The peripatetic or, Sketches of the heart, of nature and society; In a series of politico-sentimental journals, in verse and prose, of the eccentric excursions of Sylvanus Theophrastus; Supposed to be written by himself [by John Thelwall] |
 | [I]. |
| II. |
ODE to the CLIFFS, at SANDGATE.
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| III. |
 | The peripatetic |  |
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ODE to the CLIFFS, at SANDGATE.
STROPHE I.
Oh! how Remembrance feasts with visual joy,As, by Imagination's friendly aid,
Again upon the rocking precipice
She stands sublime!
Or o'er the rude-projecting strata leans,
To scan, with timorous eye, the ragged steep,
And hear the murmuring of the ebbing surge
That moans along the beach!
O! how does Fancy shrink, as, once again,
With vent'rous step, on the extended point
Of yonder shatter'd rock, that forward leans,
And seems to tremble in the thinner air,
Again she treads—all isolate,
And scarce connected to the living world;
And there, in awful meditation wrapp'd,
Beholds above, below, and all around,
One boundless ocean of ethereal dew,—
Save where the unstable prominence to the cliff
Imperfect joins:
An isthmus rude,
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Enrag'd,—and hurls
In dread convulsion to the raging flood
That foams, and roars beneath.
ANTISTROPHE I.
Here, as I hover o'er the green abyss,Whose mountain billows scarce below appear
To ape the little ripples that adorn
The babbling stream,
With what bold freedom the excursive eye
Plays o'er the glassy surface, and admires
The dancing sun-beams, and the porpoise huge
That, rolling, sports below!
Ye monsters of the flood! however rude,
To man's imperfect sense, your savage forms!
Howe'er to us your elemental waves
Seem to shut out the finer extasies
That the warm sun should meliorate,
And balmy gales fan into rapturous being,—
Ye have too your sports, your joys peculiar,
Your loves, your pastimes, in the gelid wave,
That check the Tyrant's impious sophistry,
And prove the World he fondly deems his own
Was made for all:
Appropriate boons
To every tenant of the sentient sphere
To yield,—and make
To other, each, within his bounded range,
Impart alternate bliss!
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EPODE I.
O! how serene!With what a mild effulgence o'er the deep
Bends the clear Heav'n!
While, borne by gentle breezes from the coast,
Alauda floats, and warbles as she floats
On russet wing secure:
Rock'd by the buoyant billows, far beneath,
The flocking sea-fowl spread the oily wing,
Scarce from this height discernable;
And friendly zephyrs,
Slow, from yon distant point yet scarcely seen,
Waft the white sail, that homeward proudly swells
To kiss the wish'd-for shore.
Ah! may no bleak disaster sudden rise
To blast the seaman's hopes,
To steep in hopeless tears the virgin's eye,
Who now, expectant, from the stony beach
Views the slow bark, prophetic of its freight,
And William's faithful love.
Yet see!—the anxious eye,
Straining with eager rapture, dim descries
At yonder point,
Where, stooping to the wave, the Horizon faints,
And spreads the margin of her mantle grey
To close the misty prospect,
The darkening cloud
Spread its long streak upon the bounded wave,
That, lull'd, oblivious, by the opiate weight,
Gleams like a polish'd mirror.
Auspicious gales the gloomy sign avert!—
Is it, ye fiends of storm,
Some gloomy tempest from the Ocean caves
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The smiling image of the world deform,
And mix the warring elements?
Or is it: say:
Some dark aerial vapour, close condens'd,
To lock the imprison'd thunder for awhile,
That soon, dread rattling up the azure vault,
Shall tear the beauteous concave as it flies,
The tower and forest monarch prostrate lay,
Whelm the wreck'd vessel in the treacherous wave,
Plunge the worn crew in endless night,
And blast each promis'd joy?
STROPHE II.
Ah, no! no mists belch'd forth from Ocean caves,Brooding the rocking Earthquake, swell to view:
Nor dense aerial vapour's sable folds
Shroud the dread storm,
That soon with loud-destroying rage shall burst,
Bid the blue concave flame with sudden wrath,
And with mad vengeance rend the forest oak
And whelm the exulting bark!
But fair to view, as now the sharpen'd ken
Pierces the hovering mists, distinct appear
Thy cliffs and swelling shores, luxuriant France!
Whose luscious fruitage for the spoiling hand
Of bold rapacious Tyranny
Had redden'd in the partial sun too long:
That partial Sun who, on thy fertile hills
Still lingering, with prolific ray benign,
Mourn'd to behold an injur'd, trampled race,
Groan in the field, and labour at the press,
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A ruffian crew,
With gaudy titles deck'd, the goblet seiz'd;
Drain'd off the luscious draught, and left for them
The bitter dregs alone.
ANTISTROPHE II.
And Oh! that now no Woes of other hueO'er the devoted country threat'ning frown'd,
And the well-meaning many left a prey
To Demagogues,
Who o'er the wrecks of public Virtue rise,
And whet the dagger for compatriot strife,
That on the common spoilers of the earth
Should spend its nobler rage;—
Should scourge the tyrants who with impious aim
Seek in the desolated fields of France,
While there again the fallen fane they rear
Of Kingly fraud, new yokes and chains to forge
To bow the necks (well meriting!)
Of tame obsequious vassals, who at home
Lavish their treasures to promote the fame
Of these ungrateful pageants; false, and base!
—O France! O England! rouse ye ere ye fall!
Let not thy upstart tyrants, Gallia! balk
Thy great designs:
Nor Britain thou
Be lull'd in fatal lethargy, supine,
And wake—(too late!)
To curse the galling yoke thy folly bought,
And clank thy chains in vain.
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EPODE II.
O! for an armLike Jove's tremendous in Tytanian war
To reach these crimes!
To vindicate fair Freedom's genuine rights,
And of their two-fold Tyrants rid Mankind:
This sanguinary crew,
That with mad havock grasp at transient power,
And in wrong'd Liberty's polluted seat
Establish factious Anarchy;
And these Oppressors—
These proud destroyers of the abject World,—
That groans and toils, that they may feast, and slay,—
That with blind frenzy slights
Each kindred duty of the social heart
To swell their fatal power,
To lift the puppet Idols to the skies,
With mimic lightnings arm their frantic hands,
With fulsome flattery fan their crimes, and feed
Their pestilential pride!
O! strike them, gracious Heav'n!
With thy avenging thunders check their crimes!
Let them, transfix'd,
With adamantine chains and fetters bound,
On the bleak summit of yon frowning rocks
Bewail their guilty fury!
Let them, so long
As the pent Ocean chafes the rocky bourns
Of these storm-sever'd realms, their guilt bewail;
Their fell, destroying fury
Of mad Ambition, and Anarchic rage!
Let them, avenging powers!
As glides the passing bark, oft shriek aloud,
And bid the shuddering mariners attend;
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The important admonition—
“O friends! no more,
“Deaf to the call of Patriot Virtue, seek
“A bloody harvest from your Country's woes!
“O royal plunderers of the world! no more
“Plunge your deluded realms in savage war
“To check fair Freedom's course; but see in us
“The living monuments of sacred wrath;
“And yield to Man his ravish'd rights;
—“To Heav'n its worship'd sway!”
| The peripatetic | |