Poems, and a tragedy :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poems, and a tragedy

By William Julius Mickle

Mickle, William Julius (1735-1788)

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ANECDOTES OF WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE, IN WHICH ARE COMPRISED, SEVERAL LETTERS FROM THE LATE LORD LYTTELTON.

xlvi

[“While o'er these lawns thine eye delighted strays]

“While o'er these lawns thine eye delighted strays,
Allow a pause to hear the tale of woe;
Here stood the parent Elm in elder days,
Here o'er its Lord slow wav'd the wither'd bough.
While pale and cold his famish'd cheek full low,
On the rude turf in death's last swooning lay.

E'en now methinks his anguish'd look I see,
As by the menials taunted from the door;
Fainting he wander'd—then beneath the tree
Sunk down—sweet heaven what pangs his bosom tore,
When o'er yon lordly dome, his own no more,
He roll'd his dying eyes.—Ah! what compare
To this the lessons taught of sages hoar?
By his mad revels, by the gilded snare,
By all thy hopes of joy, oh fortune's child beware!

W. J. M.”

xlvii

[The voice of joy this happy day demands]

I

The voice of joy this happy day demands;
Resound the song, and in our God confide:
Beneath his canopy the bridegroom stands,
In all her beauty shines the lovely bride.
O may their joys still blossom, ever new,
Fair as a garden to the ravish'd view!

II

Rejoice, O youth, and if thy thoughts aspire,
To heaven's pure bliss, the sacred law revere;
The stranger's wants, the needy soul's desire
Supply, and humbly with thy neighbour bear:
So shall thy father's grateful heart rejoice,
And thy fair deeds inspire thy people's voice.

III

Sing from your bowers ye daughters of the song,
Behold the bride with star-like glory shine;
May each succeeding day still glide along
Fair as the first, begirt with grace divine:
Far from her tent may care and sorrow fly,
While she o'erjoy'd beholds her numerous progeny.

IV

Ye happy parents, shout with chearful voice,
See, o'er your son the canopy unfold;
And thou, O hoary rev'rend Sire, rejoice,
May thy glad eyes thy grandson's son behold.
The song of joy, ye youthful kindred raise,
And let the people join, the living God to praise.

xlix

ESKDALE BRAES.

By the banks of the chrystal stream'd Esk,
Where the Wauchope her yellow wave joins,
Where the lambkins on sunny braes bask,
And wild woodbine the Shepherd's bower twines.

Maria, disconsolate maid,
Oft sigh'd the still noon-tide away,
Or by moonlight all desolate stray'd,
While woeful she tun'd her love-lay;

Ah, no more from the banks of the Ewes
My Shepherd comes cheerly along,
Broomholm and the Deansbanks refuse
To echo the plaints of his song;

No more from the echoes of Ewes,
His dog fondly barking I hear,
No more the tir'd lark he persues,
And tells me his master draws near;

Ah, woe to the wars, and the pride,
That my heroes, Oh Esk, could display,
When with laurels they planted thy side,
From France and from Spain borne away.

Oh, why did their honours decoy,
My poor shepherd lad from the shore,
Ambition bewitch'd the vain boy,
And Oceans between us now roar!

Ah, methinks his pale corse floating by,
I behold on the rude billows tost;
Unburied his scatter'd bones lie,
Lie bleaching on some desert coast!

xlx

By this stream and the May-blossom'd thorn,
That first heard his love-tale, and his vows,
My pale ghost shall wander forlorn,
And the willow shall weep o'er my brows.

With the ghosts of the Waas will I wail,
In Warblaw woods join the sad throng,
To Hallow E'ens blast tell my tale,
As the spectres, ungrav'd, glide along;

Still the Ewes rolls her paly blue stream,
Old Esk still his chrystal tide pours,
Still golden the Wauchope waves gleam,
And still green, oh Broomholm, are thy bowers!

No, blasted they seem to my view,
The rivers in red floods combine!
The turtles their widow'd notes coo,
And mix their sad ditties with mine!

Discolour'd in sorrow's dim shade,
All Nature seems with me to mourn,—
Strait the village-bells merrily play'd,
And announc'd her dear Jamie's return.

The woodlands all May-blown appear,
The silver streams murmur new charms;
As smiling her Jamie drew near
And all eager sprung into her arms.

POLLIO:

AN ELEGIAC ODE.

WRITTEN IN THE WOOD NEAR ROSLIN CASTLE. 1762.

Haec Jovem sentire Deosque cunctos.
Spem bonam certamque domum reporto.
HORAT.

I

The peaceful Evening breathes her balmy Store,
The playful School-boys wanton o'er the Green;
Where spreading Poplars shade the Cottage Door,
The Villagers in rustic Joy convene.

II

Amid the secret Windings of the Wood,
With solemn Meditation let me stray;
This is the Hour, when to the Wise and Good,
The heavenly Maid repays the Toils of Day.

III

The River murmurs, and the breathing Gale
Whispers the gently-waving Boughs among;
The Star of Evening glimmers o'er the Dale,
And leads the silent Host of Heaven along.

IV

How bright, emerging o'er yon broom-clad Height,
The silver Empress of the Night appears!
Yon limpid Pool reflects a stream of Light,
And faintly in its breast the Woodland bears.

V

The Waters tumbling o'er their rocky Bed,
Solemn and constant, from yon Dell resound;
The lonely Hearths blaze o'er the distant Glade;
The Bat, low-wheeling, skims the dusky Ground.

VI

August and hoary, o'er the sloping Dale,
The Gothic Abbey rears its sculptur'd Towers;
Dull through the Roofs resounds the whistling Gale;
Dark Solitude among the Pillars lowers.

VII

Where yon old Trees bend o'er a Place of Graves,
And, solemn, shade a Chapel's sad remains;
Where yon scath'd Poplar through the Window waves,
And, twining round, the hoary Arch sustains:

VIII

There, oft, at Dawn, as One forgot behind,
Who longs to follow, yet unknowing where,
Some hoary Shepherd, o'er his Staff reclin'd,
Pores on the Graves, and sighs a broken Prayer.

IX

High o'er the Pines, that with their dark'ning Shade,
Surround yon craggy Bank, the Castle rears
Its crumbling Turrets: still its towery Head
A warlike Mien, a sullen Grandeur wears.

X

So, 'midst the Snow of Age, a boastful Air
Still on the war-worn Veteran's Brow attends;
Still his big Bones his youthful Prime declare,
Though trembling, o'er the feeble Crutch he bends.

XI

Wild round the Gates the dusky Wall-flowers creep,
Where oft the Knights the beauteous Dames have led;
Gone is the Bower, the Grot a ruin'd Heap,
Where Bays and Ivy o'er the Fragments spread.

XII

'Twas here our Sires exulting from the Fight,
Great in their bloody arms, march'd o'er the Lea,
Eying their rescued Fields with proud delight;
Now lost to them! and, ah, how chang'd to me!

XIII

This Bank, the River, and the fanning Breeze,
The dear Idea of my Pollio bring;
So shone the Moon through these soft nodding Trees,
When here we wander'd in the Eves of Spring.

XIV

When April's smiles the flowery Lawn adorn,
And modest Cowslips deck the Streamlet's side;
When fragrant Orchards to the roseate Morn
Unfold their Bloom, in Heaven's own Colours dy'd:

XV

So fair a Blossom gentle Pollio wore,
These were the Emblems of his healthful Mind;
To Him the letter'd Page display'd its Lore,
To Him bright Fancy all her Wealth resign'd:

XVI

Him, with her purest Flames, the Muse endow'd,
Flames never to th'illiberal Thought allied;
The sacred Sisters led where Virtue glow'd
In all her Charms; he saw, he felt, and died.

XVII

Oh Partner of my Infant Griefs and Joys!
Big with the Scenes now past my Heart o'erflows,
Bids each Endearment, fair as once, to rise,
And dwells luxurious on her melting Woes.

XVIII

Oft with the rising Sun when Life was new,
Along the Woodland have I roam'd with Thee;
Oft by the Moon have brush'd the Evening Dew,
When all was fearless Innocence and Glee.

XIX

The sainted Well where yon bleak Hill declines,
Has oft been conscious of those happy Hours;
But now the Hill, the River crown'd with Pines,
And sainted Well have lost their cheering Powers.

XX

For Thou art gone—My Guide, my Friend, oh where,
Where hast thou fled, and left me here behind!
My tenderest Wish, my Heart to Thee was bare,
Oh, now cut off each passage to thy Mind!

XXI

How dreary is the Gulph, how dark, how void,
The trackless Shores that never were repast!
Dread Separation! on the Depth untry'd
Hope faulters, and the Soul recoils aghast.

XXII

Wide round the spacious Heavens I cast my eyes;
And shall these Stars glow with immortal fire,
Still shine the lifeless glories of the Skies,
And could thy bright, thy living Soul expire.

XXIII

Far be the thought—the Pleasures most sublime,
The Glow of Friendship, and the virtuous Tear,
The tow'ring Wish that scorns the bounds of Time,
Chill'd in this Vale of Death, but languish here.

XXIV

So plant the Vine on Norway's wintery Land,
The languid Stranger feebly buds, and dies;
Yet there's a Clime where Virtue shall expand
With godlike strength, beneath her native Skies.

XXV

The lonely Shepherd on the Mountain's side,
With patience waits the rosy opening Day;
The Mariner at Midnight's darksome tide,
With chearful hope expects the Morning Ray.

XXVI

Thus I, on Life's storm-beaten Ocean tost,
In mental vision view the happy Shore,
Where Pollio beckons to the peaceful Coast,
Where Fate and Death divide the Friends no more.

XXVII

Oh that some kind, some pitying kindred Shade,
Who now, perhaps, frequents this solemn Grove,
Would tell the awful Secrets of the Dead,
And from my Eyes the mortal Film remove!

XXVIII

Vain is the Wish—yet surely not in vain
Man's Bosom glows with that celestial Fire,
Which scorns Earth's Luxuries, which smiles at Pain,
And wings his Spirit with sublime Desire.

XXIX

To fan this Spark of Heaven, this Ray divine,
Still, oh my Soul! still be thy dear Employ;
Still thus to wander through the Shades be thine,
And swell thy Breast with visionary Joy.

XXX

So to the dark-brow'd Wood, or sacred Mount.
In antient days, the holy Seers retir'd,
And, led in vision, drank at Siloe's Fount,
While rising Extacies their Bosoms fir'd;

XXXI

Restor'd Creation bright before them rose,
The burning Desarts smil'd as Eden's Plains,
One friendly Shade the Wolf and Lambkin chose,
The flowery Mountains sung, “Messiah reigns!”

XXXII

Though fainter Raptures my cold Breast inspire,
Yet, let me oft frequent this solemn Scene,
Oft to the Abbey's shatter'd Walls retire,
What time the Moonshine dimly gleams between.

XXXIII

There, where the Cross in hoary ruin nods,
And weeping Yews o'ershade the letter'd Stones,
While midnight Silence wraps these drear Abodes,
And soothes me wand'ring o'er my kindred Bones.

XXXIV

Let kindled Fancy view the glorious Morn,
When from the bursting Graves the Just shall rise,
All Nature smiling, and, by Angels borne,
Messiah's Cross far blazing o'er the Skies.

SIR MARTYN:

A POEM, IN THE MANNER OF SPENCER.

CANTO I.

The mirthfull bowres and flowry dales
Of Pleasures faerie land,
Where Virtues budds are blighted as
By foul Enchanters wand.

I

Awake, ye West Windes, through the lonely dale,
And, Fancy, to thy faerie bowre betake!
Even now, with balmie freshnesse, breathes the gale,
Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake;
Through the pale willows faultering whispers wake,
And Evening comes with locks bedropt with dew;
On Desmonds mouldering turrets slowly shake
The trembling rie-grass and the hare-bell blue,
And ever and anon faire Mullas plaints renew.

II

O for the namelesse powre to strike mine eare,
That powre of charme by Naiads once possest,
Melodious Mulla! when, full oft whyleare,
Thy gliding murmurs soothd the gentle brest
Of haplesse Spenser; long with woes opprest,
Long with the drowsie Patrons smyles decoyd,
Till in thy shades, no more with cares distrest,
No more with painful anxious hopes accloyd,
The sabbath of his life the milde good man enjoyd:

III

Enjoyd each wish; while wrapt in visions blest
The Muses wooed him, when each evening grey
Luxurious Fancy, from her wardrobe drest
Brought forth her faerie knights in sheen array
By forrest edge or welling fount, where lay,
Farre from the crowd, the carelesse Bard supine:
Oh happy man! how innocent and gay,
How mildly peaceful past these houres of thine!
Ah! could a sigh avail, such sweete calme peace were mine!

IV

Yet oft, as pensive through these lawns I stray,
Unbidden transports through my bosome swell;
With pleasing reverence awd mine eyes survey
The hallowed shades where Spenser strung his shell.
The brooke still murmurs through the bushy dell,
Still through the woodlands wild and beauteous rise
The hills green tops; still from her moss-white cell
Complayning Echoe to the stockdove sighs,
And Fancy, wandering here, still feels new extacies.

V

Then come, ye Genii of the place! O come,
Ye wilde-wood Muses of the native lay!
Ye who these bancks did whilom constant roam,
And round your Spenser ever gladsom play!
Oh come once more! and with your magick ray
These lawns transforming, raise the mystick scene—
The lawns already own your vertual sway,
Proud citys rise, with seas and wildes atweene;
In one enchanted view the various walks of men.

VI

Towrd to the sky, with cliff on cliff ypild,
Fronting the sunne, a rock fantastic rose;
From every rift the pink and primrose smild,
And redd with blossoms hung the wildings boughs;
On middle cliff each flowry shrub that blows
On Mayes sweete morne a fragrant grove displayd,
Beauteous and wilde as ever Druid chose;
From whence a reverend Wizard through the shade
Advaunst to meet my steps; for here me seemd I strayd.

VII

White as the snow-drop round his temples flowd
A few thin hairs; bright in his eagle eye,
Meint with Heavens lightning, social mildnesse glowd;
Yet when him list queynt was his leer and slie,
Yet wondrous distant from malignitie;
For still his smyle did forcibly disclose
The soul of worth and warm hart-honestie:
Such winning grace as Age but rare bestows
Dwelt on his cheeks and lips, though like the withering rose.

VIII

Of skyen blue a mantling robe he wore,
A purple girdle loosely tyd his waist
Enwove with many a flowre from many a shore,
And half conceald, and half reveald his vest,
His vest of silk, the Faerie Queenes bequest
What time she wooed him ere his head was grey;
A lawrell bough he held, and now addrest
To speech, he points it to the mazy way
That wide and farre around in wildest prospect lay.

IX

Younkling, quoth he, lo, where at thy desire
The wilderness of life extensive lies;
The path of blustering fame and warlike Ire,
Of scowling Powre and lean-boned Covetise,
Of thoughtlesse Mirth and Folly's giddy joys;
And whither all those paths illusive end,
All these at my command didactick rise,
And shift obedient as mine arm I bend.
He said, and to the field did strait his arm extend.

X

Well worthy views, quoth I, rise all around,
But certes, lever would I see and hear,
How, oft, the gentle plant of generous ground
And fairest bloom no ripend fruit will bear:
Oft have I shed, perdie, the bitter tear
To see the shoots of Virtue shrink and dy,
Untimely blasted in the soft greene eare:
What evil blight thus works such villainy,
To tell, O reverend Seer, thy prompt enchantment try.

XI

Ah me! how little doe unthinking Youth
Foresee the sorrowes of their elder age!
Full oft, quoth he, my Bosom melts with ruth
To note the follies of their early stage,
Where Dissipations cup full deepe they pledge;
Ne can the Wizards saws disperse to flight
The ills that soon will warre against them wage,
Ne may the spells that lay the church-yarde Spright,
From Pleasures servile bands release the luckless Wight.

XII

This truth to tell, see yonder lawnskepe rise,
An ample field of British clime I ween,
A field which never by poetick Eyes
Was viewd from hence. Thus, though the rural scene
Has by a thousand artists pencild beene,
Some other may, from other point, explore
A view full different, yet as faire beseene:
So shall these lawns present one lawnskepe more;
For certes where we stand stood never wight before.

XIII

In yonder dale does wonne a gentle Knight—
Fleet as he spake still rose the imagerie
Of all he told depeinten to the sight;
It was, I weet, a goodly baronie:
Beneath a greene-clad hill, right faire to see,
The castle in the sunny vale ystood;
All round the east grew many a sheltering tree,
And on the west a dimpling silver flood
Ran through the gardins trim, then crept into the wood.

XIV

How sweetly here, quoth he, might one employ
And fill with worthy deed the fleeting houres!
What pleasaunce mote a learned wight enjoy
Emong the hills and vales and shady bowres,
To mark how buxom Ceres round him poures
The hoary headed wheat, the freckled corne,
The bearded barlie, and the hopp that towres
So high, and with his bloom salews the morne,
And with the orchard vies the lawnskepe to adorn;

XV

The fragrant orchard, where her golden store
Pomona lavishes on everie tree,
The velvet-coated peach, the plumb so hore,
The nectrines redd, and pippins sheene to see,
That nod in everie gale with wanton glee:
How happy here with Woodstocks laughing Swain
And Avons Bard of peerlesse memorie
To saunter through the dasie-whitened plain,
When Fancys sweetest Impe Dan Spenser joins the train.

