The Poetical Works of Anna Seward With Extracts from her Literary Correspondence. Edited by Walter Scott ... In Three Volumes |
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The Poetical Works of Anna Seward | ||
TO THE MEMORY OF LADY MILLAR.
The scatter'd flow'rs of plaintive rhyme belong,
Tho' Valour, marching round your grave, may shed
The richest seeds of elegiac song;
Tho' Fame's proud chissel o'er your trophied tomb
Hangs the bright falchion high, and bends the warrior-plume.
And spreads o'er female worth his sable pall,
Shall Poesy renounce the mournful train,
Shall her melodious tears refuse to fall,
Where Friendship's sighs, where Love's deep groans invite,
And Virtue calls aloud to aid the solemn rite?
And gem with flow'rs the woof of high applause,
The pious veil o'er shroudless Andre spread,
O'er Ander, murder'd in his country's cause;
Ye, who with foliage dun and plumage grey,
Rear'd high the sacred shade that wav'd o'er Cook's Morai;
Pour from your echoing strings the soothing lay,
Chaunt the slow requiem o'er this hallow'd earth,
That hides your Laura's life-deserted clay;
Hides the coldheart, which glow'd with all your fires,
The hand, that deck'd with wreaths your manychorded lyres.
Weave the rich myrtle round the early rose;
And grace with dearer joy the festive hours
Than vain parade, or idle mirth bestows;
While from her glance benign young Genius caught
Spirit to ope fresh mines of soul-exalting thought.
The new ambition, virtuous and refin'd,
To the light Graces lead the loftier muse,
And their twin'd hands with rosy chaplets bind,
Not less deserves the meed of tuneful praise,
Than Valour his proud wreath, than Wit his deathless bays.
Enlighten'd Pleasure led a jocund crew,
And youths and virgins in the vernal gale,
With eager step to her chaste revel flew;
Pure the devotion rose in many a glowing lay.
Gilding the foliage of the verdant shrine;
And bending o'er her vase, fair Laura seem'd
The smiling Priestess of the sacred Nine,
As her green wreath she wove, to grace the Bard,
Whose sweet superior song might claim the wish'd reward.
Her gentle looks, and dulcet voice invite
The willing train their festive songs to pour,
And wing the passing moments with delight;
O'er the lone vase, e'erwhile so gaily crown'd,
A dim hand draws the veil of sable lawn around;
Ascends from Harrington's harmonious hand;
The plaintive sounds with varied sweetness flow,
And through the scenes that feel her loss expand;
His melting notes impress with magic art
Her recollected worth on ev'ry generous heart.
Thy virtuous mind with bright ambition glow'd,
To tune the lyre, the votive shrine to rear,
By Science hallow'd in their fair abode;
From sterling wit to clear each base alloy,
And fill with purest fires the crystal lamp of joy.
'Twas thine to nurse the hopes of young Renown;
'Twas thine to elevate the views of youth;
To look, with calm disdain, superior down
On Pride's cold frown, and Fashion's pointed leer;
On Envy's serpent lie, and Folly's apish sneer.
To shroud its blossoms, and its foliage blight,
With rising strength thy verdant altar spread,
And bards of loftiest spirit join'd its rite;
And with their oaken, and their laurel crown
Inwove thy myrtle buds, fair wreath of fair Renown!
My trembling hand, at thy kind bidding, tried
To crop the blossoms of the uncultur'd mead,
The primrose pale, the briar's blushing pride,
And on thy vase with true devotion laid
The tributary flow'rs—too soon, alas! to fade.
My Muse, aspiring, dar'd the fiercer blaze,
Which judgment lights before the hill of fame,
With calm determin'd hand and searching gaze;
But for thy lib'ral praise, with awful dread,
Far from those burning bars my trembling feet had fled.
By elegance inwove with nicest care,
Of pow'r to pass unhurt the public fire,
Where critic Wit bids all his beacons glare,
The sprightly Winford, at her Laura's fane,
Pass'd through its milder flames, amid th' applauding train.
To gay Thalia swept the silver wires;
The frolic Muse attends her soft command,
And the free strain with many a charm inspires;
By quick Invention's fire, and Nature's graceful ease.
