The veteran shows, and gracing a grey beard
With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave
Sprightly, and old almost without decay.]

Like a coy maiden, Ease, when courted most, 410 Farthest retires-an idol, at whose shrine) Who oftenest sacrifice | are favoured least.) The love of Nature, and the scenes) she draws,] Is Nature's dictate.) Strange !] there should be found,] Who, self-imprisoned in their proud saloons, 415 Renounce the odours of the open field

For the unscented fictions of the loom ; |
Who, satisfied with only pencilled scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God

The inferior wonders of an artist's hand. ¡
420 Lovely indeed the mimic works of Art,]
But Nature's works far lovelier.] I admire,
[None more admires,] the painter's magic skill,|
Who shows me that which I shall never see, ↓
Conveys a distant country into mine,]

425 And throws Italian light on English walls :]
But imitative strokes can do no more

Than please the eye-sweet Nature every sense.]
The air salubrious of her lofty hills,

The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
430 And music of her woods-no works of man
May rival these; these all bespeak a power
Peculiar, and exclusively her own.

Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast ;|

410. The order is this-Ease, an idol, at whose shrine [those] who oftenest sacrifice are favoured least, like a coy maiden, retires farthest when [she is] courted most.

412. And the scenes-The omission of of before scenes, to mark the Genit., is not without hardness.

413. There should be found, who-The omission of men, or some other antecedent to who, is a Latinism.

422. None more admires-Take this as a parenthetical sentence.

426. Take no more than to please the eye, as Obj. to do.

427. Sweet Nature every sense-A bold ellipse, in which only a part of the preceding enunciation ("can do no more than please") is to be supplied, and that not in the Infinitive, in which it stands before, but in the Present Tense, so as to complete the sentence, "Sweet Nature pleases every sense."

'Tis free to all-'tis every day renewed ;| 435 Who scorns it, starves deservedly at home.] He does not scorn it, | who, imprisoned long In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey To sallow sickness,) which the vapours dank And clammy of his dark abode have bred, | 440 Escapes at last to liberty and light :)

His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue,|
His eyes relumines its extinguished fires,

He walks, he leaps, he runs-is winged with joy,]
And riots in the sweets of every breeze.]
445 He does not scorn it, who has long endured
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs.]

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed
With acrid salts ;] his very heart athirst
To gaze at Nature in her green array,
450 Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possessed
With visions prompted by intense desire :|
Fair fields appear below, such) as he left
Far distant, such) as he would die to find,- |
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.]
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ; |
The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness,) that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, | when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears, |

455

460 These Flora banishes,) and gives the fair

Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient] than her own.
It is the constant revolution, stale

And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, |

That palls and satiates,] and makes languid life 465 A pedlar's pack,] that bows the bearer down. | Health suffers, and the spirits ebb; the heart

447. Nor yet [does] the mariner [scorn it]. His blood inflamed, &c.-Nom. abs., adjuncts to scorn.

452. Such as [those are] which.

453. To find-Adjunct of purpose after die.

462. Revolution of joys-Not a happy or appropriate expression.

465. Two sets of alliteration.

Recoils from its own choice|—at the full feast
Is famished]-finds no music in the song,
No smartness in the jest,] and wonders] why.]
470 Yet thousands still desire to journey on,

Though halt, and weary of the path they tread.]
The paralytic) who can hold her cards |

But cannot play them,] borrows a friend's hand
To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort
475 Her mingled suits and sequences) and sits
Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad

And silent cypher,] while her proxy plays. |
Others are dragged into the crowded room
Between supporters; and, once seated, sit
480 Through downright inability to rise,]

Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again. |
These speak a loud memento. Yet even these
Themselves love life, and cling to it,] as he)
That overhangs a torrent, to a twig.)

485 They love it, and yet loath it ;] fear to die,]
Yet scorn the purposes] for which they live.
Then wherefore not renounce them ?] No-the dread,
The slavish dread of solitude,) that breeds
Reflection and remorse, | the fear of shame,

490 And their inveterate habits, all forbid.)

Whom call we gay? | That honour has been long
The boast of mere pretenders to the name.
The innocent are gay-the lark is gay,|
That dries his feathers saturate with dew

495 Beneath the rosy cloud, | while yet the beams
Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.

469. Why Suggests the repetition of all the separate sentences from 466, as Substantive Sentences.

472. The paralytic-See line 7, note. 474. To deal-Germ. theilen = to divide. 475. Suits and sequences-Technical terms of the card-player.

482. Memento mori-"Remember death,"

was the usual salutation of the Cistercian friars. Even these themselves-See line 386, note.

484. Supply clings before to a twig. 487. No-Is wholly extra-grammatical. 494. Saturate = saturated, as animate= inanimate. Temperate has no passive form.

The peasant too, a witness of his song,
Himself a songster, is as gay as he.]

But save me from the gaiety of those]

500 Whose headaches nail them to a noonday bed: | And save me too from theirs] whose haggard eyes Flash desperation, and betray their pangs

For property stripped off by cruel chance ;]
From gaiety] that fills the bones with pain,
505 The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.

The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change,

And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. |
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen

510 Till half their beauties fade; the weary sight,
Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off
Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes.

Then snug enclosures in the sheltered vale,) Where frequent hedges intercept the eye, | 515 Delight us, happy to renounce awhile,

Not senseless of its charms,) what still we love, |
That such short absence may endear it more. |
Then forests, or the savage rock, may please,|
That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts
520 Above the reach of man | his hoary head,
Conspicuous many a league, the mariner
Bound homeward, and in hope already there,
Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist
A girdle of half-withered shrubs he shows, |
525 And at his feet the baffled billows die. |

502. Desperation-Originally the same as despair; has come to assume generally the meaning of "recklessness resulting from despair." The two adjectives, desperate and despairing, have a similar relation to one another, though they were originally identical. This illustrates the rule, that a language never retains perfect synonyms in constant use. It either drops one, or modifies its meaning.

503. For property, &c.-Adjunct to pangs. The allusion is to gambling.

516. Its charms-Obj. to renounce, and also to the Prep. of. What still we loveSubs. Sent. Obj. to the verb renounce.

522. There used attributively, to qualify the word mariner; or the Particip. being might be supplied, and then the adverb there would have its proper adverbial

force.

The common, overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly goss,) that, shapeless and deformed,
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom,
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,]
530 Yields no unpleasing ramble ;) there the turf
Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets.]

There often wanders one, whom better days
535 Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed
With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. |
A serving-maid was she, and fell in love
With one] who left her,

went to sea,] and died.]
Her fancy followed him through foaming waves
540 To distant shores, and she would sit and weep
At what a sailor suffers; | fancy too,
Delusive most) where warmest wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,)

And dream of transports] she was not to know.] 545 She heard the doleful tidings of his death,|

And never smiled again.] And now she roams
The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day,]
And there,) unless when charity forbids, |
The livelong night.) A tattered apron hides,
550 Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides a gown
More tattered still; and both but ill conceal
A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs.]
She begs an idle pin of all she meets,]

And hoards them in her sleeve ;] but needful food, 555 Though pressed with hunger oft, or comelier clothes, Though pinched with cold, asks never.]—Kate is crazed. |

535. Clad-Attrib. to whom.

540. She would sit-Would is not here an Aux. Verb. From its original signification, which expresses exercise of free will, it has acquired that of "being bent on something," "being wont to do."

544. Was to know. The verb to be, joined with an Inf. Mood, is used to imply destiny, duty, and necessity. You are to come. She was not [destined] to know. Was to know may be analysed as the Predicate of the Sentence.