Capacity for joy Admits temptation. It seemed, next, worth while Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lane, Then back again before the house should stir. Or else I sat on in my chamber green, And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed To do me good. Mark, there! We get no good And calculating profits; .. so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth, 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. I read much. What my father taught before Have taught me wrestling, or the game of fives, Who loves but one, and so gives all at once, But, after I had read for memory, I read for hope. The path my father's foot Sublimest danger, over which none weeps And more puissant. For the wicked there Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes A spiritual life. The beautiful seems right Though armed against St. Michael. Many a crown Look steadfast truths against Time's changing mask. In order to light men a moment's space. But stay! who judges, who distinguishes, To serve King David? Who discerns at once The sound of the trumpets when the trumpets blow Who judges wizards, and can tell true seers From conjurors? The child there? Would you leave That child to wander in a battle-field, And push his innocent smile against the guns ? Or even in a catacomb, his torch Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all The dark a-mutter round him? Not a child. I read books bad and good, - some bad and some good And merry books, which set you weeping when Which make you laugh that any one should weep The world of books is still the world I write ; Still brought me nearer to the central truth. I thought so. All this anguish in the thick But throws you back upon a noble trust The cygnet finds the water; but the man Attesting the hereafter. Let who says, Defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's, - Which obscene text, we may discern perhaps Some fair, fine trace of what was written once; Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret-room Piled high with cases in my father's name; Piled high, packed large, where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small, nimble mouse between the ribs At last, because the time was ripe, I chanced upon the poets. As the earth Plunges in fury when the internal fires Have reached and pricked her heart, and throwing flat And towers of observation, clears herself To elemental freedom; thus my soul, At Poetry's divine first finger-touch, Let go conventions, and sprang up surprised, OTHER MODERN ENGLISH POETS AND DRAMATISTS. ROBERT SOUTHEY.-1774-1843. Poet-laureate from 1813 to 1843. A writer of great industry. His prose is superior to his poetry, which is of the lake school mainly, and not of the highest order. PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. "Madoc;" ""The Curse of Kehama;" Thalaba, the Destroyer;" "Joan of Arc;""All for Love;" "The Pilgrim of Compostella;" "Life of Nelson;" "A History of Brazil;" "Lives of Wesley, Chatterton, White, and Cowper;' of the British Admirals;" "Colloquies on Society." ""Lives SHERIDAN KNOWLES.-1784-1862. One of the most successful of modern "Caius Gracchus, 66 dramatists. His best known plays are Virginius, "William Tell," "The Beggar of Bethnal Green, " "The Hunchback, "The Wife, a Tale of Mantua," and "Love." Besides these, he wrote several other popular plays and other works. WILLIAM E. AYTOUN.-1813, Edinburgh. "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers; " "Bothwell;""Firmilian;" and, with Theodore Martin, "Ballads by Bon Gaultier." PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.- 1816. Author of "Festus," a work of remarkable power, "The Angel World," "The Mystic," "The Age, a Colloquial Satire." CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY.-1787-1854. Authoress of the beautiful tales, “The Young Gray Head," "The Murder Glen," "Walter and William," and "The Evening Walk; also "Ellen Fitzarthur," ""Birthday and other Poems," "Solitary Hours," and other pieces of prose and poetry of much merit. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER. 1810. "Proverbial Philosophy;" "An Author's Mind;""The Crock of Gold." ELIZA COOK. 1817. "The Old Arm - Chair," and many other popular pieces. WILLIAM THOM. 1789-1848. 'Rhymes and Recollections." BRYAN WALTER PROCTER (better known as "BARRY CORNWALL "). ·- - 1790. "Marcian Colonna; "Flood of Thessaly; " " Dramatic Scenes; "" ""Mirandola; "The Sea; "The Sequestration of a Bereaved Lover; ""A Pauper's Funeral; "A Petition to Time; "A Prayer in Sickness;' The Stormy Petrel." HENRY HART MILMAN. 1791-1868. Fazio; "Samor;""The Fall of Jerusalem; ""The Martyr of Antioch; " “ History of Latin Christianity." JOHN CLARE. 1793. "Poems of Rural Life;" "0 The Village Minstrel." 1796-1849. "Lives of Northern Worthies;" "The First Sound to the Human Ear;" "Night; ""A Vision;""Sunday;" "Prayer." DERWENT COLERIDGE. 1800. "Memoir of Hartley Coleridge." "Phantasmion." SARA COLERIDGE. 1803-1852. THOMAS HAYNES BAYLEY.-1797-1839. "The Soldier's Tear;" "I'd be a Butterfly; "The First Gray Hair;" "I Never was a Favorite;"" Why don't the Men propose?" "Scottish Minstrelsy; - 1797-1835. ALARIC ALEXANDER WATts. -1799. "Poetical Sketches;" "Lyrics of the Heart;" "Death of the Firstborn;""To a Child blowing Bubbles; ""6 Fireside;' ""The Gray Hair." RICHARD HENRY HORNE. - 1803. "Orion; ""Cosmo de Medici;" "Death of Marlowe." CHARLES SWAIN.-1803. Laura D'Auverne." tralia; THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY.""Modern Sculpture; 66 THOMAS RAGG. - 1808. "The Deity:" "Martyr of Verulum; "" Heber." RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. - 1809. "Poems of Many Years;" "PalmLeaves;' "Life of Keats; " "Youth and Manhood; " "Labor; " 66 Rich and CHARLES MACKAY.-1812. "Voices from the Crowd; " "Town Lyrics;" "Egeria;""The Salamandrine;" "The Watcher on the Tower; "The Good Time Coming; ""The Three Preachers; ""What might be Done." ROBERT NICOLL. 1814-1837. "Thoughts of Heaven;""Death." FRANCES BROWN. 1816. "The Star of Atteghei;' "Lyrics." |