“And near him the she wolf stirred the brake,
    And the copper snake breathed in his ear,
  Till he, starting, cried, from his dream awake,
    ’Oh, when shall I see the dusky lake,
    And the white canoe of my dear’!’”

Or like this: 

  “On beds of green sea flowers thy limbs shall be laid;
  Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow,
  Of thy fair yellow locks, threads of amber be made,
  And every part suit to thy mansion below;”—­

throwing up my arms, and throwing them out in every possible direction as the spirit moved me, or the sentiment prompted; for I always encouraged my limbs and features to think for themselves, and to act for themselves, and never predetermined, never forethought, a gesture nor an intonation in my life; and should as soon think of counterfeiting another’s look or step or voice, or of modulating my own by a pitch pipe (as the ancient orators did, with whom oratory was acting elocution, a branch of the dramatic art), as of adopting or imitating the gestures and tones of the most celebrated rhetorician I ever saw.

The result was rather encouraging.  My mother and sister were both satisfied.  At any rate, they said nothing to the contrary.  Being only in my nineteenth year, what might I not be able to accomplish after a little more experience!

How little did I think, while rehearsing before my mother and sister, that anything serious would ever come of it, or that I was laying the foundations of character for life, or that I was beginning what I should not be able to finish within the next forty or fifty years following.  Yet so it was.  I had broken the ice without knowing it.  These things were but the foreshadowing of what happened long afterward.

Notes.—­Brunswick, Maine, is the seat of Bowdoin College.

“The Mariner’s Dream” is a poem by ’William Dimond.

“The Lake of the Dismal Swamp” is by Thomas Moore.

XVII.  ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. (108)

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, is often spoken of as “the author of the Elegy,”—­this simple yet highly finished and beautiful poem being by far the best known of an his writings.  It was finished in 1749,—­seven years from the time it was commenced.  Probably no short poem in the language ever deserved or received more praise.  Gray was born in London; his father possessed property, but was indolent and selfish; his mother was a successful woman of business, and supported her son in college from her own earnings.  The poet was educated at Eton and Cambridge; at the latter place, he resided for several years after his return from a continental tour, begun in 1739.  He was small and delicate in person, refined and precise in dress and manners, and shy and retiring in disposition.  He was an accomplished scholar in many fields of learning, but left comparatively little finished work in any department.  He declined the honor of poet laureate; but, in 1769, was appointed Professor of History at Cambridge. ###