University of Virginia Library

A SOLITARY EFFUSION IN A SUMMER's EVENING.

HAVING SPENT A VERY FINE DAY IN THE HOUSE, IN THE MIDST OF A VERY FINE COUNTRY, FROM WANT OF COMPANY TO ENJOY IT WITH ME; I WROTE THESE LINES AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON ON THE TWENTIETH OF JULY LAST.

What is the cloudless sky to me? Nature's
Devellopt radiance and her thousand charms?
No heart joins mine: no kindred step with me
Winds the lone dingle, or pursues the track
Slow opening through the mazy thicket's shade:
None rests with me upon the verdant slope,
And runs his eye enraptured o'er the glade,
On to the distant sleeping stream, that walks
With slow and measured lapse, his round of ages
In the circling mead; saw the woad-painted
Briton; beheld, or bore, his sharp-scythed chariot;
Was oft dasht by the fierce arm that ruled it;
Yielded indignant to the new Roman;
Echoed with languid joy and presage sad
The desperate shouts of fainting Freedom,
As they rang from loud Caer-Caradoc amain,
And with their last rude crash shook every dale,
Rouzed each cot in vain; and has lived to hear
That song again from centuries of Death,
On Mason's lyre revived.
Hark! Here are groves
That hold, or held, some Druid. Dark mantling
Round they throw impenetrable shade; and hide,
And have for ever hid, aye unprofaned
By Roman, or by Savage conqueror's step,
Some Temple sacred by the Mystic Sage.
Here, too, are haunts of Love, as well as grand
And rudest Wisdom's darkest, drear domains.
Groves were sacred once to Love: once were heard,
Low murmuring through the many-turtled shades
Of Peace, respondent sighs, or liveliest notes
Of placid and accordant Love, that mixed
Airs with the Zephyr, whispers with the sacred grove.
Long husht to sullen silence, Groves no more
Echo to human Loves; the Loves refined,
Or antient minstrels sung, of Dryad or
Of Naiad, or perchance of human Maid
From cottage or from palace; or of Gods,
From halls of light descending to the plain,
Unconscious of a change; nor so immixt,
Can learned retrospection trace distinct,
The Nymph, the Goddess or terrestrial Maid.
Lonely their solitary haunts I view:
And welcome solitude where they are not:
Where such are not companions of the walk!
Tell me, ye Gentle and ye Graceful, tell—
Tell me, ye Chaste, yet not averse from Love—
Tell me, ye Great, who guarded all these Fair,
And make the lofty Groves of Love, that tower
In Zenith Air, terrific to the vain;
As all within was mild, serene and pure—
Tell me, who most have ravaged your retreats;
Who worst your secret delicacies wound,
And boldest all your hidden depths profane?
Which age is vile, the Gothic, or Refined?
“That, which the Heart lays waste!” I hear exclaimed
In choral harmony of Fair and Great.
“Ah! What avails to us, pure Nature's Spirits!
“The managed body and the managed tongue,
“Which chaunts no concord to soft Nature's notes?
“The managed foot, that dreads our shady brakes,
“And shuns our holiest, wildest, deepest walks?
“We give no music to the high-trained ear:
“Our concert loved is NATURE's voice Divine,
“And GOD's and LOVE's; One unison, that sounds
“Through every branch, and trembles in each leaf.
“Here oft, when man awakes not, hear we sweet
“The voice of GOD conversing in the Calm,
“And preaching of his inmost works Himself;
“Till all the Seraph glow in all his fires,
“And melts the high Society in one
“Enraptured Diapason's holy sound.
“'Twas not the Warrior's gleam, that thinned our shades
“And harshly grated human Discords there:
“He passed unheeded when the storm was o'er,
“And left no measured ravage: Not the man
“Of boisterous Nature was our foe; that man
“Was Nature still, and her behests obeyed.
“The Man of Art, is NATURE's foe and man's
“And God's. His desolating axe wastes all,
“That speaks a GOD Creator of the Land;
“And marks it for his own. The ground not then
“Yields an impartial feast to man, to fowl,
“And all the Family of GOD; but trained
“To furnish famine, mocks at GOD and all.
“No shades are holy, nor are rural scenes.
“The Man of Art proscribes all Nature; marks
“For dread the embowring thicket formed for Love
“And Love's delights of Peace; and wise in this
“Career of Ruin, he; for LOVE itself
“Is the first dread—LOVE the first great terror
“Of the Man of Art—commutual Foe!
“And yet is LOVE the Universal Friend:
“And, (hear the choir of NATURE, MAN and GOD!)
“The Man of Art, the Universal Foe!
“He dreads himself—hates LOVE he can't subdue—
“His GOD arraigns—all NATURE desolates!
“But hence, let NATURE rise and reign in Man!
“And him destroy who has destroyed the Earth;
“While GOD inspires, and LOVE unites the World!”
I hail the blest alternative! Content
To live dissociate of the Man of Art
And his dissociate earth, usurpt and curst!
Shortly his ruin whelms; the Dam is broke!
The Founts of Fire are broken up, as erst
Of the Great Deep, and FIRE now streams along,
Innocuous round my Rest! See! It comes!
And claims the SPRINGS of NATURE for it's own!