The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque,
Et quantum est hominum venustiorum!
Nam mellitus erat, suamque norat
Ipsam, tam bene quam puella matrem;
Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum,
Illuc, unde negant redire quenquam.
At vobis male sit malæ Tenebræ
Orci, quæ omnia bella devoratis!
Catullus; Carmen III.

TO GEORGE GRAY, Esq. THIS ELEGY IS INSCRIBED; AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM FOR HIS POETICAL TASTE, AND TALENTS; AND OF GRATITUDE FOR THE FRIENDSHIP WITH WHICH HE HONOURS IT'S AUTHOUR.

London, January 28th, 1777.

I.

If sensibility, absorbed in woe,
With art poetic e'er can flow,
Sweet songster, to thy tuneful shade,
The tribute of the muse be payed;
Though to thy fate inadequate my lays;
For since (I envy thee thy glorious doom!
Bright contrast to the dreary tomb!)
Thy life was Delia's care, thy death was Delia's pain,
The verse adventurous should not I refrain?
What honour canst thou reap from my aspiring praise?

II.

Could now the soft Tibullus live,
To thee, musician sweet, his elegy he'd give:
Thy destiny abrupt so great a bard should mourn,
And scatter flowers, and laurels o'er thy urn.
For sure a more affecting tale than thine
Ne'er flowed along the plaintive line;
Than thine a more affecting tale
Was never told by shepherd, in the blooming vale.
Death, which thy poet from the rack would free,
Was deprivation of high bliss to thee.
For though to sage divines 'tis given
Exactly to prefigure heaven;
To tell us what the soul shall there employ;
Yet let their sacred leave
Permit me to conceive
Of glory no exceeding weight,
That will preponderate that Elysian state,
Which in our nether world thou didst enjoy.

III.

Say, was not Delia's chamber thine?
And even a dungeon, where she lived, would shine!

And where she doth not speak, and look, and move,
A palace must a dungeon prove.
Thy being did not her affection tend;
Was Delia not thy mistress, and thy friend?
And did not thy mellifluent strain
Her ear enchanted oft detain?
Did not her eye (divine reward!) approve
Thy notes of gratitude, and love?
Oh! to her banished Ovid might it's beam
Athwart the clouds of this dark Pontus gleam,
Reach, through my visual ray, my drooping heart;
The lightning would poetic fire impart,
And raise my genius to its beauteous theme!

IV.

Thou feathered songster, thou musician sweet,
Few, in this iron world, thy honours meet;
Ere fate inexorable called thy breath,
Great were thy honours; they were great in death.
Did not thy sickness wound thy Delia's heart?
And did not she exhaust compassion's art,
All the fond assiduity of grief,
To bring her favourite bird relief?

Was not thy languid frame by her fair hand caressed;
And didst not thou expiring rest
(Ecstatic death!) on her ambrosial breast?
And when thy tuneful soul had fled away
To myrtle groves, to realms of purer day;
Did not she form thy little tomb,
In that most consecrated ground
Where warblers breathe, and odours float around;
Where oft her beauties deaden Flora's bloom?
And in the tomb did she not place thy bier,
Bedewing it with many a tender tear;
Those tears which o'er departed merit shed,
And in the poet's hallowed numbers read,
More durably than Egypt's art, embalm the dead?

V.

To thee his pæan, then, the bard should give;
In elegy, for thee, he should not sigh;
Thy life, 'twas rapture, all, to live;
Thy death, 'twas luxury, to die.
To one of human race would fate assign
A span as narrow, but as blest as thine,
Him as much pleasure would engage,
As the most happy man, who lives to Nestor's age.

