Invictus

2010年的一則英文人行道: Invictus
2012年發現此名詩有完整的解釋

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/invictus-1#ixzz1kOL5Mafm 整首詩的解釋

What does 'invictus' mean? Invictus is the Latin word for "unconquered." It is also the title of a nineteenth-century poem written by William Ernst Henley. Henley wrote the poem as he lay in a hospital bed, recovering from the amputation of his leg after a long battle with tuberculosis of the bone. During Nelson Mandela's 27-year captivity as a political prisoner, he kept a copy of the inspirational poem on the wall of his cell. Mandela was released from prison on this date in 1990. Director Clint Eastwood's acclaimed film Invictus tells the story of how Mandela, South Africa's first black president, joined forces with the captain of the national rugby team, François Pienaar, to get South Africa's Springboks to the Rugby World Cup finals. They saw it as a way to begin the healing of a nation that had been torn apart by apartheid.

Text

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Quote:

"It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll/ I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." — William Ernst Henley, the final stanza of his poem, "Invictus"


bow² (bou)

v., bowed, bow·ing, bows. v.intr.

1. To bend or curve downward; stoop.
2. To incline the body or head or bend the knee in greeting, consent, courtesy, acknowledgment, submission, or veneration.
3. To yield in defeat or out of courtesy; submit. See synonyms at yield.

unbowed
(ŭn-boud')
adj.

1. Not bowed; unbent.
2. Not subdued; unyielding: "My head is bloody but unbowed" (W.E. Henley).
   

"Strait" in the first line of the stanza means "narrow," and the image of a gate implies captivity or impasse, but yet these two words also imply the possibility of passing; the entrance to Heaven is often described as a narrow gate. The scroll of punishments is likely a reference to the divine penalties or trials assigned to the poet by God. It could also be taken as a play on 'straight the gait' in reference to his health problems, which had cost him one of his legs.

dirge, elegy, mourn, Ariel

. Grieving on Facebook: How the Site Helps People

By Lauren Katims

Facebook doesn't just bring together long-lost friends; it also provides an outlet for mourning people who have died

Even as technology is drastically changing the process by which books are made, with the computerisation of printing and typesetting, the club is hardly singing dirges. "If there was never, from this moment on, another book published, there would be fodder for people who wanted to collect books—and do interesting things with books—for the next 200 years," says its director, Eric Holzenberg.


2004
英文名詩「雀兒菲麗普之死」之引言、輓歌和一些相關資料


緣起 我（HC）上周讀巴特（R. Barthe）的《文之悅》，它引的霍布斯詩為題詞：「恐懼是我唯一激情。」我查The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 時，發現該書有一段引言，初讀幾乎不懂，就向瑞麟兄求救，經他提示之後，我幾乎通了。本周更進一步查些資料，現在將我們的通信記錄下來。特別謝謝RL。
---
Dear RL, 這引言出自 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
我有看沒懂。你有興趣破解一番？
John Skelton（1460?-1529）

For the soul of Philip Sparrow,
That was late slain at Carrow
Among the Nunnes Black,
For that sweet soul's sake
And for all sparrows' souls
Set in our bread-rolls,
Pater noster qui
With an Ave Mari.
--The Sparrow's Dirge


底下是hc查些網路上的資料。讀者應先讀下面rl解釋的故事大要（也可參考許多版本的原文『英國文學文選』中的作者身世和作品大要，以及本本文最後指出The New Penguin Book of English Verse 的1500年中 有此詩節選），再回來了解細節。

【slay verb [T] slew or slayed, slain
1 UK OLD USE OR LITERARY to kill in a violent way:
St George slew the dragon.

2 (used especially in newspapers) to murder someone:
He was found slain in an alley two blocks from his apartment.

slaying
noun [C] MAINLY US
a murder】


--- 主禱文Pater noster, qui…
Sign of the Cross and the Our Father. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. ... Pater noster, qui es in caelis, Father our who are in Heaven sanctificetur nomen tuum. may-be-hallowed name Your Adveniat regnum tuum

教吟唱：
http://www.kensmen.com/catholic/paterchant.html

--- Ave Mari 聖母頌
The Holy Rosary - Ave Mari 聖母頌，它為基都教失傳的prayer and devotion.法
Two Renaissance Chorals (Adoramus Te / Ave Maria) - SSA, a ...

