Festival of song: a series of evenings with the poets . , rugged nurse ! thy rigid loreWith patience many a year she bore :What sorrow was thou badst her from her own she learnd to melt at others woe.* * * Here is a beautiful passage by Akenside, written in the last yearof his life :— O ye dalesOf Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands ; where,Oft as the giant flood obliquely his banks open and his lawns extend,Stops short the pleased traveller to oer the scene, some rustic towerFounded by Norman or by Saxon hands ; 0 ye Northumbrian shades, which overl
Festival of song: a series of evenings with the poets . , rugged nurse ! thy rigid loreWith patience many a year she bore :What sorrow was thou badst her from her own she learnd to melt at others woe.* * * Here is a beautiful passage by Akenside, written in the last yearof his life :— O ye dalesOf Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands ; where,Oft as the giant flood obliquely his banks open and his lawns extend,Stops short the pleased traveller to oer the scene, some rustic towerFounded by Norman or by Saxon hands ; 0 ye Northumbrian shades, which overlookThe rocky pavement and the mossy fallsOf solitary Wensbecks limpid stream !How gladly I recall your well-known seats,Beloved of old, and that delightful timeWhen, all alone, for many a summers day, 1 wandered through your calm recesses, ledIn silence by some powerful hand unseen. •5 Nor will I eer forget you ; nor shall eerThe graver tasks of manhood, or the adviceOf vulgar wisdom, move me to disclaimThose studies which possessed me in the dawi. Of life, and fixed the colour of my mindFor every future year ; whence even nowFrom sleep I rescue the clear hours of morn,And, while the world around lies overwhelmedIn idle darkness, am alive to thoughtsOf honourable fame, of truth divineOr moral, and of minds to virtue wonBy the sweet magic of harmonious verse. There are some noble thoughts in the celebrated Ode by SirWilliam Jones, the Orientalist. Here are some of the lines :— What constitutes a State ?Not high-raised battlement or laboured wall or moated gate ; Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned ; Not bays and broad armed ports,Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; Not starrd and spangled courts,Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. t- =!; * Men who their duties know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain •, Prevent the long-aimed crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain : These constitute a State
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksu, booksubjectenglishpoetry
