"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee, Give me your tool" to him I said; And at the word right gladly he I struck, and with a single blow At which the poor old man so long The tears into his eyes were brought, -I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning. Alas! the gratitude of men Has oftner left me mourning. LINES Written in early Spring. I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did nature link Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trail'd its wreathes ; And 'tis my faith that every flower The birds around me hopp'd and play'd: But the least motion which they made, The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. If I these thoughts may not prevent, What man has made of man? The NIGHTINGALE. Written in April, 1798. No cloud, no relique of the sunken day And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, "Most musical, most melancholy"* Bird! A melancholy Bird? O idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy. -But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc'd With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper or neglected love, (And so, poor Wretch! fill'd all things with himself And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrows) he and such as he First named these notes a melancholy strain: Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible. |