University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

SONNET I.

ADDRESS TO THE RURAL MUSE.

Muse of the Landscape! that in sylvan shade,
With meek Simplicity, thy handmaid, dwells:
Oft hast thou led me through sequester'd dells,
O'er airy heights, and down the sunny glade
Where vernant wreaths for thee I sought to braid
Of wild-blown roses, or of azure bells
Cull'd by some limpid fount that softly wells;
And hast thou no return of kindness made?
Yes, thou hast sooth'd my heart in sorrow's hour,
And many a wayward passion oft beguil'd;
Thy charms have won me to Reflection's bow'r,
When Folly else, with visions false and wild,
Had lur'd my footsteps, by her witching pow'r,
From thee, enchanting Nature's loveliest child!

SONNET II.

ON A RURAL THEFT.

Written at Belvedere , in Kent.

Elves, and ye orëad train of Belvedere,
Whose light steps nimbly o'er the green moss play,
What time the star of evening 'gins to peer,
With paly lustre through the beech-wood grey;
Slow to your cirque I saw a Plunderer steer
With step persidious, and intent on prey
While all your insect-lamps were glistening near,
He bore a lucid Glow-worm soft away:—
But ye pursued him with your wiliest art,
Drew spinners' webs of film athwart his eyes,
With pungent thistles made his sinews smart,
And while he stoop'd to guard them, snatch'd his prize.
So may all fare, who led by Hesper's ray,
Ungently pillage from the bower of fay.

SONNET III.

An Evening Address to the Rocks near Tunbridge-Wells.

Romantic Guardians of this peaceful vale,
That o'er yon rafter'd shed raise high your brow;
Say, does some wisard up your cleft side scale,
And like a blighted pollard seem to grow?
Wrapt in the mazy windings of the dale,
Do elfin-monarchs hold their court below,
Or down the devious rill by moonlight sail,
Their bark a shell, a grassy blade their prow?
Whate'er your residents, whate'er their task,
To shield the sounding cliff, or springs unlock,
Whether they now in sloping sun-beams bask,
Or doze till midnight in the rifted rock;
Still let a stranger mark their hallow'd reign,
And hear in rising winds their mystic strain.

SONNET IV.

Written in Mr. Scott's Garden , at Amwell-End, IIerts , a short Time after his Decease.

As some lone mourner, with a pilgrim's love,
Roams to the distant mansions of the dead,
Hangs o'er each relic with a joy above
What festal pleasures ever boast to shed.
So, by poetic sorrow fondly led,
Thro' Amwell's widow'd scenes I secret rove,
Retrace each path where Theron us'd to tread,
And pierce afresh each inspirative grove;
With lingering sadness pause around the spot
Where art and nature strove with taste to blend,
Where Theron delv'd his subterranean grot,
Theron, the Muse's and the Poet's friend!
Alas! that it should prove my hapless lot
To see the cypress o'er his pale urn bend.

SONNET V.

WRITTEN NEAR BAYHAM-ABBEY, SUSSEX.

In ancient days of superstitious dread,
When lordly abbots kept the world in fear;
When monkish craft his secret banquet spread,
Yet seem'd in outward penance most austere:
Yon cloister'd pile, by wealthy bigots fed,
With fretted roof was wont its porch to rear,
Where smothering ivy now is seen to braid
Each beetling fragment with its umbrage drear:
Disastrous change! yet, to the mental view,
More pleas'd such pomp in ruins I survey,
Than when in sainted guise the priestly crew
To drowsy vespers drag'd their loitering way;
More pleas'd with pious worth's unblazon'd deeds,
Than conclaves of grey cowls, or treasuries of beads.

SONNET VI.

TO CHARLOTTE SMITH.

Too fond Enthusiast of the twilight bow'r!
Who lov'st with lonely Philomel to plain,
With her, in melting minstrelsy, to pour
At once the saddest and the sweetest strain:
Still wont to sorrow 'neath the moon-beam pale,
Thy bosom presses, sure, no fancied thorn;
Else thou could'st never breathe such piteous bale,
Else thou could'st never wear a look so lorn:
Heart-stricken deeply by some barbed grief,
Has sympathy a balm for cureless woe?
Haply this thought may minister relief,
If aught on earth a solace can bestow;
That generous Cowper, Britain's tuneful chief!
With purest friendship gives his soul to glow.

