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Title: The poetical works of Anna Seward, Vol. 3 [of 3]
Author: Anna Seward
Editor: Walter Scott
Release date: September 20, 2026 [eBook #79617]
Language: English
Original publication: Edinburgh: James Ballentyne and Co., 1810
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79617
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF ANNA SEWARD, VOL. 3 [OF 3] ***
THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ANNA SEWARD;
WITH
EXTRACTS FROM HER LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
EDITED BY
WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.
FOR JOHN BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH;
AND LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW,
LONDON.
1810.
CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME THIRD.
PAGE
Eyam, 1
Remonstrance addressed to Wm. Cowper, Esq. 5
Crugal’s Ghost, appearing to Connal,--from Ossian, 5
The Ghost of Cuchullin,--from Ossian, 21
Epistle to Mr Newton, the Derbyshire Minstrel, 22
To Mr John Salt, of Lichfield, 25
On the sudden Death of the celebrated Mr Norris,
of Oxford, Batchelor of Music, 26
On Major Andre, 28
Harold’s Complaint, a Scandinavian Ode, 29
The Lake, or Modern Improvement in Landscape, 34
Written after having visited Miss More and her
Sisters, at Cowslip-Green, near Bristol, 39
Translation of Gray’s Apostrophe to the Memory
of his young Friend West, 41
Paraphrase of Gray’s Alcaick Ode, 44
To Sir Nigel Gresley, 47
To ---- Sherive, Esq., Student at Oxford, 49
Sonnet to the Rev. Richard Polwhele, 50
The first Psalm put into Verse, 53
137th Psalm Paraphrased, 55
To Charles Simpson, Esq., Barrister, 57
To Major Rooke of Mansfield, 59
To Charles Clarke, Esq., 60
A Warning Exhortation, 62
To Humphry Repton, Esq., 64
Philippic on a Modern Epic, 67
Llangollen Vale, 70
Verses on Wrexham, and the Inhabitants of its
Environs, 81
Hoyle Lake, 84
Herva, at the Tomb of Argantyr, a Runic Dialogue, 90
INSCRIPTIONS, 104-113
To Mrs Siddons, 114
Ode on England’s Naval Triumphs in the present
War, 115
To the Right Hon. the Marchioness of Donegall, 119
To Miss Godfrey, 121
SONNETS, I. to C. 122-222
Paraphrases and Imitations of Horace, 223
To Mæcenas, Book the First, Ode the 1st, 225
-- Pyrrha, Book the First, Ode the 5th, 229
-- Munatius Plancus, Book the First, Ode the 7th, 231
-- Lydia, Book the First, Ode the 8th, 236
To Thallarchus, Book the First, Ode the 9th, 238
-- Leuconoe, Book the first, Ode the 11th, 240
-- Apollo, Book the First, Ode the 31st, 242
-- his Attendant, Book the First, Ode the 38th, 245
-- Sallust, Book the Second, Ode the 2d, 246
-- the Hon. Thomas Erskine, Horace, Book the
Second, Ode the 3d--Imitated, 249
-- Barine, Book the Second, Ode the 8th, 252
-- Titus Valgius, Book the Second, Ode the 9th, 254
-- Licinius Murena, Book the Second, Ode the 10th, 257
-- Mæcenas, Book the Second, Ode the 12th, 261
-- Posthumus, Book the Second, Ode the 14th, 266
-- Lyce, Book the Third, Ode the 10th, 268
-- the Fountain of Blandusia, Book the Third,
Ode the 13th, 271
-- Telephus, Book the Third, Ode the 19th, 273
-- Phyllis, Book the Third, Ode the 23d, 278
-- Melpomene, Book the Fourth, Ode the 3d, 280
-- William Hayley, Esq. Book the Fourth, Ode
the 7th--Imitated, 282
-- Liguria, Book the Fourth, Ode the 10th, 285
-- Phyllis, Book the Fourth, Ode the 11th, 287
On the Pleasures of Rural Life, Book the Fifth,
Epode the 2d, 291
To Neaera, Book the Fifth, Epode the 15th, 302
-- the Roman People on their renewing the Civil
Wars, Book the Fifth, Ode the 7th, 304
Proem, Greville, and Julia, 306-308
Sonnet, 314
Speech of the Nymph of that Brook, which, after
heavy rain, becomes a deep, violent,
and formidable torrent, 315
Sonnet, 316
A Meditation, 317
Proem, to a Composition in Verse, intitled, “The
Terrestrial Year passing through the Signs of
the Zodiac,” 319
The Terrestrial Year on her Progress through the
Signs of the Zodiac, 323
Inscribed on the back of a Landscape, drawn by
the Rev. William Bree, 329
Inscribed on the back of the Companion Landscape, 330
Inscribed on the back of a Landscape, copied
from Glover, by Miss Fleming of Lichfield, 332
Address to the River in a Landscape, drawn by
the Rev. William Bree, 334
To Miss Honora Smith of Lichfield, 338
Admonition to Rosilda, 340
A Marine View Moralized, 342
To Clarissa, 344
A Farewell to the Seat of Lady Eleanor Butler,
and Miss Ponsonby, 345
Consolation, 351
To Robert Harper, Esq., 357
Ballad in the Ancient Scotch Dialect, 358
To the Rev. Thomas Sedgewick Whalley, 362
The Grave of Youth, 366
To Mrs Skerett, 368
To Miss Catherine Mallet, 370
Impromptu, written in the blank leaves of Miss
Anna Burt’s Repository of Friendship, 373
Elegy, written as from a French Lady, whose
husband had been three years prisoner of war
at Lichfield, 375
To Miss Mansel, of Trinity College, Cambridge, 380
Address to the Young Roscius, 382
A favourite Cat’s Dying Soliloquy, 386
To Little Catherine Harper, aged three years,
presenting her with a blue Sattin Bonnet, 389
Inscribed on the blank leaves of the Poem Madoc, 391
To F. N. C. Mundy, Esq., on his Poem the Fall
of Needwood Forest, 394
To Remembrance, 398
POEMS
BY
ANNA SEWARD.
EYAM.[1]
For one short week I leave, with anxious heart,
Source of my filial cares, the Full of Days,
Lur’d by the promise of Harmonic Art
To breathe her Handel’s soul-exalting lays.
Pensive I trace the Derwent’s amber wave[2],
Foaming through umbrag’d banks, or view it lave
The soft, romantic vallies, high o’er-peer’d
By hills and rocks, in savage grandeur rear’d.
Not two short miles from thee, can I refrain
Thy haunts, my native EYAM, long unseen?--
Thou and thy lov’d inhabitants, again
Shall meet my transient gaze.--Thy rocky screen,
Thy airy cliffs I mount; and seek thy shade,
Thy roofs, that brow the steep, romantic glade;
But, while on me the eyes of Friendship glow,
Swell my pain’d sighs, my tears spontaneous flow.
In scenes paternal, not beheld through years,
Nor view’d, till now, but by a Father’s side,
Well might the tender, tributary tears,
From keen regrets of duteous fondness glide!
Its pastor, to this human-flock no more
Shall the long flight of future days restore!
Distant he droops,--and that once gladdening eye
Now languid gleams, e’en when his friends are nigh.
Through this known walk, where weedy gravel lies,
Rough, and unsightly;--by the long, coarse grass
Of the once smooth, and vivid green, with sighs
To the deserted Rectory I pass;--
Stray through the darken’d chambers’ naked bound,
Where childhood’s earliest, liveliest bliss I found;
How chang’d, since erst, the lightsome walls beneath,
The social joys did their warm comforts breathe!
Ere yet I go, who may return no more,
That sacred pile, ’mid yonder shadowy trees,
Let me revisit!--Ancient, massy door,
Thou gratest hoarse!--my vital spirits freeze,
Passing the vacant pulpit, to the space
Where humble rails the decent altar grace,
And where my infant sister’s ashes sleep,
Whose loss I left the childish sport to weep.
Now the low beams, with paper garlands hung,[3]
In memory of some village youth, or maid,
Draw the soft tear, from thrill’d remembrance sprung,
How oft my childhood mark’d that tribute paid.
The gloves, suspended by the garland’s side,
White as its snowy flowers, with ribbons tied;--
Dear Village, long these wreaths funereal spread,
Simple memorials of thy early dead!
But O! thou blank, and silent pulpit!--thou,
That with a Father’s precepts, just, and bland,
Did’st win my ear, as reason’s strength’ning glow
Show’d their full value, now thou seem’st to stand
Before my sad, suffus’d, and trembling gaze,
The dreariest relic of departed days.
Of eloquence paternal, nervous, clear,
Dim Apparition thou--and bitter is my tear!
REMONSTRANCE
ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. IN 1788,
ON THE SARCASMS LEVELLED AT NATIONAL GRATITUDE IN
THE TASK.[4]
“I would not enter on my list of friends,[5]
“Tho’ grac’d with polish’d manners,” tho’ endow’d
With talents destin’d to immortal fame,
But wanting generosity, the man
Who darts the blighting of satiric wit,
Lanc’d from a spleenful heart, or sullen weaves
The dark anathemas of Calvin’s school
Against a nation’s praise, its grateful praise,
Pour’d for the assiduous culture of those gifts
Bestow’d by Heaven,--not on the general mind,
But on the chosen Few, ordain’d to prove
In what full portion to the human soul
God can impart intelligence; the rays
Destin’d to stream from their eternal source
Through future ages. O’er each feeling heart
Shed they not transport which allays each ill,
Sickness, and pain, and sorrow; lift the mind,
Seating its pleasures high, till waste expense
And frivolous pursuits, fatigue or pall,
While all the grosser train of sensual joys
Prove vapid as they are guilty?--Read we not
On Inspiration’s page, “Who loves not man
Whom he hath seen, how should he love his GOD,
Yet unbeheld?” So he, who would repress
The fervent tribute of each thankful heart
For true delights and pure, receiv’d from Man,
May fear his MAKER, but will never know
The nobler piety, that fits the soul
For happiness and HEAVEN. O! wintry Spirit,
Hurling thine icy bolt of sarcasm[6]
Against the loveliest and most generous rites
That e’er an honest, grateful nation paid
At the bright shrine of Genius! Look’st thou back
With grudging eyes on those applausive hours[7]
When Poesy and Music, with twin’d arms,
Attended jubilant?--to Avon’s bank
From the remotest confines of our isle,
Her silver shores, and mast-aspiring towns,
Her tower’d cities and her villa’d hills,
Her lakes, her rivers, and her golden vales,
Summon’d those glowing votaries, who with hearts
Exulting in their country’s proudest boast,
And by the patriot passion taller grown,
Stood tiptoe on Avona’s brink, and there
Strew’d all the rifled Summer’s bloomy stores;
The incense of the warmer Orient toss’d;
Pour’d in loud pæans the triumphant song,
And from the cup, carv’d from the hallow’d tree,
Sprinkled the bright libation; tree, that fell
At the harsh dictate of a kindred mind[8],
Kindred in spleen, though much unlike in power,
To thine, Misanthropist! Nor singly rose
This murmur, cold and dreary as the rill
That ink-like huddles through the russet moor,
Powerless to fertilize. Lo! in a strain[9]
Fanatic and illiberal as the lay
Maligning Avon’s festival, thou scorn’st
Thy country, marshalling in holy shrines
The harmonic strength of Europe, to fulfil
The great designs Briarean Handel plann’d;[10]
That mighty, matchless German, who attun’d
His lyre seraphic to thy native tongue!--
Thou heard’st with grudging and disgusted ear
Those great designs attain’d, when, thro’ the aisles
Of the vast ancient fane, in torrents burst
Those floods of harmony, that lift the soul
Upon their swelling and tumultuous waves
Up to the Throne of God.--O! what is Virtue,
If praise of those, who thus their talents ten
Ardent improv’d, is folly, or is vice?[11]
Nor only on the wreaths for Genius twined
Fall the deep shadows of this Cynic spleen;
Mark how ungenerous the beauteous strain[12]
Closes, that sings the desolate of heart,
Forlorn OMAI, on his native hills
Wandering, with eyes that search the watry waste
“For sight of ship from England!”--why pollute
Thy lovely requiem to his vanish’d joys
With heartless taunt on the illustrious band
That led him hither, and restor’d him back,
At his kind, natural wish, that nobly sprung
From patriot love, too probably, alas!
Requited ill, and pregnant with the pangs
Of fruitless, stung regret. Was it for gain
That those illustrious Chiefs, with daring hand,
Rais’d the pale curtains of the southern Pole?--
Loth as thou art to credit human worth,
O! Bard unjust! thou know’st that not for gold,
Gems, or false glory, they explor’d and brav’d
Climes dangerous and unknown; but to diffuse
The blessings mild of cultivated life
Amid the perilous and lonely haunts
Of the lugubrious savage, straying slow,
Silent and comfortless, o’er pathless wastes
Torrid, or frore. Thus on the worth, that rose
Its nation’s honour, thy immortal muse,
Which should record it to succeeding times,
For the bright, fostering dews of just applause,
Sheds cankerous scorn. And was it not enough
To impute to every wild and idle weed
Of human frailty, such envenom’d juice
As slowly circles through thy latent veins,
Death-giving hemlock?--Was not that enough,
Without enlisting a much favour’d muse
Against Just Praise, the spur of great designs,
And O! twice blest, like Mercy? Was thy lyre
Thus highly gifted for such warfare rude?
For notes, O! how unlike the strains that stole
From the sweet harp of Jesse’s pitying son,
Before whose kind, assuasive, melting tones
Flew the despair which spread her raven-wing
O’er the sunk spirit of Saul!--Thee, Bard morose,
Churlish amid thy fancy’s golden stores,
Thee will I teach, censorious as thou art,
What is not Virtue. Listen to my verse;
Confute it if thou canst;--if not, admit
The force of Truth, though rushing from a lyre
Less richly strung, less solemn than thine own!
It was not--is not--and can ne’er be virtue,
Merely from terror to abstain from vice;
Merely to sigh for sufferings, which result
From proud unfeeling Man’s abuse of power,
Careless, or rancorous;--nor yet to seize
The rod of indignation, to chastise
The vanities and follies of mankind
With that asperity, which ill becomes
A fellow-mortal frail.--’Tis not to check,
With cynic sneer, that fervour of the soul,
Which, grateful for the transport Genius gives,
Praises the unwearied culture of its powers,
GOD’s gift magnificent. No, sacred Virtue,
These constitute thee not;--for O ’tis thine
With soft compassion’s pleading eye to look,
And with benign allowance, on each fault
Not wearing crime’s dark hue, though thee thyself
No such weak errors taint. It is to hope
Much from the mercy of a parent judge
On him he made so frail.--It is to know
That all thou see’st of selfish, light, and vain,
Far less of sin possesses, than the pride,
Rigid and drear, which shuts the censor’s heart
Against construction charitable; against
Tender indulgence.--’Tis to love, applaud,
And emulate, whatever has its rise
In glad fraternal kindness, and the power
Of gratitude, dispersing by its glow
Envy, and Hate, and Fear, which darkling roam
That man’s cold mind, who feels another’s right
To Fame’s bright wreath, yet brings no votive flower.
Now, if disdainful of my humble verse,
It soften not the Satirist’s marble breast,
O! may he listen to an higher strain,
A strain of Inspiration, and it breathes
No precept hostile to my lays!--but list,
List, I adjure thee! since it much imports
Thy welfare temporal, and eternal!--try
The censures harsh of thy stern muse, who oft
As with the tongue of missive angels speaks,
Try them by test unerring, by the Voice
Which sounding brass and tinkling cimbal call’d
The human, and angelic strains combin’d,
If wanting Charity;--there should they fail,
Thy censures harsh to that pure ordeal brought,
Reform them, and grow social, just, and kind,
Reform them, and be happy!--With firm hand
Disroot thy bosom’s hemlock!--there it grows,
Dark spots denote the weed, illiberal spleen,
Adverse to praise, however nobly earn’d,
Where latent hope of a reward on high
Prompts not its fervour; sullen, bigot-pride,
Hating for errors, less perhaps than thine.
Since on that anxious and indignant brow
Genius has long her amaranthine crown
Exulting placed, may they, who hold their torch
High o’er the paths of Peace, Daughters of Heaven,
Star-pointing Hope, and meek-voic’d Charity,
Clear that gloom’d brow, illume those eyes severe,
Solicitous, and sad!--O, clasp the veil
Mild Charity extends, of sky-wove grain,
Blessing the hand, which gently lets it fall
Upon a brother’s frailty! From thy hand
When thus it may descend, immortal Hope
Shall, with her silver anchor, thy void grasp
Smiling supply, and, upward soaring, chase
Terror’s black clouds, and to thy gladden’d view
Disclose the realms of Everlasting Light![13]
CRUGAL’s GHOST,
APPEARING TO CONNAL,--FROM OSSIAN.[14]
Lull’d by the dashing of the mountain stream,
Beneath the aged tree, in quiet dream,
Brave CONNAL lies. A stone with moss o’erspread,
Forms a grey pillow for the warrior’s head.
At distance from the Chiefs he seeks repose;
The race of COLGAR fear no treacherous foes.
Shrill as the winds o’er heathy Lena sweep,
He hears the voice of night assail his sleep;
And waking, marks a gleam of dusky red
Glide down the hill, and reach his mossy bed.
Young CRUGAL’s semblance hovers in the ray,
Fall’n in the slaughter of that deathful day.
His face, is like the moon in shrouding rains;
His robes, the clouds, that rise from marshy plains;
Gleam, like decaying flames, his eyes around,
And dart upon his breast the livid wound!
As mortal visitant, with life-blood warm,
The dauntless chief accosts the shadowy form.
“Fam’d on the hill of Deer, what chance has led
“The valiant Crugal to my mossy bed?
“Ah! why so pale?--that never knew’st to yield,
“Son of the hill, and breaker of the shield!”
The airy head low bending, as in grief,
One dim hand stretch’d o’er the recumbent chief,
A wailful sound the bloodless lips exhale,
Thin as the reedy Lego’s rising gale.
“Wide o’er its native hills my ghost has stray’d,
“But my pale corse on Ullin’s shore is laid.
“No more wilt thou with CRUGAL commune kind,
“Or on the heath his lonely steps shalt find;
“My trackless feet through fields of air have past,
“Light as high Cromla’s ever-whistling blast.
“But, O! my warning voice may Connal mark!
“I see the cloud of death descending dark;
“O’er Lena’s plain it hovers!--Erin’s hosts
“Must fall!--fly, Connal, from the field of ghosts!”
He sighs!--and, like the darken’d moon, retires
Amid his whistling blast, and meteor fires.
“Stay,” cries the valiant Connal, “Crugal stay,
“Son of the windy hill, and meteor-ray!
“What mountain-cave has thy pale corse possest?
“What green cliff blossoms o’er thy house of rest?
“Shall not thy voice in wintry storms arise?
“Shall we not hear it in the torrent’s noise,
“When feeble children of the wind come forth,
“And shriek amid the tempests of the north?
Rising he moves, with rapid step, and light,
His armour ringing to the blast of night;
Speeds to the heroes, slumbering on the field,
And o’er CUCHULLIN strikes the clanging shield.
“Why, (says the ruler of the car,) why come
“The steps of Connal through the midnight-gloom?
“Against the alarming sound my spear might turn,
“And his slain friend the rash Cuchullin mourn.”
‘Rever’d CUCHULLIN, Chief of deathless fame,
‘To my late rest the ghost of Crugal came.
‘Dim through his form the midnight stars appear’d,
‘And like a distant stream his voice I heard.
‘Upon my startled ear it slowly broke,
‘And of the dark and narrow dwelling spoke,
‘For this he glided o’er the marshy heath,
‘The voice of woe, the messenger of death!--
‘For peace, or truce, O chief of Dunsaick, try,
‘Or o’er the heath of Lena instant fly.’
Then, gravely smiling, with intrepid air,
Replies the dauntless ruler of the war.
“He spoke to us of death’s impending storm,
“Though stars dim twinkled thro’ his misty form!--
“Connal, the rising gales, that murmur’d near,
“From Lena’s cavern rush’d upon thine ear;---
“Or if it was thy Crugal’s semblance pale,
“Why not to me impart the deathful tale?
“Thee did he teach his cave of rest to find,
“His narrow house, that feeble son of wind!
“My sword might penetrate its dark retreat,
“And force his knowledge from its secret seat.
“But small that knowledge, he was here to-day;--
“Knew’st thou he swell’d the slaughter of the fray?
“Scarce o’er these hills his ghost has wing’d its flight,
“Who there could tell him we should fall in fight?”
‘Yet heed the warning voice, brave Connal cries!
‘On the swift gale each warrior’s spirit flies;
‘They dwell together in their gloomy cave,
‘Talk of the fate of Chiefs, the hero’s grave.’
“Of other Chiefs--but let them ne’er presume
“To waste prediction on CUCHULLIN’S doom!
“May in their caves my fate neglected lie!--
“The Chief of Erin was not born to fly!
“I will not fly from Swaran!--if I fall,
“Swift shall my spirit seek their airy hall;
“My tomb, in years of future fame, shall rise,
“Sought by the brave, and hallow’d by their sighs;
“On my cold stone the hunter’s tear descend,
“And sorrowing o’er it fair Bragela bend.--
“I fear not death,--but fear ignoble flight,
“Stain of the youthful warrior’s former might!--
“Oft has great FINGAL, from his rapid car,
“Seen conquest mine amid the rage of war.--
“Dim phantom of the hill, appear to me!
“Shew in thy livid hand my death’s decree;
“No thought of flight shall thy pale doom inspire,
“Son of the whistling blast, the meteor-fire!
“Go, Connal, loudly strike the high-hung shield,
“From yon riv’d oak dark shadowing on the field;
“Peace is not in the sound.--My Chiefs shall hear,
“Start from their sleep, and snatch the prostrate spear.--
“Though Fingal yet no promis’d aid fulfils,
“Nor leads his heroes from their stormy hills,
“Yet, Son of Colgar, will we scorn to fly,
“But nobly conquer, or as nobly die!”
THE GHOST OF CUCHULLIN.
FROM OSSIAN.
On Dora’s hill, the fires of parting day,
With soften’d lustre, shed the yellow ray;
Yet scarce they sunk behind the mountain’s breast
Ere gathering storms the fading scene invest.
Loud hollow gales fell murmuring on the floods,
And shook Temora through his bending woods.
One ample cloud a sable curtain rear’d,
And faint, behind its edge, a red star peer’d,
And in its shade a tall, unreal form
Stalk’d through the air, and mourn’d amid the storm.
His lengthen’d steps o’er the vast mountain pass’d,
And his broad shield a pale effulgence cast.
Too well Cuchullin’s faded form I knew,
Yet, ere my lips could breathe their last adieu,
Swift, on his howling blast, away he strode,
And night, and horror, gather’d on the wood.
EPISTLE
TO
MR NEWTON, THE DERBYSHIRE MINSTREL,
ON RECEIVING HIS DESCRIPTION, IN VERSE, OF AN AUTUMNAL SCENE, NEAR EYAM,
IN THAT COUNTY, SEPTEMBER, 1791.
High on the airy mountain’s sunny side,
On the rais’d heath-bush, gay in purple pride,
You seat me, Edwin, where you sat serene,
And with the pen of Genius sketch’d the scene;
Taught his bold lines each feature wild to trace,
Each rude magnificence, each sylvan grace;
Vast barren hills, and deep luxuriant dales,
That the sun gilds, the volant cloud half veils,
Alternate. Ah! no spot recorded then,
No distant valley, and no nearer glen,
That twining Wye’s cerulean current laves,
Or yellow Derwent with his frothing waves;
No rock, no hamlet, on the mountain’s swell,
No village, nestling in the shadowy dell,
But, as I meet their lov’d, familiar name,
Swift, as the lightning’s penetrating flame,
To my charm’d soul return her morning years,
Their transports heighten’d, and dispell’d their cares.
Thus on the spirit Memory’s local spell
No time can weaken, and no change repel;
It melts the heart, and rushes through the brain,
With pleasure, sweeter for the mingled pain.
What heart but feels that pain, that pleasure’s strife,
Oft as it traces back the maze of life!
But O! where warm the ingenuous passions glow,
That avarice, pride, nor wild ambition know,
This local spell!--how instant is its power,
To chase the Present, and the Past restore!
SCOTLAND, than thine, what poets more endear
Their native scenes, and send our spirits there?
Ah! when they sing of Tay, of Forth, and Clyde,
Of Leader-Haughs, and Yarrow’s flowery side,
Their strains my heart with softer rapture fire
Than MASON’S, GRAY’S, or DARWIN’S lays inspire;
Their loftier rhyme though loftier Genius taught,
Glow in their image, and sublime their thought.
And when you, EDWIN, bid description’s truth
Recall the scenes that charm’d my early youth,
I feel these eyes suffus’d by gushing tears,
While through their crystal shine my happier years,
Fair as the Spring’s first flowers, and verdant fields,
Seen through the illumin’d rains departing April yields.
TO
MR JOHN SALT, OF LICHFIELD,[15]
ON HAVING READ SOME OF HIS COMPOSITIONS ON A RAINY EVENING, IN AUGUST,
1789.
Late on a sullen Summer night
Thy intellectual morning hung;
I mark’d its dawn with calm delight,
Whose vivid, soft, and dewy ray,
From the rich orb of Genius sprung,
Each adolescent grace among,
Gives lovely promise of a golden day.
But, leaving metaphoric lays,
Let me, ingenuous Youth, impart,
Warm in the glow of honest praise,
Fond, local hopes to see thy name
Increase the claims to classic art,
Philosophy and high desert,
That raise thy LICHFIELD to the heights of Fame.
ON THE
SUDDEN DEATH
OF THE
CELEBRATED Mr NORRIS, of OXFORD,
BATCHELOR OF MUSIC.[16]
Instant the mortal stroke the warbler smote!
Eternal silence seals the tuneful throat!
Ah, NORRIS, thine! whom Albion heard so long
Pour in impressive tones the hallow’d song,
With all thy HANDEL’S glorious page inspires,
Pathos that melts, and energy that fires.
High o’er the numerous band we saw him late,
Saw choirs combin’d his graceful mandate wait;
And heard the too, too applicable lay
His drooping spirit’s mild complaint convey
Of that injurious, that ungrateful sound,
Which the shock’d ear with ruthless force could wound,
For that his trembling nerves, oppress’d with pain,
Whelm’d in resistless tears one tender strain.
Oh, when that powerful voice, in peals of praise,
Led the loud chorus through the harmonic maze,
Breath’d the pathetic song, that on the breast
Religious awe, and contrite grief imprest,
How little we divin’d, who heard ere while
His full notes floating through the vaulted aisle,
That death’s dark clouds around the minstrel hung,
That the sweet Swan his own sad requiem sung!
ON MAJOR ANDRE.
SERIOUS EPIGRAM TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.[17]
In youth’s gay bloom illustrious André died,
Flower of a day, nipt by the wintry storm;
His heart strung high by valour’s noblest pride,
His mien with love’s seducing ardour warm.
Glory, in characters of living gold,
Writes on his sacred shrine the patriot name,
And one Great Act, which bids e’en warriors old
Thank its example for their fresh-earn’d fame.
HAROLD’s COMPLAINT.[18]
A SCANDINAVIAN ODE.
FROM DR ALEXANDER’S HISTORY OF WOMEN.[19]
I.
One day, while on the Ocean blue[20]
The glittering sun-beams pour,
With vessel light, and scanty crew,
We gaily left the shore.
Black rose the storm, and in the hold
The frothing waters lay,
But toil their whelming force controul’d,
And clear’d them all away.
Then swift we flew before the wind,
And gain’d the distant isle;
The omen fair I hop’d to find
Of beauteous Aura’s smile;
But yet, my toils, though fortune crown,
Has all I love forsworn me,
My constancy sustains her frown,
The Russian maiden scorns me.
II.
In manly sports, and manly toils,
Twice four, I proudly shine,
And kinder nymphs, with rosy smiles,
For me the garlands twine.
’Tis mine to dart the gleaming lance;
To curb the bounding steed;
To tune the pipe, the mazy dance,
With graceful step, to lead;
To ply the oar, to rove the deep,
And, o’er the frozen wave,
On volant steel, like winds, to sweep;
To meet in fight the brave;
But ah, though great in arts and arms,
From love’s blest hope she warns me,
Not all my well-won glory charms,
A Russian maiden scorns me.
III.
On Norway’s wintry mountains high
My natal morn arose,
Whose sons can teach their shafts to fly,
Unerring from their bows:
But o’er the lone sea bends my course,
The bounding ship I guide,
Where, ’mid vast rocks, with fatal force,
Surges the confluent tide.
On every sea my flying sails
The rising winds have caught,
And though to tempest swell’d the gales,
No sheltering harbour sought;
But ah! though courage speed my prow,
And subject seas have borne me,
A frozen heart impels, I know,
The Russian maid to scorn me.
IV.
Around Calabria’s winding shore
My dark ships grandly ride,
With mariners, a numerous store,
Their youthful leader’s pride.
Devoted to the clang of arms,
Victorious in their strife,
I gloried in their loud alarms,
And liv’d a warrior’s life:
Nor dreamt that long indulgent Fate
Would ever cloud her brow,
And with a peevish woman’s hate,
My fondest hopes o’erthrow.
Now rival chiefs my woes deride,
And generous friendship mourns me;
Hates (while it chides my vanquish’d pride,)
The Russian maid that scorns me.
V.
O! wou’d this charming maid recall
The wonders of that day,
When near the southern city’s wall,
I join’d the bloody fray;
When Drontheim’s armies trebled ours,
And thunder’d o’er the plain,
While every wave its river pours
Ran purple to the main;
When conquest, on her eagle-wing,
Flew hovering o’er my shield,
And Drontheim’s long-resistless king
Lay breathless on the field;
Yet, yet, to blight my youth with cares,
Has all I love forsworn me,
The garland of the war she tears,
The Russian maiden scorns me.
THE LAKE;
OR,
MODERN IMPROVEMENT IN LANDSCAPE.
Grand, ancient, gothic, mark this ample dome,
Of fashion’s slave, the uncongenial home!
Long have its turrets braved the varying clime,
And mock’d the ravage of relentless time.
The owner shrugs his shoulders, and deplores
One vile effect of his self-squander’d stores,
That the triste edifice must still remain
To shock his lordship’s gaze, and blot the plain;
That no gay villa may supply its place,
Rise in Italian, or in Gallic grace.
“But, yet,” he cries, “by Fashion’s aid divine,
“Rescued from sylvan shrouds, my scenes may shine;
“Resistless goddess, to thy votary come,
“And chace the horrors of this leafy gloom!”
She comes!--the gaudy despot stands confest,
Known by her mien assur’d, and motley vest;
The vest, mistaken by her servile train
For beauty’s robe of sky-enwoven grain,
Deck’d with each varying form, each living hue,
T hat Nature hallow’d, and her REPTON drew.
Scorning their power, and reckless of expense,
The foe of beauty, and the bane of sense;
Close by my lord, and with strange projects warm,
Stalks o’er the scenes her edicts shall deform.
“Yon broad, brown wood, now darkening to the sky,
“Shall prostrate soon with perish’d branches lie;
“Yield golden treasures for our great design,
“Till all the scene one glassy surface shine.”
Mid shrubs, and tangled grass, with sparkling waves,
A little vagrant brook the valley laves;
Now hid, now seen, the wanton waters speed,
Hurrying loquacious o’er their pebbly bed.
“A Lake! she cries, this source can never fail,
“A lake shall fill our undulating dale!
“No more the dingles shall sink dark and deep,
“No waving hedgerows round the meadows sweep;
“All must be Lake this level lawn between,
“And those bare hills, and rocks, that form the screen,
“Peer o’er the yet proud woods, and close the scene.”
What recks it her that, many a tedious year,
Barren and bleak its naked banks appear!
Since, tho’ the pliant Naiad swiftly pours
Her urn exhaustless to receding shores,
Sullen and tardy found, the Dryad train
Are still, thro’ circling seasons, woo’d in vain,
Ere the dusk umbrage shall luxuriant flow,
And shadowy tremble o’er the lake below;
Which curtain’d thus, changes its leaden hue,
Rising a silver mirror to the view.
See, at the pert behest, subservient toil
Plough with the victim woods the echoing soil!
See, the forced flood th’ o’erwhelmed valley laves,
O’er fields, lanes, thickets, spread the silent waves!--
No lively hue of spring they know to wear,
No gorgeous glow of the consummate year;
No tinge that gold-empurpled autumn spreads
O’er the rich woodland, sloping from the meads,
But stagnant, mute, unvarying, cold, and pale,
They meet the winter-wind, and summer-gale.
Between the base of yonder gothic pile,
Whose towers frown sullen o’er the wat’ry spoil,
And the chill lake’s uncomfortable breast,
Lo! on the lawn, with venerable crest,
A few old oaks defend the tired survey,
In part, from that dull pool’s eternal grey;
While, gleaming, underneath their darksome boughs,
With better grace the torpid water shows.
Again the dame her swarthy agents calls,
Raised is the ready axe--and--ah! it falls!
They who had seen whole centuries roll away,
No more half-veil the lake, and mitigate the day.
Too late the slumbering Genius of the scene
Starts from his mossy couch, with wilder’d mien;
Dismay’d beholds, and all too late to save,
His graces destined to a watery grave;
His winding brook, green wood, and mead and dell,
His grassy lanes, and moss-encircled well;
And for the guardian oaks, now prostrate laid,
His winter screen, his sultry summer’s shade,
Sees the weak saplings, dotted on the lawn,
With dark and clumsy fence around them drawn,
Warp in the noon-tide ray, with shrivell’d rind,
And shrink, and tremble in the rising wind.
In vain he curses the fantastic power,
And the pale ravage of her idiot-hour;
But no vindictive ire the spell revokes,
Fall’n are the woods, and lawn-adorning oaks!
Fled every varied charm boon Nature gave,
No green field blossoms, and no hedge-rows wave!
On the dim waters nods the useless sail,
And Eurus howls along the deluged vale.
His reign usurp’d, since Time can ne’er restore,
Indignant rising to return no more,
His eyes concealing with one lifted hand,
Shadowing the waters, as his wings expand,
The injured Genius seeks the distant coast,
Like Abdiel, flying from the rebel host.
WRITTEN
AFTER HAVING VISITED MISS MORE, AND HER SISTERS AT COWSLIP GREEN, NEAR
BRISTOL, IN AUGUST 1791.
Fair, silent scene, soft rising in the vale,
By mountains guarded from each stormy gale,
Long, ’mid thy sloping lawn, and winding glade,
And mossy cell, for contemplation made,
Be seen, in health and peace, the virgin train,
Led by the boast of Britain’s tuneful plain,
Where Genius oft has fed its kindling fires,
Roll’d the rapt eye, and struck the golden wires,
Bristol; that hears her MORE’S distinguish’d name
Wafted, by echoes, round the shrine of Fame.
On whose mild brow she sees bright laurels twine,
Cull’d from their choicest bowers by all the nine,
Enwreath’d with charity’s assuasive balm,
And faith, and virtue’s never-dying palm.
And ye, sweet satellites, that gently bear
Your lesser radiance round this beamy star,
Aiding her pious efforts to impart
Religion’s lustre to the youthful heart,[21]
That else in lightless ignorance must stray,
Where guilt’s fell snares the indigent betray,
Ye fair examples of an heedless age,
Ye glowing votaries of the sacred page,
O! may your virtues wake the just desire,
“To live like you, and be what we admire!”
TRANSLATION
OF
GRAY’S APOSTROPHE,
TO THE MEMORY OF
HIS YOUNG FRIEND, WEST,
IN HIS UNFINISHED LATIN POEM,
De principiis cogitandi.[22]
Thus far my youth has labour’d to explore
The springs of thought, and Nature’s mystic lore;
No languid votary of the Muse I came,
To trace her footsteps up the steeps of Fame;
To bid the streams, that Roman fountains yield,
Flow in full currents o’er Britannia’s field.
Ah, lov’d Favonius, who those labours shared,
Whose voice could animate, whose praise reward;
The prop, the stimulus of all my powers,
On thee the rayless cloud incumbent lours;
There, my fond grasp thy fading form evades,
Sunk, and involv’d in death’s eternal shades.
Friend of my youth, O! with what pangs I found
The gloomy mists of sickness gathering round!
Saw thy heart struggling with convulsive throes,
That heart, so quick to feel for others’ woes!
Saw, in dire progress, fell disease prevail,
Dim thy clear eye, thy vivid colour pale;
Saw numbing languor steal each youthful grace,
From those light limbs, from that expressive face,
Where piety sublime, affections mild,
And all the soul of truth ingenuous smiled.
Yet once, O once! the flattering foe of life
Seem’d to recede, and quit the cruel strife;
Then did my grateful vows ascend the skies,
Then did bright hopes anticipating rise,
That we again thro’ classic groves shou’d stray,
And mutually deceive the tardy day.
Ah, hopes presumptuous!--ah ungranted pray’rs!
Ah, helpless efforts!--and ah, wasted cares!
Ah, mournful hours, condemn’d to lasting pain,
To sighs incessant, and to anguish vain!
But thou, dear shade, to whom superfluous flows
This bitter flood of unavailing woes,
Full bliss enjoy the starry plains among,
In the pure ether whence thy essence sprung!
And if, beyond misfortune’s icy blight,
Pitying, thou bendest from thy throne of light,
To view the turbulence of human fate,
Rash love, and envy, fear, and pride, and hate,
Behold these griefs! that, desolate of heart,
Pierc’d by deprived affection’s rankling dart,
Amid the silence of the lonely hour,
To thee, O long belov’d! to thee I pour!
More is not mine to give, since now remains
But the sad luxury of these cherish’d pains,
Casting their fruitless wail, their hopeless tear
To thy dumb ashes, and thy timeless bier!
PARAPHRASE
OF
GRAY’s ALCAICK ODE,
WRITTEN IN THE
ALBUM OF THE GRAND CHARTREUSE,
ON HIS WAY BACK TO ENGLAND, AFTER HAVING VISITED THE ITALIAN CITIES WITH
MR WALPOLE.[23]
Hail, guardian of this deep severe retreat,
Divine Religion! by whatever name
Thou would’st my lips thy sacred power should greet:
No common power these solemn scenes proclaim.
Here, ’mid the desert cliffs that sternly frown,
O’er trackless mountains as my slow step roves,
These giant rocks, that waving pines embrown,
These roaring waters, and this night of groves,
To my aw’d spirit, and my throbbing heart
Plainer a present DEITY disclose,
Than Raphael tints, or Phidian forms impart
When bright with gold the fragrant altar glows.
Hail, solemn scenes! and to my wearied mind
Your sheltering shades, your placid quiet yield;
But O! should fate deny my youth to find
In your wrapt silence a protecting shield,
Swift should she bear me to the vortex wild,
By human strife in storms perpetual whirl’d,
Grant me, kind Heaven, some climate lone and mild,
Some vale sequester’d from the struggling world!
Where, free from vulgar tumults of the vain,
Calm I may feel my vital powers decay,
And all unvex’d, at least by mental pain,
Meet the long night with hope of endless day![24]
TO
SIR NIGEL GRESLEY.
APOLOGY FOR NOT ACCEPTING HIS INVITATION TO A MASQUERADE-BALL AT HIS
SEAT, DRAKELOW, IN STAFFORDSHIRE.
Ah, Gresley! skill’d to deck the festal rite
With Taste’s coy art, and Fancy’s various light,
Charm’d when the summon’d train forsake their home,
Grotesque and gay, to fleet beneath thy dome;
Could I, amid the jocund band, convene
Youth, health, or spirit, to the glittering scene,
Then should my pen thy flattering passport greet
With gladden’d heart, and with acceptance meet;
But long-precarious health, life’s faded bloom,
And recent ravage of the ruthless tomb,
Clos’d o’er my friends, forbid the pageant bowers
To shine before me with magnetic powers.
When graver Pleasures, and domestic Mirth,
Rise the soft Lares of that glowing hearth,
Where Drakelow, white as o’er the vale she gleams,
Eyes her fair form in Trent’s pellucid streams,
Mine may it be to share the joys benign,
More grateful to existence’ dim decline;
To view expanding mind, with effluence warm,
Illume thy lov’d MARIA’S youthful form;[25]
To mark around that ever liberal board,
Bless’d by glad welcome from its graceful lord,
With sportive glee his lovely infants sit,
And bright LOUISA lance the darts of wit;[26]
While most his sense and spirit render gay
The golden leisure of the social day.
TO
---- SHERIVE, ESQ.
STUDENT AT OXFORD.
When Sherive breathes, the classic bowers among,
For me the honours of the plausive song,
He wakes the hope, that dormant long had lain,
Sunk amid life’s dull cares, and grief, and pain;
The hope, that yet my verse-encircled themes,
Buoyant may rise above oblivion’s streams,
While still the guiding star of praise benign
Shall o’er the cold and darkling waters shine.
SONNET,
TO THE REV. RICHARD POLWHELE,
ON HIS poem UPON THE INFLUENCE OF LOCAL ATTACHMENT.[27]
Polwhele, whose genius, in the colours clear
Of poesy and philosophic art,
Traces the sweetest impulse of the heart,
Scorn, for thy Muse, the envy-sharpen’d spear,
In darkness thrown, when shielded by desert
She seeks the lyric fane. To virtue dear
Thy verse esteeming, feeling minds impart
Their vital smile, their consecrating tear.
Fancy and judgment view with gracious eyes
Its kindred tints, that paint the silent power
Of local objects, deeds of high emprize
To prompt; while their delightful spells restore
The precious vanish’d days of former joys,
By Love, or Fame, enwreath’d with many a flower.
THE FIRST PSALM
PUT INTO VERSE.
Blest is the man, who ne’er hath stay’d
Where sinners idly meet,
Nor in their dangerous mazes stray’d,
Nor press’d the scorner’s seat!
But still the Lord’s eternal law
Proves his uncloy’d delight,
To ponder it with sacred awe
Each passing day and night.
Like the fair tree, beside the stream,
Whose roots the waters lave;
While ripening in the summer beam,
Its fruits luxuriant wave.
No blight shall on his leaf descend,
For still hath Heav’n decreed,
That full prosperity attend
His every thought and deed.
