Big with hosts of mighty name, Squadrons three against him came; This the force of Eirin hiding'; Side by side as proudly riding; On her shadow long and gay Lochlin* ploughs the watery way; There the Norman sails afar, Catch the winds and join the war; Black and huge along they sweep, Burthens of the angry deep.

Dauntless on his native sands The dragon sont of Mona stands; In glitterring arms and glory drest, High he rears his ruby crest: There the thundering strokes begin, There the press and there the din, Talymalfra's rocky shore Echoing in the battle's roar. Checked by the torrent-tide of blood, Backward Meinai rolls his flood, While, heaped his master's feet around, Prostrate warriors gnaw the ground. Where his glowing eyeballs turn, Thousand banners round him burn; Where he points his purple spear. Hasty, hasty rout is there; Marking, with indignant eye, Fear to stop and shame to fly: There confusion, terror's child, Conflict fierce and ruin wild, Agony, that pants for breath, Despair and honourable death.

ODE X.

THE DEATH OF HOEL.

From the Welsh of Aneurim, styled The Monarch of the Bards.

He flourished about the time of Taliessin, A. D.570. This Ode is extracted from the Gododin.

[See Mr. Evan's specimens, pp. 71, 73.]

HAD I but the torrent's might,
With headlong rage, and wild affright,
Upon Deïra's squadrons hurled,

To rush and sweep them from the world!
Too, too secure in youthful pride,
By them my friend, mỹ Hoel, died,
Great Cian's son; of Madoc old,
He asked no heaps of hoarded gold;
Alone in nature's wealth arrayed,
He asked and had the lovely maid.

To Cattraeth's vale, in glittering row, Twice two hundred warriors go;

⚫ Denmark.

↑ The red Dragon is the device of Cadwallader, which all his descendants bore on their banners.

Every warrior's manly neck
Chains of regal honour deck,
Wreathed in many a golden link:
From the golden cup they drink
Nectar that the bees produce,
Or the grape's ecstatic juice.
Flushed with mirth and hope they burn,
But none from Cattraeth's vale return,
Save Aëron brave, and Conan strong,
(Bursting through the bloody throng,)
And I, the meanest of them all,
That live to weep and sing their fall.

ODE XI.

[FOR MUSIC.]

Performed in the Senate-house, Cambridge, July 1, 1769, at the installation of his Grace Augustus-Henry-Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the University.

I.

"HENCE, avaunt! ('tis holy ground,)
Comus and his midnight crew,
And ignorance with looks profound,
And dreaming sloth of pallid hue,
Mad sedition's cry profane,
Servitude that hugs her chain,

Nor in these consecrated bowers,

Let painted flattery hide her serpent-train in flowers,

Nor envy base, nor creeping gain,

Dare the muse's walk to stain,

While bright-eyed science watches round:
Hence away! 'tis holy ground."

II.

From yonder realms of empyrean day
Bursts on my ear th' indignant lay;
There sit the sainted sage, the bard divine,
The few whom genius gave to shine

Through every unborn age and undiscovered clime.
Rapt in celestial transport they,

Yet hither oft a glance from high
They send of tender sympathy

To bless the place where on their opening soul
First the genuine ardour stole.

'Twas Milton struck the deep-toned shell
And, as the choral warblings round him swell,
Meek Newton's self bends from his state sublime,
And nods his hoary head, and listens to the rhyme.

III.

"Ye brown o'er-arching groves! That contemplation loves,

Where widowy Camus lingers with delight, Oft at the blush of dawn

I trod your level lawn,

Oft wooed the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright

In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of folly, With freedom by my side and soft-eyed melancholy."

IV.

But hark! the portals sound, in pacing forth,
With solemn steps and slow,
High potentates, and dames of royal birth,
And mitred fathers, in long order go:
Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow*
From haughty Gallia torn,

And sad Chatillon,† on her bridal morn,
That wept her bleeding love, and princely Clare,
And Anjou's heroine,§ and the paler rose,||
The rival of her crown, and of her woes,
And either Henry¶ there,

The murdered saint, and the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome.
(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er,
Their human passions now no more,
Save charity, that glows beyond the tomb)
All that on Granta's fruitful plain
Rich streams of regal bounty poured,

And bade those awful fanes and turrets rise
To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come;
And thus they speak in soft accord
The liquid language of the skies:

V.

"What is grandeur, what is power? Heavier toil, superior pain,

Edward III. who added the Fleur de lys of France to the

arms of England. He founded Trinity-College.

↑ Mary de Valentia, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of Guy

de Chatillon, Comte de St. Paul in France, of whom tradition says that her husband, Audemarde de Valentia, earl of Pembroke, was slain at a tournament on the day of his nuptials. She was the foundress of Pembroke-College, or Hall, under the

name of Aula Mariæ de Valentia.

