INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE
TO PART SECOND.
TO MR. --- ---.
August 23.
Carmine Dî superi placantur, carmine manes.
From that bleak path that winds around
That mount sublime, where shades profound
Veil, in their deep obscurity,
The darkling cliffs of destiny,
A wanderer oft, in vales I go,
Where babbling streamlets gently flow;
And gather, in their wildness sweet,
The flowers the pilgrim's eye that meet.
Ere yet the wreath is twin'd, they fade,
Scatter'd in deep oblivion's shade—
Yet in thy fame's bright blushing morn,
Full well I know, thou wilt not scorn
The wither'd garland, that would speak
A firmer pledge, in tokens weak.
From all the pomp that worldlings cherish,
From all the dreams that charm, to perish,
Delusive fame, or sordid pelf,
The altar calls thee to itself.
But the lone hermit's heart estrang'd,
Its earthly essence purg'd and chang'd,
Bars not to song its holy lair—
Last pulse of earth, it enters there.
It boots not that I spin the rhyme
With legends of the elder time;
When song, by fondest theme inspir'd,
Immortal breasts with fervour fir'd,
And drew chaste Dian from above,
Her radiant sphere, for minstrel's love—
Musæus is fabled to have been the son of Luna, by Linus.
—What time a sister goddess fell—
But weaker man, by holier spell,
On purer altars lit the flame,
That burns for one, and burns the same,
‘Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis.’
Hor. Art. Poet.
By zephyrs fann'd, or tempest's swell,
Eternal and unquenchable!
It boots not, that my lay should rove
To wake the murmurs of the grove,
That Patriarch bands had rear'd to God
Upon the consecrated sod,
And where the voice of melody
Invok'd the present Deity.
Nor to the awful couch I go,
Where run their pilgrimage below,
The angel's pinions dark they hear,
Their fathers' voices whispering near—
When, short and quick as came their breath,
They girded them to combat death;
Then op'd the womb of darkling ages,
Then time unscroll'd his giant pages—
Pour'd the prophetic tide along,
Eternity reveal'd in SONG!
The valedictory blessings of the patriarchs were delivered in dithyrambic measures.
In dust the MONARCH MINSTREL sleeps,
While music o'er his ashes weeps;
The chords he woke to rapture high,
Shrin'd in sepulchral darkness lie:
Their notes no more to mortals given,
He sweeps the golden lyres of heaven!
Yet, by his burning numbers fraught,
Soul mingles with the soul of thought;—
What Brahma's fabling seers have taught
She feels, when, from her mortal clod
She soars in melody to God!
Alas for song, when she shall need
So poor a rhymer's laggard reed!
And idle were her proudest strain,
Her loftiest pæan breath'd in vain,
To one—the priest whom she inspires,
Whose eye hath watch'd the eternal fires;
For she, even to her living springs,
Hath borne thee on her eagle wings—
To point thy gaze, hath been her care,
To all that's bright and dazzling there!
No weed impure, that taints the gale,
I mingle with the garland frail;
And chaste, though wild, the wreath shall be
That now I dedicate to thee.
