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Beats thick! his roomy chest by far too scant
To give the lungs full play. What now avail
The strong-built sinewy limbs, and well-spread
shoulders?

See how he tugs for life, and lays about him,
Mad with his pain! Eager he catches hold
Of what comes next to hand, and grasps it hard,
Just like a creature drowning; hideous sight!
Oh! how his eyes stand out, and stare full
ghastly!

While the distemper's rank and deadly venom
Shoots like a burning arrow cross his bowels,
And drinks his marrow up Heard you that
groan?

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It was his last. See how the great Goliah,
Just like a child that brawl'd itself to rest,
Lies still.

*

Sure the last end

Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit!
Night-dews fall not more gentle to the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft.
Behold him in the evening-tide of life,
A life well-spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green:
By unperceiv'd degrees he wears away;
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting.
High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches
After the prize in view! and, like a bird

That's hamper'd, struggles hard to get away:
Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded
To let new glories in, the first fair fruits
Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh then!
Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears,
Shrunk to a thing of nought. Oh! how he longs
To have his passport sign'd, and be dismiss'd!
'Tis done! and now he's happy! The glad soul
Has not a wish uncrown'd. Ev'n the lag flesh
Rests too in hope of meeting once again
Its better half, never to sunder more.
Nor shall it hope in vain: The time draws on
When not a single spot of burial earth,
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long committed dust
Inviolate: and faithfully shall these
Make up the full account; not the least atom
Embezzl'd, or mislaid, of the whole tale.
Each soul shall have his own. Hence, ye profane!
Ask not, how this can be? Sure the same pow'r
That rear'd the piece at first, and took it down,
Can re-assemble the loose scatter'd parts,
And put them as they were.

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Thus, at the shut of ev'n, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledg'd wings, and bears away.

Thomson.

James Thomson, der Sohn eines Predigers, ward 1700 zu Ednam bei Kelso in Roxburgshire geboren und offenbarte schon sehr früh poetisches Talent. Er studirte Theologie in Edinburg, aber ein strenger Vorwurf eines Professors, dass er viel zu poetisch schreibe, um von dem Volke verstanden zu werden, verleidete ihm diesen Beruf und veranlasste ihn, nach London zu gehen, um dort durch literarische Arbeiten seinen Unterhalt zu suchen. Der erste Theil seines grösseren Gedichtes, die Jahreszeiten, der Winter, erschien 1725 und fand zwar anfangs nur langsam, dann aber desto allgemeineren Beifall, so dass die von 1727 bis 1730 nachfolgenden anderen Theile seinen gegründeten Ruf nur befestigten. In der Zwischenzeit veröffentlichte er ein Trauerspiel, Sophonisbe, und mehrere andere Gedichte. Nachdem er den Sohn des Lord Kanzlers Talbot als

dessen Führer auf Reisen begleitet, erhielt er ein Amt, das er später mit einem noch besseren vertauschte. Er verlebte nun seine übrigen Tage in Ruhe und Wohlstand und starb 1748 zu Richmond, wo er auch begraben liegt. In der Westmister-Abtei ward ihm ein Monument gesetzt.

Seine gesammelten Werke, welche zuerst London 1730 erschienen und später sehr oft wieder aufgelegt wurden, enthalten ausser den bereits angeführten Dichtungen noch vier Trauerspiele, eine Allegorie the Castle of Indolence, ein Maskenspiel Alfred, ein Gedicht auf Newton's Tod u. A. m. Thomson ist als Dichter durchaus neben Pope zu stellen: er besitzt dieselben glänzenden Eigenschaften, aber er hat weit mehr tiefes Gefühl und Begeisterung als dieser, die er noch weit schöpferischer und eigenthümlicher würde haben walten lassen, wenn er einem anderen Zeitalter angehört hätte. Sein berühmtestes und noch immer mit Recht gefeiertes Werk, sind die Jahreszeiten, bei deren Besprechung der feine englische Kritiker Samuel Johnson von ihm sagt: "He is entitled to one praise of the highest kind- his mode of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is original. His numbers, his pauses, his diction are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius. He looks round on nature and on life with the eye which nature only bestows on a poet; the eye that distinguishes in every thing presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast and attends to the minute."