SONNET VII.

Written in Sight of Reculver , on the Approach of a Sea-Storm.

Dark heaves the wave along the lonely strand,
The cowering sea-mew droops her dusky wing,
The plover, circling, seeks a safer land,
While to their rocky cove the swallows cling:
Clouds, thickly-driving, veil the face of day;
And now the gathering tempest raves more near,
High o'er the beach froths up the spumy spray,
And ev'n at noon the shades of night appear.
Yet do these horrors with congenial gloom
Paint the sad tale yon sister-spires record
Of two fond spirits, whose distressful doom
Ingenuous Feeling sweetly hath deplor'd,
And to the eye of sympathy restor'd
From dark Tradition's legendary tome.

SONNET VIII.

WRITTEN AT WINDSOR-CASTLE.

Imperial Dome, whose turret-crowned heights
Catch the prime effluence of Apollo's rays;
Whose gorgeous bannerols, and storied sights
In proud achievement fix the wondering gaze.
Thine is the martial legend that recites
How Gallia's Monarch in great Edward's days,
With Scotia's Champion and his captive knights,
Here swell'd the triumph in their Victor's praise:
Thine is the trophied hall of Albion's Saint,
Whence classic Eton's hoary-vested towers
With gothic majesty the scene attire;
And thine the boast—from Surrey's love-sick plaint,
That round these banner'd walls, and crested bowers,
Have harp'd the ‘noblest Bards of Britain's quire!’

SONNET IX.

To the Rev. Mr. Benson , Minister of Tunbridge-Wells.

Benson! in thee there dwells an holy calm
Which pure religion can alone inspire;
Thy chasten'd manners wear an outward charm
That speaks a soul sublim'd by virtue's fire,
And prompts a Stranger warmly to admire;
One, who would glow to greet thee as his friend,
And oft thy skilful pilotage require
To shape Life's voyage smoothly to its end.
But this is Fancy's visionary joy:—
My world-bound bark must course an hardier way,
Mid rocks and shoals that threaten or annoy,
Near coasts, where error gleams her faithless ray,
And beacons rarely blaze so bright as Thee,
To guide o'er folly's shelves, and passion's troublous sea.

SONNET X.

On leaving Tunbridge-Wells.

Ye scenes, long courted for salubrious powers,
Where Nature with her shelter'd meads hath blent
The breezy upland purpled o'er with flowers,
And latent stream with mineral dew besprent:
In future seasons may your charms be lent,
While leisure leads along my roseate hours
Thro' the smooth vale, or up the steep ascent,
When spring looks gay, or autumn wildly lours.
For sweet, tho' swift, alas! the moments fled,
As near yon cot I hymn'd my matin lay;
And hallow'd are the paths Peace deigns to tread,
And dear is every vestige of the way,
And blest each scene which frames the mind to share
‘Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care.’

SONNET XI.

To Dr. Thomas , late Bishop of Rochester.

To thee, O Rochester! an humble Muse
Tenders her offering on an honest plan,
With due respect thy titled grandeur views,
But pays her better tribute to the man:
For mitred brows could yield but futile fame,
If knowledge bound not there her brighter wreath,
And purfled lawn could little homage claim,
Did not the breast of virtue glow beneath:
But when external honours shine with light
From learning, meekness, piety's mild worth
Reflected, like the stellar gems of night
From solar glory, that irradiates earth;
Then will the Muse her plaudits breathe around,
And teach, as now, her syrinx to resound.

SONNET XII.

TO MR. HAYLEY.

Accomplish'd Master of the charmed shell,
Whose touch can sweetly modulate its tone
To melting sorrow's elegiac moan,
Now the full chord with epic grandeur swell,
And now, the spleenful passions to repel,
In dulcet notes each Orphic pow'r make known
That draws, with art peculiarly thine own,
Round Beauty's magic, Temper's lovelier spell.
This votive verse, which kindling ardors frame
That flow from feelings not to thee unknown,
Accept, from one who zealous for thy fame,
May haply seem too heedless of his own;
Nor scorn,—tho' rival bards thy triumph raise,
The poor ovation of a minstrel's praise.

