Thus have I walk'd along the dewy lawn;'

My frequent foot the blooming wild hath worn; Before the lark I've sung the beauteous dawn,

And gather'd health from all the galeg of morn. And, even when winter chill'd the aged year,

I wander'd lonely o'er ihe hoary plain; Though frosty Boreas warn’d me to forbear,

Boreas, with all his tempests, warn'd in vain. Then sleep my nights, and quiet bless'd my days;

I fear'd no loss, my mind was all my store; No anxious wishes e'er disturb’d my ease;

Heav'n gave content and health - I ask'd po more. Now spring returns: but not to me returns

The vernal joy, my better years have known; Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,

And all the joys of life with bealth are flown. Btarting and shiv'ring in th' inconstant wind,

Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was, Beneath some blasted tree I lie reclin'd

And count the silent moments as they pass : The winged moments, whose unstaying speed

No art can stop, or in their course arrest; Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead,

And lay me down in peace with them that rest. Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate;

And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true, Led by pale ghosts, I enter death's dark gate,

And bid the realms of light and life adieu. I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe;

I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore, The sluggish streams that slowly creep below,

Which mortals visit, and return no more. Farewell ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains!

Enough for me the church - yards lonely inound, Where melancholy with still silence reigns,

And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground. There let me wander at the close of eve,

When sleep șits dewy on the labourer's eyes,

The world and all its busy follies leave,

And talk with wisdom, where my Daphnis lies. There let me sleep forgotten in the clay,

When death shall shut these weary aching eyes, Rest in the hopes of an eternal day,

Till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise.

AK EN SIDE,

Miex Avensing, 1921 zu Newcastle an der Tyne geboren, ging im 18len Inhre seines Alters nach Edinburgh, um die Theologie zu studieren, die er aber bald mit der Ar:neikunde vertauschte. 1741 besuchte er Leyden, wosellist er 1744 den Grad eines Doklors der Medicin annahm. Nach seiner 1745 erfolgten Rückkehr nach England practicirte er anfangs zu Northampton, dann zu Hampstead, und endlich zu London, Hier würde er vielleicht in Dürfrigkoil gelebt haben (denn seine Praxis war nie sehr ausgebreitel), wenn ihn nicht sein grossmüthiger Freund Jeremiah Dyson Esq. mit jährlichen 300 l. unterstützt hätte. Er starb 1770 als Mitglied der Königl, Societät der Wissenschaften und des Kollegiums der Ärzte zu London, als Dactor zu Cambridge und Leibarzt der itzt regierenden Königin.

Seine Gedichte gehören zur didnktischen und lyrischen Gattung.

Die aus 3 Gesängen bestehenden Pleasures of Imagination, sein vorzüge lichstes Werk, gab' er bereits im 23sten Jahre seines Alters heraus, und erregte dadurch Erwartungen, die er in der Folge unbefriedigt liefs. Er wusste seinen abstrakten Gegenstand durch seine blühende Phantasie zu beleben, war aber hin and wioder zum Nachtheil der Deutlichkeit mit dem Schmucke zu verschwenderisch. Er fühlte dies, wie ein Fragment einer Umarbeitung beweiset, welches in der ersten vollständigen von Dyson 1772 besorgten und im 55sten Bande der Johnso n schen Dichtersammlung wiederholten Ausgabe seiner Gedichte abgedruckt ist, Seine in 2 Bücher vertheilten 33 Oden haben, nach Johnson, weniger Werth, als sein didaktisches Gedicht, Unier seinen übrigen Werken zeichnet sich seine Hymne to the Najads sehr vortheilhaft aus,

In der An. dersonscken Sammlung nehmen seine Werke einen Theil des gten Bandes ein; bei Bell findet man dieselben im 104len und 105ten Bande. Von den medizinischen Schriften des Dichters kann hier nicht die Rede seyn. Übrigens sind seine Vergrügungen der Einbildungskraft auch in das Deutsche und zwar in der Versart des Originals überselzt, von Augusi von Rode: Berlin,

PASSIONS PAATAKE

OF PLB A6

1) ALL THE NATURAL

SBNSATION *).