But for the unrepenting race,
Not such their transient day,
They are like chaff, which wild winds chase,
Scatter’d from earth away.
Therefore the wicked shall not stand
In Judgment’s dread abode,
Nor sinners ’midst the righteous band
That meet before their God.
For He discerns the pure of heart,
But, at the impious hurl’d,
Eternal Vengeance speeds the dart,
Which strikes them from the world.
137TH PSALM PARAPHRASED.
By clear Euphrates’ palmy tide
Near Babylon’s high towers,
Remembering Sion, oft we sigh’d
And wept her vanquish’d powers.
Our silent harps on trees we hung
That wav’d along its shores;
Then our proud foes required the song
Of Sion’s hallow’d bowers.
How shall we sing the sacred strains,
O Solyma! that flow’d,
And taught thy echoing rocks and plains
The mercies of our God!
If thee, Jerusalem, my heart
E’er ceases to regret,
Let my right hand its tuneful art,
And all its skill forget!
If I forget thee, let my tongue,
Parch’d to my palate cleave!
Yes, if to thee, amid the song,
My sighs forbear to heave.
Remember Edom’s sons, O Lord!
In Sion’s fatal day,
Howling aloud their fell award
Amid th’ unequal fray!
When red with Idumean gore
Fair Olivet was found,
These fanes, they cried, shall rise no more,
Down with them to the ground!
Daughter of Babylon, thy doom,
From God’s avenging hand,
In retribution dread shall come,
And desolate the land.
And blest the man, whom Heav’n ordains
To ’whelm thy boasted towers,
And dash thy infants on the plains,
As thou did’st slaughter ours!
TO
CHARLES SIMPSON, ESQ.
BARRISTER;
WITH THOS. WARTON’S EDITION OF MILTON’S LESSER POEMS, ENRICHED BY THE
EDITOR’S CRITICAL NOTES.
Accept, most worthy of thy studious hours,
This brightest effluence of the critic powers,
Pervading every source whence Milton drew
Dim thoughts of others into radiant view,[28]
Or shaped, and kindled, with Promethean strife,
Their crude, cold images to endless life.
Rival of JOHNSON’S tomes in every glow[29]
That Talent sheds, or Judgment can bestow;
Guiltless of all which stains their specious page,
Envy’s fell blight, and Party’s stormy rage,
More learn’d to trace, more generous to admire,[30]
This pours on Genius Taste’s enlightning fire.
Accept it, SIMPSON, who art skill’d to rove,
With firm unerring step, the classic grove;
And while thou feel’st the poet’s ray divine,
Rejudge the justice of the critic line
Unlike the general eye of owlish sight,
Thou find’st not darkness in excessive light.
O! while this great essay of learned art
Meets thy clear judgment, charms thy liberal heart,
Still may the donor thy kind friendship claim,
Than gold more welcome, and more wish’d than fame!
TO
MAJOR ROOKE OF MANSFIELD,
ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS DIURNAL REGISTER OF THE WINDS FOR THE TWO LAST
YEARS.
OCTOBER, 1796.
No gale unlucky may thy fortunes find,
Benign historian of the wayward wind!
But, when it rises with proverbial sway,
O! may it cast all fickleness away
On grateful wings, from blight, and tempest free,
Blow only good, from every point, to thee!
TO
CH. CLARKE, ESQ.
ON HIS REQUEST TO OBTAIN THE AUTHOR’S SIGNATURE WRITTEN WITH HER OWN
HAND.
(IMPROMPTU.)
Our self-inscrib’d name, as the scroll were a treasure,
When strangers request, in their fanciful pleasure,
It flatters the hope that our bark may be scudding
From this corporal climate of beef and of pudding,
To the high shrine of Fame, where posterity know men,
And we deem such request a right prosperous omen.
But gales inauspicious oft blow from that region,
And for one who attains it they blow back a legion;
Then in spite of CLARK’S wish, and his brother’s kind record,[31]
Whose rays from that shrine my pale streamers have checker’d,
Its winds will too probably soon blow from leeward,
And sink in oblivion’s cold waves ANNA SEWARD.
A
WARNING EXHORTATION.
Celia, I read thy melting eye;
Thy check’d, yet stealing sighs I hear;
See from thy cheek the roses fly,
Or doubly glow when FLORIO’S near.
Ah! not from his seducing glance
Too rashly drink the nectar’d bane!
Avoid him in the graceful dance,
Nor listen to his warbled strain!
It helps not, it avails not there,
Thy beauty’s rising power to charm;
That his stung senses own thee fair
Is but thy too triumphant harm.
Ne’er to the sacred, marriage shrine
Thee shall the haughty FLORIO lead;
O lost, if still that heart of thine,
On latent, hopeless wishes feed!
Long shall thy love-lit eyes be dim
If soon thou art not bravely free;
The dart will not be barb’d for him,
Which surely shall be barb’d for thee.
Amid the busy scenes of life
Proud FLORIO shall thy image lose,
Forgotten in Ambition’s strife,
Eclipsed by Grandeur’s dazzling views;
While thou, supine, in lonely shades,
Shalt pale and sullen willows weave,
Swelling the list of hapless maids,
Who sigh disdain’d, neglected grieve.
O then, in time, from future woes
A shield in resolution seek,
And twine no more the thorny rose
’Mid chains thy juster pride should break!
Now, while thou may’st, the bliss dissolve,
That lightens but with transient ray!
Since clouds are gathering, to involve
This shining, faithless, April day.
TO
HUMPHRY REPTON, ESQ.
ON BEING PRESENTED BY HIM WITH HIS LANDSCAPE OF
STOWE-VALLEY.[32]
Ingenious REPTON, from thy pencil warm,
Shines this loved scene, with more than scenic charm;
Since each soft feature, by th’ associate powers,
Of youth and love and friendship’s blissful hours,
Brings back, thro’ every season, as it veers,
Some striking image of the vanish’d years;
Whether the months of bloom, and light, and love,
With silver blossoms curtain yonder grove;
With golden king-cups bid the mead be gay,
And all the lake in molten glass inlay;
Or when less genial mornings of the spring,
Chill’d by retreating Winter’s icy wing,
The darkling waters with their gusts assail,
And curl the mists along the rainy vale.
Dear is that vale, when Summer’s sultry days
In one white, dazzling, circumambient blaze,
Shadeless, excessive, all distinctness hide,
Straining the visual rays, that scarce divide
The circling hills, blue lake, and mossy tower,
The hedge-row motionless, the silent bower;
While shrink mute birds, where central branches spread,
And lowing mothers hang the heavy head,
Wade in the sedgy brook that sluggish flows,
Or crowd beneath the alder’s dusky boughs.
Dear, when the amber noon of autumn gilds
The flame-tipt umbrage, and the level fields;
Dear, e’en tho’ sullen wintry clouds impend,
And showers of leaves, in eddying winds, descend;
While the mild auburn nymph, that crowns the year,
Mourns her swoln waters, and her forests sear;
To Fancy’s eye her exile seems to wail,
And, down the little, desolated vale,
To press, with lingering step, as one that grieves,
Its white, shrunk petals, and its rustling leaves.
When o’er the livid lake, and grey waste fields
His blasting rod the stormy despot wields;
And thro’ the rifled grove, in wild career,
Howls the loud knell of the expiring year,
Yet loved the scene:--And now, when tempests roar,
Thick snows descend, and ice incrusts the shore,
On its changed face no more my eye shall dwell,
No fruitless sighs ’gainst Nature’s laws rebel;
But be it mine the glowing hearth to pile,
And woo the mild Penates’ lively smile![33]
Thus, while ascending fires, with influence bright,
Deride the sickly sun and howling night,
In as disarming power thy tints shall foil
The year’s grim tyrant, yelling o’er his spoil,
Charm’d, since the consecrated vale I see
In one eternal Summer cloth’d by thee.
PHILIPPIC
ON A MODERN EPIC.
Base is the purport of this epic song,
Baneful its powers;--but O! the poesy!
(What can it less when sun-born Genius sings?)
Wraps in reluctant ecstacy the soul
Where poesy is felt;--tho’ here it paint
In all the lurid traits of Nero’s heart,
The high heroic spirit of that prince
Who graced the crown he wore; Britannia’s boast,
HARRY of MONMOUTH!--he, who ne’er exposed
His ardent legions on the deathful plain
Where flamed not his broad shield, nor his white plumes,[34]
Play’d in the battle’s van.--What claim’d he then
From France, at the sword’s point, but ceded rights
Howe’er perfidiously with-held, when pledg’d
For aye to England, after the proud day
Of Cressy’s thundering field? Then Gallia’s star[35]
Sunk, and the planet of the argent shores
Rose glittering on the zenith’s azure height,
What time upon the broken spears of France,
And prostrate helms, immortal Glory stood,
And with the lilies of that vaunting clime,
Like a gay bridegroom, wreath’d the victor brows
Of her great EDWARD.--O! unnatural boy!
O beardless parricide! thy treacherous Muse,
In the dire splendour of MEDUSA’S charms
Balefully deck’d, an impious task essays,
Lab’ring to turn to deadliest aconite
The laurel wreaths of Agincourt;--to brand
The hallow’d lustre of the British name
With slavish meanness, with rapacious avarice,
And the wolf’s rage. Britain, whose martial fire
Applauding ages have pronounced adorn’d
With fair munificence, and temper’d still
By God-like mercy’s sway,--O, dark of heart,
As luminous of fancy! quit, for shame,
Quit each insidious pretence to virtue,
To Christian faith, and pity!--Dry thy tears
For age-pass’d woes, they are the crocodile’s,
And o’er the murder of the royal victims,
And o’er the Christian faith’s apostacy,
Witness’d in France, cry, “Vive la Liberte!”
Dip thy young hands in her o’er-flowing chalice,
Brimm’d with the gore of age, infants, and beauty,
And, throwing thy red cap aloft in air,
Laugh with the fierce hyena![36]
LLANGOLLEN VALE,
INSCRIBED TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LADY ELEANOR BUTLER,
AND
MISS PONSONBY.
Luxuriant Vale, thy country’s early boast,
What time great GLENDOUR gave thy scenes to Fame;
Taught the proud numbers of the English host,
How vain their vaunted force, when Freedom’s flame
Fir’d him to brave the myriads he abhorr’d,
Wing’d his unerring shaft, and edg’d his victor sword.
Here first those orbs unclosing drank the light,
Cambria’s bright stars, the meteors of her foes;
What dread and dubious omens mark’d the night,[37]
That lour’d ere yet his natal morn arose!
The steeds paternal, on their cavern’d floor,
Foaming, and horror-struck, “fret fetlock-deep in gore.”
Plague, in her livid hand, o’er all the isle,
Shook her dark flag, impure with fetid stains;
While “DEATH, on his pale horse,” with baleful smile,[38]
Smote with its blasting hoof the frighted plains.
Soon thro’ the grass-grown streets, in silence led,
Slow moves the midnight cart, heapt with the naked dead.
Yet in the festal dawn of Richard’s reign,[39]
Thy gallant GLENDOUR’S sunny prime arose;
Virtuous, tho’ gay, in that Circean fane,
Bright Science twin’d her circlet round his brows;
Nor could the youthful, rash, luxurious king
Dissolve the hero’s worth on his Icarian wing.
Sudden it drops on its meridian flight!--
Ah! hapless Richard! never didst thou aim
To crush primeval Britons with thy might,
And their brave GLENDOUR’S tears embalm thy name.
Back from thy victor-rival’s vaunting throng,
Sorrowing, and stern, he sinks LLANGOLLEN’S shades among.
Soon in imperious Henry’s dazzled eyes,[40]
The guardian bounds of just dominion melt;
His scarce-hoped crown imperfect bliss supplies,
Till Cambria’s vassalage be deeply felt.
Now up her craggy steeps, in long array,
Swarm his exulting bands, impatient for the fray.
Lo! thro’ the gloomy night, with angry blaze,
Trails the fierce comet, and alarms the stars;
Each waning orb withdraws its glancing rays,
Save the red planet, that delights in wars.
Then, with broad eyes upturn’d, and starting hair,
Gaze the astonish’d crowd upon its vengeful glare.
Gleams the wan morn, and thro’ LLANGOLLEN’S Vale
Sees the proud armies streaming o’er her meads.
Her frighted echos warning sounds assail,
Loud, in the rattling cars, the neighing steeds;
The doubling drums, the trumpet’s piercing breath,
And all the ensigns dread of havoc, wounds, and death.
High on a hill as shrinking Cambria stood,
And watch’d the onset of th’ unequal fray,
She saw her Deva, stain’d with warrior-blood,
Lave the pale rocks, and wind its fateful way
Thro’ meads, and glens, and wild woods, echoing far
The din of clashing arms, and furious shout of war.
From rock to rock, with loud acclaim, she sprung,
While from her Chief the routed legions fled;
Saw Deva roll their slaughter’d heaps among,
The check’d waves eddying round the ghastly dead;
Saw, in that hour, her own LLANGOLLEN claim
Thermopylæ’s bright wreath, and aye-enduring fame.
Thus, consecrate to glory.--Then arose
A milder lustre in its blooming maze;
Thro’ the green glens, where lucid Deva flows,
Rapt Cambria listens with enthusiast gaze,
While more enchanting sounds her ear assail,
Than thrill’d on Sorga’s bank, the love-devoted Vale.[41]
’Mid the gay towers on steep Din’s Brinna’s cone,[42]
Her HOEL’S breast the fair MIFANWY fires.--
O! Harp of Cambria, never hast thou known
Notes more mellifluent floating o’er the wires,
Than when thy Bard this brighter Laura sung,
And with his ill-starr’d love LLANGOLLEN’S echoes rung.
Tho’ Genius, Love, and Truth inspire the strains,
Thro’ HOEL’S veins tho’ blood illustrious flows,
Hard as th’ Eglwyseg rocks[43] her heart remains,
Her smile a sun-beam playing on their snows;
And nought avails the Poet’s warbled claim,
But, by his well-sung woes, to purchase deathless fame.
Thus consecrate to Love, in ages flown,--
Long ages fled Din’s-Brinna’s ruins show,
Bleak as they stand upon their steepy cone,
The crown and contrast of the Vale below,
That, screen’d by mural rocks, with pride displays
Beauty’s romantic pomp in every sylvan maze.
Now with a vestal lustre glows the Vale,
Thine, sacred Friendship, permanent as pure;
In vain the stern authorities assail,
In vain persuasion spreads her silken lure,
High-born, and high-endow’d, the peerless twain,[44]
Pant for coy Nature’s charms ’mid silent dale, and plain.
Thro’ ELEANORA, and her ZARA’S mind,
Early tho’genius, taste, and fancy flow’d,
Tho’ all the graceful arts their powers combin’d,
And her last polish brilliant life bestow’d,
The lavish promiser, in youth’s soft morn,
Pride, pomp, and love, her friends, the sweet enthusiasts scorn.
Then rose the fairy palace of the Vale,
Then bloom’d around it the Arcadian bowers;
Screen’d from the storms of Winter, cold and pale,
Screen’d from the fervours of the sultry hours,
Circling the lawny crescent, soon they rose,
To letter’d ease devote, and Friendship’s blest repose.
Smiling they rose beneath the plastic hand
Of energy, and taste;--nor only they,
Obedient Science hears the mild command,
Brings every gift that speeds the tardy day,
Whate’er the pencil sheds in vivid hues,
Th’ historic tome reveals, or sings the raptured Muse.
How sweet to enter, at the twilight grey,
The dear, minute Lyceum of the dome,[45]
When, thro’ the colour’d crystal, glares the ray,
Sanguine and solemn ’mid the gathering gloom,
While glow-worm lamps diffuse a pale, green light,
Such as in mossy lanes illume the starless night.
Then the coy scene, by deep’ning veils o’erdrawn,
In shadowy elegance seems lovelier still;
Tall shrubs, that skirt the semi-lunar lawn,
Dark woods, that curtain the opposing hill;
While o’er their brows the bare cliff faintly gleams,
And, from its paly edge, the evening-diamond streams.[46]
What strains Æolian thrill the dusk expanse,
As rising gales with gentle murmurs play,
Wake the loud chords, or every sense intrance,
While in subsiding winds, they sink away!
Like distant choirs, “when pealing organs blow,”
And melting voices blend, majestically slow.
“But ah! what hand can touch the strings so fine,
“Who up the lofty diapason roll
“Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine,
“Then let them down again into the soul!”[47]
The prouder sex as soon, with virtue calm,
Might win from this bright pair pure Friendship’s spotless palm.
What boasts tradition, what th’ historic theme,
Stands it in all their chronicles confest
Where the soul’s glory shines with clearer beam,
Than in our sea-zon’d bulwark of the west,
When, in this Cambrian Valley, Virtue shows
Where, in her own soft sex, its steadiest lustre glows?
Say, ivied Valle Crucis, time-decay’d,[48]
Dim on the brink of Deva’s wandering floods,
Your riv’d arch glimmering thro’ the tangled glade,
Your grey hills towering o’er your night of woods,
Deep in the Vale’s recesses as you stand,
And, desolately great, the rising sigh command,
Say, lonely, ruin’d pile, when former years
Saw your pale train at midnight altars bow;
Saw Superstition frown upon the tears
That mourn’d the rash irrevocable vow,
Wore one young lip gay ELEANORA’S smile?
Did ZARA’S look serene one tedious hour beguile?
For your sad sons, nor Science wak’d her powers;
Nor e’er did Art her lively spells display;
But the grim idol vainly lash’d the hours[49]
That dragg’d the mute, and melancholy day;
Dropt her dark cowl on each devoted head,
That o’er the breathing corse a pall eternal spread.
This gentle pair no glooms of thought infest,
Nor Bigotry, nor Envy’s sullen gleam
Shed withering influence on the effort blest,
Which most should win the other’s dear esteem,
By added knowledge, by endowment high,
By Charity’s warm boon, and Pity’s soothing sigh.
Then how should Summer-day or Winter-night,
Seem long to them who thus can wing their hours!
O! ne’er may pain, or sorrow’s cruel blight,
Breathe the dark mildew thro’ these lovely bowers,
But lengthen’d life subside in soft decay,
Illumed by rising Hope, and Faith’s pervading ray.
May one kind ice-bolt, from the mortal stores,
Arrest each vital current as it flows,
That no sad course of desolated hours
Here vainly nurse the unsubsiding woes!
While all who honour Virtue, gently mourn
LLANGOLLEN’S vanish’d Pair, and wreath their sacred urn.
VERSES
ON
WREXHAM,
AND THE INHABITANTS OF ITS ENVIRONS.
Proud of her ancient race, Britannia shows
Where, in her Wales, another Eden glows,
And all her sons, to truth, and honour dear,
Prove they deserve the paradise they share.
Thrice happy Wrexham, ’mid thy neighbouring groves
Stray, with ’twin’d arms, the Virtues, and the Loves,
There FLETCHER, from her own Gwernheyled, beams,[50]
Fair as its meads, and liberal as its streams;
The Sister APPERLYS, in youth’s soft morn,[51]
With rising charms the festal scenes adorn;
And friendly PRICE, as happy, free, and gay,[52]
As when, in life and beauty’s rosy May,
She shone, the Hebe of her green retreat,
With half the youth of Cambria at her feet.
See CUNLIFFE’S eyes diffuse the gladdening ray,[53]
And shed around her Pleasure’s golden day;
Meridian loveliness, majestic grace,
Stream o’er her form, and lighten in her face;
While Sense and Virtue’s blended influence dart
The look, the voice, resistless to the heart.
Nor only, WREXHAM, do thy circling groves
Boast the fair virtues, and the radiant loves,
There HAYMAN’S song, with its enchanting powers,[54]
Floats thro’ thy vales, thy mansions, and thy bowers;
Her hallow’d temple there Religion shows,
That erst with beauteous majesty arose
In ancient days, when Gothic art display’d
Her fanes, in airy elegance array’d,
Whose nameless charms the Dorian claims efface,
Corinthian splendour and Ionic grace;
Then plied, with curious skill, now rarely shown,
Th’ adorning chissel, o’er the yielding stone.
But as those Graces which alone delight
With their fine forms the captivated sight,
Must not aspire to emulate the art
That, while it charms the eye, pervades the heart,
See Gothic elegance the palm resigns,
When Art in intellectual greatness shines.
Bright as in Albion’s long distinguish’d fanes,[55]
Within these holy walls, she lives, she reigns.
Her sainted Maid, amid the bursting tomb,[56]
Hears the last Trumpet thrill its murky gloom,
With smile triumphant over Death and Time,
Lifts the rapt eye, and rears the form sublime.
WREXHAM, for thee thus rose, by mental power,
Fair modern Science o’er the Arts of yore;
For thee exulting she entwines the wreaths,
As Sculpture speaks, and heavenly Music breathes,
Since great ROUBILLIAC decks thy sacred Shrine,
And Genius wakes thy RANDAL’S Harp divine.[57]
HOYLE LAKE,[58]
A POEM,
WRITTEN ON THAT COAST, AND ADDRESSED TO ITS PROPRIETOR,
SIR JOHN STANLEY.
Thee, STANLEY, thee, our gladden’d spirit hails,
Since life’s first good for us thy efforts gain,
Who, habitants of Albion’s inland vales,
Reside far distant from her circling main.
These lightsome walls, beneath thy generous cares
Arose, the lawny scene’s convivial boast,
While at thy voice clear-cheek’d Hygeia rears
Her aqueous altars on this tepid coast.
This coast, the nearest to our central home,
That green Britannia’s watry zone displays,
Now gives the drooping frame a cheerful dome,[59]
Whose Lares smile, and promise lengthen’d days.
When gather’d fogs the pale horizon steep,
Falling in heavy, deep, continual rain,
If, ere the sun sink shrouded in the deep,
His crystal rays pervade the vapoury train,
Dry are the turfy downs, diffusive spread
O’er the light surface of the sandy mound,
Where e’en the languid form may safely tread,
Drink the pure gale, and eye the blue profound.
Dear scene!--that stretch’d between the silver arms
Of Deva, and of Mersey, meets the main,[60]
And when the sun-gilt day illumes its charms,
Boasts of peculiar grace, nor boasts in vain.
Tho’ near the beach, dark Helbrie’s lonely isle,
Reposes sullen in the watry way,
Hears round her rocks the tides, returning, boil,
And o’er her dusky sandals dash their spray.
Mark, to the left, romantic Cambria’s coast,
Her curtain’d mountains rising o’er the floods;
While seas on Orm’s beak’d promontory burst,
Blue Deva swells her mirror to the woods.
High o’er that varied ridge of Alpine forms,
Vast Moel-y-Fammau towers upon the sight,[61]
Lifts her maternal bosom to the storms,
And screens her filial mountains from their blight.
Far on the right, the dim Lancastrian plains,
In pallid distance, glimmer thro’ the sky,
Tho’, hid by jetting rocks, thy splendid fanes,
Commercial Liverpool, elude the eye.
Wide in the front the confluent oceans roll,
Amid whose restless billows guardian Hoyle,
To screen her azure Lake when tempests howl,
Spreads the firm texture of her amber Isle.[62]
And tho’ the surging tide’s resistless waves
Roll, day, and night, its level surface o’er,
Tho’ the skies darken, and the whirlwind raves,
They froth,--but rush innoxious to the shore.
When fear-struck seamen, ’mid the raging flood,
Hear thundering Shipwreck yell her dire decrees,
See her pale arm rend every sail, and shroud,
And o’er the high mast lift her whelming seas,
If to thy quiet harbour, gentle Hoyle,
The shatter’d navy thro’ the tempest flies,
Each joyous mariner forgets his toil,
And carols to the vainly angry skies.
What tho’ they vex the Lake’s cerulean stream,
And curl its billows on the shelly floor,
Yet, in despite of Fancy’s timid dream,
Age, and infirmity, may plunge secure.
How gay the scene when Spring’s fair mornings break,
Or Summer-noons illume the grassy mound,
When anchor’d navies crowd the peopled Lake,
Or deck the distant ocean’s skiey bound!
Like leafless forests, on its verge extreme
Rise the tall masts;--or spreading wide their sails,
Silvering, and shining in the solar beam,
Stand on that last blue line, and court the gales.
The peopled Lake, of song, and lively cheer,
And boatswain’s whistle bears the jovial sound;
While rosy pennants, floating on the air,
Tinge the soft seas of glass, that sleep around.
’Twas on these Downs the Belgian hero spread[63]
His ardent legions in auspicious hours,
Ere to Ierne’s hostile shores he led
To deathless glory their embattled powers.
When, like the conqueror of the Eastern World,
That stemm’d with dauntless breast the Granic flood,
His victor-sword immortal WILLIAM whirl’d,
And Boyne’s pale waters dyed with rebel blood.
Since now, to health devoted, this calm shore
Breathes renovation in its foamy wave,
For the kind Donor shall each heart implore,
The good his energies to others gave.
That long on him clear-cheek’d Hygeia’s smile,
And long on all he loves, serene may shine,
Who from thy sparkling coast, benignant Hoyle,
Diffused the blessings of her crystal shrine.
HERVA,[64]
AT THE TOMB OF
ARGANTYR.
A RUNIC DIALOGUE.
HERVA.
ARGANTYR, wake!--to thee I call,
Hear from thy dark sepulchral hall!
’Mid the forest’s inmost gloom,
Thy daughter, circling thrice thy tomb,
With mystic rites of thrilling power
Disturbs thee at this midnight hour!
I, thy Sauferlama’s child,
Of my filial right beguil’d,
Now adjure thee to resign
The charmed Sword by birth-right mine!
When the Dwarf, on Eyvor’s plain,
Dim glided by thy marriage-train,
In jewel’d belt of gorgeous pride,
To thy pale and trembling bride,
Gave he not, in whisper deep,
That dread companion of thy sleep?--
Fall’n before its edge thy foes,
Idly does it now repose
In the dark tomb with thee?--awake!
Spells thy sullen slumber break!
Now their stern command fulfill!--
Warrior, art thou silent still?--
Or are my gross senses found
Deaf to the low sepulchral sound?--
HERVARDOR,--HIARVARDOR,--hear!
HRANI, mid thy slumber drear!
Spirits of a dauntless race,
In armour clad, your tombs I trace.
Now, with sharp and blood-stain’d spear,
Accent shrill, and spell severe,
I wake you all from slumber mute,
Beneath the dark oak’s twisted root!--
Are Andgrym’s hated sons no more
That sleeps the Sword, that drank their gore?--
Living,--why, to Magic Rhyme,
Speaks no voice of former time,
Low as o’er your tombs I bend
To hear th’ expected sounds ascend,
Murmuring from your darksome hall,
At a virgin’s solemn call?--
HERVARDOR,--HIARVARDOR,--hear!
HRANI,--mark my spell severe!
Henceforth may the semblance cold,[65]
That did each warrior’s spirit hold,
Parch, as corse unblest, that lies
Withering in the sultry skies!--
Ghastly may your forms decay,
Hence the noisome reptile’s prey,
If ye force not, thus adjur’d,
My Sire to yield the charmed Sword!
ARGANTYR.
Arm’d amid this starless gloom,
Thou, whose steps adventurous roam;
Thou, that wav’st a magic spear
Thrice before our mansions drear,
Devoted virgin,--know in time
The mischiefs of the Runic Rhyme,
Forcing accents, mutter’d deep,
From the cold reluctant lip!
Me no tender father laid
Entomb’d beneath an hallow’d shade;
It was no friendly voice that gave
The oak, that screen’d a warrior’s grave,
Gave it, in malignant tone,
To the blasting thunderstone.--
Timeless now these bones decay,
Pervious to the baleful ray
Of the swart star.--’Mid battle’s yell
The charm’d, the fatal weapon fell
From my unwary grasp.--A knight
Seiz’d the Sword of magic might.
Virgin, of thy spells demand
His name,--and from his victor hand,
Try if thy intrepid zeal
May win the all-subduing Steel.
HERVA.
Warrior, thus, with falsehood wild,
Seek’st thou to deceive thy child?--
Sure as Odin doom’d thy fall,
And hides thee in this silent hall,
Here sleeps the Sword.--Pale Chief, resign
That, which is by birthright mine!
Fear’st thou, spirit of my sire,
At thy only child’s desire,
Glorious heritage to yield,
Conquest in the deathful field?
ARGANTYR.
Daring HERVA, listen yet,
Spare thy heart its long regret!
Why trembling shrunk thy mother’s frame
When the Fatal Present came?
Virgin, mark the boding word,
Sullen whisper’d o’er the Sword!
It prophesied Argantyr’s foes
Should rue its prowess;--yet that woes
Greater far his Race should feel,
Victims of the Cruel Steel,
When, in blood of millions dyed,
It arms an ireful fratricide.
Maid, no erring accents warn;--
Of sons to thee, hereafter born,
One thy Chiefs shall HYDRECK name,
Dark spirited!--but dear to fame
Shall blooming HIARALMO live.--
Maid, his doom thy mandates give!
Renounce, renounce the dire demand,
Or to thy sons, in HYDRECK’S hand,
Fatal proves, some future day,
The Charmed Sword.--Disturb it not!--away!
HERVA.
ARGANTYR,--hear thy daughter’s voice,
Spells decree an only choice!
Or, in perturbed tomb unblest,
The silence of sepulchral rest
Shall no more thy sunk eye steep,
Close no more thy pallid lip,
Or, ere this night’s shadows melt,
Mine the Sword, and gorgeous belt.
ARGANTYR.
Young maid,--who as of warrior might,
Roamest thus to tombs by night,
In coat of mail, with voice austere,
Waving the corse-awakening Spear
O’er thy dead ancestors;--offence,
And danger threaten!--hie thee hence!
HERVA.
Obey, obey, or sleep no more!
Now my sacred right restore!
The Sword, that joys when foes assail,
Sword, that scorns the ribbed mail,
Scorns the car, in swift career,
Scorns the helmet, scorns the spear;
Scorns the nerv’d experienc’d arm;
ARGANTYR, yield it to my charm!
’Tis not well the victor’s pride,
With thee in silent tombs to hide;
Thy child, thy only child, demands,--
Reach it with thy wither’d hands!
ARGANTYR.
The death of HIARALMO lies
Beneath this mouldering arm!--and rise
Round its edge, the lurid fires,
Hostile to unaw’d desires.
Hie thee hence, nor madly dare
The death-denouncing grasp;--beware!
HERVA.
Not if thousand fires invade
Streaming from its angry blade.
Innoxious are the fires that play
Round the corse, with meteor ray,
And in these waste hours of night
Silent death-halls dimly light;
Yet, gliding with consuming force,
Undaunted would I meet their course.
ARGANTYR.
Thou, whose awless voice proclaims
Scorn of the sepulchral flames,
Lest their force around thee swell,
Punishing thy daring spell,
And thy mortal form consume,
HERVA, see!--thy father’s tomb
Opens!--mark, to thee restored,
Rising slow, the baneful Sword!--
See, it meets thy rash desire,
Bickering with funereal fire![66]
HERVA.
Warrior, now dost thou reclaim
The lustre of thy former fame;
Lo, the Sword, a seeming brand,
Blazes in thy daughter’s hand!
Nor perishes that hand beneath
Vapourous flames, that round it wreathe,
Gleam along the midnight air,
Illume the forest wide,--and glare
On the scath’d Oak!--Sepulchral wood,
Thee I quit for fields of blood!
Nor would I, on its fateful range,
This Sword, with all its meteors, change
For the Norweyan sceptre.--Lo,
Death, and conquest, wait me now!--
ARGANTYR.
HIARALMO’S future bane,
Grasp’d with exultation vain,
Fatal, fatal shall be found
To thee, and thine, in cureless wound!
By that wound ’tis now decreed
HYDREK’S self at length shall bleed!
HERVA, less thy long regret
Had thy chiefs in combat met
ANDGRYM’S sons, with warlike zeal,
Met them in uncharmed steel.
HERVA.
Sleep, ARGANTYR,--Chief of might,
Thro’ the long, the dreary night;
Nor let strife, and bitter scorn,
’Mid HERVA’S offspring, yet unborn,
Disturb thee in the tomb!--and mark,
The Spear, that broke thy slumber dark,
Round the blasted oak I wave,
That ill protects a warrior’s grave!
Soon shall its scath’d trunk be seen
Cloth’d in shielding bark, and green
As before the vengeful time,
When, by force of baleful Rhyme,
It shrunk amid the forest’s groan,
Smote by the red thunder-stone.
Thro’ the renovated boughs,
Guardians of thy deep repose,
Shall the hail no longer pour,
The livid dog-star look no more!
Spirits of the elder dead,
Spell-awak’d from slumber dread,
Not to your spears, in martial pride,
Resting by each hero’s side,
Not to your gore-spotted mail,
Steely shroud of warrior pale,
Shall, thro’ thousand winters, drain
Driving snow, or drenching rain;
Nor, while countless summers beam
On arid plain, or shrinking stream,
Thro’ the widening chink be known
Reptile vile of sultry noon,
To wind the slimy track abhorr’d!--
Fate is mine, since mine the Sword!
ARGANTYR.
HERVA, thine the source of woes,
Direful long to all thy foes,
Ere against thy peace it turn,
And thou thy bleeding race shalt mourn.
When extinct the tomb’s blue fires,
Whose light now gleams, and now retires,
Quivering o’er its edge, forbear
To touch the Venom’d Blade;--beware!
Venom, for the blood prepar’d
Of twelve brave chiefs, their dread reward.
HERVA, now thy father’s tomb
Slowly closes!--Ne’er presume
Again to breathe, in ODIN’S hall,
Shrill the corse-disturbing call!
HERVA.
I go,--for these blue fires infest
The troubled tomb’s presumptuous guest;
As of step profane aware,
Round me, more and more they glare.--
HERVARDOR, HIARVARDOR,--keep
Lasting slumber!--HRANI sleep!
And sleep ARGANTYR!--Chiefs of might,
Quiet be your mornless night!
INSCRIPTIONS.
EACH WRITTEN ON A CARD INCLOSED IN A LETTER-CASE,
NETTED BY THE AUTHOR,
AND PRESENTED TO HER FRIENDS.
TO MRS WINGFIELD OF SHREWSBURY.
OCTOBER 1794.
Since each soft virtue of domestic life,
Of tender parent, and of faithful wife,
Kind sister, duteous daughter, friend sincere,
Found in thy bosom a congenial sphere,
Whence all their purest emanations flow’d,
With pity melted, with affection glow’d,
So may each paper, which shall slumber here,
Thro’ many a vexing, many a waning year,
Speak of thy weal, and speak of their’s whose doom
Thy future days must darken, or illume.
TO MISS WINGFIELD OF SHREWSBURY.[67]
OCTOBER 1794.
Oft, when thy hands shall slip this rosy string,
Her may its nets to thy remembrance bring,
Who, as she wove them, still invok’d for thee
A fate from care, regret, and anguish free;
Each night, that health and peace may seal thine eyes,
Each morning prove a harbinger of joys,
That life, which must pass on, may glide, the while,
Mild as thy glance and cheering as thy smile!
TO MISS CATHERINE WINGFIELD.
OCTOBER 1794.
O may this silken prison long contain
Love’s tender vows, and Friendship’s cordial strain!
Yet ne’er for thee, may sorrow’s darken’d hours
Require, lov’d maid, their sympathetic powers;
Still may indulgent Heaven, with guardian care,
Ordain thee happy, as it form’d thee fair!
TO MISS REMMINGTON, OF LICHFIELD.[68]
JANUARY 1795.
Ne’er, sweet MARIA, may this net enfold
The lines of faithless love, or friend grown cold,
But those blest Talismans, whose spells can smooth
Life’s thorny path, and all its sorrows sooth!
Yet may thy ruling star so kindly glow
That few the thorns, and vanishing the woe!
TO MISS FERN OF LICHFIELD.
APRIL 1795.
If e’er, ELIZA, grief awakes thy sigh,
Pales that red lip, or dims that lucid eye,
O may this gay envelop then contain,
From hands belov’d, the lenitives of pain;
Yet seldom may thy fair and prosperous fate
Demand the pensive sympathetic trait,
But Friendship, tender, fervent, and sincere,
Breathe the glad strains of gratulation here!
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LADY ELEANOR BUTLER,
WITH THE SAME PRESENT.
Thou, who with firm, free step, as life arose,
Led thy loved friend where sacred Deva flows,
On Wisdom’s cloudless sun with thee to gaze,
And build your eyrie on that rocky maze;
Ah, ELEANORA! wilt thou gently deign
To bid these nets the tribute lines contain,
When Virtue, Genius, Rank, and Wealth, combine,
To pay ow’d homage at so pure a shrine?
And O! when kindling with the lovely theme,
The blest reality of Hope’s fond dream,
Friendship, that bliss unshar’d disdains to know,
Nor sees, nor feels one unpartaken woe;
When for such worth, in each exalted mind,
Resolv’d as man, and more than woman kind,
Their warm admirers ask a length of years,
Unchill’d by terror, and unstain’d by tears,
Then may the fervent benedictions lie!
And long, long hence meet ELEANORA’S eye,
While with her ZARA’S it shall frequent rove
The treasur’d records of esteem, and love!
TO MISS PONSONBY.
Seek, roseate net, inchanting ZARA’S hand,
And, tho’ unworthy, say thy fold aspires
To guard the gentle scriptures, where expand
Deserved attachment’s tributary fires!
Say, that in no charm’d spirit livelier dwells,
Than hers who wove thee, each ingenuous trace
Of the fair story this retirement tells,
The minds that sought it, and the forms that grace;
Davidean friendship, emulation warm,[69]
Coy blossoms, perishing in courtly air,
Its vain parade, restraint, and irksome form,
Cold as the ice, tho’ with the comet’s glare.
By firmness won, by constancy secured,
Ye nobler pleasures, be ye long their meed,
Theirs, who, each meteor vanity abjured,
The life of Angels in an Eden lead.
INSCRIPTIONS,
SEALED UP AND INCLOSED IN NET LETTER-CASES,
PRESENTED TO THE
CHARITABLE REPOSITORY AT LICHFIELD.
TO THE YOUNG MARRIED LADY WHO HUMANELY PURCHASES THIS TRIFLE.
SEPTEMBER 1800.
If, gentle Lady, thou hast paid
Thy faithful vows at Hymen’s shrine,
Oft in these silken folds be laid
Each tender animated line,
Which absent Love sincerely pours
As business urges forc’d delay;
Kind sun-beams of the winter’d hours,
When thy dear Lord is far away.
And, gentle Lady, round thy knees
Do blooming infants gaily sport,
With duteous smiles essay to please,
With lifted eyes thy favour court?
O! may their virtues noon-tide rays,
That now, in Life’s fresh morning dawn,
Illuminate thy waning days,
When Time’s dim veils are o’er thee drawn!
TO THE YOUNG UNMARRIED LADY, WHO PURCHASES ME.
SEPTEMBER 1800.
Sweet maid, is thy soft, snowy hand
Unplighted yet, and gaily free?
O may thy graces soon command
A power, that shall resemble me!
Since me a silken cage thou’lt find
For all thy future swains fond letters,
And may thy charms his wishes bind
In as indissoluble fetters!
And when, enamour’d, he shall yield
All power his freedom to regain,
With sense, and smiles, and virtue, gild
His viewless, but eternal chain!
LYDIA LETTER-CASE.
TO THE LADY,
WHETHER SINGLE OR MARRIED, WHO SHALL CHARITABLY PURCHASE THIS TRIFLE.
SEPTEMBER 1800.
If, Lady, thou art fair, take heed, I pray,
That more than charms exterior round thee play!
Each sun, that looks on Beauty, wastes her power,
E’en as it feeds, and fades, the summer flower;
Then O! collect, against such failing sway,
Charms of the mind, that fear no pale decay;
And, as the holly’s cluster’d berries rise
Bright in the year’s dim wane, and icy skies,
So may those charms, when fled thy youthful prime,
Glow with gay strength amid the snows of time!
TO THE LADY
WHO MAY PURCHASE THIS ENVELOPE, AND WHO MAY NOT BE A CELEBRATED BEAUTY.
SEPTEMBER 1800.
In courts and balls each undistinguish’d face,
Boasting nor Hebe’s bloom, nor Helen’s grace,
To no more purpose of delight is there,
Than to enhance the triumphs of the fair;
Obscured, near Beauty’s shining forms to stray,
As moon and stars around the sun by day;
Or by that homage find their pride sustain’d
Which their eclipsing rivals had disdain’d;
The wretched gleanings, with tired hand, to rake,
And insincere attention give and take.
But O! if thine the Mind’s true charms appear.
To dazzling Beauty leave her proper sphere;
Unenvying leave her to her transient sway,
The speedy darkning of her solar ray!
Thou, in thy milder orb--of private life;
As duteous Daughter, and endearing Wife,
Kind Sister, gentle Mistress, faithful Friend,
Shalt find with Life alone thy empire end!
TO THE DOWAGER LADY BLAKISTON,
WITH A LETTER-CASE.
Conscious that she, whose hand these nets enwove,
Honour’d the virtuous man, who once was thine,[70]
Permit the precious scriptures of his love
Here in their folds to find a faithful shrine!
O! to the treasur’d sorrows of thy breast
May future years no sad accession bring,
But comfort, peace, and resignation blest,
Fall on thy heart from Time’s unpausing wing,
Till late it shall present the final day,
From mortal bonds that sets thee ever free,
And calls to his thy willing soul away,
Who once an Eden made this earth to thee.
TO
MRS SIDDONS.
SIDDONS, when first commenc’d thy ardent course,
The powers that guard the Drama’s aweful shrine,
Beauty, and grandeur, tenderness, and force,
Silence that speaks, and eloquence divine,
For thee erected that approachless throne
None may or hope to conquer, or to share,
And all our subject passions trembling own
Each various sense subdued and captive there:
Yet the heart says, respect a rival claim,
A claim that rises in unvanquish’d strife;
Behold, dividing still the palm of Fame,
Her radiant Science, and her spotless Life!
ODE
ON ENGLAND’S NAVAL TRIUMPHS IN THE PRESENT WAR.[71]
Sublime to all the rising winds
BRITANNIA’S ensigns gaily stream;
From HOWE’S bright day proud Gallia finds
Her naval strength a vanish’d dream;
“That Britain rules the subject waves,
“And vows her sons shall ne’er be slaves.