SONNET XIII.

On being censured for collecting Epitaphs.

By marble cenotaph, or grassy mound,
The lay funereal studious to explore,
As slow I traverse thro' the church-yard's bound,
Or mid the chancel's ancient relics pore,
And add some ‘frail memorial’ to my store
Ere yet in pensiveness I quit the ground;
Not idle deem the monitory lore,
Which from the page of fate I gather round:
For he who frequent marks Life's final goal,
May learn to estimate its course more true,
May bid his thought the high career pursue,
Where years eternal their dread courses roll,
And Truth decrees an amaranthine prize
For him who wins on earth to wear amid the skies.

SONNET XIV.

WRITTEN ON THE SEA-COAST.

Unfaithful deep, what variance dost thou show,
An emblem of thyself thy billows bear,
Now glossy green the chequer'd currents flow,
Now skirt the wild horizon dun and drear:
Unceasing source of wretchedness and care
To those who trust thy summer-rippling wave,
They little reck what wintry storms are near,
How oft the buoyant surge conceals a grave.
Me,—thou can'st never tempt, thou restless flood!
Tho' now soft murmuring rolls thy surfy swell,
To me e'en now each surf appears a shroud,
And every soften'd murmur sounds a knell!
Me,—Love invites mid tranquil joys to live,
Such as thy changeful nature cannot give.

SONNET XV.

TO MRS. P.

For thee, best treasure of a husband's heart
Whose bliss it is that thou for life art so,
That thy fond bosom bears a faithful part,
In every casual change his breast can know.
For thee, whom virtuous passion made his choice,
Whom Genius and Affection make his pride,
Connubial rapture tunes his grateful voice,
And hails the mother dearer than the bride:
And tho' thy worth deserves a brighter palm
Than laureate hands round diadems entwine,
Love's simple chaplet happily may charm
With truer, tenderer ecstacy, from mine!
And let me still but reign thy ‘bosom's lord,’
Be fame or wealth their votary's reward.

SONNET XVI.

Written in an Alcove where Thomson composed his Seasons.

Aerial Spirits, who forsook your sky
To whisper charmed sounds in Thomson's ear,
Or shaded from the ken of grosser eye,
Did to the Bard in holy trance appear;
Still guard the sacred grove which once was dear,
On every leaf enweave a druid-spell,
And say to the profane, should such come near;
Here did the ‘woodland pilgrim’ form his cell;
The priest of Nature here his temple plac'd,
And rais'd the incense of his song on high;
With sylvan honours was his altar grac'd,
His harp was tun'd to heavenly psalmistry:
Here did he pour to Nature's GOD the strain!—
And should you scorn the worship, shun the fane.

SONNET XVII.

On seeing the Name of Dyer excluded from a List of English Poets, descanted upon in ‘the Village Curate.’

And are thy strains unheeded, gentle Bard,
In this fair muster-roll of British rhyme;
Could Grongar's beauties vainly claim regard
By pictur'd sentiment, or numerous chime?
Must Latium's fall, with sympathetic doom,
Whelm in oblivion the Poet's lay;
Or every well-sung labour of the Loom
Sink, like its patriot-subject, to decay?
Yet, virtuous Dyer! tho' tis still thy fate
To grasp no guerdon from fastidious fame,
Because on truth thy Muse made fancy wait,
Far less to trifle than to teach her aim;
Yet shall the mind unsway'd by critic-state,
Cherish thy memory, and respect thy name.

SONNET XVIII.

On framing the engraved Heads of Milton and Shakspeare.

Thou, who on seraph-pinion dauntless flew
From heav'ns bright throne to hell's dominion drear,
That thou might'st bring to our astonish'd view,
All we now hope with all we had to fear.
And thou, sweet Bard, his only fit compeer,
Who nature's scenes in all their changes drew;
Whose fancy, unconfin'd to one wide sphere,
‘Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.’
Sons of true genius! heirs of deathless fame!
Here shall your chosen portraitures be plac'd,
By all the graphic skill of Albion grac'd,
Albion, that sounds through Europe her acclaim,
While Europe wafts it o'er th' Atlantic main,
And echoing millions catch the boastful strain.