****
要解這段文字可得先把John Skelton作The Book of Philip Sparrow的來龍去脈弄清楚，似乎找個對英國文學有深入研究的人比較恰當，不過明晨我會約略整理回覆。
引文中的Nunnes Black應該跟nunnery有關，
而For that sweet soul sake我看For that sweet soul's sake才對。


rl
21:00 2004/5/30
****
查閱手邊的兩大本Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford和Bartlett's Family），並沒有你函中所引的文句。
再查手邊的協志叢書：英國文學史，John Skelton的相關資料也寥寥無幾（總共三行，卷一p.133），茲鈔錄如下：
……
6.雀兒菲麗普之死（The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe）作於1510年左右。女學生珍‧斯克魯帕所寵愛的一隻雀兒被她所豢養的貓給吃掉了。詩人代她寫這首哀悼的詩。一千四百行的遊戲之作，但是也諷刺了羅馬教會的飾終典禮。
……
協志叢書所記之作品名稱，我想（未經查證）應該是當時的英文，現在都寫成The Book of Philip Sparrow。
女 學生珍‧斯克魯帕的原文名字為Jane Scrope【Scroupe-hc】，我猜她是Carrow Abbey的修女，這是由Nunnes Black推斷的，但是我目前不知道Black代表什麼意思（膚色嗎？），我昨晚說nunnes跟nunnery有關，或許是nun的複數？

那隻咬死雀兒的貓是不是女孩飼養的，我不確定，有一說是在Carrow Abbey的貓。
這 篇出眾的詩是史克爾頓（協志叢書譯作斯凱爾頓）決定嘗試以新格式（現在稱為史克爾頓體）作詩的最好範例，當時正值英語在快速改變的時候，這一首詩是傳統和 新潮之間的一個超級妥協。就好像許多孩子有時候會煞費苦心地為他們死去的寵物舉行埋葬儀式一樣，Jane Scrope也不例外。整首詩大致瀏覽了一遍，應該只是一種模擬彌撒吧。

暫時還沒有著手逐行翻譯，正在思考引文中的 qui 是否和法文的 qui 同一個字？也正在想 dirge 和 elegy 的差異？但是應該對你有丁點兒幫助才是。
rl
08:30 2004/5/31

****
謝謝你，幫助極大。這是用天主教追終祭典來寫的，所以這首遊戲之作的翻譯和注解，應該頗有教育作用。

《教育部國語辭典》
挽歌：解釋 哀悼死者的歌【中文「牽引」義】。《南朝宋˙劉義慶˙世說新語˙任誕》：「袁山松出遊，每好令左右作挽歌。」亦作「輓歌」【hc：據辭海解釋：漢武帝勞役之人的喪歌，後來李延年有二曲】。相反詞「頌歌」 【hc：不知道中文的名作為何？】

Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms
Dirge, a song of lamentation in mourning for someone's death; or a poem in the form of such a song, and usually less elaborate than anelegy. An ancient genre employed by Pindar in Greek and notably by Propertius in Latin. The dirge also occurs in English, most famously in the ariel's song 'Full fathom five thy father lies' in shakespear's The Tempest.

Ariel[Ar・i・el]

• 発音記号[éəriəl]

[名]

1 エアリアル：Shakespeare作Tempestに登場する空気の精.

2 《天文》アリエル：天王星(Uranus)の衛星の一つ.


我抄這段，才恍然大悟梁兄翻譯的;大海，大海;之作者Iris MURDOCK的先生John Bayley所寫的《輓歌》（Elegy for Iris，有天下文化出版社翻譯本），實在有典故，都沒被翻譯和導讀人員點破，因為Iris 酷愛莎士比亞的Tempest。
***
我抄的沒錯。英國文學中當然有許多人寫dirges，莎士比亞作品中的，只不過是較為出名。據M. H. Abram的The Glossary of Literature Terms，輓歌（dirge）不同於哀歌（elegy—hc:我們或聽過Thomas Gray 於1751年寫的Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard，The New Penguin Book of English Verse，p. 484；美國總統甘迺迪遇刺後，名詩人Auden寫Elegy，由斯特拉文斯基譜曲）的地方，是輓歌較短、較不茍形式、並且，通常輓歌可配曲唱。除了前引的莎士比亞之「海下長眠」，還可舉William Collins的A Somg From Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