When JERVIS, on the Atlantic deep,
Intrepid crush’d Iberia’s sails,
He taught St Vincent’s rocky steep,
Her torrid hills, and sultry vales,
“That great Britannia rul’d the waves,
“And vow’d her sons should ne’er be slaves.
And when illustrious DUNCAN stood
To France and Holland’s blended train,
In tyrant and apostate blood
Afresh he stampt the patriot strain,
“Rule Britannia, rule the waves,
“Britons never shall be slaves.
But hark! from Afric’s glowing shores
What sounds exulting Glory brings!
How loud Britannia’s Lion roars,
How high her Genius soars--and sings
“Rule Britannia, &c.
The motley flag of France no more
Shall vaunting greet her bloody coast,
Before resistless NELSON’S power
It sunk!--appall’d!--o’erwhelm’d!--and lost!
“Rule Britannia, &c.
Invaded Egypt, at the sight,
Her grateful shores illumin’d wide;
Old Nile records that wondrous night,
Resounding o’er his purpled tide,
“Rule Britannia, &c.
Ye partners of that matchless hour,
Return, to future ages famed;
Return the charter’d song to pour
When NELSON and the Nile are named,
“Rule Britannia, rule the waves,
“Britons never shall be slaves.
* * * * *
[After the preceding stanzas were written and sung at a music
meeting at Birmingham, Admiral Warren’s speedily-succeeding Victory
was announced.]
The flag of triumph yet again
Floats from the temple’s gilded height!
Gay fires ascend!--the patriot strain
Redoubled rends the vault of night!
“Rule Britannia, rule the waves,
“Britons never shall be slaves!
On green Ierne’s menaced strand
Rebellion, darkly cowering, stood,
And heard the charter’d song expand
’Mid skies of flame, o’er seas of blood,
“Rule Britannia, &c.
Saw fell Invasion’s routed horde,
Victorious WARREN, strike to thee,
Loud as thy cannon’s thunder pour’d,
And hail’d redeem’d Ierne free,
Whose sons, while Britain rules the waves,
To haughty France shall ne’er be slaves.
O SOURCE OF MERCIES! to thy name
Shall Praise her grateful notes prolong,
That thus ascends, in high acclaim,
Thy favour’d nation’s hallow’d song,
“Rule Britannia, rule the waves,
“Britons never shall be slaves.”
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE MARCHIONESS OF DONEGALL,
WITH MR HAYLEY’S
LIFE OF MILTON.
Go, rescuing Volume, seek her gentle hands
Whose heart o’er every noble deed expands!
To such thy page inevitably dear,
Where Truth, resistless as Ithuriel’s spear,
From party-prejudice, malignant spleen,[72]
And literary envy draws the screen,
Whose sophist reasoning, and detractive powers,
Satanic influence breath’d in Eden’s bowers;
Yet with some merits, pious, liberal, kind,
Held union strange in JOHNSON’S mighty mind.
Lo! all is day in this redeeming tome!
Again in light the amaranth garlands bloom;
And, as unveil’d appears each dark’ning aim,
Great in the lustre of his former fame,
Immortal MILTON stands to future times,
Nor sighing Goodness mourns his fancied crimes.
These leaves while graceful DONEGALL explores,
New pleasures shall augment her bosom’s stores;
Increase the happiness, that hourly swells
Where the soul’s sunshine, conscious Virtue, dwells.
And O! what virtue more unclouded beams
Than from her spotless life continual streams?
Virtue, that ’mid distinction’s dazzling rays,
And in the tempting and the dangerous days
Of blooming charms, and inexperienc’d youth,
Shone the bright pattern of connubial truth;
With growing lustre and with strength’ning powers
From life’s gay morning to its noontide hours.
What then was innocence and faith sincere,
The blush of modesty and pity’s tear,
Now glows with energies, that widely spread
Comfort on penury’s deserted head,
And guards that Worth, which rank and wealth behold
Change all their tinsel to Intrinsic Gold.
TO
MISS GODFREY,[73]
WITH MR HAYLEY’S
LIFE OF MILTON.
Here, from that excellence of mind and heart
Which seated MILTON high in Honour’s fane,
From genius, piety, and lyric art,
Recedes injustice’ dark but transient stain.
Thou, gentle Maid, whose kindred spirit shares
Each virtue thy fair sister’s life displays,
Wilt joy to see expos’d the sophist snares
That wilder judgment in their artful maze.
And O! to each more bright these leaves will shine,
Their truth, their eloquence, more welcome prove,
Viewing the Bard, whose songs ye feel divine,
Given back to Glory by the Friend ye love.
SONNET I.[74]
When life’s realities the soul perceives
Vain, dull, perchance corrosive, if she glow
With rising energy, and open throw
The golden gates of Genius, she achieves
His fairy clime delighted, and receives
In those gay paths, where thornless roses blow,
Full compensation.--Lo, with alter’d brow
Lours the false world, and the fine spirit grieves!
No more young Hope tints with her light and bloom
The darkening scene.--Then to ourselves we say,
Come, bright Imagination, come! relume
Thy orient lamp; with recompensing ray
Shine on the mind, and pierce its gathering gloom
With all the fires of intellectual day!
SONNET II.
The future, and its gifts alone we prize,
Few joys the present brings, and those alloy’d;
Th’ expected fulness leaves an aching void;
But Hope stands by, and lifts her sunny eyes
That gild the days to come.--She still relies
The phantom Happiness not thus shall glide
Always from life.--Alas!--yet ill betide
Austere Experience, when she coldly tries
In distant roses to discern the thorn!
Ah! is it wise to anticipate our pain?
Arriv’d, it then is soon enough to mourn.
Nor call the dear consoler false and vain,
When yet again, shining through April-tears,
Those fair enlight’ning eyes beam on advancing years.
SONNET III.
WRITTEN AT BUXTON IN A RAINY SEASON.
From these wild heights, where oft the mists descend
In rains, that shroud the sun, and chill the gale,
Each transient, gleaming interval we hail,
And rove the naked vallies, and extend
Our gaze around, where yon vast mountains blend
With billowy clouds, that o’er their summits sail;
Pondering, how little Nature’s charms befriend
The barren scene, monotonous, and pale.
Yet solemn when the darkening shadows fleet
Successive o’er the wide and silent hills,
Gilded by watry sun-beams, then we meet
Peculiar pomp of vision. Fancy thrills,
And owns there is no scene so rude and bare,
But Nature sheds or grace or grandeur there.
SONNET IV.
TO
HONORA SNEYD,[75]
WHOSE HEALTH WAS ALWAYS BEST IN WINTER.
MAY 1770.
And now the youthful, gay, capricious Spring,
Piercing her showery clouds with crystal light,
And with their hues reflected streaking bright
Her radiant bow, bids all her warblers sing;
The lark, shrill carolling on soaring wing;
The lonely thrush, in brake, with blossoms white,
That tunes his pipe so loud; while, from the sight
Coy bending their dropt heads, young cowslips fling
Rich perfume o’er the fields.--It is the prime
Of hours that beauty robes:--yet all they gild,
Cheer and delight in this their fragrant time,
For thy dear sake, to me less pleasure yield
Than, veil’d in sleet, and rain, and hoary rime,
Dim Winter’s naked hedge and plashy field.
SONNET V.
TO A
FRIEND,
WHO THINKS SENSIBILITY A MISFORTUNE.
Ah, thankless! canst thou envy him who gains
The Stoic’s cold and indurate repose?
Thou! with thy lively sense of bliss and woes!--
From a false balance of life’s joys and pains
Thou deem’st him happy.--Plac’d ’mid fair domains,
Where full the river down the valley flows,
As wisely might’st thou wish thy home had rose
On the parch’d surface of unwater’d plains,
For that, when long the heavy rain descends,
Bursts over guardian banks their whelming tide!--
Seldom the wild and wasteful flood extends,
But, spreading plenty, verdure, beauty wide,
The cool translucent stream perpetual bends,
And laughs the vale as the bright waters glide.
SONNET VI.
WRITTEN AT LICHFIELD,
IN AN EASTERN APARTMENT OF THE BISHOP’S PALACE,
WHICH COMMANDS A VIEW OF STOW VALLEY.
In this chill morning of a wintry Spring
I look into the gloom’d and rainy vale;
The sullen clouds, the stormy winds assail,
Lour on the fields, and with impetuous wing
Disturb the lake:--but Love and Memory cling
To their known scene, in this cold influence pale;
Yet priz’d, as when it bloom’d in Summer’s gale,
Ting’d by his setting sun.--When sorrows fling,
Or slow disease, thus o’er some beauteous form
Their shadowy languors, form, devoutly dear
As thine to me, HONORA, with more warm
And anxious gaze the eyes of love sincere
Bend on the charms, dim in their tintless snow,
Than when with health’s vermilion hues they glow.
SONNET VII.
By Derwent’s rapid stream as oft I stray’d,
With Infancy’s light step and glances wild,
And saw vast rocks, on steepy mountains pil’d,
Frown o’er th’ umbrageous glen; or pleased survey’d
The cloudy moonshine in the shadowy glade,
Romantic Nature to th’ enthusiast child
Grew dearer far than when serene she smil’d,
In uncontrasted loveliness array’d.
But O! in every scene, with sacred sway,
Her graces fire me; from the bloom that spreads
Resplendent in the lucid morn of May,
To the green light the little glow-worm sheds
On mossy banks, when midnight glooms prevail,
And softest silence broods o’er all the dale.
SONNET VIII.
TRANSLATION.
Short is the time the oldest being lives,
Nor has longevity one hour to waste;
Life’s duties are proportion’d to the haste
With which it fleets away;--each day receives
Its task, that if neglected, surely gives
The morrow double toil.--Ye, who have pass’d
In idle sport the days that fled so fast,
Days, that nor Grief recalls, nor Care retrieves,
At length be wise, and think, that of the part
Remaining in that vital period given,
How short the date, and at the prospect start,
Ere to the extremest verge your steps be driven!
Nor let a moment unimprov’d depart,
But view it as the latest trust of Heaven!
SONNET IX.
Seek not, my LESBIA, the sequester’d dale,
Or bear thou to its shades a tranquil heart;
Since rankles most in Solitude the smart
Of injur’d charms and talents, when they fail
To meet their due regard;--nor ev’n prevail
Where most they wish to please:--Yet, since thy part
Is large in life’s chief blessings, why desert
Sullen the world?--Alas! how many wail
Dire loss of the best comforts Heaven can grant!
While they the bitter tear in secret pour,
Smote by the death of friends, disease, or want,
Slight wrongs if thy self-valuing soul deplore,
Thou but resemblest, in thy lonely haunt,
NARCISSUS pining on the watry shore.
SONNET X.
TO
HONORA SNEYD.
APRIL 1773.
HONORA, should that cruel time arrive
When ’gainst my truth thou should’st my errors poize,
Scorning remembrance of our vanish’d joys;
When for the love-warm looks, in which I live,
But cold respect must greet me, that shall give
No tender glance, no kind regretful sighs;
When thou shalt pass me with averted eyes,
Feigning thou see’st me not, to sting, and grieve,
And sicken my sad heart, I could not bear
Such dire eclipse of thy soul-cheering rays;
I could not learn my struggling heart to tear
From thy loved form, that thro’ my memory strays;
Nor in the pale horizon of despair
Endure the wintry and the darken’d days.
SONNET XI.
How sweet to rove, from summer sun-beams veil’d,
In gloomy dingles; or to trace the tide
Of wandering brooks, their pebbly beds that chide;
To feel the west-wind cool refreshment yield,
That comes soft creeping o’er the flowery field,
And shadow’d waters; in whose bushy side
The mountain-bees their fragrant treasure hide
Murmuring; and sings the lonely thrush conceal’d:
Then, Ceremony, in thy gilded halls,
When forced and frivolous the themes arise,
With bow and smile unmeaning, O! how palls
At thee, and thine, my sense!--how oft it sighs
For leisure, wood-lanes, dells, and water-falls;
And feels th’ untemper’d heat of sultry skies!
SONNET XII.
JULY 1773.
Chill’d by unkind HONORA’S alter’d eye,
“Why droops my heart with pining woe forlorn,”
Thankless for much of good?--what thousands, born
To ceaseless toil beneath this wintry sky,
Or to brave deathful oceans surging high,
Or fell Disease’s fever’d rage to mourn,
How blest to them would seem my destiny!
How dear the comforts my rash sorrows scorn!--
Affection is repaid by causeless hate!
A plighted love is changed to cold disdain!
Yet suffer not thy wrongs to shroud thy fate,
But turn, my soul, to blessings which remain;
And let this truth the wise resolve create,
The Heart estranged no anguish can regain.
SONNET XIII.
JULY 1773.
Thou child of Night and Silence, balmy Sleep,
Shed thy soft poppies on my aching brow!
And charm to rest the thoughts of whence, or how
Vanish’d that priz’d Affection, wont to keep
Each grief of mine from rankling into woe.
Then stern Misfortune from her bended bow
Loos’d the dire strings;--and Care, and anxious Dread
From my cheer’d heart, on sullen pinion fled.
But now, the spell dissolv’d, th’ enchantress gone,
Ceaseless those cruel fiends infest my day,
And sunny hours but light them to their prey.
Then welcome midnight shades, when thy wish’d boon
May in oblivious dews my eye-lids steep,
Thou child of Night and Silence, balmy Sleep!
SONNET XIV.
JULY 1773.
Ingratitude, how deadly is thy smart
Proceeding from the form we fondly love!
How light, compar’d, all other sorrows prove!
Thou shed’st a Night of woe, from whence depart
The gentle beams of patience, that the heart
’Mid lesser ills, illume.--Thy victims rove
Unquiet as the ghost that haunts the grove
Where Murder spilt the life-blood.--O! thy dart
Kills more than life,--e’en all that makes life dear;
Till we “the sensible of pain” would change
For phrenzy, that defies the bitter tear;
Or wish, in kindred callousness, to range
Where moon-ey’d Idiocy, with fallen lip,
Drags the loose knee, and intermitting step.
SONNET XV.
WRITTEN ON RISING GROUND NEAR LICHFIELD.
MAY 1774.
The evening shines in May’s luxuriant pride,
And all the sunny hills at distance glow,
And all the brooks, that thro’ the valley flow,
Seem liquid gold.--O! had my fate denied
Leisure, and power to taste the sweets that glide
Thro’ waken’d minds, as the blest seasons go
On their still varying progress, for the woe
My heart has felt, what balm had been supplied?
But where great Nature smiles, as here she smiles,
’Mid verdant vales, and gently swelling hills,
And glassy lakes, and mazy, murmuring rills,
And narrow wood-wild lanes, her spell beguiles
Th’ impatient sighs of grief, and reconciles
Poetic minds to life, with all her ills.
SONNET XVI.
TRANSLATED FROM BOILEAU.
APOLLO, at his crowded altars, tired
Of votaries, who for trite ideas thrown
Into loose verse, assume, in lofty tone,
The Poet’s name, untaught, and uninspir’d,
Indignant struck the Lyre.--Straight it acquired
New powers, and complicate. Then first was known
The rigorous Sonnet, to be framed alone
By duteous bards, or by just taste admir’d.--
Go, energetic Sonnet, go, he cried,
And be the test of skill!--For rhymes that flow
Regardless of thy rules, their destin’d guide,
Yet take thy name, ah! let the boasters know
That with strict sway my jealous laws preside,
While I no wreaths on rebel verse bestow.
SONNET XVII.[76]
Ah! why have I indulged my dazzled sight
With scenes in Hope’s delusive mirror shewn?
Scenes, that too seldom human life hath known
In more than vision rise;--but O! how bright
The Mind’s soft sorceress pour’d her rosy light
On every promis’d good;--oft on the boon
Which might at Fame’s resounding shrine be won,
Then lanc’d its beams where all the Loves invite!
Now, with stern hand, Fate draws the sable veil
O’er the frail glass!--Hope, as she turns away,
The darken’d crystal drops.--Heavy and pale,
Rain-drizzling clouds quench all the darts of day;
Low mourns the wind along the gloomy dale,
And tolls the death-bell in the pausing gale.
SONNET XVIII.
AN EVENING IN NOVEMBER,
WHICH HAD BEEN STORMY, GRADUALLY CLEARING UP, IN A MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY.
Ceas’d is the rain; but heavy drops yet fall
From the drench’d roof;--yet murmurs the sunk wind
Round the dim hills; can yet a passage find
Whistling thro’ yon cleft rock, and ruin’d wall.
Loud roar the angry torrents, and appal
Tho’ distant.--A few stars, emerging kind,
With green rays tremble thro’ their misty shrouds;
And the moon gleams between the sailing clouds
On half the darken’d hill.--Now blasts remove
The shadowing clouds, and on the mountain’s brow,
Full-orb’d she shines. Half sunk within its cove
Heaves the lone boat, with gulphing sound:--and lo!
Bright rolls the settling lake, and brimming rove
The vale’s blue rills, and glitter as they flow!
SONNET XIX.
TO----.
Farewell, false Friend!--our scenes of kindness close!
To cordial looks, to sunny smiles farewell!
To sweet consolings, that can grief expel,
And every joy soft sympathy bestows!
For alter’d looks, where truth no longer glows,
Thou hast prepared my heart;--and it was well
To bid thy pen th’ unlook’d-for story tell,
Falsehood avow’d, that shame, nor sorrow knows.
O! when we meet,--(to meet we’re destin’d, try
To avoid it as thou may’st) on either brow,
Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye,
Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how
We once were to each other;--nor one sigh
Flatter with weak regret a broken vow!
SONNET XX.
ON READING A DESCRIPTION OF POPE’S GARDENS AT TWICKENHAM.
Ah! might I range each hallow’d bower and glade
Musæus cultur’d, many a raptured sigh
Would that dear, local consciousness supply
Beneath his willow, in the grotto’s shade,
Whose roof his hand with ores and shells inlaid.
How sweet to watch, with reverential eye,
Thro’ the sparr’d arch, the streams he oft survey’d,
Thine, blue Thamésis, gently wandering by!
This is the Poet’s triumph, and it towers
O’er Life’s pale ills, his consciousness of powers
That lift his memory from oblivion’s gloom,
Secure a train of these heart-thrilling hours
By his idea deck’d in rapture’s bloom,
For spirits rightly touch’d thro’ ages yet to come.
SONNET XXI.
Proud of our lyric galaxy, I hear
Of faded Genius with supreme disdain;
As when we see the miser bend insane
O’er his full coffers, and in accents drear
Deplore imagin’d want;--and thus appear
To me those moody censors, who complain,
As Shaftsbury plain’d in a now boasted reign,[77]
That “Poesy had left our darken’d sphere.”
Whence may the present stupid dream be traced
That now she shines not as in days foregone?
Perchance neglected, often shine in waste
Her Lights, from number into confluence run,
More than when, thinly in th’ horizon placed,
Each orb shone separate, and appear’d a sun.
SONNET XXII.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
You, whose dull spirits feel not the fine glow
Enthusiasm breathes, no more of light
Perceive ye in rapt Poesy, tho’ bright
In Fancy’s richest colouring, than can flow
From jewel’d treasures in the central night
Of their deep caves.--You have no sun to show
Their inborn radiance pure.--Go, snarlers, go;
Nor your defects of feeling, and of sight,
To charge upon the Poet thus presume,
Ye lightless minds, whate’er of title proud,
Scholar, or Sage, or Critic, ye assume,
Arraigning his high claims with censure loud,
Or sickly scorn; yours, yours is all the cloud,
Gems cannot sparkle in the midnight gloom.
SONNET XXIII.
TO MISS E. S.
Do I not tell thee surly Winter’s flown,
That the brook’s verge is green;--and bid thee hear,
In yon irriguous vale, the blackbird clear,
At measur’d intervals, with mellow tone,
Choiring the hours of prime? and call thine ear[78]
To the gay viol dinning in the dale,
With tabor loud, and bag-pipe’s rustic drone
To merry shearer’s dance;--or jest retail
From festal board, from choral roofs the song;
And speak of Masque, or Pageant, to beguile
The caustic memory of a cruel wrong?--
Thy lips acknowledge this a generous wile,
And bid me still the effort kind prolong;
But ah! they wear a cold and joyless smile.
SONNET XXIV.
TRANSLATION.
Behold the day an image of the year!
The year an image of our life’s short span!
Morn, like the Spring, with growing light began,
Spring, like our youth, with joy, and beauty fair;
Noon picturing Summer;--Summer’s ardent sphere
Manhood’s gay portrait.--Eve, like Autumn, wan,
Autumn resembling faded age in man;
Night, with its silence, and its darkness drear,
Emblem of Winter’s frore and gloomy reign,
When torpid lie the vegetative powers;
Winter, so shrunk, so cold, reminds us plain
Of the mute grave, that o’er the dim corse lours;
There shall the weary rest, nor aught remain
To the pale slumberer of life’s checker’d hours!
SONNET XXV.
PETRARCH TO VAUCLUSE.[79]
Fortunate Vale! exulting Hill! dear Plain!
Where morn, and eve, my soul’s fair idol stray’d,
While all your winds, that murmur’d thro’ the glade,
Stole her sweet breath; yet, yet your paths retain
Prints of her step, by fount, whose floods remain
In depth unfathom’d; ’mid the rocks, that shade,
With cavern’d arch, their sleep.--Ye streams, that play’d
Around her limbs in Summer’s ardent reign,
The soft resplendence of those azure eyes
Tinged ye with living light.--The envied claim
These blest distinctions give, my lyre, my sighs,
My songs record; and, from their Poet’s flame,
Bid this wild vale, its rocks, and streams arise,
Associates still of their bright Mistress’ fame.
SONNET XXVI.
O Partial Memory! years, that fled too fast
From thee, in more than pristine beauty rise,
Forgotten all the transient tears and sighs
Somewhat that dimm’d their brightness! Thou hast chas’d
Each hovering mist from the soft suns, that grac’d
Our fresh, gay morn of youth;--the heart’s high prize,
Friendship,--and all that charm’d us in the eyes
Of yet unutter’d love.--So pleasures past,
That in thy crystal prism thus glow sublime,
Beam on the gloom’d and disappointed mind,
When youth and health, in the chill’d grasp of Time,
Shudder and fade;--and cypress buds we find
Ordain’d life’s blighted roses to supply,
While but reflected shine the golden lights of joy.
SONNET XXVII.
See wither’d Winter, bending low his head;
His ragged locks stiff with the hoary dew;
His eyes, like frozen lakes, of livid hue;
His train, a sable cloud, with murky red
Streak’d.--Ah! behold his nitrous breathings shed
Petrific death!--Lean, waleful birds pursue,
On as he sweeps o’er the dun lonely moor,
Amid the battling blast of all the winds,
That, while their sleet the climbing sailor blinds,
Lash the white surges to the sounding shore.
So com’st thou, Winter, finally to doom
The sinking year; and with thy ice-dropt sprays,
Cypress and yew, engarland her pale tomb,
Her vanish’d hopes, and aye-departed days.
SONNET XXVIII.
O, Genius! does thy sun-resembling beam
To the internal eyes of man display
In clearer prospect, the momentous way
That leads to peace? Do they not rather seem
Dazzled by lustres in continual stream,
Till night they find in such excessive day?
Art thou not prone, with too intense a ray,
To gild the hope improbable, the dream
Of fancied good?--or bid the sigh upbraid
Imaginary evils, and involve
All real sorrow in a darker shade?
To fond credulity, to rash resolve
Dost thou not prompt, till reason’s sacred aid
And fair discretion in thy fires dissolve?
SONNET XXIX.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
If Genius have its danger, grief, and pain,
Which common sense escapes, yet who would change
The powers, thro’ Nature and thro’ Art that range,
To walk the bounded, dull, tho’ safer plain
Of moderate intellect, where only reign
Some faint perception of the Sweet,--the Strange,
The Gay,--the Grand,--the Tender,--the Sublime,
And all the varied stores of Fancy’s clime?
Destructive shall we deem yon noon-tide blaze,
If, transiently, the eye, o’erpower’d, resign
Visual distinctness?--Shall we rather praise
The moon’s pale light?--With owlish choice incline
That common sense her lunar lamp should raise,
Than that the solar fires of Genius shine?
SONNET XXX.
That song again!--its sounds my bosom thrill,
Breathe of past years, to all their joys allied;
And, as the notes thro’ my sooth’d spirits glide,
Dear recollection’s choicest sweets distil,
Soft as the morn’s calm dew on yonder hill,
When slants the sun upon its grassy side,
Tinging the brooks that many a mead divide
With lines of gilded light; and blue, and still,
The distant lake stands gleaming in the vale.
Sing, yet once more, that well-remember’d strain,
Which oft made vocal every passing gale
In days long fled, in Pleasure’s golden reign,
The youth of changed HONORA!--now it wears
Her air--her smile--spells of the vanish’d years!
SONNET XXXI.
TO THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF AN ALIENATED FRIEND.
O, ever dear! thy precious, vital powers
Sink rapidly!--the long and dreary night
Brings scarce an hope that morn’s returning light
Shall dawn for thee!--In such terrific hours,
When yearning fondness eagerly devours
Each moment of protracted life, his flight
The rashly-chosen of thy heart has ta’en
Where dances, songs, and theatres invite.
Expiring Sweetness! with indignant pain
I see him in the scenes where laughing glide
Pleasure’s light forms;--see his eyes gaily glow,
Regardless of thy life’s fast ebbing tide;
I hear him, who should droop in silent woe,
Declaim on actors, and on taste decide!
SONNET XXXII.
SUBJECT OF THE PRECEDING SONNET CONTINUED.
Behold him now his genuine colours wear,
That specious false-one, by whose cruel wiles
I lost thy amity; saw thy dear smiles
Eclips’d; those smiles, that used my heart to cheer,
Wak’d by thy grateful sense of many a year
When rose thy youth, by Friendship’s pleasing toils
Cultured;--but Dying!--O! for ever fade
The angry fires.--Each thought, that might upbraid
Thy broken faith, which yet my soul deplores,
Now as eternally is past and gone
As are the interesting, the happy hours,
Days, years, we shared together. They are flown!
Yet long must I lament thy hapless doom,
Thy lavish’d life and early-hasten’d tomb.
SONNET XXXIII.
JUNE 1780.
Last night her form the hours of slumber bless’d
Whose eyes illumin’d all my youthful years.--
Spirit of dreams, at thy command appears
Each airy shape, that visiting our rest,
Dismays, perplexes, or delights the breast.
My pensive heart this kind indulgence cheers;
Bliss, in no waking moment now possess’d,
Bliss, ask’d of thee with memory’s thrilling tears.
Nightly I cry,--how oft, alas! in vain,--
Give, by thy powers, that airy shapes controul,
HONORA to my visions!--ah! ordain
Her beauteous lip may wear the smile that stole,
In years long fled, the sting from every pain!
Show her sweet face, ah show it to my soul!
SONNET XXXIV.
JUNE 1780.
When death, or adverse fortune’s ruthless gale,
Tears our best hopes away, the wounded heart
Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
The sympathetic charm; its mutual wail
Sooths the sick soul. Ah! never can it fail
To balm our bleeding grief’s severest smart;
Nor wholly vain feign’d Pity’s solemn art,
Tho’ we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e’en known to be assum’d, our pains
Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
Than cold neglect, or mirth that grief profanes.
Thus each faint glow-worm of the night conspires,
Gleaming along the moss’d and darken’d lanes,
To cheer the gloom with her unreal fires.
SONNET XXXV.
APRIL 29TH, 1782.
SPRING.
In April’s gilded morn when south winds blow,
And gently shake the hawthorn’s silver crown,
Wafting its scent the forest-glade adown,
The dewy shelter of the bounding doe,
Then, under trees, soft tufts of primrose show
Their palely-yellowing flowers;--to the moist sun
Blue harebells peep, while cowslips stand unblown,
Plighted to riper May;--and lavish flow
The lark’s loud carols in the wilds of air.
O! not to Nature’s glad enthusiast cling
Avarice, and pride.--Thro’ her now blooming sphere
Charm’d as he roves, his thoughts enraptur’d spring
To Him, who gives frail man’s appointed time
These cheering hours of promise and of prime.
SONNET XXXVI.
JUNE 27TH, 1782.
SUMMER.
Now on hills, rocks, and streams, and vales, and plains,
Full looks the shining day.--Our gardens wear
The gorgeous robes of the consummate year.
With laugh, and shout, and song, stout maids and swains
Heap high the fragrant hay, as thro’ rough lanes
Rings the yet empty waggon.--See in air
The pendent cherries, red with tempting stains,
Gleam thro’ their boughs.--Summer, thy bright career
Must slacken soon in Autumn’s milder-sway;
Then thy now heapt and jocund meads shall stand
Smooth,--vacant,--silent,--thro’ th’ exulting land
As wave thy rival’s golden fields, and gay
Her reapers throng. She smiles, and binds the sheaves;
Then bends her parting step o’er fall’n and rustling leaves.
SONNET XXXVII.
OCTOBER 27TH, 1782.
AUTUMN.
Thro’ changing months a well-attemper’d mind
Welcomes their gentle or terrific pace.--
When o’er retreating Autumn’s golden grace
Tempestuous Winter spreads in every wind
Naked asperity, our musings find
Grandeur increasing, as the glooms efface
Variety and glow.--Each solemn trace
Exalts the thoughts, from sensual joys refin’d.
Then blended in our rapt ideas rise
The vanish’d charms, that summer-suns reveal,
With all of desolation, that now lies
Dreary before us;--teach the soul to feel
Awe in the present, pleasure in the past,
And to see vernal morns in Hope’s perspective cast.
SONNET XXXVIII.
DECEMBER 1ST, 1782.
WINTER.
If he whose bosom with no transport swells
In vernal airs and hours commits the crime
Of sullenness to Nature, ’gainst the time,
And its great Ruler, he alike rebels
Who seriousness and pious dread repels,
And awless gazes on the faded clime,
Dim in the gloom, and pale in the hoar rime
That o’er the bleak and dreary prospect steals.--
Spring claims our tender, grateful, gay delight;
Winter our sympathy and sacred fear;
And sure the hearts that pay not pity’s rite
O’er wide calamity; that careless hear
Creation’s wail, neglect, amid her blight,
The solemn Lesson of the Ruin’d Year.
SONNET XXXIX.
DECEMBER 7TH, 1782.
WINTER EVENING.
When mourn the dark winds o’er the lonely plain,
And from pale noon sinks, ere the fifth cold hour,
The transient light, imagination’s power,
With knowledge, and with science in her train,
Not unpropitious Hyems’ icy reign
Perceives; since in the deep and silent hour
High themes the rapt concent’ring thoughts explore,
Freed from external Pleasure’s glittering chain.
Then most the understanding’s culture pays
Luxuriant harvest, nor shall Folly bring
Her aids obtrusive.--Then, with ardent gaze,
The Ingenious to their rich resources spring,
While sullen Winter’s dull imprisoning days
Hang on the vacant mind with flagging wing.
SONNET XL.
DEC. 19TH, 1782.
DECEMBER MORNING.[80]
I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light,
Winter’s pale dawn;--and as warm fires illume,
And cheerful tapers shine around the room,
Thro’ misty windows bend my musing sight
Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white,
With shutters clos’d, peer faintly thro’ the gloom,
That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume,
Rising from their dark pile, an added height
By indistinctness given.--Then to decree
The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold
To Friendship, or the Muse, or seek with glee
Wisdom’s rich page:--O, hours! more worth than gold,
By whose blest use we lengthen life, and free
From drear decays of age, outlive the old!
SONNET XLI.
DEC. 21ST, 1782.
INVITATION TO A FRIEND.
Since dark December shrouds the transient day,
And stormy winds are howling in their ire,
Why com’st not Thou, who always can’st inspire
The soul of cheerfulness, and best array
A sullen hour in smiles?--O haste to pay
The cordial visit sullen hours require!--
Around the circling walls a glowing fire
Shines;--but it vainly shines in this delay
To blend thy spirit’s warm Promethean light.
Come then, at Science, and at Friendship’s call,
Their vow’d disciple;--come, for they invite!
The social powers without thee languish all.
Come, that I may not hear the winds of Night,
Nor count the heavy eave-drops as they fall.
SONNET XLII.
DEC. 31ST, 1782.
Lo! the Year’s final Day!--Nature performs
Its obsequies with darkness, wind and rain;
But man is jocund.--Hark! th’ exultant strain
From towers and steeples drowns the wintry storms!
No village spire but to the cots and farms,
Right merrily, its scant and tuneless peal
Rings round!--Ah! joy ungrateful!--mirth insane!
Wherefore the senseless triumph, ye, who feel
This annual portion of brief life the while
Depart for ever?--Brought it no dear hours
Of health and night-rest?--none that saw the smile
On lips belov’d?--O! with as gentle powers
Will the next pass?--Ye pause!--yet careless hear
Strike these last clocks, that knell th’ expiring year!
SONNET XLIII.
TO MAY, IN THE YEAR 1783.
My memory, long accustom’d to receive
In deep-engraven lines, each varying trait
Past times and seasons wore, can find no date
Thro’ many years, O! May, when thou hadst leave,
As now, of the great Sun, serene to weave
Thy fragrant chaplets; in poetic state
To call the jocund Hours on thee to wait,
Bringing each day, at morn, at noon, at eve,
His mild illuminations.--Nymph, no more
Is thine to mourn beneath the scanty shade
Of half-blown leaves, and shivering to deplore
Thy garlands immature, thy rites unpaid;
Meads dropt with gold again to thee belong,[81]
Soft gales, luxuriant bowers, and wood-land song.
SONNET XLIV.
Rapt Contemplation, bring thy waking dreams
To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour,
While full of thee seems every bending flower,
Whose petals tremble o’er the shadow’d streams
Give thou HONORA’S image, when her beams,
Youth, beauty, kindness, shone;--what time she wore
That smile, of gentle, yet resistless power
To sooth each painful passion’s wild extremes.
Here shall no empty, vain intruder chase,
With idle converse, thy enchantment warm,
That brings, in all its interest, all its grace,
The dear, persuasive, visionary form.
Can real life a rival blessing boast,
When thou canst thus restore HONORA early lost?
SONNET XLV.[82]
From Possibility’s dim chaos sprung,
High o’er its gloom the Aërostatic power
Arose!--Exulting nations hail’d the hour,
Magnific boast of Science!--Loud they sung
Her victory o’er the element, that hung,
Pressing to earth the beings, who now soar
Aerial heights;--but Wisdom bids explore
This vaunted skill;--if, tides of air among,
We know to steer our bark.--Here Science finds
Her buoyant hopes burst, like the bubble vain,
Type of this art;--guilty, if still she blinds
The sense of fear; persists thy flame to fan,
Sky-vaulting Pride, that to the aweless winds
Throws, for an idle show, the Life of Man!
SONNET XLVI.
Dark as the silent stream beneath the night,
Thy funeral glides to Life’s eternal home,
Child of its narrow house!--how late the bloom,
The facile smile, the soft eye’s crystal light,
Each grace of youth’s gay morn, that charms our sight,
Play’d o’er that form!--now sunk in death’s cold gloom,
Insensate! ghastly!--for the yawning tomb,
Alas! fit inmate.--Thus we mourn the blight
Of virgin-beauty, and endowments rare
In their glad hours of promise.--O! when age
Drops, like the o’er-blown, faded rose, tho’ dear
Its long known worth, no stormy sorrows rage;
But swell when we behold, unsoil’d by time,
Youth’s broken lily perished in its prime.
SONNET XLVII.
ON MR SARGENT’S DRAMATIC POEM,
THE MINE.[83]
With lyre Orphean, see a bard explore
The central caverns of the mornless night,
Till now ne’er echoing to Æonian rite
He comes!--and lo! upon the sparry floor,
Advance to welcome him, each sister power,
Petra, stern queen, Fossilia, cold and bright,
And call their gnomes, to marshal in his sight
The gelid incrust, and the veined ore,
And flashing gem.--Then, while his songs pourtray
The mystic virtues gold and gems acquire,
With every charm that mineral scenes display,
Th’ imperial sisters praise the daring lyre,
And grateful hail its new and powerful lay,
That seats them high amid the Muses’ choir.
SONNET XLVIII.
Now young-eyed Spring, on gentle breezes borne,
’Mid the deep woodlands, hills, and vales, and bowers,
Unfolds her leaves, her blossoms, and her flowers,
Pouring their soft luxuriance on the morn.
O! how unlike the wither’d, wan, forlorn,
And limping Winter, that o’er russet moors,
Grey, ridgy fields, and ice-incrusted shores,
Strays!--and commands his rising winds to mourn,
Protracted life, thou art ordain’d to wear
A form like his; and, should thy gifts be mine,
I tremble lest a kindred influence drear
Steal on my mind;--but pious Hope benign,
The soul’s bright day-spring, shall avert the fear,
And gild existence in her dim decline.
SONNET XLIX.
ON THE USE OF NEW AND OLD WORDS IN POETRY.
While with false pride, and narrow jealousy,
Numbers reject each new expression, won,
Perchance, from language richer than our own,
O! with glad welcome may the Poet see
Extension’s golden vantage! the decree
Each way exclusive, scorn, and re-enthrone
The obsolete, if strength, or grace of tone
Or imagery await it, with a free,
And liberal daring!--For the critic train,
Whose eyes severe our verbal stores review,
Let the firm bard require that they explain
Their cause of censure; then in balance true
Weigh it; but smile at the objections vain
Of sickly spirits, hating for they do![84]
SONNET L.
In every breast affection fires, there dwells A secret consciousness to
what degree They are themselves belov’d.--We hourly see Th’ involuntary
proof, that either quells, Or ought to quell false hopes,--or sets us
free From pain’d distrust;--but, O, the misery! Weak self-delusion
timidly repels The lights obtrusive--shrinks from all that tells
Unwelcome truths, and vainly seeks repose For startled fondness, in the
opiate balm Of kind profession, tho’, perchance, it flows To hush
complaint--O! in belief’s clear calm, Or ’mid the lurid clouds of doubt,
we find Love rise the sun, or comet of the mind.
SONNET LI.
TO SYLVIA,
ON HER APPROACHING NUPTIALS.
Hope comes to Youth, gliding thro’ azure skies
With amaranth crown:--her full robe, snowy white,
Floats on the gale, and our exulting sight
Marks it afar.--From waning life she flies,
Wrapt in a mist, covering her starry eyes
With her fair hand.--But now, in floods of light,
She meets thee, Sylvia, and with glances, bright
As lucid streams, when Spring’s clear mornings rise.
From Hymen’s kindling torch, a yellow ray
The shining texture of her spotless vest
Gilds;--and the month that gives the early day
The scent odorous, and the carol blest,[85]
Pride of the rising year, enamour’d May,
Paints its redundant folds with florets gay.
SONNET LII.
Long has the pall of midnight quench’d the scene,
And wrapt the hush’d horizon.--All around,
In scatter’d huts, Labour, in sleep profound,
Lies stretch’d, and rosy Innocence serene
Slumbers;--but creeps, with pale and starting mien,
Benighted Superstition.--Fancy-found,
The late self-slaughter’d man, in earth yet green
And festering, burst from his incumbent mound,
Roams!--and the slave of terror thinks he hears
A mutter’d groan!--sees the sunk eye, that glares
As shoots the meteor.--But no more forlorn
He strays;--the spectre sinks into his tomb!
For now the jocund herald of the morn
Claps his bold wings, and sounds along the gloom.[86]
SONNET LIII.
WRITTEN IN THE SPRING 1785 ON THE DEATH OF THE
POET LAUREAT.
The knell of WHITEHEAD tolls!--his cares are past,
The hapless tribute of his purchased lays,
His servile, his Egyptian tasks of praise!--
If not sublime his strains, Fame justly placed
Their power above their work.--Now, with wide gaze
Of much indignant wonder, she surveys
To the life-labouring oar assiduous haste
A glowing bard, by every Muse embraced.--
O, WARTON! chosen Priest of Phœbus’ choir!
Shall thy rapt song be venal? hymn the Throne,
Whether its edicts just applause inspire,
Or Patriot Virtue view them with a frown?
What needs for this the golden-stringed lyre,
The snowy tunic, and the sun-bright zone[87]
SONNET LIV.
A PERSIAN KING TO HIS SON.
FROM A PROSE TRANSLATION IN SIR WILLIAM JONES’ ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF
THE EASTERN NATIONS.
Guard thou, my son, the helpless and the poor,
Nor in the chains of thine own indolence
Slumber enervate, while the joys of sense
Engross thee, and thou say’st, “I ask no more.”--
Wise men the shepherd’s slumber will deplore
When the rapacious wolf has leapt the fence,
And ranges thro’ the fold.--My son, dispense
Those laws, that justice to the wrong’d restore.--
The common-weal should be the first pursuit
Of the crown’d warrior, for the royal brows
The people first enwreath’d.--They are the root,
The king the tree. Aloft he spreads his boughs
Glorious; but learn, impetuous youth, at length,
Trees from the root alone derive their strength.
SONNET LV.
OH THE QUICK TRANSITION FROM WINTER TO SUMMER, IN THE YEAR 1785.
Loud blew the north thro’ April’s pallid days,
Nor grass the field, nor leaves the grove obtains,
Nor crystal sun-beams, nor the gilded rains,
That bless the hours of promise, gently raise
Warmth in the blood, without that fiery blaze,
Which makes it boil along the throbbing veins.--
Albion, displeased, her own loved Spring surveys
Passing, with volant step, o’er russet plains;
Sees her to Summer’s fierce embraces speed,
Pale, and unrobed,--Faithless! thou well may’st hide
Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head,
That did’st, neglecting thy distinguish’d isle,
In Winter’s icy arms so long abide,
While Britain vainly languish’d for thy smile!
SONNET LVI.
TO A TIMID YOUNG LADY, DISTRESSED BY THE ATTENTIONS OF AN AMIABLE AND
ACCEPTED LOVER.
