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FOUR COMPOSITIONS AFTER THE ANTIQUE.

1. THE HUSBANDMAN.

Through fifty harvests crowned with yellow grain
With bronzed hand I tilled the Attic plain-
The seed in earliest spring I sowed-I reaped
Naked in mellow autumn, and upheaped
Upon the burthened floors the unstinted sheaves,
And pent in sheds from wintry storms my beeves.
I craved no servile hand the seed to throw;
I taught my haud betimes to reap and sow,

I fleeced my flocks-I weaned the youngling goats:
With watchful hand I barred the moorland cotes:
Around the reddening props the vines I led :
Beneath my feet the purple must was shed.
Nor was my labour vain-my autumn hoard
Through winter's blasts enriched my liberal board.
Our sole reply to winds and rattling sleet
Were giddy bowls, and songs, and dancing feet.
For though all dark with hurrying storm the skies,
Smiled on our log-piled hearth the rural Deities.

II. The shepherdD'S TOMB.

In no dark corner be my tomb, my friend;
No sunless yew above the spot suspend:
But earn for me a grave where shepherds tune
Their oat, and fountains kiss the unshaded moon:
House me in yellow moss, and then bestrew
Over the coping grass a flower or two;
So, gentle friend, shall know the passer-by
Thou wert a shepherd-youth, a shepherd I.

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Unclose my wicket now-lead out my sheep-
Though I no more the tuneful vigil keep.
As lush the pasturage is, as when I won
The milk from the full teat at set of sun:
And other oats allure them to their folds,
As sweet as mine, along the level wolds:

Though I, who watched and piped, no more have need
Of Gaberdine, or Staff, or pastoral Reed.

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Upon his shield my bleeding boy was brought
Unto my door-I had no mournful thought.
No Spartan freeman He, whose age could weep
The godlike joy of that heroic sleep.

JEREMY.

ΤΟ

ON HER ASKING ME WHY I HAD WRITTEN NO VERSES LATELY.

She prayed me, first, to tell
Wherefore the silent spell

So long, O Lyre, had lain upon thy strings:
She prayed me, once again,

To loose, O Lyre, the chain

The chain that long hath stilled thy feeble murmurings. A tiny stone can fret

The shallow rivulet;

Like froward infant will it oft complain :

But silently doth glide
Thy vast majestic tide,

Huge Orellana, on, on to the Atlantic main!
My passion, even so,

No utterance may know

Of that which in my heart was swelling long,
And struggles even now,

And vainly hopes to show

A vast and voiceless joy, a bliss too deep for song.

O Lyre, why thrills thy string?
Was it the breeze's wing

That to thy chords a transient language lent?
Weak thy loudest tone,

And harsh thy softest moan,

To reach the height sublime of this great argument.
A) Watcher stood alone

Upon the topmost stone

Which Chimboraço to the sky doth rear:

And to that Watcher's eye

(2) Coal-black seemed the sky,

Black as the funeral pall that shades a monarch's bier.
So from my dazzled sight

Fades in excess of light

My life's horizon in its happiness:

Nor would I try to paint,

In earthly colour faint,

That rainbow-lighted life-the life that she will bless.

Hush then that fluttering strain :
Cease, Lyre, the effort vain:

Thou wert ambitious of a theme too high!

That note so faint and low,

That note, O Lyre, doth show

Thy music is too slight for such grave harmony.
In the abysmal Heaven

(') De Saussure

The mysterious (3) Seven

(2) At this immense height, the travellers describe the effect of the sky as singularly sublime-from the great rarity of the atmosphere the refractive power was exceedingly diminished, and being far above the region of clouds, the colour of the sly was black, and the celestial bodies of an intense white appearance.

The seven planets known to the ancients.

VOL. III.

Vide Humboldt and de Saussure.

3

Swell their eternal anthem to the Lord :

Yet no mortal ear

Ever yet could hear

The faintest tone that breathes from that great (') Heptachord:
Ev'n so the music deep

That o'er my soul doth sweep,

The Triumph-song, in silence dies away-
Thy feeble note, O Lyre,
Shall ne'er again aspire

Unto that Lady's ear to echo such a lay.

T. B. S.

(1) The Platonic and Pythagorean philosophers had a notion that the movements of the seven planets were accompanied with musical sounds, inaudible however to human ears. The system they called the great Heptachord, or seven-stringed lyre of Heaven, and in this celestial instrument they attributed the gravest or flattest note to the Moon, and the sharpest to the Sun.

Vide Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. Apuleius, and the

later Pythagoreans, as Iamblichus, &c., &c.

THE

POETICAL WORKS OF THOMAS MOORE, Esq.

COLLECTED BY HIMSELF.

We are glad that Mr. Moore has thought fit to raise for himself, in his own lifetime, the Monument which has been erected for other distinguished poets after their death only, and by the hand of editors more or less qualified for the task, by publishing this edition of his complete works. We are glad also to see that his eminent publishers, at whose judicious request this Monument was undertaken, have done their part to render it worthy of the name inscribed upon it. The edition is, indeed, a very tasteful and desirable one; and, enriched as it largely is with introductory and prefatory recitals and notices, replete with interesting biographical and critical details and remarks, it cannot but be hailed as a precious addition to other similar collections of elegant literature.

But we do not regard Mr. Moore as having by yielding to the wish for a complete edition of his published poems, in that way settled his accounts with posterity, and relinquished all further control over his poetical testament. On the contrary, we perceive intimations in some of his prefaces that there still remain additions to be made-unfinished fragments, and sketches of compositions-which only await a little resolution on his part to be moulded into shape and rendered presentable. And really, when we remember how few years have elapsed since the appearance of his last poetical work of

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