下面為作者和作品的某些資訊：
http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/booksea.cgi?ISBN=0140586717

Table of Contents
The New Penguin Book of English Verse-
This is an anthology of English verse. Poems are ordered by date of composition rather than in monolithic slabs devoted to individual poets. It also includes a high proportion of anonymous poetry and written on surfaces other than paper.
Skeltonics are the prime effect used in "The Tunning of Elinour Rumming", which is a rollicking satire of an alewife who adulterates her brew. An example of skeltonics can clearly be seen in the following short excerpt from Phyllyp Sparrowe:
Somtyme he wolde gaspe
Whan he sawe a waspe;
A fly or a gnat,
He wolde flye at that
And prytely he wold pant
Whan he saw an ant;
Lorde, how wolde hop
After the greesop!
And whan I sayd, Phyp, Phyp,
Than he wold lepe and skyp,
And take me by the lyp.

This essay written by Karen Elaine Smyth, Queen's University of Belfast
http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5490

Title: From Chaucer to Tennyson
Author: Henry A. Beers
Release Date: March 17, 2004 [eBook #11618]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/1/6/1/11618/11618-h/11618-h.htm


mourn

v., mourned, mourn·ing, mourns. v.intr.

1. To feel or express grief or sorrow. See synonyms at grieve.
2. To show grief for a death by conventional signs, as by wearing black clothes.
3. To make a low, indistinct, mournful sound. Used especially of a dove.

v.tr.

1. To feel or express deep regret for: mourned the wasted years.
2. To grieve over (someone who has died).
3. To utter sorrowfully.

[Middle English mournen, from Old English murnan.]

mourner mourn'er n.
mourningly mourn'ing·ly adv.

Editorial | Sunday Observer

The Whirling Sound of Planet Dickens

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: January 14, 2012

In death, Charles Dickens still keeps his greatest secret to himself — the essence of his energy. None of the physical relics he left behind betray it. The manuscripts of his novels — like “Our Mutual Friend” at the Morgan Library — look no more fevered or hectic than the manuscripts left behind by other novelists.

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Charles Dickens, from a negative by Herbert Watkins.

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• Times Topic: Charles Dickens

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Two memorable characters from Charles Dickens, Micawber and the young Copperfield.

The handwritten words on the page, round and legible in blue ink, are the marks of a mind that has already settled itself to composition.

Dickens, who was born 200 years ago, wrote a long shelf of novels, 14 in all, not counting “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which lay half-finished at his death. They sit plump and bursting with life, spilling over with the chaos of existence itself. It’s easy to imagine writers working the way Dickens’s prolific contemporary, Anthony Trollope, did — steadily, routinely, knocking off his 2,000 words a day until, by the end of his life, he had written 47 novels. But this is not how Dickens wrote.

Find the tumultuous heart of your favorite Dickens novel, the place where 19th-century London seems to be seething, smoking, overcrowded, in a state of vulgar contradiction. Then imagine Dickens working in the midst of it — a small, brisk figure rushing past you on a dark and dirty street. He is lost in a kind of mental ventriloquism, calling up his emotions and studying them. Every night he walked a dozen miles, without which, he said, “I should just explode and perish.”

Under the pseudonym Boz, he wrote, “There is nothing we enjoy more than a little amateur vagrancy,” walking through London as though “the whole were an unknown region to our wandering mind.” Yet there was nothing remotely solitary about Dickens. One person who saw him in the highest spirits at a family party wrote that he “happily sang two or three songs, one the patter song, ‘The Dog’s Meat Man,’ and gave several successful imitations of the most distinguished actors of the day.”

It’s a wonder Dickens didn’t explode and perish long before his death in 1870, at age 58. Quite apart from the act of composing his novels, he was a whirlwind, living a life that is nearly unmatched in its vigor. He had one entire career as a magazine editor, another as an actor and manager of theatrical productions, still another as a philanthropist and social reformer. The record of his private engagements alone — dinners, outings, peregrinations with his entourage of family and friends — is exhausting to read. The novels stand out against the backdrop of hundreds of other compositions, all of them written against tight deadlines.

Dickens’s energy, which he made no effort to husband until he was nearly dead, was inexplicable. Call it metabolic if you like. Perhaps it was a reaction to the uncertainties of his childhood and the shame of his days as a child laborer, when he knew that as a precocious young entertainer he was already a spectacle well worth observing.

