Moonlight :: :: University of Virginia Library

Come then, diviner Muse, and dwell with me;
Since the great princes of the world, confin'd
Within the pomp and pageantry of state,
Deny thy presence, to whose searching eye
The world, and it's ambition, is a dream,
And all it's glorious and loud-sounding pomp,
Charmful to sense, well weighed in thy ear,
But musick to a spectacle of woe;
Come then, diviner Muse, and dwell with me.
I offer thee my heart, and with it too

Such entertainment as that heart can give,
A fellowship of thought, a deep desire,
E'en to the verge of madness to pursue
The track of meditation, whilst the Moon,
Emerging from the lightly-flying clouds,
Laughs in her pomp, and with her palest light
Sits arbitress in the mid' plains of Heav'n;
Come then, diviner Muse, and dwell with me.

What hinders, but, with sad and silent feet,
Hands in each other lock'd, and eyes cast down,
On which the cloud of Meditation sits,
We wander o'er the lawns, and seen of none,
Amidst the pale dominion of the Night,
Hold converse with the habitants of Heav'n?

Now silence is in air, and sound is none:
Save, where the owl from out her ivied bow'r
Hoots joyous at the Moon, and sprinkled stars,
That shine, like di'monds, in the blue serene
Blest harbingers of bliss, and beacons fair,
That guide our wand'ring footsteps through a world

Of errour, that our falt'ring feet beguiles,
I gaze on you with love, and rising hope,
That, when the mass of this empoised globe
Is purg'd by fire, I, rising with the host
Of countless spirits to your utmost sphere,
Shall wake the song of Morning, and admit
My sequent charge to the Archangel's gate.
O, what a dross upon our earthly robes
In that assuaging furnace shall be lost!
Pride, avarice, and lust; with all the bane
Of envy, the malignant scum, that chokes
The fountain of sweet thought; with direful hate,
And ill-advised anger, that bedims
The Sun's bright presence in this balmy world.
There too is Night, where the Archangels dwell;
But Night serene unvisited by storms,
And fed with golden cressets from the hand
Of Love immediate, prodigal of truth.
Thy sister too is there, O silver Moon,
Thy primal sister, from whose image fair
Thy form was taken; there too Hesperus,
The unalloyed lamp, that wakes the Eve;

And that pure star, that, orient to the day,
From out the bosom of sad Night, displays
His kindling fire; lights, too, numberless,
As are the leaves of Autumn, or the sands,
That pave the margin of grey Ocean's tide.
For what is this brave sphere, and perfect round,
But image and brief abstract of the space,
That shines above, wherein the Angels dwell,
And with celestial colloquy divide
The Seasons, as they pass, of day and night,
As do the wise and good in this our sphere?
So let us talk till Morning; tho' alone,
With Angels let us talk, and with the stars,
That shine, as eyes, upon this lunar world;
Diverging upon day, ere yet the air,
With fragrance of the dewy Morn embalm'd,
Strike on our sense, and touch the faulted ghost,
That wanders from it's deep sojourn, with awe
Of Proserpine, that to her biding calls,
And love, reluctant to forsake it's haunt:
They follow, as the falcon to the lure.

What soul, that lives, from off this upper stage
Has down descended to the gate of woe,
Where Cerberus, the cruel worm of Death,
Keeps watchful guard, and with his iron throat
Affrights the Spirits in their pale sojourn?
What soul, that lives, yet living, has ta'en flight
From off the fenced platform of the world,
And, borne on the soft pinions of the Spring,
Or the sweet Summer to the blissful soil,
Has view'd the planets from the edge of Heav'n?
Or with a shorter wing the flight of doubt
Has flown, uncertain, to that veering realm,
That middle empire of th' inconstant air,
(A flight, that must be ta'en in Moons eclips'd,)
Wherein the Spirits, neither bad nor good,
That know no measure of their fruitless time,
Waste time and hope in their unhoped change?
No soul has flown unto the gate of woe,
Or to the blissful soil, or brush'd the shore
Of Limbo with it's wings; or flown, and liv'd:
But yet intelligence from these has come,
By angels, and pale ghosts, and vexed fools,

