“ They breast the tide of time.
And in their presence-chamber here
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train,
The gifted and the great.
O child of earth, when round thy path
The storms of life arise,
And when thy brothers pass thee by
With stern, unloving eyes,—
Here shall the Poets chant for thee
Their sweetest, loftiest lays;
[Pg 27] And Prophets wait to guide thy steps
In wisdom's pleasant ways.
Come, with these God-anointed kings
Be thou companion here,
And in the mighty realm of mind
Thou shalt go forth a peer. ”

“ For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,
And crave from the light of his stithy a ray;
Philosophers kneel to the God without name,
Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;
The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,
The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours,—
But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame
(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day
With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame) . ”

“ Without the cares and dangers of the great,
Without the miseries of the poor, we know
What wisdom, wealth, and poverty bestow;
We see how reason calms the raging mind,
And how contending passions urge mankind:
Some, won by virtue, glow with sacred fire;
Some, lured by vice, indulge the low desire;
Whilst others, won by either, now pursue
The guilty chase, now keep the good in view;
Forever wretched, with themselves at strife,
They lead a puzzled, vexed, uncertain life ”

“ With Fiction then does real joy reside,
And is our reason the delusive guide?
Is it then right to dream the sirens sing?
[Pg 169] Or mount enraptured on the dragon's wing?
No; 't is the infant mind, to care unknown,
That makes th' imagined paradise its own;
Soon as reflections in the bosom rise,
Light slumbers vanish from the clouded eyes:
The tear and smile, that once together rose,
Are then divorced; the head and heart are foes:
Enchantment bows to Wisdom's serious plan,
And Pain and Prudence make and mar the man. ”

“ The pride of wealth, the splendor of the great,
Stripped of their mask, their cares and troubles known,
Are visions far less happy than thy own:
Go on! and, while the sons of care complain,
Be wisely gay and innocently vain;
While serious souls are by their fears undone,
Blow sportive bladders in the beamy sun,
And call them worlds! and bid the greatest show
More radiant colors in their worlds below:
Then, as they break, the slaves of care reprove,
And tell them, Such are all the toys they love. ”

“ For vice in others is abhorred of all,
And villains triumph when the worthless fall.
Not thus her sister Comedy prevails,
Who shoots at Folly, for her arrow fails;
Folly, by Dulness armed, eludes the wound,
And harmless sees the feathered shafts rebound;
Unhurt she stands, applauds the archer's skill,
Laughs at her malice, and is Folly still.
Yet well the Muse portrays, in fancied scenes,
What pride will stoop to, what profession means;
How formal fools the farce of state applaud;
How caution watches at the lips of fraud;
The wordy variance of domestic life ”

“ But books, old friends that are always new,
Of all good things that we know are best;
They never forsake us, as others do,
And never disturb our inward rest.
Here is truth in a world of lies,
And all that in man is great and wise!
Better than men and women, friend,
That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain,
Are the books their cunning hands have penned,
For they depart, but the books remain ”

“ This play-book was the joy of Pott [30] —
Pott, for whom now no mortal grieves.
Our names, like his, remembered not,
Like his, shall flutter on fly-leaves!
[Pg 90] At least in pleasant company
We bookish ghosts, perchance, may flit;
A man may turn a page, and sigh,
Seeing one's name, to think of it.
Beauty, or Poet, Sage, or Wit,
May ope our book, and muse awhile,
And fall into a dreaming fit,
As now we dream, and wake, and smile! ”

“ This is thyself, Anacreon—yet, thou art
Wreath'd, as in Athens, with the Cnidian vine.
I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold,
Thy spirit meets me in the haunted ground!—
Sublime and eloquent, as while, of old,
"It flamed and sparkled in its crystal bound;" [31] [Pg 101] These are yourselves—your life of life! The Wise,
(Minstrel or Sage) out of their books are clay;
But in their books, as from their graves, they rise,
Angels—that, side by side, upon our way,
Walk with and warn us!
Hark! the world so loud,
And they, the movers of the world, so still! ”

