 | The Poems of Robert Bloomfield |  |
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 | |