That, straying as they wont, were blown athwart
The nether world, from the oblivious pool
Scarce 'scaping, on our scornful marge to land;
Thence to be blown by ev'ry idle wind,
Their tale half told, with a new flight of fools,
Eclectick, to the planetary void.
But be it well advis'd, the learned ear
Alone can taste their mission, or the eye
Of wisdom their approaching steps foretell:
Thou, then, O Muse, beneath the burning stars,
Guide me in converse with angelick minds,
And with the fleeting spirits, and protect
My soul, unus'd, from the vain talk of fools.

Awhile, O dear companion of my steps,
Awhile to this seclusion let us pass,
Where, underneath the laurel and the yew,
The owl loud hooting to the frosty air,
Reposing in this shade our dewy feet,
We may observe the chariot of the Moon
Wheel her pale course through the mid' plains of Heav'n.
Link we our souls unto her burning wheels,

And, in her flaming orbit, let us pass
O'er sea and land in our entranced thought!
Oh me, what a prodigious height we soar
Above the bright expanse! how trifling seem
The little aims and troubles of the world,
That with their flimsy bondage yet enthrall
Great souls, of birth to win the arched Heaven!
Where is the speck, for which great Cæsar fought,
For which great Julius in the Senate died,
The sceptre of the World, so call'd by him,
Who led Æneas from the flames of Troy,
Through woe and shipwreck to Lavinia's coast?
Tell me, O Muse, if any eye can tell,
Where is the godlike Alexander's march,
The king of kings, the horned Ammon's son,
Spoiler of Greece, that, stabbing Persia's heart,
Wash'd his soil'd axles in the Indian sea?
Where is that sea? or where, indeed, the world?
The boundless world, by the great poets sung?
A kingdom? or a province? or a field?
A speck, that the exalted mind can scarce
Discern, amid' the wilderness of air!

How pleasant, to consider at his toil
The pale Geographer, with wakeful thought,
The compass in his hand, the open page
Of some great ancient tracer of the hills,
And rivers from their source before him laid,
With careful hand adjusting to each king
His portion of pass'd earth, and marking well
What here to Greece or Artaxerxes 'long'd!
O, this is lunatick, and well deserves
The sounding lash, (cruel expedient,
And ill-abus'd to heighten Nature's woe!)
If the fair picture of this insect world
Were well presented to our purged thought,
And man taught right on what small stage he play'd.
But hold! the abuse of passion here has sway;
Nor let our startled Nature in amaze
Put aught dishonour on the learned toil,
That keeps a Rennel from his balmy sleep.

Then now, O Muse, alighting from the car
Of that pale traveller, the crescent Moon,
Wakeful Diana, let us sit, and think,

By the bright glow-worm's lamp, that twinkling plays
Upon the dewy grass, what causes lead
The unembodied spirit to appear
In semblance of it's person, to dislodge
Clear courage from the startled hearts of men?
Love opes the gate of Erebus; and God
Permits the streaming spirit to ascend,
Impatient of it's woe, the while the Moon
Beguiles the over-dreaming Night, and sinks
The fair Creation in a deep repose?
Then walk the silent Spirits to the beds
Of lovers, on whose lids the tears are wet,
And, waking their o'er-wearied sense, present
The image too belov'd, with gentle hope
And soft assurance of renew'd delight,
When Death shall lead them through the World's sad gate.
Revenge, too, and immortal Pity draw
The Spirit from it's home, where'er it be;
To wander by the glimpses of the Moon,
And overcome the guilty with the sight
Of re-appearance in the form of woe:
Or else to warn the soft and trusting soul,

