black_ | -bird has fled | to anoth | -er retreat,
Where the ha | -zels afford | him a screen | from the heat,
And the scene, | where his mel | -ody charm'd | me before,
_Resounds_ | with his sweet | -flowing dit | -ty no more.
_My fu_ | -gitive years | are all hast | -ing away,
_And I_ | must ere long | lie as low | -ly as they,
With a turf | on my breast, | and a stone | at my head,
Ere anoth | -er such grove | shall arise | in its stead.
'Tis a sight | to engage | me, if an | -y thing can,
_To muse_ | on the per | -ishing pleas | -ures of man;
Though his life | be a dream, | his enjoy | -ments, I see,
Have a be | -ing less dur | -able e | -ven than he."
COWPER'S _Poems_, Vol. i, p. 257.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Everett avers, that, "The purely Anapestic measure is more easily
constructed than the Trochee, [Trochaic,] and of much more frequent
occurrence."--_English Versification_, p. 97. Both parts of this assertion
are at least very questionable; and so are this author's other suggestions,
that, "The Anapest is [necessarily] the vehicle of _gayety and joy_;" that,
"Whenever this measure is employed in the treating of _sad_ subjects, _the
effect is destroyed_;" that, "Whoever should attempt to write an elegy in
this measure, would be _sure to fail_;" that, "The words might express
grief, but the measure _would express joy_;" that, "The Anapest should
never be employed throughout a _long piece_;" because "buoyancy of spirits
can never be supposed to last,"--"sadness _never leaves us_, BUT joy
remains but for a moment;" and, again, because, "the measure is
_exceedingly monotonous_."--_Ibid._, pp. 97 and 98.

OBS. 2.--Most anapestic poetry, so far as I know, is in pieces of no great
length; but Leigh Hunt's "Feast of the Poets," which is thrice cited above,
though not a long _poem_, may certainly be regarded as "_a long piece_,"
since it extends through fifteen pages, and contains four hundred and
thirty-one lines, all, or nearly all, of anapestic tetrameter. And, surely,
no poet had ever more need of a metre well suited to his purpose, than he,
who, intending a critical as well as a descriptive poem, has found so much
fault with the versification of others. Pope, as a versifier, was regarded
by this author, "not only as no master of his art, but as a very
indifferent practiser."--_Notes on the Feast of the Poets_, p. 35. His
"_monotonous and cloying_" use of numb