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JOHN BYROM. JAMES THOMSON.

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JOHN BYROM.

[1691-1763.]

CARELESS CONTENT.

I AM content, I do not care,

Wag as it will the world for me; When fuss and fret was all my fare, It got no ground as I could see; So when away my caring went, I counted cost, and was content.

With more of thanks and less of thought,
I strive to make my matters meet;
To seek what ancient sages sought,

Physic and food in sour and sweet:
To take what passes in good part,
And keep the hiccups from the heart.

With good and gentle-humored hearts,
I choose to chat where'er I come,
Whate'er the subject be that starts;
But if I get among the glum,
I hold my tongue to tell the truth,
And keep my breath to cool my broth.

For chance or change of peace or pain,
For Fortune's favor or her frown,
For lack or glut, for loss or gain,

I never dodge nor up nor down;
But swing what way the ship shall swim,
Or tack about with equal trim.

I snit not where I shall not speed,
Nor trace the turn of every tide;
If simple sense will not succeed,

I make no bustling, but abide;
For shining wealth or scaring woe,
I force no friend, I fear no foe.

Of ups and downs, of ins and outs,
Of they're i' the wrong, and we're
i' the right,

I shun the rancors and the routs;
And wishing well to every wight,
Whatever turn the matter takes,
I deem it all but ducks and drakes.

With whom I feast I do not fawn,
Nor if the folks should flout me, faint;
If wonted welcome be withdrawn,

I cook no kind of a complaint:
With none disposed to disagree,
But like them best who best like me.

Not that I rate myself the rule

How all my betters should behave;

But fame shall find me no man's fool,
Nor to a set of men a slave:

I love a friendship free and frank,
And hate to hang upon a hank.

Fond of a true and trusty tie,
I never loose where'er I link;
Though if a business budges by,

I talk thereon just as I think;
My word, my work, my heart, my hand,
Still on a side together stand.

If names or notions make a noise,
Whatever hap the question hath,
The point impartially I poise,

And read or write, but without wrath; For should I burn, or break my brains, Pray, who will pay me for my pains?

I love my neighbor as myself,

Myself like him too, by his leave; Nor to his pleasure, power, or pelf

Came I to crouch, as I conceive: Dame Nature doubtless has designed A man the monarch of his mind.

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streamlets played,

And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

Forever flushing round a summer sky: There cke the soft delights, that witchingly

Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,

And the calm pleasures, always hov ered nigh;

But whate'er smacked of noyance or unrest

And hurled everywhere their waters Was far, far off expelled from this deli

sheen;

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cious nest.

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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 unconfined,

And spreads a common feast for all that

lives.

In winter awful thou! with clouds and

storms

Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,

Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's

wing,

Riding sublime, thou bid'st the world adore,

And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

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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:

O, talk of him in solitary glooms; Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine

Fills the brown shade with a religious

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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

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JOHN DYER.

[1700-1758.]

GRONGAR HILL.

SILENT nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple eve, dost lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale, -
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come and aid thy sister Muse.
Now, while Phobus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,.
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon a flowery bed,
With my hand beneath my head,
While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's
flood,

Over mead and over wood,
From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his checkered sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind,

And groves and grottos where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal.
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise.
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapors intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show,
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,

JOHN DYER.

Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.
Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread
boughs;

And beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye.
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood:
His sides are clothed with waving
wood,

And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.
"T is now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there fall
Huge heaps of hoary mouldered wall.
Yet Time has seen, that lifts the low
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state.
But transient is the smile of Fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers how they run, Through woods and meads, in shade and

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When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow;
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky;
The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each gives each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide;
How close and small the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadow
cross the

eye!

A step methinks may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the Future's face,
Eyed through Hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.

O, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see;
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul:
'Tis thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.

Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain-turf I lie;
While the wanton Zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,
Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who
will;

Search for Peace with all your skill:
Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor.
In vain you search; she is not there!
In vain you search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with Pleasure, close allied,
Ever by each other's side;
And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

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