What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,
Fair Zillia!--Ah! more dear to Love the gaze
That dwells upon its object, than the rays
Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies
The lightning’s lambent flash, when neither rise
Thunder, nor storm.--I mark, while transport plays
Warm in thy lover’s eye, what dread betrays
Thy throbbing heart:--yet why from his soft sighs
Fleet’st thou so swift away?--like the young hind,[88]
That bending stands the fountain’s brim beside,
When, with a sudden gust, the western wind
Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:
See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,
Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!
SONNET LVII.
WRITTEN THE NIGHT PRECEDING THE FUNERAL OF MRS CHARLES BUCKERIDGE.[89]
In the chill silence of the winter eve,
Thro’ Lichfield’s darken’d streets I bend my way
By that sad mansion, where NERINA’S clay
Awaits the Morning Knell;--and awed perceive,
In the late bridal chamber, the clear ray
Of numerous lights; while o’er the ceiling stray
Shadows of those who frequent pass beneath
Round the pale Dead--What sounds my senses grieve!
For now the busy hammer’s stroke appals,
That, “in dread note of preparation,” falls.
Closing the sable lid!--With sighs I hear
These solemn warnings from the house of woes;
Pondering how late, for young NERINA, there,
Joyous, the love-illumin’d morn arose.
SONNET LVIII.
Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
The Parian statue, bending o’er the Urn,
The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
It pays Affection’s debt, is due concern
To the for Ever Absent, tho’ it mourn
Fashion’s allotted time. If Time consumes,
While life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
Memory should hourly feed;--if, thro’ each day,
She with whate’er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish’d frame,
O! can the alien heart expect to prove,
In worlds of light and life, a re-united love!
SONNET LIX.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LADY MARIANNE CARNEGIE,
Passing her winters at Ethic House on the Coast of Scotland, with
her Father, Lord Northesk, who retired thither after the death of
his excellent Countess.
WRITTEN FEBRUARY 1787.
Lady, each soft effusion of thy mind,
Flowing thro’ thy free pen, shows thee endued
With taste so just for all of wise, and good,
As bids me hope thy spirit does not find,
Young as thou art, with solitude combined
That wish of change, that irksome lassitude,
Which often, thro’ unvaried days, obtrude
On youth’s rash bosom, dangerously inclin’d
To pant for more than peace.--Rich volumes yield
Their soul-endowing wealth.--Beyond e’en these
Shall consciousness of filial duty gild
The gloomy hours, when Winter’s turbid seas
Roar round the rocks; when the dark tempest lours,
And mourn the winds round Ethic’s lonely towers.
SONNET LX.[90]
Why view’st thou, Edwy, with disdainful mien,
The little Naiad of the Downton wave,
High ’mid the rocks, where her clear waters lave
The circling, gloomy basin?--In such scene,
Silent, sequester’d, few demand, I ween,
That last perfection Phidian chissels gave.
Dimly the soft and musing form is seen
In the hush’d shelly, shadowy, lone concave.--
As sleeps her pure, tho’ darkling fountain there
I love to recollect her, stretch’d supine
Upon its mossy brink, with pendent hair,
As dripping o’er the flood.--Ah! well combine
Such gentle graces, modest, pensive, fair,
To aid the magic of her watry shrine.
SONNET LXI.
TO MR HENRY CARY,[91]
ON READING HIS SONNETS WRITTEN AT SIXTEEN.
Disciple of the bright Aonian Maid
In thy life’s blossom, a resistless spell
Amid the wild, wood, and irriguous dell,
O’er thymy hill, and thro’ illumined glade,
Led thee, for her thy votive wreaths to braid,
Where flaunts the musk-rose, and the azure bell
Nods o’er loquacious brook, or silent well.--
Thus woo’d her inspirations, their rapt aid
Liberal she gave; nor only thro’ thy strain
Breath’d their pure spirit, while her charms beguiled
The languid hours of sorrow, and of pain,
But when youth’s tide ran high, and tempting smiled
Circean pleasure, rescuing did she stand,
Broke the enchantress’ cup, and snapt her wand.
SONNET LXII.[92]
Dim grows the vital flame in his dear breast
From whom my life I drew;--and thrice has Spring
Bloom’d; and fierce Winter thrice, on darken’d wing,
Howl’d o’er the gray, waste fields, since he possess’d
Or strength of frame, or intellect.--Now bring
Nor morn, nor eve, his cheerful steps, that press’d
Thy pavement, Lichfield, in the spirit bless’d
Of social gladness. They have failed, and cling
Feebly to the fix’d chair, no more to rise
Elastic!--Ah! my heart forebodes that soon
The Full of Days shall sleep;--nor Spring’s soft sighs,
Nor Winter’s blast awaken him!--Begun
The twilight!--Night is long!--but o’er his eyes
Life-weary slumbers weigh the pale lids down!
SONNET LXIII.
TO COLEBROOKE DALE.
Thy Genius, Colebrooke, faithless to his charge,
Amid thy woods and vales, thy rocks and streams,
Form’d for the train that haunt poetic dreams,
Naiads, and nymphs,--now hears the toiling barge
And the swart Cyclops’ ever-clanging forge
Din in thy dells:--permits the dark-red gleams,
From umber’d fires on all thy hills, the beams,
Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large
Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils
Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe
Of thy romantic rocks, pollute thy gales,
And stain thy glassy floods;--while o’er the globe
To spread thy stores metallic, this rude yell
Drowns the wild woodland song, and breaks the poet’s spell.
SONNET LXIV.
TO MR HENRY CARY,
ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS SONNETS.
Prais’d be the Poet, who the Sonnet’s claim,
Severest of the orders that belong
Distinct and separate to the Delphic song,
Shall venerate, nor its appropriate name
Lawless assume. Peculiar is its frame,
From him derived, who shunn’d the city throng,
And warbled sweet thy rocks and streams among,
Lonely Valclusa!--and that heir of fame,
Our greater MILTON, hath, by many a lay
Form’d on that arduous model, fully shown
That English verse may happily display
Those strict energic measures, which alone
Deserve the name of Sonnet, and convey
A grandeur, grace and spirit, all their own.
SONNET LXV.
TO THE SAME.
MARCELLUS, since the ardours of my strain
To thy young eyes and kindling fancy, gleam
With somewhat of the vivid hues, that stream
From Poesy’s bright orb, each envious stain
Shed by dull critics, venal, vex’d and vain,
Seems recompens’d at full;--and so would seem
Did not maturer sons of Phœbus deem
My verse Aonian.--Thou, in time, shalt gain,
Like them, amid the letter’d world, that sway,
Which makes encomium fame;--so thou adorn,
Extend, refine and dignify thy lay,
And indolence, and syren pleasure scorn;
Then, at high noon, thy Genius shall display
The splendours promised in its shining morn.
SONNET LXVI.
Nobly to scorn thy gilded veil to wear,
Soft Simulation!--wisely to abstain
From fostering Envy’s asps;--to dash the bane
Far from our hearts, which Hate, with frown severe,
Extends for those who wrong us;--to revere
With soul, or grateful, or resign’d, the train
Of mercies, and of trials, is to gain
A quiet conscience, best of blessings here!--
Calm conscience is a land-encircled bay,
On whose smooth surface tempests never blow;
Which shall the reflex of our life display
Unstain’d by crime, tho’ gloom’d with transient woe;
While the bright hopes of Heaven’s eternal day
Upon the fair and silent waters glow.
SONNET LXVII.
ON DOCTOR JOHNSON’S UNJUST CRITICISMS
IN HIS LIVES OF THE POETS.[93]
Could aweful JOHNSON want poetic ear,
Fancy, or judgment?--no! his splendid strain,
In prose, or rhyme, confutes that plea.--The pain
Which writh’d o’er GARRICK’S fortunes, shows us clear
Whence all his spleen to Genius.--Ill to bear
A friend’s renown, that to his own must reign,
Compared, a meteor’s evanescent train,
To Jupiter’s fix’d orb, proves that each sneer,
Subtle and fatal to poetic sense,
Did from insidious Envy meanly flow,
Illumed with dazzling hues of eloquence,
And sophist-wit, that labour to o’er-throw
Th’ awards of Ages, and new laws dispense
That lift the Mean, and lay the Mighty low.
SONNET LXVIII.
ON THE
POSTHUMOUS FAME OF DOCTOR JOHNSON.
Well it becomes thee, Britain, to avow
JOHNSON’S high claims!--yet boasting that his fires
Were of unclouded lustre, Truth retires
Blushing, and Justice knits her solemn brow;
The eyes of Gratitude withdraw the glow
His moral strain inspired.--Their zeal requires
That thou should’st better guard the sacred lyres,
Sources of thy bright fame, than to bestow
Perfection’s wreath on him, whose ruthless hand,
Goaded by jealous rage, the laurels tore,
That Justice, Truth, and Gratitude demand
Should deck those lyres till time shall be no more.--
A radiant course did JOHNSON’S glory run,
But large the spots that darken’d on its sun.
SONNET LXIX.
TO
A YOUNG LADY,
PURPOSING TO MARRY A MAN OF IMMORAL CHARACTER IN THE HOPE OF HIS
REFORMATION.
Time, and thy charms, thou fanciest will redeem
Yon aweless libertine from rooted vice.
Misleading thought! has he not paid the price,
His taste for virtue?--Ah, the sensual stream
Has flow’d too long.--What charms can so entice,
What frequent guilt so pall, as not to shame
The rash belief, presumptuous and unwise,
That crimes habitual will forsake the frame?--
Thus, on the river’s bank, in fabled lore,
The rustic stands; sees the stream swiftly go,
And thinks he soon shall find the gulph below
A channel dry, which he may safe pass o’er.--
Vain hope!--it flows--and flows--and yet will flow,
Volume decreaseless, to the Final Hour.
SONNET LXX.
TO A YOUNG LADY IN AFFLICTION,
WHO FANCIED SHE SHOULD NEVER MORE BE HAPPY.
Yes, thou shalt smile again!--Time always heals
In youth, the wounds of sorrow.--O! survey
Yon now subsided deep, thro’ night a prey
To warring winds, and to their furious peals
Surging tumultuous!--yet, as in dismay,
The settling billows tremble.--Morning steals
Grey on the rocks;--and soon, to pour the day
From the streak’d east, the radiant orb unveils
In all his pride of light.--Thus shall the glow
Of beauty, health, and hope, by soft degrees
Spread o’er thy breast; disperse these storms of woe;
Wake, with sweet pleasure’s sense, the wish to please,
Till from those eyes the wonted lustres flow,
Bright as the sun on calm’d and crystal seas.
SONNET LXXI.
TO THE POPPY.
While Summer roses all their glory yield
To crown the votary of love and joy,
Misfortune’s victim hails, with many a sigh,
Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field,
Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield
Thy flaccid vest, that as the gale blows high,
Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head.--
So stands in the long grass a love-craz’d maid,
Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind
Her garish ribbons, smear’d with dust and rain;
But brain-sick visions cheat her tortured mind,
And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain,
Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed,
Thou flimsy, shewy, melancholy Weed.
SONNET LXXII.
WRITTEN IN THE RAINY SUMMER OF 1789.
Ah, hapless June! circles yon lunar sphere
Yet the dim Halo? whose cold powers ordain
Long o’er these vales should sweep, in misty train,
The pale continuous showers, that sullying smear
Thy radiant lilies, towering on the plain;
Bend low, with rivel’d leaves of canker’d stain,
Thy drench’d and heavy rose--Yet pledg’d and dear
Fair Hope still holds the promise of the year;
Suspends her anchor on the silver horn
Of the next wexing orb, tho’, June, thy day,
Robb’d of its golden eve, and rosy morn,
And gloomy as the Winter’s rigid sway,
Leads sunless, lingering, disappointing hours
Thro’ the song-silent glades and dropping bowers.
SONNET LXXIII.
TRANSLATION.
He who a tender long-lov’d wife survives,
Sees himself sunder’d from the only mind
Whose hopes, and fears, and interests, were combin’d,
And blended with his own.--No more she lives!
No more, alas! her death-numb’d ear receives
His thoughts, that trace the past, or anxious wind
The future’s darkling maze!--His wish refined,
The wish to please, exists no more, that gives
The will its energy, the nerves their tone!--
He feels the texture of his quiet torn,
And stopt the settled course that action drew;
Life stands suspended--motionless--till thrown
By outward causes, into channels new;--
But, in the dread suspense, how sinks the soul forlorn!
SONNET LXXIV.
In sultry noon when youthful MILTON lay,[94]
Supinely stretch’d beneath the poplar shade,
Lured by his form, a fair Italian maid
Steals from her loitering chariot, to survey
The slumbering charms, that all her soul betray.
Then, as coy fears th’ admiring gaze upbraid,
Starts;--and these lines, with hurried pen pourtray’d,
Slides in his half-clos’d hand;--and speeds away.--
“Ye eyes, ye human stars!--if, thus conceal’d
“By sleep’s soft veil, ye agitate my heart,
“Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal’d
“Your rays had shone!”--Bright nymph, thy strains impart
Hopes, that impel the graceful bard to rove,
Seeking thro’ Tuscan vales his visionary love.
SONNET LXXV.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
He found her not:--yet much the Poet found,
To swell Imagination’s golden store,
On Arno’s bank, and on that bloomy shore,
Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound,
Where Rome’s forlorn Campania stretches round
Her ruin’d towers and temples;--classic lore
Breathing sublimer spirit from the power
Of local consciousness.--Thrice happy wound,
Given by his sleeping graces, as the fair
“Hung over them enamour’d,” the desire
Thy fond result inspired, that wing’d him there,
Where breath’d each Roman and each Tuscan lyre,
Might haply fan the emulative flame,
That rose o’er DANTE’S song, and rival’d MARO’S fame.
SONNET LXXVI.
THE CRITICS OF DR JOHNSON’S SCHOOL.[95]
Lo! modern Critics emulously dare
Ape the great despot; throw in pompous tone
And massy words their true no-meaning down!
But while their envious eyes on Genius glare,
While axioms false assiduously they square
In arrogant antithesis, a frown
Lours on the brow of Justice, to disown
The kindred malice with its mimic air.
Spirit of Common Sense! must we endure
The incrustation hard without the gem?
Find in th’ Anana’s rind the wilding sour,
The oak’s rough knots on every osier’s stem?
The dark contortions of the Sybil bear,
Whose inspirations never meet our ear?
SONNET LXXVII.
O! hast thou seen a vernal morning bright
Gem every bank and trembling leaf with dews,
Tinging the green fields with her amber hues,
Changing the leaden streams to lines of light?
Then seen dull clouds, that shed untimely night,
Roll envious on, and every ray suffuse,
Till the chill’d scenes their early beauty lose,
And faint, and colourless, no more invite
The glistening gaze of joy?--’Twas emblem just
Of my youth’s sun, on which deep shadows fell,
Spread from the Pall of Friends; and Grief’s loud gust
Resistless, oft would wasted tears compel:
Yet let me hope, that on my darken’d days
Science, and pious Trust, may shed pervading rays.
SONNET LXXVIII.
SOPHIA tempts me to her social walls,
That ’mid the vast Metropolis arise,
Where splendour dazzles, and each pleasure vies
In soft allurement; and each science calls
To philosophic domes, harmonious halls,
And storied galleries. With duteous sighs,[96]
Filial and kind, and with averted eyes,
I meet the gay temptation, as it falls
From a seducing pen.--Here--here I stay,
Fix’d by Affection’s power; nor entertain
One latent wish, that might persuade to stray
From my aged nurseling, in his life’s dim wane;
But, like the needle, by the magnet’s sway,
My constant trembling residence maintain.
SONNET LXXIX.
While unsuspecting trust in all that wears
Virtue’s bright semblance stimulates my heart
To find its dearest pleasures in the part
Taken in other’s joys; yielding to theirs
Its own desires, each latent wish that bears
The selfish stamp, O! let me shun the art
Taught by smooth Flattery in her courtly mart,
Where Simulation’s studied smile ensnares!
Scorn that exterior varnish for the mind,
Which, while it polishes the manners, veils
In showy clouds the soul.--E’en thus we find
Glass, o’er whose surface clear the pencil steals,
Grown less transparent, tho’ with colours gay,
Sheds but the darken’d and ambiguous ray.
SONNET LXXX.
As lightens the brown hill to vivid green
When juvenescent April’s showery sun
Looks on its side, with golden glance, at noon;
So on the gloom of life’s now faded scene
Shines the dear image of those days serene,
From Memory’s consecrated treasures won;
The days that rose, ere youth, and years were flown,
Soft as the morn of May;--and well I ween
If they had clouds, in Time’s alembic clear
They vanish’d all, and their gay vision glows
In brightness unobscur’d; and now they wear
A more than pristine sunniness, which throws
Those mild reflected lights that soften care,
Loss of lov’d friends, and all the train of woes.
SONNET LXXXI.
ON A LOCK OF MISS SARAH SEWARD’S HAIR,
WHO DIED IN HER TWENTIETH YEAR.
My Angel Sister, tho’ thy lovely form
Perish’d in youth’s gay morning, yet is mine
This precious ringlet!--still the soft hairs shine,
Still glow the nut-brown tints, all bright and warm
With sunny gleam!--Alas! each kindred charm
Vanish’d long since; deep in the silent shrine
Wither’d to shapeless dust!--and of their grace
Memory alone retains the faithful trace.--
Dear Lock, had thy sweet owner liv’d, ere now
Time on her brow had faded thee!--My care
Screen’d from the sun and dew thy golden glow;
And thus her early beauty dost thou wear,
Thou all of that fair frame my love could save
From the resistless ravage of the grave!
SONNET LXXXII.
From a riv’d tree, that stands beside the grave
Of the self-slaughter’d, to the misty moon
Calls the complaining owl in night’s pale noon;
And from a hut, far on the hill to rave
Is heard the angry Ban-Dog. With loud wave
Yon rous’d and turbid river surges down,
Swoln with the mountain-rains, and dimly shown
Appals our sense.--Yet see! from yonder cave,
Her shelter in the recent, stormy showers,
With anxious brow, a fond expecting maid
Steals towards the flood!--Alas!--for now appears
Her lover’s vacant boat!--the broken oars
Roll down the tide!--What images invade!
Aghast she stands, the statue of her fears!
SONNET LXXXIII.
ON
CATANIA AND SYRACUSE
SWALLOWED UP BY AN EARTHQUAKE.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF FILACAJA.
Here, from laborious Art, proud Towns, ye rose!
Here, in an instant, sunk!--nor aught remains
Of all ye were!--on the wide, lonely plains
Not e’en a stone, that might these words disclose,
“Here stood Catania;”--or whose surface shows
That this was Syracuse:--but louring reigns
A trackless Desolation.--Dim domains!
Pale, mournful strand! how oft, with anxious throes,
Seek I sad relics, which no spot supplies!--
A Silence--a fix’d Horror sears my soul.--
Inexplicable doom of human crimes,
What art thou?--Ye o’erwhelmed cities, rise!
That your terrific skeletons may scowl
Portentous warning to succeeding times!
SONNET LXXXIV.
While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn gilds,
Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
November, dragging on his sunless day,
Lours, cold and sullen, on the watry fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay.--
So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil’d,
Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil’d;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
Than Winter’s grey, and desolate domain,
Faded, like my lost youth, that no bright Spring renews.
SONNET LXXXV.
TO MARCH.
March, tho’ the hours of promise with bright ray
May gild thy noons, yet, on wild pinion borne,
Loud winds more often rudely wake thy morn,
And harshly hymn thy early-closing day.
Still the chill’d earth wears, with her tresses shorn,
Her bleak, grey garb:--yet not for this we mourn,
Nor, as in Winter’s more enduring sway,
With festal viands, and associates gay,
Arm ’gainst the skies;--nor shun the piercing gale;
But, with blue cheeks, and with disorder’d hair,
Meet its rough breath;--and peep for primrose pale,
Or lurking violet, under hedges bare;
And thro’ long evenings, from our Lares claim
The thrift of stinted grate, and sullen flame.
SONNET LXXXVI.
TO THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY.[97]
Pride of Ierne’s sea-encircled bound,
Rival of all Britannia’s Naiads boast,
Magnificent Killarney!--from thy coast
Tho’ mountains rise with noblest woods embrown’d;
Tho’ ten-voiced echoes send the cannon’s sound
In thunders bursting the vast rocks around,
Till startled wonder and delight exhaust
In countless repercussion--isles embost
Upon thy liquid glass; their bloomy veil
Sorbus and arbutus;--yet not for thee
So keenly wakes our local ecstacy,
As o’er the narrow, barren, silent dale,
Where deeply sleeps, rude circling rocks among,
The love-devoted fount enamour’d PETRARCH sung.
SONNET LXXXVII.
TO A YOUNG LADY,
ADDRESSED BY A GENTLEMAN, CELEBRATED FOR HIS POETICAL TALENTS.
Round Cleon’s brow the Delphic laurels twine,
And lo! the laurel decks AMANDA’S breast!
Charm’d shall he mark its glossy branches shine
On that contrasting snow; shall see express’d
Love’s better omens, in the green hues dress’d
Of this selected foliage.--Nymph, ’tis thine
The warning story on its leaves to find,
Proud DAPHNE’S fate, imprison’d in its rind,
And with its umbrage veil’d; great Phœbus’ power
Scorning, and bent, with feet of wind, to foil
His swift pursuit, till on Thessalian shore
Shot into boughs, and rooted to the soil.--
Thus warn’d, fair maid, APOLLO’S ire to shun,
Soon may his spray’s and Votary’s lot be one.
SONNET LXXXVIII.
[The three following Sonnets are written in the character of
Werter; the sentiments and images chiefly, but not entirely, taken
from one of his letters.]
THE PROSPECT A FLOODED VALE.
Up this bleak hill, in wintry night’s dread hour,
With mind congenial to the scene, I come!
To see my Valley in the lunar gloom,
To see it whelm’d.--Amid the cloudy lour
Gleams the cold moon;--and shows the ruthless power
Of yon swoln floods, that white with turbid foam
Roll o’er the fields;--and billowy as they roam,
Against the bushes beat!--A vale no more,
A troubled sea, toss’d by the furious wind!--
Alas! the wild and angry waves efface
Pathway, and hedge, and bank, and stile!--I find
But one wide waste of waters!--In controul
Thus dire, to tides of misery and disgrace
Love opes the flood-gates of my struggling soul.
SONNET LXXXIX.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Yon late but gleaming moon, in hoary light
Shines out unveil’d, and on the cloud’s dark fleece
Rests;--but her strengthen’d beams appear to increase
The wild disorder of this troubled night.
Redoubling echoes seem yet more to excite
The roaring winds and waters!--Ah! why cease
Resolves, that promis’d everlasting peace,
And drew my steps to this incumbent height?
I wish!--I shudder!--stretch my longing arms
O’er the steep cliff!--My swelling spirits brave
The leap, that quiets all these dire alarms,
And floats me tossing on yon stormy wave!
But Oh! what roots my feet?--what spells, what charms
The daring purpose of my soul enslave?
SONNET XC.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
My hour is not yet come!--these burning eyes
Have not yet look’d their last!--else, ’mid the roar
Of this wild Storm, what gloomy joy to pour
My freed, exhaling soul!--sublime to rise,
Rend the conflicting clouds, inflame the skies,
And lash the torrents!--Bending to explore
Our evening seat, my straining eye once more
Roves the wide wat’ry waste;--but nought descries
Save the pale flood, o’erwhelming as it strays.
Yet Oh! lest my remorseless fate decree
That all I love, with life’s extinguished rays
Sink from my soul, to sooth this agony,
To balm that life, whose loss may forfeit thee,
Come dear Remembrance of Departed Days
SONNET XCI.
On the fleet streams, the sun, that late arose,
In amber radiance plays;--the tall young grass
No foot hath bruis’d--clear morning, as I pass,
Breathes the pure gale, that on the blossom blows;
And, as with gold yon green hill’s summit glows,
The lake inlays the vale with molten glass.--
Now is the year’s soft youth;--yet me, alas!
Cheers not as it was wont;--impending woes
Weigh on my heart!--the joys, that once were mine,
Spring leads not back;--and those that yet remain
Fade while she blooms.--Each hour more lovely shine
Her crystal beams, and feed her floral train;
But ah with pale, and waning fires, decline
Those eyes, whose light my filial hopes sustain.
SONNET XCII.
Behold that tree in Autumn’s dim decay,
Stript by the frequent, chill, and eddying wind;
Where yet some yellow, lonely leaves we find
Lingering and trembling on the naked spray,
Twenty, perchance, for millions whirl’d away!
Emblem, alas! too just, of human kind!
Vain Man expects longevity, design’d
For few indeed; and their protracted day
What is it worth that Wisdom does not scorn?
The blasts of Sickness, Care, and Grief appal,
That laid the friends in dust, whose natal morn
Rose near their own!--and solemn is the call;--
Yet, like those weak, deserted leaves forlorn,
Shivering they cling to life, and fear to fall
SONNET XCIII.
Yon soft star, peering o’er the sable cloud,
Sheds its green lustre thro’ the darksome air.--[98]
Haply in that mild planet’s crystal sphere
Live the freed spirits, o’er whose timeless shroud
Swell’d my lone sighs, my tearful sorrows flow’d.
They, of these long regrets perhaps aware,
View them with pitying smiles.--O! then, if e’er
Your guardian cares may be on me bestow’d,
For the pure friendship of our youthful days,
Ere yet ye soar’d from earth, illume my heart,
That roves bewilder’d in Dejection’s night,
And lead it back to peace!--as now ye dart,
From your pellucid mansion, the kind rays,
That thro’ misleading darkness stream so bright.
SONNET XCIV.
All is not right with him, who ill sustains
Retirement’s silent hours.--Himself he flies,
Perchance from that insipid equipoise,
Which always with the hapless mind remains
That feels no native bias; never gains
One energy of will, that does not rise
From some external cause, to which he hies
From his own blank inanity.--When reigns,
With a strong cultur’d mind, this wretched hate
To commune with himself, from thought that tells
Of some lost joy, or dreaded stroke of fate
He struggles to escape;--or sense that dwells
On secret guilt towards GOD, or Man, with weight,
Thrice dire, the self-exiling flight impels.
SONNET XCV.
On the damp margin of the sea-beat shore
Lonely at eve to wander;--or reclined
Beneath a rock, what time the rising wind
Mourns o’er the waters, and, with solemn roar,
Vast billows into caverns surging pour,
And back recede alternate; while combin’d
Loud shriek the sea-fowls, harbingers assign’d,
Clamorous and fearful, of the stormy hour;
To listen with deep thought those awful sounds;
Gaze on the boiling, the tumultuous waste,
Or promontory rude, or craggy mounds
Staying the furious main, delight has cast
O’er my rapt spirit, and my thrilling heart,
Dear as the softer joys green vales impart.
SONNET XCVI.
The breathing freshness of the shining morn,
Whose beams glance yellow on the distant fields,
A sweet, unutterable pleasure yields
To my dejected sense, that turns with scorn
From the light joys of dissipation born.
Sacred Remembrance all my bosom shields
Against each glittering lance she gaily wields,
Warring with fond regrets, that silent mourn
The heart’s dear comforts lost.--But, Nature, thou,
Thou art resistless still;--and yet I ween
Thy present balmy gales, and vernal blow,
To Memory owe the magic of their scene;
For with such fragrant breath, such orient rays,
Shone the soft mornings of my youthful days.
SONNET XCVII.
TO A COFFIN-LID.
LICHFIELD, MARCH 1790.
Thou silent door of our eternal sleep,
Sickness, and pain, debility, and woes,
All the dire train of ills existence knows,
Thou shuttest out for ever!--Why then weep
This fix’d tranquillity,--so long!--so deep!
In a dear Father’s clay-cold form?--where rose
No energy, enlivening Health bestows,
Thro’ many a tedious year, that used to creep
In languid deprivation; while the flame
Of intellect, resplendent once confess’d,
Dark, and more dark, each passing day became.
Now that angelic lights the Soul invest,
Calm let me yield to thee a joyless frame,
Thou silent Door of Everlasting Rest.
SONNET XCVIII.
Since my griev’d mind some energy regains,
Industrious habits can, at times, repress
The weight of filial woe, the deep distress
Of life-long separation; yet its pains,
Oft do they throb along these fever’d veins.--
My rest has lost its balm, the fond caress
Wont the dear aged forehead to impress
At midnight, as he slept;--nor now obtains
My uprising the blest news, that could impart
Joy to the morning, when its dawn had brought
Some health to that weak frame, o’er which my heart
With fearful fondness yearn’d and anxious thought.--
Time, and the Hope that robs the mortal dart
Of its fell sting, shall cheer me--as they ought.
SONNET XCIX.
ON THE VIOLENT THUNDER STORMS,
DECEMBER 1790.
Remorseless Winter! in thy iron reign
Comes the loud whirlwind, on thy pinion borne;
The long, long night,--the tardy, leaden morn;
The grey frost, riv’ling lane, and hill, and plain;
Chill silent snows, and heavy pattering rain.
These are thy known allies;--and life forlorn,
Yet patient, droops, nor breathes repinings vain;
But now, usurper, thou hast madly torn
From Summer’s hand his stores of angry sway;
His rattling thunders with thy winds unite,
On thy pale snows those livid lightnings play,
That pour their deathful splendours o’er his night,
To poise the pleasures of his golden day,
Soft gales, blue skies, and long-protracted light.
SONNET C.
WRITTEN DECEMBER 1790.
Lyre of the Sonnet, that full many a time
Amus’d my lassitude, and sooth’d my pains,
When graver cares forbade the lengthen’d strains,
To thy brief bound, and oft-returning chime
A long farewell!--the splendid forms of rhyme
When grief in lonely orphanism reigns,
Oppress the drooping soul.--Death’s dark domains
Throw mournful shadows o’er the Æonian clime;
For in their silent bourne my filial bands
Lie all dissolv’d;--and swiftly-wasting pour
From my frail glass of life, health’s sparkling sands.
Sleep then, my Lyre, thy tuneful tasks are o’er;
Sleep! for my heart bereav’d, and listless hands,
Wake with rapt touch thy glowing strings no more!
PARAPHRASES AND IMITATIONS
OF
HORACE.
Translations scrupulously faithful are apt to be stiff, vapid, and
obscure, from the often irreconcileably different nature of
languages, from local customs, and from allusions to circumstances
over which time has drawn a veil. In attempting to put the most
admired and interesting of Horace’s Odes into English verse, I have
taken only the poet’s general idea, frequently expanding it, to
elucidate the sense, and to bring the images more distinctly to the
eye; induced by the hope of thus infusing into these Paraphrases
the spirit of original composition. Neither have I scrupled to
follow the example of Dryden and Pope, by sometimes adding ideas
and imagery congenial to the subject, and thus to translate Horace
like a poet, rather than a versifier.
The trust, whether partial or not, that it was in my power so to
paraphrase the Odes of Horace, prompted the late Mr Grove of
Lichfield, and the late Mr Dewes of Wellsburn in Warwickshire, to
request that I would undertake the task respecting those whose
subjects best pleased me. Not acquainted with each other, the
coincidence of their opinion and request was flattering. They were
extensively known to be gentlemen of distinguished virtues, much
classic erudition, and poetic taste.
“Blest with each talent, and each art to please,
“And born to write, converse, and live at ease.”
Mr Dewes was the highly esteemed friend of Dr Parr, Mr Grove of
Lord Sheffield. A beautiful epitaph in verse, written by Mr Grove,
on his beloved wife, is one of the chief ornaments of Lichfield
Cathedral.
The imitation of the Ode to Delius, applied to Mr Erskine, was
written since the lamented death of those gentlemen, which happened
in the meridian of their days. All the other Paraphrases had been
submitted to their revision and correction, and had been honoured
by their warm praise. That consciousness makes me indifferent to
the expected cavils of illiberal criticism.
Men of letters have often observed to me, that in paraphrasing
Horace, my sex would be an unpardonable crime with every Pedant,
whether within, or without the pale of professional criticism. It
is not in their power to speak or write more contemptuously of my
Horatian Odes than the critics of Dryden’s and Pope’s time, in the
literary journals of that period, wrote of their Translations from
Homer, Virgil, Horace, Boccace, and Chaucer. Instances of that
public abuse are triumphantly inserted by Warburton in his Edition
of Pope’s works. See appendix to the Dunciad. It is re-published
there, to justify some of the personal severities of Pope’s
celebrated Satire.
Most of the notes to the ensuing Paraphrases are addressed to their
unlearned readers, since no allusion can interest which is not
perfectly comprehended.
ODES FROM HORACE.
TO MÆCENAS.
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE FIRST.
I.
MÆCENAS, from Etrurian princes sprung,
For whom my golden lyre I strung,
Friend, Patron, Guardian of its rising song,
O mark the youth, that towers along,
With triumph in his air;
Proud of Olympic dust, that soils
His burning cheek and tangled hair!
Mark how he spreads the palm, that crown’d his toils!
Each look the throbbing hope reveals
That his fleet steeds and kindling wheels,
Swept round the skilfully-avoided goal,
Shall with illustrious chiefs his echo’d name enrol.
II.
Who the civic crown obtains,
Or bears into his granaries large
The plenteous tribute of the Libyan plains;
Or he, who watches still a rural charge,
O’er his own fields directs the plough,
Sees his own fruitage load the bough;
These would’st thou tempt to brave the faithless main,
And tempt with regal wealth, thy effort should be vain.
I.
The stormy south howls thro’ the sullen cloud,
Contending billows roar aloud!
The merchant sees the gathering danger rise,
And sends a thousand yearning sighs
To his dear shelter’d home.--
Its shades receive him;--but the tides
Grow smooth;--the wild winds cease to roam;
And see!--his new-trimm’d vessel gaily rides!--
Fir’d with the hope of wealth, once more
He quits, so hardly gain’d, the shore;
Watches, with eager eye, th’ unfurling sail,
Nor casts one look behind to the safe, sylvan vale.
II.
The youth of gay, luxurious taste,[99]
Breaks, in the arbutus’ soft shade,
The precious day with interrupting feast;
Or quaffs, by some clear fountain in a glade,
The mellow wine of ruby gleam,
While in vain the purer stream
Courts him, as gently the green bank it laves
To blend th’ enfevering draught with its pellucid waves.
I.
Th’ uplifted trumpet, and the clarion, send,
Confus’d, the mingled clang afar;
Lo! while the matron’s tender breast they rend,
Her soldier hails that din of war.--
The wood-land Chase desired,
Far other sound the hunter charms;
By the enlivening shout inspired,
He breaks from his young bride’s encircling arms;
Nor heeds the morning’s wintry gale,
While his deep-mouth’d hounds inhale
The tainted breeze, or hold the stag at bay,
Or while, from his strong toils, the wild boar bursts away.
II.
Thee bright Learning’s ivy crown[100]
Exalts above a mortal fate;
Me shady groves, light nymphs, and satyrs brown,
Raise o’er the crowd, in sweet sequester’d state.
And there is heard the Lesbian lute,
And there Euterpe’s Dorian flute;
But, should’st thou rank me with the Lyric Choir,
To Glory’s starry heights thy Poet would aspire.--
TO
PYRRHA.
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE FIFTH.
Where roses flaunt beneath some pleasant cave,
Too charming PYRRHA, what enamour’d boy,
Whose shining locks the breathing odours lave,
Woos thee, exulting in a transient joy?
For whom the simple band dost thou prepare,
That slightly fastens back thy golden hair?
Alas! how soon shall this devoted youth
Love’s tyrant sway, and thy chang’d eyes deplore,
Indignant curse thy violated truth,
And count each broken promise o’er and o’er,
Who hopes to meet, unconscious of thy wiles,
Ingenuous looks, and ever facile smiles!
He, inexperienc’d mariner! shall gaze
In wild amazement on the stormy deep,
Recall the flattery of those sunny days,
That lull’d each ruder wind to calmest sleep.
’Twas then, with jocund hope, he spread the sail,
In rash dependence on the faithless gale.
Ah wretch! to whom untried thou seemest fair!
By me, who late thy halcyon surface sung,
The walls of Neptune’s fane inscrib’d, declare[101]
That I have dank and dropping garments hung,
Devoted to the GOD, whose kind decree
Snatch’d me to shore, from an o’erwhelming sea.
TO
MUNATIUS PLANCUS.[102]
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE SEVENTH.
Be far-famed Rhodes the theme of loftier strains,[103]
Or Mitylene, as their bard decrees;[104]
Or Ephesus, where great Diana reigns,
Or Corinth, towering ’twixt the rival seas;
Or Thebes, illustrious in thy birth divine,
Purpureal Bacchus;--or of Phœbus’ shrine,
Delphos oracular; or warbling hail
Thessalian Tempe’s flower-embroider’d vale.
The art-crown’d city, chaste Minerva’s pride,
There are, whose endless numbers have pourtray’d;
They, to each tree that spreads its branches wide,
Prefer the tawny Olive’s scanty shade.[105]
Many, in Juno’s honour, sing thy meads,
Green Argos, glorying in thy agile steeds;
Or opulent Mycene, whose proud fanes
The blood of murder’d AGAMEMNON stains.
Nor patient Lacedæmon wakes my lyre,
Who trains her sons to all the warrior’s toil;
Nor me Larissa’s airy graces fire,[106]
Tho’ round her hills the golden vallies smile:
But my loved mansion, ’mid the circling wood,
On the green bank of clear Albunea’s flood,
Its walls resounding with the echo’d roar,
As Anio’s torrents down the mountain pour.
Amid my blooming orchards pleas’d I rove,
Guiding the ductile course of murmuring rills;
Or mark the curtains of the sacred grove
Sink in the vales, or sweep along the hills.
Ah, friend! if round my cell such graces shine,[107]
The Palace of Tiburnian shades is thine;
She every feature of the scene commands,
And Empress of its varied beauty stands.
Tho’ frequent mists the young Favonius shroud,
Bending his flagging wing with heavy rains,
Yet oft he chases every showery cloud,
Winnowing, with pinion light, th’ aerial plains;
Ah! thus from thee let each dark vapour roll,
That rash Ambition gathers on the soul;
The jocund pleasures in her absence rise,
Glow in the breast, and sparkle in the eyes.
And thou, MUNATIUS, whether fate ordain
The camp thy home, with glancing javelins bright;
Or if the graces of that fair domain,
Umbrageous Tivoli, thy steps invite;
If trumpets sound the clang that warriors love,
Or round thee trill the choirings of the grove,
In flowing bowls drown every vain regret,
Enjoy the Present, and the Past forget!
The walls of Salamis when TEUCER fled,
Driven by a parent’s unrelenting frown,
Hope from his spirit chased each anxious dread,
While on his brow he bound the poplar crown;
In rich libation pour’d the generous wine,
Then bath’d his temples in the juice divine;
And thus, with gladden’d eye, and air sedate,
Address’d the drooping followers of his fate.
“Wherever Destiny, a kinder friend
“Than he who gave me birth, may point the way.
“Thither resolv’d our duteous steps shall bend,
“Nor know presaging fear, nor weak delay.
“Doubt flies when TEUCER leads, and cold despair,
“In TEUCER’S auspices, shall melt to air;
“Phœbus ordains that, in more favouring skies,
“Another prosp’rous Salamis shall rise.
“So much alike her fountains, fanes, and bowers,
“That e’en her name shall dubious meaning bear;--
“Then, my lov’d friends, who oft, in darker hours,
“Have shar’d with me a conflict more severe,
“O! let us lose in wine our sorrow’s weight,
“And rise the masters of our future fate!
“This night we revel in convivial ease,
“To-morrow seek again the vast and pathless seas.”
TO
LYDIA.
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE EIGHTH.
O, LYDIA! I conjure thee tell
Why, with persisting zeal, thou dost employ
The strongest power of amorous spell
On Sybaris, belov’d too well,
Wounding his fame amid voluptuous joy?
Why shuns he now the noon-tide glare,
Inur’d to whirling dust, and scorching heat?
Ceases the warrior-vest to wear
In which he us’d, with graceful air,
Aspiring youths, all emulous, to meet?
Why is it now no more his pride
To rein the ardent horse with agile arm?
With new-strung sinews to divide
The yellow Tyber’s angry tide,
When the tempestuous showers its rage alarm?
Why hates he, as the viper’s gore,
The wrestler’s oil, that supples every vein?
Why do we see his arms no more
With livid bruises spotted o’er,
Of manly sports the honourable stain?
’Twas his to whirl, with matchless skill,
The glancing quoit, the certain javelin throw,
While crowds, with acclamations shrill,
The lofty circus joy’d to fill,
And all the honours of the day bestow.
Such fond seclusion why desire?--
Thus Thetis’ care her blooming son conceal’d,
Ere yet commenc’d that contest dire,
When mournful gleam’d the funeral pyre,
Thro’ ten long years, on Ilium’s purpled field.
In vain the female vest he wore,
That Love maternal might avert his fate;
Lest his spear drink the Lycian gore,
Lest sinking Troy his force deplore,
And Death with Glory meet him at her gate.
TO
THALIARCHUS.[108]
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE NINTH.
In dazzling whiteness, lo! Soracte towers,
As all the mountain were one heap of snow!
Rush from the loaded woods the glittering showers;
The frost-bound waters can no longer flow.
Let plenteous billets, on the glowing hearth,
Dissolve the ice-dart ere it reach thy veins;
Bring mellow wines to prompt convivial mirth,
Nor heed th’ arrested streams, or slippery plains.
High Heaven, resistless in his varied sway,
Speaks!--The wild elements contend no more;
Nor then, from raging seas, the foamy spray
Climbs the dark rocks, or curls upon the shore.
And peaceful then yon aged ash shall stand;
In breathless calm the dusky cypress rise;
To-morrow’s destiny the Gods command,
To-day is thine;--enjoy it, and be wise!
Youth’s radiant tide too swiftly rolls away;
Now, in its flow, let pleasures round thee bloom;
Join the gay dance, awake the melting lay,
Ere hoary tresses blossom for the tomb!
Spears, and the steed, in busy camps impel;
And, when the early darkness veils the groves,
Amid the leafless boughs let whispers steal,
While frolic Beauty seeks the near alcoves.
Soft as thy tip-toe steps the mazes rove,
A laugh, half-smother’d, thy pleas’d ear shall meet,
And, sportive in the charming wiles of love,
Betray the artifice of coy retreat;
And then the ring, or, from her snowy arm,
The promis’d bracelet may thy force employ;
Her feign’d reluctance, height’ning every charm,
Shall add new value to the ravish’d toy.