That in it's safety joys, and fondly sleeps
Upon the edge of peril, of new woe,
That shall awake it to eternal doom.
By rivers, and on lawns, in cypress shades,
In monumental yards, and ivied towers,
Whilst the owl hoots to the uprising fires
Of Hesperus, they haunt, and thence divide
Upon their sev'ral errands, till the lamp,
The harbinger of Morn, awake the East.
Kings, Poets, Virgins, Warriors, whose renown
Has fill'd th' expansive circle of the World,
And Shepherds, that of love disastrous died;
In armour, in soft stoles, in peasant weeds,
Or in the robes of thought, with laurel crown'd:
Touch'd by the dream of life, they re-ascend
From their oblivious haunt, and feed their sense
With expectation of the matin ray.
Not less in number, than the nascent stars
That shine upon their woe, or the soft crowds
Of Daffodills, that in the early Spring
Awake the hill of Mountfield to delight:
But long ere Morn with her awak'ning trump

Disperse the shadows of thin Night, they flee,
Thick as Autumnal leaves upon the shore
Of Vallombrosa, at Proserpine's call,
And warn'd by Phosphor, to their penal home.
Ah, hapless Spirits! but the day shall come,
When Mercy on that silent shore shall reign,
And that too-troubled dream of endless woe,
In which the senses wander, as a pool,
Conclude in bliss, amid' immortal bow'rs!

I question then, O Muse, in love divine,
Where that immortal Spirit may abide,
That in his just vocation of this world,
With favour of the King, maintain'd the sway
Of jurisprudence in this triple realm?
Well known to thee: that, in his aged thought,
With Homer and great Danté did converse,
And sweet Euripides, whose mournful song
Flows in his numbers, like the silver Po,

In weeping tribute to the Adrian sea.
For since the stars have shed discursive light,
With favour, on our globe, no greater mind
E'er sat in judgement on the thoughts of men;
Or brought it's noble faculties to bear
With more advantage on the publick weal:
In thought, in word, in action ever just:
Shield of the poor; and, rising for his King,
Th' upright defender of his awful throne.
Then, oh, may God forsake him not in death!
But that pure Spirit, that on cloudy Earth
Stood faithful to his King, and still upheld
His gracious Master's cause, be crown'd with light,
And in the fields of Æther sit, inclos'd
With glory, on a sempiternal throne!

Led by his hand, I first essay'd to walk,
O dear companion of my earliest steps,
With thee, O Muse; and from the beams of morn

To the pale twilight sought thy converse sweet.
Whatever in old Greece or Rome was done,
Or else recorded of those actions pure,
From thee I learnt, and from his counsel sage.
Grave was he, and severe; but gentle too:
And underneath a rough exterior hid
A heart, which pity melted into tears.
Farewell, my Master, and my earliest Friend!
But not farewell of thee the memory;
Since all I am in fortune, or in rank,
In thought, or my inheritance of fame,
Bating my nature, to thy care I owe;
I should be viler than the dog, that tears
The hand, that fed him from his earliest youth,
If I forsook thee, or thy gen'rous cause:
The seasons may pass on, and blanch my head,
And wither my shrunk cheek, and paint a map
Of woeful age upon my wrinkled brow;
But 'till the tomb outshuts me from the day,
And time disparts me from the things, that were,
Thy memory shall unimpair'd remain,
Boundless, as I must still be less, than thee:

While Spring shall for her blossoms be desir'd,
Or Summer for her sweets, while Autumn pale
With fruitage shall be crown'd, or Winter rule
In storms and tempests the dejected year,
So long, O my first Master, while I live,
Shall I forget not either thee or thine.

Where now is Homer? or great Virgil where?
Or in what shades does Ariosto walk,
That with Orlando's madness charm'd the world?
Where now is Danté? in what region pure
Of that unbounded World he sung so well?
Or Petrarch, that to love was sworn to death?
Or Tasso, in whose stately verse we see
Whatever the great Roman was before?
Where is Malvezzi, in whose bitter sense
The World may smile at it's own Tragedy?
Or, if we tnrn to England in our thought,
Tell me, where Chaucer may be found? or where
Sweet Spenser, that from rebels fled to death,
His heart quite broken with the faulty time?
Where now may Milton meditate? or he,

