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THE LAST ORACLE (A.D. 361)Years have risen and fallen in darkness or in twilight,   Ages waxed and waned that knew not thee nor thine,While the world sought light by night and sought not thy light,   Since the sad last pilgrim left thy dark mid shrine.Dark the shrine and dumb the fount of song thence welling,   Save for words more sad than tears of blood, that said: Tell the king, on earth has... more...

INTRODUCTION. After the publication of his "Table Talk" and other poems in March, 1782, William Cowper, in his quiet retirement at Olney, under Mrs. Unwin's care, found a new friend in Lady Austen. She was a baronet's widow who had a sister married to a clergyman near Olney, with whom Cowper was slightly acquainted. In the summer of 1781, when his first volume was being printed,... more...

ADVERTISEMENT.ThisPoem is the result of a sense of duty, which has taken the Author from quieter studies during a great public crisis. He obeyed the impulse with joy, because it took the shape of verse; but with more pain, on some accounts, than he chooses to express. However, he has done what he conceived himself bound to do; and if every zealous lover of his species were to express his feelings in... more...

INTRODUCTION TO The Modern Gaelic Minstrelsy. The suspicion which arose in regard to the authenticity of Ossian, subsequent to his appearance in the pages of Macpherson, has unjustly excited a misgiving respecting the entire poetry of the Gael. With reference to the elder poetry of the Highlands, it has now been established that at the period of the Reformation, the natives were engrossed with the lays... more...

I Strings in the earth and airMake music sweet;Strings by the river whereThe willows meet. There's music along the riverFor Love wanders there,Pale flowers on his mantle,Dark leaves on his hair. All softly playing,With head to the music bent,And fingers strayingUpon an instrument. The twilight turns from amethystTo deep and deeper blue,The lamp fills with a pale green glowThe trees of the avenue.... more...

The poetry of each age may be considered as vitally connected with, and as vividly reflective of, its character and progress, as either its politics or its religion. You see the nature of the soil of a garden in its tulips and roses, as much as in its pot-herbs and its towering trees. We purpose, accordingly, to compare briefly the poetry of the past and of the present centuries, as indices of some of... more...

ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST PART. THE Poem begins with the description of an obscure village, and of the pleasing melancholy which it excites on being revisited after a long absence. This mixed sensation is an effect of the Memory. From an effect we naturally ascend to the cause; and the subject proposed is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty. It is... more...

TAM I' THE KIRK O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca's the congregationOwre valley an' hill wi' the ding frae its iron mou',When a'body's thochts is set on his ain salvation,  Mine's set on you. There's a reid rose lies on the Buik o' the Word 'afore yeThat was growin' braw on its bush at the keek o' day,But the lad that pu'd yon... more...

TO HOPE.Oh! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,And play to me so cheerily;For grief is dark, and care is sharp,And life wears on so wearily.Oh! take thy harp!Oh! sing as thou wert wont to do,When, all youth's sunny season long,I sat and listened to thy song,And yet 'twas ever, ever new,With magic in its heaven-tuned string—The future bliss thy constant theme.Oh! then each little woe took... more...

Th' Better Part. A poor owd man wi' tott'ring gait,Wi' body bent, and snowy pate,Aw met one day;—An' daan o' th' rooad side grassy banksHe sat to rest his weary shanks;An' aw, to wile away my time,O'th' neighbouring hillock did recline,An' bade "gooid day." Said aw, "Owd friend, pray tell me true,If in your heart yo niver rueThe time... more...