The spark of life, and all that life endears,
Time-honour'd Graves! with duteous joy I view
Thy hollies blushing through the snow of years;
Their wintry colours the chaste shrine adorn,
Vivid as Genius blends in life's exulting morn.
Of noble Fielding, whose energic soul
So early wing'd him up the steeps of Fame,
And gain'd, e'er manhood's dawn, the distant goal;
Still in his lays the wounded breast shall find
A charm, that sooths to rest each Vulture of the mind.
With Learning, Peace, and Virtue, fond to dwell,
While Dryden's spirit hover'd o'er the shell,
Invention led her musing son among
Sweet Laura's Delphic shades, that crown'd his mystic song.
His gentle Muse, of bigot rage the foe;
And skill'd to blend the force of reasoning thought
With Sensibility's enamour'd glow;
Skill'd o'er frail love to draw the sacred veil,
Whose mournful texture floats on Fancy's buoyant gale.
To Love and Nature strung,—as mingled flows
With elegiac sweetness epic fire,
In the soft story of his Edwy's woes;
The thrill of generous joy, the tide of pitying tears.
Whose light shone radiant on the morn of time,
The bard of Æschylus, in leisure hour,
Breath'd through the grove the lyric song sublime,
And see! poetic Sympathy ordains
Health to the kindling soul from his inspiring strains.
Anstey, enlivener of the serious earth!
At the light waving of whose magic wand,
New fountains rose, and flow with endless mirth;
Pouring on Fancy's soul a glow as warm,
As Bath's rich springs impart to Health's reviving form.
Pluck'd the unfading laurel from her fane;
Since oft, amid the laugh of Momus' throng,
Wisdom has gravely smil'd, and prais'd the strain;
Pleas'd to behold the Fools of Fashion hit
By new, unrival'd shafts of ridicule and wit.
Whom Taste in Laura's votive throng surveys;
But Hayley flashes in a type of flame,
Trac'd by a sun-beam the broad letters blaze!
Rapt Britain reads the long-recording fire,
Claps her triumphant hands, and bids her realms admire!
That will not hear the praise it joys to give;
My fingers quit the chords of high renown,
On which his young, but deathless glories live;
Yet with these lays one grateful wish shall blend,
And on Devotion's wing to list'ning Heaven ascend.
While Health and Joy on their bright moments wait,
May his pure mind, with all its warmth benign,
Set late and cloudless in the depths of fate;
Not early, like fair Laura's spirit, fly
From this dark earthly scene, to its congenial sky!
O'er Laura's hallow'd turf, fair Queen of Night,
And from the orbit of thy herald-star,
Feed all its pensive flow'rs with dewy light!
Soft Pity's light and dews on Pain's deserted head.
When Pleasure round her trill'd the Syren song,
The sighs of Pity swell'd her polish'd breast,
The tones of Mercy warbled from her tongue;
She bade the fires of classic lore pervade
With charity's kind warmth misfortune's barren shade.
Not in the charms the zone of love bestows,
The female form so exquisitely shines,
Though Empire binds the circlet on her brows,
As when compassion sheds her lustre meek,
Swims in the moistened eye, and wets the glowing cheek.
That in the regal robe, and beauty's pride,
At Calais' conquer'd gate, sweet smiling stood,
By thy victorious Edward's awful side!
In martial ire War's sable cloud he seem'd,
And thou the radiant bow, that o'er its darkness beam'd.
O'er all thy form what matchless graces spread,
When thy fair eyes in moist suffusion shone,
And from thy cheek the changing crimson fled,
As on the neck of Edward's captive foes
To thy afflicted sight the opprobrious cord arose!
On her bent knee their forfeit lives implor'd;
When, like two stars seen through a rushing show'r,
Her watry eyes gaz'd earnest on her lord,
'Twas then thy virtues, loveliest queen, outshone
Thy Edward's victor-plume, waving o'er Gallia's throne!
O'er Laura's form the classic cestus threw,
Hung all their golden harps within her shrine,
And ting'd her wreaths with undecaying hue,
Yet, Charity, thy soft seraphic flame
A purer glory shed around her spotless name.