XVI

Ne to Syr Martyn hight were these unknown;
Oft by the brooke his infant steps they led,
And oft the Fays, with many a warbling tone
And laughing shape, stood round his morning bed:
Such happiness bloomd fair around his head.
Yet though his mind was formd each joy to taste,
From him, alas! dear homefelt Joyaunce fled,
Vain meteors still his cheated arms embraced;
Where all seemd flowrie gay, he found a dreary waste.

XVII

Just when he had his eighteenth summer seen,
Lured by the fragrance of the new-mown hay,
As carelesse sauntering through the elm-fenced green,
He with his book beguild the closing day,
The dairy-Maide hight Kathrin frisk'd that way;
A roguish twinkling look the gypsie cast,
For much she wishd the lemmans part to play;
Nathlesse unheeding on his way he past,
Ne enterd in his heart, or wish or thought unchast.

XVIII

Right plump she was, and ruddie glowd her cheek,
Her easie waiste in milch-white boddice dight,
Her golden locks curld down her shoulders sleek,
And halfe her bosome heaving met the sight,
Whiles gayly she accosts the sober wight:
Freedom and glee blythe sparkling in her eye
With wanton merrimake she trips the Knight,
And round the younkling makes the clover flye:
But soon he starten up, more gamesome by and bye.

XIX

I ween, quoth she, you think to win a kiss,
But certes you shall woo and strive in vain.
Fast in his armes he caught her then ywis;
Yfere they fell; but loud and angry then
Gan she of shame and haviour vild complain,
While bashfully the weetlesse Boy did look:
With cunning smyles she viewd his awkward pain;
The smyle he caught, and eke new courage took,
And Kathrin then a kiss, perdie, did gentlie brook.

XX

Fleet past the months ere yet the giddy Boy
One thought bestowd on what would surely be;
But well his Aunt perceivd his dangerous toy,
And sore she feard her auncient familie
Should now be staind with blood of base degree:
For sooth to tell, her liefest hearts delight
Was still to count her princely pedigree,
Through barons bold all up to Cadwall hight,
Thence up to Trojan Brute ysprong of Venus bright.

XXI

But, zealous to forefend her gentle race
From baselie matching with plebeian bloud,
Whole nights she schemd to shonne thilk foull disgrace,
And Kathrin's bale in wondrous wrath she vowd:
Yet could she not with cunning portaunce shroud,
So as might best succede her good intent,
But clept her lemman and vild slut aloud;
That soon she should her gracelesse thewes repent,
And stand in long white sheet before the parson shent.

XXII

So spake the Wizard, and his hand he wavd,
And prompt the scenerie rose, where listless lay
The Knight in shady bowre, by streamlet lavd,
While Philomela sooth'd the parting day:
Here Kathrin him approachd with features gay,
And all her store of blandishments and wiles;
The Knight was touchd—but she with soft delay
And gentle tears yblends her languid smiles,
And of base falsitie th'enamourd Boy reviles.

XXIII

Amazd the Boy beheld her ready teares,
And, faultering oft, exclaims with wondring stare,
What mean these sighs? dispell thine ydle feares;
And, confident in me, thy griefes declare.
And need, quoth she, need I my heart to bare,
And tellen what untold well knowne mote be?
Lost is my friends good-will, my mother's care—
By you deserted—ah! unhappy me!
Left to your Aunts fell spight, and wreakfull crueltie.

XXIV

My Aunt! quoth he, forsooth shall she command?
No; sooner shall yond hill forsake his place,
He laughing said, and would have caught her hand;
Her hand she shifted to her blubbered face
With prudish modestie, and sobd, Alas!
Grant me your bond, or else on yonder tree
These silken garters, pledge of thy embrace,
Ah, welladay! shall hang my babe and me,
And everie night our ghostes shall bring all hell to thee.

XXV

Ythrilld with horror gapd the wareless wight,
As when, aloft on well-stored cherrie-tree,
The thievesh elfe beholds with pale affright
The gardner near, and weets not where to flee:
And will my bond forefend thilk miserie?
That shalt thou have; and for thy peace beside,
What mote I more? Housekeeper shalt thou be—
An awfull oath forthwith his promise tied,
And Kathrin was as blythe as ever blythesome bride.

XXVI

His Aunt fell sick for very dole to see
Her kindest counsels scornd, and sore did pine
To think what well she knew would shortly be,
Cadwallins bloud debasd in Kathrins line;
For very dole she died. Oh sad propine,
Syr Knight, for all that care which she did take!
How many a night, for coughs and colds of thine,
Has she sat up rare cordial broths to make,
And cockerd thee so kind with many a daintie cake!

XXVII

Soft as the gossamer in summer shades
Extends its twinkling line from spray to spray,
Gently as sleep the weary lids invades,
So soft, so gently Pleasure mines her way:
But whither will the smiling Fiend betray,
Ah, let the Knights approaching dayes declare!
Though everie bloome and flowre of buxon May
Bestrew her path, to desarts cold and bare
The mazy path betrays the giddy wight unware.

XXVIII

Ah! says the Wizard, what may now availe
His manlie sense that fairest blossoms bore,
His temper gentle as the whispering gale,
His native goodnesse, and his vertuous lore!
Now through his veins, all uninflamd before,
Th'enchanted cup of Dissipation hight
Has shedd, with subtil stealth, through everie pore,
Its giddy poison, brewd with magicke might,
Each budd of gentle worth and better thought to blight.

XXIX

So the Canadian, train'd in drery wastes
To chace the foming bore and fallow deer,
At first the trader's beverage shylie tastes;
But soon with headlong rage, unfelt whyleare,
Inflamd he lusts for the delirious cheer:
So bursts the Boy disdainful of restrent
Headlong attonce into the wylde career
Of jollitie, with all his mind unbent,
And dull and yrksome hangs the day in sports unspent.

XXX

Now fly the wassal seasons wingd with glee,
Each day affords a floode of roring joy;
The Springs green months ycharmd with Cocking flee,
The jolly Horse-race Summers grand employ,
His Harvest Sports the foxe and hare destroy;
But the substantial Comforts of the Bowl
Are thine, O Winter! thine to fire the Boy
With Englands cause, and swell his mightie soul,
Till dizzy with his peres about the flore he rowl.

XXXI

Now round his dores ynail'd on cloggs of wood
Hangs many a badgers snout and foxes tail,
The which had he through many a hedge persewd,
Through marsh, through meer, dyke, ditch, and delve and dale;
To hear his hair-breadth scapes would make you pale;
Which well the groome hight Patrick can relate,
Whileas on holidays he quaffs his ale;
And not one circumstance will he forgett,
So keen the braggard chorle is on his hunting sett.

XXXII

Now on the turf the Knight with sparkling eyes
Beholds the springing Racers sweep the ground:
Now lightlie by the post the foremost flies,
And thondring on, the rattling hoofs rebound;
The coursers groan, the cracking whips resound:
And gliding with the gale they rush along
Right to the stand. The Knight stares wildly round
And, rising on his sell, his jocund tongue
Is heard above the noise of all the noisie throng.

XXXIII

While thus the Knight persewd the shaddow Joy,
As youthly spirits thoughtlesse led the way,
Her gilden baits, ah, gilded to decoy!
Kathrin did eve and morn before him lay,
Watchfull to please, and ever kindlie gay;
Till, like a thing bewitchd, the carelesse wight
Resigns himself to her capricious sway:
Then soon, perdie, was never charme-bound spright
In Necromancers thrall in halfe such pitteous plight.

XXXIV

Her end accomplishd, and her hopes at stay,
What need her now, she recks, one smyle bestow;
Each care to please were trouble thrown away,
And thriftlesse waste, with many maxims moe,
As, What were she the better did she so?
She conns, and freely sues her native bent:
Yet still can she to guard his thralldom know,
Though grimd with snuff in tawdrie gown she went,
Though peevish ere her spleen and rude her jolliment.

XXXV

As when the linnet hails the balmie morne,
And roving through the trees his mattin sings,
Lively with joy, till on a lucklesse thorne
He lights, where to his feet the birdlime clings;
Then all in vain he flapps his gaudie wings;
The more he flutters still the more foredone:
So fares it with the Knight: each morning brings
His deeper thrall; ne can he brawling shun,
For Kathrin was his thorne and birdlime both in one.

XXXVI

Or, when atop the hoary western hill
The ruddie Sunne appears to rest his chin,
When not a breeze disturbs the murmuring rill,
And mildlie warm the falling dewes begin,
The gamesome Trout then shews her silverie skin,
As wantonly beneath the wave she glides,
Watching the buzzing flies, that never blin,
Then, dropt with pearle and golde, displays her sides,
While she with frequent leape the ruffled streame divides.

XXXVII

On the green banck a truant Schoolboy stands;
Well has the urchin markt her mery play,
An ashen rod obeys his guileful hands,
And leads the mimick fly across her way;
Askaunce, with listly look and coy delay,
The hungrie Trout the glitteraund treachor eyes,
Semblaunt of life, with speckled wings so gay;
Then, slylie nibbling, prudish from it flies,
Till with a bouncing start she bites the truthless prize.

XXXVIII

Ah, then the Younker gives the fatefull twitch;
Struck with amaze she feels the hook ypight
Deepe in her gills, and, plonging where the beech
Shaddows the poole, she runs in dread affright;
In vain the deepest rocke, her late delight,
In vain the sedgy nook for help she tries;
The laughing elfe now curbs, now aids her flight,
The more entangled still the more she flies,
And soon amid the grass the panting captive lies.

XXXIX

Where now; ah pity! where that sprightly play,
That wanton bounding, and exulting joy,
That lately welcomd the retourning ray,
When by the rivletts bancks, with blushes coy,
April walkd forth—ah! never more to toy,
In purling streame, she pants, she gasps and dies!
Ah me! how like the fortune of the Boy,
His days of revel and his nights of noise
Have left him now, involvd, his Lemman's haplesse prize.

XL

See now the changes that attend her sway;
The parke where rural Elegance had placed
Her sweete retreat, where cunning Art did play
Her happiest freaks, that nature undefaced
Received new charmes; ah, see, how foul disgraced
Now lies thilke park so sweetlie wylde afore!
Each grove and bowery walke be now laid waste;
The bowling-greene has lost its shaven flore,
And snowd with washing suds now yawns beside the dore.

XLI

All round the borders where the pansie blue,
Crocus, and polyanthus speckled fine,
And daffodils in fayre confusion grew
Emong the rose-bush roots and eglantine;
These now their place to cabbages resign,
And tawdrie pease supply the lillys stead;
Rough artichokes now bristle where the vine
Its purple clusters round the windows spread,
And laisie cucumbers on dung recline the head.

XLII

The fragrant orchard, once the Summers pride,
Where oft, by moonshine, on the daisie greene,
In jovial daunce, or tripping side by side,
Pomona and her buxom nymphs were seene;
Or where the clear canal stretchd out atweene,
Deftly their locks with blossomes would they brede;
Or resting by the primerose hillocks sheene,
Beneath the apple boughs and walnut shade.
They sung their loves the while the fruitage gaily spread:

XLIII

The fragrant orchard at her dire command
In all the pride of blossome strewd the plain;
The hillocks gently rising through the land
Must now no trace of Natures steps retain;
The clear canal, the mirrour of the swain,
And bluish lake no more adorn the greene,
Two durty watering ponds alone remain;
And where the moss-floord filbert bowres had beene,
Is now a turnip fielde and cow yarde nothing cleane.

XLIV

An auncient crone, yclepd by housewives Thrift,
All this devisd for trim Oeconomie;
But certes, ever from her birth bereft
Of elegance, ill fitts her title high:
Coarse were her looks, yet smoothe her courtesie,
Hoyden her shapes, but grave was her attyre,
And ever flxt on trifles was her eye;
And still she plodden round the kitchen fyre,
To save the smallest crombe her pleasure and desyre.

XLV

Bow-bent with eld, her steps were soft and slow,
Fast at her side a bounch of keys yhong,
Dull care sat brooding on her jealous brow,
Sagacious proverbs dropping from her tongue:
Yet sparing though she beene her guestes emong,
Ought by herselfe that she mote gormandise,
The foul curmudgeon would have that ere long,
And hardly could her witt her gust suffice;
Albee in varied stream, still was it Covetise.

XLVI

Dear was the kindlie love which Kathrin bore
This crooked Ronion for in soothly guise
She was her genius and her counsellor:
Now cleanly milking-pails in careful wise
Bedeck each room, and much can she despise
The Knights complaints, and thirftlesse judgment ill:
Eke versd in sales, right wondrous cheap she buys,
Parlour and bedroom too her bargains fill;
Though useless, cheap they beene, and cheap she purchasd still.

XLVII

His tenants whilom been of thriftie kind,
Did like to sing and worken all the day,
At seed time never were they left behind,
And at the harvest feast still first did play;
And ever at the terme their rents did pay,
For well they knew to guide their rural geer:
All in a row, yclad in homespun gray,
They marchd to church each Sunday of the year,
Their imps yode on afore, the carles brought up the rear.

XLVIII

Ah happy days! but now no longer found:
No more with social hospitable glee
The village hearths at Christmas-tide resound,
No more the Whitsun gamboll may you see,
Nor morrice daunce, nor May daye jollitie
When the blythe maydens foot the deawy green;
But now, in place, heart-sinking penurie
And hopelesses care on every face is seen,
As these the drery times of curfeu bell had been.

XLIX

For everie while, with thief-like lounging pace,
And dark of look, a tawdrie villain came,
Muttering some words with serious-meaning face,
And on the church dore he would fix their name;
Then, nolens volens, they must heed the same,
And quight those fieldes their yeomen grandsires plowd
Eer since black Edwards days, when, crownd with fame,
From Cressie field the Knights old grandsire prowd
Led home his yeomandrie, and each his glebe allowd.

L

But now the orphan sees his harvest fielde
Beneath the gripe of Laws stern rapine fall,
The friendlesse widow, from her hearth expelld,
Withdraws to some poor hutt with earthen wall:
And these, perdie, were Kathrins projects all;
For, sooth to tell, grievd was the Knight full sore
Such sinful deeds to see: yet such his thrall,
Though he had pledgd his troth, yet nathemore
It mote he keep, except she willd the same before.

LI

Oh wondrous Powre of Womans wily art,
What for thy withcraft too secure may be!
Not Circes cup may so transform the heart,
Or bend the will, fallacious Powre, like thee;
Lo, manly Sense, of princely dignitie,
Witchd by thy spells, thy crowching slave is seen;
Lo, high-browd Honour bends the groveling knee,
And every bravest virtue, sooth I ween,
Seems like a blighted flowre of dank unlovely mien.

LII

Ne may grim Saracene, nor Tartar man,
Such ruthlesse bondage on his slave impose,
As Kathrin on the Knight full deffly can;
Ne may the Knight escape, or cure his woes:
As he who dreams he climbs some mountains brows,
With painful struggling up the steep height strains,
Anxious he pants and toils, but strength foregoes
His feeble limbs, and not a step he gains;
So toils the powrelesse Knight beneath his servile chains.

LIII

His lawyer now assumes the guardians place;
Learnd was thilk clerk in deeds, and passing slie;
Slow was his speeche, and solemn was his face
As that grave bird which Athens rankt so high
Pleasd Dullness basking in his glossie eye,
The smyle would oft steal through his native phlegm;
And well he guards Syr Martyns propertie,
Till not one peasant dares invade the game:
But certes, seven yeares rent was soon his own just claim.

LIV

Now mortgage follows mortgage: Cold delay
Still yawns on everie long depending case.
The Knights gay bloome the while slid fast away;
Kathrin the while brought bantling imps apace;
While everie day renews his vile disgrace,
And straitens still the more his galling thrall:
See now what scenes his houshold hours debase,
And rise successive in his cheerlesse hall.
So spake the Seer, and prompt the scene obeyd his call.

LV

See, quoth the Wizard, how with foltering mien,
And discomposd yon stranger he receives;
Lo, how with sulkie look, and moapt with spleen,
His frowning mistresse to his friend behaves;
In vain he nods, in vain his hand he waves,
Ne will she heed, ne will she sign obay;
Nor corner dark his awkward blushes saves,
Ne may the hearty laugh, ne features gay:
The hearty laugh, perdie, does but his pain betray.

LVI

A worthy wight his friend was ever known,
Some generous cause did still his lips inspire;
He begs the Knight by friendships long agone
To shelter from his lawyers cruel ire
An auncient hinde, around whose cheerlesse fire
Sat Grief, and pale Disease. The poor mans wrong
Affects the Knight: his inmost hearts desire
Gleams through his eyes; yet all confusd, and stung
With inward pain, he looks, and silence guards his tongue.

LVII

See, while his friend entreats and urges still,
See, how with sidelong glaunce and haviour shy
He steals the look to read his Lemmans will,
Watchfull the dawn of an assent to spy.
Look as he will, yet will she not comply.
His friend with scorn beholds his awkward pain;
From him even Pity turns her tear-dewd eye,
And hardlie can the bursting laugh restrain,
While manlie Honour frowns on his unmanlie stain.

LVIII

Let other scenes now rise, the Wizard said:
He wavd his hand, and other scenes arose.
See there, quoth he, the Knight supinely laid
Invokes the household houres of learnd repose;
An auncient Song its manly joys bestows:
The melting passion of the Nutt-brown Mayde
Glides through his breast; his wandering fancy glows,
Till into wildest reveries betrayd,
He hears th'imagind Faire, and wooes the lovely shade.

LIX

Transported he repeats her constant vow,
How to the green wode shade, betide whateer,
She with her banishd Love would fearlesse goe,
And sweet would be with him the hardest cheer.
Oh heaven! he sighs, what blessings dwell sincere
In love like this!—But instant as he sighd,
Bursting into the room, loud in his ear
His Lemman thonders, Ah! fell dole betide
The girl that trusts in man before she bees his bride!

LX

And must some Lemman of a whiffling song
Delight your fancy! she disdainful cries;
When strait her imps all brawling round her throng,
And, bleard with teares, each for revenge applies:
Him cheif in spleene the father means chastise,
But from his kindlie hand she saves him still;
Yet for no fault, anon, in furious wise
Yon yellow else she little spares to kill;
And then, next breath, does all to coax its stubborn will.

LXI

Pale as the ghoste that by the gleaming moon
Withdraws the curtain of the murderers bed,
So pale and cold at heart, as halfe aswoon
The Knight stares round; yet good nor bad he sed.
Alas! though trembling anguish inward bled,
His best resolve soon as a meteor dies:
His present peace and ease mote chance have fled,
He deems; and yielding, looks most wondrous wise,
As from himself he hopd his grief and shame disguise.

LXII

Woe to the wight whose hated home no more
The hallowd temple of Content may be!
While now his days abroad with groomes he wore,
His mistresse with her liefest companie,
A rude unlettered herd! with dearest glee,
Enjoys each whisper of her neighbours shame;
And still anon the flask of ratafie
Improves their tales, till certes not a name
Escapes their blasting tongue, or goody, wench, or dame.

LXIII

One evening tide as with her crones she sate,
Making sweete solace of some scandall new,
A boistrous noise came thondring at the gate,
And soon a sturdie boy approachd in view;
With gold far glitteraund were his vestments blue
And pye-shapd hat, and of the silver sheen
An huge broad buckle glaunst in either shoe,
And round his neck an India kerchiefe clean,
And in his hand a switch: a jolly wight I ween.

LXIV

Farre had he saild, and roamd the foamy deepe,
Where ruddie Phœbus slacks his firie team;
(With burning golde then flames th'ethereal steepe,
And Oceans waves like molten silver seem)
Eke had he seen, with diamond glittering beam,
The starre of morn awake the roseate day,
While yet beneath the moone old Nilus stream
Pale through the land reflects the gleamy ray,
As through the midnight skyes appeares the milky way.

LXV

Through the Columbian world, and verdant iles
Unknown to Carthage, had he frequent sped,
Eke had he beene where flowry Sommer smiles
At Christmas tide, where other heavens are spred,
Besprent with starres that Newton never red,
Where in the North the sun of noone is seene:
Wherever Hannos bold ambition led,
Wherever Gama saild, there had he beene,
Gama , the dearling care of Beautys heavenly Queene.

LXVI

Eke had he plied the rivers and the coast
Where bold Neârch young Ammons fleet did guide;
A task so dred the world-subduing host
Could not another for such feats provide:
And often had he seen that ocean wide
Which to his wearie bands thilke youth did say
None but th'immortal Gods had ever spyd;
Which sight, quoth he, will all your toils repay:
That none mote see it more als he the Gods did pray .

LXVII

Through these outlandish shores and oceans dire
For ten long seasons did the younkling toil,
Through stormes, through tempests, and the battels fire,
Through cold, through heat, cheerd by the hope the while
Of yet revisiting his natal soil:
And oft, when flying in the monsoon gale,
By Æthiopias coast or Javas ile,
When glauncing over Oceans bosom pale,
The ship hung on the winds with broad and steadie sail:

LXVIII

Hung on the winds as from his ayrie flight,
With wide-spred wing unmovd, the eagle bends,
When, on old Snowdons brow prepard to light,
Sailing the liquid skye he sheer descends:
Thus oft, when roving farre as wave extends,
The scenes of promist bliss would warm the Boy;
To meet his brother with each wish yblends,
And friendships glowing hopes each thought employ;
And now at home arrivd his heart dilates with joy.

LXIX

Around the meadows and the parke he looks,
To spy the streamlett or the elm-tree shade,
Where oft at eve, beneath the cawing rooks,
He with his feres in merry chilhoode playd:
But all was changd!—Unweetingly dismayd
A cold foreboding impluse thrills his breast;
And who but Kathrin now is dearnly frayd
When entering in she kens the stranger guest:
Then with sad mien she rose, and kindlie him embrast.

LXX

Great marvell at her solemn cheer he made;
Then, sobbing deepe, Glad will Syr Martyn be,
Faire Syr, of your retourne, she gently said;
But what mishap! our infant familie,
The dearest babes, though they were nought to me,
That ever breathd, are laid in deadlie plight:
What shall we do!—great were your courtesie
To lodge in yonder tenants house to night;
The skilfull leache forbids that noise my babes should fright

LXXI

Blunt was the Boy, and to the farme-house nigh
To wait his brother, at her bidding fares,
Conducted by a gossip pert and sly:
Kathrin the while her malengines prepares.
Now gan the duske suspend the plowmans cares,
When from his rural sportes arrives the Knight;
Soon with his mates the jovial bowl he shares,
His hall resounds!—amazd the stranger wight
Arreads it all as done to him in fell despight.

LXXII

Late was the houre whenas the Knight was tould
Of stranger guest; Go, bid him welcome here;
What seeks he there? quoth he. Perdie, what would
You seek? says to the Boy the messenger.
To see the Knight, quoth he, I but requere.
Syr Knight, he scornes to come; the servant said.
Go, bid him still, quoth he, to welcome cheer:
But all contrarywise the faytor made,
Till rage enflamd the Boy; and still his rage they fed:

LXXIII

Your brother, quoth the hostesse, soon will waste
His faire estate; and certes, well I read,
He weens to hold your patrimonie fast.
Next morne a lawyer beene ybrought with speed,
And wise he lookt, and wisely shook his hede.
Him now impowrd, the youth with rage yblent
Vows never to retourne; then mounts his steed,
And leaves the place in fancy hugely shent:
All which to Kathrins mind gave wondrous great content.

The castle of the earl of Desmond, on the banks of the river Mulla in Ireland, was sometime the residence of Spenser, the place where he wrote the greatest part of the Faerie Queene.

See the Lusiad.

For this speech to his army, and prayer of Alexander, see Q. Curtius.

CANTO II.

In musefull stownd Syr Martyn rews
His Youthhedes thoughtlesse stage;
But Dissipation haunts him to
The blossomes of old age.

I

With gracefull pause awhile the Wizard stood,
Then thus resumd,—As he whose homeward way
Lies through the windings of some verdant wood;
Through many a mazy turn and arbour gay
He sues the flowery steps of jollie May,
While through the openings many a lawnskepe new
Bursts on his sight; yet, never once astray,
Still home he wends: so we our theme pursue,
Through many a bank and bowre close following still our cue.

II

Soothd by the murmurs of a plaintive streame,
A wyld romantick dell its fragrance shed;
Safe from the thonder showre and scorching beame
Their faerie charmes the summer bowres displaid;
Wyld by the bancks the bashfull cowslips spread,
And from the rock above each ivied seat
The spotted foxgloves hung the purple head,
And lowlie vilets kist the wanderers feet:
Sure never Hyblas bees rovd through a wilde so sweet,

III

As winds the streamlett serpentine along,
So leads a solemn walk its bowry way,
The pale-leaved palms and darker limes among,
To where a grotto lone and secret lay;
The yellow broome, where chirp the linnets gay,
Waves round the cave; and to the blue-streakd skyes
A shatterd rock towres up in fragments gray:
The shee goat from its height the lawnskepe eyes,
And calls her wanderd young, the call each banck replies.

IV

Here oft the Knight had past the Sommers morne
What time the wondering Boy to manhood rose,
When Fancy first her lawnskepes gan adorne,
And Reasons folded buddes their flowres disclose,
What time young Transport through the spirits flows,
When Nature smyles with charmes unseen before,
When with unwonted hopes the bosome glows,
While wingd with whirlwind speed the thoughts explore
The endlesse wylde of joys that Youth beholds in store.

V

The Dryads of the place, that nurst the flowres,
And hung the dew-drop in the hycinths bell,
For him employd their virtue breathing powres,
And Cambrias Genius bade his worth excell.
His youthfull breast confest the wondrous spell;
His generous temper warmd with fayre design,
The friend and patriot now his bosome swell;
The lover and the father now combine,
And smyling visions form, where bliss and honour join.

VI

Of these loved soothings this the loved retreat
Must now no more with dreams of bliss decoy;
Yet here he liken still himself to meet,
Though woes, a gloomy train, his thoughts employ:
Oh lost to peace, he sighs, unhappy Boy!
Oh lost to every worth that life adorns!—
Oh lost to peace, to elegance, and joy!
Th'aërial Genius of the cave returns,
Whiles in the bubbling rill the plaintive Naiade mourns.

VII

Thus as he spake the magic lawnskepe rose,
The dell, the grotto, and the broome-clad hill;
See, quoth the Wizard, where the Knight bestows
An houre to thought and Reasons whispers still;
Whiles, as a nightly vision boding ill,
Seen with pale glymps by lonely wandering swayne,
Truth, gleaming through the fogs of biast will,
Frowns on him sterne, and honest Shame gins fayne
In her reflective glass his life's ignoble straine.

VIII

His earlie hopes she shews and shews againe;
How oft hast Thou, she cries, indignant viewd
The titled Cypher and his solemn traine,
The busie face, and dull solicitude,
That, ever plodding in important mood,
Has not a soul to reach one noble aim,
Nor soul, nor wish—whose vacant mind endewd
With not one talent, yet would lewdly claim
For his vile leaden bust the sacred wreath of Fame:

IX

Who to the patrons lawrells would aspire,
By labouring in the British clime to rear
Those arts that quencht prowd Romes patrician fire,
And bowd her prone beneath the Gothick spear;
Illustrious cares! befitting patriot peer!
Italian sing-song and the eunuchs squall!
Such arts as soothd the base unmanly ear
Of Greece and Persia bending to their fall;
When Freedome bled unwept, and scornd was Glorys call.

X

While these thy breast with scorne indignant fird,
What other views before thee would disclose!
As Fancy painted and thy wish inspird,
What glorious scenes beneath thy shades arose!
Britannias guardians here dispell her woes,
Forming her laws, her artes, with godlike toil;
There Albion, smyling on her learnd repose,
Sees manly Genius in ther influence smile,
And spread the hallowd streames of Virtue round the ile.

XI

How blest, ah Heaven! such selfe-approving houres,
Such views still opening, still extending higher,
Cares whence the state derives its firmest powres;
And scenes where Friendship sheds her purest fire?
And did, ah shame! these hopes in vain expire
A morning dreame!—As lorn the spendthrift stands,
Who sees the fieldes bequeathd him by his sire,
His own no more, now reapt by strangers hands;
So languid must I view faire Honours fertile lands.

XII

Silence would then ensue; perhaps reclind
On the greene margin of the streame he lay,
While softlie stealing on his languid mind
Th'ideal scene would hold a moments sway,
And the domestick houre all smyles display,
Where fixt esteeme the fond discourse inspires:
Now through his heart would glide the sprightlie ray
Where Married Love bids light his purest fires,
Where Elegance presides, and wakes the Young Desires.

XIII

Strait to his brawling Lemman turns his mind;
Shockd he beholds the odious colours rise,
Where selfishnesse, low pride and spleen combind,
Bid every anguishd thought his mate despise,
His mate unformd for sweete Affections ties:
Grovling, indelicate—Stung to the heart
His indignation heaves in stifled sighs;
But soon his passion bursts with suddein start:
His children strike his thoughts with lively piersant smart.

XIV

The mothers basenesse in their deeds he sees,
And all the wounded father swells his breast:
Suddein he leaves the cave and mantling trees,
And up the furzie hill his footsteps haste,
While sullenly he soothes his soul to rest:
Meantime the opening prospect wide he gains,
Where, crownd with oake, with meadow flowres ydrest,
His British chaplet, buxom Summer reigns,
And waves his mantle greene farre round the smyling plains.

XV

Still as he slow ascends, the bounteous farms,
And old grey towres of rural churches rise,
The fieldes still lengthening shew their crowded charms
In fayre perspective and in richest guise:
His sweeping scythe the white-sleevd mower plies,
The plowman through the fallow guides his teame,
Acrosse the wheaten fielde the milkmayde hies,
To where the kine, foreby the reedy streame,
With frequent lowe to plaine of their full udders seeme.

XVI

See, now the Knight arrives where erst an oak
Dan Æols blustering stormes did long repell,
Till witchd it was, when by an headlong shock,
As the hoar fathers of the village tell,
With horrid crash on All Saints eve it fell:
But from its trunk soon sprouting saplings rose,
And round the parent stock did shadowy swell;
Now, aged trees, they bend their twisted boughs,
And by their moss-greene roots invite the swains repose.

XVII

Here on a bending knare he pensive leans,
And round the various lawnskepe raunge his eyes:
There stretch the corny fieldes in various greens,
Farre as the sight: there, to the peaceful skyes
The darkning pines and dewy poplars rise:
Behind the wood a dark and heathy lea,
With sheepe faire spotted, farre extended lies,
With here and there a lonlie blasted tree;
And from between two hills appears the duskie sea.

XVIII

Bright through the fleeting clouds the sunny ray
Shifts o'er the fieldes, now glids the woody dale,
The flockes now whiten, now the ocean bay
Beneath the radiance glistens clear and pale;
And white from farre appears the frequent sail,
By Traffick spread. Moord where the land divides,
The British red-cross waving in the gale,
Hulky and black, a gallant warre ship rides,
And over the greene wave with lordly port presides.

XIX

Fixt on the bulwark of the British powre
Long gazd the Knight, with fretfull languid air;
Then thus, indulging the reflective houre,
Pours forth his soul: Oh, glorious happy care!
To bid Brittanias navies greatly dare,
And through the vassal seas triumphant reign,
To either India waft victorious warre,
To join the poles in Trades unbounded chain,
And bid the British Throne the mighty Whole sustain.

XX

With what superiour lustre and command
May stedfast Zeal in Albion's Senate shine!
What glorious lawrells court the Patriots hand!
How base the hand that can such Meed decline!
And was, kind Fate! to snatch these honours mine?
Yes! greene they spred, and fayre they bloomd for me;
Thy birth and duty bade the chiefe be thine;
Oh lost, vain Trifler, lost in each degree!
Thy Country never turnd her hopefull eyes on Thee.

XXI

Yet, how the Fielde of Worth luxurious smiles!
Nor Africk yields, nor Chilys earth contains
Such funds of wealth as crown the Plowmans toils,
And tinge with waving gold Britannias plains;
Even on her mountains cheerful Plenty reigns,
And wildly grand her fleecy wardrobe spreads.
What noble Meed the honest Statesman gains,
Who through these publique nerves new vigour sheds,
And bids the Useful Artes exalt their drooping heads:

XXII

Who, founding on the Plough and humble Loome
His Countrys greatnesse, sees, on every tide,
Her fleets the umpire of the world assume,
And spread her justice as her glories wide—
Oh wonder of the world, and fairest pride,
Britannias Fleet! how long shall Pity mourn
And stain thy honours? from his weeping Bride
And starving babes, how long inhuman torn
Shall the bold Sailor mount thy decks with heart forlorn!

XXIII

Forlorn with sinking heart his task he plies,
His Brides distresse his restlesse fancy sees,
And fixing on the land his earnest eyes,
Cold is his breast and faint his manly knees.
Ah! hither turn, ye sons of courtlie Ease,
And let the Brave Mans wrongs, let interest plead:
Say, while his arme his Countrys fate decrees,
Say, shall a Fathers anguish be his meed;
His wrongs unnerve his soul, and blight each mighty deed?

XXIV

Whatever Party boasts thy glorious name,
O thou reservd by Heavens benign decree
To blast those artes that quench the British flame,
And bid the meanest of the Land be free;
Oh, much Humanity shall owe to Thee!
And shall that palm unenvyd still remain!
And hear, ye lordlings, each severitie,
And every woe the labouring tribes sustain,
Upbraids the Man of Powre, and dims his honours vain.

XXV

While thus the Knights long smotherd fires broke forth,
The rousing musicke of the horne he hears
Shrill echoing through the wold; and by the North
Where bends the hill, the sounding chace appears;
The hounds with glorious peal salute his ears,
And wood and dale rebound the swelling lay;
The Youths on coursers fleet as fallow deers
Pour through the downs, while, foremost of the fray;
Away! the jolly Huntsman cries; and Echoe sounds, Away!

XXVI

Now han the beagles scourd the bushy ground,
Till where a brooke strays hollow through the bent,
When all confusd, and snuffing wyldlie round,
In vain their fretfull haste explord the scent:
But Reynards cunning all in vain was spent;
The Huntsman from his stand his arts had spyd,
Had markt his doublings and his shrewd intent,
How both the bancks he trac'd, then backward plyd
His track some twentie roods, then bounding sprong aside.

XXVII

Eke had he markt where to the broome he crept,
Where, harkening everie sound, an hare was laid;
Then from the thickest bush he slylie lept,
And wary scuds along the hawthorne shade,
Till by the hills slant foot he earths his head
Amid a briarie thickett: Emblem meet
Of wylie statesman of his foes adred;
He oft misguides the peoples rage, I weet,
On others, whilst himself winds off with slie deceit.

XXVIII

The cunning Huntsman now cheers on his pack,
The lurking hare is an instant slain:
Then opening loud, the beagles scent the track
Right to the hill; while thondring through the plain
With blythe huzzas advaunce the jovial train:
And now the Groomes and Squires, Cowherds and Boys,
Beat round and round the brake; but all in vain
Their poles they ply, and vain their oathes and noise,
Till plonging in his den the Terrier fiercely joys.

XXIX

Expelld his hole, upstarts to open sky
The Villain bold, and wildly glares around;
Now here, now there, he bends his knees to fly,
As oft recoils to guard from backward wound,
His frothie jaws he grinds—with horrid sound
The Pack attonce rush on him: foming ire,
Fierce at his throte and sides hangs many a hound;
His burning eyes flash wylde red sparckling fire,
Whiles weltring on the swaird his breath and strength expire.

XXX

Straight to Syr Martyns hall the Hunters bend,
The Knight perceives it from his oak-crownd hill,
Down the steep furzie height he slow gan wend,
With troublous thoughts keen ruminating still;
While grief and shame by turns his bosom fill.
And now, perchd prowdlie on the topmost spray,
The sootie Blackbird chaunts his vespers shrill;
While Twilight spreads his robe of sober grey,
And to their bowres the Rooks loud cawing wing their way:

XXXI

And bright behind the Cambrian mountains hore
Flames the red beam; while on the distant East
Led by her starre, the horned Moone looks o'er
The bending forest, and with rays increast
Ascends; while trembling on the dappled West
The purple radiance shifts, and dies away;
The willows with a deeper green imprest
Nod o'er the brooks; the brooks with gleamy ray
Glide on, and holy Peace assumes her woodland sway.

XXXII

All was repose, all but Syr Martyns brest;
There, Passions tearing gusts tempestuous rise.
Are these, he murmurs, these my friends! the best
That croud my hall! the Sonnes of madning Noise,
Whose warmest friendship with the revel dies?
Whose glee it were my dearest peace destroy,
Who with my woes could sport, my wrongs despise;
Could round my coffin pledge the cup of Joy,
And on my crimes even then their base-tongue witt employ:

XXXIII

Whose converse, oft as fulsom Bawdrie fails,
Takes up the barkings of Impiety,
The Scepticks wild disjointed dreams retails,
These modern ravings of Philosophy
Made drunk, the Cavil, the detected Ly,
The witt of Ignorance, and Gloss unfair,
Which honest Dullness would with shame deny;
The hope of Baseness vaumpt in Candours air:
Good Heaven! are such the friends that to my hearth repair!

XXIV

The Man of Worth shuns Thy reputelesse dore;
Even the old Peasant shakes his silverd head,
Old saws and stories babbling evermore,
And adding still, Alas, those dayes be fled!
Here Indignation pausd, when, up the glade,
Pale through the trees his houshold smoke ascends;
Wakd at the sight, his Brothers wrongs upbraid
His melting heart, and grief his bosome rends:
And now the keen Resolve its gleaming comfort lends.

XXXV

Perdie, now were I bent on legends fine
My Knight should rise the flowre of Chivalrie,
Brave as Syr Arthegal or Valentine,
Another Saint George England then should see,
Britannias Genius should his Sabra bee,
Chaind to the rock by Dragon to be slain;
But he the Virgin Princesse soon should free,
And stretch the monster breathlesse on the plain;
Bribery, the Dragon huge, should never rise again.

XXXVI

Eke should he, freed from foul Enchaunters spell,
Escape his false Duessas magicke charms,
And Folly quaid, yclepd an Hydra fell,
Receive a beauteous Lady to his arms;
While Bardes and Minstrales chaunt tbe soft alarms
Of gentle Love, unlike his former thrall.
Eke should I sing, in courtly cunning terms,
The gallant feast, servd up by Seneshall,
To Knights and Ladies gent in painted bowre and hall.

XXXVII

But certes, while my tongue fayre truth indites,
And does of human frailtie soothly tell,
Unmeet it were indulge the daintie flights
Of Phantasie, that never yet befell:
Uneath it is long habits to expell,
Ne may the best good heart its bliss secure,
Ne may the lively powre of judging well,
In ardhous worthy deed long time endure,
Where Dissipation once has fixt her footing sure.

XXXVIII

Such was the powre that angrie Jove bestowd
On this faire Nymph: the legend thus is told.
To Dians care her life her Mother owd;
Faire Dian found her naked on the wold,
Some Peasants babe, exposed to deadlie cold,
And to a favourite Satyr gave to rear:
Then, when the Nymph was fifteen springtimes old,
Equipt her with the bow and Huntresse spear,
And of her Woodland Traine her made a welcome fere.

XXXIX

But ill her mind received chast Phæbes lore,
Fain would she at the chace still lag behind:
One sultry noone, as Phæbe sped afore,
Beneath a leafy vine the nymph reclind,
And, Fan my breast, she cried, Oh Western Wind!
Soon as the wish-for word Favonius came.
From that day forth the conscious Nymph declind
The near inspection of the Sovereign Dame;
Till mid the chace, one morne, her throes betrayd her shame.

XL

Her throes with scorne the taunting Dryads eyd,
The Nymph changd colour, and hung down her head;
Still change thy blushing hue, the Goddess cryd:
Forthwith a freezing languor gan invade
Her limbs; and now, with suddein leaves arrayd,
A Russian Poppey she transmed remains;
The various colours ever rise and fade,
The tints still shifting mock the Painters pains;
And still her drowsie mood the beauteous Nymph retains.

XLI

Meanwhile his new-born elfe Favonius bore,
Soft lapt, on balmy pinions farre away;
And with the Fawns, by Peneus flowery shore,
From earlist youth the laughing Imp did play,
For ever fluttering, debonair, and gay,
And restlesse, as the dove Deucalion sent
To spy if peering oake did yet bewray
Its braunching head above the flooded bent;
But ydlie beating round, the day in vain was spent.

XLII

When now the Nymph to riper yeares gan rise,
To fayre Parnassus groves she took her flight;
There, culling flowretts of a thousand dyes,
Still did her head with tawdry girlonds dight;
As soon the wreath ill sorted would she quight:
Ne ever did she climb the twyforkt hill,
Ne could her eyen explore in lofty height,
Ne did she ever taste the sacred rill
From Inspirations fount that ever doth distill.

XLIII

Her sprightly levitie was from her Syre,
Her drowsy dulness from her Mother sprong;
This never would allow her mind aspyre,
That never would allow her patience long,
Thus as she slightly rovd the lawns among,
High Jove beheld her from his starry seat,
And called her Dissipation: Wylde and young
Still shalt Thou be, he said; and this thy fate,
On Man thy sleights employ, on Man that prowd ingrate.

XLIV

All happinesse he claims his virtues due,
And holds him injurd when my care denies
The fondling wish, whence sorrow would ensue;
And idle still his prayers invade my skies:
But bold and arduous must that virtue rise
Which I accept, no vague inconstant blaze.
Then be it Thine to spred before his eyes
Thy changing colours, and thy wyld-fire rays,
And fruitlesse still shall be that virtue thou canst daze.

XLV

So swore the God, by gloomy Styx he swore:
The Fates assented, and the Dæmon flew
Right to the Seats of Men. The robe she wore
Was starrd with dewdrops, and of palest blue;
Faire round her head playd many a beauteous hue,
As when the rainbow through the bean-flowres plays;
The fleeting tints the Swaynes with wonder view,
And ween to snatch a prize beneath the rays;
But through the meadows dank the beauteous meteor strays.

XLVI

So shone the Nymph, and prank in Pleasures guize
With wylie traines the Sonnes of Earth besett;
Goodnesse of Heart before her yawns and dies,
And Friendship ever feels the drowsie fitt
Just when its powre to serve could serve a whitt.
And still behind her march Remorse and Shame,
That never will their yron scourge remitt,
Whenso the Fiend resigns her thralls to them:
Sad case, I weet, where still Oneselfe Oneselfe must blame.

XLVII

Long had the Knight to her his powres resignd;
In wanton dalliance first her nett she spred,
And soon in mirthful tumult on his mind
She softlie stole: yet, while at times he sped
To Contemplations bowre, his sight she fled;
Ne on the mountainett with him durst bide;
Yet homewards still she mett him in the glade,
And in the social cup did slily glide,
And still his best resolve eftsoons she scatterd wide.

XLVIII

And now, as slowly sauntering up the dale
He homeward wends, in heavie musefull stowre,
The smooth Deceiver gan his heart assail;
His heart soon felt the fascinating powre:
Old Cambrias Genius markt the fatal houre,
And tore the girlond from her sea-greene hair.
The conscious oakes above him rustling lowre,
And through the braunches sighs the gloomy air,
As when indignant Jove rejects the Flamens prayer.

XLIX

The Dryads of the Grove, that oft had fird
His opening mind with many a raptured dream,
That oft his evening wanderings had inspird,
All by the silent hill or murmuring stream,
Forsake him now; for all as lost they deem:
So homeward he wends; where, wrapt in jollitie,
His hall to keepen holiday mote seem,
And with the Hunters soon full blythe was he,
The blythest wight of all that blythesome companie.

L

As when th'Autumnal Morne with ruddy hue
Looks through the glen besprent with silver hore,
Across the stubble, brushing off the dew,
The younkling Fowler gins the fieldes explore,
And, wheeling oft, his Pointer veres afore,
And oft, sagacious of the tainted gale,
The fluttering bird betrays; with thondring rore
The shott resounds, loud echoing through the dale;
But still the Younkling kills nor partidge, snipe, nor quail.

LI

Yet still the queint excuse is at command;
The dog was rash, a swallow twittered by,
The gun hung fire, and keenness shook his hand,
And there the wind or bushes hurt his eye.
So can the Knight his mind still satisfye:
A lazie Fiend, Self Imposition hight,
Still whispers some excuse, some gilden lye,
Himself did gild to cheat himselfe outright:
God help the man bewitchd in such ungracious plight.

LII

On Dissipation still this Treachor waits,
Obsequiously behind at distance due;
And still to Discontents accurse gates,
The House of Sorrow, these ungodlie Two,
Conduct their fainty thralls—Great things to do
The Knight resolvd, but never yet could find
The proper time, while still his miseries grew:
And now these Dæmons of the captive mind
Him to the drery Cave of Discontent resignd,

LIII

Deep in the wyldes of Faerie Lond it lay;
Wide was the mouth, the roofe all rudely rent;
Some parts receive, and some exclude the Day,
For deepe beneath the hill its caverns went:
The ragged walls with lightning seemd ybrent,
And loathlie vermin ever crept the flore:
Yet all in sight, with towres and castles gent,
A beauteous lawnskepe rose afore the dore,
The which to view so fayre the Captives grieved sore.

LIV

All by the gate, beneath a pine shade bare,
An owl-frequented bowre, some tents were spred;
Here sat a Throng, with eager furious stare
Rattling the dice; and there, with eyes half dead,
Some drowsie Dronkards, looking black and red,
Dozd out their days: and by the path-way green
A sprightlie Troupe still onward heedlesse sped,
In chace of butterflies alert and keen
Honours, and Wealth, and Powre, their butterflies I ween.

LV

And oft, disgustfull of their various cares,
Into the Cave they wend with sullen pace;
Each to his meet apartment dernly fares:
Here, all in raggs, in piteous plight most bace,
The Dronkard sitts; there, shent with foul disgrace.
The thriftlesse Heir; and o'er his reeking blade
Red with his Friends heart gore, in woefull cace
The Duellist raves; and there, on vetchie bed,
Crazd with his vain pursuits, the Maniack bends his head.

LVI

Yet round his gloomy cell with chalk he scrawls
Ships, coaches, crownes, and eke the gallow tree
All that he wishd or feard his ghastlie walls
Present him still, and mock his miserie.
And there, self-doomd, his cursed selfe to flee,
The Gamester hangs in corner murk and dread;
Nigh to the ground bends his ungratious knee;
His drooping armes and white-reclining head
Lim seen, cold Horror gleams athwart th'unhallowed shade.

LVII

Near the dreare gate, beneath the rifted rock,
The Keeper of the Cave all haggard satt,
His pining corse a restlesse ague shook,
And blistering sores did all his carkas frett:
And with himselfe he seem'd in keen debate;
For still the muscles of his mouth he drew
Ghastly and fell; and still with deepe regrate
He lookd him round, as if his heart did rew
His former deeds, and mournd full sore his sores to view.

LVIII

Yet not Himself, but Heavens Great King he blamd,
And dard his wisdom and his will arraign;
For boldy he the ways of God blasphemd,
And of blind governaunce did loudly plain,
While vild Self-pity would his eyes distain,
As when an Wolfe, entrapt in village ground,
In dread of death ygnaws his limb in twain,
And views with scalding tears his bleeding wound
Such fierce Selfe-pity still this Wights dire portaunce crownd.

LIX

Near by there stood an hamlett in the dale,
Where, in the silver age, Content did wonne;
This now was His: yet all mote nought avail,
His loathing eyes that place did ever shun;
But ever through his Neighbours lawns would run,
Where every goodlie fielde thrice goodlie seemd.
Such was this weary Wight all woe-begone;
Such was his life; and thus of things he deemd;
And such like was his Cave that all with sorrowes teemd.

LX

To this fell Carle gay Dissipation led,
And in his dreary purlieus lest the Knight.
From the dire Cave fain would the Knight have fled,
And fain recalld the treachrous Nymphe from flight
But now the late Obtruder shuns his fight,
And dearly must be wooed: hard by the den,
Where listless Bacchus had his tents ypight,
A transient visit sometimes would he gain,
While Wine and merry Song beguild his inward pain.

LXI

Yet, ever as he reard his slombering head,
The ghastly tyrant at his couch stood near;
And ay with ruthless clamour gan upbraid,
And words that would his very heartstrings tea:
See now, he sayes, where setts thy vain career:
Approaching elde now wings its cheerlesse way,
Thy fruitlesse Autumn gins to blanche thy heare,
And aged Winter asks from Youth its stay;
But thine comes poore of joy, comes with unhonoured gray.

LXII

Thou hast no friend!—still on the worthlesse Traine
Thy kindnesse flowd, and still with scorne repaid;
Even She on whom thy favours heapt remain,
Even she regards thee with a bosome dead
To kindly passion, and by motives led
Such as the Planter of his Negroe deems;
What profit still can of the wretch be made
Is all his care, of more he never dreams:
So, farre remote from her, thy troubles she esteems.

LXIII

Thy Children too! Heavens! what a hopelesse fight!
Ah, wretched Syre!—but ever from this scene
The wretched Syre precipitates his flight,
And in the Bowls wylde fever shuns his teene,
So pass his dayes, while What he might have been
Its beauteous views does every morne present:
So pass his dayes, while still the raven Spleen
Croaks in his eares, The brightest parts mispent
Beget an hoarie age of grief and discontent.

LXIV

But boast not of superiour shrewd addresse,
Ye who can calmly spurn the ruind Mayd,
Ye who unmovd can view the deepe distresse
That crushes to the dust the Parents head,
And rends that easie heart by You betrayd,
Boast not that Ye his numerous woes eskew;
Ye who unawd the Nuptial couch invade,
Boast not his weaknesse with contempt to view;
For worthy is He still compard, perdie, to YOU.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS;

AN ELEGY.

Quod tibi vitæ sors detraxit,
Fama adjiciet posthuma laudi;
Nostris longum tu dolor et honor.

The balmy Zephyrs o'er the Woodland stray,
And gently stir the bosom of the lake:
The fawns that panting in the covert lay,
Now thro' the gloomy park their revels take.

Pale rise the rugged hills that skirt the North,
The wood glows yellow'd by the evening rays,
Silent and beauteous flows the silver Forth,
And Annan murmuring thro' the willows strays.

But, ah! what means this silence in the grove,
Where oft the wild notes sooth'd the love sick boy?
Why cease in Mary's bower the songs of Love?
The songs of Love, of Innocence, of Joy!

When bright the Lake reflects the setting ray,
The sportive Virgins tread the flowery green;
Here by the Moon full oft in cheerful May,
The merry Bride Maids at the dance are seen.

But who these Nymphs that thro' the copse appear
In robes of white adorn'd with violet blue?
Fondly with purple flowers they deck yon bier,
And wave in solemn pomp the boughs of yew.

Supreme in grief, her eye confus'd with woe,
Appears the Lady of th'aërial train,
Tall as the Sylvan Goddess of the bow,
And fair as she who wept Adonis slain.

Such was the pomp when Gilead's virgin band,
Wandering by Judah's flowery mountains wept,
And with fair Iphis by the hallow'd strand
Of Siloe's brook a mournful Sabbath kept.

By the resplendent cross with thistles twin'd,
'Tis Mary's guardian Genius lost in woe,
“Ah, say what deepest wrongs have thus combin'd
“To heave with restless sighs thy breast of snow!

“Oh stay, ye Dryads, nor unfinish'd fly
“Your solemn rites! Here comes no foot profane!
“The Muse's son, and hallow'd is his eye,
“Implores your stay, implores to join the strain.

“See from her cheek the glowing life blush flies!
“Alas, what faultering sounds of woe be these!
“Ye Nymphs who fondly watch her languid eyes,
“Oh say what music will her soul appease!”

100

“Resound the solemn dirge,” the Nymphs reply,
“And let the Turtles moan in Mary's bower;
“Let Grief indulge her grand sublimity,
“And Melancholy wake her melting power.

“For Art has triumph'd—Art, that never stood
“On honour's side, or generous transport knew,
“Has dy'd its haggard hands in Mary's blood,
“And o'er her fame has breath'd its blighting dew.

“But come ye Nymphs, ye Woodlands Spirits come,
“And with funereal flowers your tresses braid,
“While in this hallowed bower we raise the tomb,
“And consecrate the song to Mary's shade.

“O sing what smiles her youthful morning wore,
“Her's every charm, and every loveliest grace,
“When Nature's happiest touch could add no more,
“Heaven lent an Angel's beauty to her face.

101

“O! whether by the moss grown bushy dell,
“Where from the oak depends the misletoe,
“Where creeping ivy shades the Druids' cell,
“Where from the rock the gurgling waters flow:

“Or whether sportive o'er the cowslip beds,
“You thro' the fairy dales of Teviot glide,
“Or brush the primrose banks, while Cynthia sheds
“Her silv'ry light o'er Esk's transcendent tide:

“Hither, ye gentle guardians of the fair,
“By virtue's tears, by weeping beauty, come;
“Unbind the festive robes, unbind the hair,
“And wave the Cyprus bough at Mary's tomb.

“And come, ye fleet Magicians of the air,
“The mournful Lady of the chorus cried;
“Your airy tints of baleful hue prepare,
And thro' this grove bid Mary's fortunes glide:

102

“And let the songs, with solemn harpings join'd,
“And wailing notes, unfold the tale of woe!”
She spoke, and waking thro' the breathing wind,
From lyres unseen the solemn harpings flow.

The Song began—“How bright her early morn!
“What lasting joys her smiling fate portends!
“To wield the awful British sceptres born!
“And Gaul's young heir her bridal-bed ascends.

“See, round her bed, light floating on the air,
“The little Loves their purple wings display;
“When sudden, shrieking at the dismal glare
“Of funeral torches, far they speed away.

“Far with the Loves each blissful omen speeds,
“Her eighteenth April hears her widow'd moan,
“The bridal-bed the sable hearse succeeds,
“And struggling factions shake her native throne.

103

“No more a Goddess in the swimming dance,
“May'st thou, O Queen! thy lovely form display;
“No more thy beauty reign the charm of France,
“Nor in Versailles' proud bowers outshine the day.

“For the cold North the trembling sails are spread;
“Ah, what drear horrors gliding thro' thy breast!
“While from thy weeping eyes fair Gallia fled,
“Thy future woes in boding sighs confest!

104

“A nation stern and stubborn to command,
“And now convuls'd with Faction's fiercest rage,
“Commits its sceptre to thy gentle hand,
“And asks a bridle from thy tender age.”

As weeping thus they sung, the omens rose,
Her native shore receives the mournful Queen;
November wind o'er the bare landscape blows,
In hazy gloom the sea-wave skirts the scene.

The House of Holy Rood, in sullen state,
Bleak in the shade of rude pil'd rocks appears;
Cold on the mountains side, the type of fate,
Its shattered walls a Romish chapel rears.

No nodding grove here waves the sheltering bough;
O'er the dark vale, prophetic of her reign,
Beneath the carving mountains craggy brow
The dreary echoes to the gales complain:

105

Beneath the gloomy clouds of rolling smoke,
The high pil'd city rears her Gothic towers;
The stern brow'd Castle, from his lofty rock,
Looks scornful down, and fixt defiance lours .

Domestic bliss, that dear, that sovereign joy,
Far from her heart was seen to speed away;
Strait dark brow'd factions entering in, destroy
The seeds of peace, and mark her for their prey.

No more by moon-shine to the nuptial bower
Her Francis comes, by Love's soft fetters led;
Far other Spouse now wakes her midnight hour ,
Enrag'd, and reeking from the harlot's bed.

106

“Ah! draw the veil!” shrill trembles thro' the air:
The veil was drawn—but darker scenes arose,
Another nuptial couch the Fates prepare,
The baleful teeming source of deeper woes.

The bridal torch her evil Angel wav'd,
Far from the couch offended Prudence fled;
Of deepest crimes deceitful Faction rav'd,
And rous'd her trembling from the fatal bed.

The hinds are seen in arms, and glittering spears,
Instead of crooks, the Grampian shepherds wield;
Fanatic rage the ploughman's visage wears,
And red with slaughter lies the harvest field.

From Borthwick field, deserted and forlorn,
The beauteous Queen all tears is seen to fly;
Now thro' the streets a weeping captive borne,
Her woe, the triumph of the vulgar eye.

107

Again the vision shifts the woeful scene;
Again forlorn from rebel arms she flies,
And, unsuspecting, on a Sister Queen,
The lovely, injur'd Fugitive relies.

When Wisdom, baffled, owns th'attempt in vain,
Heaven oft delights to set the virtuous free;
Some friend appears and breaks affliction's chain:
But ah, no generous friend appears for thee!

A prison's ghastly walls and grated cells
Deform'd the airy scenery as it past;
The haunt where listless Melancholy dwells,
Where every genial feeling sinks aghast.

No female eye her sickly bed to tend!
“Ah cease to tell it in the female ear!
“A woman's stern command! a proffer'd friend!
“Oh generous passion, peace, forbear, forbear!

108

“And could, oh Tudor! could thy heart retain
“No softening thought of what thy woes had been;
“When thou, the heir of England's crown, in vain
“Didst sue the mercy of a tyrant Queen?

“And could no pang from tender memory wake,
“And feel those woes that once had been thine own;
“No pleading tear to drop for Mary's sake,
“For Mary's sake, the heir of England's throne?

“Alas! no pleading touch thy memory knew,
“Dry'd were the tears which for thyself had flow'd;
“Dark politics alone engag'd thy view;
“With female jealousy thy bosom glow'd.

“And say, did Wisdom own thy stern command?
“Did Honour wave his banner o'er the deed?
“Ah!—Mary's fate thy name shall ever brand,
“And ever o'er her woes shall Pity bleed.

109

“The babe that prattled on his nurse's knee,
“When first thy woeful captive hours began,
“Ere Heaven, oh happless Mary, set thee free,
“That babe to battle march'd in arms—a man.”

An awful pause ensues—With speaking eyes,
And hands half-rais'd, the guardian wood-nymphs wait;
While slow and sad the airy scenes arise,
Stain'd with the last deep woes of Mary's fate.

With dreary black hung round the hall appears,
The thirsty saw-dust strews the marble floor,
Blue gleams the ax, the block its shoulders rears,
And pikes and halberds guard the iron door.

The clouded moon her dreary glimpses shed,
And Mary's maids, a mournful train, pass by;
Languid they walk, and pensive hang the head,
And silent tears pace down from every eye.

110

Serene and nobly mild appears the Queen;
She smiles on Heaven, and bows the injur'd head:
The ax is lifted—From the deathful scene
The guardians turn'd, and all the picture fled—

It fled: the wood-nymphs o'er the distant lawn,
As 'rapt in vision, dart their earnest eyes;
So when the huntsman hears the rattling fawn,
He stands impatient of the starting prize.

The Sovereign dame her awful eye-balls roll'd,
As Cuma's maid when by the god inspir'd;
“The depth of ages to my sight unfold,”
She cries, And Mary's meed my breast has fir'd.

“On Tudor's throne her sons shall ever reign,
“Age after age shall see their flag unfurl'd,
“With sovereign pride wherever roars the main,
“Stream to the wind, and awe the trembling world.

111

“Nor Britain's sceptre shall they wield alone,
“Age after age thro' length'ning time shall see
“Her branching race on Europe's every throne,
“And either India bend to them the knee.

“But Tudor, as a fruitless gourd, shall die;
“I see her death scene on the lowly floor:
“Dreary she sits, cold Grief has glas'd her eye,
“And Anguish gnaws her 'till she breathes no more.”

But hark!—loud howling thro' the midnight gloom,
Faction is rous'd, and sends the baleful yell!
Oh save ye, generous few, your Mary's tomb!
Oh save her ashes from the baleful spell!

“And, lo! where time with brighten'd face serene
“Points to yon far, but glorious opening sky;
“See Truth walk forth, majestic awful Queen!
And Party's blackening mists before her fly

112

“Falsehood unmask'd withdraws her ugly train,
“And Mary's virtues all illustrious shine—
“Yes, thou hast friends, the godlike and humane
“Of latest ages, injur'd Queen, are thine.”

The milky splendors of the dawning ray,
Now thro' the grove a trembling radiance shed;
With sprightly note the wood lark hail'd the day,
And with the moonshine all the vision fled.

The Author of this little Poem to the memory of an unhappy Princess, is unwilling to enter into the controversy respecting her guilt or her innocence. Suffice it only to observe, that the following facts may be proved to demonstration:—The Letters which have always been esteemed the principal proofs of Queen Mary's guilt are forged. Buchanan, on whose authority Francis, and other historians, have condemned her, has falsified several circumstances of her history, and has cited against her public records which never existed, as has been lately proved to demonstration. And to add no more, the treatment she received from her illustrious Cousin was dictated by a policy truly Machiavelian.—a policy which trampled on the obligations of honour, of humanity and morality. From whence it may be inferred, that, to express the indignation at the cruel treatment of Mary, which history must ever inspire, and to drop a tear over her sufferings, is not unworthy of a writer who would appear in the cause of Virtue.

The unhappy Mary, in her infancy, was sent to France to the care of her Mother's family, the House of Guise. The French Court was at that time the gayest and most gallant of Europe. Here the Princess of Scotland was educated with all the distinction due to her high rank; and as soon as years would allow, she was married to the Dauphin, afterwards Francis: and on the death of this Monarch, which closed a short reign, the politics of the House of Guise required the return of the young Queen to Scotland. She left France with tears and the utmost reluctance; and on her landing in her native kingdom, the different appearance of the country awakened all her regret, and affected her with a melancholy which seemed to forebode her future misfortunes.

These circumstances, descriptive of the environs of Holy Rood-house, are local; yet, however dreary the unimproved November view may appear, the connoisseur in gardening will perceive that plantation, and the efforts of art, could easily convert the prospect into an agreeable and most romantic Summer landscape.

Lord Darnley, the handsomest man of his age, but a worthless debauchee of no abilities.

Her marriage with the Earl of Bothwell, an unprincipled Politician of great address.

When she was brought prisoner thro' the streets of Edinburgh, she suffered almost every indignity which an outrageous mob could offer. Her person was bedaubed with mire, and her ear insulted with every term of vulgar abuse. Even Buchanan seems to drop a tear when he relates these circumstances.

113

KNOWLEDGE:

AN ODE.

115

S. Ann. Æt. Auct. 18. Ducit in errorem variorum ambage viarum.
Ovid.

High on a hill's green bosom laid,
At ease my careless fancy stray'd,
And o'er the landscape ran:
Reviv'd, what scenes the seasons shew;
And weigh'd, what share of joy or woe
Is doom'd to toiling man.

The nibbling flocks around me bleat;
The oxen low beneath my feet,
Along the clover'd dale;
The golden sheaves the reapers bind,
The ploughman whistles near behind,
And breaks the new mown vale.

116

“Hail Knowledge! gift of Heaven!” I cried,
“E'en all the gifts of Heaven beside,
“Compared to thee how low!
“The blessings of the earth, and all
“The beasts of fold and forest share,
“But godlike beings know.

“How mean the short-liv'd joys of sense;
“But how sublime the excellence
“Of Wisdom's sacred lore!
“In Death's deep shades what nations lie,
“Yet still can Wisdom's piercing eye
“Their mighty deeds explore.

“She sees the little Spartan band,
“With great Leonidas, withstand
“The Asian world in arms;
“She hears the heav'nly sounds that hung
“On Homer's and on Plato's tongue,
“And glows at Tully's charms.

117

“The wonders of the spacious sky,
“She penetrates with Newton's eye,
“And marks the planets' roll:
“The human mind with Locke she scans;
“With Cambray, Virtue's fame she fans,
“And lifts to heaven the soul.

“How matter takes ten thousand forms
“Of metals, plants, of men and worms;
“She joys to trace with Boyle.
“This life she deems an infant state,
“A gleam, that bodes a life complete,
“Beyond the mortal toil.

“What numerous ills in life befall!
“Yet Wisdom learns to scorn them all,
“And arms the breast with steel:
“E'en Death's pale face no horror wears;
“But ah! what horrid pangs and fears
“Unknowing wretches feel!

118

“That breast excels proud Ophir's mines,
“And fairer than the morning shines,
“Where Wisdom's treasures glow:
“But ah! how void yon peasant's mind,
“His thoughts how darken'd and confin'd,
“Nor cares he more to know.

“The last two tenants of the ground,
“Of ancient times his history bound;
“Alas! it scarce goes higher:
“In vain to him is Maro's strain,
“And Shakespeare's magic powers in vain;
“In vain is Milton's fire.

“Nor sun by day, nor stars by night,
“Can give his soul the grand delight
“To trace Almighty power:
“His team thinks just as much as he
“Of Nature's vast variety,
“In animal and flower.”

119

As thus I sung, a solemn sound
Accosts mine ear; I look'd around,
And lo! an ancient sage,
Hard by an ivy'd oak stood near,
That fenc'd the cave, where many a year
Had been his hermitage.

His mantle grey flow'd loose behind,
His snowy beard wav'd to the wind,
And added solemn grace;
His broad bald front gave dignity,
Attention mark'd his lively eye,
And peace smil'd in his face.

He beckon'd with his wrinkled hand;
My ear was all at his command,
And thus the sage began:
“Godlike it is to know, I own;
“But oh! how little can be known,
“By poor short-sighted man.

120

“Go, mark the schools where letter'd pride,
“And star crown'd science boastful guide,
“Display their fairest light;
“There, led by some pale meteor's ray,
“That leaves them oft, the sages stray,
“And grope in endless night.

“Of wisdom proud, yon sage exclaims,
“Virtue and Vice are merely names,
“And changing every hour;
“Ashley, how loud in Virtue's praise!
“Yet Ashley with a kiss betrays,
“And strips her of her dower.

“Hark, Bolingbroke his God arraigns;
“Hobbes smiles on vice; Descartes maintains
“A Godless passive cause.
“See Bayle oft slily shifting round,
“Would fondly fix on sceptic ground,
“And change, O Truth! thy laws.

121

“And what the joy this love bestows
“Alas, no joy, no hope it knows
“Above what bestials claim:
“To quench our noblest native fire
“That bids to nobler worlds aspire
“Is all its hope, its aim.

“Not Afric's wilds, nor Babel's waste,
“Where Ignorance her tents hath plac'd
“More dismal scene display
“A scene where Virtue sickening dies,
“Where Vice to dark extinction flies,
“And spurns the future day.

“Wisdom, you boast to you is given;
“At night then mark the fires of heaven,
“And let thy mind explore;
“Swift as the light'ning let it fly
“From star to star, from sky to sky,
“still, still, are millions more.

122

“Th'immense ideas strike the soul
“With pleasing horror, and controul
“Thy Wisdom's empty boast,
“What are they?—Thou can'st never say:
“Then silent adoration pay,
“And be in wonder lost.

“Say how the self-same roots produce
“The wholesome food and poisonous juice;
“And Adders, balsams yield;
“How fierce the lurking tyger glares,
“How mild the heifer with thee shares
“The labours of the field?

“Why growling to his den retires
“The sullen pard, while joy inspires
“Yon happy sportive lambs?
“Now scatter'd o'er the hill they stray
“Now weary of their gambling play,
“All single out their dams.

123

“Instinct directs—But what is that?
“Fond man thou never canst say what:
“Oh short thy searches fall,
“By stumbling chance, and slow degrees
“The useful arts of men increase,
“But this at once is all.

“A trunk first floats along the deep,
“Long ages still improve the ship
“'Till she commands the shore,
“But never bird improv'd her nest,
“Each all at once of powers possest,
“Which ne'er can rise to more.

“That down the steep the waters flow,
“That weight descends, we see, we know,
“But why, can ne'er explain;
“Then humbly weighing Nature's laws,
“To God's high will ascribe the cause,
“And own thy wisdom vain.

124

“For still the more thou knowest, the more
“Shalt thou the vanity deplore
“Of all thy soul can find.
“This life a sickly woeful dream,
“A burial of the soul will seem
“A palsy of the mind.

“Tho' Knowledge scorns the peasant's fear,
“Alas, it points the secret spear
“Of many a nameless woe.
“Thy delicacy dips the dart
“In rankling gall, and gives a smart
“Beyond what he can know.

“How happy then the simple mind,
“Of yon unknown and labouring hind,
“Where all is smiling peace!
“No thoughts of more exalted joy
“His present bliss one hour destroy,
“Nor rob one moment's ease,

125

“The stings neglected merit feels
“The pangs the virtuous man conceals,
“When crush'd by wayward fate.
“These are not found beneath his roof,
“Against them all securely proof,
“Heaven guards his humble state.

“Knowledge or wealth to few are given,
“But mark how just the ways of Heaven;
“True joy to all is free,
“Nor wealth, nor knowledge grant the boon
“'Tis thine, O Conscience, thine alone,
“It all belongs to thee.

“Blest in thy smiles the Shepherd lives
“Gay is his morn; his evening gives
“Content and sweet repose
“Without them—ever, ever cloy'd
“To Sage or Chief, one weary void
“Is all that life bestows.

126

“Then would'st thou mortal rise divine,
“Let innocence of soul be thine.
“With active goodness join'd,
“My heart shall then confess thee blest,
“And ever lively, joyful taste
“The pleasures of the mind.”

So spake the Sage: my heart reply'd,
“How poor, how blind is human pride,
“All joy how false and vain:
“But that from conscious worth which flows,
“Which gives the death-bed sweet repose,
“And hopes an after reign.”

127

HENGIST AND MEY:

A BALLAD.

129

Haec novimus esse nihil.

In ancient days when Arthur reign'd,
Sir Elmer had no Peer;
And no young Knight in all the land,
The ladies lov'd so dear.

His sister Mey, the fairest maid
Of all the Virgin train,
Won every heart at Arthur's court;
But all their love was vain.

130

In vain they lov'd, in vain they vow'd,
Her heart they could not move;
Yet at the evening hour of prayer,
Her mind was lost in love.

The Abbess saw—the Abbess knew,
And urged her to explain;
“O name the gentle youth to me,
“And his consent I'll gain.”

Long urg'd, long tir'd, fair Mey reply'd,
“His name—how can I say?
“An angel from the fields above,
“Has rapt my heart away.

“But once, alas! and never more,
“His lovely form I spied;
“One evening by the sounding shore,
“All by the greenwood side.

131

“His eyes to mine the love confest,
“That glow'd with mildest grace;
“His courtly mien and purple vest,
“Bespoke his princely race.

“But when he heard my brother's horn,
“Fast to his ships he fled;
“Yet while I sleep, his graceful form,
“Still hovers round my bed.

“Sometimes all clad in armour bright,
“He shakes a warlike lance;
“And now in courtly garments dight,
“He leads the sprightly dance.

“His hair, as black as raven's wing;
“His skin—as Christmas snow;
“His cheeks outvie the blush of morn,
“His lips like rose-buds glow.

132

“His limbs, his arms, his stature, shap'd
“By Nature's finest hand;
“His sparkling eyes declare him born
“To love, and to command.”

The live-long year fair Mey bemoan'd
Her hopeless pining love:
But when the balmy spring return'd,
And summer cloth'd the grove;

All round by pleasant Humber side,
The Saxon banners flew,
And to Sir Elmer's castle gates,
The spear-men came in view.

Fair blush'd the morn, when Mey look'd o'er,
The castle walls so sheen;
And lo! the warlike Saxon youth,
Were sporting on the green.

133

There Hengist, Offa's eldest son,
Lean'd on his burnish'd lance,
And all the armed youth around,
Obey'd his manly glance.

His locks, as black as raven's wing,
Adown his shoulders flow'd;
His cheeks outvy'd the blush of morn,
His lips like rose-buds glow'd.

And soon the lovely form of Mey
Has caught his piercing eyes;
He gives the sign, the bands retire,
While big with love he sighs.

“Oh! thou, for whom I dar'd the seas;
“And came with peace or war;
“Oh, by that cross that veils thy breast,
“Relieve thy lover's care!

134

“For thee I'll quit my father's throne;
“With thee the wilds explore;
“Or with thee share the British crown;
“With thee the cross adore.”

Beneath the timorous virgin blush,
With Love's soft warmth she glows;
So blushing through the dews of morn,
Appears the opening rose.

'Twas now the hour of morning pray'r,
When men their sins bewail,
And Elmer heard King Arthur's horn,
Shrill sounding thro' the dale.

The pearly tears from Mey's bright eyes,
Like April dew drops fell,
When with a parting dear embrace
Her brother bade farewel.

135

The cross with sparkling diamonds bright,
That veil'd the snowy breast,
With prayers to heaven her lilly hands,
Have fixt on Elmer's vest.

Now, with five hundred bowmen true,
He's march'd across the plain;
'Till with his gallant yeomandrie,
He join'd King Arthur's train.

Full forty thousand Saxon spears,
Came glittering down the hill,
And with their shouts and clang of arms,
The distant valleys fill.

Old Offa, drest in Odin's garb,
Assum'd the hoary God;
And Hengist, like the warlike Thor,
Before the horsemen rode

136

With dreadful rage the combat burns,
The captains shout amain;
And Elmer's tall victorious spear
Far glances o'er the plain.

To stop its course young Hengist flew
Like light'ning o'er the field;
And soon his eyes the well-known cross,
On Elmer's vest beheld.

The slighted lover swell'd his breast,
His eyes shot living fire;
And all his martial heat before,
To this was mild desire.

On his imagin'd rival's front,
With whirlwind speed he prest,
And glancing to the sun, his sword
Resounds on Elmer's crest.

137

The foe gave way, the princely youth,
With heedless rage pursued,
'Till trembling in his cloven helm,
Sir Elmer's javelin stood.

He bow'd his head—slow dropt his spear;
The reins slipt through his hand,
And stain'd with blood—his stately corse
Lay breathless on the strand.

“O bear me off,” Sir Elmer cried;
“Before my painful sight
“The combat swims—yet Hengist's vest
“I claim as victor's right.”

Brave Hengist's fall the Saxons saw,
And all in terror fled;
The bowmen to his castle gates,
The brave Sir Elmer led.

138

“O wash my wounds, my sister dear;
“O pull this Saxon dart,
“That whizzing from young Hengist's arm
“Has almost pierc'd my heart.

“Yet in my hall his vest shall hang,
“And Britons yet unborn,
“Shall with the trophies of to-day,
“Their solemn feasts adorn.”

All trembling Mey beheld the vest,
“Oh, Merlin!” loud she cried,
“Thy words are true—my slaughter'd love
“Shall have a breathless bride!

“Oh Elmer, Elmer, boast no more
“That low my Hengist lies!
“O Hengist, cruel was thine arm!
“My brother bleeds and dies!”

139

She spake—the roses left her cheeks,
And life's warm spirit fled:
So nipt by winter's withering blasts,
The snow-drop bows the head.

Yet parting life one struggle gave,
She lifts her languid eyes;
“Return my Hengist, oh return
“My slaughter'd love,” she cries.

“Oh—still he lives—he smiles again,
“With all his grace he moves;
“I come—I come where bow nor spear
“Shall more disturb our loves.”

She spake—she died. The Saxon dart
Was drawn from Elmer's side,
And thrice he call'd his sister Mey,
And thrice he groan'd, and died.

140

Where in the dale, a moss-grown cross,
O'ershades an aged thorn,
Sir Elmer's and young Hengist's corse,
Were by the spear-men borne.

And there, all clad in robes of white,
With many a sigh and tear,
The village maids to Hengist's grave
Did Mey's fair body bear.

And there, at dawn and fall of day,
All from the neighbouring groves,
The turtles wail, in widow'd notes,
And sing their hapless loves.

141

THE SORCERESS;

OR, WOLFWOLD AND ULLA:

AN HEROIC BALLAD.

143

------ Prisca fides.
Virg.

“Oh, low he lies; his cold pale cheek
“Lies lifeless on the clay;
“Yet struggling hope—O day spring break
“And lead me on my way.

“On Denmark's cruel bands, O heaven!
“Thy red-wing'd vengeance pour;
“Before my Wolfwold's spear be driven—
“O rise bright morning hour!”

144

Thus Ulla wail'd, the fairest maid,
Of all the Saxon race;
Thus Ulla wail'd, in nightly shade,
While tears bedew'd her face.

When sudden o'er the fir crown'd hill,
The full orb'd moon arose;
And o'er the winding dale so still,
Her silver radiance flows.

No more could Ulla's fearful breast,
Her anxious care delay;
But deep with hope and fear imprest,
She holds the moonshine way.

She left the bower, and all alone
She traced the dale so still;
And sought the cave with rue o'ergrown,
Beneath the fir-crown'd hill.

145

Black knares of blasted oak, embound
With hemlock, fenc'd the cell:
The dreary mouth, half under ground
Yawn'd like the gate of hell.

Soon as the gloomy den she spy'd,
Cold horror shook her knee;
And hear, O Prophetess, she cry'd,
A Princess sue to thee.

Aghast she stood! athwart the air,
The dismal screech-owl flew;
The fillet round her auburn hair
Asunder burst in two.

Her robe of softest yellow, glow'd
Beneath the moon's pale beam;
And o'er the ground with yew-boughs strew'd,
Effus'd a golden gleam.

146

The golden gleam the Sorceress spy'd,
As in her deepest cell,
At midnights magic hour she try'd
A tomb o'erpowering spell.

When from the cavern's dreary womb,
Her groaning voice arose,
“O come, my daughter, fearless come,
“And fearless tell thy woes.”

As shakes the bough of trembling leaf,
When whirlwinds sudden rise:
As stands aghast the warrior chief,
When his base army flies.

So shook, so stood, the beauteous maid,
When from the dreary den,
A wrinkled hag came forth, array'd
In matted rags obscene.

147

Around her brows, with hemlock bound,
Loose hung her ash grey hair;
As from two dreary caves profound
Her blue flamed eye-balls glare.

Her skin, of earthy red, appear'd
Clung round her shoulder bones;
Like wither'd bark, by light'ning sear'd
When loud the tempest groans.

A robe of squalid green and blue,
Her ghostly length array'd,
A gaping rent, full to the view
Her furrow'd ribs betray'd.

“And tell my daughter, fearless tell,
“What sorrow brought thee here?
“So may my power thy cares expel,
“And give thee sweetest cheer.

148

“O Mistress of the powerful spell,
“King Edric's daughter see,
“Northumbria to my father fell,
“And sorrow fell to me.

“My virgin heart Lord Wolfwold won;
“My father on him smil'd
“Soon as he gain'd Northumbria's throne,
“His pride the youth exil'd.

“Stern Denmark's ravens o'er the seas
“Their gloomy black wings spread,
“And o'er Northumbria's hills and leas,
“Their dreadful squadrons sped.

“Return brave Wolfwold, Edric cried,
“O generous warrior hear,
“My daughter's hand, thy willing bride,
“Awaits thy conquering spear.

149

“The banish'd youth in Scotland's court,
“Had past the weary year;
“And soon he heard the glad report,
“And soon he grasp'd his spear.

“He left the Scottish dames to weep,
“And wing'd with true love speed;
“Nor day, nor night, he stopt to sleep,
“And soon he cross'd the Tweed.

“With joyful voice, and raptur'd eyes,
“He press'd my willing hand;
“I go my Fair, my Love, he cries,
“To guard thy father's land.

“By Edon's shore in deathful fray,
“The daring foe we meet,
“Ere three short days I trust to lay
“My trophies at thy feet.

150

“Alas, alas, that time is o'er,
“And three long days beside,
“Yet not a word from Edon's shore,
“Has cheer'd his fearful bride.

“O Mistress of the powerful spell,
“His doubtful fate decide;”—
“And cease my child for all is well,”
The grizly witch replied.

“Approach my cave, and where I place
“The magic circle, stand
“And fear not ought of ghastly face,
“That glides beneath my wand.”

The grizly witches powerful charms,
Then reach'd the labouring moon,
And cloudless at the dire alarms,
She shed her brightest noon.

151

The pale beam struggled thro' the shade,
That black'd the caverns womb,
And in the deepest nook betray'd
An altar and a tomb.

Around the tomb in mystic lore,
Were forms of various mien,
And efts, and foul wing'd serpents, bore
The altars base obscene.

Eyeless, a huge and starv'd toad sat
In corner murk aloof,
And many a snake and famish'd bat
Clung to the crevic'd roof.

A fox and vultures skeletons,
A yawning rift betray'd;
And grappling still each others bones,
The strife of death display'd.

152

“And now my child, the Sorceress said,
“Lord Wolfwold's father's grave,
“To me shall render up the dead,
“And send him to my cave.

“His skeleton shall hear my spell,
“And to the figur'd walls
“His hand of bone shall point and tell,
“What fate his Son befalls.”

O cold down Ulla's snow like face,
The trembling sweat drops fell,
And borne by sprights of gliding pace,
The corse approach' d the cell.

And thrice the Witch her magic wand
Wav'd o'er the skeleton;
And slowly at the dread command,
Up rose the arm of bone.

153

A cloven shield and broken spear,
The finger wander'd o'er,
Then rested on a sable bier
Distain'd with drops of gore.

In ghastly writhes, her mouth so wide,
And black the Sorceress throws,
“And be those signs, my child,” she cries,
“Fulfill'd on Wolfwold's foes.

“A happier spell I now shall try;
“Attend, my child, attend,
“And mark what flames from altar high,
“And lowly floor ascend.

“If of the roses softest red,
“The blaze shines forth to view,
“Then Wolfwold lives—but Hell forbid
“The glimmering flame of blue!”

154

The Witch then rais'd her haggard arm,
And wav'd her wand on high;
And while she spoke the mutter'd charm,
Dark lightning fill'd her eye.

Fair Ulla's knee swift smote the ground;
Her hands aloft were spread,
And every joint as marble bound,
Felt horrors darkest dread.

Her lips ere while so like the rose,
Were now as vi'let pale,
And tumbling in convulsive throes,
Exprest o'erwhelming ail.

Her eyes, ere while so starry bright,
Where living lustre shone,
Were now transform'd to sightless white,
Like eyes of lifeless stone.

155

And soon the dreadful spell was o'er,
And glimmering to the view,
The quivering flame rose thro' the floor
A flame of ghastly blue.

Behind the altar's livid fire,
Low from the inmost cave,
Young Wolfwold rose in pale attire,
The vestments of the grave.

His eye to Ulla's eye he rear'd,
His cheek was wan as clay,
And half cut thro' his hand appear'd
That beckon'd her away.

Fair Ulla saw the woeful shade
Her heart struck at her side
And burst—low bow'd her listless head,
And down she sunk and died.

157

ALMADA HILL:

AN EPISTLE FROM LISBON.

163

While you, my Friend, from louring wintery plains
Now pale with snows, now black with drizzling rains,
From leafless woodlands, and dishonour'd bowers
Mantled by gloomy mists, or lash'd by showers
Of hollow moan, while not a struggling beam
Steals from the Sun to play on Isis' stream;
While from these scenes by England's winter spread
Swift to the cheerful hearth your steps are led,
Pleas'd from the threatening tempest to retire
And join the circle round the social fire;

164

In other climes through sun bask'd scenes I stray,
As the fair landscape leads my thoughtful way,
As upland path, oft winding, bids me rove
Where orange bowers invite, or olive grove,
No sullen phantoms brooding o'er my breast,
The genial influence of the clime I taste:
Yet still regardful of my native shore,
In every scene, my roaming eyes explore,
Whate'er its aspect, still, by memory brought,
My fading country rushes on my thought.

While now perhaps the classic page you turn,
And warm'd with honest indignation burn,
'Till hopeless, sicklied by the climate's gloom,
Your generous fears call forth Britannia's doom,
What hostile spears her sacred lawns invade,
By friends deserted, by her chief betray'd,
Low fall'n and vanquish'd!—I, with mind serene
As Lisboa's sky, yet pensive as the scene
Around, and pensive seems the scene to me,
From other ills my country's fate foresee.

165

Not from the hands that wield Iberia's spear,
Not from the hands that Gaul's proud thunders bear,
Nor those that turn on Albion's breast the sword
Beat down of late by Albion when it gored
Their own, who impious doom their parents's fall
Beneath the world's great foe th'insidious Gaul;
Yes, not from these the immedicable wound
Of Albion—Other is the bane profound
Destined alone to touch her mortal part;
Herself is sick and poisoned at the heart.

O'er Tago's banks where'er I roll mine eyes
The gallant deeds of antient days arise;
The scenes the Lusian Muses fond display'd
Before me oft, as oft at eve I stray'd
By Isis' hallowed stream. Oft now the strand
Where Gama march'd his death-devoted band,

166

While Lisboa awed with horror saw him spread
The daring sails that first to India led;
And oft Almada's castled steep inspires
The pensive Muse's visionary sires;
Almada Hill to English Memory dear,
While shades of English heroes wander here!

To ancient English valour sacred still
Remains, and ever shall, Almada Hill;
The hill and lawns to English valour given
What time the Arab Moors from Spain were driven,
Before the banners of the Cross subdued,
When Lisboa's towers were bathed in Moorish blood
By Gloster's lance.—Romantic days that yield
Of gallant deeds a wide luxuriant field

167

Dear to the Muse that loves the fairy plains,
Where ancient honour wild and ardent reigns.

Where high o'er Tago's flood Almada lowrs,
Amid the solemn pomp of mouldering towers
Supinely seated, wide and far around
My eye delighted wanders.—Here the bound
Of fair Europa o'er the Ocean rears
Its western edge; where dimly disappears
The Atlantic wave, the slow descending day
Mild beaming pours serene the gentle ray
Of Lusitania's winter, silvering o'er
The tower-like summits of the mountain shore;
Dappling the lofty cliffs that coldly throw
Their sable horrors o'er the vales below.
Far round the stately-shoulder'd river bends
Its giant arms, and sea-like wide extends
Its midland bays, with fertile islands crown'd,
And lawns for English valour still renown'd;
Given to Cornwallia's gallant sons of yore,
Cornwallia's name the smiling pastures bore;

168

And still their Lord his English lineage boasts
From Rolland famous in the Croisade Hosts.
Where sea-ward narrower rolls the shining tide
Through hills by hills embosom'd on each side,
Monastic walls in every glen arise
In coldest white fair glistening to the skies
Amid the brown-brow'd rocks; and, far as sight,
Proud domes and villages array'd in white
Climb o'er the steeps, and thro' the dusky green
Of olive groves, and orange bowers between,
Speckled with glowing red, unnumber'd gleam—
And Lisboa towering o'er the lordly stream
Her marble palaces and temples spreads
Wildly magnific o'er the loaded heads
Of bending hills, along whose high-piled base
The port capacious, in a moon'd embrace,
Throws her mast-forest, waving on the gale
The vanes of every shore that hoists the sail.

169

Here while the Sun from Europe's breast retires,
Let Fancy, roaming as the scene inspires,
Persue the present and the past restore,
And Nature's purpose in her steps explore.