A Hymn.
(From the Seasons.)

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy Sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering
gales.

Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force
divine,

Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence

The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring:
Flings from the Sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempests forth:
And, as on Earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join, and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft! whose Spirit in your freshness
breathes:

Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms;
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to

Heaven

Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you
rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling
rills;

And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise; whose greater
voice

Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and
flowers,

In mingled clouds to Him; whose Sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil
paints.

Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,

As home he goes beneath the joyous Moon.
Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as Earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate
.world!

While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn:
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night his
praise.

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to Heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every secret grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer-ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams;
Or Winter rises in the blackening east;
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should Fate command me to the farthest
verge

Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the Sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste, as in the city full;

And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in him, in Light ineffable;

Come then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.

From the Castle of Indolence.

O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and
wail,

And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come an heavier bale, Loose life, unruly passions and diseases pale.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is no where
found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;
And there a season atween June and May,
Half prankt with spring, with summer half
embrown'd,

A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared ev'n for play.

Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;

And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, From poppies breath'd; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd;

And hurled every where their waters sheen; That, as they bicker'd through the sunny shade,

And where he vital breathes, there must be joy. Though restless still themselves, a lulling mur

When ev'n at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey: there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,

mur made.

Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,

Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; And still a coil the grasshopper did keep; Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.

Full in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;

Amid the broom he bask'd him on the ground, Where the wild thyme and camomoil are found:

There would he linger, till the latest ray
Of light sat trembling on the welkin's bound;
Then homeward through the twilight shadows
stray,

Where nought but shadowy forms was seen Sauntering and slow. So had he passed many

to move,

As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood: And up the hills, on either side, a wood Of blackening pines, ay waving to and fro, Sent forth a sleepy horrour through the blood; And where this valley winded out, below, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer-sky: There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh; But whate'er smack'd of noyance, or unrest Was far far off expell'd from this delicious nest.

The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees, That half shut out the beams of Phoebus

bright,

And made a kind of checker'd day and night; Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was plac'd; and to his lute, of cruel fate, And labour harsh, complain'd, lamenting man's

estate.

Of all the gentle tenants of the place,
There was a man of special grave remark:
A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face,
Pensive, not sad, in thought involv'd, not
dark:

As soot this man could sing as morning-lark,
And teach the noblest morals of the heart:
But these his talents were yburied stark;
Of the fine stores he nothing would impart,
Which or boon Nature gave, or Nature-painting
Art.

To noontide shades incontinent he ran, Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound;

Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began,

a day!

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David Mallet stammte aus Schottland und ward um 1700 geboren; weiter ist Nichts über seine früheren Lebensumstände bekannt. 1720 war er Hofmeister bei einer Familie in der Nähe von Edinburg und wurde dann Führer der beiden Söhne des Herzogs von Montrose, die er auf ihren Reisen begleitete. Dadurch knüpfte er vortheilhafte Verbindungen an, die ihm das Amt eines zweiten Secretairs bei dem Prinzen von Wales verschafften. Später erhielt er eine noch einträglichere Stelle im Londoner Hafen. Er starb 1765.

Mallet gehört zu den sogenannten Miscellaneous poets jener Zeit; seine Dichtungen sind nicht eben ausgezeichnet; sie enthalten zwei grössere Arbeiten, The Excursion und Amyntor and Theo. dora, kleinere lyrische Poesieen und besonders zwei Balladen, die als sehr gelungen zu betrachten sind und sein Andenken erhalten haben; wir theilen dieselben hier mit. Seine Werke erschienen zuerst London 1759, 3 Bde in 8. Die Poesieen finden sich im 33. Bande der Johnson'schen, im 101. Bde der Bell'schen und im 11. Bde der Anderson'schen Sammlung. Als Prosaist war Mallet unbedeutend und seine Biogrophie Bacon's ist eine misrathene Arbeit.

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