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Indiana University Studies 



MORNING 



Human life is but a day; 



Gay its morn, but short as gay; 



Day of evil — day of sorrow! 



Hope — even hope can paint no morrow. 



Steeped in sloth or passions boiling-, 



Noon shall find thee faint and toiling: 



Evening rears her mantle dreary; 



Evening finds thee pale and weary. 



Prospects blasted — aims misguided — 



For the future ill provided — 



Murmuring, worn, enfeebled, shaking — 



Days of sorrow, nights of waking — 



Yield thy soul unto the Giver; 



Bow thy head, and sleep forever! 



Rise, 0 rise, to work betake thee ! 



Wake thee, drowsy slumberer, wake thee! 



What remains to be said of Hogg's verse may as well be 

 said here. In 1817 he produced Dramatic Tales, in two vol- 

 umes.2 He was, however, quite ignorant of the practical de- 

 tails of the playwright's art, and, of course, could not produce 

 an actable drama. In attempting this form of composition 

 he bade good-bye to his poetical talents. The result is that 

 his Dramatic Tales contain nothing over which it is T^'oi^th 

 while to pause. 



In 1822 his poems were issued in four volumes, and in the 

 same year, The Royal Jubilee, a masque commemorative of the 

 coronation of George IV.^ This masque, tho interesting in 

 parts, is generally monotonous, and flattens out completely at 

 the end. The best verses are the songs, one of which is as 

 follows : 



The day is past; 



It was the last 

 Of suffering and of sorrow: 



And o'er the men 



Of northern glen 

 Arose a brighter morrow: 



3 Contents: All-hallow Eve. Sir Anthony Moore, The Projligate PrincctiS, The Haantid 

 Glen. 



* Scott, at the cost of a good deal of trouble, procured Hogg an Invitation to bt- 

 present at the coronation. It afforded Scott the theme for one of his amusing stories 

 to the effect that Hogg refused the invitation rather than forego the pleasures of St. 

 Boswell's Fair. In fact, however, Hogg, who had made so many agricultural failures, 

 would not risk the profits of a year by absenting himself from the principal annual 

 market day. 