Nor you, my Friend, admiring Rome, disdain
Th'Iberian fields and Lusitanian Spain.
While Italy, obscured in tawdry blaze,
A motley, modern character displays,
And languid trims her long exhausted store;
Iberia's fields with rich and genuine ore
Of ancient manners wooe the traveller's eye;
And scenes untraced in every landscape lie.
Here every various dale with lessons fraught
Calls to the wanderer's visionary thought
What mighty deeds the lofty hills of Spain
Of old have witness'd—From the evening main
Her mountain tops the Tyrian pilots saw
In lightnings wrapt, and thrill'd with sacred awe
Thro' Greece the tales of Gorgons, Hydras spread
And Geryon dreadful with the triple head;

170

The stream of Lethe, and the dread abodes
Of forms gigantic, and infernal gods.
But soon, by fearless lust of gold impell'd,
They mined the mountain, and explored the field;
'Till Rome and Carthage, fierce for empire, strove,
As for their prey two famish'd birds of Jove.
The rapid Durius then and Bœtis' flood
Were dy'd with Roman and with Punic blood,
While oft the lengthening plains and mountain sides
Seem'd moving on, slow rolling tides on tides,
When from Pyrene's summits Afric pour'd
Her armies, and o'er Rome destruction lour'd.

Here while the Youth revolves some Hero's fame,
If patriot zeal his British breast inflame,

171

Here let him trace the fields to freedom dear
Where low in dust lay Rome's invading spear;
Where Viriatus proudly trampled o'er
Fasces and Roman eagles steept in gore;
Or where he fell, with honest laurels crown'd,
The awful victim of a treacherous wound;
A wound still bathed in Honour's generous tear,
While Freedom's wounds the brave and good revere;
Still pouring fresh th'inexpiable stain
O'er Rome's patrician honour false and vain!

Or should the pride of bold revolt inspire,
And touch his bosom with unhallowed fire;
If merit spurn'd demand stern sacrifice,
Oe'r Ev'ra's fields let dread Sertorius rise.
Dyed in his country's blood, in all the pride
Of wrongs revenged, illustrious let him ride
Enshrined, o'er Spain, in Victory's dazzling rays,
'Till Rome look pale beneath the mounting blaze.

172

But let the British wanderer thro' the dales
Of Ev'ra stray, while midnight tempest wails:
There as the hoary villagers relate
Sertorius, Sylla, Marius, weep their fate,
Their spectres gliding on the lightning blue,
Oft doom'd their ancient stations to renew;
Sertorius bleeding on Perpenna's knife,
And Marius sinking in ambition's strife;
As forest boars entangled in a chain,
Dragg'd on, as stings each Leader's rage or pain;
And each the furious Leader in his turn,
'Till low they lie, a ghastly wreck forlorn.

And say, ye tramplers on your country's mounds,
Say who shall fix the swelling torrent's bounds?
Or who shall sail the pilot of the flood?
Alas, full oft some worthless trunk of wood
Is whirl'd into the port, blind Fortune's boast,
While noblest vessels, founder'd, strew the coast!

If wars of fairer fame and old applause,
That bear the title of our country's cause

173

To humanise barbarians, and to raise
Our country's prowess, their asserted praise;
If these delight, Hispania's dales display
The various arts and toils of Roman sway.
Here jealous Cato laid the cities waste,
And Julius here in fairer pride replaced,
'Till ages saw the labours of the plough
By every river, and the barren bough
Of laurel shaded by the olive's bloom,
And gratefull Spain the strength of lordly Rome;
Hers mighty bards , and hers the sacred earth
That gave the world a friend in Trajan's birth.

When Rome's wide empire, a luxurious prey,
Debased in false refinement nerveless lay,
The northern hords on Europe's various climes.
Planted their ruling virtues and their crimes.
Cloister'd by Tyber's stream the slothful staid,
To Seine and Loire the gay and friv'lous stray'd

174

A sordid groupe the Belgian marshes pleased,
And Saxony's wild forests Freedom seiz'd,
There held her juries, poised the legal scales,—
And Spain's romantic hills and lonely dales
The pensive Lover sought; and Spain became
The land of gallantry and amorous flame.
Hail, favour'd clime! whose lone retreats inspire
The softest dreams of languishing desire,
Affections trembling with a glow all holy,
Wildly sublime, and sweetly melancholy;
Till rapt devotion to the Fair, refine
And bend each passion low at Honour's shrine.
So felt the iron Goth when here he brought
His worship of the Fair with valour fraught:
Soon as Iberia's mountains fixt his home,
He rose a character unknown to Rome;
His manners wildly colour'd as the flowers
And flaunting plumage of Brazilian bowers:
New to the world as these, yet polish'd more
Than e'er the pupil of the Attic lore
Might proudly boast. On man's bold arm robust
The tender Fair reclines with fondest trust:

175

With Nature's finest touch exulting glows
The manly breast which that fond aid bestows:
That first of generous joys on man bestow'd.
In Gothic Spain in all its fervour glow'd.
Then high burn'd honour; and the dread alarm
Of danger then assumed the dearest charms.
What for the Fair was dared or suffered, bore
A saint-like merit, and was envied more;
'Till led by love sick Fancy's dazzled flight,
From Court to Court forth roam'd Adventure's Knight;
And tilts and tournaments, in mimic wars,
Supplied the triumphs and the honour'd scars
Of arduous battles for their country fought,
'Till the keen relish of the marvellous wrought
All wild and fever'd and each peaceful shade,
With batter'd armour deckt, its Knight display'd,
In soothing transport, listening to the strain
Of dwarfs and giants, and of monsters slain;
Of spells all horror, and enchanters dire,
And the sweet banquet of the amorous fire,

176

When Knights and Ladies chaste, relieved from thrall,
Holdove's high holiday in bower and hall.

'Twas thus, all pleasing to the languid thought,
With magic power the tales of magic wrought;
Till by the Muses armed, in all the ire
Of wit, resistless as electric fire,
Forth rode La Mancha's Knight; and sudden fled
Goblins and beauteous nymphs, and pagans dread,
As the delirious dream of sickness flies,
When health returning smiles from vernal skies.

But turn we now from Chivalry diseased,
To Chivalry when Houour's wreath she seized
From Wisdom's hand.—From Taurus' rugged steep,
And Caucasus, far round with headlong sweep,
As wolves wild howling from their famish'd den,
Rush'd the devouring bands of Sarazen:
Their savage genius, giant-like and blind,
Trampling with sullen joy on human kind,

177

Assyria lay its own uncover'd grave,
And Gallia trembled to the Atlantic wave:
In awful waste the fairest cities moan'd,
And human Liberty expiring groan'd
When Chivalry arose:—Her ardent eye
Sublime, that fondly mingled with the sky,
Where patience watch'd, and stedfast purpose frown'd
Mixt with Devotion's fire, she darted round,
Stern and indignant; on her glittering shield
The Cross she bore, and proudly to the field
High plumed she rush'd; by Honour's dazzling fir'd,
Conscious of Heaven's own cause, and all inspir'd
By holy vows, as on the frowning tower
The lightning vollies, on the crested power
Of Sarazen she wing'd her javelin's way,
And the wide-wasting giant prostrate lay.

Let supercilious Wisdom's smiling pride
The passion wild of these bold days deride;

174

But let the humbler Sage with reverence own
That something sacred glows, of name unknown,
Glows in the deeds that Heaven delights to crown;
Something that boasts an impulse uncontroul'd
By school-taught prudence, and its maxims cold.
Fired at the thought, methinks on sacred ground
I tread; where'er I cast mine eyes around,
Palmela's hill and Cintra's summits tell
How the grim Sarazen's dread legions fell;
Turbans and cymeters in carnage roll'd,
And their moon'd ensigns torn from every hold:—
Yes, let the Youth whose generous search explores
The various lessons of Iberia's shores,
Let him as wandering at the Muse's hour
Of eve or morn where low the Moorish tower,
Fallen from its rocky height and tyrant sway,
Lies scatter'd o'er the dale in fragments grey,

175

Let him with joy behold the hills around
With olive forests, and with vineyards crown'd,
All grateful pouring on the hands that rear
Their fruit, the fruitage of the bounteous year.
Then let his mind to fair Ionia turn,—
Alas! how waste Ionia's landscapes mourn;
And thine, O beauteous Greece, amid the towers
Where dreadful still the Turkish banner lowers;
Beneath whose gloom, unconscious of the stain
That dims his soul, the peasant hugs his chain.
And whence these woes debasing human kind?
Eunuchs in heart, in polish'd sloth reclin'd,
Thy sons, degenerate Greece, ignobly bled,
And fair Byzantium bow'd th'imperial head;
While Tago's iron race, in dangers steel'd,
All ardour, dared the horrors of the field.
The towers of Venice trembled o'er her flood,
And Paris' gates aghast and open stood;

180

Low lay her Peers on Fontarabia's plains:
And Lisboa groan'd beneath stern Mah'met's chains:
Vain was the hope the North might rest unspoil'd;
When stern Iberia's spirit fierce recoil'd.
As from the toils the wounded lion bounds,
And tears the hunters and the sated hounds;
So smarting with his wounds th'Iberian tore,
And to his sun-scorch'd regions drove, the Moor:
The vengeful Moors, as mastiffs on their prey,
Return'd; as heavy clouds their deep array
Blacken'd o'er Tago's banks.—As Sagrez braves
And stems the furious rage of Afric's waves,

181

So braved, so stood the Lusitanian bands,
The southern bulwark of Europa's lands.
Such were the foes by Chivalry repell'd,
And such the honours that adorn'd her shield.
And ask what Christian Europe owes the high
And ardent soul of gallant Chivalry,
Ask, and let Turkish Europe's groans reply!

As through the pictured abbey window gleams
The evening Sun with bold though fading beams,
So through the reverend shade of ancient days
Gleam these bold deeds with dim yet golden rays.
But let not glowing Fancy as it warms
O'er these, high honour's youthful pride in arms,
Forget the stern ambition and the worth
Of minds mature, by patriot Kings call'd forth;
That worth which roused the nation to explore
Old Ocean's wildest waves and farthest shore.

178

By human eye untempted, unexplored,
An awful solitude, old Ocean roar'd:
As to the fearful dove's impatient eye
Appears the height untry'd of upper sky;
So seem'd the last dim wave, in boundless space
Involved and lost, when Tago's gallant race,
As eagles fixing on the Sun their eyes
Through gulphs unknown explor'd the morning skies;
And taught the wondering world the grand design
Of parent heaven, that shore to shore should join
In bands of mutual aid, from sky to sky,
And Ocean's wildest waves the chain supply.

And here, my Friend, how many a trophy wooes
The Briton's earnest eye, and British Muse!
Here bids the youthful Traveller's care forego
The arts of elegance and polish'd shew;
Bids other arts his nobler thoughts engage,
And wake to highest aim his patriot rage;

179

Those arts which raised that race of Men, who shone
The heroes of their age on Lisboa's throne.
What mighty deeds in filial order flow'd,
While each still brighter than its parent glow'd,
Till Henry's Naval School its heroes pour'd
From pole to pole wherever Ocean roar'd!
Columbus, Gama, and Magellan's name,
Its deathless boast; and all of later fame
Its offspring—kindling o'er the view the Muse
The naval pride of those bright days reviews;
Sees Gama's sails, that first to India bore,
In awful hope evanish from the shore;
Sees from the silken regions of the morn
What fleets of gay triumphant vanes return!
What heroes, plumed with conquest, proudly bring
The Eastern sceptres to the Lusian King!
When sudden, rising on the evening gale,
Methinks I hear the Ocean's murmurs wail,
And every breeze repeat the woeful tale,

184

How bow'd, how fell proud Lisboa's naval throne—
Ah heaven, how cold the boding thoughts rush on!
Methinks I hear the shades that hover round
Of English heroes heave the sigh profound,
Prophetic of the kindred fate that lowers,
O'er Albion's fleets and London's proudest towers.

Broad was the firm-based structure and sublime,
That Gama fondly rear'd on India's clime:
On justice and benevolence he placed
Its ponderous weight, and warlike trophies graced
Its mounting turrets; and o'er Asia wide
Great Albuquerk renown'd its generous pride.
The injured Native sought its friendly shade,
And India's Princes blest its powerful aid:
Till from corrupted passion's basest hour
Rose the dread dæmon of tyrannic power.
Sampayo's heart, where dauntless valour reign'd,
And counsel deep, she seiz'd and foul profaned.

185

Then the straight road where sacred justice leads,
Where for its plighted compact honour bleeds,
Was left, and holy patriot zeal gave place
To lust of gold and self-devotion base:
Deceitful art the Chief's sole guide became,
And breach of faith was wisdom; slaughter, fame.
Yet though from far his hawk-eye markt its prey,
Soon through the rocks that crost his crooked way,
As a toil'd bull, fiercely he stumbled on,
Till low he lay dishonour'd and o'erthrown.

Others, without his valour or his art,
With all his interested rage of heart,
Follow'd, as blighting mists on Gama's toil,
And undermined and rent the mighty pile;
Convulsions dread its deep foundations tore,
Its bending head the scath of lightning bore:
Its falling turrets desolation spread;
And from its faithless shade in horror fled
The native tribes—yet not at once subdued;
Its pristine strength long storms on storms withstood:

186

A Nunio's justice, and a Castro's sword,
Oft raised its turrets, and its dread restored.
Yet, like the sunshine of a winter day
On Norway's coast, soon died the transient ray.
A tyrant race who own'd no country , came,
Deep to intrench themselves their only aim;
With lust of rapine fever'd and athirst,
With the unhallow'd rage of game accurst;
Against each spring of action, on the breast
For wisest ends, by Nature's hand imprest,
Stern war they waged; and blindly ween'd, alone
On brutal dread, to fix their cruel throne.
The wise and good, with indignation fired,
Silent from their unhallowed board retired;
The Base and Cunning staid, and, slaves avow'd,
Submiss to every insult smiling bow'd.

187

Yet while they smiled and bow'd the abject head,
In chains unfelt their Tyrant Lords they led;
Their avarice, watching as a bird of prey,
O'er every weakness, o'er each vice held sway;
Till secret art assumed the thwarting face,
And dictate bold; and ruin and disgrace
Closed the unworthy scene. Now trampled low
Beneath the injured native, and the foe
From Belgia lured by India's costly prey,
Thy glorious structure, Gama, prostrate lay;
And lies in desolated awful gloom,
Dread and instructive as a ruin'd tomb.

Nor less on Tago's than on India's coast
Was ancient Lusian Virtue stain'd and lost:
On Tago's banks, heroic ardour's foes,
A soft, luxurious, tinsel'd race, arose;
Of lofty boastful look and pompous shew,
Triumphant tyrants o'er the weak and low:

188

Yet wildly starting from the gaming board
At every distant brandish of the sword;
Already conquer'd by uncertain dread,
Imploring peace with feeble hands outspread;—
Such peace as trembling suppliants still obtain,
Such peace they found beneath the yoke of Spain;
And the wide empires of the East no more
Poured their redundant horns on Lisboa's shore.

Alas, my Friend, how vain the fairest boast
Of human pride! how soon is Empire lost!
The pile by ages rear'd to awe the world,
By one degenerate race to ruin hurl'd!
And shall the Briton view that downward race
With eye unmoved, and no sad likeness trace!
Ah heaven! in every scene, by memory brought,
My fading country rushes on my thought.

From Lisboa now the frequent vesper bell
Vibrates o'er Tago's stream with solemn knell.

189

Turn'd by the call my pensive eye surveys
That mighty scene of Hist'ry's shame and praise.
Methinks I hear the yells of horror rise
From slaughter'd thousands shrieking to the skies,
As factious rage or blinded zeal of yore
Roll'd their dire chariot wheels though streams of gore.
Now throbs of other glow my soul employ;
I hear the triumph of a nation's joy ,

190

From bondage rescued and the foreign sword,
And Independence and the Throne restored!

Hark, what low sound from Cintra rock! the air
Trembles with horror; fainting lightnings glare;
Shrill crows the cock, the dogs give dismal yell;
And with the whirlwind's roar full comes the swell;
Convulsive staggers rock th'eternal ground,
And heave the Tagus from his bed profound;
A dark red cloud the towers of Lisboa veils;
Ah heaven, what dreadful groan! the rising gales
Bright light; and Lisboa smoaking in the dust
Lies fall'n.—The wide-spread ruins, still august,
Still shew the footsteps where the dreadful God
Of earthquake, cloath'd in howling darkness, trod;
Where mid foul weeds the heaps of marble tell
From what proud height the spacious temples fell;
And penury and sloth of squalid mien
Beneath the roofless palace walls are seen

191

In savage hovels, where the tap'stried floor
Was trod by Nobles and by Kings before;
How like, alas, her Indian empire's state!
How like the city's and the nation's fate!
Yet Time points forward to a brighter day;
Points to the domes that stretch their fair array
Through the brown ruins, lifting to the sky
A loftier brow and mien of promise high;
Points to the river-shore where wide and grand
The Courts of Commerce and her walks expand,
As an Imperial palace to retain
The Universal Queen, and fix her reign;
Where pleas'd she hears the groaning oar resound;
By magazines and arsenals mounded round.

192

Whose yet unfinished grandeur proudly boasts
The fairest hope of either India's coasts,
And bids the Muse's eye in vision roam
Through mighty scenes in ages long to come.

Forgive, fair Thames, the song of truth that pays
To Tago's empress-stream superior praise;
O'er every vauntful river be it thine
To boast the guardian shield of laws divine;
But yield to Tagus all the sovereign state
By Nature's gift bestow'd and partial Fate,
The sea-like port and central sway to pour
Her fleets, by happiest course, on every shore.

