The lonely poet loves to mark
How various greens in faint degrees
Tinge the tall groups of various trees;
While, careless of the changing year,
The pine cerulean, never sere,
Towers distinguish'd from the rest,
And proudly vaunts her winter vest.

His free-born vigour yet unbroke
To lordly man's usurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play,
Basking beneath the noon-tide ray,
And stretch'd among the daisies pied
Of a green dingle's sloping side:

While far beneath, where Nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loose luxuriance taught to stray
A thousand tumbling rills inlay
With silver veins the vale, or pass
Redundant through the sparkling grass.
Yet, in these presages rude,
Midst her pensive solitude,
Fancy, with prophetic glance,
Sees the teeming months advance;
The field, the forest, green and gay,
The dappled slope, the tedded hay;
Sees the reddening orchard blow,
The harvest wave, the vintage flow;
Sees June unfold his glossy robe
Of thousand hues o'er all the globe;
Sees Ceres grasp her crown of corn,
And plenty load her ample horn.

Goldsmith.

Oliver Goldsmith, der Sohn eines Geistlichen ward nach Einigen 1729 zu Elphin, nach Anderen 1731 zu Pallas in Irland geboren, studirte in Dublin und Edinburg die Heilkunde und sah sich genöthigt, weil er sich für einen Freund hinsichtlich einer Schuld verbürgt hatte, Grossbritannien zu verlassen. Er durchstreifte nun drei Jahre lang zu Fuss Holland und Deutschland, sich, wie es ging theils durch sein Flötenspiel von den Bauern, theils durch sein Wissen, von den Geistlichen die nöthigen Subsistenzmittel verschaffend. In Löwen wurde er Baccalaureus der Medicin, begleitete dann einen reichen Landsmann nach Genf und Südfrankreich und kehrte endlich 1758 nach England zurück. Da es ihm an dem Nöthigsten fehlte so wurde er zuerst Unterlehrer in Peckham, später Corrector und endlich Schriftsteller in London. 1765 erschien sein Gedicht the Traveller und ein Jahr nachher sein meisterhafter Roman: The Vicar of Wakefield. Von nun an war sein Ruf gegründet und er hätte durchaus sorgenfrei leben können, wenn sein Hang zur Verschwendung und seine angeborene Thätigkeit ihn nicht oft von Neuem in Verlegenheit gebracht hätten. Er war rastlos thätig und zeichnete sich eben so wohl als Lustspieldichter, wie als Historiker und populärer Schriftsteller höchst rühmlich aus. Er starb am 4. April 1774, wurde auf dem Kirchhof des Temple begraben und erhielt ein Denkmal in der Westminster-Abtei mit einer meisterhaften lateinischen Inschrift von Sam. Johnson.

Goldsmith's Gedichte, namentlich sein Deserted Village das zugleich eine edle moralisch politische Tendenz hatte, gehören dem Besten dieser Gattung an, das die englische Literatur aufzuweisen hat. Zartheit, Innigkeit, Wärme des Gefühls, Gedankenreichthum, einfache, edle Natürlichkeit und eine eben so reine wie correcte Diction sind glänzende Eigenschaften derselben die ihnen stets die volle Anerkennung ihres hohen Werthes sichern. Sie erschienen zuerst gesammel London 1780, sind dann ausserordentlich oft wieder aufgelegt worden und befinden sich auch im 10. Bde der Anderson'schen Sammlung.

A select Passage

from Goldsmith's deserted Village.

Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields

were won.

Pleas'd with his guest's, the good man learn'd to glow,

And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Sweet was the sound, when oft at ev'ning's Careless their merits or their faults to scan,

close,

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school:
The watch-dog's voice, that bay'd the whisp'ring
wind,

And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
But all the blooming flush of life is fled.
All but yon widow'd, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forc'd in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,

To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt, at ev'ry call,

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt, for all:
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd,
The rev'rend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to
raise,

And his last fault'ring accents whisper'd praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal each honest rustic ran;
Ev'n children follow'd, with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's
smile;

Near yonder copse, where once the garden His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares dis-

And still where many a garden flow'r grows

smil'd,
wild,
close,

trest:

To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were giv'n, There, where a few torn shrubs the place dis- But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heav'n.

The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the
storm,

A man he was to all the country dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Though round its breast the rolling clouds are

spread,

Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

place;

Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for pow'r,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain;
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims
allow'd;

The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,

The Hermit.

"Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way,
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray."

"For here forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
See m length'ning as I go."

Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease:
The naked Negro, panting at the Line,
Boasts of his golden sands, and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind:
As diff'rent good, by Art or Nature giv'n
To diff'rent nations, makes their blessings ev'n.

Stanzas on Woman.

When lovely woman stoops to folly
And finds too late that men betray,

Cunningham.

John Cunningham, der Sohn eines Kaufmannes ward 1729 in Dublin geboren, zeichnete sich schon früh durch seine Fähigkeiten aus, und schrieb bereits in seinem siebzehnten Jahre ein Trauerspiel, was ihm aber zum Verderben gereichte, denn seine Neigung für die Bühne ward dadurch so genährt, dass er Mitglied einer wandernden Schauspielergesellschaft wurde und dies trotz Armuth und Elend sein ganzes Leben lang blieb. Er starb 1773 in Newcastle. Seine gesammelten Gedichte erschienen unter dem Titel Poems, chiefly Pastorals, London 1766 in 8. sind seitdem öfter aufgelegt worden und finden sich auch im 106. Bde der Bell'schen und im 10. Bde der Anderson'schen Sammlung. Sie zeichnen sich durch Wahrheit, Einfachheit, Natürlichkeit, Wärme des Gefühls vortheilhaft aus.

May-Eve: or, Kate of Aberdeen.

The silver moon's enamour'd beam

Steals softly through the night, To wanton with the winding stream, And kiss reflected light.

To beds of state go balmy sleep,
'Tis where you've seldom been,
May's vigil whilst the shepherds keep
With Kate of Aberdeen.