TO
LEUCONOE.
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE ELEVENTH.
LEUCONOE, cease presumptuous to inquire
Of grave diviner, if successive years
Onward shall roll, ere yet the funeral pyre,
For thee and me, the hand of Friendship rears!
Ah rather meet, with gay and vacant brow,
Whatever youth, and time, health, love, and fate allow;
If many winters on the naked trees
Drop in our sight the paly wreaths of frost,
Or this for us the last, that from the seas
Hurls the loud flood on the resounding coast.--
Short since thou know’st the longest vital line,
Nurse the near hope, and pour the rosy wine.
E’en while we speak, our swiftly-passing youth
Stretches its wing to cold Oblivion’s shore;
Then shall the future terrify, or sooth,
Whose secrets no vain foresight can explore?
The Morrow’s faithless promise disavow,
And seize, thy only boast, the Golden Now.
TO
APOLLO.
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE THIRTY-FIRST.
What asks the Poet, when he pours
His first libation in the Delphic Bowers?
Duteous before the altar standing,
With lively hope his soul expanding,
O! what demands he, when the crimson wine
Flows sparkling from the vase, and laves the golden shrine?
Not the rich and swelling grain
That yellows o’er Sardinia’s isle;
Nor snowy herds, slow winding thro’ the plain,
When warm Calabria’s rosy mornings smile;
Nor gold, nor gems, that India yields,
Nor yet those fair and fertile fields,
Which, thro’ their flow’ry banks as calm he glides;
The silent Liris’ azure stream divides.[109]
Let those, for whom kind fortune still
Leads lavish tendrils o’er the sloping hill,
Let such, with care their vineyard dressing,
Their bursting grapes assiduous pressing,
Gather, self-gratulant, the costly store,
And of the future year propitious suns implore!
May luscious wines, in cups of gold,
Oft for the wealthy merchant flow!
Nor let cold Thrift those plenteous draughts with-hold
That prosperous Commerce shall again bestow.
The flowing bowl he safely drains,
Since every favouring God ordains
That more than once, within the circling year,[110]
His prow shall o’er the smooth Atlantic steer.
Me, let tawny olives feed!
Me, lenient mallows from the simple mead!
Son of Latona, grant the blessing,
That, a cloudless mind possessing,
And not infirm of frame, in soft decay,
Cheer’d by the breathing lyre, my life may pass away!
TO HIS
ATTENDANT.
BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.
Boy, not in these Autumnal bowers
Shalt thou the Persian vest dispose,
Of artful fold, and rich brocade;
Nor tie in gaudy knots the sprays and flowers.
Ah! search not where the latest rose
Yet lingers, in the sunny glade;
Plain be the vest, and simple be the braid!
I charge thee, with the myrtle wreath
Not one resplendent bloom entwine;
We both become that modest band,
As stretch’d my vineyard’s ample shade beneath,
Jocund I quaff the rosy wine;
While near me thou shalt smiling stand,
And fill the sparkling cup with ready hand.
TO
SALLUST.
BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE SECOND.
Dark in the Miser’s chest in hoarded heaps,
Can gold, my SALLUST, one true joy bestow,
Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps,
Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow?
Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought,
Rises, with such resistless influence fraught
As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold,
Till Life, e’en Life itself, becomes less dear than Gold.
Rome, of this power aware, thy honour’d name
O Proculeius! ardently adores,
Since thou did’st bid thy ruin’d brothers claim
A filial right in all thy well-earn’d stores.--
To make the good deed deathless as the great,
Yet fearing for her plumes Icarian fate,[111]
This record, Fame, of precious trust aware,
Shall long, on cautious wing, solicitously bear.
And thou, my SALLUST, more complete thy sway,
Restraining the insatiate lust of gain,
Than should’st thou join, by Conquest’s proud essay,
Iberia’s hills to Libya’s sandy plain;
Than if the Carthage sultry Afric boasts,
With that which smiles on Europe’s lovelier coasts,
Before the Roman arms, led on by thee,
Should bow the yielding head, the tributary knee.
See bloated Dropsy added strength acquire
As the parch’d lip the frequent draught obtains;
Indulgence feeds the never-quench’d desire,
That loaths the viand, and the goblet drains.
Nor could exhausted floods the thirst subdue
Till that dire Cause, which spreads the livid hue
O’er the pale form, with watry languor swell’d,
From the polluted veins, by medicine, be expell’d.
Virtue, whate’er the dazzled vulgar dream,
Denies Phraates, seated on thy throne,
Immortal Cyrus, Joy’s internal gleam,
And thus she checks the crowd’s mistaken tone;
“He, only he, who, calmly passing by,
“Not once shall turn the pure, unwishing eye
“On heaps of massy gold, that near him glare,
“My amaranthine wreath, my diadem shall wear.”
TO THE HONOURABLE
THOMAS ERSKINE.
HORACE, BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE THIRD, IMITATED.
OCTOBER, 1796.
Conscious the mortal stamp is on thy breast,
O, ERSKINE! still an equal mind maintain,
That wild Ambition ne’er may goad thy rest,
Nor Fortune’s smile awake thy triumph vain,
Whether thro’ toilsome tho’ renowned years
’Tis thine to trace the law’s perplexing maze,
Or win the Sacred Seals, whose awful cares
To high decrees devote thy honour’d days.
Where silver’d poplars with the stately pines
Mix their thick branches in the summer sky,
And the cool stream, whose trembling surface shines,
Laboriously oblique, is hurrying by;
There let thy duteous train the banquet bring,
In whose bright cups the liquid ruby flows,
As life’s warm season, on expanded wing,
Presents her too, too transitory rose;
While every Muse and Grace auspicious wait,
As erst thy handmaids, when, with brow serene,
Gay thou didst rove where Buxton views elate
A golden palace deck her savage scene.[112]
At frequent periods woo th’ inspiring band
Before thy days their summer-course have run,
While, with closed shears, the Fatal Sisters stand,
Nor aim to cut the brilliant thread they spun.
Precarious tenant of that gay retreat,
Fann’d by pure gales on Hampstead’s airy downs,
Where filial troops for thee delighted wait,
And their fair mother’s smile thy banquet crowns!
Precarious tenant!--shortly thou may’st leave
These, and propitious Fortune’s golden hoard;
Then spare not thou the stores, that shall receive,
When set thy orb, a less illustrious lord.
What can it then avail thee that thy pleas
Charm’d every ear with TULLY’S periods bland?
Or that the subject passions they could seize,
And with the thunder of the Greek command?
What can it then avail thee that thy fame
Threw tenfold lustre on thy noble line?
Since neither birth, nor self-won glory, claim
One hour’s exemption from the sable shrine.
E’en now thy lot shakes in the urn, whence Fate
Throws her pale edicts in reverseless doom!
Each issues in its turn, or soon, or late,
And lo! the great man’s prize!--a silent Tomb!
TO
BARINE.
BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE EIGHTH.
BARINE, to thy always broken vows
Were slightest punishment ordain’d;
Hadst thou less charming been
By one grey hair upon thy polish’d brows;
If but a single tooth were stain’d,
A nail discolour’d seen,
Then might I nurse the hope that, faithful grown,
The Future might, at length, the guilty Past atone.
But ah! no sooner on that perjur’d head,
With pomp, the votive wreaths are bound,
In mockery of truth,
Than lovelier grace thy faithless beauties shed;
Thou com’st, with new-born conquest crown’d,
The care of all our youth,
Their public care;--and murmur’d praises rise
Where’er the beams are shot of those resistless eyes.
Thy mother’s buried dust;--the midnight train
Of silent stars,--the rolling spheres,
Each God, that list’ning bows,
With thee it prospers, false-one! to profane.
The nymphs attend;--gay Venus hears,
And all deride thy vows;
And Cupid whets afresh his burning darts
On the stone, moist with blood, that dropt from wounded hearts.
For thee our rising youth to manhood grow,
Ordain’d thy powerful chains to wear;
Nor do thy former slaves
From the gay roof of their false mistress go,
Tho’ sworn no more to linger there;
Triumphant Beauty braves
The wise resolve;--and, ere they reach the door,
Fixes the faltering step to thy magnetic floor.
Thee the sage matron fears, intent to warn
Her stripling;--thee the miser dreads,
And, of thy power aware,
Brides from the Fane with anxious sighs return,
Lest the bright nets thy beauty spreads,
Their plighted lords ensnare,
Ere fades the marriage torch; nay even now,
While undispers’d the breath, that form’d the nuptial vow!
TO
TITUS VALGIUS.[113]
BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE NINTH.
Not ceaseless falls the heavy shower
That drenches deep the furrow’d lea;
Nor do continual tempests pour
On the vex’d Caspian’s billowy sea;[114]
Nor yet the ice, in silent horror, stands
Thro’ all the passing months on pale Armenia’s lands.[115]
Fierce storms do not for ever bend
The mountain’s vast and labouring oak,
Nor from the ash its foliage rend,
With ruthless whirl, and widowing stroke;
But, VALGIUS, thou, with grief’s eternal lays
Mournest thy vanish’d joys in MYSTES’ shorten’d days.
When Vesper trembles in the west,[116]
Or flies before the orient sun,
Rise the lone sorrows of thy breast.--
Nor thus did aged Nestor shun
Consoling strains, nor always sought the tomb,
Where sunk his filial hopes, in life and glory’s bloom.[117]
Not thus, the lovely Troilus slain,
His parents wept the princely boy:
Nor thus his sisters mourn’d, in vain,
The blasted flower of sinking Troy;
Cease, then, thy fond complaints!--Augustus’ fame,
The new Cesarian wreaths, let thy lov’d voice proclaim!
So shall the listening world be told
Medus, and cold Niphates guide,[118]
With all their mighty realms controul’d,
Their late proud waves in narrower tide;
That in scant space their steeds the Scythians rein,[119]
Nor dare transgress the bounds our victor arms ordain.
TO
LICINIUS MURENA.[120]
BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE TENTH.
Not always, dear Licinius, is it wise
On the main sea to ply the daring oar;
Nor is it safe, from dread of angry skies,
Closely to press on the insidious shore.
To no excess discerning spirits lean,
They feel the blessings of the golden mean;
They will not grovel in the squalid cell,
Nor seek in princely domes, with envied pomp to dwell.
They pine, that lifts so high her stately boughs,
Writhes in the storms, and bends beneath their might,
Innoxious while the loudest tempest blows
O’er trees, that boast a less-aspiring height.
As the wild fury of the whirlwind pours,
With direst ruin fall the loftiest towers;
And ’tis the mountain’s summit that, oblique,
From the dense, lurid clouds, the baleful lightnings strike.
A mind well disciplin’d, when sorrow lours,
Not sullenly excludes Hope’s smiling rays;
Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers,
With boundless trust the promiser surveys.
It is the same dread Jove, who thro’ the sky
Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly;
And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom,
And spreads rekindling light in all its living bloom.
To-day the soul perceives a weight of woe;--
A brighter morrow shall gay thoughts inspire.
Does Phœbus always bend the vengeful bow?
Wakes he not often the harmonious lyre?[121]
Be thou, when danger scowls in every wave,
Watchful, collected, spirited, and brave;
But in the sunny sky, the flattering gales,
Contract, with steady hand, thy too expanded sails.
TO
MÆCENAS.[122]
BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE TWELFTH.
MÆCENAS, I conjure thee cease
To wake my harp’s enamour’d strings
To tones, that fright recumbent Peace,
That Pleasure flies on rapid wings!
Slow conquest on Numantia’s plain,
Or Hannibal, that dauntless stood,
Tho’ thrice he saw Ausonia’s main
Redden with Carthaginian blood;
The Lapithæ’s remorseless pride,
Hylæus’ wild inebriate hours;
The Giants, who the Gods defied,
And shook old Saturn’s splendid towers;
These, dear MÆCENAS, thou should’st paint,
Each glory of thy CÆSAR’S reign,
In eloquence, that scorns restraint,
And sweeter than the poet’s strain;
Show captive kings, who from the fight
Drag at his wheels their galling chain,
And the pale lip indignant bite
With mutter’d vengeance, wild and vain.
Enraptur’d by LICINIA’S grace,
My Muse would these high themes decline,
Charm’d that the heart, the form, the face
Of matchless excellence is thine.
Ah, happy friend! for whom an eye,
Of splendid, and resistless fire,
Lays all its pointed arrows by,
For the mild gleams of soft desire!
With what gay spirit does she foil
The pedant’s meditated hit!
What happy archness in her smile!
What pointed meaning in her wit!
Her cheek how pure a crimson warms,
When with the Nymphs, in circling line,
Bending she twines her snowy arms,
And dances round Diana’s shrine![123]
MÆCENAS, would’st not thou exchange
The treasures gorgeous Persia pours,
The wealth of Phrygia’s fertile range,
Or warm Arabia’s spicy shores,
For one light ringlet of the hair,
Which shades thy sweet LICINIA’S face,
In that dear moment when the fair,
In flying from thy fond embrace,
Relenting turns her snowy neck,
To meet thy kisses half their way,
Or when her feign’d resentments check
The ardours thy warm lips convey?
While in her eyes the languid light
Betrays a yielding wish to prove,
Amid her coy, yet playful flight,
The pleasing force of fervent love;
Or when, in gaily-frolic guise,
She snatches her fair self the kiss,
E’en at the instant she denies
Her lover the requested bliss?
TO
POSTHUMUS.
BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE FOURTEENTH.
Alas! my POSTHUMUS, the years
Unpausing glide away;
Nor suppliant hands, nor fervent prayers,
Their fleeting pace delay;
Nor smooth the brow, when furrowing lines descend,
Nor from the stoop of age the faltering frame defend.
Time goads us on, relentless sire!
On to the shadowy shape, that stands
Terrific on the funeral pyre,
Waving the already kindled brands.--
Thou canst not slacken his reluctant speed,
Tho’ still on Pluto’s shrine thy Hecatomb should bleed.
Beyond the dim lake’s mournful flood,
That skirts the verge of mortal light,
He chains the forms, on earth that stood
Proud, and gigantic in their might;
That gloomy lake, o’er whose oblivious tide
Kings, Consuls, Pontiffs, Slaves, in ghastly silence glide.
In vain the bleeding field we shun,
In vain the loud and whelming wave;
And, as autumnal winds come on,
And wither’d leaves bestrew the cave,
Against their noxious blast, their sullen roar,
In vain we pile the hearth, in vain we close the door.
The universal lot ordains
We seek the black Cocytus’ stream,
That languid strays thro’ dreary plains,
Where cheerless fires perpetual gleam;
Where the fell brides their fruitless toil bemoan,
And Sisyphus uprolls the still-returning stone.
Thy tender wife, thy large domain,
Soon shalt thou quit, at Fate’s command;
And of those various trees, that gain
Their culture from thy fost’ring hand,
The Cypress only shall await thy doom,
Follow its short-liv’d Lord, and shade his lonely tomb!
TO
LYCE,
ON HER REFUSING TO ADMIT HIS VISITS.
BOOK THE THIRD, ODE THE TENTH.
Now had you drank cold Tanais’ wave,
Whose streams the drear vale slowly lave,
A barbarous Scythian’s bride;
Yet, Lyce, might you grieve to hear
Your lover braves the winds severe,
That pierce his aching side.
O listen to the howling groves,
That labour o’er your proud alcoves,
And hear the jarring door!
Mark how the star, at eve that rose,
Has brightly glaz’d the settled snows,
While every leaf is hoar!
Gay Venus hates this cold disdain;--
Cease then its rigours to maintain,
That sprightly joys impede,
Lest the strain’d cord, with which you bind
The freedom of my amorous mind,
In rapid whirl recede!
Born of a jocund Tuscan sire,
Did he transmit his ardent fire,
That, like Ulysses’ Queen,
His beauteous daughter still should prove
Relentless to the sighs of love,
With frozen heart and mien?--
If nor blue cheek of shivering swain,
Nor yet his richest gifts obtain
Your smile, and soft’ning brow;
Nor if a faithless husband’s rage
For a gay Syren of the stage,
And broken nuptial vow;
If weak e’en Jealousy should prove
To bend your heart to truer love,
Yet pity these my pains,
O Nymph, than oaks more hard, and fierce
As snakes, that Afric’s thickets pierce,
Those terrors of the plains!
When heavy falls the pattering shower,
And streaming spouts their torrents pour
Upon my shrinking head,
Not always shall wild Love command
These limbs obsequiously to stand
Beneath your dropping shed.
TO THE
FOUNTAIN OF BLANDUSIA.[124]
BOOK THE THIRD, ODE THE THIRTEENTH.
Nymph of the stream, whose source perpetual pours
The living waters thro’ the sparkling sand,
Cups of bright wine, enwreath’d with summer flowers,
For rich libation, round thy brink shall stand,
When on the morrow, at thy Bard’s decree,
A young and spotless kid is sacrificed to thee.
He, while his brows the primal antlers swell,
Conscious of strength, and gay of heart, prepares
To meet the female, and the foe repel.--
In vain he wishes, and in vain he dares!
His ardent blood thy pebbly bed shall stain,
Till each translucent wave flows crimson to the plain.
In vain shall Sirius shake his fiery hairs
O’er thy pure flood, with waving poplars veil’d,
For thou, when most his sultry influence glares,
Refreshing shade, and cooling draughts shalt yield
To all the flocks, that thro’ the valley stray,
And to the wearied steers, unyok’d at closing day.
Now dear to Fame, sweet fountain, shalt thou flow,
Since to my lyre those breathing shades I sing
That crown the hollow rock’s incumbent brow,
From which thy soft loquacious waters spring.
To vie with streams Aonian be thy pride,
As thro’ Blandusia’s Vale thy silver currents glide!
TO
TELEPHUS.[125]
BOOK THE THIRD, ODE THE NINETEENTH.
The number of the vanish’d years
That mark each famous Grecian reign,
This night, my TELEPHUS, appears
Thy solemn pleasure to explain;
Or else assiduously to dwell,
In conscious eloquence elate,
On those who conquer’d, those who fell
At sacred Troy’s devoted gate.
But at what price the cask, so rare,
Of luscious Chian may be ours,
Who shall the tepid baths prepare,
And who shall strew the blooming flowers;
Beneath what roof we next salute,
And when shall smile these gloomy skies,
Thy wondrous eloquence is mute,
Nor here may graver topics rise.--
Fill a bright bumper to the moon!
She’s new!--auspicious be her birth!
One to the midnight!--’tis our noon
Of jocund thought, and festal mirth!
And one to him, for whom the feasts
This night are held with poignant gust,[126]
MURENA, whom his Rome invests
With solemn honours, sacred trust!
Kind omens shall his voice convey,
That may each rising care beguile;
Propitious fled the birds to-day?
Will Love be ours, and Fortune smile?--
Arrange the cups of various size,
The least containing bumpers three,
And nine the rest.--Come, no disguise!
Nor yet constraint, the choice is free!
All but the Bard’s--the bowl of nine
He is, in duty, bound to fill;
The Muses number to decline
Were treason at Aonia’s hill.
For here the Sisters shall preside,
So they allow us leave to laugh;
Unzoned the Graces round us glide,
While we the liquid ruby quaff.
Yet they, in kind and guardian care,
Dreading lest wild inebriate glee
With broils disturb our light career,
Would stint us to their number, three.
Away, ye prudes!--the caution wise
Becomes not this convivial hour,
That every dull restraint defies,
And laughs at all their frigid power.--
Thou say’st I rave;--and true thou say’st,
Nor must thou check the flowing vein,
For sprightly nonsense suits him best
Whom grave reflection leads to pain.
Why mute the pipe’s enlivening note?
Why sleeps the charming lyre so long?
O! let their strains around us float,
Mix’d with the sweet and jocund song!
And lavish be the roses strewn!
Ye flutes, ye lyres, exulting breathe!
The festal hour disdains to own
The mournful note, the niggard wreath.
Old Lycon, with the venal fair,
Who courts yet hates his vile embrace,
Our lively strains shall muttering hear,
While Envy pales each sullen face:
Thou, with thy dark luxuriant hair,
Thou, TELEPHUS, as Hesper bright,
Thou art accomplish’d Chloe’s care,
Whose glance is love’s delicious light.
Thy utmost wish the fair-one crowns,
And thy calm’d heart may well pursue
The paths of knowledge;--Lyce frowns,
And I, distasteful, shun their view.
From themes, that wake the powers of mind,
The wounded spirit sickening turns;
To those be then this hour consign’d,
That Mirth approves, tho’ Wisdom spurns.
They shall disarm my LYCE’S frown,
The frolic jest, the lively strain,
In flowing bowls, shall gaily drown
The memory of her cold disdain.
TO
PHYLLIS.
EXHORTING HER TO BE CONTENT WITH A FRUGAL SACRIFICE.
BOOK THE THIRD, ODE THE TWENTY-THIRD.
My PHIDYLE, retired in shady wild,
If thou thy virgin hands shalt suppliant raise,
If primal fruits are on thy altars pil’d,
And incense pure thy duteous care conveys,
To sooth the Lares, when the moon adorns,
With their first modest light, her taper horns;
And if we pierce the throat of infant swine,
A frugal victim, not the baleful breath
Of the moist South shall blast our tender vine;
Nor shall the lambs sink in untimely death,
When the unwholesome gales of Autumn blow,
And shake the ripe fruit from the bending bough.
Let snowy Algidum’s wide valleys feed,
Beneath their stately holme, and spreading oak,
Or the rich herbage of Albania’s mead,
The steer, whose blood on lofty shrines shall smoke!
Red may it stain the Priest’s uplifted knife,
And glut the higher powers with costly life!
The rosemary and myrtle’s simple crown
Thou on our household Gods, with decent care,
Art gently placing; and they will not frown;
No stern demand is theirs, that we prepare
Rich flocks, and herds, at duty’s solemn call,
And, in the pomp of slaughter, bid them fall.
O! if an innocent hand approach the shrine,
The little votive cake it humbly lays,
The crackling salt, that makes the altar shine,
Flung on the cheerful sacrificial blaze,
To the mild Lares shall be grateful found
As the proud steer, with all his garlands crown’d.
TO
MELPOMENE.
BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE THIRD.
Not he, O Muse! whom thy auspicious eyes
In his primeval hour beheld,
Shall victor in the Isthmian contest rise;
Nor o’er the long-resounding field
Impetuous steeds his kindling wheels shall roll,
Gay in th’ Olympic race, and foremost at the goal.
Nor in the Capitol, triumphant shown,
The victor-laurel on his brow,
For cities storm’d, and vaunting kings o’erthrown;--
But Tibur’s streams, that warbling flow,
And groves of fragrant gloom, resound his strains,
Whose sweet Æolian grace high celebration gains.
Now that his name, her noblest Bards among,
Th’ imperial city loudly hails,
That proud distinction guards his rising song,
When Envy’s carping tongue assails;
In sullen silence now she hears his praise,
Nor sheds her canker’d spots upon his springing bays.
O Muse! who rulest each melodious lay
That floats along the gilded shell,
Who the mute tenant of the watry way
Canst teach, at pleasure, to excel
The softest note harmonious sorrow brings,
When the expiring swan her own sad requiem sings,--
Thine be the praise, that pointing Romans guide
The Stranger’s eye with proud desire
That well he note the man, whom crowds decide
Should boldly string the Latian lyre.--
Ah! when I charm, if still to charm be mine,
Nymph of the warbling shell, be all the glory Thine!
TO
WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.
BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE SEVENTH, IMITATED.
The snows dissolve, the rains no more pollute,
Green are the sloping fields, and uplands wide,
And green the trees luxuriant tresses shoot,
And, in their daisied banks, the shrinking riven glide.
Beauty and Love the blissful change have hail’d,
While, in smooth mazes, o’er the painted mead,
Aglaia ventures, with her limbs unveil’d,[127]
Light thro’ the dance each Sister-Grace to lead.
But O! reflect, that sport, and beauty, wing
Th’ unpausing hour!--if Winter, cold and pale,
Flies from the soft, and violet-mantled Spring,
Summer, with sultry breath, absorbs the vernal gale.
Reflect, that Summer-glories pass away
When mellow Autumn shakes her golden sheaves;
While she, as Winter reassumes his sway,
Speeds, with disorder’d vest, thro’ rustling leaves.
But a short space the moon illumes the skies;
Yet she repairs her wanings, and again
Silvers the vault of night;--- but no supplies,
To feed their wasting fires, the lamps of life obtain.
When our pale forms shall pensive vigils keep
Where COLLINS, AKENSIDE, and SHENSTONE roam,
Or quiet with the Despot, JOHNSON, sleep,
In that murk cell, the body’s final home,
To senseless dust, and to a fleeting shade
Changes the life-warm being!--Ah! who knows
If the next dawn our eye-lids may pervade?
Darken’d and seal’d, perchance, in long, and last repose.
When vivid thought’s unceasing force assails,
It shakes, from life’s frail glass, the ebbing sands;
Their course run out, ah! what to us avails
Our fame’s high note, tho’ swelling it expands!
Reflect, that each convivial joy we share
Amid encircling Friends, with grace benign,
Escapes the grasp of our rapacious heir;--
Pile then the steaming board, and quaff the rosy wine!
Illustrious HAYLEY!--in that cruel hour,
When o’er thee Fate the sable flag shall wave,
Not thy keen wit, thy fancy’s splendid power,
Knowledge, or worth, shall snatch thee from the grave.
Not to his MASON’S grief, from Death’s dim plains
Was honour’d GRAY’S departed form resign’d;
No tears dissolve the cold Lethean chains,
That, far from busy life, the mortal semblance bind.
Then, for the bright creations of the brain,
O! do not thou from health’s gay leisure turn,
Lest we, like tuneful MASON, sigh in vain,
And grasp a timeless, tho’ a Laurel’d Urn!
TO
LIGURIA.
BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE TENTH.
O thou! exulting in the charms,
Nature, with lavish bounty, showers,
When youth no more thy spirit warms,
And stealing age thy pride alarms,
For fleeting graces, and for waning powers;
When all the shining locks, that now
Adown those ivory shoulders bound,
With deaden’d colour shade thy brow,
And fall as from th’ autumnal bough
Leaves, that rude winds have scatter’d on the ground;
And on that cheek the tints, that shame
May’s orient light and Summer’s rose,
Dim as yon taper’s sullen flame,
Shall, in a dusky red, proclaim
That not one hue in wonted lustre glows;
When wrinkles o’er LIGURIA’S face
Their daily strengthening furrows lead;
When faithful mirrors cease to place
In her charm’d sight each blooming grace,
And will no more her heart’s proud triumph feed;
Then the chang’d maid, with secret shame,
Shall thus the past, and present chide;
O! why, amid the loud acclaim,
That gave my rising charms to fame,
Swell’d this coy bosom with disdainful pride?
Or why, since now the wish to yield
Steals pensive thro’ each melting vein,
The ice dissolv’d, that scorn congeal’d,
And every tender thought reveal’d,
Why, vanish’d Beauty, com’st not thou again?
TO
PHYLLIS.
INVITING HER TO CELEBRATE THE BIRTH-DAY OF MÆCENAS.
BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE ELEVENTH.
Sweet PHYLLIS, leave thy quiet home,
For lo! the ides of April come!
Then hasten to my bower;
A cask of rich Albanian wine,
In nine years mellowness, is mine,
To glad the festal hour.
My garden-herbs, in fragrance warm,
Our various chaplets wait to form;
My tender ivies grow,
That, twining in thy amber hair,
Add jocund spirit to thine air,
And whiteness to thy brow.
My walls with silver vessels shine;
Chaste vervin decks the modest shrine,
That longs with crimson stains
To see its foliage sprinkled o’er,
When the devoted lamb shall pour
The treasure of his veins.
The household girls, and menial boy,
From room to room assiduous fly,
And busy hands extend;
Our numerous fires are quivering bright,
And, rolling from their pointed height,
The dusky wreaths ascend.[128]
Convivial rites, in mystic state,
Thou, lovely nymph, shalt celebrate,
And give the day to mirth
That this love-chosen month divides;[129]
Since honour’d rose its blooming ides
By dear MÆCENAS’ birth.
O! not to me my natal star
So sacred seems;--then, Nymph, prepare
To grace its smiling dawn!
A wealthier maid, in pleasing chains,
Illustrious TELEPHUS detains,[130]
From humble Thee withdrawn.
When pride would daring hopes create,
Of Phaeton recall the fate,
Consumed in his career!
Let rash Bellerophon, who tried
The fiery Pegasus to guide,
Awake thy prudent fear!
Thus warn’d, thy better interest know,
And cease those charming eyes to throw
On youths of high degree!
Come then, of all my loves the last,
For, every other passion past,
I only burn for thee!
Come, and with tuneful voice rehearse
The measures of thy Poet’s verse
And charm the list’ning throng!
Believe me, fairest, all our cares
Will soften at the melting airs
That deck the lyric song.
ON THE
PLEASURES OF RURAL LIFE.[131]
BOOK THE FIFTH, EPODE THE SECOND.
I.
Thrice happy he, whose life restores
The pleasures pure of early times;
That ne’er, with anxious heart, explores
The rugged heights ambition climbs;
Exempt from all the din, the toil, the care,
That cities for their busy sons prepare;
Fatigue, beneath the name of pleasure,
Contentious law, usurious treasure,
A tedious mean attendance on the great,
And emulation vain of all their pomp and state.
II.
Not his sound and balmy sleep
The trumpet’s martial warning breaks;
Nor the loud billows of the angry deep,
When thro’ the straining cords the tempest shrieks;
But the morning’s choral lay,
Chanted wild from every spray.
Swift at the summons flies the wilder’d dream,
And up he springs alert, to meet the orient beam.
I.
The vine-clad hill he lightly scales,[B]
Where tall the frequent poplars rise,
From branch to branch assiduous trails
The pendent clusters rich supplies;
And cautious prunes the weak, the useless shoot,
Engrafting healthier boughs, that promise fruit.--
Then his arms serenely folding,
And the smiling scene beholding,
Marks, as the fertile valley winds away,
His flocks and lowing herds, in ample numbers stray.
II.
Then to the warm bank below,
Yellow with the morning-ray,
And sees his shelter’d hives in even row,
And hears their hum mix with the linnet’s lay.
Recent from the crystal springs
Many a vessel pure he brings,
In them, from all the waxen cells to drain
The fragrant essence rich of flow’ry dale and plain.
I.
On the river’s shady side
White his gather’d flock appears,
And, plung’d into the flashing tide,
Their curl’d and snowy fleece he shears;
But when, ’mid laughing fields diffusive spread,
Majestic Autumn rears her placid head,
Wreath’d with wheaten garlands yellow,
Bearing various fruitage mellow,
How gladly from the trees, that loaded stand,
Shakes he the ripen’d pears, engrafted by his hand;
II.
Or his swelling grapes, that vie
With the fleece of Tyrian stain!
Such precious gifts his grateful cares supply
To thee protector of his wide domain,
Bounteous Sylvanus!--and to thee,
The garden’s watchful Deity;[132]
Beneath your favouring power he little cares
Who wields the Lictor’s rod, or who the fasces bears.
I.
In sultry noon’s oppressive ray,
Beneath the holme, of ample shade,
His listless limbs he loves to lay
On herbage, matted in the glade;
Hears down the steeps the white rills dashing play,
Till under the long grass they purl away;
While, on wing of swift vibration,
Murmuring range the honied nation,
And the sweet stock-dove, the thick boughs among,
His dewy slumber courts with her complaining song.
II.
Loud when wintry winds arise,
And the feeble race appal,
While o’er the earth, from dim and thicken’d skies,
The flaky snows in white profusion fall,
Then the sylvan chace he seeks;--
Lo! furious from the thicket breaks
The gnashing boar!--Flies he, or stands at bay,
Into the circling toils the staunch dogs drive the prey.
I.
When thro’ the clear, and sparkling air,
Fleet the pointed darts of frost,
The filmy nets, now here, now there,
For thievish birds, are lightly toss’d;
Or, plac’d with silent heed, the wily snares,
To lure the stranger-cranes, and timid hares.
Rich viands they, whose pleasing flavour
Crown his board, reward his labour.
In those convivial hours the heart forgets
Its vain tumultuous hopes, and all its fond regrets.
II.
These the pleasures unalloy’d,
That brighten oft the rural scene;
But, if yet dearer joys supply the void,
That, even there, will sometimes intervene
When days are cold, and nights are long,
And business goes a little wrong,
Should an endearing faithful Wife be seen,
With the warm light of love she chases gloomy spleen.
I.
As the Sabine matron chaste,
Active as th’ Apulian wife,
See she assumes, with cheerful haste,
The pleasing cares of wedded life;
Draws the clean vestment o’er the little limbs,
And, when the tearful eye of passion swims,
With mild authority commanding,
Repressing ill, and good expanding,
Anxious she weeds the infant heart betimes,
Ere ill propension thrive, and ripen into crimes.
II.
Dusky grows the winter-eve,
In hurdled cotes the flocks are penn’d;
Her vessels pure the frothing milk receive,
As from swell’d udders its full streams descend.
Bright the crackling faggots blaze,
While she strains the eager gaze,
O’er the dim vale to see her husband come,
With tir’d, yet willing step, to his warm, happy home.
I.
Her beating heart, and gladden’d eyes
Perceive him ope the wicker gate;
And swift her busy hand supplies
The flowing bowl, the steaming plate;
Her sparkling wine from their own vintage press’d,
From their own stores her grateful viand dress’d;
Less welcome far the proud collation,
Cull’d with painful preparation,
When earth, and air, and seas, have been explor’d
For those expensive meats, that pile the Consul’s board.
II.
Not the shell-fish, pampering food!
Of Lucrine’s azure lake the boast;
Nor luscious product of the eastern flood,
Driven by the stormy winds upon our coast;
Nor costly birds, that hither rove
Natives of Ionian grove,
Can with more poignant zest his senses meet
Than the love-kneaded cates, of this unpurchas’d treat.
I.
To his border’s guardian power[133]
When he spreads the vernal feast,
Then bleeds the kid, in lucky hour,
From the hungry wolf releas’d;[134]
Then round the primal lamb’s sweet flesh is seen
The crisp salubrious herbage of the green;
And, from loaded boughs descending,
Unctuous olives richly blending;
These form the dainties of his festal day,
When every heart expands, and every face is gay.
II.
Circled by a jocund train,
With joy the new-shorn flock he hears
Come bleating homeward o’er the russet plain;
While slow, with languid neck, the weary steers
The inverted ploughshare drag along,
Mindless of the shepherd’s song;
Then, round his smiling Household-Gods, surveys
A numerous, menial group, the proof of prosperous days.
I.
’Twas thus, amidst his ill-got wealth,
The Roman usurer justly thought,
Resolv’d to purchase peace and health,
And live, at length, as Nature taught;
No more with subtle avarice to lend,
Oppressive foe beneath the name of friend!
Now grasping views, for once, rejected,
He on the Ides his sums collected,[135]
But on the Calends, lo! with anxious pain,[136]
On the same interest vast, he sends them forth again.
II.
Thus can lust of gold controul,
Tho’ the heart urge a wiser choice,
By force of habit lord it o’er the soul,
And stifle e’en Conviction’s powerful voice.
See, with sighs the miser yield
The promis’d joys of wood, and field;
Against experienc’d disappointment, try
With gold to purchase that, which gold can never buy!
TO
NEAERA.
BOOK THE FIFTH, EPODE THE FIFTEENTH.
’Twas night--the moon, upon her sapphire throne,
High o’er the waning stars serenely shone,
When thou, false Nymph, determin’d to prophane
Them, and each power that rules the earth, and main.
As thy soft, snowy arms about me twin’d
Close as round oaks the clasping ivies wind,
Swore, while the gaunt wolf shall infest the lea,
And red Orion vex the wintry sea,
While gales shall fan Apollo’s floating locks,
That shed their golden light o’er hills and rocks,
So long thy breast should burn with purest fires,
With mutual hopes, and with unchang’d desires.
Perjur’d NEAERA! thou shalt one day prove
The worth, the vengeance of my slighted love;
For O! if manhood steels, if honour warms,
Horace shall fly, shall scorn thy faithless charms;
Seek some bright maid, whose soul for him shall glow,
Nor art, nor pride, nor wandering wishes know.
Then should’st thou languish, sigh, and weep once more,
And with new vows his injur’d heart implore,
Nor sighs, nor vows, nor tears shall he regard,
Cold as the snow and as the marble hard.
And Thou, triumphant youth, so gay, so vain,
Proud of my fate, exulting in my pain,
Tho’ on thy hills the plenteous herd should feed,
And rich Pactolus roll along thy mead;
For thee tho’ Science ope the varied store,
And Beauty on thy form its graces pour,
Ere long shalt thou, while wrongs like these degrade,
Droop with my woes, and with my rage upbraid;
See on a rival’s brow thy garlands worn,
And, with her falsehood, bear my jocund scorn.
TO THE
ROMAN PEOPLE,
ON THEIR RENEWING THE CIVIL WARS.
BOOK THE FIFTH, ODE THE SEVENTH.
Where do ye rush, ye impious trains,
Why gleams afar the late-sheath’d sword?
Is it believ’d that Roman veins
Their crimson tides have sparely pour’d?
Is not our scorn of safety, health, and ease,
Shewn by devasted climes, and blood-stain’d seas?
Those scowling brows, those lifted spears,
Bend they against the threat’ning towers
Proud Carthage emulously rears?
Or Britain’s still unconquer’d shores?
That her fierce sons, yet free from hostile sway,
May pass in chains along our Sacred Way?
No!--but that warring Parthia’s curse
May quickly blast these far-fam’d walls;
Accomplish’d when, with direful force,
By her own strength the city falls;
When foes no more her might resistless feel,
But Roman bosoms bleed by Roman steel.
O! worse than wolves, or lions fierce,
Who ne’er, like you, assault their kind!
By what wild phrenzy would ye pierce
Each other’s breast in fury blind?--
Silent and pale, ye stand with conscious sighs,
Your struck soul louring in your down-cast eyes!
The blood our rising walls that stain’d,
Shed by the ruthless fratricide,[137]
High Heaven’s avenging power ordain’d
Should spread the rage of discord wide,
Bid kindred blood in dread profusion flow
Thro’ darken’d years of expiatory woe.
PROEM.
I am conscious that the presenting again to my readers, in a
different form, a story which was long since beautifully told,
demands apology. I intreat them to suffer my avowed inducements to
form that apology.
The fine touches of pathos, of horror, and of vivid picture, which,
more than half a century back, the late Vincent Bourne added in his
Latin Paraphrase of WILLIAM and MARGARET, constitute those
inducements.
Every poet, of genius equal to that of him whose compositions he is
paraphrasing in another language, will, if he scorn the pedant
chains of attempted literality, improve upon his original, at
least, as often as, from certain verbal and intransfusible
felicities, he may be found inferior.
The Latin Paraphrase is, perhaps, in this instance, a better, and
certainly a grander poem, than that on which it was built; and it
has also a different complexion. Simplicity and mournful tenderness
form the character of the Ballad; more of sublime and thrilling
horror is mingled with the pathos of the Latin version. Sublimity
so intrinsic, from its not depending upon any particular verbal
arrangement, but resulting from the idea or the image entirely,
will not necessarily lose its spirit by passing into another
language.
Venturing to re-paraphrase this aweful vision, I think the fuller
sweep of verse in the ten feet elegiacs better suits its solemn
character than the shorter lines in which the English Ballad was
written. I am however, conscious, that WILLIAM and MARGARET, long
in possession of the public ear, will remain unrivalled with the
generality of readers; but I flatter myself that those who feel the
higher species of poetry will make a different choice, when they
find, in the following Poem, the grand additions of Vincent Bourne
given with that spirit which disdains the restraints of close
phraseology, and the servile scruple which would reject, even from
the author’s own stores, images congenial to the theme, tho’ they
may not be found in the sweet original, or in the sublimer Latin
Paraphrase. She has translated Bourne with the same freedom with
which he translated Mallet;--if, indeed, the whole Ballad be not,
as the first verse is known to be, more ancient than Mallet’s time.
Certainly it is in a very different style from any other
composition of his, and has an air of those earlier periods of
English poetry; a resemblance which is very prepossessing to many
readers.
GREVILLE AND JULIA.
Sleep is on man, and darkness all things hides,[138]
And night’s last hour the distant clocks repeat;
The doors unfold!--dead JULIA’S image glides,
Silent and slow,--and stands at GREVILLE’S feet!
Her face like April morns when winds are loud,
And wintry clouds deform the dubious day;
See, from her feet she lifts the folding shroud,[139]
With snow-pale hands, cold as the weltering clay!--
When youth is flown, and all that decks thee now,[140]
Ah! royal CIPARISSIS, such thy doom;
Then death shall strike the diadem from thy brow,
The shroud thy robe, the lightless tomb thy home.
Her form, while peace and hope were hers, was fair[141]
As rising flowers beneath the beams of May;
And her lips smiled and blush’d, and morn’s bright star
Stood in her eyes, as when it leads the day.
But slow disease that kindling blush consumed,
And grief eclips’d the gay and ready smile;
No more the naked lip or laugh’d, or bloom’d;--
Death call’d his worm, and gave th’ untimely spoil.
“Awake!--thy JULIA calls thee!--Fate severe
“Sends her pale corse to wander from the grave!
“At length, O! now at length, let pity hear[142]
“Whom changed and faithless, love refus’d to save.
“These dark, waste hours allow the restless ghost[143]
“To burst the cerements of the festering dead;
“Terror of Him, who once to pity lost,
“In vain remorse th’ avenging doom may dread!
“Thy oath!--thy pledge!--remember them, and fear!--
“Now, if thou canst, thy barbarous crime atone!
“Lo! thy too faithful maid, a spectre drear,
“Gives back thy vows--and sternly claims her own!
“This face, once gaz’d on with ecstatic eyes,
“Once prais’d so fondly, why did’st thou desert?
“Why, with thy tender looks, thy pleading sighs,
“Win, but to desolate my yielding heart?
“Thy promise, (ah! false promiser of joys!)[144]
“How could’st thou break, to crush my rising years?