He was driven by gargantuan emotions, and the ferocious will needed to keep them in check, to release them in the creation of characters he loved more than some of his children. He could drive himself to anguished tears while writing the death of Little Nell, in “The Old Curiosity Shop.” And yet he could also coldly disown anyone who sided with his wife, Catherine, when they separated, including his namesake son.

Even Dickens didn’t understand his energy. He grasped that there was a wildness in him, and so did nearly everyone who knew him. When Dostoevsky met Dickens in 1862 — a meeting that is hard to imagine — Dickens explained that there were two people inside him, “one who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the opposite.”

Out of these two people he constructed his universe of characters, good and evil. Dostoevsky’s comment is laconic and ambiguous. “Only two people?” he asked. Dickens’s public readings, which began in 1858, drew tens of thousands of people in England and America. They came not only to see the author himself but also the people who inhabited him — Scrooge and Pickwick, Micawber and Mrs. Gamp.

Those characters, and dozens more, still live with all their old vitality. And though we feel the unevenness of Dickens’s novels more plainly than when they were appearing in monthly parts, it’s easier now to see that the unevenness in most of them is symptomatic of his overpowering energy.

The man himself was uneven and could not be beaten into consistency any more than he could beat every one of his novels into perfection. The fact is that Charles Dickens was as Dickensian as the most outrageous of his characters, and he was happy to think so, too. Soon after the publication of “A Christmas Carol” in 1843, he wrote of himself to a close friend: “two and thirty years ago, the planet Dick appeared on the horizon. To the great admiration, wonder and delight of all who live, and the unspeakable happiness of mankind.” Planet Dickens feels as real as it does to us because he stalked the world around him.

And when he finally settled at his desk, he was still driving himself through a world of his own invention, peopled by characters waiting, as he said, to come “ready made to the point of the pen.”

Goldsmith, Oliver. The Deserted Village

這首Oliver Goldsmith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia名詩值得詳注
譬如說
209: Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
必須了解英國的民俗和曆法
term:

1. A point in time at which something ends; termination: an apprenticeship nearing its term.
2. The end of a normal gestation period: carried the fetus to term.
3. A deadline, as for making a payment.

tide:
A time or season. Often used in combination: eventide; Christmastide; Shrovetide.

Game of the Goose - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

解釋與一些應詩選的玩法 不同

The Complete Poetical Works - Google 圖書結果

books.google.com/books?isbn=1406824054...Oliver Goldsmith - 2007 - Poetry - 280 頁
“The twelve good rules”. 'A constant ... The rules, as 'found in the study of King Charles the First, of Blessed Memory,' are as follow:-- '1. ... Pick no quarrels; 6. ...




Goldsmith, Oliver. The Deserted Village
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work | | All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |

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-291-



1: Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
2: Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain,
3: Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
4: And parting Summer's lingering blooms delay'd;
5: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
6: Seats of my youth, when every sport could please:
7: How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,
8: Where humble happiness endear'd each scene!
9: How often have I paused on every charm,
10: The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,
11: The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
12: The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill;
13: The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
14: For talking age and whispering lovers made!
15: How often have I bless'd the coming day,
16: When toil, remitting, lent its turn to play,
17: And all the village train, from labour free,
18: Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree!
19: While many a pastime circled in the shade,
20: The young contending as the old survey'd;
21: And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground,
22: And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
23: And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
24: Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired-
25: The dancing pair that simply sought renown,

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-292-


26: By holding out to tire each other down;
27: The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
28: While secret laughter titter'd round the place;
29: The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love;
30: The matron's glance, that would those looks reprove.
31: These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
32: With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
33: These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed;
34: These were thy charms-but all these charms are fled.


35: Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
36: Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
37: Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
38: And Desolation saddens all thy green:
39: One only master grasps the whole domain,
40: And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
41: No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
42: But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
43: Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
44: The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
45: Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
46: And tires their echoes with unvaried cries:
47: Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
48: And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall
49: And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
50: Far, far away thy children leave the land.


51: Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
52: Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
53: Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
54: A breath can make them, as a breath has made:
55: But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
56: When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.


57: A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
58: When every rood of ground maintain'd its man;
59: For him light Labour spread her wholesome store,
60: just gave what life required, but gave no more:
61: His best companions, Innocence and Health;

---

-293-


62: And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.


