The Harp of Erin :: :: University of Virginia Library

Avaunt, ye scowling cares, of hideous brow!
Whilere that brooded on my joyless breast:
No more beneath your baneful sway I bow,
No more your terrors haunt my tranquil rest.
In blooming bow'rs of fond idea blest,
White-handed Hope, with seraph-smile divine,
And Peace, emerging from her halcyon-nest,
And all the beauteous race of Mind, are mine,
While polished Moira lends a lustre to my line.

There are, the witching verse who basely slight,
Intent on vulgar arts I loath to share;
There are who feel no exquisite delight
In aught sublimely grand, or sweetly fair;

There are to whom yon rich expanse of air
Teems not with forms by faery fingers wrought;
Still poring on the earth, with leaden stare,
The tender-featur'd family of Thought
Madly they mock, dull slaves! by impious Mammon caught.

Though no vile hoards my iron coffers fill,
Can I not commune with the heirs of fame?
From the pure current of whose fluent quill,
Unfading praise and kingly honours came.
Can I not wooe the laughter-loving dame,
With him illustrious from Lepanto's fray;
Illume my lamp at Jonson's learned flame;
Or weave with thee, dear bard, the wizard lay,
That whilom wildly sung by Desmond's turrets gray?

Fell waves who rudely robb'd my Spenser's song
Of half its worth, and griev'd the elfin queen!
For this so great, irreparable wrong,
Ne'er on your brim be blue-ey'd sea-nymph seen,

Sleeking her humid locks of glossy green,
Nor sportive Triton wind his tortuous shell;
Yet know, remov'd from your obdurate spleen,
His descant charms the ocean-pow'rs who dwell
In coral cave profound, or pearly-pillar'd cell.

With him who sung the Seasons, I may rove,
Romantic Richmond! by thy wat'ry glade;
Or, hallow'd to the voice of hopeless love,
Thro' the fair Leasowes' woe-enamour'd shade;
Scenes in eternal bloom by song array'd!
Or in delightful reveries employ
The hour with him whom each melodious maid
Mark'd for her own,—ah! dead to every joy,
Mysterious, but unmatch'd, Invention's wondrous boy!

Rail as ye list, ye minions of decay,
And ban the wight for other ages born;
Wave the pined minstrel from your gate away,
Nor waste one glance upon his state forlorn;
You cannot close the portals of the morn,
When the faint Dawn first opes her dewy eye;
Your mandate cannot hush the vocal thorn;
Embitter frolic Zephyr's fragrant sigh;
Or chase gay evening down the many-colour'd sky.

Nor may you of their gorgeous garb deprive
The flowery tribe that gem the woodland waste;
Nor mar the murmurs of the honey'd hive;
Nor will, by your vain menace, be effac'd
The various tints, in bright embroidery plac'd
By Fancy's touch, that fringe the purple cloud;
Though little by your vaunted presence grac'd,
The thrush will twitter from his leafy shroud,
And tell the babbling brook his amorous pain aloud.

Free o'er the furze-clad heath, of yellow bloom,
My devious step may wander, unconfin'd,
Nor miss the tissued labours of the loom,
Fum'd by the incense of the western wind.
My nature will no courtly shackles bind;
No servile flatt'ry, varnish'd o'er with art;
While, on yon mountain's misty summit shrin'd,
Majestic sitting from the world apart,
I to great Nature pour the homage of my heart.

Witness ye hills with many a vapoury wreath
Entwin'd, whose green brows court the sunny ray;
Witness ye spicy gales whose odours breathe
The glowing blush of health where'er you stray;
Ye silvery streams that warbling wind away,

Whose tiny naiads are with amber shod;
Witness what rev'rence I was proud to pay,
When, awfully sequester'd, I have trod
Lone Nature's paths recluse, to Nature's bounteous God.

To airy regions may my spirit roam,
Wafted on wild Imagination's wing:
There can I find and fix my viewless home,
And reign o'er magic realms creative king;
And while soft breezes sweep th' Eolian string,
Or the loud tempest swells the bolder base,
Bid my slight servants nectar'd banquets bring,
And laughing at the little pomp of place,
Triumphant raise my throne o'er time and bounded space.

Hark! mighty Milton, leaning from his sphere,
Repeats his paradisial tale again;
Hark! gently steals upon my trembling ear,
Of sainted Shakspeare the consummate strain:
'Tis harmony, 'tis Heaven itself. In vain
Th' ecstatic impulse I essay to hide;
But listed in their everlasting train,
Wheel my swift journey from this globe aside,
Light as the buoyant blast that fans the plume of pride.

Such raptur'd vision can an empire buy?
Can sceptres purchase one celestial dream?
All that in jewell'd quarries glist'ring lie,
The topaz' blaze, the ruby's sanguine gleam,
The chrystal spotless as the living stream,
The em'rald lancing fierce its vivid hues,
Or diamond's insufferable beam,
Are infinitely poor; nor would I choose
Th' exuberance of the mine before the deathless muse.

Then wail not, Genius, thy unworthy lot,
Where'er thou sadly shrink'st from sight profane:
Thy patient labours shall not be forgot,
Nor lost the influence of thy lofty strain;
From glory's nodding crest, of crimson stain,
The laurel shall forsake its seat sublime,
The prostrate column load the groaning plain;
While rising o'er the wreck, thy sacred rhyme
Shall fire to noble feats the sons of future time.

Vagrant, and scoff'd, and houseless as thou art,
The powerful spell of thy exalted theme
Shall wake to bolder deed the warrior's heart,
Shall breathe o'er sleeping love a brighter dream;

From every line shall fresh instruction stream:
The cottage-hearth thy pensive plaint shall hear;
In regal hall thy glittering harp shall gleam;
The dark cold breast of lonely sorrow chear;
And start from phrenzy's lid conviction's frozen tear.

Heavens! can I stoop to aught of mortal mould,
Whom shapes fantastic beck to bliss unknown?
Say, can I glote on rayless heaps of gold,
When yon ethereal landscape is my own?
Where its pure sov'reign plants his fiery throne;
Are not his aureate shafts elanced round,
'Till, by her twinkling train distinctly known,
His sister meek, with paler glories crown'd,
Uprears her maiden front, with argent fillet bound?

Hence the deep gloom that wraps in central shade
The struggling splendours of th' immortal mind!
Hence ev'ry black surmise that would invade
The breast by charming sympathies refin'd!
Ye felon doubts, I give you to the wind:
Fortune benign now blows her gentlest airs,
To aid my vent'rous flight too long confin'd;
And Fancy her undaunted plume prepares,
To sail the highest heav'n:—avaunt ye scowling cares!

Cervantes, who lost his hand in that battle.

The concluding cantos of the Faery Queene were lost in the Irish Seas.

Thomson.

Shenstone's seat.

Chatterton.