“Why flatter (cruel flatterer!) these eyes,
“Yet leave them fading in unpitied tears?
“How could’st thou say my lips, in early bloom,
“Shamed the first crimson of the Summer’s rose!
“Why said’st thou so?--and why did I presume,
“Rash maid, to credit thy deluding vows!
“This alter’d face!--now does it bloom?--behold![145]
“This lip, this ghastly lip no blush retains!
“Death is in these sunk eyes!--and on this cold
“And livid cheek no lingering charm remains!
“The hungry worm my wasting form devours,[146]
“Feeds on these limbs, insatiate with her prey;--
“A cold,--a long,--a tedious night is ours,
“Till the late rising of the nightless day!
“Hark!--the cock crows!--the warning note he gave;
“Hark!--yet again!--A long--a last farewell!
“Come, perjur’d, view thy gift!--the deep, dark grave
“Where thy lost JULIA’S dismal relics dwell!”
Now sing the birds, and from the purpling east
The sun prepares to give the golden day!--
Pale GREVILLE, every horror in his breast,
Leaps from his couch, and frantic speeds away;
And to the tomb, the fatal tomb is flown,
Where cold in death his injured JULIA lay;--
A moment stands by the rais’d turf!--then down,
Headlong he falls on the dissolving clay.
Thrice calls he, “JULIA!” in a piercing sound,
Thrice does he weep, and thrice, with groans, complain;
Then, clasping wild the swell’d and hallow’d ground,
Nor weeps!--nor groans!--nor speaks!--nor moves again!
SONNET,
Laid in the drawer of the thatched shed by the brook at Plas Nwydd,
the Villa of the Right Hon. Lady ELEANOR BUTLER, and MISS PONSONBY,
in Llangollen Vale.
WRITTEN IN AUTUMN 1799.
Stranger, when o’er yon slant, warm field no cloud
Steals,--at its foot, the verge of a wild brook,
In tangled dell, where sun-beams never look,
Press this screen’d seat, and mark the waters crowd
Close to the cliff down their steep channel rude;
Leaping o’er rugged stones, that aye provoke
Foam and hoarse murmur; while the pendant oak
Frowns o’er the little, clamorous, lonely flood.--
Impetuous Deva’s honours yield to thine,
Dear brook, for O! thy scanty billows lave
Friendship and Fancy’s consecrated shrine;
And thou may’st tell the stream of mightier wave,
Here off they muse the noontide hours away,
Who gild thy vale with intellectual ray.
SPEECH
OF THE NYMPH OF THAT BROOK,
WHICH,
AFTER HEAVY RAIN, BECOMES A DEEP, VIOLENT, AND FORMIDABLE TORRENT.
Lo! down yon steep of vales proud Deva borne,
Rolls the hoarse treasures of her flashing urn!
Yet bears my stream, as o’er the rocks it raves,
Not tribute, but defiance to her waves.
SONNET.[147]
Gay trips my nymph along the green retreat,
With frolic airy steps; and where they go
Fresh florets rise in twice their wonted glow;
Yellower the sun-beams o’er the meadows fleet,
Or fancies fond possess me. Her light feet,
Glancing along, no other traces show;
They bend not the young grass, that springs to meet
The falling arch of April’s showery bow;
Nor bruise the emmet on her busy way;
And if the downy blow-ball flies its stalk,[148]
So would it fly beneath the gentlest play
Of western winds; when, with his tuneful talk,
Amid new leaves, each songster of the grove
Cheers on her mossy nest his listening love.
A MEDITATION.
In every season, every change of life,
To give that zest which she can only give,
Hope must preside incessant. Poverty,
With all her train of ills;--th’ unerring grasp
Of grief and sickness;--thy soul-wasting powers,
Pale-ey’d Captivity! without the aid,
Cordial and sweet, of that associate mild,
Who could support? Not e’en the happiest lot
Here, in these low abodes of sin and care,
Sustains her absence gladly.--Not the gifts
Shower’d in the year’s luxuriance; nor yet those
Shook on all sides from Fortune’s golden wheel,
Might satisfy the soul, did not young Hope
Stretch o’er the onward scene her potent wand,
And give them brighter colouring. Thus all
The vapid present yields, in its best mood,
Leaves the sick heart unsatisfied;--but thou,
Enchantress, blest of mission, canst sustain,
Canst animate, and on the vermeil dawn,
The white effulgent noon, and golden eve,
Of bloomy Summer, shed ideal light,
Which more than crowns their beauty. Thou canst lift
With rosy hand, the veils of time, and pledge
To youth the flowers of love;--to manhood point
The paths of wealth and glory;--to worn age
The downy couch, warm hearth, and social friend.
But far beyond all these, sustain’d by faith,
Thou canst extend the Heav’n-illumin’d torch
Gilding the grave; and, past its darksome bourne,
Disclosing the fair realms of joy and love
Where Night and Winter never come;--nor pain,
Nor dread of change;--but one celestial Morn
Purples th’ Immortal Year; and one bright Spring
Of gratitude and bliss exhaustless flows
Thro’ the redeem’d, emancipated soul.
PROEM
TO A COMPOSITION IN VERSE,
INTITLED,
“_The Terrestrial Year passing through the Signs of the Zodiac._”
At Lichfield, in the year 1800, Mr Lloyd, the astronomer, lectured
publicly with a large illuminated Orrery. It exhibited the Solar
System. There we saw the Earth whirling rapidly round on her axis,
with her attendant moons, and passing through the signs of the
Zodiac. Observe, said he, that the Earth enters _Aries_ in January,
with near two thirds of her surface dark;--that, as she passes
through _Taurus_ in February, more of her sphere becomes
enlightened. Entering _Gemini_ in March, you find, on her journey
through that sign, exactly half her globe luminous; hence equal day
and night. You now perceive her in _Cancer_, April, with a larger
portion of her surface light;--and now, in _Leo_, May, yet more of
it is in brightness. Now that she passes through _Virgo_, June, you
see that not so much as one third of her orb is opaque, the rest in
splendour.
Mr Lloyd traced her decreasing portion of light through the
remaining signs, till she became more than two thirds dark in the
December sign, _Pisces_.
When the Lecture was ended, I observed to Mr Lloyd, that I had
always understood Aries and Taurus, to be vernal signs; that Milton
says,
--------------“the bees
“In Spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,” &c.
And Thomson,
“At length from Aries rolls the bounteous Sun,
“And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
“The expansive atmosphere is crampt with cold,
“But full of life, and vivifying soul,
“Lifts the light clouds sublime.”
“Yet, Madam,” replied the astronomer, “the poets are right, and
your lecturer not mistaken. The Sun is in Aries, when the Earth is
in Gemini; he is in Taurus when she is in Cancer;--the Sun is
always in the third sign back from that through which the Earth
passes. I have not traced the Sun’s, but the Earth’s annual
progress through the signs of the Zodiac.”
The Romans, I knew, measured their year by the Sun’s signs, and
made March the first month, when he is in Aries; and that being the
first sign, they place it in the first month of their year; though,
according to Mr Lloyd’s system, the Earth is then in the third
sign, Gemini. Guthrie’s Grammar takes the Roman year, and the solar
signs, allotting the first sign, Aries, to March; but our year does
not begin with March, but with January.
Since Mr Lloyd left Lichfield, the Rev. Mr White of that place,
sent me an astronomical Tract, entitled _Hopton’s Concordancy of
Years_. It is printed in the black letter, _An. Dom._ 1611, and is
dedicated to the famous Sir Edward Coke.--That Tract maintains the
same theory with Mr Lloyd, respecting the Earth’s progress in the
Solar System. It appoints the same signs to the same months,
exactly as they were allotted in Lloyd’s Orrery, viz. Aries to
January, and so on, while the opposite page in the same Tract tells
us that the Sun enters Aquarius on the 10th of January.
A philosophical gentleman observed to me, that the Earth must be in
the sign opposite the Sun, that when he is in Capricorn she must be
in Cancer. If that gentleman was not grossly mistaken, the
above-mentioned Tract shews that Astronomical Professors held a
different theory in the 17th century. If they were wrong, Mr Lloyd
must have lectured upon an exploded system respecting the course of
the Sun’s and the Earth’s signs, as relative to each other. This
would be a strange disgrace to a Professor of Astronomy;--but
Poetry has a prescriptive right to follow new, or old systems as
they shall best suit her purpose. She does not resign, even on the
mandate of Sir Isaac Newton, her privilege of representing the Sun
as diurnally rising and setting;--and we still persist in commonly
speaking of the Sun as on his daily progress from the East to the
West, instead of adverting to the Earth’s revolutions, which
constitute day and night on that part of her surface which
alternately obtains and loses the lustre of the stationary Sun, in
the course of twenty-four hours.
While I attended to Mr Lloyd’s Lecture, the idea struck me that
poetical use might be made of the terrestrial year on its progress
through the signs, as in that Orrery represented;--thus, by
personifying the year as a nymph, and the months also, as nymphs
and swains;--some busied with their emblematic signs;--some paying
their compliments to the year as she passes through those signs in
her progressive course;--and others insulting her declining
progress; while, amid the fanciful imagery, some terrestrial
landscape-scenery might be presented, as in a bird’s-eye prospect
from the Zodiac.
Being asked why I did not rather chuse to take the Roman year, and
trace the Sun through his signs, I replied, that it would, in
comparison, be a common-place theme. Many of our poets have
described, or adverted to the solar signs, and left me nothing new
to say upon the subject. Dr Darwin’s volume on agriculture contains
some fine lines, (if they are not too fine for cabbage-culture,) in
which he beautifully alludes to the Sun’s passage through some of
the signs.
I have considered the year not by the Roman Calendar, but by ours,
as forming new poetic ground, by admitting a construction of the
emblematic signs, as relative to our planet, the Earth.--Hence the
following Poem.
THE
TERRESTRIAL YEAR,
ON HER PROGRESS THRO’ THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.
JANUARY IN ARIES.
Close to her ram cold January clings,
And on his beard her pearly ice-drop flings;
Awakes the shivering Year, yet young, to rise,
Tho’ wild winds whistle thro’ the iron skies.
FEBRUARY IN TAURUS.
Like fair Europa, February stands,
And wreathes her bull’s stout neck with floral bands.
Spurning the frozen circle, loud he roars,
And scorns her snowy and her golden flowers.
Pleas’d, yet with pensive smile, the dubious Year
Welcomes that primal tribute to her sphere.
MARCH IN GEMINI.
March o’er the twins her stormy wing expands,
And fills with violets sweet their infant hands;
They sooth the Year, on her tempestuous way,
Spite of her bleak blue cheek, and kirtle grey.
APRIL IN CANCER.
Young April laughs to see her Crab recede,
Then wets with peevish tears the glistering mead;
Soon, cheer’d again, on high her bow she bends;
On the moist grass one lucid horn descends.
With joy as wayward, she salutes the year,
Placing a crystal crown upon her hair;
With flowers and watry sun-beams wreathes it round,
Then strikes it soil’d and darken’d, to the ground.
Patient our timid Traveller deplores
The wild caprice of April’s veering hours;
Now, ’mid soft gales, throws back her wintry vest,
Now, in the rude storm, folds it o’er her breast;
Turns the soft eye of Hope on lively May,
Serene of smile, nor smiling to betray.
MAY IN LEO.
May, like celestial Una, mild and fair,
Her Lion leads thro’ roseate climes of air;
In chains of hyacinth content to stray,
He neither roars, nor rages on his way.
The blue-ey’d month her gladden’d Mistress greets,
And calls the vales to yield their bosom’d sweets;
Bids morning clouds with orient tinges glow,
Each clear brook warble, and each zephyr blow;
Each silver’d hedge, each arbour, newly blown,
And blossom’d fruit-tree, smile upon the sun;
From their green centre, while the plumy throng
Pour the wild music of the woodland song.
JUNE IN VIRGO.
June meets the Virgin with triumphant air,
Each the gay handmaid of the passing Year;
Charm’d they survey her, ’mid the zephyrs bland,
Bright and consummate, on the zenith stand.
She views on earth’s warm fields, the rustics blithe,
Sweep thro’ the shivering grass the gleamy scythe;
Stout maids th’ exhaling treasure shake around,
And ringing wains, yet empty, beat the ground.
Now heap’d, thro’ lanes, she sees them nodding slow,
Scattering their fragrant litter as they go.
So pass the hours of long-protracted light
Till glimmering falls the scarcely curtain’d night.
JULY IN LIBRA.
And now the Year, first with descending pace,
Slow down the Zodiac comes with smiling grace.
July the yet unfaded beauty hails,
And weighs her various gifts in golden scales.
Luxuriant roses his moist temples shield
From beams that smite the hill, and parch the field;
Thro’ the hush’d grove the lazy breezes sigh,
And half the river’s pebbly bed is dry.
AUGUST IN SCORPIO.
The glowing Year glides on, and to her clime
Lo! zoneless August gives the golden time!
Threads, indolent of step, th’ etherial bound,
And hears beneath the reaper’s shout resound;
Observes bright sheaves, like troops of dancers, stand
On hills, and laughing fields, and crown the land;
Sees full fruits redden in the sultry ray,
Peer thro’ the leaves, and bend the loaded spray.
She bids her Scorpion hear the reapers sing,
Sheath the fierce claw, nor dart the venom’d sting;
But, from the waning dog-star, oft he sheds
On stagnant pools, thick groves, and arid meads,
The deadly virus, whence disease prevails,
Steams from the loitering floods, and breathless dales.
With plenty cloy’d the swart Month saunters on,
And of the Sirian influence fearful grown,
Scarce marks her mistress’ path descending slope,
And leaves obeisance to the months of hope.
SEPTEMBER IN SAGITARIUS.
With looks that speak an apprehensive heart,
The Year perceives her summer joys depart,
Tho’ mild September by her archer stands,
Bearing his arrows in her gentle hands;
Or decks with wheaten ears her bended bow,
While horn and hound the welkin rend below.
OCTOBER IN CAPRICORN.
Now tann’d October and his Goat, appear,
And down the Zodiac lead the faded Year.
Her pensive eyes his dusky hand behold
Paint with fleck’d purple and with tarnish’d gold
His rustling leaves, ere yet they drop, or sail,
Slow circling, on the damp and mournful gale.
NOVEMBER IN AQUARIUS.
November, entering, bids Aquarius bear
His winds, and weltering rains thro’ gloomy air;
Chill, with dense fogs, the cheerless, tardy morn,
Wrap soon-invading night in pall forlorn,
And till December, and his train appear,
Pour the loud urn on the expiring Year.
DECEMBER IN PISCES.
He comes!--his deadly signals round her rise,
The naked branches, and the sunless skies;
Holds in his livid hands, a scaly pair,
Voiceless and dull, the types of her despair.
’Mid snows, that shroud the hard and ridgy land,
Stern, by his side, see blasting Silence stand;
Stretch widely her petrific wand, of force
To arrest the floods upon their eddying course!--
The Year beholds, and with the last dismay,
Her wither’d honours, and exhausted sway.
Mute all her streams!--no sound,--no motion cheers,
Each naked forest stands a pile of spears!
And now, amid the wreck of all she gave,
Shuddering she sinks in the oblivious grave.
INSCRIBED
ON THE BACK OF A LANDSCAPE, DRAWN BY THE
REV. WILLIAM BREE
OF COLESHILL, IN WARWICKSHIRE.
Here, from the hand of Genius, meets your eye
The tangled foliage of a shadowy dell;
Meets it in Nature’s truth;--and see, the brook
Thro’ yon wild thicket work its way oblique,
Hurrying and dashing thro’ the lonely wood!
INSCRIBED
ON THE
BACK OF THE COMPANION LANDSCAPE.
From the same vivid pencil, now appear
The social comforts;--Love them, as they rise
On the soft confines of a scene sublime!
Look up the right-hand glade; it surely leads
To the embosom’d village. Snowy white
The raiment see, which cleanliness prepares
Against the Sabbath morn. The good old horse,
Mark him, he drags, with weary neck, the cart
Bearing to yonder mill the bags, well fill’d
With life’s best nutriment. The mill-house mark,
Standing on the steep verge of the same brook,
Which late we saw laborious work its way
Over rough stones, and crags, and roots of trees,
Roaming the wood-wild solitude;--but now
Bright it emerges to the haunts of men,
To light, to usefulness.--Observe the mill
Dash the white waters from its clattering wheel!
Hark! thro’ the eye we hear it.--Cheering din,
Thou break’st the mountain-silence merrily!
INSCRIBED
ON THE BACK OF A LANDSCAPE, COPIED FROM GLOVER,
BY MISS FLEMING OF LICHFIELD.
It is a golden view, the sunny glow
Sleeps on the water!--Of unnumber’d tints
Gorgeous, this bordering wood, with its proud oak,
That lords it on the bank, have now put on
The burnish’d livery of receding suns,
Ere yet their fires grow pale. Pure, glassy stream,
The forest, skirting to thine utmost edge,
Curtains thee amply; while the far-off hill
Lifts its grey, barren summit, faintly gleam’d.
Look on the herd, how leisurely they pace,
In social line, the narrow, bloomy lane
Descending to the flood! Do you not see
A luxury of quiet in their step,
Congenial to the landscape?--farther on,
In yonder little goats?--how calm they sit
Close to the brink, and with declining head
Muse on their watry image!--Then the boy,
Heedfully following the full-udder’d train
On his staid horse! while up the left-hand glade
Streams the rich setting sun, and on his back
And shoulders warmly plays. No child, I ween,
Of fancy he; for sure his sober eye
Marks little of the beauty he beholds;
Yet we perceive a measureless content
Sit on his sun-burnt cheek. Dale, to thy charms
Pays or the poet’s or the painter’s mind
A better homage?--’Tis a right good boy;
He loves the brutes he follows;--they love him,
And we will say he earns his supper well.
ADDRESS
TO THE
RIVER IN A LANDSCAPE,
BEAUTIFULLY DRAWN BY THE REV. WILLIAM BREE, AND IN
THE POSSESSION OF THE REV. HENRY WHITE
OF LICHFIELD.
After a lonely course thro’ yon deep woods,
And the green quietness of distant vales,
Now, gentle River, to the haunts of men
The rude, stone arches, stretching o’er thy flood,
Note thine approach;--and, as with silent course,
Thou glidest under them, the staid old cow
And lumpish horse above, are driven a-field
By time-worn herdsman. Then, in swifter course,
Thy lately tranquil streams, jocund and loud,
Rush down the wier.--Again, soon calm’d, they flow,
And the young day shines on their glassy train.
So dost thou wander by the pleasant base
Of a clean village, climbing up the steep
And shrubby knoll; while, bosom’d in thick trees,
The church the hill-top crowns.--The day is young;
Clos’d yonder cottage door; the din and hum
Of clamorous infants and laborious man,
Unheard as yet; tho’ from the chimney-tops
The grey smoke, rising to the church-yard trees,
Curls its light vapours round the boughs, and gives
Promise of morning-meal.--Behold the cart,
That late, well loaded, on thy pebbled bank
Had creak’d and crept, at the yet silent mill
Stopt; those kind stores resigning, which shall soon
Employ thy loit’ring waters, and awake
The clattering hubbub of the busy scene.
Adown those rocky stairs, which to thy brink
Lead from the hamlet cots, ere while shall step,
With cleanly pail, light rocking on her head,
The rustic maid, new risen; for she has seen
Thro’ lattice, curtain’d by the briar-rose,
Her cow, slow pacing up thy left-hand bank,
Intelligent of hour; the burden rich
Duteous to yield;--and, yet more welcome, sees,
Not far behind, the youth belov’d, from cops’d
And hay-stack’d tenement, down in the vale.
Yes, and thou soon shalt hear the tender vows
Of true love breath’d; and breath’d in sweeter sound
Than song of linnet, or the quiet tune
Of thine own stream, when hush’d are all the woods.
Mark that clos’d door, for it shall ope ere long;
It is the good Dame’s school;--and in shall creep,
Like bees in spring-time to their dusky hive,
The little troop, and in resembling hum
Mutter the morning task;--but when yon tower
Shall tell, far heard, the welcome tale of noon,
Some striding, and some tumbling o’er the sill,
The infant-tribe releas’d, with clamour loud,
Shall totter down, and on thy shelving bank
Shout, laugh, and squabble, strenuous while they hurl
The frequent stone, dividing thy smooth waves.
But on the morrow Sabbath-bells shall ring,
And ’twixt the matin and the vesper hour,
And at the rosy setting of the sun,
That little, lawless multitude, which late,
Noisy and wild, had clamour’d on thy brink,
In Sunday vestment, and with sober gait,
Walk by their parent’s side, while from each hand
The varied posies, dappled pink and rose,
Woodbine, and fragrant southernwood and thyme,
Scent the wide air. Leisure and quietness,
Apparel clean, and vacant looks, all speak
The sacred day of rest; and thou shalt bear,
From that wood-mantled tower, the holy chimes,
Silver’d and mellow’d on thy liquid course,
To neighbouring farm, or cottage. There we trust
Right welcome is the sound; more welcome still
The Pastor’s voice persuasive, when he speaks
Of hopes eternal. Charitable deeds
Shedding a daily beauty on his life
That makes his doctrines saintly; while combin’d
They form a picture, delicate of trait,
Soft as the scene now mirror’d in thy breast;
While the soft scene, and thou, its mirror clear,
Are all the sweet creation of his hand
Whose touch is genius, and whose life is love.[149]
TO
MISS HONORA SMITH of LICHFIELD.[150]
WRITTEN JUNE 1800.
Screen’d, dear HONORA, by that icy veil
Of virgin modesty, incessant worn,
What playful wit, what plastic genius dwell
Coy glancing sun-beams of thy April morn!
Whate’er thy untaught harmonies impart
From volant fingers to the answering wires;
Or when thy slow strains melt upon the heart,
Sweeping each varying chord, as taste inspires,
At the creative wonders of thy hand
Rapt sons of Science in amazement start,
Listening the strains, that brilliant, soft, or grand,
Rise at thy touch, and smile on baffled art.
And when thy sportive fancies steal abroad,
So wild, so new, grotesque, and strange they show,
Not less we wonder at their cold abode,
Such roses bursting from their sheet of snow!
When filial love, by many a melting tear,
Dropt on thy mother’s breast, its force proclaims,
Surprised we see an ardent heart appear,
A little Hecla pouring forth its flames.
Expanding, strength’ning, may thy mind retain
Its powers, its worth, its latent fires thro’ life!
Priceless the blessing then which they shall gain;
Who hail thee sister, daughter, friend, or wife.
ADMONITION
TO
ROSILDA.
Florio the wild, the frolic, and the loud,
Of curb impatient and of outrage proud;
Skill’d on the turf, familiar in the stews,
Whose lawless senses not a vice refuse,
But young and titled, amorous and gay,
Deigns at thy feet his nuptial wreath to lay,
Admir’d ROSILDA!--ah, in time beware,
Trust not thy peace to the resplendent snare,
Nor from that man of errors hope to prove
The faith and tenderness of wedded love!
Thy fond attention, thy unswerving truth,
Thy beauties, given in such a morn of youth,
As fairly promises their rising sway
A brighter noon and long-enduring day,
While each auxiliar elegance combines,
The wit that sparkles, and the sense that shines.
These rare endowments!--ah, they all are vain,
Habitual vices boast a stronger chain!
Inured to change, change only can impart
Exhaustless transport to the sensual heart.
Blow not the bubble hope, that peerless charms
May bind the wedded wanderer to thine arms,
When soft attractions in a stranger face,
The wanton glance, the gay, voluptuous grace,
Venal, or libertine, his faith invade
Who asks not virtue’s or religion’s aid!
As soon expect, on yonder grassy height
The new-fall’n drifts of April’s winter’d night
Lasting should prove, as when on Jura’s side,[151]
Their pure expanse may Summer suns deride!
Lo! on our humbler mountains dawns the day,
And the warm south-wind meets him on his way;
Wide o’er their fleecy tops the sun shall glow,
And where is then their dissoluble snow?
A MARINE VIEW MORALIZED
ADDRESSED TO MISS ANNE LLOYD OF DERBY.[152]
In tender light, and softly shadow’d round,
Spreads yon smooth bay, with tall and lesser tower;
The distant land, by domes and turrets crown’d,
Gleams, yet almost eludes the visual power.
That slender pinnace, with its folded sails,
Seems o’er the glassy flood to glide serene,
Heedless of altering skies, tempestuous gales,
And future dread convulsions of the scene.
Now let us moralize this pencil’d page;
Perchance, dear maid, it shall admonish thee;
Its traits may oft thy serious thoughts engage,
The towers prove mystic, typical the sea!
View’d as life’s sea the calm and flattering wave;
As Truth and Wisdom’s strength the ampler tower,[153]
Whose fires from wreck may human vessels save
When Fate or Passion’s whelming billows roar.
Should, from yon lesser tower, the lamp of love
Fling o’er the veering deep its roseate ray,
Tho’ not like those, the guardian fires, that prove
Quenchless by storms, rage madly as they may,
Yet, if with tender HERO’S watchful care[154]
Thou striv’st to shield it from tempestuous breath,
May no congenial sorrow prompt thy tear,
Nor hovering danger, nor untimely death!
And be those far-off palaces and fanes
A prosperous city, whence thy bark may bear
Wealth, that used wisely, peace of mind obtains.
Wealth, that pale indigence may smiling share!
Then while, amid the rocks and shoals of time,
The frail love-lighted lamp may gild thy way,
From Wisdom’s tower her fires shall stream sublime,
And mark thy course to Realms of Nightless Day.
TO
CLARISSA.
Sweet maid, who culturest in thy vernal prime
Those plants that flourish ’mid the frosts of time,
Long, with assiduous care, proceed to store
A portion rich of wisdom’s varied lore,
Borne from thy native England’s classic fane,
Th’ historian’s record and the poet’s strain;
The moral pages, tracing to their source
Each subtle passion on its erring course,
And those blest leaves, which can their force controul,
The sacred tome, that anchor of the soul!
Thus when no more exterior blossoms rise,
Nor love’s gay torch shall kindle from those eyes,
The fruits of knowledge, and its lights, will shame
The fading florets, and th’ uncertain flame;
Attention, tenderness, respect ensure,
Which given to merit, shall thro’ life endure.
A FAREWELL
TO THE SEAT OF LADY ELEANOR BUTLER, AND MISS PONSONBY, IN LLANGOLLEN
VALE, DENBIGHSHIRE.
SEPTEMBER, 1802.
O Cambrian Tempe! oft with transport hail’d,
I leave thee now, as I did ever leave
Thee, and thy peerless mistresses, with heart
Where lively gratitude and fond regret
For mastery strive, and still the mastery gain
Alternate. Oft renew’d must be the strife
When, far from this loved region, and from all
That now its ancient witchery revives;[155]
Revives, with spells more potent erst than knew
Your white-rob’d Druids on their Deva’s bank
Aweful to frame; when the loud mystic song,
And louder clang of their unnumber’d harps,
Drown’d e’en the river’s thunder, where she throws
All, all her waters in one rocky chasm,
Narrow, but fathomless, and goads them on
Roaring and foaming, while Llangollen’s steeps
Rebellow to the noise. Ye, who now frame
Your talismans resistless, O! receive,
Ye mild Enchantresses, my warm adieu!
Time, that for me hath pass’d full many a year
On broad and withering pinion, may have quench’d
By the rude wafture of his dusky wing,
Fancy’s clear fires;--Enthusiasm may waste
In her own fruitless energies, and pine,
Vainly may pine for the exhausted powers
Of bankrupt language, bankrupt of the skill
To please, with varied praise, the taste made coy
By riot of encomium; but yet
The benediction of increasing love,
Bless’d pair, receive with no ungracious ear!
When first your Eden in this hallow’d vale
Stole on these eyes; its solemn graces first
Imprest my senses, pliant to their wish,
The muse of landscape came, and to my hand
Her pallet, glowing in ideal hues,
With smiles extended. Straight my doubtful pen
Eager I dipt, and, not unfaithful, rose
Some features of the scene. Yet, even then,
In Friendship’s primal hours, my soul perceiv’d
Feelings, that more defied expression’s power
To speak them truly, than to paint the charms
Of those distinguish’d bowers;--their mountains vast,
Here pale and barren, and there dark with woods;
Yon mural rocks, whose surface still defies
All change of seasons, though they deign to yield,
At intervals, their grey and wannish hue
Purpling to orient suns, and catching oft
The occidental amber; sylvan glades,
Bright fields, and shadowy lawn, whose concave bound
No beam of noon can pierce. Far to the left,
Beyond those walks which the tall branching trees
O’er-arching, darken; past the sunny field
On whose warm breast they open, lo! the shed
On mossy pillars propt, and its screen’d seat
Beneath its slant, thatch’d roof: Ah! pause we there,
For there we wander to the latest verge
Of a lone clamouring brook, which down its slop’d
And craggy channel struggles; for the stones,
Pointed and huge, ceaseless impede and vex
Its passage to the base of the rude mound
That rises opposite this shelter’d seat,
And instant rises. Dark the mound and rude,
But not inflexible. Its rocky steep
No longer spurns, as it had often spurn’d,
The mountain shrubs and trees, when infant roots,
O’er balanced by exterior boughs, possest
No strength to penetrate that rocky steep,
And wind its darkling fissures; till at length,
Art, with unwearied hand, had form’d a shield
Against the brook, that undermines when calm,
When violent, tears; ’gainst the repellant cliff,
And force it to receive in its rude breast
Each stranger-scion;--so, with lucky skill,
The guardian sisters wove their net-work firm
With tough, yet pliant withy, from the base
To flood-mark rising; upright and transverse
Bars, crossing each the other, forming each
Their vacant inch dividual. Therefore now
Nor waters mine the root, nor tear the branch;
Nor cliff, so late impenetrable, checks
Th’ insinuating fibres on their course,
Their thousand arms diverging far and wide,
And to the centre piercing; while the boughs
Bend their green heads o’er the chaf’d brawling stream,
Around the huge stones eddying; fearless now,
Conscious of deep-struck root, e’en when thick rain,
Heavy and loud, has, ’mid the tempest’s roar,
Fall’n vertical; and when the madden’d brook
No longer meets from tranquil human eye
The gaze contemplative. Appall’d we shrink
From the tumultuous flood, that tumbles down
Fearfully deep, and often hurling up
The yeasty billow, while the tide below
Thunders and groans. Remorseless in its rage,
But quickly spent, while under calmer skies,
Or ’mid the balmy drop of quiet rain,
Shallow it rushes, and innoxious raves.
Innoxious, said I? Pardon, clamorous brook!
Thy general course, rage madly as thou may,
Beneath a storm’d horizon, kind is found
And ministrant to man, for pass we yet
A little way along thy turfy bank,
And we shall view, well pleased, thy useful waves
Leap o’er a clattering mill-wheel, high above
In the brook’s hilly channel, ’mid whose brakes,
Thick and entangled, gleams the snowy foam.
See, higher yet on the still rising slope,
Another hub-bub tenement obtains
Ability from this oft violent stream
To yield the first, best nutriment we gain.
Haste to the scene, benignant powers of life,
Mild Lachesis, and gay Hygeia, haste,
From day to day propitious!--on that bank,
Mossy and canopied with gadding boughs,
Spin firm the vital thread! and brim the cup
With juice salubrious! breathing soft, the while,
Dear Eleanora, and her Zara’s name.
CONSOLATION,
ADDRESSED TO MR THOS. H----D, APRIL 1801,
WITH A POCKET-BOOK.
Accept this tribute, H----d, as the pledge
Of my assured conviction that thy trust
Ne’er had been stain’d by those imputed faults
Which hurl’d thee from thy station, where yon towers,
Gothic and grand, arise, diffusing far
The blessings of their Lord. Where still subsists
State, by swoln pride unstain’d; home-residence,
Munificence, with ever-open gate;
Ready supply to want; protection kind,
As Chieftains to their clans in olden time
When tenantry was filial. Haply now,
V----, in thy domain is found, exempt
From feudal vassalage, each feudal good.
H----, ’twas lately thine those lofty halls
Watchful to guard;--those fair and ample lawns
Flank’d with their woods luxuriant; numerous fields
Rich in the food of flocks and herds, that range
A second Canaan; or, of higher use,
Wave wide their bending gold in Ceres’ smile.
Yes; to protect them e’en with Argus’ eyes,
From menial riot, and the injurious arts,
Servile and peculant, was thine;--to spread,
With even hand, the delegated store
Of liberal charity. Then didst thou rouse
To daily action thy experienced skill;
Talents commensurate to highest trust;
Attachment warm, and all the energies
That brave the winter storms, and scorn the suns
Parching the plains at noon-tide; strenuous still
Well to discharge thy duty. Ah, too well,
For thine own safety, was that duty done!
Less faithful service ill could brook the glance
Piercing extortion’s veil; nor would endure
Thy voice of just reproof, nor the firm hand
Curbing profusion. Then were form’d those wiles,
That, woven round thy late confiding lord,
And his ingenuous lady, by degrees,
Disgraced thee in their trust; themselves all truth,
Long deeming faithful those who very long
Had bask’d in their bright rays, while thou to them
Wert but a man of yesterday. And thus
Those smiles benign, that cheered thee through thy months
Of arduous designation, faded grown,
Sunk, ere ’twas long, in that unpierc’d eclipse
Suspicion gendered, which the kindling heart
Suspected without cause, so seldom knows
Patient to suffer. All the Briton woke,
And, for an interval, Discretion lost
Remembrance of that maxim, which enjoins
The servant to submission, meek of eye,
Of voice unmurmuring, howsoe’er accused
Where real fault is none. So did’st thou rush
Into the snare which Falsehood had prepared
To banish whom it fear’d; make thee provoke
The fate which Goodness, by delay, perchance
Had learnt thou did’st not merit. Much I grieved
Talents so rare, and energies so prompt,
Should, through misdeeming, be forsaken found
By thy thrice gracious lord. The deep, dark work
Of evidence untrue, from Hate avow’d,
And from dissembled Friendship; while the last,
Assuming grief for errors well devised,
Won thy abused master to belief.
So sly IAGO warp’d the noble MOOR!
So ZANGA pitied LEONORA’S guilt!
’Twas a black cloud burst o’er thee. For a time
Thou stood’st like a young tree by lightning struck,
Struck, but not blasted. Yet thy leaves did droop
As they would wither. Soon the timely dew
Of springing Hope revived them. In those hours
Mark’d I the starting tear, by manly pride
Dispersed or ere it fell; the quivering lip
And the clear conscience which rebuked thy nerves,
Steadying them quickly. Now the hour is come,
Ample of recompence; th’ illustrious house
That nursed thy youth to virtue, and that gave,
Resign’d thee rather to more arduous trust,
Opes wide its sheltering gates, and reinstates
Him whom it deems incapable of fraud,
Or scarce less guilty negligence; since years
Of faithfulness unswerving, had inspired
Such confidence, as no delusive breath,
Calumniating through interest, could destroy.
Well knows thy generous young lord, that he,
Whom his loved father, wise and good, had train’d,
Trusted, and never found that trust betray’d,
Could not at once apostatize, and rush
On vices unhabitual, that must wrong
His noble patron, while they madly risk’d
Destruction to his own well-founded hopes.
And that young lord, heir of his father’s spirit,
He is the day-spring which succeeds the storm
That shook his forest-tree; his are the dews
In whose kind balm its lately drooping leaves
Smile on the sun!--And he is haply serv’d
By one of proved fidelity, whose heart[156]
No sting of envy feels, no jealous fears
Illiberal; but who welcomes thy return
With all a brother’s gladness. Upright men
Act ever thus, and love congenial worth.
That strain was gratulant; yet, ah! the thought
Is ever grievous, that his lord and thine,
In youth’s high noon, and in the rising hours
Of life and fame, droops heart-struck o’er the tomb;
Turns the impassion’d, recollecting eye,
On a crush’d rose, and its soon-perish’d bud!
Lamented fate! that he should inly pine
In double deprivation; often steal
Beneath the shadowy languish of the moon,
Mourning his blasted hopes; a loved, lost wife,
Fair as the spring when May’s pellucid morns
Crimson the orient; while no sparkling stream,
Fresh from the rock, in those soft hours of prime,
Was purer than her mind. She died!--yet still
All was not lost!--An infant pledge of love,
Sweet transcript of her mother’s charms, a while
Smiled consolation!--but O! second pang
Scarcely less keen, when to the recent grave
Of his soul’s treasure, he resign’d her child!
Yet, surely happiness is still in store
For B----’s virtue, thus severely tried,
When time has balm’d his wounds! in store for him
Who loses not in grief’s funereal gloom,
The care of others’ welfare!--O! for him
May that coy flower of life blossom again,
Twined with no spray ill-omen’d!--So desires
Her heart, which oft has ponder’d and deplored
The lurking cypress in his bridal wreath.
Servant obliged, deserve his guardian love,
Who, with a youthful Daniel’s judgement weighs
A charge improbable; who clears thy fame,
Who gives thee back to fair prosperity
And gratitude’s superior bliss!--Be thine
To serve him long and truly! To that end
Oft pour thy secret soul to Heaven in prayer,
Whose aiding grace, never implored in vain,
When ask’d sincerely, shall direct thy ways;
Shine on the zenith of thy life; illume
Waning existence, and shall pour its light
Into the dreary chambers of the grave;
Confine of boundless bliss, or utter woe,
As faith and virtue, or as scorn and sin
Refine, or stain our being. Faithful thou
First to thy God, from him receive the power
Well to discharge thy debt to human worth.
TO
ROBERT HARPER, ESQ.
SENT TO HIM THE NIGHT BEFORE HE TOOK HIS BRIDE TO THEIR HOUSE IN LONDON.
This evening’s shade no mirth, no joy beguiles,
Beneath that roof, fair Catherine’s home so long;
Grief, ill conceal’d, in forced and transient smiles,
Sits on each heart, and falters on each tongue.
Yes, Harper, e’en on thine;--since, if thy brow
From Nature’s hand its candid traits obtain’d,
Thou hast an heart to feel for all who know,
And love and lose the treasure thou hast gain’d.
Long on your mutual fate, that every star
Propitious to the weal of life may shine,
Still shall my soul implore, when distant far
From her, whose hand, and vows, and heart are thine,
Oft as her form shall to my memory rise,
And wake, with kindest wishes, selfish sighs.
BALLAD
IN THE
ANCIENT SCOTCH DIALECT,
AULD WILLIE’S FAREWELL,
A Free-Booter, taken in a Border Battle, and condemned to be
Executed.[157]
Fareweel my ingle, bleezing bright[158]
When the snell storm’s begun;[159]
My bouris casements aw sae light,[160]
When glints the bonnie sun!
Fareweel my deep glen, speck’d wi’ sloe,
O’ tangled hazles full;
Green leas and heathery hills, where low[161]
My kine and glourin bull.[162]
Fareweel my red deer, jutting proud,
My rooks, o’ murky wing!
Fareweel my wee birds, lilting loud,[163]
Aw in the merry Spring!
Fareweel my sheep, that sprattle on,
In a lang line, sae braw,[164]
Or lie on cliffs, the rocks aboon,[165]
Like late-left patch o’ snaw.
Fareweel my burn, that wimpling rins,[166]
My clattering brig o’ yew!
My scaly tribe, wi’ gowden fins,
Sae nimbly flickering through![167]
Fareweel my boat, and lusty oars,
That skelp wi’ miekle spray![168]
Fareweel my braes on Tiviot shores,[169]
That cool the Simmer’s day!
Fareweel my neighbours, whase swift steed
O’er Saxon bounds ha’ scower’d,
Soom’d drumlie floods when moons were dead,[170][171]
And ilka star was smoor’d![172]
Maist dear for a’ ye shared wi’ me
When scaith and prey did goad,[173]
And danger, like a wraith, did flee[174]
Along the darksome road.
Fareweel my winsome wife, sae gay,[175]
Fu’ fain frae hame to gang,
Wi’ spunky lads to geck and play,[176]
The flowrie haughs among![177]
Fareweel my gowk! thy warning note[178]
Then aft-times ca’ed aloud,
Tho’ o’ the word that swal’d thy throat,
Gude faith, I was na’ proud.
And pawky gowk, sae free that maid’st,[179]
Or e’er I hanged be,
Would I might learn if true thou said’st
When sae thou said’st to me!
ADDRESSED
TO THE
REV. THOMAS SEDGEWICK WHALLEY,
ON LEAVING HIS SEAT, MENDIP LODGE, IN SOMERSETSHIRE, OCT. 10th, 1804.
Farewell, my friend! who ’mid thy Alpine bowers,
Hast sooth’d and cheer’d my soul, depress’d by woe!
Thine many a potent spell to wing the hours,
And in life’s winter bid the spirit glow.
Yes, e’en tho’ sorrow aid the frost of time,
To blight the forms of fancy as they rise,
Till all of Great, of Lovely, of Sublime,
Is view’d with tearful tho’ admiring eyes.
High on thy mountain-eminence I stand,
Or range the lawny walk, that zones its brow,
See vales, and woods, and lesser hills expand,
As in a map, the verdant steeps below.
Pledges of life, see villas throng’d acquire
Sweet power to socialize the blooming plains;
Pledges of Life Eternal, many a spire
Turn to the orient sun their golden vanes.
While yonder, stretching far its amber line,
Dividing England from the Cambrian strand,
Wide in the blush of morning glows the brine,[180]
That bears our commerce to each distant land.
These, seen from the full shades that crown thy hill,
Or from thy gay Veranda’s light arcade,[181]
With poignant transport must the bosom fill,
If peace and joy its secret sense pervade.
On me the various landscape shines in vain,
Since the grave’s iron slumber seals those eyes
Now, that must never view thy bright domain,
Or meet thy rays of genius as they rise;
Each generous kindness, worth without alloy,
Meet them, and blend with them congenial fires,
O! in that thought, my sensible of joy
Sinks in my breast, and ere it warms, expires.
Nor yet the Tuscan splendours of thy walls,
Where all of elegance and art unite
To charm the eye, that vanish’d sense recalls;--
No, not one spark of its extinguish’d light!