ING

Behold the ways

Of heaven's eternal destiny to man,
For ever just, benevolent and wise:
That virtue's awful steps, howe'er pursued
By vexing fortune and intrusive pain,
Should never be divided from her chaste,
Her fair attendant, pleasure, Need I urge
Thy tardy thought through all the various round
Of this existence, that thy softening soul
At length may learn what energy the hand
Of virtue mingles in the bitter tide
Of passion swelling with distress and pain,
To mitigate the sharp with gracious drops
Of cordial pleasure? Ask the faithful youth,
Why the cold urn of her whom long he lov'd
So often fills his arms; so often draws
His lonely footsteps at the silent hour,
To pay the mournful tribute of his tears?
O! he' will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego
That sacred hour, when, stealing from the noise
Of care and envy, sweet remembrance sooihes
With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture,

Ask ihe crowd
Which Nies impatient from the village - walk
To climb the neighbouring dilis, when far below
The cruel winds have build upon the past
Some helpless bark; while sacred piry melts

*) Pleasores of Imagination, Book II. v. 670

The general eye, or terror's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair;
While every mother closer to her breast
Catches lier child, and pointing where the waves
Foam through the shatter'd vessel, shrieks aloud,
As one poor wretch that spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallow'd by the roaring surge,
As now another, dash'd against the rock,
Drops lifeless down, 0! deeņest tủou indeed
No kind endearment here by nature given
To mutual terror and compassion's tears ?
No sweetly - melting softness which altracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers
To this their proper action and their end?
Ask thy own heart; when at the midnight hour,
Slow through that studious gloom thy pausing eye
Led by the glimmering taper moves around
The sacred volumes of the dead, the

songs
Of Grecian bards, and records writ by fame
For Grecian heroca, where the present power,
Of heaven and earıb surveys the immortal page,
Even as a father blessing, while he reads
The praises of his son. If then thy soul,
Spurning the yoke of these inglorious days,
Mix in their deeds and kindlo with their flame;
Say, when the prospect blackens on ihy view,
When rooted from the base, heroic states
Mourn in the dust, and tremble at the frown
Of curat ambition : when the pious band
Of youths who fought for freedom and their sires,
Lie side by side in gore;

when rulhan pride Usurps the throne of justice, turns the pomp Of public power, the majesty of rule, The sword, the laurel, and the purple robe, To slavish empty pageanis, to adorn A tyrant's walk, and glitter in the eyes Of such as bow the knee; when honour'd urns Of patriots and of chiefs the awful bust And storied arcb, to glut the coward - rage Of regal envy, strew the public way With hallow'd ruins ; when the muse's bauni, The marble porch where wisdom wont to talk

With Socrates or Tully, hears no more,
Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks,
Or female superstition's midnight prayer; -
When ruthless rapine from the hand of time
Tears the destroying scythe, with surer blow
To sweep the works of glory from their base;
Till desolation o'er the grass - grown street,
Expands his raven - wings, and up the wall,
Where senates once the pride of monarch's doom'd,
Hisses the gliding snake through boary weeds
That clasp the mouldering column; thus defac'd,
Thus widely mournful when the

prospect

thrills
Thy beating bosam, when the patriot's tear
Starts from thine eye, and thy extended arm
In fancy hurls the thunderbolt of Jove
To fire the impious wreath on Philip's brow,
Or dash Octavius from the trophied car;
Say, does thy secret soul repine to taste
The big distress? Or would'st thou then exchange
Those heart- enpobling sorrows, for the lot
Of him who sits amid the gaudy herd
Of mute barbarians bending to his nod,
And bears aloft his gold - invested front,
And
says

within himself, „I am a king,
„And wherefore should the clamorous voice of woo
„Intrude upon mine ear The baleful dregs
Of these late ages, this inglorious draught.
Of servitude and folly, have not yet,
Blest be the eternal ruler of the world!
Defil'd to such a depth of sordid shame
The native honours of the human soul,
Nor so effac'd the image of its sire.

ar?"

2) NATURAL AND MORAL ADVANTAGES, RESULTING FROM A SEN

SIBLE AND WELL FOAMBD IMAGINATION *).

Oh! blest of heaven, whom not the languid songs
Of luxury, the Syren! not the bribes

*) Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 568

· 633.