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each of the contributors to modern English poetry, from whose writings selections have been made to enrich this volume. Some of these, such as LOCKHART, MACAULAY, and BULWER, are familiar as the most distinguished among our prose writers; and also, along with others, such as the Earl of Carlisle, have borne a prominent place among British statesmen; while others, again, who are only known as the authors of a few occasional pieces of poetry, occupy a prominent place among the literary men of the day.

The poets of America have also furnished valuable additions to the standard poetry of the English language; and no collection of its choicest specimens will be complete without a liberal selection from the writings of such poets as Longfellow, WHITTIER, BRYANT, WILLIS, LOWELL, and SIGOURNEY.

To all of these, as well as to a few fine single pieces of poets otherwise unknown to fame, we also add a selection from those modest productions of the muse, which are left to win their place in public estimation without the influence of a name; and which, while they enrich the treasures of the copious and varied poetic literature of our age with their rare and unassuming additions, may also serve, with an allowable license, to confirm, in part, the beautiful exclamation of the author of the Excursion:

"O, many are the poets that are sown

By nature; men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine,

Yet wanting the facility of verse."

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WILLIAM COWPER,.........1731...1800 THOMAS CAMPBELL,.......1777...1844 JAMES BEATTIE,............1735...1803 THOMAS MOORE,............1780...1852 JOHN LOGAN,...1748...1788 EBENEZER ELLIOT,.....................1781...1849 THOMAS CHATTERTON, ...1752...1770 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM,......1784...1842 REV. GEORGE CRABBE,...1754...1832 BARRY CORNWALL, ........1784...1842 ROBERT BURNS,............1759...1796 HENRY KIRKE WHITE,...1785...1806 JAMES GRAHAME,..........1765...1811 LORD BYRON,...............1788...1824 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD,....1766...1823 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792...1822 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770...1850 CHARLES WOLFE,..........1792...1823 SIR WALTER SCOTT,.......1771...1832 FELICIA HEMANS,..........1793...1835 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLE

JOHN KEATS,......

.1796...1820

EIDGE,.. ...........1772...1840 THOMAS HOOD,................................... ....1796...1845 JAMES HOGG.................1773...1835 ROBERT POLLOK,...........1799...1827 ROBERT SOUTHEY,.........1774...1843 L. E. LANDON,...............1804...1838 JOHN LEYDEN,..............1775...1811

JOHN BETHUNE,............1812...1839

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MODERN ENGLISH POETS.

REDEMPTION.

O, how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,

No clustering ornaments to clog the pile:
From ostentation as from weakness free,
It stands like the cerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.
Inscribed above the portal, from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,

Legible only by the light they give,

Stand the soul-quickening words-BELIEVE AND Live.

COWPER.

WINTER.

O WINTER! ruler of the inverted year,

Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled,
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne

A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along its slippery way,

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,

And dreaded as thou art!-Thou hold'st the sun
A prisoner in the yet undawning east,

Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse, and instructive ease,
And gathering, at short notice, in one group,
The family dispersed, and fixing thought,
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
Of long, uninterrupted evening, know.

Cowper.

MEETING OF THE DISCIPLES WITH THEIR RISEN LORD.

It happened on a solemn eventide,
Soon after He that was our surety died,
Two bosom friends, each pensively inclined,
The scene of all those sorrows left behind,
Sought their own village, busied as they went
In musings worthy of the great event:
They spake of him they loved, of him whose life,
Though blameless, had incurred perpetual strife;
Whose deeds had left, in spite of hostile arts,
A deep memorial graven on their hearts.

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