“ Like Poets, born, in vain Collectors strive
To cross their Fate, and learn the art to thrive.
Like Cacus, bent to tame their struggling will,
The Tyrant-passion drags them backward still:
[Pg 55] Ev'n I, debarr'd of ease, and studious hours,
Confess, mid' anxious toil, its lurking pow'rs.
How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnish'd gold!
The Eye skims restless, like the roving bee,
O'er flowers of wit, or song, or repartee,
While sweet as Springs, new-bubbling from the stone,
Glides through the breast some pleasing theme unknown. ”

“ Some breast that glows with virtues all divine;
Some noble Rutland, misery's friend and thine.
"Nor say, the Muse's song, the Poet's pen,
Merit the scorn they meet from little men.
With cautious freedom if the numbers flow,
[Pg 172] Not wildly high, nor pitifully low;
If vice alone their honest aims oppose,
Why so ashamed their friends, so loud their foes?
Happy for men in every age and clime,
If all the sons of vision dealt in rhyme.
Go on, then, Son of Vision! still pursue
Thy airy dreams; the world is dreaming too. ”

“ I seek an antidote for care—
Of which most men indeed have plenty.
"Five hundred times at least," I've said—
My wife assures me—"I would never
Buy more old books;" yet lists are made,
And shelves are lumbered more than ever.
Ah! that our wives could only see
How well the money is invested
In these old books, which seem to be
By them, alas! so much detested.
There's nothing hath enduring youth,
Eternal newness, strength unfailing,
Except old books, old friends, old truth,
That's ever battling—still prevailing. ”

“ And none were proud of wealth, for none were poor,
No wars nor tumults vexed each still domain,
No thirst of empire, no desire of gain;
[Pg 164] No proud great man, nor one who would be great,
Drove modest merit from its proper state;
Nor into distant climes would Avarice roam,
To fetch delights for Luxury at home:
Bound by no ties which kept the soul in awe,
They dwelt at liberty, and love was law!"
"Mistaken youth! each nation first was rude,
Each man a cheerless son of solitude,
To whom no joys of social life were known,
None felt a care that was not all his own ”

“ Where no fair science ever shows her face,
Few sparks of genius, and no spark of grace;
There sceptics rest, a still increasing throng,
And stretch their widening wings ten thousand strong;
Some in close fight their dubious claims maintain;
Some skirmish lightly, fly, and fight again;
Coldly profane, and impiously gay,
Their end the same, though various in their way.
When first Religion came to bless the land,
Her friends were then a firm believing band;
To doubt was then to plunge in guilt extreme,
And all was gospel that a monk could dream ”

“ Each gentle passion, each becoming grace;
The social joy in life's securer road,
Its easy pleasure, its substantial good;
The happy thought that conscious virtue gives,
And all that ought to live, and all that lives. ”

“ Care lives with all; no rules, no precepts save
The wise from woe, no fortitude the brave;
Grief is to man as certain as the grave:
Tempests and storms in life's whole progress rise,
[Pg 171] And hope shines dimly through o'erclouded skies. ”

“ The Poet's spirit lovelier than his lore.
None learn from thee to cavil with their God;
None commune with thy genius to depart
Without a loftier instinct of the heart.
Thou mak'st no Atheist—thou but mak'st the mind
[Pg 102] Richer in gifts which Atheists best confute—
Fancy and Thought! 'Tis these that from the sod
Lift us! The life which soars above the brute
Ever and mightiest, breathes from a great Poet's lute! ”

“ The present collection of varieties in verse has little or naught to do with the great world and its errors: it has to do chiefly, not to say wholly, with the world of the Bookmen—the little world of the Book-lover, the Bibliophile, the Bibliomaniac—a mad world, my masters, in which there are to be found not a few poets who cherish old wine and old wood, old friends and old books, and who believe that old books are the best of old friends. ”

