University of Virginia Library

THE FALL OF THE LEAF:

AN EPISTLE ADDRESSED TO JOHN HENRY WILMOT, ESQ.

I.

Come, ere we quit our Paradise!—The world,
And fickle Fortune,—cruel as they are,—
Will not deny us that. In cities long
We sojourn'd and we wander'd; travell'd oft;
Saw men in various attitudes; and mark'd
How ill they keep their promises; how well
They smile, shake hands, swear friendship, and betray!
With various orders have we mix'd—
From prince to peasant:—from th' aspiring man,
Who earns a scanty pittance at a bust,
Which shall in after-times adorn his name,
To him, who, rising from the dregs of life,
Has roll'd in chariot to a Chancellor's.
What have we seen in this extended range?
Nothing to charm us from the secret shade!
Then come, I charge;—attend my anxious call.
Life is uncertain; and the joys of life
Still more precarious: I am happy now:
And, therefore, soon shall fall into the net
Ill-fortune spreads for all.—I charge thee, come!
For woe is often an attendant on
Soft hours, sweet smiles—the solace of the soul.

II.

Summer is gone, and Autumn soon will fill
Her lap capacious.—Clear, unspotted skies
Have tinged the forest with a yellow'd green;
And the hoarse torrent now resounds with wild,
But not unpleasing music. At our board
Nothing that savours of magnificence;
Nothing that brings disorder to the frame;
Nothing to rend soft slumber from our eyes,
Can tempt thee ever from the golden rule
Of wise Pythagoras. Sometimes in the bower
Julia shall spread, with cheerfulness and smiles,
Honey and cream, cool sallads, and the fruits,
That grow perfectious on our verdant shores.
No wines of Burgundy our cellar yields;
Sparkling champaign; nor claret, from the vines
Purpling the banks of Garonne; nor the juice
Of rich Constantia from the sultry Cape,
Found at the tables of the rich and great,
Or those luxurious at another's cost.
But brown October, and Pomona's juice,
Famed on the banks of Severn and the Wye.

III.

Ours is no mansion hid with antique oaks,
And hung with tap'stry, by our mothers wove,
Telling the history of the Holy Wars,
Or knights achievements in the tented field.
—'Tis a plain cottage—in a garden set;
Humble, yet graceful, on the mossy banks
Of winding Towy; near the circling bay,
That stretches wide, begirt with rocks, that throw
Their evening shadows o'er the azure deep.
Claude would have linger'd on the fairy scene,
And felt transported to Ausonian land!

IV.

Such is our cottage; such our humble fare!
Come, then; forsake the melancholy town,
Deform'd with smoke, which in dark masses hang,
Bronzing the splendour of meridian suns.
Come! quit the bar, port-folio, and the code;
Accept the welcome of a long-tried friend;
And, in the silence of his nest, consent
To pass the season of the Yellow Leaf.
None shall disturb you!—Sometimes in the mead
That lies below, we'll saunter out the day;
Listening with silent and attentive ear
To all the inconveniences we've suffer'd,
Since last we met, by accident, beneath
The fretted aisle of Gloucester's sacred fane.
Then will we loiter in the garden; mark
The fading honours of anemones,
Asters, auriculas, and Guernsey lilies,
Roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums.

V.

Then we will pay a visit to the herd,
That graze near yonder castle's ruin'd walls,
Listless how strong the rushing tide comes in.
Listless and senseless!—like the human herd,
Dead to the charms of Nature; though alive
To all the stronger passions of the heart.
Electric oft where reason should command;
And cool and temperate when to feel were virtue.

VI.

The morning lower'd; yet azure skies succeed;
Mantled with volumes of suspending gold,
Known in these rich, cerulean isles alone.
Come! let us fill our wallets: then with line,
Arm'd with two hooks, and bearing on our backs
The rod and basket, to the neighbouring stream
We'll saunter; listen to the bubbling noise,
That tells how fleet the winding waters are:
And then, descending from the meadow's side,
We'll creep beneath yon arching boughs, that shade
The babbling stream; where, fishing for a while,
Soon we will lose all memory of our line
In the sweet page of Walton, or the spells
Of frantic Comus, and the Faerie Queene.

VII.

Rosetta's environs abound in palms;
Persia's made musical by nightingales;
But here no scion of the palm tree grows,
Nor copse resounds with Philomela's note!
Yet there are charms upon yon mountain's top.
Come;—let us journey up its rugged sides;
And with yon shepherd our companion, eye
The vast Atlantic gem the purple west.
There, 'neath the rocks impending, we will sit;
Careless what factions rule the giddy world!
Careless alike, if — or the Czar
Sits on the zenith of blind Fortune's wheel.
Enough for us, tranquillity bestows
Her balm divine;---enough for us, that we,
Far from the tumults of the groveling throng,
Can draw a moral from a thistle's beard,
A moss-grown fountain, or a falling leaf.

VIII.

To be contented with an humble lot
Is the best wisdom, that the mind can shew.
Give me a cottage on some towering cliff,
'Neath which the billows in wild fury rage;
And if fair Julia and my faithful friend
Adorn its hearth—why—let the tempest rage,
And Fame and Fortune travel where they will.
Beneath yon cliffs thou might'st with joy recount
The many studious journies of thy youth;
Once more enjoy the vineyards of the Loire,
The olived glens of Italy, and vales,
The fragrant vales,—of proud, romantic Spain.

IX.

