Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 19

A man he was to all the country dear, And pa.s.sing{2} rich with forty pounds{3} a year; Remote from towns he ran his G.o.dly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place; Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fas.h.i.+oned to the varying hour; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.

His house was known to all the vagrant train; He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain: The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; The broken soldier,{4} kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, Wept o'er his wounds or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.

Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; But in his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; And, as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed, The reverend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place: Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.

The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal suns.h.i.+ne settles on its head.{5}

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There in his noisy mansion,{6} skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school.

A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding{7} tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper circling round Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.

Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village{8} all declared how much he knew; 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides{9} presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:{10} In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill; For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.

But past is all his fame. The very spot Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.

NOTES.

1. =The village preacher.=--"This picture of the village pastor," says Irving, "which was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. . . . To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practise."

2. =pa.s.sing rich.= Exceedingly rich. The word is a common one among the poets. "Is she not pa.s.sing fair?" (Shakespeare, "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iv, sc. 4); "How pa.s.sing sweet is solitude" (Cowper, "Retirement").

3. =forty pounds.= In his dedication of "The Traveller," Goldsmith refers to his brother Henry as "a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year."

4. =broken soldier.= See "The Soldier's Dream," Campbell.

"And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay!"

5. The simile included in these four lines, says Lord Lytton, is translated almost literally from a poem by the Abbe de Chaulieu, who died in 1720. "Every one must own," adds he, "that, in copying, Goldsmith wonderfully improved the original."

6. =The village master.=--The portrait here drawn of the village schoolmaster is from Goldsmith's own teacher, Thomas Byrne, with whom he was placed when six years old. "Byrne had been educated for a pedagogue," says Irving, "but had enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy.

"There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories of which he was generally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable pa.s.sion for wandering and seeking adventure.

"Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superst.i.tious.

He was deeply versed in the fairy superst.i.tions which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore."

=noisy mansion.= The old-time school-room was a noisy place, the pupils studying their lessons aloud, and but little care being taken to secure quietness at any time.

7. =boding.= Foreboding; seeing that which is about to happen. From A.-S.

_bodian_, to announce, to foretell.

8. =village.= Villagers.

9. =terms and tides.= Times and seasons. =presage.= Foreknow. From Lat.

_pre_, before, and _sagio_, to perceive.

10. =gauge.= Measure liquids. The humor in this and in some other expressions in these verses is too apparent to require comment.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born at Pallas, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Leyden. After travelling on foot through portions of Western Europe, he made his way to London, where he was in turn a.s.sistant to a chemist, usher in a school at Peckham, and literary hack for one of the leading monthly publications.

He afterwards contributed many articles, both in prose and poetry, to the leading periodicals of the time. He wrote "The Traveller" in 1764, and "The Deserted Village" and _The Vicar of Wakefield_ in 1770. He died in his chambers in Brick Court, London, April 4, 1774. For a full account of his life, read Macaulay's Essay on Oliver Goldsmith.

"The naturalness and ease of Goldsmith's poetry," says Edward Dowden, "are those of an accomplished craftsman. His verse, which flows towards the close of the period with such a gentle yet steady advance, is not less elaborated than that of Pope; and Goldsmith conceived his verse more in paragraphs than in couplets. His artless words were, each one, delicately chosen; his simple constructions were studiously sought." And Sir Walter Scott said of him: "It would be difficult to point out one among the English poets less likely to be excelled in his own style.

Possessing much of Pope's versification without the monotonous structure of his lines; rising sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflections; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous compet.i.tors whom the friends.h.i.+p or flattery of the present age is so hastily arraying against him."

=Other Poems to be Read:= The Traveller; the rest of The Deserted Village; Retaliation.

REFERENCES: Irving's _Life of Goldsmith_; Forster's _Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith_; Macaulay's Essay on _Goldsmith_; Thackeray's _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_; De Quincey's _Eighteenth Century_; Hazlitt's _English Poets_; _Goldsmith_ (English Men of Letters), by William Black.

Thomas Gray.

THE BARD.

I. 1.

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!

Confusion on thy banners wait; Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,{1} They mock the air with idle state.{2} Helm, nor hauberk's{3} twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's{4} curse, from Cambria's tears!"

Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's{5} s.h.a.ggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array.

Stout Gloster{6} stood aghast in speechless trance: "To arms!" cried Mortimer,{7} and couched his quivering lance.

I. 2.

On a rock{8} whose haughty brow Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood, (Loose his beard, and h.o.a.ry hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air{9}) And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.{10} "Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!

O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoa.r.s.er murmurs breathe; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, To high-born Hoel's{11} harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

I. 3.

"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hushed the stormy main:{12} Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon{13} bow his cloud-topt head.

On dreary Arvon's sh.o.r.e{14} they lie, Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail; The famished eagle{15} screams, and pa.s.ses by.

Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,{16} Ye died amidst your dying country's cries-- No more I weep. They do not sleep.

On yonder cliffs, a griesly band, I see them sit,{17} they linger yet, Avengers of their native land: With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with b.l.o.o.d.y hands the tissue of thy line.

II. 1.

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,{18} The winding sheet of Edward's race.