“ Then paused and doubted, and then, tired of doubt,
With rage as sudden dashed the stanza out;—
If, after fearing much and pausing long,
Ye ventured on the world your labored song,
And from the crusty critics of those days
Implored the feeble tribute of their praise;
Remember now the fears that moved you then,
And, spite of truth, let mercy guide your pen.
What vent'rous race are ours! what mighty foes
[Pg 170] Lie waiting all around them to oppose!
What treacherous friends betray them to the fight! ”

“ Lo! how they sunk to slavery again!
Satiate with power, of fame and wealth possessed,
A nation grows too glorious to be blest;
Conspicuous made, she stands the mark of all,
And foes join foes to triumph in her fall. ”

“ Or lead us, willing from ourselves, to see
Others more wretched, more undone than we?
This Books can do;—nor this alone; they give
New views to life, and teach us how to live;
They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,
Fools they admonish and confirm the wise:
Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:
Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,
They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
Nor tell to various people various things,
[Pg 151] But show to subjects what they show to kings.
Come, Child of Care! ”

“ THE LIBRARY.
In want and danger, the unknown
poet sent this poem to Edmund
George Crabbe. Burke, who saw its merit, befriended
its author, and procured its
publication.
When the sad soul, by care and grief oppressed,
Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest,
When every object that appears in view
Partakes her gloom and seems dejected too;
Where shall affliction from itself retire?
Where fade away and placidly expire?
Alas! we fly to silent scenes in vain;
Care blasts the honors of the flowery plain ”

“ Thus 't is in life, where first the proud, the great,
In leagued assembly keep their cumbrous state:
Heavy and huge, they fill the world with dread,
Are much admired, and are but little read:
[Pg 154] The commons next, a middle rank, are found;
Professions fruitful pour their offspring round;
Reasoners and wits are next their place allowed,
And last, of vulgar tribes a countless crowd. ”

“ And brainsick-poets long for shelt'ring groves,
Whose lofty shades exclude the noontide glow,
While Zephyrs breathe, and waters trill below, [19]
Me rigid Fate averts, by tasks like these,
From heav'nly musings, and from letter'd ease.
Such wholesome checks the better Genius sends,
From dire rehearsals to protect our friends:
Else when the social rites our joys renew,
The stuff'd Portfolio would alarm your view,
Whence volleying rhimes your patience would o'er-come,
And, spite of kindness, drive you early home. ”

“ And blest, like you, with talents, wealth, and taste,
Who gather nobly, with judicious hand,
The Muse's treasures from each letter'd strand.
For you the Monk illum'd his pictur'd page,
For you the press defies the Spoils of age;
[Pg 50] Faustus for you infernal tortures bore,
For you Erasmus [3] starv'd on Adria's shore.
The Folio-Aldus loads your happy Shelves,
And dapper Elzevirs, like fairy elves,
Shew their light forms amidst the well-gilt Twelves:
In slender type the Giolitos shine,
And bold Bodoni stamps his Roman line. ”

“ And Lovelace strikes, by fits, a note divine.
Th' unequal gleams like midnight-lightnings play,
And deepen'd gloom succeeds, in place of day.
But human bliss still meets some envious storm;
He droops to view his Paynters' mangled form:
Presumptuous grief, while pensive Taste repines
O'er the frail relics of her Attic Shrines!
O for that power, for which Magicians vye.
To look through earth, and secret hoards descry! ”

“ O'er worlds bewitched, in early rapture dreams,
Where wild Enchantment waves her potent wand,
And Fancy's beauties fill her fairy land;
Where doubtful objects strange desires excite,
And Fear and Ignorance afford delight.
But lost, for ever lost, to me these joys,
Which Reason scatters, and which Time destroys ”

“ And lash with furious strokes the trembling ground!
[Pg 157] They pray, they fight, they murder, and they weep,
Wolves in their vengeance, in their manners sheep;
Too well they act the prophet's fatal part,
Denouncing evil with a zealous heart;
And each, like Jonah, is displeased if God
Repent his anger, or withold his rod.
But here the dormant fury rests unsought,
And Zeal sleeps soundly by the foes she fought;
Here all the rage of controversy ends,
And rival zealots rest like bosom friends:
An Athanasian here, in deep repose,
Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes ”