The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince :: :: University of Virginia Library

By some means or other I've gathered a hint
That you sport with the Muses, and show it in print;
So, being a somewhat presumptuous elf,
And touched with the mania of scribbling myself,
I have ventured to write, with the hope, in the end,
To make your acquaintance, and call you my friend;
For nought yields me pleasure more pure, than to find,
In my rambles through life, men of merit and mind.
That you lend me your friendship, is what I request,—
Refuse it or grant it, just as you like best;
But before you do either, pray, hold, if you please—
I will draw you my portrait, and set you at ease:—

I'm a very strange with, with a very strange name,
Unaided by Fortune, unfavoured by Fame:
I am homely in person, and awkward in speech,
Yet am willing to learn, though unable to teach.
Sometimes I am sunny, and buoyant, and gay,
As the breezes and bowers in the bright month of May;
Sometimes, like December, I'm rugged and rough,
And heavy, and gloomy, and peevish enough;

But feelings like these are engendered in life,
By poverty, toil, disappointment, and strife;
But away with reflection, and care, and the rest on't,
I live for to-day, and I'll just make the best on't.

I've a passion for woman, and music, and joyance,
And from children I gain more delight than annoyance—
(As for Woman herself, in the season of need,
Without her this world were a desert indeed!)
In my evenings of leisure I fly to my books,
With their quiet, unchanging, intelligent looks;
Whene'er I am with them, sweet visions come o'er me,
And as to my choice, why, I read all before me;
Be it wisdom or wit, it can ne'er come amiss—
I have learning from that page, and laughter from this;
So between one and t'other, I manage to sweep
O'er a great deal of surface, but never go deep.

In Man I love all that is noble and great,
But war, and oppression, and falsehood, I hate;
And oft has my spirit burst forth into song
Against every species of riot and wrong.
I'm a pleader for freedom in every form;
For my country I feel patriotic and warm,
Yet still I've no wish to disorder the land
With the flame of the torch and the flash of the brand;
I'm for measures more gentle, more certain, in sooth,—
The movement of morals, the triumph of truth;
And my hopes are that men who are toiling and grieving,
Will make this fair Earth like the Heaven they believe in.

My religion is Love,—'tis the noblest and purest;
And my temple the Universe—widest and surest;
I worship my God through his works, which are fair,
And the joy of my thoughts is perpetual prayer.

I awake to new life with the coming of Spring,
When the lark is aloft with a fetterless wing;

When the thorn and the woodbine are bursting with buds,
And the throstle is heard in the depth of the woods;
When the verdure grows bright where the rivulets run,
And the primrose and daisy look up at the sun;
When the iris of April expands o'er the plain,
And a blessing comes down in the drops of the rain;
When the skies are as pure, and the breezes as mild,
As the smile of my wife, and the kiss of my child.

When the Summer in fulness of beauty is born,
I love to be out with the first blush of morn;
And to pause in the field where the mower is blithe,
Keeping time with a song to the sweep of the scythe.
At meridian I love to revisit the bowers,
'Mid the murmur of bees and the breathing of flowers,
And there in some sylvan and shadowy nook,
To lay myself down on the brink of the brook;
Where the coo of the ring-dove sounds soothingly near,
And the light laugh of childhood comes sweet to my ear.
I love, too, at evening, to rest in the dell,
Where the tall fern is drooping above the green well;
When the vesper-star burns—when the zephyr-wind blows,
When the lay of the nightingale ruffles the rose;
When silence is round me, below and above,
And my heart is imbued with the spirit of love;
When the things that I gaze on grow fairer, and seem
Like the fancy-wrought shapes of some young poet's dream.

In the calm reign of Autumn I'm happy to roam,
When the peasant exults in a full harvest-home;
When the boughs of the orchard with fruitage incline,
And the clusters are ripe on the stem of the vine;
When Nature puts on the last smiles of the year,
And the leaves of the forest are scattered and sere;
When the lark quits the sky, and the linnet the spray,
And all things are clad in the garb of decay.

Even Winter to me hath a thousand delights,
With its short gloomy days, and its long, starry nights:
And I love to go forth ere the dawn, to inhale
The health-breathing freshness that floats in the gale;
When the sun riseth red o'er the crest of the hill,
And the trees of the woodland are hoary and still:
When the motion and sound of the streamlet are lost
In the icy embrace of mysterious frost;
When the hunter is out on the shelterless moor,
And the robin looks in at the cottager's door;
When the Spirit of Nature hath folded his wings,
To nourish the seeds of all glorious things;
Till the herb, and the leaf, and the fruit, and the flower,
Shall awake in the fulness of beauty and power.

There's a harvest of knowledge in all that I see,
For a stone or a leaf is a treasure to me;
There's the magic of music in every sound,
And the aspect of beauty encircles me round;
Whilst the fast-gushing joy that I fancy and feel,
Is more than the language of song can reveal.

Did God set his fountains of light in the skies,
That Man should look up with the tears in his eyes?
Did God make this earth so abundant and fair,
That Man should look down with a groan of despair?
Did God fill the world with harmonious life,
That Man should go forth with destruction and strife?
Did God scatter freedom o'er mountain and wave,
That Man should exist as a tyrant and slave?
Away with so hopeless—so joyless a creed,
For the soul that believes it is darkened indeed!

Thus I've told you, without an intent to deceive,
Of the things that I love, and the things I believe;
If I've glossed o'er my failings, you need not abhor me—
What I've now left untold, other tongues may tell for me.