But when I see thee, Friend, thus high upraised
Above pale Envy’s reach, on Fortune’s shrine,
And when my eyes have on those blessings gazed
Which for thy heart the wreaths of comfort twine;
When all her soften’d emanations live
In the consoling sweetness of thy smiles,
Then from thy joys my joyless hours receive
Reflected peace, that transiently beguiles;
Beguiles to sweet forgetfulness the grief,
That dim in deprivation shrouds my heart;
Mine, while life still is mine, be that relief
A Friend’s dear bliss now only can impart.
Long be thy gentle consort the mild light,
Shedding content o’er all thy waning days!
And may they stretch with long protracted flight,
And bear to Heaven thy grateful pious praise!
And may Distemper’s mist from thee and thine,
Thy lovely FRANCES, and thy faithful wife,
Fly, like the rain when Summer mornings shine,
Nor stain with one pale cloud thy eve of life!
EDWY, farewell! to Lichfield’s darken’d grove,
With aching heart, and rising sighs, I go,
Yet bear a grateful spirit as I rove
For all of thine which balm’d a cureless woe.
THE
GRAVE OF YOUTH.
When life is hurried to untimely close
In the years of crystal eyes and burnish’d hair,
Dire are the thoughts of death;--eternal parting
From all the precious soul’s yet known delights,
All she had clung to here;--from youth and hope,
And the year’s blossom’d April;--bounding strength,
Which had out-leap’d the roes, when morning suns
Yellowed their forest-glade;--from reaper’s shout
And cheerful swarm of populous towns;--from Time,
Which tells of joys forepast, and promises
The dear return of seasons, and the bliss
Crowning a fruitful marriage;--from the stores
Of well-engrafted knowledge;--from all utterance,
Since, in the silent grave, no talk!--no music!
No gay surprise, by unexpected good,
Social, or individual!--no glad step
Of welcome friend, with more intenseness listen’d
Than warbled melody!--no father’s council!
No mother’s smile!--no lover’s whisper’d vow!--
There nothing breathes save the insatiate worm,
And nothing is but the drear altering corse,
Resolving silently to shapeless dust
In unpierc’d darkness and in blank oblivion.
TO
MRS SKERETT,
WRITTEN, NOV. 1805.
Of gentle manners, and enlighten’d mind,
Wert thou, Albinia, in thy youth’s soft prime,
When thrice ’twas ours, in converse free and kind,
Short space to gild of swiftly-passing time.
And with thy brother, to whose cultured youth[182]
The classic Fanes their radiant stores display’d,
While warmth of heart, genius, and manly truth,
Then, as through life, his ardent spirit sway’d.
So once again, to blend the soul’s clear stream!
Charm’d would my sense that pleasing view discern,
But hope is cold on the presented theme,
And her dear hands a darken’d mirror turn.
Yet, friends esteem’d, to memory oft ye rise,
Bright from the past, as refluent pleasures cheer;
Though ye no more may glad these mortal eyes.
Far spent my day, and the long night is near!
TO
MISS CATHERINE MALLET.
Yet two short days, my Catharine! then no more,
Beneath our long-loved spires, thy graceful form
Shall lightly glide, to cheer my languid hour
With emanations sparkling, soft, and warm,
Shed from the mind’s rich stores; and with the charm
Of language accurate, by habit taught
Th’ ideal train with happiest powers to arm,
That rise in swift subservience to each thought,
Whether with Reason’s strength, or Fancy’s radiance fraught.
Now damp November’s desolating gale
Covers the brooks with shrunk and yellow leaves;
His iron skies scowl on our darling vale,
Nor aught from sway more stern the scene reprieves.
Of thee, since Destiny my heart bereaves,
Lone wintry sighs in unison ascend
With the chill blast which faded Nature grieves.
On me her griefs, but not her hopes attend;
Spring shall return to her, when distant far my friend!
No Expectation tells, with voice benign,
That future years shall give her back to me!
Thou may’st again behold these turrets shine,
These bowers may spread, these meadows bloom for thee,
But here no more wilt thou thine Anna see!
Yet not for that shroud those mild eyes in gloom!
She twines the cypress wreath, by Heaven’s decree,
For many a victim of the ruthless tomb;
Set are her heart-dear orbs where no blest mornings come!
For thee, loved maid, extracted be each thorn
That lurks amid the roses of thy fate,
Knowledge and Taste are thine, and bid thee scorn
Each shaft of Envy, Falsehood, Pride, and Hate;
For thou hast soar’d where they have never sat;
Traced Genius in his sun-track; with rapt gaze,
Adored bright Nature in her scenic state,
And in thy morn of life, and riper day,
Fed thy clear lamp of Faith from Truth’s unclouded ray!
_Lichfield, Nov. 1805._
IMPROMPTU,
WRITTEN IN THE BLANK LEAVES OF
MISS ANNA BURT’S REPOSITORY OF FRIENDSHIP.
Before thine altar, Virtue, ever kneel
The maid whose beauty charms the kindling heart!
The maid, ordain’d Affection’s power to feel,
In Nature’s truth and in the scorn of Art!
Enchanting ANNA, if aright I read,
Stands in the level of that cordial prayer;
Hers be the rosy and the amaranth wreath,
Which Love and Friendship for the Good prepare!
So may her years in placid currents flow,
Gay as her smile, and radiant as her eye;
Pure as her blush, where those soft colours glow
Warm May diffuses in the orient sky!
Live, gentle Nymph, to bless and to be blest,
Tho’ rare such lot in life’s ambiguous maze;
Transient, at least, be all that wounds thy breast
Till melt thy finite in eternal days!
ELEGY,
WRITTEN AS FROM A FRENCH LADY,
WHOSE HUSBAND HAD BEEN THREE YEARS PRISONER OF
WAR AT LICHFIELD.
Fled are the years Love should have call’d his own,
Bearing my wasted youth they roll’d away;
Dost thou conceive, my husband, how I moan
Thro’ the long, lonely, disappointed day?
Night comes.--Ah! every instant, as it flies,
Feeds my impatience to behold thee here.--
Morning will soon relume the darken’d skies,
But when shall my soul’s morning re-appear?
Each separated moment dost thou count
With a regret solicitous as mine?
Ruthless the foe who swells their vast amount,
And bids thee in unransom’d bondage pine!
For thee, I judge thee by myself, and know,
Dear, hapless Exile! all thou must endure;
The cheerless days, and every heart-sick woe
That Liberty might chase, and Love should cure.
Yet, O! when absence all my soul o’er-powers,
Why does thy pen with-hold the only aid?
When gales blow homeward from the hostile shores,
Why are th’ expected lines of Love delay’d?
Question unwise!--Does not this heart require
Trust in my husband’s tenderness and truth?
What else can slake the slow-consuming fire
My peace that scorches, and that wastes my youth?
Trust in his love my heart demands,--and, Oh!
Another confidence blest power obtains,
Rescuing my senses from severer woe,
Than e’en this cruel banishment ordains;
Reliance that kind Heaven preserves his life,
His health from wasting by Disease’s brands;
That not to their restraints his faithful wife
Owes her late baffled hopes and vacant hands.
If she may judge his feelings by her own,
And grateful Memory urges that she may,
He numbers tear for tear, and groan for groan,
Thro’ the slow progress of the joyless day.
With sweet remembrances my thrilling heart
Full of the Past surrounds itself in vain;
They rise!--they charm!--but soon, alas! impart,
By sad comparison, increase of pain.
No fond deception, nor yet Hope, nor Fear
Arrest the pace of life-exhausting Time!--
He might return!--one word, and he is here!--
Ah! why are bonds for him who knows not crime?
Fierce War ordains them!--Fiend of human kind!--
Fetters and death one murder overtake;
From thee the Guiltless no exemption find,
Thy murder’d millions glut the vulture’s beak!
And from such fate remember, O my soul,
Exile and bonds severe redemption prove;
That thought drops sweetness in the bitter bowl
Quaff’d to the dregs by long-divided love.
Oft to my aid this consciousness I call,
To close the eyes, which still have op’d to weep.--
When Night and Sorrow spread their mingled pall,
That thought distills th’ oblivious balm of sleep.
All things around me seem to expect him here;
My Husband’s favourite robe enfolds me still;
Here have I rang’d the books he lov’d,--and there
Placed the selected chair he us’d to fill.
Again to be resum’d, if yielding Fate,
At length, would give him back to love and me;
Then should I see him there reclin’d sedate,
Our darling children clinging round his knee!
And lo! at yonder table where they stand!--
Their glances o’er the map of England stray;
Ah! on the too, too interesting land
How bends thy ANNISE her intense survey!
And now she smiles, and to her brother turns,
Her finger placed on Lichfield!--there, she says,
There is our dear, dear father!--O! how yearns
My very soul to mark their ardent gaze!
Frequent, this killing absence to beguile,
Anxious I watch, as traits of thee arise,
I see them playing in my ANNISE’ smile,
I meet them in thy FREDERIC’S candid eyes.
Their strengthen’d bloom, their much expanded mind
Shall recompense my beauty’s vanish’d trace;
Yet thou wilt love me more, when thou shalt find
Thy absence written on my faded face.
Dearest, farewell!--tho’ misery now be ours,
Slow time will bring the re-uniting day,
When Thou, and Joy, shall bless these lonely bowers,
By sweet excess o’er-paying long delay!
TO
MISS MANSEL,
OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
Pure are the orient tints of early bloom,
That o’er thy cheek, in soft suffusion, play;
Bright are the streaming lustres, which illume
The silent eloquence those eyes convey.
So pure, so bright, as opening life aspires,
Dear ISABELLA, be thy happy youth!
And may thy soul’s hereditary fires
Guide thee indevious to the shrines of Truth,
And set thy pleasures on a scale so high,
That all which frolic Beauty’s hope impels,
Insidious Flattery’s betraying joy,
Intrigue’s light page, and Dissipation’s spells,
Shall meet seduceless the undazzled gaze,
That Nature’s charms and Wisdom’s page explores
Beneath pale moons while classic Camus strays,
And when red Morning blushes on his shores!
So shall thy heart, which mild Affection fills,
Be, when fierce Passion’s fatal fervour glows,
Cold as the summit of Helvetian hills
When the sun strikes their unobeying snows.
Then borne o’er each vain wish and idle care,
By the mind’s soaring and superior powers,
Thy painless sighs shall be as vernal air,
Thy tears as dews exhaling from the flowers.
ADDRESS
TO THE
YOUNG ROSCIUS.[183]
E’en as the sun, beneath the Line, comes forth,
Where no prelusive glimmerings warn the night,
Strips her dense mantle from the sabled earth,
And pours himself at once in floods of light,
So on our eyes, young Day-Star, didst thou break,
In dazzling effluence and resistless charm,
Ere in thy soul those passions could awake
That look’d, and breath’d, and lighten’d from thy form.
We saw them, at thy magic call, appear,
Tho’ but till then to manhood only known;
Yes, ere upon thy head the thirteenth year
The violets of a primy Spring had strown.
In all Expression’s subtlest shades they came
Thro’ that Promethean glance, those varied tones,
Love, Jealousy, and Horror, Rage, and Shame,
Their hopes, their fears, their transports, and their groans.
In thee, and in the scorn of gradual Art,
Genius her proudest miracle began;
Gave thee despotic empire o’er the heart,
Long years ere growth and strength might stamp thee man.
Beneath the crown upon that infant brow,
The robe imperial on that fairy frame,
Stream’d all which grace and grandeur can bestow,
All which a monarch’s dignity proclaim.
Thy Proteus soul each garb of feeling wore,
Fire in thine eye, and passion in thine air;
And still became thee, and in equal power,
Garlands of love, and laurel’d wreaths of war.
Now thrice has Phœbus pass’d each duteous sign
Since first thy talents met our wondering gaze;
Still in augmenting lustre seen them shine,
Still scorning, like himself, all borrow’d rays.
Seen the expansion of thy fair renown,
Thy powers, thy graces rising with thy years.--
So bright thy morn, what splendours wait thy noon!
What trains of light, eclipsing all thy peers!
When Youth and Art’s proud summit thou shalt gain,
Passions that now are but illusive deem’d,
Then shall their empire in thy heart attain,
Then _be_ what long, by miracle, they _seem’d_:
And when they glow in all their genuine fire,
Deeply are felt as gloriously pourtray’d,
O! may they nought in actual life inspire
That can thy virtue, or thy peace invade!
Above pale Envy’s reach, thy soaring fame
Long may accordant multitudes attest!
And prosp’rous Love, and pure Religion frame
The shield impassive for thy youthful breast!
And may advancing life for thee display
The gems of knowledge, and of joy the flowers;
Shine unobscur’d on thy consummate day,
With softest sun-set gild thine evening hours.
On wealth and rank while rolls Oblivion’s stream,
Thy memory o’er its whelming waves shall climb,
For thy dear country shall record thy name,
And bind thy splendant wreaths on the dark brow of Time.
A FAVOURITE CATS DYING SOLILOQUY,
ADDRESSED TO
MRS PATTON OF LICHFIELD.
Long years beheld me PATTON’S mansion grace,
The gentlest, fondest of the feline race;
Before her frisking thro’ the garden glade,
Or at her feet, in quiet slumber, laid;
Prais’d for my glossy back, of tortoise streak,
And the warm smoothness of my snowy neck;
Soft paws, that sheath’d for her the clawing nail,
The shining whisker, and meand’ring tail.
Now feeble age each glazing eye-ball dims,
And pain has stiffen’d these once supple limbs;
Fate of eight lives the forfeit gasp obtains,
And e’en the ninth creeps languid thro’ my veins.
Much, sure, of good the future has in store,
When Lucy basks on PATTON’S hearth no more,
In those blest climes where fishes oft forsake
The winding river and the glassy lake;
There, as our silent-footed race behold
The spots of crimson and the fins of gold,
Venturing beyond the shielding waves to stray,
They gasp on shelving banks, our easy prey;
While birds unwing’d hop careless o’er the ground,
And the plump mouse incessant trots around,
Near wells of cream, which mortals never skim,
Warm marum creeping round their shallow brim;[184]
Where green valerian tufts, luxuriant spread,
Cleanse the sleek hide, and form the fragrant bed.
Yet, stern dispenser of the final blow,
Before thou lay’st an aged Grimalkin low,
Bend to her last request a gracious ear,
Some days, some few short days to linger here!
So, to the guardian of her earthly weal
Shall softest purs these tender truths reveal:
Ne’er shall thy now expiring Puss forget
To thy kind cares her long-enduring debt;
Nor shall the joys that painless realms decree,
Efface the comforts once bestow’d by thee;
To countless mice thy chicken bones preferr’d,
Thy toast to golden fish and wingless bird:
O’er marum border and valerian bed
Thy Lucy shall decline her moping head;
Sigh that she climbs no more, with grateful glee,
Thy downy sofa and thy cradling knee;
Nay, e’en by wells of cream shall sullen swear,
Since PATTON, her lov’d mistress, is not there.
TO
LITTLE CATHERINE HARPER,
AGED THREE YEARS,
PRESENTING HER WITH A BLUE SATTIN BONNET.
My gift may suit thee, fairy fair,
Thy dear blue eyes, thy flaxen hair.
In this soft tint sweet violets glow,
In this the early harebells blow;
From their young hours stern Winter flies,
And shines the sun in sapphire skies.
Blue o’er smooth seas the halcyons skim;
Minerva’s eyes in azure swim;
In plain cerulean Luna stands,
When mild she looks on seas and lands.
If sturdy Whigs desire to see
The stubborn nymph, proud Liberty,
The supple Tory looks askew,
And crowns his forehead with true blue.
Hope from the prism this colour chose,
And blue her robe redundant flows.
So, in the tissue of thy fate,
This tint, so gay and fortunate,
All prevalent, dear child, be seen
To chase the pale forsaken green,
The yellow tinge of jealousy,
And every dim and dismal dye!
And may this hue of summer skies,
Of Wisdom’s fair, enlight’ning eyes,
Of vernal harebell’s modest bloom,
Of sea-born halcyon’s little plume,
Of Tory ribands, Luna’s plain,
The vest of Hope, the violet’s stain,
Still prove for thee, as years increase,
Emblem of innocence and peace.
INSCRIBED
ON THE BLANK LEAVES OF THE POEM
MADOC.
Reader, if instant thy soul-lighted eyes
Perceive the claims of Genius as they rise,
Welcome this noblest effort of the Nine,
To deck with epic wreath their English shrine,
Since here they rose, to emulate, at length,
The Mantuan sweetness, the Meonian strength,
And our green vales and silver shores along,
Pour’d Eden’s grand, imperishable song.
Again, in all their pomp, they strike the lyre,
Rapid, and glowing with primeval fire;
And in the Cambrian’s lofty story twine
Each human interest with each grace divine
Of rapt Imagination, when she soars
From common talents flat and glimmering shores,
Her lamp t’ illumine at that orbit prime,
Whose fires are quenchless by the floods of time.
Thus, for the glory of the nineteenth age,
The Epic Muse awakes her sacred rage;
In no false ornaments her numbers shine,--
The diamonds sparkle genuine from the mine.
What harmonies our captive ear engage!
What living landscapes glow on every page!
What characters, in Nature’s force display’d,
With coy Discrimination’s subtlest aid,
In Cimbric regions, and on Indian shores,
Call to the Epic verse the Drama’s powers!
O! mark, the thoughts with truth and virtue beam,
Shewing what God shall judge, and Christ redeem;
The asbestos robe which the chaste style arrays,[185]
Impassive shield from Envy’s lurid blaze;
Where simple, nervous as in early time,
Where plaintive, touching, and where rais’d, sublime.
If thou rememberest through how many a year
Deaf as the grave was found the general ear
To Verse, whose fame is now the nation’s cause,[186]
With scarce one voice appellant from her laws;
How long the owlish orb of general sight
Found mist and darkness in excessive light;
If conscious of each grandeur and each grace,
The Poet’s sun-track thy clear vision trace;
If thy heart throb to see thy native land
Once more the Muse’s eminence command;
And if thy spirit, o’er such glorious lays,
Wait not for tardy precedents in praise,--
Then, generous Reader, then, for MADOC claim,
With voice anticipant, the palm of Fame;
And on each leaf, in patriot pride, descry
The bursting germs of immortality!
Such minds, where never Envy’s cloud appears,
View MADOC buoyant on the tide of years,
Float, like the song, which left the mortal maze
For scenes “where angels tremble while they gaze,”
And, touch’d alike by Genius’ solar ray,
Vanquish Oblivion, and maintain the day!
TO
F. N. C. MUNDY, ESQ.
ON HIS POEM,
THE FALL OF NEEDWOOD FOREST.
Poet of Needwood, much my heart approves
This thy owed duty to his ravaged groves,
The lost! the lovely!--who, in better days,
View’d their each grace reflected in thy lays:[187]
And O! when many a future age has pass’d,
Rolling oblivious o’er his nameless waste,
Its some-time beauties shall again revive,
And in thy pictured strains for ever live.
Come, pensive list’ning, ye once jocund throng,
Whilome that roved those Forest Haunts along!
Explored, with pleasure bright’ning in your air,
Each coy, green labyrinth, and each turfy lair,
Still, as in prime of youth, the wanton Spring
Expanded to the sun her showery wing,
And cliffs, illustrious in their golden bloom,
Rose o’er the glades of light-besprinkled gloom.
Nor absent ye, when Summer’s fervid hours
Dropt more luxuriant curtains on the bowers,
And the vast oak’s writhed arms, of dusky green,
Shadow’d the dappled tenants of the scene;
With rival elm, whose mossy trunk appears
Out-numbering far the lonely eagle’s years.
Nor when the months consummate left their vales
To suns less ardent, less benignant gales,
And Autumn painted, with his tawny hand,
The shrinking foliage; and, in colours bland,
Streak’d the pale red with purple, faint and brief,
And tipt with tarnish’d gold each trembling leaf.
Nor e’en when Phœbus’ steeds, no longer fleet,
With mane dishevell’d, streaming to their feet,
Struggling through clouds, th’ hybernal solstice gain,
Their necks bedropt with globes of freezing rain,
And the loud tyrant of the dying year
Stript other groves, made other forests sear;
For Needwood to his sway disdain’d to yield,
His polish’d umbrage an unfailing shield,
Those numerous hollies on his breast and brow,
That thrust their scarlet clusters through the snow,
Or spread their glossy leaves to transient rays,
The rebel glory of the icy days.
Nor if, ere yet arisen, dim Morning heard
Your light-heel’d coursers paw the dewy sward,
When the sly prowler stole adown the wind,
And hoped he left no tell-tale scent behind.
Vain hope! your swift staunch hounds the scent began;
To right and left their hurrying numbers ran,
Till found the taint, in streaming files they hie,
And in one shrill, continuous clamouring cry,
To which th’ accordant forest joyous rings,
Hang on his rear while o’er the vale he springs;
Dash through the rhymy glades, and round the hills,
As when, receiving tribute brooks and rills,
O’er flinty bed a river foams and roars,
Loud and impatient of meandering shores,
Or, deepen’d, shews the Sun his mirror’d face,
Or zones with silver light the mountain’s base.
Now, come with MUNDY, where the ruin lowers,
He hymns the dirge of the devasted bowers!
Echo his wailing o’er their fallen state,
Whom centuries hail’d irregularly great!
Come, execrate the edict that destroy’d,
Leaving time-hallow’d Needwood bare and void!
There fell Imagination’s rural fane!
Thence fled fair-shafted Dian’s votive train;
All which the bard entranced in forest sees,
Satyrs and Fauns, and leaf-crown’d Dryades![188]
They fled, when Avarice, with rapacious frown,
From Mercia’s temples struck her sylvan crown.
Yet, gentle Minstrel, they whose raptured ears
Drank thy sweet song in the departed years,
Saw oaken wreaths thy auburn brows entwine,
The well-won meed at Needwood’s shadowy shrine,
Shall find thy Gratulation’s vivid glow
Match’d by the Requiem, in its mournful flow;
The orb of MUNDY’S muse-illumined day
Setting with rival, though with milder ray;
Pleased, shall compare the evening with the noon,
And feel, in equal power, the Cypress garland won.
TO
REMEMBRANCE.
Remembrance, while thy precious beam
Shines beauteous on my early life,
How kind a refuge dost thou seem
From worn Existence’ present dream,
Her weariness, her doubts and strife!
Dim are the mists that Time has thrown
On years which fled so fast away;
But, in thy humid lustre gone,
They leave those years, for ever flown,
To rise all lovely in thy ray.
When June’s red dawn had streak’d the plains,
And bade the kindling Orient throw
Her blushes on these Choral Fanes,
They shone, in her slant rosy stains,
Fairer than in the noontide glow.
Then with what fond delight I hail’d
The dawn, which must those eyes unclose
That o’er my destiny prevail’d,
Each joy increas’d, each grief repell’d,
Which in my youthful bosom rose!
E’en to exist was ecstacy,
To feel the sun, to breathe the gale;
Charm’d to expect, to hear, to see
Friends, whose dear smiles were more to me
Than all Peruvian mountains veil!
More rosy than the morn of June
Those happy days, now far removed;
And sweeter than the linnet’s tune,
That gaily choir’d its liquid sun,
The accents of the lips I loved!
But Earth, deprived, no longer seems
In fair ideal light to glow;
Pale as the ice-incrusted streams
Beneath the cold moon’s trembling gleams,
The brightest scene she now can show.
E’en tho’ the gay consummate year
Reveal, in her luxuriant pride,
All that her gorgeous livery wear,
Hills, dales, and woods, reflected fair,
In lake and river’s glassy tide.
Low in the chambers of the grave
Stretch’d are those forms, in iron sleep,
Who to these scenes their magic gave;
Whom vows, nor tears, nor prayers could save,
All, all I loved, and all I weep!
Where, Lichfield, the unrivall’d sway
Brave ANDRE once assign’d to thee?[189]
He bade thee thy spired head display
Amid thy vales, and proudly say,--
I am, and there is none but me!
Enchantress, broken is thy spell,
Snapt thy charm’d wand, eclips’d thy star;
And to the dark and narrow cell
The Spirit points, here wont to dwell,
And spread his purple beams afar.
Yes, the fair Spirit of delight,
So long who made these bowers his home!
Now sad he folds his pinions bright,
And, pondering the sepulchral blight,
Sits mute and sorrowing on the tomb;
Griev’d while I rove each well-known street,
And, with faint step, the fields explore;
Lost, lost the vital hope to greet
The friends, whom there I used to meet,
And whom, alas! I meet no more.
No more, HONORA, shall I see
Thy speaking eyes, that cheer’d my soul!
SAVILLE, the gates of harmony
Eternally were closed to me,
When thou didst pass the Mortal Goal!
No due return of months and years
Shall bring you, ever-loved, again;
Mine are feign’d smiles and genuine tears,
The darken’d hopes, the torpid fears,
And all Privation’s lonely pain.
Yet O! since Death’s avoidless hour,
Remembrance! may extinguish thee,
Beyond the grave disarm thy power
Terrestrial blessings to restore,
Which shone the mind’s soft sun to me.
Lest that should be, with all its gloom,
Life will I cherish to the last,
And grateful for its day of bloom,
Turn from the shadow of the tomb,
To muse and to recall the past.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This poem was written August 1788, on a journey through Derbyshire,
to a music-meeting at Sheffield. The author’s father was then Rector
of EYAM, an extensive village, that runs along a mountainous terrace,
in one of the highest parts of the Peak. She was born there, and there
past the first seven years of her life, and often, in future periods
of her youth and riper years, visited the place with her father, on
several weeks residence. The middle part of the village is built on the
edge of a deep dell, which has very picturesque and beautiful features.
[2] l. 1 _Amber wave_--From the peculiar nature of the clay on the
mountains from which it descends, the river DERWENT has a yellow tint,
that well becomes the dark foliage on its banks, and the foam produced
by a rocky channel.
[3] l. 19 _Now the low beams_--The ancient custom of hanging a garland
of white roses, made of writing paper, and a pair of white gloves, over
the pew of the unmarried villagers, who die in the flower of their
age, is observed to this day in the village of EYAM, and in most other
villages and little towns in the Peak.
[4] These verses were not sent to Mr Cowper, on account of the reported
depression on his spirits, and were during his life-time, for the same
reason, with-held from the press.
[5] l. 1. _I would not enter_, &c.--The line and half, with which this
poem opens, are taken from the TASK. So says its author of those who
feel no pang of conscience for having set their foot upon a noisome
reptile.
[6] l. 22. _Bolt of sarcasm_--See the invidious ridicule of the
Stratford jubilee in the 6th Book of the TASK, a poem whose descriptive
powers are always admirable, and whose morality and piety are often
sublime.
[7] l. 2. _Grudging eyes_--The use of that word here has been objected
to, as too low an expression and unmusical; but surely it had been
unwise to have expunged it, because it may be familiar in the dialect
of our peasantry, since the English vocabulary has no word which would
exactly give its meaning in the two passages where it occurs in this
Remonstrance. Learned men have asserted, that _grudge_ has no precise
synonime in any language. Its harsh sound, where an harsh feeling is to
be expressed, cannot be a just objection. Neither the words _envious_,
or _malignant_, nor yet _unwilling_, or _reluctant_, convey its perfect
meaning. The two first are too strong, the second not strong enough.
Grudge is a word so peculiar in its signification, that it should not
be banished from serious poetry. It stands between unwillingness that
our neighbour should possess a certain good, and hating, or envying him
its possession. Grudge denotes a feeling stronger than reluctance, yet
less bitter than hatred, less vile than envy; and finally, it has been
used by our best writers in their serious strains, as the authorities
in Johnson’s Dictionary prove. If false refinement has rejected any
word, the loss of which cannot with precision be supplied, and which
has no indecent meaning, those who wish rather to write nervously than
nicely, should endeavour, by using it themselves, to recall the exile.
Cowper, in the Task, has the word _grudge_ twice, see book iii. page
119, first edition.
[8] l. 10. _Kindred mind_--Rev. ---- Gastril, who having bought the
premises on which it stood, cut down Shakespear’s mulberry tree,
inhospitably to preclude the request of travellers to pay visits of
poetic veneration to the tree planted by the great poet of England.
[9] l. 15. _In a strain_--Vide 6th Book of the Task.
[10] l. 20.
“Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
“Like bold Briareus with his hundred hands!”
He certainly composed his Oratorios for a band whose complete
number the comparative fewness of musical performers rendered then
unattainable.
[11] l. 10. _Is vice_--The appropriation of those sums to charitable
purposes which were collected at the Handelian commemorations, places
the injustice of Cowper’s sarcasm upon a level with its absurdity,
accusing them, as it does, of a profane and idolatrous tendency.
[12] l. 13. _Beauteous strain_--See latter part of the first book of
the TASK. The episode begins,
But far above the rest, and with most cause
I pity thee.--
[13] l. 2 _Everlasting Light_--When this Remonstrance to Cowper was
written, its author only knew him in his publications. Mr Hayley’s
Biography of that unfortunate man softens, by excited pity, the
indignation which had arisen from the ungenerous passages reprobated
here;--but the delineation of Cowper’s character, and the records of
his life, compared with the illiberal censures which disgrace the
interesting and beautiful pages of the TASK, teach us, more than ever,
to deplore the dire Calvinistic principles, which ruined his peace, and
which could so freeze and narrow a heart, which Nature had made warm
and expansive. They taught him to anathematize for departed genius,
sublimer and more extensive than his own, Shakespear and Handel, that
praise for the magnificent talents they had cultivated, which his
published letters prove him to have been desirous to obtain for his own
poetry. March 1806.
[14] This, and the ensuing version, are not calculated for the admirers
of Ossian. Those who have a true taste for him, in the simple grandeur
of the translation in solemn prose, will think, with the author of this
Miscellany, that the most sonorous rhyme and best constructed measure
cannot improve his poetic charms. But there are people of genius,
who have fervent taste for lyric excellence, that consider poetry,
divested of measure, as bombastic prose. Influenced by that prejudice,
they perceive neither grandeur nor beauty in the awful and striking
imagery of the old Bard. The author of the above paraphrase, convinced
that the songs of Ossian contain poetic matter, potent to elevate and
render beautiful, any mode of composition, here tries the effect of
that, in which Pope has given us a still more ancient Bard than Ossian.
The passages very well bear being detached, and form in themselves a
perfect whole. She thinks the ghosts of CRUGAL, and CUCHULLIN, vie in
sublime and mournful grace with those of PATROCLUS and of HECTOR--with
that of MARGARET in the exquisite ballad, and almost with the SPIRIT,
in the Book of JOB, which passed before the eyes of Eliphaz, amid the
visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men.
[15] Since Dr Salt, of Birmingham.
[16] He died September the 3d, 1790, the week after he had conducted
the Musical Festival, at Birmingham. He sung in the New Church in
that town, “_Thy rebuke hath broken his heart_,” from the MESSIAH,
with great feeling, after he had been treated with cruel disrespect
by a part of his audience the preceding evening, who hissed, on a
mistaken supposition that he was intoxicated, when they saw him so much
oppressed by a song of parental woe, in JEPTHA, that he was unable to
finish it.
[17] It is gratifying to see this tribute of generous eulogy paid to
the memory of a gallant, unfortunate English officer, by a Frenchman,
whose nation was at war with ours, at the period of Major André’s death.
[18] The author put this Ode into verse, December 1790, from the prose
inserted below. In 1797, it appeared, translated by Mr Mason, in his
third volume of poems, then given to the world. His translation,
inverting the order of Harold’s triumphs, produces anti-climax, a
defect from which the original is free. After the boast of defeating a
mighty army, and of having slain their leader, it is bathos to exult in
the feats of riding, rowing, swimming, skating, &c.
[19] “The Scandinavian women were chaste, proud, and tenacious of their
lover’s glory, despising such as spent their life in obscurity. We,
therefore, often find an hero minutely detailing his accomplishments,
and pursuits, to the object of his passion, as in the following Ode of
Harold the Valiant.”--_See Alexander’s History of Women._
[20] l. 1. _Ocean blue_--“One day we were but sixteen in a vessel.
A storm arose, and swelled the sea. It filled the loaded ship, but
we diligently cleared it away. Thence I formed hopes of the happiest
success in love--but a Russian maiden scorns me.
“I know how to perform eight exercises. I dart the lance. I sit firmly
on horseback--I tune the pipe--I lead the dances--I am inured to
swimming--I am skilful at the oar--I know how to run along the ice with
skates--I fight valiantly;--and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.
“I was born in the high country of Norway, where the inhabitants handle
their bows so well, but I preferred guiding my ships amidst the rocks
of the ocean, far from the habitations of men. I have run through all
the seas with my vessels--and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.
“My ships have made the tour of Sicily--we were all magnificent and
splendid. My brown vessel, full of mariners, rapidly rowed to the
utmost extent of my wishes. Wholly taken up with war, I thought my
course would never slacken, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.
“Can she deny that on the great day when, posted near the city, I
joined the battle, and fought against the people of Drontheim? Their
troops trebled ours; it was a dreadful conflict. I valiantly handled my
arms, and left behind me lasting monuments of my exploits. I left the
renowned king of Drontheim breathless on the field, and yet a Russian
maiden scorns me.”
[21] l. 4. _Religion’s lustre_--Mrs H. More established Sunday schools
in her neighbourhood.
[22] See Mason’s quarto edition of Gray’s Poems and Letters, published
1775, page 168.
[23] This attempt is boldly paraphrastic. It appeared to the translator
that Gray must mean more than he has, at least, perspicuously
expressed, when he says, in this latin ode, that “the sublime scenery
round the Chartreuse inspires him with more religious reverence than
the statues of Phidias, adorned with gold.” Strange indeed, if it did
not; since, though such objects may excite admiration of human skill,
they have no obvious tendency to inspire devotion. Surely that was
saying too little for those awful monuments of their Creator’s power,
which inevitably lift the serious and feeling heart to its God. The
above English version ventures to make the poet say what he must have
meant;--that he there more powerfully feels the presence of the Deity,
than amid the pomp of the Romish altars, adorned with pictures, and
statues, steaming with incense, and blazing with gold. The translator
also takes the liberty to add another, and more pious idea to that,
with which Gray’s latin ode somewhat abruptly concludes.
[24] l. 6. _Endless day_--In his edition of his friend’s works Mason
observes, that this latin poem is “marked with some of the finest
touches of Gray’s melancholy muse. The extreme gloom and disgust to
the world, breathed through its stanzas, probably resulted from his
disagreement with Mr Walpole, which occasioned his premature return
to England.” Gray’s letters thus describe the situation of the grand
Chartreuse:--“We proceeded on horses which are used to the way, up
the mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top; the
road winds up it, generally not six feet broad. On one hand, rocks,
with woods of pine-trees hanging over their heads; on the other, a
monstrous precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom of which rolls
a torrent, that sometimes tumbling amongst the fragments of stone,
which have fallen from above, and sometimes precipitating itself down
vast descents, with noise like thunder, which is still increased by
the echoes from the mountains on each side, concurs to form one of
the most awful, the most romantic, the most astonishing scenes I ever
beheld. Add to this, the strange views made by the cliffs and craggs on
the other hand, which in many places throw themselves from the summit
down to the vale, and the river below, and you will conclude we had no
occasion to repent our pains.”
[25] l. 8. _Lov’d Maria’s_--Miss Gresley, then fourteen. Sir Nigel’s
eldest daughter.
[26] l. 12. _Bright Louisa_--Miss Louisa Gresley, Sir Nigel’s sister,
since Mrs William Gresley.
[27] That ingenious and learned gentleman had seen his charming Poem
absurdly and arrogantly criticised by one of the periodical Censors.
Amidst other utterly groundless objections, he accused the poet
of unlicensed and affected verbalism, instancing particularly the
words _slumberous_, and _memorize_. For both, Johnson shews the high
authority of Shakespear, Milton, and Pope; and for the latter, a prose
sentence of eminent beauty by Wotton, thus:--“Let their lives, which
were bravely lost, be memorized on the full tablets of time.” After
accusing Mr Polwhele of affectation in using them, the critic proceeds
to assert that such expressions have the effect of a November fog,
in completely annihilating every thing like sense and beauty in a
composition. Now, it is evident, that were they as unhappily, as, in
fact, they are happily used, their mal-influence could extend only to
the sentence in which they are found; and since he cannot deny that
they are clearly intelligible, at least, it is impossible they can
have the obscuring effect of a fog, even upon that single sentence.
The critic who could use such an inapplicable metaphor in prose, is
miserably incompetent to sit in judgment upon poetry, and under the
proud name too of the British Critic. By the same decider was the
author of these poems accused of rendering several of her passages
nonsense by the use of the word thrill. The following were some of the
lines instanced. Speaking of Roubilliac’s glorious monument in Wrexham
Church, she says,
“The sainted maid, amid the bursting tomb,
“Hears the last trumpet thrill its silent gloom.”
And also,
“Marks the soft tear from thrill’d remembrance sprung.”
Also,
“What strains Eolian thrill the dusk expanse.”
This critic must be poorly read in Milton, Pope, and Gray, and indeed,
in all our best poets, since in them he might repeatedly find the word
thrill used in the same sense Johnson thus defines it as a verb active,
“to thrill, to pass with a shuddering sensation.” Our hearts, or our
memory may certainly be thrilled either by pleasure, pain, surprise, or
terror, and so, in the language of poetry, may the tomb, the air, and
other things, which are literally inanimate.--Milton says, in his hymn
on the nativity,
“Nature, that heard such sound
“Beneath the hollow round
“Of Cynthia’s seat the airy region thrilling.”
And Addison,
“Ran thro’ each nerve, and thrill’d in every vein.”
And Prior,
“His killing pleasure, his extatic smart,
“And heavenly poison thrilling thro’ thy heart.”
But of similar use of the word thrill, the instances are endless.
[28] l. 4. _Dim thoughts_--Mr T. Warton has shewed how largely Milton
drew from the English poets who preceded him.
[29] l. 7. _Johnson’s tomes_--Lives of the Poets.
[30] l. 3. _More learn’d_--It is well known that, with the exception
of Chaucer, Johnson knew little of our early obsolete poetry. Mr T.
Warton, in this his ingenious and learned work, shews us the _prima
stamina_ of an infinite number of those poetic flowers which adorn
the juvenilia of Milton’s muse. The style of Mr T. Warton’s notes is
eloquent in the first degree. We often find passages whose oratoric
force and beauty equal the finest sentences of Dr Johnson.
[31] l. 2. _Kind record_--A Tour through England and Wales was
published in 1793, by Edward Clark, Esq. brother to the gentleman whom
the above Impromptu addresses. Mr E. Clark’s volume is adorned with
aquatinta drawings. Lichfield is described there, and very flattering
mention made of the Author of this Miscellany.
[32] Mr Repton took the view from the drawing-room window, in the
Bishop’s Palace at Lichfield, the home of the author from her earliest
youth.
[33] l. 10. _Mild Penates_--The Penates, or Lares, are the household
gods. There is a beautiful hymn to them in Mr Southey’s Miscellany.
[34] l. 11. _White plumes_--It is mentioned by the historians, that
in the field of Agincourt, the white plumes of the king’s helmet were
always seen waving in the front of the battle.
[35] l. 4. _Cressy’s thundering field_--Cannon were first used by the
English at the battle of Cressy.
[36] l. 9. _Fierce hyena_--Cooler reflection, and a long experience
of the mischiefs resulting from the sanguinary system which this
government has unwarned pursued through the last 14 years, have
justified this Poet’s representation of Henry the Fifth’s conduct in
invading France, and convinced me that the deprecation in JOAN of ARC
of monarchical ambition and rapacity, under that proud and specious
term _Military Glory_, proceeded from benevolence to the Human race,
and from a spirit of justice too firm to be warped by the vanity of
national enthusiasm.--ANNA SEWARD, _Sept. 1807_.
[37] l. 1. _Dubious omens_--According to the records of Lewis Owen, the
year 1349 was distinguished by the first appearance of the pestilence
in Wales, and by the birth of OWEN GLENDOUR. Hollingshed relates the
marvellous tale of his father’s horses, being found that night in their
stables, standing up to the middle in blood. The Bard, IOLO GOCH,
mentions a comet, which marked the great deeds of Glendour, when he was
in the meridian of his glory.--_See Mr Pennant’s Tour._
[38] l. 8. _Death on his pale horse_--Isaiah.
[39] l. 14. _Richard’s reign_--Richard the Second.
[40] l. 11. _Imperious Henry’s_--Henry the Fourth.
[41] l. 2. _Love-devoted Vale_--_Vaucluse_, the celebrated valley near
Avignon, in which Petrarch composed his beautiful sonnets to Laura.
[42] l. 3. _Din’s Brinna’s cone_--In 1390, Castel Dinas-Brân, now a
bare ruin, was inhabited by the lovely Lady MIFANWY VECHAN, of the
house of Tudor Trevor. She was beloved by the BARD HOEL. _See_ _Mr
Pennant’s Tour_, adorned by a pleasing translation in English verse,
of one of Hoel’s poems in her praise, and complaining of her coldness.
The ruins of Castel Dinas-Brân, are on a conoid mountain of laborious
access. It rises in the midst of Llangollen Valley.
[43] l. 11. _Eglwyseg rocks_--_Rocks of the Eagles._ They are opposite
Castel Dinas-Brân. The Rev. Mr Roberts of Dinbren asserts, that the
word _Eglwyseg_, has that interpretation. Mr Pennant derives it from
the name of a gentleman, to whose memory the neighbouring column was
erected; though, in another part of his Tour, he mentions Leland’s
testimony, that a pair of eagles built annually in the Eglwyseg
rocks, and that a person was let down in a basket to take the young,
with another basket over his head, to protect him from the fury of
the parent-birds. This tradition favours Mr Roberts’ etymology. That
Gentleman has lately added largely to his paternal house, situated
on a noble mountain in Llangollen Valley. The house stands near its
craggy summit, and looks as if it had been scooped out of the rocks.
A very narrow valley, containing two sloping copses, and a few bright
little fields, with a woody lane winding between them, divides Mr
Roberts’ mountain from the opposite elevation of Castel Dinas-Brân.
