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eves.

Ode to a Nightingale. The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves; My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

And mid-May's eldest child, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness, That thou, light-winged dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time, Of beechen green,

and shadows numberless, I have been half in love with easeful Death, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath; O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, Tasting of Flora and the country green,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt

abroad mirth!

In such an ecstacy! O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

vain With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, To thy high requiem become a sod.

And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world un- Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird !

seen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: The voice I hear this passing night was heard

No hungry generations tread thee down;

In ancient days by emperor and clown: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path What thou among the leaves hast never

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick known,

for home, The weariness, the fever, and the fret

She stood in tears amid the alien corn; Here, where men sit and hear each other

The same that oft times hath groan;

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,

foam Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin,

and dies;

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Or new Love pine at them beyond to- Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

morrow.

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

Up the hill side; and now 'tis buried deep But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

In the next valley glades: Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Already with thee! tender is the night,

Fled is that music: Do I wake or sleep?
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry fays;

But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes

blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding
mossy ways.

Ode on a Grecian Urn.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness!

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow time, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

Wherewith the seasonable month endows A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

an eye

What leaf - fringed legend haunts about thy

Sonnets. shape? Of deities or mortals, or of both,

To one who has been long in city pent,

'Tis very sweet to look into the fair In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

And open face of heaven, to breathe a What men or gods are these? What maidens loth ?

prayer What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,

Full in the smile of the blue firmament. What pipes and timbrels? What wild ec

Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair stasy?

Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

And gentle tale of love and languishment? Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Returning home at evening, with an ear Not to the sensual ear, but more endear'd,

Catching the notes of Philomel, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not

He mourns that day so soon has glided by; leave

E'en like the passage of an angel's tear Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

That falls through the clear ether silently. Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal

yet, do not

grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy

bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Happy is England! I could be content

To see no other verdure than its own; Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

To feel no other breezes than are blown Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

Through its tall woods with high romances blent: And, happy melodist, unwearied,

Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment For ever piping songs for ever new;

For skies Italian, and an inward groan More happy love! more happy, happy love!

To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

And half forget what world or wordling meant. For ever panting and for ever young;

Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; All breathing human passion far above,

Enough their simple loveliness for me, That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy'd,

Enough their whitest arms in silence clingA burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

ing:

Yet do I often warmly burn to see Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

singing, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And float with them about the summer waters.
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Stanza s.
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

In a drear-nighted December,

Too happy, happy tree, O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Thy branches ne'er remember Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

Their green felicity : With forest branches and the trodden weed;

The north cannot undo them, Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought

With a sleety whistle through them; As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral!

Nor frozen thawings glue them
When old age shall this generation waste,

From budding at the prime.
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

In a drear-nighted December, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” that is all

Too happy, happy brook,
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;

But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy !
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting, careless, on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind: Or, on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy

hook Spares the next swath and all its twined

flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or, by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by

hours.

eves run.

To Autumn.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

they? Close bosom friend of the maturing sun; Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, Conspiring with him how to load and bless While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, With fruit the vines that round the thatch- And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue:

Then, in wailful choir, the small gnats mourn To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees, Among the river sallows, borne aloft, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly With a sweet kernel; to set budding more

bourn; And still more, later flower for the bees,

Hedge-crickets sing; and now, with treble Until they think warm days will never cease,

soft, For summer has o'er brimm'd their clammy The redbreast whistles from a garden croft,

cells.

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

James Hogg ward am 25. Januar 1772 in einer Hütte am Ufer des Ettrick im Shire von Selkirk (Schottland) geboren. Er stammte von Schäfern und ward selbst wieder ein Schäfer, wes halb er auch zur Auszeichnung the Ettrick Shepherd genannt wurde. Schon früh musste er sich sein Brod verdienen und genoss nur ein halbes Jahr lang eigentlichen Schulunterricht; seine ganze übrige Bildung verdankte er seinem eigenen Fleisse. Als er achtzehn Jahr alt war, entstanden seine ersten Gedichte, welche er später in Edinburg herausgab, die aber wenig Aufmerksamkeit erregten. Mit der Landwirthschaft wollte es ihm nicht gelingen und er hatte mit Armuth zu kämpfen, bis sich Walter Scott seiner annahm. Hogg liess nun mehrere grössere Dichtungen erscheinen, unter denen namentlich The Queen's Wake sich des allgemeinsten Beifalls erfreute, aber seine Vermögensumstände verbesserten sich nicht, da er den Pachthof von Mount Benger übernommen hatte und vom Ackerbau doch nicht sonderlich viel verstand. Er starb am 21. November 1835 und hinterliess eine Wittwe und fünf Kinder in drückenden Verhältnissen.

Neben mehreren Romanen und prosaischen Erzählungen schrieb Hogg einige grössere Dichtungen, wie dass oben erwähnte Queen's Wake, the Pilgrims of the Sun, Mador of the Moor, Queen Hynde und eine Anzahl Balladen und lyrischer Poesieen u. A. m. Allan Cunningham sagt von ihm a. a. 0.: "Als Dichter steht er auf einer hohen Stufe. An Energie des Ausdrucks und Leidenschaftlichkeit des Gefühls ist er Burns zwar bei Weitem nicht gleich, allein was den natürlichen Aufschwung einer freien fessellosen Einbildungskraft anlangt, tritt er vor Niemand zurück. Die besonderen Eigenschaften seiner Dichtungen, so wie seine Stellung als Haupt der ländlichen Schule, die eben keine zahlreichen Jünger hat, geben ihm alle Aussicht auf Nachruhm.”

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