SONNET XIX.

Written near a ruinous Mansion at Groombridge , where Charles Duke of Orleans was many years a Prisoner of War.

Heroic Chiefs of this once-boasted hall,
If e'er your spectred forms at midnight float
O'er the fall'n battlement or half-sill'd moat,
Like dubious vapours near some charnel wall
Which the belated way-farer appal;—
Mourn ye those antique times of proud approof,
When captur'd banners wav'd beneath your roof,
To taunt the royal Troubadour of Gaul?
Yet, let your modern sons revere the day,
Howe'er in some degenerate changes sunk,
When hostile arms to civil arts gave way,
And moats to rills, and towers to hovels shrunk:
While the fierce clarion to the sheep-bell yields,
And tented moors to cultivated fields.

SONNET XX.

Written in a Manuscript Copy of Miss Seward's Poems, after having rescued it from the Printing-house.

Snatch'd from the tortuous grasp and touch impure
Of spoilers, reckless whose creative mind
And polish'd skill these varied strains combin'd
In soul-subduing verse, that can allure
To rapturous ecstacy;—henceforth, be sure
Of more fit homage, while ye rest enshrin'd
Beneath my letter'd cope, in union join'd
With living Harmonists, whose lays secure
From Albion grateful wreaths.—With aspect dear
To me have ever beam'd the sons of song;
Seward I honour'd as their genuine peer,
The Siren-sister of our Delphic throng!
And hence my ardency of zeal sincere
To wrest her Sibyl leaves from senseless wrong.

SONNET XXI.

Written on the Sands below Beachy-head.

With giant-port high towering o'er the main,
Beachy, thy cliffs in massy grandeur rise
Like some cleft castle, which with calm disdain
Still braves the outrage of inclement skies:
The daws that round thy chalky summit soar
Are dimly seen, and feebly heard their cries,
While the hoarse tide that flows with hollow roar,
Round many a fallen crag indignant sighs,
And steeps in foam yon sable-vested chain
Of rocky terrors; England's wide defence
Against her foes; where oft th' invading Dane
Fell a stern victim to his bold pretence;
Where proud Iberia's vast Armada fled,
And with its countless wrecks th' unsated ocean fed.

SONNET XXII.

TO THE REV. MR. MASON.

Brother of our poetic eagle Gray,
Thro' whose twin-soul, with fancy's splendent fires,
Science and virtue blend so warm a ray,
That Envy's self reluctantly admires.
By thee, whose praise has wak'd far other lyres,
Be my wild carol with acceptance crown'd;
Tho' faint the tone, and dissonant the wires
That seek to mix their gratulative sound.—
Tis thus the wren, when Nature's plumy band
Hail in responsive notes the orient day,
Beneath some covert takes her list'ning stand,
In fond attention to the plausive lay;
And, as each throat with trilling rapture flows,
Lifts her weak voice to swell the choral close.

SONNET XXIII.

Written near the Sea-side at Kingsgate.

In this calm shade, while summer's halcyon sky
Tints the broad flood with one cerulean hue,
Save where a casual cloud, soft flitting by,
Streaks the bright azure with a darker blue.
In this calm shade, while many an insect-quire,
Blown o'er the thymy turf on vagrant wing,
Float gaily round, or sportively retire,
And to the passing gale their descant fling.
Here, let me mark with what impassion'd force
The Bard of Wotton breathes his love-lorn tale,
Or pours the plaintive sweetness of his verse
As Petrarch pour'd it down Valclusa's vale:
For in his graceful numbers are combin'd
‘Softness of heart with energy of mind.’

SONNET XXIV.

WRITTEN IN THE SPRING.

Fair was the face of this illumin'd dawn,
With vernal brightness, vernal softness fair,
The Sun incessant woo'd the blushing Morn,
And all the youthful Hours laugh'd round the pair:
But ere the evening what a change was there!—
Harsh thunders roll, and forked lightnings fly;
Hyemal tempests brood along the air,
Or fall in torrents from an angry sky.
Ah! scarce less mutable is man's brief day;
Soon are his early prospects clouded o'er,
And those soft suns that shot their April-ray
Across his primrose pathway, shine no more:
Grief on the present drops her tearful show'rs,
And Apprehension o'er the future lours.

