and even in verse such expressions should be used but sparingly.

Gladsome. This word is sometimes

used for glad, but here it means communicating gladness.

Waving fresh. The gales are represented here as personified, and with wings from which they wave' fresh odours.

"Say, father Thames, (for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race

Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace)
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the circle's rolling speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

The poet addresses Father Thames*

* Johnson finds fault with "Say Father Thames," but he uses the same figure in his own Poem called "London"

desiring him to tell, what race of boys is now engaged upon his banks in childish sports.

This stanza is not-so poetical as the former; when the words are placed in a more natural order, the passage does not differ much from prose.

Disporting and margent-are used instead of sporting and margin, because they (those words) are less common-margent means the edge or border as the margin of a book. Tracing the paths of pleasure.-Following the pleasures, which those boys who had been there before them had enjoyed.

To cleave with pliant arm the glassy

wave

To divide the water with their active arms, to swim-arm is used in pre

D

ference to arms-pliant properly means what bends easily..

To cleave-is to divide.

Idle progeny.-Progeny means race, and idle means here released from their tasks and allowed to play.

Chace the rolling circle's speed.-These are all poetical expressions-The rolling circle is a hoop, to chace it, is to drive it before them-to chace its speed is to follow the hoop which is rolling with speed before them.

"While some on earnest business bent Their murm'ring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limit of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy."

Murmuring labours.-Boys in getting their lessons by heart are apt to repeat them in a kind of murmuring voice.

'Gainst-against.

Disdain-despise the narrow extent of their play-ground.

Descry-to discover at a distance. Region.-Country-it is here used metaphorically, to express the enlarged notion that children have of any new fields or places that they see; they appear to them like new countries.

"Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;

The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Their's buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn."

This beautiful stanza does not require to be altered in order to render it more intelligible; the words are, in general placed in their natural order, nor are any of them employed in an unsual manner.

Less pleasing when possest.

Hope is here used for the object of hope, and in the preceding line for the passion or feeling of hope. These liberties in the use of words are allowed

in poetry.

The sunshine of the breast.

Sunshine of the breast, is a bold but beautiful metaphor. It means that gaiety of mind which like sunshine enlivens every thing.

Buxom health.--The word buxom has been explained in the notes upon the Allegro, in "Poetry explained for the use of young Persons."