blication were an "Ode to the King, Pater
Patriae," and an "Essay on Lyric Poetry." It is but justice to confess
that he preserved neither of them; and that the Ode itself, which in the
first edition, and in the last, consists of seventy-three stanzas, in
the author's own edition is reduced to forty-nine. Among the omitted
passages is a "Wish," that concluded the poem, which few would have
suspected Young of forming; and of which few, after having formed
it, would confess something like their shame by suppression. It stood
originally so high in the author's opinion, that he entitled the poem,
"Ocean, an Ode. Concluding with a Wish." This wish consists of thirteen
stanzas. The first runs thus:--

"O may I STEAL
Along the VALE
Of humble life, secure from foes!
My friend sincere,
My judgment clear,
And gentle business my repose!"

The three last stanzas are not more remarkable for just rhymes; but,
altogether, they will make rather a curious page in the life of Young:--

"Prophetic schemes,
And golden dreams,
May I, unsanguine, cast away!
Have what I HAVE,
And live, not LEAVE,
Enamoured of the present day!

"My hours my own!
My faults unknown!
My chief revenue in content!
Then leave one BEAM
Of honest FAME!
And scorn the laboured monument!

"Unhurt my urn
Till that great TURN
When mighty Nature's self shall die,
Time cease to glide,
With human pride,
Sunk in the ocean of eternity!"

It is whimsical that he, who was soon to bid adieu to rhyme, should fix
upon a measure in which rhyme abounds even to satiety. Of this he said,
in his "Essay on Lyric Poetry," prefixed to the poem--"For the more
harmony likewise I chose the frequent return of rhyme, which laid me
under great difficulties. But difficulties overcome give grace and
pleasure. Nor can I account for the PLEASURE OF RHYME IN GENERAL (of
which the moderns are too fond) but from this truth." Yet the moderns
surely deserve not much censure for their fondness of what, by their own
confession, affords pleasure, and abounds in harmony. The next paragraph
in his Essay did not occur to him when he talked of "that great turn"
in the stanza just quoted. "But then the writer must take care that the
difficulty is overcome. That is, he must make rhyme consistent with as
perfect