63: But times are alter'd; Trade's unfeeling train
64: Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain;
65: Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose,
66: Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose;
67: And every want to luxury allied,
68: And every pang that folly pays to pride.
69: Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
70: Those calm desires that ask'd but little room,
71: Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
72: Lived in each look, and brighten'd all the green-
73: These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
74: And rural mirth and manners are no more.


75: Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
76: Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power,
77: Here, as I take my solitary rounds,
78: Amidst thy tangling walks and ruin'd grounds,
79: And, many a year elapsed, return to view
80: Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew-
81: Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
82: Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.


83: In all my wanderings through this world of care,
84: In all my griefs-and God has given my share-
85: I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
86: Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
87: To husband out life's taper at the close,
88: And keep the flame from wasting, by repose:
89: I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
90: Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill,
91: Around my fire an evening group to draw,
92: And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
93: And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
94: Pants to the place f rom whence at first she flew,
95: I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
96: Here to return-and die at home at last.


97: 0 blest retirement, friend to life's decline,

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-294-


98: Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
99: How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
100: A youth of labour with an age of ease;
101: Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
102: And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
103: For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
104: Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
105: No surly porter stands, in guilty state,
106: To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
107: But on he moves to meet his latter end,
108: Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
109: Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
110: While resignation gently slopes the way;
111: And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
112: His heaven commences ere the world be past!


113: Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,
114: Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
115: There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow,
116: The mingled notes came soften'd from below;
117: The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
118: The sober herd that low'd to meet their young,
119: The noisy geese that gobbled o'er the pool,
120: The playful children just let loose from school;
121: The watch dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind,
122: And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;-
123: These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
124: And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
125: But now the sounds of population fail,
126: No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
127: No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread
128: But all the bloomy flush of life is fled-
129: All but yon widow'd, solitary thing,
130: That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
131: She, wretched matron,-forced, in age, for bread,
132: To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
133: To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,

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-295-


134: To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn,-
135: She only left of all the harmless train,
136: The sad historian of the pensive plain.


137: Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
138: And still where many a garden-flower grows wild,
139: There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
140: The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
141: A man he was to all the country dear,
142: And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
143: Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
144: Nor e'er had changed, nor wish'd to change, his place;
145: Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power
146: By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
147: Far other aims his heart had learn'd to Prize,
148: More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
149: His house was known to all the vagrant train;
150: He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
151: The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
152: Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
153: The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
154: Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
155: The broken soldier, kindly bid to stay,
156: Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;-
157: Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
158: Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
159: Pleased with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow,
160: And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
161: Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
162: His pity gave ere charity began,


163: Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
164: And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side;
165: But in his duty prompt at every call,
166: He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all:
167: And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
168: To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
169: He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,

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170: Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.


171: Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
172: And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd,
173: The reverend champion stood. At his control,
174: Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
175: Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
176: And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise.


177: At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
178: His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
179: Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
180: And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
181: The service past, around the pious man
182: With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
183: E'en children follow'd, with endearing wile,
184: And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile;
185: His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd;
186: Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distress'd;
187: To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given
188: But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
189: As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
190: Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
191: Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
192: Eternal sunshine settles on its head.


193: Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
194: With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
195: There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
196: The village master taught his little school.
197: A man severe he was, and stern to view;
198: I knew him well, and every truant knew:
199: Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
200: The day's disasters in his morning face;
201: Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
202: At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
203: Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
204: Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
205: Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,

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206: The love he bore to learning was in fault.
207: The village all declared how much he knew;
208: 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
209: Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
210: And even the story ran that he could gauge.
211: In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
212: For even though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
213: While words of learned length and thundering sound
214: Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
215: And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
216: That one small head could carry all he knew.
217: But past is all his fame;-the very spot
218: Where many a time he triumph'd, is forgot.


219: Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
220: Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
221: Now lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired,
222: Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retired,
223: Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
224: And news much older than their ale went round.
225: Imagination fondly stoops to trace
226: The parlour splendours of that festive place;
227: The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
228: The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door,
229: The chest, contrived a double debt to pay,
230: A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day,
231: The pictures placed for ornament and use,
232: The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose,
233: The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
234: With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay;-
235: While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
236: Ranged o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.


237: Vain transitory splendours! Could not all
238: Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?
239: Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
240: An hour's importance to the poor man's heart.
241: Thither no more the peasant shall repair,

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242: To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
243: No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
244: No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
245: No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
246: Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
247: The host himself no longer shall be found
248: Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
249: Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
250: Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.