The south-east front of the house looks immediately into this narrow
valley; the barren, and very singular Eglwyseg rocks on the left, and
Castel Dinas-Brân in front. Between the base of the latter, and the
sloping foot of his own mountain, Mr R. has the bird’s-eye prospect
of Llangollen Town, and a part of the Vale.--The author of this Poem,
is indebted to the friendly hospitality of Mr and Mrs ROBERTS, for an
opportunity of contemplating the beauties of their own scene, and of
the celebrated Valley of Llangollen.
[44] l. 3. _Peerless twain_--Right Honourable Lady ELEANOR BUTLER, and
Miss PONSONBY, now seventeen years resident in Llangollen Vale, and
whose guest the author had the honour to be during several delightful
days of Summer.
[45] l. 11. _Minute Lyceum_--The Library, fitted up in the Gothic
taste, the painted windows of that form. In the elliptic arch of
the door, there is a prismatic lantern of variously tinted glass,
containing two large lamps with their reflectors. The light they
shed resembles that of a volcano, gloomily glaring. Opposite, on the
chimney-piece, a couple of small lamps, in marble reservoirs, assist
the prismatic lantern to supply the place of candles, by a light more
consonant to the style of the apartment, the pictures it contains of
absent friends, and to its aërial music.
[46] l. 6. _Evening-diamond_--Evening star.
[47] These lines with inverted commas, are from Thomson’s Castle of
Indolence.
[48] l. 5. _Valle Crucis_--The picturesque ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey,
one of the most striking objects in this Valley. They are particularly
described by Mr PENNANT, and there are engravings of them in his Tour.
[49] l. 19. _Grim Idol_--Superstition.
[50] l. 8. _There Fletcher_--Mrs Fletcher of Gwernheyled--Gwernheyled,
means _Sunny Alders_.
[51] l. 1. _Sister Apperlys_--The two Miss Apperlys.
[52] l. 3. _Friendly Price_--Mrs Parry Price, late of that
neighbourhood.
[53] l. 7. _Cunliffe’s eyes_--The Lady of Sir Foster Cunliffe, Baronet.
[54] l. 15. _Hayman’s song_--Watkin Hayman, Esq.
[55] l. 11. _Albion’s long distinguish’d fanes_--Westminster.
[56] l. 13. _Sainted Maid_--Mrs Mary Middleton’s monument by
Roubilliac, in the Chancel at Wrexham.
[57] l. 22. _Randal’s Harp_--Mr Randal, organist of Wrexham; an
exquisite performer on the pedal harp. He has been blind from his
infancy.
[58] _Hoyle Lake_, the real name, better suited to verse than its
recently assumed appellation, _High Lake_.
[59] l. 3. _Cheerful Dome_--The large and handsome Hotel, built in the
year 1792, by Sir John Stanley, and which converts these pleasant Downs
into a commodious sea-bathing place.
[60] l. 14. _Of Deva_--Deva, the classical name of the Dee.
“Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.”
_Milton’s Lycidas._
Also Prior, in Henry and Emma.
“Him, great in peace and wealth, fair Deva knows.”
Milton probably uses the epithet _wizard_, in allusion to the rites
and mysteries performed on the banks of the Deva, or Dee. In Spencer,
the river is made the haunt of magicians. That fine poetic scholar and
critic, the late Mr T. Warton, observes, in his Edition of Milton’s
lesser Poems, that Merlin used to visit old Timon in a green valley, at
the foot of the mountain, Rauran-Vaur, in Merionethshire, from which
mountain the river Deva springs. _See_ _Fairy Queen_, B. 1. C. ix. V.
4. In Drayton, an old poet, with whose works Milton was familiar, it is
styled “the hallowed, the holy, the ominous flood.”
[61] l. 10. _Moel-y-Fammau_--The first word spoken as one syllable, as
if spelt _Mole_. The name signifies in Welch, _Mother of Mountains_. It
is seen in the Hoyle-Lake prospect, behind the Flintshire Hills, and
considerably higher than any of them.
[62] l. 8. _Amber Isle_--The Sand Island, six miles long, and four
broad, which lying in the sea, a mile from shore, forms the Lake; and
breaking the force of the tides, constitutes the safety of that Lake as
an harbour and bathing-place.
[63] l. 91. _These Downs_--King William encamped his army on the Hoyle
Lake Downs, before he took shipping from thence, on his victorious
expedition to Ireland.
[64] Doctor Hicks’ literal prose translation in his _Thesaurus
Septentrionalis_, of this ancient Norse Poem, is here given to
gratify the reader’s curiosity; also to show that it is used only as
an outline, and that the following Poem is a bold Paraphrase, not
a Translation. The expressions in Dr Hicks’ prose, have a vulgar
familiarity, injurious to the sublimity of the original conception.
A close translation, in English verse, will be found in a valuable
collection of Runic Odes, by the ingenious and learned Mr Mathias.
After his example, some slight changes have been made in the names, for
their better accommodation to the verse.
_Hervor._--“Awake, Argantyr!--Hervor, the daughter of thee and
Sauferlama, doth awaken thee! Give me out of the tomb the hardened
sword which the dwarfs made for Sauferlama.”
“Hervardur, Hiarvardur, Hrani,--with helmet and coat of mail, and a
sharp sword, with shield and accoutrements, and a bloody spear, I
awaken you all under the roots of trees. “Are the sons of Andgrym, who
delighted in mischief, now become dust and ashes?--Can none of Eyvor’s
sons speak to me out of the habitations of the dead?”--
“Hervardur, Hiarvardur, Hrani!--so may you all be within your ribs, as
a thing that is hanged up to putrify among insects, unless you cause
Argantyr to deliver up to me the Sword which the Dwarfs made, and the
glorious belt!”
[65] l. 17. _Semblance cold_--According to the Gothic Mythology,
the spirits of Heroes slept in their bodies, which did not decay.
Putrefaction, therefore, was the heaviest curse that could be denounced.
“Never shall enquirer come
“To break my iron-sleep again,
“Till Lok has burst his ten-fold chain.”
_Gray’s Descent of Odin, from the_
_Norse Poetry._
“_Argantyr._--Daughter Hervor, full of spells to raise the dead, why
dost thou call so?--wilt thou run on to thine own mischief?--Thou art
mad, and out of thy senses, who art desperately resolved to awaken dead
men!”--
“I was not buried either by father or other friends--Two which lived
after me, got Turfing, one of whom is now possessor thereof.”
“_Hervor._--Thou dost not tell the truth--so let Odin hide thee in the
tomb, as thou hast got Turfing by thee. Art thou unwilling, Argantyr,
to give an inheritance to thy only child?”
“_Argantyr._--I will tell thee, Hervor, what is to come to pass.
This Turfing will, if thou dost believe me, destroy almost all thy
offspring.--Thou shalt have a son, and many think that he will be
called _Hydrec_ by the people.”
“_Hervor._--I do, by enchantments, make that the dead shall never know
peace, or rest, unless thou deliver up to me Turfing.”
“_Argantyr._--Young maid, I say thou art of manlike courage, who dost
roam, about by night to tombs, with spear engraven by magical spells,
with helmet and coat of mail, before the door of our hall.”
“_Hervor._--I took thee for a brave man before I found out your halls.
Give me out of the tomb the workmanship of the Dwarfs, which hates all
coats of mail.--It is not good for thee to hide it.”
“_Argantyr._--The death of Hialmor lies beneath my shoulders.--It is
all wrapt up in fire. I know no maid of any country that dares take
this Sword in hand.”
“_Hervor._--I shall take and keep it in my hand, if I may obtain it.--I
do not think the fires will burn that play about the sight of deceased
men.”
“_Argantyr._--O, conceited Hervor, thou art mad! Rather than thou
shouldest in an instant fall into the fire, I will give thee the Sword,
O, young maid, and not hide it from thee.”
“_Hervor._--Thou dost well, offspring of heroes, that thou dost give me
the Sword out of the tomb.--I am now better pleased, O Prince, to have
it, than if I had got all Norway.”
[66] l. 8 _Bickering_--
“And from about him fierce effusion roll’d
“Of smoke, and _bickering flame_, and sparkles dire.”
_Milton’s Par. Lost_, B. vi. line 765.
“_Argantyr._--False Woman!--thou dost not understand that thou speakest
foolishly of that in which thou dost rejoice. Turfing shall, if thou
wilt believe me, destroy all thy offspring.”
“_Hervor._--I must go to my seamen,--here I have no mind to stay any
longer.--Little do I care, O royal friend, what my sons hereafter
quarrel about.”
“_Argantyr._--Take and keep Hialmor’s bane, which thou shalt long have
and enjoy.--Touch not the edges, there is poison on both of them!--It
is a most cruel devourer of men!”
“Farewell, daughter.--I do quickly give thee the twelve men’s deaths,
if thou canst believe with might and courage,--and all the goods that
Andgrym’s sons have left behind them.”
“_Hervor._--Dwell, all of you, safe in the tombs! I must be gone and
hasten hence, for I seem to be in a place where fire burns about me.”
[67] Since deceased.
[68] Since Mrs Thos. White.
[69] l. 9 _Davidean friendship_--Alluding to the friendship of David
and Jonathan.
[70] l. 16 _Virtuous man_--Colonel Cane, Lady Blakiston’s second
husband, a gentleman of distinguished excellence of heart and urbanity
of manners.
[71] This Ode was written on receiving intelligence of Admiral Nelson’s
victory on the Nile.
[72] l. 5. _Party-prejudice_--Alluding to Dr Johnson’s unjust biography
of Milton.
[73] Sister to the Marchioness of Donegall.
[74] I have slightly altered this Sonnet since the Collection was last
published.--ANNA SEWARD.
[75] Afterwards Mrs Edgeworth.
[76] This, and the following Sonnet, have been slightly altered by
their Author since the last edition.
[77] l. 7 _Shaftsbury plain’d_--Of the Poets, who were contemporary
with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden, Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay,
Addison, &c., in the period which this age styles Augustan, his
lordship speaks with sovereign scorn. In his Characteristics he,
without making any exception, labours to prove, that the compositions
of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an author in
the second volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous
reflections, in the third volume; “If,” says he to the authors, “your
Poets are still to be Mr Bayeses, and your prose writers Sir Rogers,
without offering at a better manner, must it follow that the manner is
good, and the wit genuine?”
Thus it is that the jealousy people of literary fame often feel of
each other, produces the foolish and impolitic desire of decrying the
general pretensions of the Age to Genius.--Their narrow selfishness
leads them to betray the common cause which is their true interest to
support. They persuade the credulous many, with whom envy of superior
talents increases their willingne to despise, that imagination is
become enervated; designing, however, to have it understood, that in
their individual instance exists the sole exception,
“For they would each bestride the narrow world
“Like a Colossus.”
[78] l. 5 _Hours of prime_--“While day arises, that sweet hour of
prime.”--_Milton’s Par. Lost._
[79] This Sonnet is not a Translation or Paraphrase, but is written in
the character of Petrarch, and in imitation of his manner.
[80] This Sonnet was written in an apartment of the west front of
the Bishop’s Palace at Lichfield, inhabited by the Author from her
thirteenth year. It looks upon the Cathedral-Area, a green lawn
encircled by prebendal houses, which are white from being rough-cast.
[81] l. 13. _Dropt with gold_--Kingcups.
[82] This Sonnet was written when the balloon enthusiasm was at its
height.
[83] Petra, and Fossilia, are personifications of the first and last
division of the fossil kingdom. The author of this beautiful Poem
supposes the gnomes to be spirits of the mine performing the behests
of Petra and Fossilia, as the sylphs, gnomes, salamanders, &c. appear
as handmaids of the Nymph of Botany in that exquisite sport of
imagination, the Botanic Garden.
[84] l. 14. _For they do_--The particle _for_ is used in the same sense
with _because_, by Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher.
“But she, and I, were creatures innocent,
“Lov’d _for_ we _did_
_Bea. and Fle. Two Noble Kinsmen._
“---- Nor must you think
“I will your serious and great business scant
“_For_ she is with me.”--_Othello_.
“They’re jealous _for_ they’re jealous.”--_Othello_.
[85] l. 12. _Odorous_--Milton, in the Par. Lost, gives the lengthened
and harmonious accent to that word, rather than the short, and common
one:
----“the bright consummate flower
“Spirit odorous breathes.”
[86] l. 14. _Along the gloom_--“It fadeth at the crowing of the
cock.”--_Hamlet._
[87] l. 14. _Sun-bright zone_--Ensigns of Apollo’s Priesthood.
[88] l. 9. _Young hind_--“Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe.”
_Horace._
[89] In Lichfield Cathedral the funeral rites are performed early in
the morning.
[90] The above Sonnet was addressed to a friend, who had fastidiously
despised, because he did not think it exquisite sculpture, the statue
of a water-nymph in Mr Knight’s singular, and beautiful cold bath at
Downton Castle near Ludlow. It rises amidst a rotunda, formed by rocks,
and covered with shells and fossils, in the highest elevation of that
mountainous and romantic scene.
[91] Then of Sutton Coldfield.
[92] When this Sonnet was written, the subject of it had languished
three years beneath repeated paralytic strokes, which had greatly
enfeebled his limbs, and impaired his understanding. Contrary to
all expectation he survived three more years subject, through their
progress, to the same frequent and dreadful attacks, though in their
intervals he was apparently free from pain or sickness.
[93] When Johnson’s idolaters are hard pressed concerning his injustice
in those fallacious though able pages;--when they are reminded that
he there tells us the perusal of Milton’s Paradise Lost is a task,
and never a pleasure;--reminded also of his avowed contempt of that
exquisite Poem, the Lycidas;--of his declaration that Dryden’s absurd
Ode on the death of Mrs Anne Killegrew, written in Cowley’s worst
manner, is the noblest Ode in this language;--of his disdain of Gray
as a lyric poet; of the superior respect he pays to Yalden, Blackmore,
and Pomfret;--When these things are urged, his adorers seek to acquit
him of wilful misrepresentation by alledging that he wanted ear for
lyric numbers, and taste for the higher graces of Poetry:--but it is
impossible so to believe, when we recollect that even his prose abounds
with poetic efflorescence, metaphoric conception, and harmonious
cadence, which in the highest degree adorn it, without diminishing its
strength. We must look for the source of his injustice in the envy
of his temper. When Garrick was named a candidate for admission into
the Literary Club, Dr Johnson told Mr Thrale he would black-ball him.
“Who, Sir? Mr Garrick! Companion of your youth! your acknowledged
friend!”--“Why, Sir, I love my little David better than any, or all of
his flatterers love him; but surely we ought to sit in a society like
ours, ’unelbow’d by a Gamester, Pimp, or Player.” See Supplement to Dr
Johnson’s Letters, published by Mrs Piozzi.
[94] l. 1. _Youthful Milton lay_--This romantic circumstance of our
great Poet’s juvenility was inserted, as a well known fact, in one of
the General Evening Posts in the Spring 1789, and it was there supposed
to have formed the first impulse of his Italian journey.
[95] In jargon, like the following, copied from a Review, are works
of Genius perpetually criticised in our public prints:--“Passion
has not sufficient coolness to pause for metaphor, nor has metaphor
ardour enough to keep pace with passion.”--Nothing can be less true.
Metaphoric strength of expression will burst even from vulgar and
illiterate minds when they are agitated. It is a natural effort of
roused sensibility in every gradation, from unlettered simplicity to
the highest refinement. Passion has no occasion to pause for metaphors,
they rush upon the mind which it has heated. Similies, it is true, are
not natural to strong emotion. They are the result of spirits that are
calm, and at leisure to compare.
[96] l. 6. _Storied galleries_--“And storied windows richly dight.”
_Il Penseroso._
[97] This Sonnet was written on having read a description of the
Killarney scenery immediately after that of the Vale of Vaucluse,
uncultivated and comparatively desert as the latter has been through
more than the present century.
[98] l. 2 _Green lustre_--The lustre of the brightest of the stars
always appeared to me of a green hue; and they are so described by
Ossian.
[99] l. 1 _Luxurious taste_--The Romans, in general, made no regular
meal till the business of the day was over. They considered a mid-day
feast as a mark of indolence and luxury.
[100] l. 1.--“_Diis miscent superis._ A manner of expression not
unusual amongst the Greeks and Latins, for any eminent degree of
happiness. Unless we adopt this explanation of the words, says Dacier,
we shall make Horace guilty of a manifest contradiction, since a few
lines farther he tells his patron, that his suffrage, not the ivy crown
is that, which will exalt him to the skies. The judicious emendation
of the late Bishop of Chichester, who for _Me doctarum_, reads _Te
doctarum_, removes all objection; and adds beauty to the Ode by the
fine compliment it contains to Mæcenas.”--_Brom. Hor._
[101] l. 7. _Neptune’s fane_--Horace alludes to the custom of the Roman
mariners after a shipwreck--that of suspending their garments, which
had been drenched in the storm, in the temple of Neptune, together with
a votive tablet, on which the circumstances of the danger and escape,
were painted.
[102] He had been twice Consul; was of Brutus’ and Cassius’ party, but
went over to Augustus, who received him with kind respect. However
he revolted from him, persuaded by the friends of Marc Antony, that
the battle of Actium would decree the Empire to that General. The
event, so contrary, brought Munatius back to the feet of Augustus,
but he was not received with former kindness, nor did he deserve it,
and retired, chagrined, to his fine seat at Tivoli, in the wood of
Tiburnus, so called from the neighbouring city, Tibur. There also,
and near the falls of Tivoli, described at full in Mr Gray’s letters,
Horace had a villa. The poet, perceiving the spirits of Munatius
dejected, writes this Ode to reconcile him to his destiny, and to
inspire him with delight in the beautiful scenery by which he was
surrounded; insinuating, that should Augustus banish him, which was
no improbable event, he ought not to despond, but to form his conduct
upon the spirited example of Teucer; who, together with his friends and
followers was banished his native city, Salamis, by his father, because
he had not revenged upon the Greeks the death of his brother Ajax.--The
disinterested design of this Ode, and the humane attention it pays to
a disgraced nobleman, are much to the poet’s honour, who was perhaps,
in general, more disposed to gratulate the powerful, than to sooth the
unfortunate.
[103] l. 1. p. 231. _Far-famed Rhodes_--The capital of an island of the
same name in the Mediterranean, and famous for the Colossal Statue.
[104] l. 2. p. 231. _Mitylene_--The chief city of Lesbos, praised by
Cicero for its advantageous situation, elegant buildings, and fertile
soil.
[105] l. 4. _Tawny Olive’s_--It was believed that Minerva presented the
seed of the olive-tree to the Athenians.
[106] l. 1. _Larissa_--A beautiful city, upon one of the hills in
Thessaly.
[107] l. 11. This surely must be the poet’s meaning in mentioning his
own villa, when he is endeavouring to awaken in Munatius a taste for
the surrounding beauties of his more magnificent seat. Commentators
rationally conclude that some connecting lines have been lost from
the Latin of this Ode. It appears to me, that the idea which those
dismembered lines conveyed, must necessarily have been the comparison
added in the four ensuing lines, which makes the transition easy.
[108] This Ode was probably written at the country seat of that
nobleman, near the mountain Soracte, in Tuscany, twenty-six miles from
Rome.
[109] l. 2. _Silent Liris_--A beautiful river of remarkably placid
current. It rises near Sora, a city of Latium, which it divides from
Campania.
[110] l. 15. _More than once_--The Poet deems it a peculiar mark of
the favour of the Deities when the merchant is enabled safely to make
repeated voyages in one year through hazardous seas.
[111] l. 15. _Icarian fate_--_Penna metuente solvi_ must surely be
allusive to the dissolving pinions of Icarus--and mean, that deeds of
private generosity are apt to melt from the recollection of mankind;
while those of what is called heroic exertion go down to Posterity.
For this idea of the passage the translator was indebted to a learned
friend.
[112] l. 8. _Savage scene_--The author had the pleasure of passing a
fortnight with Mr and Mrs Erskine at Buxton, in August 1796.
[113] This Ode is addressed to his friend, an illustrious Roman, who
had lost a beloved son. The poetic literature of Titus Valgius is
ascertained by the honourable mention made of him by Horace, in his
Tenth Satire, Book the First. Valgius, like Sir Brooke Boothby, in
these days had poured forth a train of elegiac sorrows over the blight
of his filial hopes. Horace does not severely reprove these woes,
he only wishes they may not be eternal, and that he will, at least,
suspend them and share the public joy; for this Ode was composed while
the splendid victories, which Augustus had obtained in the East, were
recent.
[114] l. 4. _Vex’d Caspian_--The Caspian is a stormy and harbourless
sea--Yet the poet observes that not even the Caspian is always
tempestuous--insinuating, that inevitable as his grief must be for such
a loss, it yet ought not to be incessant.
[115] l. 2. _Armenia’s lands_--The coldness of Armenia is well known,
surrounded as it is by the high mountains of Niphates, Pariades,
Antiaurus, and Ararat, which are always covered with snow.
[116] l. 10. _Vesper trembles_--alike the evening and morning
star--appearing first and remaining last in the horizon, it ushers
in both the evening and the dawn. In the first instance it is called
Vesper, or Hesperus, in the last Lucifer, or Phospher.
[117] l. 15. _Filial hopes_--Antilochus, the son of Nestor, observing
his father likely to fall in battle, by the sword of his adversary,
threw himself between the combatants, and thus sacrificed his own life
to preserve that of his parent.
[118] l. 9. _Medus_--By the rivers Medus, and Niphates, are meant
the Parthians, or Scythians, for they are the same people, and the
Armenians. The river Tigris, rising in the cold mountain Niphates,
Horace gives its name to the stream, as he does that of Medus to the
Euphrates, which Plato asserts to have been formerly so called. Uniting
those rivers in his verse, the poet means to denote the Roman conquest
over two enemies widely distant from each other.
[119] l. 12. _Scythians rein_--The Scythians, or Parthians, were a
warlike people, famous for their equestrian prowess, for the speed
of their horses, and for the unerring aim of their arrows, shot when
flying on full speed. Augustus obliged their king, Phraates, not only
to restore the Roman standards and prisoners, taken many years before,
but to withdraw his troops from Armenia.
[120] Licinius Murena was a Patrician of high rank, one of the brothers
of Proculeius, whose fraternal generosity is celebrated in the Ode to
Sallust, the ninth of these Paraphrases. The property of Licinius had
been confiscated for having borne arms against the second Triumvirate.
Upon this confiscation Proculeius divided two-thirds of that large
fortune, with which the Emperor had rewarded his valour and fidelity in
the royal cause, between Licinius, and his adopted brother, Terentius,
whose fortunes had suffered equal wreck on account of the party he
had taken. Horace wrote this Ode soon after the affectionate bounty
of Proculeius had restored his friend to affluence. It breathes a
warning spirit towards that turbulent, and ambitious temper, which
Horace perceived in this young nobleman. The poet, however, has used
great address and delicacy, making the reflections not particular
but general; and he guards against exciting the soreness people feel
from reprehension for their prevailing fault, by censuring with equal
freedom the opposite extreme. That kind caution insinuated in this Ode,
proved eventually vain, as did also the generosity of the Emperor, who
soon after permitted Licinius to be chosen Augur;--probably at the
intercession of his favourite Mæcenas, who had married Terentia, a
daughter of that house, and whom Horace calls Licinia in the Ode which
is next paraphrased. Upon the election of Licinius to this post of
honour, trust, and dignity, we perceive the spirits of Horace greatly
elevated; probably as much from the pleasure he knew Mæcenas would
take in the promotion of his brother-in-law, as from the attachment
himself bore to Licinius. A peculiar air of hilarity shines out in the
Ode addressed to Telephus, written the evening on which this Licinius,
then newly chosen Augur, gave his first supper to his friends. The
reader will find it somewhat lavishly paraphrased in the course of this
selection. By the above Ode the poet seems to have feared the seditious
disposition of Licinius:--but when he afterwards strung his lyre to
notes of triumph for the honours of his friend, he little imagined that
friend would finally suffer death for ungratefully conspiring against
the monarch, who had so liberally overlooked his former enmity.
[121] l. 18.--Epidemic diseases were, by the Pagans, believed to be the
effect of having offended Apollo. The arrows he shoots among the Greeks
in the first Book of the Iliad, produce the pestilence, which follows
the rape of his Priest’s daughter, Chryseis. When we consider the
dependence of the human constitution upon the temperate, or intemperate
influence of the sun, the avenging bow of Phœbus appears an obvious
allegory;--and since it is in the hours of health that the fine arts
are sought and cultivated, the sun, under the name of Phœbus, Apollo,
&c. is with equal propriety of fable, supposed their patron, as well as
the avenger of crimes by the infliction of diseases.
[122] Of that artful caution, which marks the character of Horace,
this Ode forms a striking instance. He declines the task appointed by
his patron, that of describing the Italian wars, because he foresees
that in its execution he must either disoblige the Emperor and his
Minister, by speaking too favourably of their enemies, or offend some
friends, whom he yet retained amongst those, who had exerted themselves
against the Cæsars. Horace endeavours to soften the effect of this
noncompliance by a warm panegyric upon Licinia, the betrothed bride of
Mæcenas. She is in other places called Terentia. Both these names have
affinity to those of her brothers, Licinius, afterwards Augur, and her
adopted brother, Terentius.
Horace mentions plainly the Numantian wars, and those with Hannibal,
but artfully speaks of those of Brutus, and Cassius, and of the
character of Antony, under fabulous denominations, sufficiently
understood by Augustus, and his Minister. Dacier justly observes how
easy it is to discern, that by the Lapithæ, and Giants, defeated by
Hercules on the plains of Thessaly, the poet means the armies of
Brutus, and Cassius, defeated by Augustus, almost in the same place,
at the battle of Philippi. He concludes also that by Hylæus is meant
Mark Antony, who assumed the name of Bacchus, and ruined himself by his
profligate passion for Cleopatra. Another commentator observes, that
as the Giants, and Lapithæ, are said to have made the palace of Saturn
shake, so also did Brutus, and Cassius, and afterwards Mark Antony,
make all Italy tremble, and that it is Rome itself that Horace would
have to be understood by the magnificent Palace of Saturn. Some critics
seek to destroy all the common sense, beauty, and character of this
Ode, by denying the allegoric interpretation; and also by insisting
that Licinia was the poet’s own mistress, and not the mistress of his
patron. It had been absurd, and inconceivably unmeaning, if, when he
was requested to sing the triumphs of Augustus in the Italian wars, he
should, during the brief mention of them, have adverted to old fables,
uniting them, not as a simile, but in a line of continuation with the
Numantian, and Carthaginian wars; unless, beneath those fables, he
shadowed forth the Roman enemies of Augustus.
The idea that Licinia was the mistress of Horace, has surely little
foundation:--for it were strange indeed if he could take pleasure in
describing amorous familiarities between Mæcenas, and the person with
whom himself was in love. One of these critics alleges, as the reason
why this lady could not be the destined bride of Mæcenas, that it would
have been as indiscreet in him to have admitted Horace to be a witness
of his passion for Licinia-Terentia, as it would have been impertinent
in the poet, to have invaded the privacies of his patron. It is not
necessary, from this Ode, to conclude that Horace had witnessed the
tender scene he describes. He might, without any hazard of imputed
impertinence, venture to paint, from his imagination, the innocently
playful endearments of betrothed lovers. The picture was much more
likely to flatter than to disgust the gay, and gallant Mæcenas.
[123] l. 12. _Diana’s shrine_--The Roman ladies, according to ancient
custom, danced with entwined arms, around the Altar of Diana, on the
day of her Festival.
[124] It was common with the Antients to consecrate fountains by a
sacrifice, and vinous libations, poured from goblets crowned with
flowers. Lively imaginations glow over the idea of such a beautiful
ceremony.
[125] At the feast, held in honour of Licinius Murena having been
chosen Augur, Horace endeavours to turn the conversation towards gayer
subjects than Grecian Chronology, and the Trojan war, upon which his
friend Telephus had been declaiming; and for this purpose seems to
have composed the ensuing Ode at table. It concludes with a hint, that
the unpleasant state of the poet’s mind, respecting his then mistress,
incapacitates him for abstracted themes, which demand a serene and
collected attention, alike inconsistent with the amorous discontent of
the secret heart, and with the temporary exhilaration of the spirits,
produced by the occasion on which they were met. This must surely be
the meaning of Horace in this Ode, however obscurely expressed. People
of sense do not, even in their gayest conversation, start from their
subject to anoher of total inconnection. When the latent meaning in the
concluding verses is perspicuously paraphrased, it accounts for the
poet’s preference at that period, of trifling to literary subjects.
These slight, and often obscure allusions, closely, and what is called
faithfully translated, give a wild and unmeaning air to the Odes of
Horace, which destroys their interest with the unlearned admirers of
poetry. To give distinct shape and form to these embryo ideas, often
capable of acquiring very interesting form and shape, is the aim of
these Paraphrases.
Telephus, who was a Greek, appears to have been a youth of noble
birth--being mentioned as such in the Ode to Phyllis, which will be
found farther on amongst these Paraphrases. From that to Lydia, so well
known, and so often translated, we learn that he had a beautiful form,
and was much admired by the Roman ladies.
[126] l. 6 _Poignant gust_--The translator was doubtful about using
that word, till she recollected it in the gravest of Pope’s Poems,
“Destroy all creatures for thy sport and _gust_;
“Then cry, If man’s unhappy God’s unjust.”
_Essay on Man._
[127] l. 7. _Aglaia_--The eldest of the Graces.
[128] l. 12. _Dusky wreaths ascend_--The Romans made fires in the
middle of their rooms, with a hole in the ceiling, to let out the
smoke, which is described as rolling to the top of the house.
[129] l. 16. _Love-chosen month_--The feast of Venus was held by the
Romans in April.
[130] l. 5. _Illustrious Telephus_--It is agreed that this is the
same young nobleman to whom the Ode is addressed, on Licinius being
appointed Augur, and which has been paraphrased in this Collection.
[131] The reader will remember, that in the course of these Paraphrases
the design has been avowed of stretching the pictures of Horace upon
a wider canvas, of filling up what are so often mere outlines. If
learned eyes ever glance over this Ode, it is hoped they will not frown
upon the many circumstances and reflections which have been added,
upon a presumption, induced by the pleasing nature of the subject,
since the Roman customs and manners are preserved with fidelity. Those
customs and manners, resulting from their festal, gay, and picturesque
religion, cannot surely be presented without proving interesting. Yet,
to create this interest, stronger and more circumstantial description
seems required than can be found in Horace, if the Paraphraser may be
allowed to judge of the poetic feelings of others by her own. It was
doubtless sufficient for his contemporary readers, and for those of
some succeeding generations, that he slightly alluded to events and
ceremonies, which were familiar to their recollection. In our day more
precision is demanded, at least by those who have poetic taste without
knowledge of the dead languages, or intimacy with the national and
domestic customs of that time, and of that people. Also, to strengthen
this necessary interest in the mind of the reader, it must be eligible
to infuse a more liberal portion of those sentiments and ideas, which
speak to the heart in every age, and in every climate.
To scholars the fascinating music of the Latin tones and measures,
and the elegance with which Horace knew to select, and to regulate
them, recompence the obscurity which is so frequent in his allusions,
and in the violence of his transitions from one subject to another,
between which the line of connection is with difficulty traced. What
is called a faithful translation of these Odes cannot, therefore, be
interesting to unlearned lovers of verse, how alive soever they may
be to poetic beauty.--A literal translation in the plainest prose,
will always shew the precise quantity of real poetic matter, contained
in any production, independent of the music of its intonation, and
numbers, and the elegance of its style.--The prose translations of
Horace’s Odes evince that their merit does not consist in the plenitude
of poetic matter, or essence, constituted by circumstances of startling
interest, by exalted sentiment, impassioned complaint, or appeal,
distinct and living imagery, happy apposite allusion, and sublime
metaphor; but in certain elegant verbal felicities and general charm
of style, produced by the force and sweetness of the Latin language,
subservient to the fine ear, the lively and exquisite taste of Horace.
These are the graces which we find so apt to evaporate in translation,
while genuine Poetic Matter, as defined above, is capable of being
transfused into any other language without losing a particle of its
excellence, provided the chemist, who undertakes the operation, has
genius and skill. The more this poetic matter in an author abounds, the
more close and faithful a translator, who has judgment, may venture
to render his version--but to transfuse merely verbal felicities into
another language is an attempt scarcely less fruitless than to clasp
the rainbow. A kindred nothingness, as to poetic value, ensues. There
is, however, a considerable, though not abounding quantity of poetic
matter, or essence, in Horace; but it bears no proportion to the
profusion of those evanescent glories, which will not bear the grasp
of another language. To give that essence in increased quantity, and
in the freedom of unimitative numbers, is attempted in this selection.
Dryden and Pope translated upon that plan, and hence their Paraphrases
have the spirit of original poems.
Ere this note closes, its Author desires to observe, that painters
cannot take a striking likeness of a face in which there is no
predominant feature, and the poet can only make his image, or
description, distinct, animated, and forcible, by bringing forward some
characteristic trait of the object he is presenting. When Horace says
in this Ode, “How pleasing is it to see the well-fed sheep hastening
home,” the observation is not picturesque, and therefore does not
strongly impress the imagination; but when he adds--“to see the weary
oxen dragging, with languid neck, the inverted ploughshare,” he gives
perhaps the most poetic feature in this Ode. Had he only said, “to
see the oxen returning from their labour,” his oxen had been as much
without character as his sheep, and the sentence must have passed
unimpressive over the mind of the reader. It is the words--dragging,
with languid neck, the inverted ploughshare, that makes the sentence
Poetry, and empowers it to arrest and charm the fancy. Had Horace
always written thus, undeviating fidelity had been the best aim of
his translator, and the sure way of rendering him delightful in every
language.
[132] l. 1. p. 293. Dacier observes that vines supported on the highest
trees produce wines of the most exquisite flavour.
[133] l. 17. The feast of Terminus, one of the rural gods, was held
on the first of February, at which time, in those warm climates, the
spring is very forward.
[134] l. 20. _Hungry wolf releas’d_--The Romans fancied that the
struggle and terror of a kid on being seized by the wolf, made its
flesh more tender.
[135] l. 2. _Ides_--The middle of a month.
[136] l. 3. _Calends_--The beginning of the next month.
[137] l. 12. _Ruthless fratricide_--Romulus, who killed his brother
Remus, for ridiculing his wall by leaping over it.
[138] l. 1.--The English Ballad uses the past tense thro’ the three
first stanzas; this Paraphrase the more dramatic, more impressive
present tense. The distant clocks, marking the midnight hour, is not
in either the Ballad or the Latin poem. In WILLIAM and MARGARET, each
stanza rhymes only twice, but the first has no rhyme. Our best writers
use the imperfect rhymes freely, and I think to the advantage of
their verse, as _mourn_ and _scorn_, _abode_ and _God_, _frost_ and
_coast_;--but _feet_ and _sleep_, which are given as rhymes in the
exordium of that Ballad, are not within the bounds of privilege.
[139]
l. 7.--“And clay-cold was her lily hand
“That held her sable shroud.”
_William and Margaret._
The epithet _lily_ is too nice and pretty for its situation, and
_sable_ seems utterly improper, since shrouds were white in Mallet’s
time, as in ours. Perhaps the epithet sable, temporarily inapplicable,
has been one reason for believing the whole of this Ballad ancient,
since it was probably the old custom to wrap the dead in black stuff,
or linen. The gathering up the sepulchral robe from her feet, instead
of merely holding it, is one of Vincent Bourne’s variations, and
adds the grace of motion to the figure. Statue-like stillness is not
necessary to apparition-costume. The ghost in Hamlet beckons the prince
to follow it.
[140] l. 1. This apostrophe to a young prince is another improvement
in the Latin version. It preserves the moral of the original and less
spirited stanza, with heightened force from the personal address, and
from the grand image in the third line. Compare it with the stanza in
the Ballad:
“So shall the fairest face appear
“When youth and years are flown,
“And such the robe that kings must wear
“When death has reft their crown.”
Here is no picture, and years after youth in the second line, form a
pleonasm;--but the exquisite music produced by the alliteration in
those two words, and by the number of vowels in the line, disarms
criticism.
[141] l. 5.--This stanza in the Ballad is common-place; in the Latin
poem it is an original and charming description of a young beauty; yet
to that which speaks only of her smiles and blushes, the charms of her
eyes are added by the figure of the morning star in this Paraphrase.
In the next stanza also, the discriminating “et faciles risus,” of the
Latin version, is preserved by the epithet _ready_. A prompt smile is
characteristic of early youth, though Vincent Bourne is the first poet
who, by marked description, has recognised the propensity. The word
_gay_ does not, in itself, sufficiently express that facility of smile.
[142] l. 10. “Tandem, O nunc tandem;” the repetition greatly increases
the pathos, and is closely rendered in this Elegy.
[143]
l. 12.--“This is the dull, the dreary hour
“When injur’d ghosts complain;
“When yawning graves give up their dead
“To haunt the faithless swain!”
_William and Margaret._
Excellent as are the three first lines of this original stanza, yet the
Latin quatrain strengthens the awful horrors of inhumation, and the
re-translator flatters herself they have not here lost any of their
terrific powers. Swain, in the last line of the stanza from William and
Margaret, seems a botching appellation, used merely from the rhyme’s
necessity. Whatever might have been the original meaning of the word
_swain_, custom has attached to it a certain character of amorous
effeminacy and tenderness, ill-suited to the perfidious conduct of the
accused, and the sepulchral solemnity of the accuser.
[144] l. 12.--These parenthetic and passionate exclamations are all
in the Latin poem, and add great effect to the solemn and upbraiding
challenge.
[145]
l. 7.--“Nulla mihi heu! florit facies que floruit ecce!”
How much more spirit in that line than in
“This face, alas! no more is fair.”
_William and Margaret._
The word, _ecce_! is a striking challenge to observe her changed face,
and to contrast it with its former beauty.
[146] l. 11.--This line in the old Ballad is of most unpoetic
construction, viz.
“The hungry worm my sister _is_.”
[147] This Sonnet is in the style of our elder poets, with whom the
hyperbole was a favourite poetic figure.
[148] l. 11._Downy blow-ball_--Ben Jonson’s name for the seed-vessels
of the Dandelion.
[149] l. 7. _Life is love_--Mr Bree’s scenes are his own creation,
since he seldom draws from Nature, and never from copies.
[150] This young creature plays every air she catches with full
and elegant bass accompaniment, intuitively and spontaneously
discovered;--also beautiful compositions intirely her own, and this
without knowing the names of the notes or the keys.--_Sept. 1803._ She
has within this month only, begun to learn music scientifically.
[151] l. 13. _Jura’s side_--A vast mountain in Switzerland.
[152] This Poem was written on request, in the year 1800, in the MS.
volume of verses, collected by that young lady. Upon the page destined
for these stanzas, a beautiful little sea-scene, with a light-house,
and a small turret on the shore, had been previously drawn by her
cousin, Miss J. Cheney of Langley.
[153] l. 2. _Ampler tower_--The light-house.
[154] l. 9. _Tender Hero’s_--Alluding to the story of Hero and Leander
in Ovid.
[155] l. 8. _Ancient Witchery_--Since this poem was written, all the
native romance of the river at this spot, has been destroyed by a
detestable cotton-mill.
[156] l. 1. _One of proved fidelity_--The head steward at B----.
[157] In those days of continual civil war amongst the separate clans,
each party hanged their prisoners. This Ballad was sent to Mr Scott,
editor of THE BORDER MINSTRELSY, who inserted it in the third volume
of that popular work. In his letter to the author, he observed, that
the stoutest antiquarian in Scotland could not, after perusing AULD
WILLIE’S FAREWELL, suspect that the writer had the misfortune to have
been born _south_ of the Tweed.
[158] l. 1. _Ingle_--Hearth.
[159] l. 2. _Snell_--Bitter.
[160] l. 3. _Bouris_--Chamber.
[161] l. 3. _Heathery_, heathy.
[162] l. 4. _Glourin_, sulky.
[163] l. 7. _Lilting_, singing.
[164] l. 10. _Braw_, handsome.
[165] l. 11. _Aboon_, above.
[166] l. 13. _Wimpling_, dimpling.
[167] l. 16. _Flickering_, twinkling.
[168] l. 18. _Skelp_, dash.
[169] l. 1. _Braes_, high banks.
[170] l. 5. _Soom’d_, swam.
[171] l. 5. _Drumlie_, turbid.
[172] l. 6. _Ilka_, each.
[173] l. 8. _Scaith_, injury.
[174] l. 9. _Wraith_, spectre.
[175] l. 11. _Winsome_, handsome.
[176] l. 13. _Geck_, romp.
[177] l. 14. _Haughs_, meadows.
[178] l. 15. _Gowk_, cuckow.
[179] l. 1. _Pawky_, sly.
[180] l. 7. _The brine_--Bristol Channel. Milton uses the word _brine_
for the sea,
“The air was calm, and on the level brine
“Sleek Panope and all her sisters play’d.”
_Lycidas._
[181] l. 10. _Veranda_--An Italian colonade roofed.
[182] l. 5. _Thy brother_--Mr Mathias.
[183] Written after having seen him in five of his principal characters
on the Lichfield Theatre, June 1807.
[184] l. 10. _Warm marum_--The affection of cats for marum and valerian
is well known. They will beat down the stems, mat them with their feet,
and roll upon them.
[185] l. 13. _Asbestos_--A vegetable substance, soft and pliant as
muslin, and which fire cannot consume.
[186] l. 19. _To Verse_--PARADISE LOST, which, through the long period
intervening between its first publication, in the author’s life-time,
and Addison’s Essays upon it in the Spectator, met little public
notice, while his equally beautiful lesser works, Lycidas, Comus,
L’Allegro, and Il Penseroso, were scarcely known at all, till more than
seventy years after his death.
[187] l. 4. _Thy lays_--“Needwood Forest,” one of the sweetest local
poems in our language, of which Mr Mundy, in 1776, printed 500 copies
for presents to his friends. He has resisted all solicitation to
publish it at large; but such a beautiful work cannot die. It will be
given to future times; so also will the Fall of Needwood.
[188] l. 8. _Dryades_--Milton, in Comus, makes Naiades the plural of
Naiad:
“Amid the flowery-kirtled Naiades.”
[189] l. 10. _Brave Andre_--See Major André’s beautiful letters,
prefixed to the Monody on his disastrous fate.
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