The grateful blessings of the poor shall blend,
And borne on angel-wings to Heaven's full choir,
Sublime the breath of Gratitude ascend;
Than rise from Pindus' grove, than float in Thespian vales.
Wilt thou, O mournful muse! refuse to sing;
Each virtue rather to its shade pursue,
And stoop from shining heights thy trembling wing;
Teach the soft sex whence genuine transport flows,
Tell them, domestic joy the fullest bliss bestows.
In the white page of Laura's vital state;
And emulate each great, each gentle deed,
That crown'd her fame, or that disarm'd her fate;
For sky-rob'd Innocence can smiling brave
The dart of instant death, and triumph o'er the grave.
For all who trod with thee its mazy round!
Where neither gloomy Care, nor noisy Strife,
Dark Spleen or haggard Jealousy were found;
For Chearfulness and Love, with potent sway,
The Lares of thy hearth, chas'd ev'ry Fiend away.
In the gay revel of their gorgeous night,
As sweet domestic comfort's cheering light;
For soft she sheds, on halcyon pinions borne,
Her poppies o'er the night, her roses on the morn.
One joy sincere can erring Beauty prove,
A rake's loose homage or a flatt'ring world,
Supply the sweetness of connubial love;
Where fix'd esteem shall lasting joy inspire,
And blend the husband's faith with all the lover's fire?
Whilst its fond care a parent's woe beguiles;
When life's pale winter, with the filial rose
Adorn'd and happy, still serenely smiles;
Lulls the chill gale of each repining sigh,
And basks in joy's warm gleam when the lov'd child is nigh.
O'er the dim trembling light of waning age;
The waste of time and sickness to repair,
And steal attention from each dark presage;
Discharging thus affection's vast arrears
Of countless debts incurr'd through childhood's helpless years.
With fairest worth parental hopes had blest;
Strew'd her declining path with ev'ry flow'r,
Her fost'ring hand had planted in their breast;
But ah! that hand is cold! and points no more
The surest path of peace, on virtue's sacred shore!
The Muse with tender sympathy surveys,
If such memorials as her love can rear,
May catch, in future years, your filial gaze,
Here shall your parent's pure emblazon'd name,
Light you to fairest deeds by emulation's flame!
Thou, who wilt most perceive its failing art;
Who view'st, slow wand'ring round thy Laura's grave,
Her juster image in thy widow'd heart;
For the fond wish to bid her merits live,
Forgive the fainter tints, the erring line forgive!
Her honour'd sepulchre with radiance clear;
Connubial love shall rest upon her tomb,
And infant duty shed its April tear;
There, with veil'd brows, parental fondness mourn,
Bend o'er the holy earth, and consecrate her urn!
The late lady Millar, of Bath-Easton, near Bath, held an assembly at that elegant villa, once a fortnight during the Bath season. She rendered this meeting a poetical institution, giving out subjects at each assembly for poems to be read at the ensuing one.
The verses were deposited in an antique Etruscan vase, and were drawn out by gentlemen appointed to read them aloud, and to judge of their rival merits. These gentlemen, ignorant of the authors, selected three poems from the collection which they thought most worthy of the three myrtle wreaths, decreed as the rewards and honours of the day. The names of the persons who had obtained the prizes were then announced by lady Millar. Once a year the most ingenious of these productions were published. Four volumes have already appeared, and the profits been applied to the benefit of a charity at Bath; so that lady Millar's institution was not only calculated to awaken and cultivate ingenuity, but to serve the purposes of benevolence and charity. It had continued about six years, and ceased with the death of its amiable patroness.— That event happened in July, 1781.
See Miss Winford's elegant poem, the Hobby Horse, printed in the fourth volume of Poetical Amusements at Bath Easton.
Alluding to the Chorus Ex Prometheo, presented to the vase by the Hon. Charles Fielding, then of Harrow School. See fourth volume of Poetical Amusements.
Rev. Mr Butt, rector of Stamford, in Worcestershire. His verses on the Pythagorean System had the wreath. See fourth volume of Poetical Amusements.
Mr Jerningham, though a Roman catholic, has ably combated monastic enthusiasm, in his ingenious poem, the Nun.
The Poetical Works of Anna Seward | ||