Elizabeth de Burg, countess of Clare, was wife of John de Burg, son and heir of the earl of Ulster, and daughter of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, by Joan of Acres, daughter of Edward I. hence the poet gives her the epithet of princely.

She founded Clare-hill.

5 Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. foundress of Queen's College. The poet has celebrated her conjugal fidelity in a former ode.

Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward IV. (hence called the paler Rose, as being of the house of York.) She added to the foundation of Margaret of Anjou.

Henry VI. and VIII. the former the founder of King's, the latter the greatest banefactor to Trinity-College.

What the bright reward we gain?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude."

VI.

Foremost, and leaning from her golden cloud,
The venerable Margaret* see!
"Welcome, my noble son!" she cries aloud,
"To this thy kindred train and me:
Pleased in thy lineaments we trace
A Tudor'st fire, a Beaufort's grace:
Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye,
The flower unheeded shall descry,
And bid it round heaven's altars shed
The fragrance of its blushing head;
Shall raise from earth the latent gem
To glitter on the diadem.

VII.

"Lo! Granta waits to lead her blooming band; Not obvious, not obtrusive, she

No vulgar praise, no venal incense flings,
Nor dares with courtly tongue refined
Profane thy inborn royalty of mind:

She reveres herself and thee.

With modest pride to grace thy youthful brow
The laureat wreath‡ that Cecil wore she brings,
And to thy just, thy gentle hand
Submits the fasces of her sway;
While spirits blest above, and men below,
Join with glad voice the loud symphonious lay.

VIII.

Through the wild waves, as they roar, With watchful eye, and dauntless mien, Thy steady course of honour keep, Nor fear the rock nor seek the shore: The star of Brunswick smiles serene, And gilds the horrors of the deep."

⚫ Countess of Richmond and Derby, the mother of Henry VII foundress of St. John's and Christ's Colleges.

The Countess was a Beaufort, and married to a Tudor; hence the application of this line to the duke of Grafton, who claims descent from both these families.

Lord treasurer Burleigh was chancellor of the University in the reign of queen Elizabeth.

A LONG STORY.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Mr. Gray's Elegy, previous to its publication, was handed about in MS. and had, amongst other admirers, the lady Cobham, who resided in the mansion-house at Stoke-Pogeis. The performance inducing her to wish for the author's acquaintance, lady Schaub and Miss Speed, then at her house, undertook to introduce her to it. These two ladies waited upon the author at his aunt's sclitary habitation, where he at that time resided, and not finding him at home, they left a card behind them. Mr. Gray, surprised at such a compliment, returned the visit; and as the beginning of this intercourse bore some appearance of romance, he gave the humorous and lively account of it which the Long Story contains.

IN Britain's isle, no matter where,

An ancient pile of building stands;* The Huntingdons and Hattons there Employed the power of fairy hands. To raise the ceilings fretted height,

Each pannel in achievements clothing, Rich windows that exclude the light,

And passages that lead to nothing.

Full oft within the spacious walls,

When he had fifty winters o'er him, My grave lord-keepert led the brawls:

The seal and maces danced before him.

His bushy beard and shoe-strings green,

His high-crowned hat and satin doublet, Moved the stout heart of England's queen, Though pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.

What, in the very first beginning,

Shame of the versifying tribe!
Your history whither are you spinning?
Can you do nothing but describe?

A house there is (and that's enough)
From whence one fatal morning issues

A brace of warriors,‡ not in buff,

But rustling in their silks and tissues.

•The mansion-house at Stoke-Pogeis, then in possession of viscountess Cobham. The style of building which we now call queen Elizabeth's, is here admirably described, both with regard to its beauties and defects; and the third and fourth stanzas delineate the fantastic manners of her time with equal truth and humour. The house formerly belonged to the earls of Huntingdon and the family of Hatton.

↑ Sir Christopher Hatton, promoted by Queen Elizabeth for his graceful person and fine dancing. Brawls were a sort of a figure-dance then in vogue, and probably deemed as elegant as our modern cotillions, or still more modern quadrilles.

The reader is already apprised who these ladies were; the

The first came cap-â-pèe from France,
Her conquering destiny fulfilling,
Whom meaner beauties eye askance,
And vainly ape her art of killing.

The other Amazon kind Heaven
Had armed with, spirit, wit, and satire;
But Cobham had the polish given,
And tipped her arrows with good-nature

To celebrate her eyes, her air

Coarse panegyrics would but tease her; Melissa is her nom de guerre; Alas! who would not wish to please her!

With bonnet blue and capuchine,

And aprons long, they hid their armour, And veiled their weapons bright and keen In pity to the country farmer.

Fame in the shape of Mr. P-t,*

(By this time all the parish know it) Had told that thereabouts there lurked A wicked imp they called a poet.