251: Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
252: These simple blessings of the lowly train;
253: To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
254: One native charm, than all the gloss of art.
255: Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
256: The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
257: Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
258: Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined:
259: But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
260: With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
261: In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
262: The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
263: And, even while Fashion's brightest arts decoy,
264: The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?


265: Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
266: The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
267: 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
268: Between a splendid and a happy land.
269: Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
270: And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
271: Hoards, even beyond the miser's wish, abound,
272: And rich men flock from all the world around.
273: Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
274: That leaves our useful products still the same.
275: Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
276: Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
277: Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,

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278: Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
279: The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
280: Has robb'd the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
281: His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
282: Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
283: Around the world each needful product flies,
284: For all the luxuries the world supplies;
285: While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure all,
286: In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.


287: As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain,
288: Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
289: Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies,
290: Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
291: But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
292: When time advances, and when lovers fail,
293: She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
294: In all the glaring impotence of dress;
295: Thus fares the land by luxury betray'd;
296: In nature's simplest charms at first array'd;-
297: But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
298: Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
299: While, scourged by famine, from the smiling land
300: The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
301: And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
302: The country blooms-a garden and a grave!


303: Where, then, ah! where shall poverty reside,
304: To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
305: If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd,
306: He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
307: Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
308: And even the bare-worn common is denied.


309: If to the city sped-what waits him there?
310: To see profusion that he must not share;
311: To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
312: To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
313: To see each joy the sons of pleasure know

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314: Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe:
315: Here while the courtier glitters in brocade,
316: There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
317: Here while the proud their long-drawn pomp display,
318: There the black gibbet glooms beside the way:
319: The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign,
320: Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train;
321: Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
322: The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
323: Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
324: Sure these denote one universal joy!-
325: Are these thy serious thoughts?-Ah, turn thine eyes
326: Where the poor houseless shivering female lies:
327: She once, perhaps, in village plenty bless'd,
328: Has wept at tales of innocence distress'd;
329: Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
330: Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:
331: Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue, fled,
332: Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
333: And, pinch'd with cold, and, shrinking from the shower,
334: With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
335: When idly first, ambitious of the town,
336: She left her wheel, and robes of country brown.


337: Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train,
338: Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
339: E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
340: At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!


341: Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene,
342: Where half the convex world intrudes between,
343: Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
344: Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
345: Far different there from all that charm'd before,
346: The various terrors of that horrid shore;
347: Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
348: And fiercely shed intolerable day;
349: Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,

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350: But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
351: Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crown'd,
352: Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
353: Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
354: The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
355: Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
356: And savage men more murderous still than they:
357: While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
358: Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
359: Far different these from every former scene,
360: The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
361: The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
362: That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.


363: Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day,
364: That call'd them from their native walks away;
365: When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
366: Hung round their bowers, and fondly looked their last,
367: And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain,
368: For seats like these beyond the western main;
369: And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
370: Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep!
371: The good old sire the first prepared to go
372: To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
373: But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
374: He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave.
375: His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
376: The fond companion of his helpless years,
377: Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
378: And left a lover's for a father's arms.
379: With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
380: And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose,
381: And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
382: And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
383: Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
384: In all the silent manliness of grief.


385: 0 Luxury, thou cursed by Heaven's decree,

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386: How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
387: How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
388: Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
389: Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown,
390: Boast of a florid vigour not their own;
391: At every draught more large and large they grow,
392: A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
393: Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound,
394: Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.


395: E'en now the devastation is begun,
396: And half the business of destruction done;
397: E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
398: I see the rural Virtues leave the land.
399: Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
400: That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
401: Downward they move, a melancholy band,
402: Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand;
403: Contented Toil, and hospitable Care,
404: And kind connubial tenderness are there;
405: And Piety with wishes placed above,
406: And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love.


407: And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid
408: Still first to fly where sensual joys invade!
409: Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
410: To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
411: Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
412: My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
413: Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
414: That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
415: Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
416: Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
417: Farewell! and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
418: On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
419: Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
420: Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
421: Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,

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422: Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime;
423: Aid slighted Truth with thy persuasive strain;
424: Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
425: Teach him that states of native strength possest,
426: Though very poor, may still be very blest;
427: That Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
428: As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
429: While self-dependent power can time defy
430: As rocks resist the billows and the sky.