That sung the praises of a country life,
Himself condemn'd in cities to abide,
The rebel's foe, forsaken by his king,
Ingenuous Cowley? but, above them all,
Tell me, O Muse, for thou alone canst tell
Where is immortal Shakspeare, at whose birth
Great Nature was expended to the lees,
And Death forsook his empire o'er the world?
Or that extravagant and erring soul,
That fled in youth from out the bounds of time,
Since nothing here was equal to his thought?
May God forgive him! wheresoe'er they be,
Or in the Moon, or in the sprinkled stars,
Dividing day and night with punctual love,
Or else laid up within the silent earth,
To bud abroad, like flow'rets, in the prime
Of summer, when the wakeful trump shall blow;
This I pronounce without the awe of fear,
Time, were it lengthen'd out beyond the space,
That yet has pass'd o'er the created globe,
Redoubled to our sense, shall never yield

A harvest of such spirits to our hope.
When Phœbus to his billowy inn retires,
And Hesperus takes up the pleasing toil
Of giving light to this umbrageous world,
A thousand stars, inferior but divine,
Then turn our darkness into second day:
But in this intellectual world, our night
Is boundless prodigality of shade,
Shade without end, that no expectance knows
Of beamy morning to the lapse of time.
So men have thought; whose thinking is held wise:
May God avert this prophecy from truth!

Tell me, O Muse, beneath this silent Moon,
This Moon, that now beguiles us, as we sit,
While to our wakeful ear sweet Philomel
From out the lower woods is chanting now,
Tell me what cause, that in this later age,
Wherein by fortune we are placed here,
The souls of men beneath this equal sky,
Should thus be spoil'd of their inheritance?
Are not the seasons lovely as before?

Do not the glancing lights of Heav'n persuade
With eloquence, as when of old they beam'd
On those wise heads, that now in marble rest?
Witness, O Moon, the fair and primal light,
That on the forehead of sweet Ev'ning burns,
And lights the midnight with a lamp of love,
(That now hast call'd me from my sleepy bed,
To walk beneath the shadows of thy beams,)
For universal Nature be thou pledge,
That all the works of God are equal fair,
As when created at the birth of time!
Doubtless they are, for, what from God proceeds,
Can never know decay; but wheel their orbs,
Or in their stations stand, with lovely light,
Uninjur'd, unimpaired, unalloy'd:
But in the minds of men, by sin defac'd
From their original brightness, change has found
A dwelling, though exil'd from Nature's works.
So is there moral blight, as in the air
The clouds of insects wither leaf and bud.
And now, O Muse, throughout the poets' world
Great fault I find in musick, and in speech,

And in conception of their fabled thought.
For all is false: so novelty persuades
To aim at greatness, far beyond their grasp,
A phantom, that but lures them to decay.
Some with new measures trick the greedy ear,
That would disdain the musick of the stars,
Because, forsooth, it is of ancient date:
Some with such speech beguile the wond'ring time,
That if the triple-mouthed dog of Hell
Should howl a leash of languages at once,
Beneath the doubtful and eclipsed Moon,
His speech were plain simplicity to theirs:
And for their thought, O Jupiter! whate'er
Is base and retrograde from ancient time,
Wherein the minds of men were clean dispos'd,
That reigns in them complete and absolute.
This for the worse: but some there are, O Muse,
That like the wakeful Nightingale we hear,
With fitful musick charm the wand'ring time.
Praise be to them: and let the ill expire,
Like falling meteors, in the depth of night.

How many tubes are levell'd at thy orb!
How many eyes are gazing with despair
From cells of madness at thy silver beams,
Wakeful Diana! that o'ersway'st the seas,
And of the tides of passion reignest queen.
Yet long they shall not gaze, or idly weep;
For now the glow-worm pales his twinkling fire;
The Nightingale is mute; and grey-ey'd Morn
Stands tiptoe on the silv'ry mountain's top:
Farewell, O Muse; and thou, sweet Moon, farewell,
'Till Night again shall give thee to my view.

Edward, Lord Thurlow, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.

This alludes to the Chorus, translated by the late Lord Thurlow, from Euripides; which is printed at the end of this poem.

The great, but unhappy Chatterton.