When from the sleep of ages dark and dead,
Thy Genius, Commerce, rear'd her infant head,
Her cradle bland on Tago's lap she chose,
And soon to wandering childhood sprightly rose;
And when to green and youthful vigour grown
On Tago's breast she fix'd her central throne;

193

Far from the hurricane's resistless sweep
That tears with thundering rage the Carib deep;
Far from the foul-winged Winter that deforms
And rolls the northern main with storms on storms;
Beneath salubrious skies, to summer gales
She gives the ventrous and returning sails:
The smiling isles, named Fortunate of old,
First on her Ocean's bosom fair unfold:
Thy world, Columbus, spreads its various breast,
Proud to be first by Lisboa's waves carest;
And Afric wooes and leads her easy way
To the fair regions of the rising day.
If Turkey's drugs invite or silken pride,
Thy straits, Alcides, give the ready tide;
And turn the prow, and soon each shore expands
From Gallia's coast to Europe's northern lands.

When Heaven decreed low to dust to bring
That lofty oak , Assyria's boastful King,

194

Deep, said the angel voice, the roots secure
With bands of brass, and let the life endure,
For yet his head shall rise.—And deep remain
The living roots of Lisboa's ancient reign;
Deep in the castled isles on Asia's strand,
And firm in fair Brazilia's wealthy land.
And say, while ages roll their length'ning train,
Shall Nature's gifts to Tagus still prove vain,
An idle waste!—A dawn of brightest ray
Has bodly promised the returning day
Of Lisboa's honours, fairer than her prime
Lost by a rude unletter'd Age's crime—
Now Heaven-taught Science and her liberal band
Of Arts, and dictates by experience plann'd,
Beneath the smiles of a benignant Queen
Boast the fair opening of a reign serene,

195

Of omen high.—And Camoen's Ghost no more
Wails the neglected Muse on Tago's shore;
No more his tears the barbarous Age upbraid:
His griefs and wrongs all sooth'd, his happy Shade
Beheld th'Ulysses of his age return
To Tago's banks; and earnest to adorn

196

The Hero's brows, he waves the Elysian crown,
What time letter'd Chiefs of old renown,
And patriot Heros, in the Elysian bowers
Shall hail Braganza: of the fairest flowers
Of Helicon, entwined with laurel leaves
From Maxen field, the deathless wreath he waves;
Anxious alone, nor be his vows in vain!
That long his toil unfinished may remain!

The view how greatful to the liberal mind,
Whose glow of heart embraces human kind,
To see a nation rise! But ah, my Friend,
How dire the pangs to mark our own descend!
With ample powers from ruin still to save,
Yet as a vessel on the furious wave,
Through sunken rocks and rav'nous whirlpools tost,
Each power to save in counter-action lost,
Where, while combining storms the decks o'erwhelm,
Timidity slow faulters at the helm,
The crew, in mutiny, from every mast
Tearing its strength, and yielding to the blast;

197

By Faction's stern and gloomy lust of change,
And selfish rage inspired and dark revenge—
Nor ween, my Friend, that favouring Fate forebodes
That Albion's state, the toil of demi-gods,
From ancient manners pure, through ages long,
And from unnumber'd friendly aspects sprung;
When poison'd at the heart its soul expires,
Shall e'er again resume its generous fires:
No future day may such fair Frame restore:
When Albion falls, she falls to rise no more.

The expedition of Vasco de Gama, the discoverer of the East Indies, was extremely unpopular, as it was esteemed impracticable. His embarkation is strongly marked by Osorius the historian. Gama, before he went on board, spent the night along with the crews of his squadron in the chapel of our Lady at Belem, on the spot where the noble: gothic church now stands adjoining the convent of St. Jerome.

In the chapel they bound themselves to obedience to Gama, and devoted themselves to death. “On the next day when the adventurers marched to the ships, the shore of Belem presented one of the most solemn and affecting scenes perhaps recorded in history. The beach was covered with the inhabitants of Lisbon. A numerous procession of priests in their robes sung anthems, and offered up invocations to heaven. Every one beheld the adventurers as brave innocent men going to a dreadful execution, as rushing upon certain death.” Introduct. to the Lusiad.

The houses in Portugal are generally whitened on the outside, white being esteemed as repulsive of the rays of the Sun.

The river of Lima, in the north of Portugal, said to be the Lethe of the ancients, is thus mentioned by Cellarius in his Geographia Antiqua; “Fabulosus Oblivionis fluvius Limæas, ultra Lusitaniam in septentrione.” It runs through a most romantic and beautiful district; from which circumstance it probably received the name of the River of Olivion, the first strangers who visited it, forgetting their native country, and being willing to continue on its banks. The same reason of forgetfulness is ascribed to the Lotos by Homer, Odys. ix. There is another Lethe of the ancients in Africa.

This great man is called by Florus the Romulus of Spain. What is here said of him is agreeable to history.

Ebora, now Evora, was the principal residence of Sertorius.

According to History, this different policy is strikingly characteristic of those celebrated names.

Lucan, Martial, Seneca.

Palmela's hill and Cintra's summits—are both seen from Almada, and were principal forts of the Moors. They were stormed by Alphonso the first about the time of the conquest of Lisbon.

The irruption of the Mohammedans into Europe gave rise to that species of poetry called Romance. The Orlando Furioso is founded upon the invasion of France,

When Charlemaigne with all his Peerage fell
By Fontarabia ------

Milton.

The promontory of Sagrez, where Henry, Duke of Viseo, resided and established his naval school, is on the southern part of Portugal opposite to Africa.

Albuquerk, Sampayo, Nunio, Castro, are distinguished characters in the Lusiad, and in the History of Portuguese Asia.

A tyrant race, who own'd no country, came,—before the total declension of the Portuguese in Asia; and while they were subject to Spain, the principal people, says the historian Faria, who were mostly a mixed race born in India, lost all affection for the mother country, nor had any regard for any of the provinces where they were only the sons of strangers: and present emolument became their sole object.

Besides the total slaughter of the Moors at the taking of Lisbon, other massacres have bathed the streets of that city in blood. King Fernando, surnamed the Careless, was driven from Lisbon by a bloody insurrection, headed by one Velasquez a Taylor. Some time after on the death of Fernando, Adeyro, the Queen's favourite, was stabbed in her presence, the Bishop of Lisbon was thrown from the tower of his own cathedral, and the massacre of all the Queen's adherents became general; and many were murdered under that pretence, by those who had an enmity against them. In 1505 between two and three thousand Jews were massacred in Lisbon in the space of three days, and many Christians were also murdered by their private enemies under a similar pretence that they were of the Hebrew race. Thousands flocked in from the country to assist in their destruction, and the crews of some French and Dutch ships then in the river, says Osorius, were particularly active in murdering and plundering.

When the Spanish yoke was thrown off, and the Duke of Braganza ascended the throne under the title of John IV. This is one of the most remarkable events in history, and does the Portuguese nation infinite honour.

This description is literally just. Whole families, of all ages, are every where seen among the ruins, the only covering of their habitations being ragged fragments of sail cloth; and their common bed dirty straw. The magnificent and extensive ruins of the palace of Braganza contain several hundreds of these idle people, much more wretched in their appearance than the gypsies of England.

The Praça de Commercio, or Forum of Commerce, is one of the largest and most magnificent squares in Europe. Three sides consist of the Exchange and the public offices; the fourth is formed by the Tagus, which is here edged by an extensive and noble wharf, built of coarse marble.

See Daniel, c. iv.

Alludes to the establishment of the Royal Academy of Lisbon in July 1780, under the presidency of the most illustrious Prince Don John of Braganza, Duke of Lafoens, &c. &c. &c. The Author was present at the ceremony of its commencement, and had the honour to be admitted a member.

Camoens the first poet of Portugal, published his Lusiad at a time of the deepest declension of public virtue, when the Portuguese empire in India was falling into rapid decay, when literature was totally neglected, and all was luxury and imbecility at home. At the end of books V. and VII. of his Lusiad, he severely upbraids the Nobility for their barbarous ignorance. He died neglected in a workhouse, a few months before his country fell under the yoke of Phillip II. of Spain, whose policy in Portugal was of the same kind with that which he exercised in the Netherlands, endeavouring to secure submission by severity, with the view of reducing them beneath the possibility of a successful revolt.

This title is given by the Portuguese historians to Don John, one of the younger sons of John I. of Portugal, who had visited every Court of Europe. The same title is no less due to the present illustrious descendant of his family, the Duke of Lafoens. His Grace, who has within these few years returned to his native country, was about twenty-two years absent from it. During the late War, he was a volunteer in the army of the Empress Queen, in which he served as Lieutenant-general, and particularly distinguished himself at the battle of Maxen, where the Prussians were defeated. After the peace, he not only visited every court of Europe, most of whose languages he speaks fluently, but also travelled to Turky and Egypt, and even to Lapland. His Grace is no less distinguished by his taste for the Belles Lettres, than for his extensive knowledge of History and Science.

199

STANZAS. ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY STUDIOUS OF BOTANY.

Say, gentle Lady of the bower,
For thou, though young, art wise,
And known to thee is every flower
Beneath our milder skies:

Say, which the Plant of modest dye,
And lovely mien combin'd,
That fittest to the pensive eye
Displays the virtuous mind.

I sought the groves where Innocence
Methought might long reside;
But April's blossoms banish'd thence,
Gave Summer, Flora's pride.

200

I sought the garden's boasted haunt,
But on the gay partere
Carnations glow, and tulips flaunt,
No humble flowret there.

The flower you seek, the Nymph replies,
Has bow'd the languid head;
For on its bloom the blazing skies
Their sultry rage have shed.

'Tis now the downward withering day,
Of Winter's dull presage,
That seeks not where the Dog-stars ray,
Has shed his fiercest rage.

Yet search yon shade, obscure forlorn,
Where rude the bramble grows;
There shaded by the humble thorn,
The lingering Primrose blows.

201

SACRED TO THE HEIRS OF **** CASTLE.

Oh thou whose hopes these fair domains inspire,
The awful lesson here bestow'd attend,
With pensive Eve here let thy steps retire,
What time rapt Fancy's shadowy forms descend.

Hark! from yon Hall as headlong waste purveys,
What Bachanalian revels loud resound,
With festive fires the midnight windows blaze,
And fever'd tumult reels his giddy round.

'Tis past—the Mansion owns another Lord,
The ousted Heir so riotous erewhile,
Now sits a Suppliant at his wonted board,
Insulted by the base-born Menial's smile.

By the base Menials taunted from the door,
With anguish'd heart resistless of his woe,
Forlorn he strays those lawns, his own no more,
Unknowing where, on trembling knees and slow.

202

'Till here beneath an aged Elm's bleak shade,
Fainting he sinks—Ah! let thy mind descry,
On the cold Turf how low his humbled head,
On yon fair Dome how fixt his ghastly eye.

By his mad Revels, by his last Heart-sigh,
Oh thou of these proud Towers the promis'd Heir,
By every manly Virtue's holy tie,
By honour's fairest bloom, Oh Fortune's child, beware.

FRAGMENT.

[Tell me gentle Echo, tell]

Tell me gentle Echo, tell,
Where and how my Lover fell?
On the cold grass did he lie,
Crown'd with laurels did he die?
Echo twice gave swift reply,
Crown'd with laurels, crown'd with laurels, he did die.

203

His snow white breast was stain'd with gore,
A cruel sword his bosom tore.
Say with his parting vital flame,
Did he sigh Ophelia's name,
Was he constant still the same?
Echo sigh'd Ophelia's name.

When in Honour's bed he lay,
And breath'd his gallant soul away,
Ye gentler Spirits of the air,
Why was not Ophelia there?
Echo answer'd her despair,
Why was not Ophelia there?

While the full Moon's paly ray
Sleeping on the hill side lay,
Thus to Echo thro' the glade
The lovely Maniac talk'd and stray'd;
Strait on Fancy's wild wings borne
By the glympse of opening morn,
She saw—or thought she saw, her Love
Lie bleeding [OMITTED]

204

FRAGMENT.

[Come gentle peace on every breathing gale]

Come gentle peace on every breathing gale,
O come and guard the slumbers of the vale,
Awake gay mirth and glee, with playful wile,
Wake with the morn, and o'er the landscape smile.

STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES.

Aspers'd by Malice and unmanly rage,
Disgraceful stamp on this flagitious age,
In conscious innocence secur'd from blame,
She sigh'd—but only sigh'd o'er Britain's Shame;
She saw her Children throng their early Tomb,
Disease slow wasting fade her Glosters' Bloom,
She saw—but Death appear'd a friendly Guest,
His arrow pointing to the realms of rest!
Calmly she views him, dauntless and resign'd,
Yet drops one tear for those she leaves behind.

Warm from the Heart these honest numbers flow,
Which honour, truth, and gratitude bestow.

205

EPITAPH ON MR. MORTIMER.

O'er Angelo's proud tomb no tear was shed;
Pleas'd was each Muse, for full his honours spread;
To bear his genius to its utmost shore,
The length of human days could give no more.

Oh Mortimer, o'er thy untimely urn,
The Arts and all the gentle Muses mourn;
And shades of English heroes gliding by,
Heave o'er thy shrine the languid hopeless sigh.
Thine all the breathing rage of bold design,
And all the poetry of painting thine,
Oh! long had thy meridian sun to blaze,
And onward hov'ring in its magic rays,
What visions rose!—Fair England's patriots old,
Monarchs of proudest fame, and Barons bold,
In the fir'd moments of their bravest strife,
Bursting beneath thy hand again to life!
So shone thy noon—when one dim void profound,
Rush'd on, and shapeless darkness clos'd around.
Alas! while ghosts of heroes round thy tomb,
Robb'd of their hope, bewail the artist's doom;

206

Thy friend, oh Mortimer, in grief sincere,
Pours o'er the man sad memory's silent tear;
And in the fond remembrance of thy heart,
Forgets the honours of thy wond'rous art.

TO THE MEMORY OF COM. GEO. JOHNSTONE.

Though Life's tempestuous sea to thee 'twas given
Thy course to steer, yet still preserved by Heaven;
As childhood closed thy ceaseless toils began,
And toils and dangers ripen'd thee to man:
Thy country's cause thy ardent youth inspir'd,
Thy ripen'd years thy country's dangers fir'd;
All life to trace the councils of the foe,
All zealous life to ward the lifted blow .

207

When dubious Peace, in gilded clouds array'd,
Fair o'er Britannia threw her painted shade,
Thy active mind illiberal ease disdain'd;
Forth burst the Senator unaw'd, unstain'd!
By private aim unwarpt as generous youth,
Thy ear still listening to the voice of Truth,
That sacred Power thy bursting warmth controul'd,
And bade thee at her side be only bold.
Nor toils of State alone thy cares employ'd;
The Muses in thy sunshine glow'd and joy'd.

When filial strife unsheath'd the ruthless brand,
And Discord rioted on Salem's strand,
Thy hands to Salem's strand the olive bore ,
Alas, denied!—and liberal peace no more
Smiled on the crest of hope; thy country's weal
Again to action waked thy patriot zeal;
Old Tagus saw the British red cross stream
O'er Gallia's lillies and the tawny gleam

208

Of proud Iberia's castles: Belgia mourn'd
Her broken faith, and Afric's shores return'd
Her Lisboan groans for British friendship spurn'd.

Again Life's tempest beaten ocean roar'd,
And round thy head the mists of Faction pour'd;
Dark lower'd the storm; but Heaven's own light rose mild,
And rescued Honour on thy death-bed smiled ,
Soft shedding peaceful joy; the blissful sign,
That Heaven's forgiveness and its balm were thine.

All hail, sooth'd shade! The Muse that own'd thy care
Hails thee, and blesses Heaven that heard her prayer.
For ever green the laurel o'er thy tomb
Shall flourish, ever white its flowery bloom;
And Gratitude, oh Johnstone, round thy shrine,
And Friendship, heave the sigh, and thy fair wreath entwine.

The Commodore was remarkably happy in procuring intelligence. He sent the first notice of the Spanish Declaration of War in 1761 to Admiral Rodney, then commanding in the West Indies, in consequence of which the Havannah was taken. He sent also the first account of the sailing and destination for the West Indies of the Grand Spanish Fleet in 1760 to Admiral Rodney, then also Commander on that station. Both messages were carried from Lisbon by the same person, Capt. M'Laurin. In consequence of this intelligence, many of the Spanish transports were taken, and the operations of the combined force of France and Spain in the West Indies retarded for that season.

He was one of the Commissioners sent to America in 1778.

Alluding to the French and Dutch prizes he sent into the Tagus in 1779 and 1780, and to his capture of four Dutch India men in Saldanha Bay in 1781.

Alluding to the sentence against him in the cause of Captain Sutton, being reversed by the House of Lords, the account of which he received about twenty-four hours before his death.

209

STANZAS ON MR. GARRICK.

Fair was the graceful form Prometheus made,
Its front the image of the God display'd:
All heaven approv'd it e'er Minerva stole
The fire of Jove and kindled up the soul.

So Shakespear's page, the flower of poesy,
E'er Garrick rose had charms for every eye;
'Twas Nature's genuine image wild and grand,
The strong mark'd picture of a Master's hand.

But when his Garrick, nature's Pallas, came,
The Bard's bold painting burst into a flame:
Each part new force and vital warmth receiv'd,
As touch'd by heaven—and all the picture liv'd.