PASTORAL BALLAD.

Since Phyllis vouchsafed me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine:
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine!

I prized every hour that went by,

Beyond all that had pleas'd me before; But now they are past, and I sigh;

And I grieve that I prized them no more.

But why do I languish in vain;

Why wander thus pensively here?
Oh! why did I come from the plain
Where I fed on the smiles of my dear?
They tell me, my favourite maid,

The pride of that valley, is flown;
Alas, where with her I have strayed
I could wander with pleasure, alone.

When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought—but it might not be so-
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart
She gazed, as I slowly withdrew,

My path I could hardly discern;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far distant shrine,
If he bear but a relique away

Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus widely removed from the fair
Where my vows, my devotion, I owę

Soft Hope is the relique I bear

And my solace wherever I go.

THE DYING KID.

A tear bedews my Delia's eye,

To think yon playful kid must die;
From crystal spring and flowery mead
Must, in his prime of life, recede.

Erewhile in sportive circles round

She saw him wheel, and frisk, and bound;
From rock to rock pursue his way,
And on the fearful margin play.

Pleased on his various freaks to dwell
She saw him climb my rustic cell;
Then eye my lawns with verdure bright,
And seem all ravished at the sight.

She tells with what delight he stood
To trace his features in the flood;
Then skipped aloof with quaint amaze
And then drew near again to gaze.

She tells me how with eager speed
He flew to hear my vocal reed;
And how with critic face profound,
And steadfast ear devoured the sound

His every frolic light as air
Deserves the gentle Delia's care;
And tears bedew her tender eye,
To think the playful kid must die.-

But knows my Delia, timely wise,
How soon this blameless era flies?
While violence and craft succeed
Unfair design and ruthless deed!

Soon would the vine his wounds deplore,
And yield her purple gifts no more;
Oh soon, erased from every grove
Were Delia's name, and Strephon's love.

No more those bowers might Strephon see,
Where first he fondly gazed on thee;
No more those beds of flowerets find
Which for thy charming brows he twined.

Each wayward passion soon would tear
His bosom, now so void of care.
And when they left his ebbing vein
What but insipid age remain?

Then mourn not the decrees of Fate
That gave his life so short a date;
And I will join thy tenderest sighs
To think that youth so swiftly flies.

MUCH TASTE AND SMALL ESTATE
[From The Progress of Taste.]

See yonder hill, so green, so round,
Its brow with ambient beeches crowned!
Twould well become thy gentle care
To raise a dome to Venus there:
Pleas'd would the nymphs thy zeal survey;
And Venus, in their arms, repay.
'Twas such a shade, and such a nook
In such a vale, near such a brook,
From such a rocky fragment springing,
That famed Apollo chose, to sing in.
There let an altar wrought with art
Engage thy tuneful patron's heart,
How charming there to muse and warble
Beneath his bust of breathing marble!
With laurel wreath and mimic lyre

That crown a poet's vast desire.

Then, near it, scoop the vaulted cell
Where Music's charming maids may dwell;
Prone to indulge thy tender passion,
And make thee many an assignation.
Deep in the grove's obscure retreat
Be placed Minerva's sacred seat;
There let her awful turrets rise

(For Wisdom flies from vulgar eyes :)
There her calm dictates shalt thou hear
Distinctly strike thy listening ear:
And who would shun the pleasing labour
To have Minerva for his neighbour?

But did the Muses haunt his cell?
Or in his dome did Venus dwell?
Did Pallas in his counsels share?
The Delian god reward his prayer?
Or did his zeal engage the fair?
When all the structures shone complete
Not much convenient, wondrous neat;
Adorned with gilding, painting, planting,
And the fair guests alone were wanting.
Ah me! ('twas Damon's own confession)
Came Poverty and took possession

WILLIAM COLLINS.

[WILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester on Christmas Day, 1721. It is believed that he went for a time to the Prebendal School of that city; and in 1733 he entered Winchester College, then under Dr. Burton. Before he left school he had written the Persian Eclogues (which in their later editions are called Oriental Eclogues); and he had printed a so-called sonnet in the Gentleman's Magazine. In 1740 he entered as commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, there being no vacancy at New College; and next year he obtained a demyship at Magdalen. The Persian Eclogues were published in 1742; next year came the Epistle to Sir T. Hanmer; and in 1744 he seems to have left Oxford for London, where he found a true friend in Johnson. His Odes, which he once meant to have published jointly with those of his old schoolfellow Joseph Warton, appeared alone in 1747. After this he went to live at Richmond, where he saw much of Thomson, Armstrong, and others of that company. In 1749 he wrote the Ode on the death of Thomson, and the Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands. Soon afterwards he was attacked by the brain-disease from which, with certain intervals of partial recovery. he suffered for the rest of his life. His last years were spent at Chichester under the care of his sister Mrs. Sempill. He died in 1759.]

In the reaction against that sweeping violence of indiscriminative depreciation with which the school of poets and critics usually registered as Wordsworthian, but actually founded at midnight by William Blake and fortified at sunrise by William Wordsworth, was wont for some half a century to overwhelm the poetry and criticism of the century preceding, the name which of all properly belonging to that period has incomparably the most valid and solid claim to the especial and essential praise that denotes a poet from among other men of genius has hardly yet taken by general consent the place which is unquestionably its due. Even in his own age it was the fatally foolish and uncritical fashion to couple the name of Collins with that of Gray, as though they were poets