Who prowled the country far and near,

Bewitched the children of the peasants, Dried up the cows and lamed the deer, And sucked the eggs and killed the pheasants. My lady heard their joint petition,

Swore by her coronet and ermine, She'd issue out her high commission To rid the manor of such vermin.

The heroines undertook the task;

Through lanes unknown, o'er stiles they ventured,

Rapped at the door, nor stayed to ask,

But bounce into the parlour entered.

The trembling family they daunt,

They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle. Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt,

And up stairs in a whirlwind rattle.

Each hole and cupboard they explore,

Each creek and cranny of his chamber,

two descriptions are prettily contrasted; and nothing can be more happily turned than the compliment to lady Cobham in the eighth stanza.

I have been told that this gentleman, a neighbour and ac qaintance of Mr. Gray's in the country, was much displeased at the liberty here taken with his name, yet surely without any great reason.

Run hurry scurry round the floor,
And o'er the bed and tester clamber;
Into the drawers and china pry,

Papers and books, a huge imbroglio! Under a tea-cup he might lie,

Or creased like dog's ears in a folio.

On the first marching of the troops,

The muses, hopeless of his pardon, Conveyed him underneath their hoops To a small closet in the garden.

So rumour says, (who will believe?)

But that they left the door a-jar, Where safe, and laughing in his sleeve He heard the distant din of war.

Short was his joy; he little knew

The power of magic was no fable; Out of the window wisk they flew,

But left a spell upon the table.

The words too eager to unriddle,

The poet felt a strange disorder; Transparent birdlime formed the middle, And chains invisible the border.

So cunning was the apparatus,

The powerful pothooks did so move him, That will he nill to the great house

He went as if the devil drove him.

Yet on his way (no sign of grace,
For folks in fear are apt to pray)

To Phoebus he preferred his case,
And begged his aid that dreadful day.

The godhead would have backed his quarrel:
But with a blush, on recollection,
Owned that his quiver and his laurel

'Gainst four such eyes were no protection.

The court was sat, the culprit there:
Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping,
The lady Janes and Jones repair,

And from the gallery stand peeping;

Such as in silence of the night

Come (sweep) along some winding entry, (Styack has often seen the sight)

Or at the chapel-door stand sentry;

In peaked hoods and mantle tarnished,
Sour visages enough to scare ye,
High dames of honour once that garnished
The drawing-room of fierce queen Mary!

The peeress comes: the audience stare,
And doff their hats with due submission;
She courtesies, as she takes her chair,
To all the people of condition.

⚫ The house-keeper.

The bard with many an artful fib

Had in imagination fenced him,
Disproved the arguments of Squib,*
And all that Groomt could urge against him.

But soon his rhetoric forsook him
When he the solemn hall had seen;
A sudden fit of ague shook him;

He stood as mute as poor Macleane.‡
Yet something he was heard to mutter,
"How in the park, bencath an old tree,
(Without design to hurt the butter,

Or any malice to the poultry,)

He once or twice had penned a sonnet,
Yet hoped that he might save his bacon:
Numbers would give their oaths upon it,
He ne'er was for a conjuror taken."

The ghostly prudes, with haggeds face,
Already had condemned the sinner:
My lady rose, and with a grace-

She smiled, and bid him come to dinner.li 'Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget,

Why, what can the viscountess mean!" Cried the square hoods, in woful fidget;

"The times arc altered quite and clean!

"Decorum's turned to mere civility!

Her air and all her manners show it:
Commend me to her affability!
Speak to a commoner and poet!"
[Here 500 stanzas are lost.]

And so God save our noble king,

And guard us from long-winded lubbers, That to eternity would sing,

And keep my lady from her rubbers.

ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

• The steward.

† Groom of the chamber. A famous highwayman, hanged the week before. § Hagged, i. e. the face of a witch or hag. The epithet haggard has been sometimes mistaken as conveying the same idea, but it means a very different thing, viz. wild and farouche, and is taken from an unreclaimed hawk called a haggard.

Here the story finishes; the exclamation of the ghosts, which follows, is characteristic of the Spanish manners of the age when they are supposed to have lived; and the 500 stanzas said to be lost, may be imagined to contain the remainder of their long-winded expostulation.

The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turfin many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke.

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud! impute to these the fault,

If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where thro' the long drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton, here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,* Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. Yet e'en these bones, from insult to protect

Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, The place of fame and elegy supply, And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey

This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashest live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

"Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

* This part of the elegy differs from the first copy. The following stanza was excluded with the other alterations: Hark! how the sacred calm, that breathes around, Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease, In still small accents whispering from the ground, A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

↑ Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Fredda una lingua, et due bezli occhi chiufi Rimaner droppo noi pien difaville.-Petrarch, Son. 169