 | The Poems of Robert Bloomfield |  |
BOOK I.
The Vale of Uley—Forest of Dean—Ross—Wilton Castle— Goodrich Castle—Courtfield, Welsh Bicknor, Coldwell— Gleaner's Song—Coldwell Rocks—Symmon's Yat—Great Doward—New Wier—Martin's Well—The Coracle—Arrival at Monmouth.
Quit thy half-rural bower, a while despise
The thraldom that consumes thee. We who dwell
Far from thy land of smoke advise thee well.
Here Nature's bounteous hand around shall fling
Scenes that thy Muse hath never dared to sing.
When dread eternity absorb'd thy mind,
Flow'd the predicting verse, by gloom o'erspread,
That ‘Cambrian mountains’ thou shouldst never tread,
That ‘time-woru cliff and classic stream to see,’
Was wealth's prerogative, despair for thee.
Come to the proof; with us the breeze inhale,
Renounce despair, and come to Severn's vale;
And where the Cotswold Hills are stretch'd along,
Seek our green dell, as yet unknown to song:
Start hence with us, and trace, with raptured eye,
The wild meanderings of the beauteous Wye;
Thy ten days leisure ten days joy shall prove,
And rock and stream breathe amity and love.”
The siren Pleasure caroll'd and prevail'd;
Of Uley Bury smiled o'er all below,
O'er mansion, flock, and circling woods that hung
Round the sweet pastures where the sky-lark sung.
O for the fancy, vigorous and sublime,
Chaste as the theme, to triumph over time!
Bright as the rising day, and firm as truth,
To speak new transports to the lowland youth,
That bosoms still might throb, and still adore,
When his who strives to charm them beats no more!
Sound health, bright hopes, and cloudless sky,
A cheerful group their farewell bade
To Dursley tower, to Uley's shade;
And where bold Stinchcombe's greenwood side
Heaves in the van of highland pride,
Scour'd the broad vale of Severn; where
The foes of verse shall never dare
Genius to scorn, or bound its power,
There blood-stain'd Berkeley's turrets low'r,
A name that cannot pass away,
Till time forgets “the Bard” of Gray.
To gain the pass of Framilode,
Before us Dean's black forest spread,
And May Hill, with his tufted head,
Beyond the ebbing tide appear'd;
And Cambria's distant mountains rear'd
And Severn, 'midst the burning day,
Curved his bright line, and bore along
The mingled Avon, pride of song.
Neigh'd loud upon the forest shore;
Domains that once, at early morn,
Rang to the hunter's bugle horn,
When barons proud would bound away;
And even kings would hail the day,
When crested chiefs their bright arm'd train
Of javelin'd horsemen roused amain,
And chasing wide the wolf or boar,
Bade the deep woodland valleys roar.
But we no dang'rous chase pursued;
Sound wheels and hoofs their tasks renew'd;
Behind roll'd Severn, gleaming far,
Around us roar'd no sylvan war,
Through noble Flaxley's bow'rs of oak;
And many a cottage, trim and gay,
Whisper'd delight through all the way;
On hills exposed, in dells unseen,
To patriarchal Mitchel Dean.
Rose-cheek'd Pomona here was queen,
Though Ceres edged her fields between,
And on each hill-top, mounted high,
Her sickle waved in ecstasy;
Till, Ross, thy charms all hearts confess'd,
Thy peaceful walks, thy hours of rest
And contemplation. Here the mind,
(Its usual luggage left behind,)
Feels all its dormant fires revive,
And sees “the Man of Ross” alive;
And hears the Twick'nham Bard again
To Kyrle's high virtues lift his strain;
With rev'rend elms, that shade us still;
Whose mem'ry shall survive the day
When elms and empires feel decay.
Kyrle die, by Bard ennobled? Never:
The Man of Ross shall live for ever;
And long that spire shall time defy,
To grace the flow'ry-margin'd Wye,
Scene of the morrow's joy, that prest
Its unseen beauties on our rest
In dreams; but who of dreams would tell,
Where truth sustains the song so well ?
Ne'er beam'd upon a lovelier sky;
Imagination instant brought,
And dash'd, amidst the train of thought,
Glee at the helm exulting tript,
And waved her flower-encircled wand,
“Away, away, to Fairy Land.”
Light dipt the oars; but who can name
The various objects dear to fame,
That changing, doubling, wild, and strong,
Demand the noblest powers of song?
Then, O forgive the vagrant Muse,
Ye who the sweets of Nature choose;
And thou, whom destiny hath tied
To this romantic river's side,
Down gazing from each close retreat,
On boats that glide beneath thy feet,
Forgive the stranger's meagre line,
That seems to slight that spot of thine;
For he, alas! could only glean
The changeful outlines of the scene;
Links memory's power with rapture's tear.
Bury, or Burg, the Saxon name for a hill, particularly for one wholly or partially formed by art. Uley Bury, from the singular valley below, embosoming Uley and Oulpen, is an eminence of singular beauty, crowned by intrenchments; though in itself but a kind of termination of the Cotswold Hills, in which character Stinchcombe takes the lead; and both command a vast prospect over the Severn and the mountains of South Wales.
Let hist'ry tell that fateful hour
At home, when surly winds shall roar,
And prudence shut the study door.
De Wiltons here, of mighty name,
The whelming flood, the summer stream,
Mark'd from their towers.—The fabric falls,
The rubbish of their splendid halls
And blank oblivion strives to hide .
And trembling willow's silver green,
Till the fantastic current stood
In line direct for Pencraig Wood;
Whose bold green summit welcome bade,
Then rear'd behind his nodding shade.
Here, as the light boat skimm'd along,
The clarionet, and chosen song,
(That mellow, wild, Æolian lay,
“Sweet in the Woodlands,”) roll'd away
Their echoes down the stream, that bore
Each dying close to every shore,
And forward cape, and woody range,
That form the never-ceasing change,
Twirls with the stream, he knows not where.
Till bold, impressive, and sublime,
Gleam'd all that's left by storms and time
Of Goodrich Towers. The mould'ring pile
Tells noble truths,—but dies the while.
O'er the steep path, through brake and brier,
His batter'd turrets still aspire,
In rude magnificence. 'Twas here
Lancastrian Henry spread his cheer,
When came the news that Hal was born,
And Monmouth hail'd th' auspicious morn:
A boy in sports, a prince in war,
Wisdom and valour crown'd his car;
Of France the terror, England's glory,
As Stratford's bard has told the story.
Where the old monarch kept his wine;
Adorns his throng'd and laughing hall;
But where he pray'd, and told his beads,
A thriving ash luxuriant spreads.
No barks embowell'd Portland Isle;
Dig, cried experience, dig away,
Bring the firm quarry into day;
The excavation still shall save
Those ramparts which its entrails gave.
“Here Kings shall dwell,” the builders cried,
“Here England's foes shall lower their pride;
“Hither shall suppliant nobles come,
“And this be England's royal home.”
Vain hope! for on the Gwentian shore
The regal banner streams no more!
Nettles, and vilest weeds that grow,
To mock poor grandeur's head laid low,
And flaunt where youth and beauty gazed.
And muse as Fancy's woof grows strong;
Yet cold the heart that could complain,
Where Pollett struck his oars again;
For lovely as the sleeping child,
The stream glides on sublimely wild,
In perfect beauty, perfect ease.
—The awning trembled in the breeze,
And scarcely trembled, as we stood
For Ruerdean Spire and Bishop's Wood.
The fair domains of Courtfield made
A paradise of mingled shade
Beneath his host of woodland bowers.
O'er Raven Cliff, and Coldwell Spring,
To brighten the unconscious eye,
And wake the soul to ecstasy?
The dripping oars had nought to do,
Where round us rose a scene that might
Enchant an idiot—glorious sight!
Here, in one gay according mind,
Upon the sparkling stream we dined;
As shepherds free on mountain heath,
Free as the fish that watch'd beneath
The wine that cheer'd us on our way.
Th' unruffled bosom of the stream
Gave every tint and every gleam;
Gave shadowy rocks, and clear blue sky,
And double clouds of various dye;
Gave dark green woods, or russet brown,
And pendent corn-fields, upside down.
And 'twas a change by music made;
For slowly to the brink they drew,
To mark our joy, and share it too.
How oft, in childhood's flow'ry days,
I've heard the wild impassion'd lays
Of such a group, lays strange and new,
And thought, was ever song so true!
When from the hazel's cool retreat
They watch'd the summer's trembling heat;
Where matrons, round the laughing maid,
Prest the long grass beneath! And here
Perhaps they shared an equal cheer;
Enjoy'd the feast with equal glee,
And raised the song of revelry:
Yet half abash'd, reserved, and shy,
Watch'd till the strangers glided by.
Henry the Seventh gave an irrevocable blow to the dangerous privileges assumed by the barons, in abolishing liveries and retainers, by which every malefactor could shelter himself from the law, on assuming a nobleman's livery, and attending his person. And as a finishing stroke to the feudal tenures, an act was passed, by which the barons and gentlemen of landed interest were at liberty to sell and mortgage their lands, without fines or licences for the alienation.
The ruins of Wilton Castle stand on the opposite side of the river, nearly fronting the town of Ross.
A seat belonging to the family of Vaughan, which is not unnoticed in the pages of history. According to tradition, it is the place where Henry the Fifth was nursed, under the care of the Countess of Salisbury, from which circumstance the original name of Grayfield is said to have been changed to Courtfield .
This is probably an erroneous tradition; for Court was a common name for a manor-house, where the lord of the manor held his court. —Coxe's Monmouth.
GLEANER'S SONG.
With the joys of some bride, and the wealth of her lord:
Of her chariots and dresses,
And worldly caresses,
But what can she boast if she weds unbeloved?
Can she e'er feel the joy that one morning I proved,
When I put on my new-gown and waited for John?
Yet to me they ne'er look'd so enchanting before;
The distant bells ringing,
The birds round us singing,
For pleasure is pure when affection is won:
They told me the troubles and cares of a wife;
But I loved him; and that was the pride of my life,
When I put on my new-gown and waited for John.
And what in my bosom was passing the while?
For love knows the blessing
Of ardent caressing,
The sunshine of Fortune you say is divine;
True love and the sunshine of Nature were mine,
When I put on my new-gown and waited for John.
To bear memorials of distress;
None, cries the sage, more fit is found,
They strike at once a double wound;
Humiliation bids you sigh,
And think of poor mortality.
Beneath a dark wood's sombrous frown,
A monumental stone appears
Of one who, in his blooming years,
While bathing spurn'd the grassy shore,
And sunk, 'midst friends, to rise no more.
The dreadful language horror speaks!
But why in verse attempt to tell
That tale the stone records so well ?
Not e'en thy fate, ingenuous boy;
The great, the grand of Nature strove,
To lift our hearts to life and love.
Thrust from your woods your shafts of grey:
Fall not, to crush our mortal pride,
Or stop the stream on which we glide.
Our lives are short, our joys are few.
But, giants, what is time to you?
Ye who erect, in many a mass,
Rise from the scarcely dimpled glass,
That with distinct and mellow glow
Reflects your monstrous forms below;
Shakes all your shadows into one;
Boast ye o'er man in proud disdain,
A silent, everlasting reign?
Bear ye your heads so high in scorn
Of names that puny man hath borne?
Their names engraven, deep and clear,
That such as gaily wind along
Might greet with shouts those sires of song,
And trace the fame that mortals crave
To LIGHT and LIFE beyond the grave!
Then might ye boast your wreaths entwined
With trophies of the deathless MIND;
Then would your fronts record on high,
“We perish!—Man can never die!”
For each the navigator knows;
Bard famed in lays, or chief in fights;
But former tourists, just as free,
(Though surely not so blest as we,)
A group of wranglers from the bar,
Suspending here their mimic war—
Mark'd towering Bearcroft's ivy crown,
And grey Vansittart's waving gown:
And who's that giant by his side?
“Sergeant Adair,” the boatman cried.
Yet strange it seems, however true,
That here, where law has nought to do,
Where rules and bonds are set aside,
By wood, by rock, by stream defied;
That here, where nature seems at strife
With all that tells of busy life,
Man should by names be carried still
To Babylon against his will.
Or dictate the untoward verse
That truth demands? Could he refuse
Thy unsought honours, darling Muse,
Who thus, in idle, happy trim
Rode just where friends would carry him,
And thus hath since his cares beguiled
By rhymes as joyous, and as wild?
Truth he obeys. The generous band,
That spread his board and grasp'd his hand,
In native mirth, as here they came,
Gave a bluff rock his humble name:
A yew-tree clasps its rugged base;
The boatman knows its reverend face;
With Pollett's memory and his fee,
Rests the result that time shall see.
Yet, whether time shall sweep away
The fragile whimsies of a day;
To hear the mingled echoes roar
A stranger's triumph! He will feel
A joy that death alone can steal.
And should he cold indifference feigu,
And treat such honours with disdain,
Pretending pride shall not deceive him,
Good people all, pray don't believe him;
In such a spot to leave a name,
At least is no opprobrious fame;
This rock perhaps uprear'd his brow,
Ere human blood began to flow.
That Wye here ends her wild career;
Though closing boughs,—though hills may seem
To bar all egress to the stream,
Some airy height he climbs amain,
And finds the silver eel again.
Yet Symmon's Yat must be surmounted;
A tower of rock, that seems to cry,
“Go round about me, neighbour Wye .”
On went the boat, and up the steep
Her straggling crew began to creep,
To gain the ridge, enjoy the view,
Where the fresh gales of summer blew.
The gleaming Wye, that circles round
Her four-mile course, again is found;
Bathes his huge cliffs on either side;
Seen at one glance, when from his brow
The eye surveys twin gulfs below.
Who gain'd a monument in thee?
Perhaps a wild-wood hunter,—born
Peril, and toil, and death to scorn;
Or warrior, with his powerful lance,
Who scaled the cliff to mark th' advance
Of rival arms; or humble swain,
Who sought for pasture here in vain;
Or venerable bard, who strove
To tune his harp to themes of love;
Or with a poet's ardent flame
Sung to the winds his country's fame?
Upheaves his iron-bowell'd side;
Prescribes th'imprison'd river's bound,
And strikes the eye with mountain force:
But, stranger, mark thy rugged course
From crag to crag, unwilling, slow,
To New Wier forge, that smokes below.
Here rush'd the keel like lightning by:
The helmsman watch'd with anxious eye;
And oars alternate touch'd the brim,
To keep the flying boat in trim.
Again rose cliff, and wood, and hill,
Where mingling foliage seem'd to strive
With dark-brown saplings, flay'd alive ,
Down to the gulf beneath; where oft
The toiling wood-boy dragg'd aloft
And gazed, and tugg'd with sturdy limb;
And where the mind repose would seek,
A barren, storm-defying peak,
The Little Doward, lifted high
His rocky crown of royalty.
Comes that soft sound from yonder hill?
Or is the sound so faint, though near
It scarcely strikes the list'ning ear?
E'en so; for down the green bank fell
An ice-cold stream from Martin's Well,
Bright as young beauty's azure eye,
And pure as infant chastity;
Each limpid draught suffused with dew
The dipping glass's crystal hue;
And as it trembling reach'd the lip,
Delight sprung up at every sip.
We toss'd upon no Indian seas;
No savage chiefs, with tawny crew,
Came jabbering in the bark canoe
Our strength to dare, our course to turn;
Yet boats a South Sea chief would burn
Sculk'd in the alder shade. Each bore,
Devoid of keel, or sail, or oar,
An upright fisherman, with eye
Of Bramin-like solemnity;
Who scann'd the surface either way,
And cleaved it like a fly at play;
And crossways bore a balanced pole,
To drive the salmon from his hole;
On shore, as luck or fancy bade;
And o'er his back, in gallant trim,
Swung the light shell that carried him;
Then down again his burden threw,
And launch'd his whirling bowl anew;
Displaying, in his bow'ry station,
The infancy of navigation.
Where Geoffrey spun his magic tales,
And call'd them history. The land
Whence Arthur sprung, and all his band
Of gallant knights. Sire of romance,
Who led the fancy's mazy dance,
Thy tales shall please, thy name still be,
When Time forgets my verse and me.
Scarce reach'd us on the tranquil stream:
Nature's own bonds had closed us in;
Wood, and deep dell, and rock, and ridge,
From smiling Ross to Monmouth Bridge;
From morn, till twilight stole away,
A long, unclouded, glorious day.
“Sacred to the memory of John Whitehead Warre, who perished near this spot, whilst bathing in the river Wye, in sight of his afflicted parents, brother, and sisters, on the 14th of September, 1804, in the sixteenth year of his age.
“GOD'S WILL BE DONE,Who, in his mercy, hath granted consolation to the parents of the dear departed, in the reflection that he possessed truth, innocence, filial piety, and Fraternal affection, in the highest degree. That, but a few moments before he was called to a better life, he had (with a never to be forgotten piety) joined his family in joyful thanks to his Maker, for the restoration of his mother's health. His parents, in justice to his amiable virtue and excellent disposition, declare, that he was void of offence towards them. With humbled hearts they bow to the Almighty's dispensation; trusting, through the mediation of his blessed Son, he will mercifully receive their child he so suddenly took to himself.
“This monument is here erected to warn parents and others how they trust the deceitful stream; and particularly to exhort them to learn and observe the directions of the Humane Society, for the recovery of persons apparently drowned. Alas! it is with the extremest sorrow here commemorated, what anguish is felt from a want of this knowledge. The lamented youth swam very well; was endowed with great bodily strength and activity; and possibly, had proper application been used, might have been saved from his untimely fate. He was born at Oporto, in the kingdom of Portugal, on the 14th of February, 1789; third son of James Warre, of London, and of the county of Somerset, merchant, and Elinor, daughter of Thomas Gregg, of Belfast, Esq.
“Passenger, whoever thou art, spare this tomb! It is erected for the benefit of the surviving, being but a poor record of the grief of those who witnessed the sad occasion of it. God preserve you and yours from such calamity! May you not require their assistance; but if you should, the apparatus, with directions for the application by the Humane Society, for the saving of persons apparently drowned, are lodged at the church of Coldwell.”
“It is with gratitude acknowledged by the parents of the deceased, that permission was gratuitously, and most obligingly, granted for the erection of this monument, by William Vaughan, Esq. of Courtfield.”
This rocky isthmus, perforated at the base, would measure not more than six hundred yards, and its highest point is two thousand feet above the water. If this statement, taken from Coxe's History of Monmouthshire, and an Excursion down the Wye, by C. Heath, of Monmouth, is correct, its elevation is greater than that of the “Pen y Vale,” or “Sugar-Loaf Mountain,” near Abergavenny. Yet it has less the appearance of a mountain than the river has that of an excavation. It is probable that some error has crept into the publications above named.
| The Poems of Robert Bloomfield | |