Lost and confounded with the various shows.
Now night's dim shades again involve the
sky,

Again the wanderers want a place to lie;
Again they search, and find a lodging nigh,
The soil improv'd around, the mansion neat,
And neither poorly low, nor idly great:
It seem'd to speak its master's turn of mind,
Content, and not to praise, but virtue kind.

Hither the walkers turn with weary feet,
Then bless the mansion, and the master greet:
Their greeting fair bestow'd with modest guise,
The courteous master hears, and thus replies:

"Without a vain, without a grudging heart,
To him who gives us all I yield a part;
From him you come, for him accept it here
A frank and sober, more than costly cheer."
He spoke, and bid the welcome table spread,
Then talk'd of virtue till the time of bed,
When the grave household round his hall repair.
Warn'd by a bell, and close the hours with
prayer.

At length the world, renew'd by calm repose,
Was strong for toil, the dappled morn arose;
Before the pilgrims part, the younger crept
Near the clos'd cradle where an infant slept,
And writh'd his neck: the landlord's little pride,
O strange return! grew black, and gasp'd, and

died.

Horror of horrors! what! his only son?
How look'd our hermit when the fact was done!
Not hell, though hell's black jaws in sunder part,
And breathe blue fire, could more assault his
heart.

Confus'd and struck with silence at the deed,
He flies, but trembling, fails to fly with speed.
His steps the youth pursues; the country lay
Perplex'd with roads, a servant show'd the way:
A river cross'd the path; the passage o'er
Was nice to find; the servant trod before;
Long arms of oaks an open bridge supplied,
And deep the waves beneath the bending glide.
The youth, who seem'd to watch a time to sin,
Approach'd the careless guide, and thrust him in;
Plunging he falls, and rising lifts his head,
Then flashing turns, and sinks among the dead.
Wild sparkling rage inflames the father's
eyes,

Wide at his back their gradual plumes display.
The form ethereal burst upon his sight,
And moves in all the majesty of light.
Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion
grew,

Sudden he gaz'd, and wist not what to do
Surprise in secret chains his words suspends,
And in a calm his settling temper ends.
But silence here the beauteous angel broke
(The voice of music ravish'd as he spoke.)
"Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice un-
known,

In sweet memorial rise before the throne:
These charms success in our bright region find,
And force an angel down, to calm thy mind;
For this, commission'd, I forsook the sky;
Nay, cease to kneel thy fellow-servant I.
"Then know the truth of government divine,
And let these scruples be no longer thine.
"The Maker justly claims that world he made,
In this the right of Providence is laid;
Its sacred majesty through all depends
On using second means to work his ends.
'Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye,
The power exerts his attributes on high,
Your actions uses, nor controls your will,
And bids the doubting sons of men be still.
"What strange events can strike with more
surprise,

Than those which lately struck thy wondering
eyes?
Yet, taught by these, confess th' Almighty just,
And where you can't unriddle, learn to trust!

"The great vain man, who far'd on costly food,
Whose life was too luxurious to be good;
Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine,
And forc'd his guests to morning draughts of
wine,

Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost,
And still be welcomes, but with less of cost.
"The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted
door

Ne'er mov'd in duty to the wandering poor;
With him I left the cup, to teach his mind
That Heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind
Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl,
And feels compassion touch his grateful soul.
Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead,
With heaping coals of fire upon its head;
In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And loose from dross the silver runs below.

"Long had our pious friend in virtue trod,
But now the child half-wean'd his heart from
God;

(Child of his age) for him he liv'd in pain, And measur'd back his steps to earth again. To what excesses had his datage run?

Song.

When thy beauty appears
In its graces and airs,

But God to save the father, took the son.
To all but thee, in fits he seem'd to go,
(And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow,)
The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust,
Now owns in tears the punishment was just.
"But now had all his fortune felt a wrack,
Had that false servant sped in safety back;
This night his treasur'd heaps he meant to steal,
And what a fund of charity would fail!
Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er, But when without art
Depart in peace, resign, and sin no more."

On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew,
The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew.
Thus look'd Elisha when, to mount on high,
His master took the chariot of the sky;
The fiery pomp ascending left to view;
The prophet gaz'd, and wish'd to follow too.

The bending hermit here a prayer begun,
"Lord! as in heaven, on earth thy will be done."
Then gladly turning sought his ancient place,
And pass'd a life of piety and peace.

All bright as an angel new dropt from the sky,
At distance I gaze, and am aw'd by my fears,
So strangely you dazzle my eye!

Your kind thoughts you impart,

When your love runs in blushes through every
vein;
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in
your heart,

Then I know you're a woman again.

"There's a passion and pride
"In our sex (she replied)

"And thus (might I gratify both) I would do
"Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
"But still be a woman to you."

Young.