Then by the spring or fountain we would sit,
All fring'd with moss; and in their bubbles read
The fate of heroes, who with rapture stride,
Lawless and rude—abhorring and abhorr'd—
From realm to realm, to find themselves a grave.
Oh! could'st thou look into a tyrant's heart,
Thou'd see a thousand signs of stripes and stabs,
Engrain'd in bloody characters. A tyrant?
I would not pay his penalty of state,
For all this pen could number in a year!

X.

Behold yon rough and solitary scene!
No cot, no herd, no flocks, nor bounding goat
Adorn its sylvan solitude;—yet there
Insects wing winding circles in the air;
And verdant blood meanders through the veins
Of leaves and flowers; which revel in the thought
That tyrant footsteps seldom travel there.
Come,—let us pay due honour to the thought!
There we may take a transitory view
Of men, whose fame rings loudly in the world:
Search for their wishes; penetrate their hearts;
And judge their motives rather than their deeds.
And when fatigued, (as soon our minds may be,)
Then will we reason on the times gone by;
Number the streams in which our limbs have bathed,
Or the peak'd summits that our feet have climb'd.
Then we will muse on sculptures we have seen
Then on the paintings of Albani; Claude,—
His evening and his morning; the Cartoons
Of graceful Raphael; Rosa's midnight sketch
Or on St. Peter and the Martyrdom,
—Magical works of Titian's heavenly hand!

XI.

XII.

But mark—the rainbow hangs from hill to hill,
Arching the vale that stretches wide below;
Forming one vast, magnificent cascade.
Emblem of rank, of glory, and of fame,
It strikes the eye, and glitters for a time,
And then is lost for ever and for ever!
Now the gray clouds in fiery ramparts rise;
Now like wide rivers rolling in the sky;
And now like abbeys, castles, domes and towers,
Rock, glens, and mountains—visions of the air!
Visions like those a heart, well fashion'd, sees,
When in the outlines of a smiling face
It reads a vow, and thinks the heart sincere!

XIII.

Sometimes at noon's meridian we may see
The weary woodman slumbering in the shade;
While o'er his head the turtle mourns her mate,
Dropping soft tears upon the fading leaf,
That soon will fall upon her feather'd grave.
Then may we mark the mild and graceful swan,
Emblem of mildness and of majesty!
In silent state, with high o'er-arching neck,
And Ethiop beak, upon her snowy breast
Down the smooth current with her young she floats;
And proud of rank, and conscious of her power
Upon her native element, unheeds
The kite, the falcon, or the royal bird,
Sailing in air, or bending o'er the stream,
Down which, in conscious pride, she guides her feather'd young.
So may the man of independent mind,
Resting on motives, scorn the stubborn frown
Of untaught pride, or ill-directed power.

XIV.

Then we will visit old Aristo's home,
Rear'd in a meadow near the public way.
None ever went discouraged from his door!
Soon as he sees a stranger at his gate
The good old farmer quits his fragrant porch,
And down the pathway of his garden steals:
Then to his servants gives the cheerful call.—
They hear;—they heap the blazing fire anew;
Place on the table bread, and cheese, and milk,
And home-brew'd ale, and wholesome gooseberry wine.
Then near the corner of the fire they place
The cheerful pipe. Aristo at the gate
With open'd hand invites the traveller in.
The weary traveller, blushing and obliged,
Scrapes his soil'd shoes; and bending with delight
Follows his host, admiring as he goes:
Enters the porch—respects the well-wash'd floor—
Accepts the chair. Aristo lifts the jug;—
Declares him welcome;—vows 'twill rain all night:—
“You'd better therefore stay the night with me.”
The stranger smiles; Aristo cries, “content!”
And all is comfort round the crackling fire.

XV.

When clouds dissolve in copious showers of rain,
Or northern winds proclaim a hail-storm nigh,
Then will we sit, enjoying and enjoy'd;
Invite each other to the wholesome taste
Of fruits autumnal; while my Blanche shall smile.
Take the red fruit, and, stealing archly round,
Shew it her mother; then with blushes lean
On the loved lap, and chew the savoury pulp.
—Then we will listen to Orlando's tale;
Traverse the ocean from the Tagus, rich
In many a fruit, with Gama to the Cape;
Thence to the Isle of Ebony, to where
A bark of Europe first touch'd Indian shores.
Or if proud chivalry “delight thee more,”
Then will we read of old Castilian knights,—
The Cid, Amadis, or Prince Arthur, who,
With many a deed, upheld the British name:
Upon whose mount, and in whose secret caves,
So oft we've linger'd out the summer's day,
Hailing old Merlin in his favourite haunts.
Dreaming of witcheries and prophecies we'd see,
In our mind's kingdom, lords and titled dames
Sitting in judgment at a tournament.

XVI.

But what wild, strange, mysterious sounds are these
Floating in air? We know not whence they come.
They seem approaching! ope the casement wide.
It is the poor blind harper! who has stroll'd
For many a year among these mountains wild.
He knows each house from Towy to the Wye;
Can trace the history of each family,
E'en from the times of ancient Howel Dha.
The wind blows cold—the pointed hail descends—
Oh! let the bending, grey-hair'd, minstrel in!
Then rings our cottage with wild music. Hence,
—Ye sons of Naples,—'tis no place for you!
Refresh'd with cheer the holy man begins,
Spreads his grey fingers o'er the obedient chords,
And Glendower's fame, or Tudor's fortune rings.

XVII.