The Poetical Works of Anna Seward :: :: University of Virginia Library

If yet, unbless'd with learning's guardian aids,
I rov'd the labyrinths of Aonian shades,
And in the gloomy and the silent hour
Wove the dun foliage of their cypress bower,
The oak-crown'd Chief, and laurel'd Warrior's tomb
Solemn to strew;—and cropt their floral bloom
For a fair votary's urn, my priz'd reward
Lives in the smile of Repton's classic Bard.

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Yet not the letter'd smile's inspiring ray,
When most its warmth shall gild my pensive lay,
Such intellectual luxury can impart,
Or pour such sweet sensations on my heart,
As when, ingenious Lyrist, brightly shine
Through the clear medium of thy classic line,
On every hill, and vale, and plain, and grove,
The seraph forms of Beauty, Truth, and Love.

Sing on, sweet Bard! for to thy happy lyre,
When beams the setting sun with chasten'd fire,
And evening clouds, half pierc'd with light, have spread
Their floating purple round his golden head,

167

High o'er their edge, as soft they sail along,
Shall bend the spirits of congenial song;
Thomson, great Nature's darling votary, bow
The leafy honours of his placid brow,
And lofty Akenside shall hail the strains
That Beauty decks, and Energy sustains.

Sing on, sweet Bard! when spring's gay warblers cease
To celebrate the jocund year's increase,
And summer must no more his thirst subdue
In the expanding rose-bud's lucid dew;
But, with their fading hues, and closing bells,
The pale, shrunk flowers shall strew the whiten'd dells,
And autumn's lingering steps, retreating, press
Their fallen petals down the lone recess,
Still may thy song, to every rising gale,
Sigh through the dim and melancholy vale;
And when the aerial archer, as he flies,
Wings the red arrow through the gloomy skies,
And furious Trent, high o'er his banks shall pour
The turbid waters round thy favourite bower,
Ceaseless do thou the rising strain prolong,
And hail stern winter with thy solemn song!
While for the lyre, that erst to the soft days
Of bloomy summer breath'd the lovely lays,

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On thy nerv'd arm the Eolian shell be slung,
Full to the tempest's angry wailing flung;
And he, whose strains, on cold Temora's hill,
Mourn'd o'er the eddies of the darken'd rill,
The fame resounding of the fallen brave,
O'er Erin's heath, and Ullin's stormy wave,
He, on his thin, grey mist descending slow,
Shrill as the frequent blast is heard to blow,
'Mid the lone rocks thy wandering steps shall find,
And lift thy harp to winter's loudest wind.
O! when its tones fall murmuring on the floods,
Deeply respondent to the groaning woods,
Each lofty note, that hymns the rifled year,
With force impressive shall assail the ear,
As when thou call'st the shuddering thoughts to mourn
O'er talents wither'd in the untimely urn;

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To grieve that Penury's resistless storm
Beat cold and deadly o'er the shrinking form,
Where mighty Genius had those powers enshrin'd,
Whose reign is boundless o'er each feeling mind;
To mourn that anguish durst the heart invade
Beneath the regal purple's awful shade,

170

That, steep'd in blood, at the fanatic frown,
From Charles' pale brows should fall the thorny crown;
That England's virgin majesty should close
A long illustrious life in bitterest woes;
She, who, in wisdom firm, as vast in power,
On grateful millions shed the prosperous hour.

171

O! how unlike those councils dark, that hurl'd
The torch of Discord o'er the western world!

Whatever ills may to the past succeed,
Though lust of war may doom a world to bleed,
And bleed in vain, yet may no public gloom
Nor private sorrow, blight thy classic bloom!
And to the Sons of Genius, whose sad fate
Thy mournful lines, with sacred force, relate,
O! may thy fortunes no resemblance bear,
Yet may thy rising fame their deathless laurels share!

Elegy on captain Cook—Monody on major Andre.

Monody on lady Miller.

Alluding to the Retirement, published by Mr Stevens, in 1782, the first of a small, but beautiful collection of poems, printed for Ab. Portal of the Strand; Faulder, of New Bond-street; and Kearsley, No. 46, Fleet-street. This work went through two editions, though it met the utmost injustice that dullness and spleen could produce, in one of the leading Reviewers. No compositions, especially those of so young a man, are without imperfections. The few defects of Retirement were assiduously pointed out, and exaggerated, and many unexceptionable lines and expressions clumsily ridiculed; while the numerous passages of striking and unborrowed beauty, were passed over in silence; but the Gentleman's Magazine did more justice to those excellencies, which must impress and delight every reader, who possesses any portion of poetic taste.

Referring to Mr Stevens' beautiful descriptions in his poem, Retirement, of the hard fate of those great poets, Spencer, Milton, Otway, Collins, and Chatterton, each of whom struggled with the evils of neglect and poverty; and all, except Milton, became their victims. I am tempted to instance here the passages which relate to Collins and Chatterton, to prove that in praising the genius of Mr Stevens, I have not been influenced by partiality.

Collins—quoted from Retirement.

“But who is he whom later garlands grace?
“Lo! his worn youth, beneath the chilling grasp
“Of penury, faints; and in her mournful shroud,
“Darkening all joy, all promises of bliss,
“All health, all hope, dire melancholy saps,
“In drear decay, the fabric of his mind!
“See shuddering Pity, o'er his fallen soul
“Wring her pale hands!—Regardless of the guide
“That lifts his steps, regardless of the friend
“That mourns, nor sadly conscious of himself,
“Silent, yet wild, his languid spirit lies!
“The light of thought has wander'd from his eye,
“It glares, but sees not!—yet this breathing corse,
“This youthful driv'ller, Nature's ghastliest form,—
“O! who would love the lyre!—in all the courts
“Of fancy, where abstracted beauty play'd
“With wildest elegance, his ardent shell
“Enamour'd struck, and charm'd the various soul.

Chatterton—quoted from Retirement.

“See later yet, and yet in drearier state,
“Where dawning Genius, struggling into day,
“Sinks in a dark eclipse!—No friendly heart,
“With love propitious, and no angel-hand
“With prosperous spell his labouring sun relieve,
“And chace the gather'd clouds that drop with blood!

Charles the First—quoted from Retibement.

—“in mockery see,
“O'er royal sorrow sits, in stern array,
“The traitrous judgment! In the eye of Heaven
“O'er his meek brow dishonourable death
“Unwinds her sable flag.

Elizabeth—from the same Poem.

[_]

See in Hume's History, the death of that Queen.

“O mark, where Gloriana lies!—behold!
“On the cold pavement for the jewell'd throne!
“Mark, as the soothing friend, or to her ear,
“In wily humour creeping, the base speech
“Of adulation breathes!—Dread sovereign queen!
“Imperial Mistress! Arbitress of Earth!
“Mark, if the Goddess, at the alluring sound,
“Unveil her sorrowing eye!—Mark if the pride
“Of empire, glistening on her crown, adorn
“Her brow's wan horror!—if a nation's prayer
“Gladden her heart!—Stern at her bosom hang,
“Bath'd in her blood, and twisted with the strings
“Of life, the inexorable Fiends of Woe!

This poem was written in retropection of that fatal American war, which dismembered the British Empire.