Aloft we mount-then tumble to the ground.
Yet grateful then, my constancy I prov'd;

I knew thy worth; my friend in rags I lov'd; 20
I lov'd thee more; nor like a courtier, spurn'd
My benefactor, when the tide was turn'd.
With conscious shame, yet frankly, I confess,
That in my youthful days-I lov'd thee less.
Where vanity, where pleasure call'd, I stray'd;
And every wayward appetite obey'd.'
But sage experience taught me how to prize
Myself; and how, this world; she bade me rise
To nobler flights regardless of a race

26

Of factious emmets; pointed where to place 30

The Olympic games were held on a site which had belonged to the Eleans, the inhabitants of Elis, Greece. The old name for Salisbury; its "spire" is one of the beauties of Salisbury Cathedral.

John Dyer

c. 1698-1758
GRONGAR HILL'
(1727)

Silent Nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple ev'ning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various dues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse;
Now while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,
Grongar Hill invites my song;

Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells,
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the ev'ning still,
At the fountain of a rill

Sat upon a flow'ry bed,

With my hand beneath my head,

While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his chequer'd sides I wind,

And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottoes where I lay,
And vistoes shooting beams of day.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal:

The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene;
But the gay, the open scene,

Dyer was born at the foot of Grongar Hill, Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high, Holds and charms the wand'ring eye: Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,

His sides are cloth'd with waving wood, And ancient towers crown his brow, That cast an awful look below;

Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,

And with her arms from falling keeps;
So both a safety from the wind

On mutual dependence find.
"Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,
And there the pois'nous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet Time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,

Big with the vanity of state:

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80

85

Has seen this broken pile compleat,

But transient is the smile of Fate!

Search for peace with all your skill;
Open wide the lofty door,
Seek her on the marble floor.

In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain ye search the domes of care!
Grass and flowers quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with pleasure, close ally'd,
Ever by each other's side;

And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

AN EPISTLE

TO A FRIEND IN TOWN

150

155

Have my friends in the town, in the gay busy

town,

Forgot such a man as John Dyer?

Or heedless despise they, or pity the clown, Whose bosom no pageantries fire?

No matter, no matter-content in the shades(Contented!-why everything charms me) Fall in tunes all adown the great steep, ye cascades!

Till hence rigid virtue alarms me:

Be nimble, and the weakest, in thine arms,
Gently convey to the warm cot, and oft,
Between the lark's note and the nightingale's, 25
His hungry bleating still with tepid milk:
In this soft office may thy children join,
And charitable habits learn in sport:
Nor yield him to himself ere vernal airs
Sprinkle thy little croft with daisy flowers:
Nor yet forget him; life has rising ills:
Various as ether is the past'ral care:
Thro' slow experience, by a patient breast,
The whole long lesson gradual is attain'd,

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35

By precept after precept, oft receiv'd
With deep attention; such as Nuceus1 sings
To the full vale near Soar's2 enamour'd brook,
While all is silence: sweet Hinclean swain!
Whom rude obscurity severely clasps:

1 Mr. Joseph Nutt, an apothecary at Hinckley. Lat. nuceus, of a nut tree. 2 A river in Leicestershire.