SONNET XXV.

TO THE RIVER WITHAM.

Witham, along whose willow-crested shore,
The idle stream, tho' sluggish, wanders wide
Thro' reedy fens, where mournful bitterns hide,
From Lindum's steep to Boston's lofty tow'r;—
How oft, erewhile, in childhood's happy hour,
Have I the angler's patient labour plied
Along thy banks, or snar'd with boyish pride
The wary pike, or grasp'd th' unwieldy oar,
Or plung'd beneath the wave. Yet memory now,
E'en o'er these scenes of former joys can pine,
Care with his rugged furrows marks my brow,
And past delights, like spectres, grimly shine:
So did they erst round pensive Warton gleam,
Warton, the laureate boast of Britain's Academe!

SONNET XXVI.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE “TASK.”

Cowper! who now in Weston's favour'd shades
Serenely seated, dost with vision clear
Scan old Ilissus' haunts, and to the maids
Of Phœbus' train, thy name for aye endear
By classic song. Ah, rather let our ear
Catch the high rapture of that holier strain,
Which Israel's prophet had rejoic'd to hear
On Horeb's sacred mount, or Salem's plain.
Energic Sage! thy pious “Task” resume,
Let Homer's verse no longer thine suspend;
With heav'nly ray our terrene path illume,
Bid Christian with Mæonian ardours blend;
So round thy laurels still shall palms entwine,
And future ages hail thee—Bard Divine!

SONNET XXVII.

On reading Miss Williams' Elegiac Tribute to Dr. Kippis.

Nods the dark plume, and drops the sable pall
O'er some lov'd corse whose spirit lately fled;
Deep are the sighs that heave at Nature's call,
Warm are the gushing griefs by Friendship shed.
But when the last sad scene is vanish'd all,
And with it vanishes each selfish dread;
Too soon, alas, do meaner thoughts enthrall,
Too soon forgotten are the virtuous dead!
Yet are not all:—for Helen's radiant tear
Gems, with the lustre of Aönian dew,
The grave of Kippis; and, with grateful care,
Her fairest laurel grafts on funeral yew:
So may the British Muse, of brow austere,
With kindlier glance a truant-exile view.

SONNET XXVIII.

THE MISER.

This breathing mummy, whose exterior chart
Nature has copied from a pasteboard toy;
This breathing mummy, which the maker's art
With hands and feet has fashioned for employ;
This breathing mummy is of that vile band
Who never wear a shoe which is not soal'd,
Nor coat nor hat but what is second-hand,
Yet boast, at usury, a plum of gold.
Look, as he moves what tatter'd rents appear,
Botch'd by himself with various-color'd thread;
While his darn'd shirt, unchang'd within the year,
Owns not of native cloth a single shred.
Boil'd bread he eats, with, now and then, ox-cheek,
And one poach'd egg in Easter's annual week.

SONNET XXIX.

GLORY AND ENVY.

As o'er Parnassus' crags I slowly stride,
Glory appears with animating smile,
And in a voice that lightens every toil,
Proceed—she whispers—I will be your guide.
But as we labour up the steep hill's side,
Envy approaches; and with smooth-tongued guile,
Invites me calmly to repose, the while
Her searching eye an easier track descried.
Ah! should my falt'ring steps in languor rest
On such false guidance; Glory's ray-girt head
Would vainly gild for me the Mountain's crest:
Then, rather by her sunny radiance led,
Right onward let me scale th' ethereal height,
And Envy's form will shroud beneath Cimmerian night.
Her searching eye an easier track descried.

SONNET XXX.

As the pale phantoms rais'd by Morpheus' pow'r
To wilder fancy thro' the drear of night,
Sink with our slumbers to oblivion's bow'r,
Unable to endure the test of light.
So, in ideal imagery bright,
I glow with visions of poetic fire;
But ere expression can arrest their flight,
In vaporish fume the ‘shadowy tribes’ expire;
Into ‘thin air’ the dim chimeras fade;—
While lost in wonder at th' illusive cheat,
Or vex'd to chase the shadow of a shade,
I blame the folly of enthusiast heat,
And, stung with disappointment, drop the quill,
Yet still irresolute—resume it still.