Edward Young ward im Juni 1681 zu Upham bei Winchester geboren, wo sein Vater, der ganz dieselben Namen führte, als Geistlicher lebte. Er erhielt seine Bildung auf der hohen Schule zu Winchester und studirte dann zu Oxford, wo er 1719 Doctor der Rechte wurde. Hierauf lebte er eine Zeitlang als Erzieher des Lord Burleigh im Hause des Grafen von Exeter und ging dann nach London, wo er sich mit poetischen Arbeiten beschäftigte und um einen Sitz im Unterhause bewarb, aber nicht gewählt wurde. So erreichte er sein funfzigstes Jahr und trat nun in den geistlichen Stand über. Georg II. machte ihn zu seinem Hofcaplan; ein Bisthum auf das er sicher rechnete, ward ihm aber nicht zu Theil. Häusliche Leiden trübten den Rest seines Lebens, waren jedoch die Quelle seiner berühmtesten Dichtung, der Nachtgedanken, dem er nur noch ein grösseres Gedicht, Resignation betitelt, folgen liess. Er starb im April 1765.

Youngs sämmtliche Werke erschienen zuerst London 1757 in 4. und öfterer; eine sehr gute Ausgabe derselben ist die von 1760 (London 6 Bde. in 8.). Sie enthalten ausser den Nachtgedanken und der Resignation noch sieben Satyren auf die Ruhmsucht, mehrere Tragödien, lyrische Poesieen u. A. m. Ausser den Night Thoughts hat sich seine Tragödie Revenge am Längsten im Andenken erhalten.

Gedankenfülle und Tiefe, Reichthum der Anschauung von Welt und Leben, Kraft und Herrschaft über Sprache und Form sind die vorzüglichsten Eigenschaften dieses bedeutenden Dichters,

welche am Wirksamsten und Glänzendsten in seinen Nachtgedanken hervortreten; aber er ist nicht immer frei von Gesuchtheit und Künsteln, von Einseitigkeit und Unverständlichkeit. Seine Zeit und die nächstfolgende haben ihn überschätzt, was vorzüglich aus dem Gegensatz sich entwickelte, den seine poetischen Klagen zu der damals vorwaltenden leichtern Auffassung und Behandlung des Lebens bildeten. Seine Poesie ist trotz allen ihren grossen Vorzügen doch nur ein Gemisch von wirklich dichterischen Elementen, abstracten in das Gebiet der Philosophie gehörenden Reflectionen und rhetorischem Schmuck. Die meiste Anlage hatte er unbedingt für die Satyre.

Select Passages

from the Complaint; or Night Thoughts.

Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

know

But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been; eternal there must be. -
But what eternal ? - Why not human race?
And Adam's ancestors without an end?
That's hard to be conceiv'd, since every link
Of that long-chain'd succession is so frail.
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rise;
I'm still quite out at sea; nor see the shore.
Whence Earth, and these bright orbs?

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,'
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future selves applaud:
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!
Time lodg'd in their own hands in folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they post-Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs

pone;

'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom, to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,

nal too?

Eter

Would want some other father; much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes;
Design implies intelligence, and art;
That can't be from themselves - or man: that art

And that through every stage; when young, Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?

indeed,

In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves; and re-solves; then dies the same.

And nothing greater yet allow'd than man.
Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? then each atom,
Asserting its indisputable right

To dance, would form an universe of dust:
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious
forms

And why? Because he thinks himself im- And boundless flights, from shapeless, and re

mortal.

All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden
dread;

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace
found.

Retire; the world shut out;

pos'd?

Has matter more than motion? has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fram'd such laws,
Which but to guess, a Newton made immortal?
If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,
Who think a clod inferior to a man!
If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct;
thy thoughts call And that with greater far than human skill,
home;
Resides not in each block; a Godhead reigns.
Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud,
To damp our brainless ardours; and abate

Imagination's airy wing repress;
Lock up thy senses;

let no passion stir;

is

Conscience, her first law broken, wounded lies; And just are all, determin'd to reclaim;

Tickell.

Thomas Tickell, Sohn eines Geistlichen ward 1686 zu Bridekirk in Cumberland geboren, studirte in Oxford und ward durch Addison's Vermittelung, dessen vertrauter Freund er war, Unter-Staatssecretair, später aber Secretair der Lords Justices of Ireland, ein Amt, das er bis zu seinem 1740 erfolgten Tode bekleidete.

Seine Schriften erschienen zuerst gesammelt unter dem Titel Miscellaneous Works, London 1753, 3 Bde. in 12.; seine Poesieen finden sich auch im 26. Bande der Johnson'schen, im 73. der Bell'schen und im 8. der Anderson'schen Sammlung. Natürliches Gefühl und Wärme sind ihm eigen, und weisen ihm daher einen höheren Rang an, als ihn die vielen Convenienzpoeten seiner Zeit verdienen. Am Gelungensten sind seine Balladen und seine Elegie auf Addison's "Tod. Als Prosaist zeigte er sich correct und geistreich in seinen Beiträgen zum Spectator, an welcher Zeitschrift er lebhaften Antheil nahm.