But since I hope not to obtain
Exuberance of bliss; since mental pain
My days embitters, and infects my strain;
And since with woe my future life
Can but maintain a manly strife;
May I, sweet bird, that life resign
In a last scene as elegant as thine!
Let a gay priestess of the muse,
Who to the poet opens fancy's views,
Her forms romantic, and her orient hues;
Let some good nymph, as Delia, fair,
Grant me her last, her tender care;
Vouchsafe humanely to befriend,
To cheer, to brighten, to adorn my end.
Round me Parnassian glories then shall smile;
And the cold horrour of the grave beguile;
For in an angel of the female kind,
Of person graceful, and of noble mind,
The essence of all poetry we find.
The fair-one will my soul prepare
To wanton in Elysian air;
My heart will feel a gentle fire;
And imperceptibly I shall expire,
To realize a previous dream,
Pregnant with many a fair, and noble theme;

With the soft climate of the future sky;
With god-like bards in converse high;
With all the fragrance of the myrtle grove,
Where wander youths who died for love,
No more to feel it's agonizing wound;—
With silver lyres, and their ecstatic sound;
With silver streams as musical as they;
With thee, sweet warbler, on some aromatic spray!

VI.

Let her, my last, my lingering friend,
My ashes to the grave attend;
And when to dust consigned she sees me lie,
Let pale, and eloquent distress
Awhile her action, and her face impress;
Be her's, awhile, the deep, pathetic sigh;
And let the liquid pearl drop from her glistening eye.
Be these my obsequies;—to them, how low
Is all the dark procession, long, and slow;
Are all the trappings of the sable show;
The scutcheoned pageantry of mimick woe!
When I 'twixt this world and the next,
No more with sublunary trifles vexed,

Have shot the deep, mysterious gulph;
Oh! rather let these honours close
My pleasures few, my numerous woes,
Than all the funeral pomp of Newton, or of Wolfe!

VII.

Ye bowers of Tottenham, and it's groves,
Henceforth be sacred to the nine,
Henceforth be sacred to the loves.
Oh! would the soul of Pope divine
But condescend to mix with mine,
Fair might the beauties, then, of Tottenham shine!
No industry would I decline,
No daring, no Pindaric flight,
To give to Tottenham a perpetual name,
And bid it emulate the fame
Of Richmond's blooming hill, and Windsor's towering height.
For there, his harmony no more,
Lies the sweet poet I deplore.
For, courting oft Hygeia, there,
Delia resides to breath salubrious air;
There oft she walks, in Sol's decline,
Improving taste, and thoughts benign;

She, there (too fond idea!) may peruse
The labours of my humble muse;
Haply she there may sometimes condescend
To form the generous wish for her ill-fated friend.

VIII.

Then let each natural, and each moral grace
Adorn, and dignify the place:
Let spring, with partial vigour, there,
Delight the eye, and scent the air:
Let not inclement Boreas meet,
With contrast quick, the summer's heat;
Nor disappointed swain deplore,
The loss of autumn's golden store.
And still may rustic revels reign;
And may the hamlet still maintain,
When winter binds the hoary earth,
It's festal cheer, and frolick mirth.
But let the peasants, ever gay,
Ne'er from innoxious pleasure stray.
Let Hymen, there, with temperate rule,
Improve on Cupid's ardent school.
Let him diffuse his bright, and lambent fire
Of chaste, and permanent desire:

Not shake the torch of red, and baleful flame,
With wanton, or with ruthless aim;
Which, for the true connubial state,
Guardian of manners, and of passions mild,
Works a black scene of jealousy, and hate,
Of lawless anarchy—of moral Chaos wild

IX.

May Zephyr, borne on downy wing,
Propitious, Tottenham, to thy purple spring,
Give all thy sweets luxuriantly to blow,
Thy rivulet with murmuring course to flow;
May showers that cool, and fertilize,
Maturing suns, and azure skies
Deck with the charms of Eden all thy plain.
But, Oh! ye rosy vernal hours,
And all ye rural powers,
Embellish with Arabian flowers,
With flowers of finest form, and richest bloom,
And of most exquisite perfume;
And shelter, with Arcadian shade,
The ground where that mute chorister is laid,
Whose life was Delia's care; whose death was Delia's pain.

X.

There let the soft, refreshing breeze
Whisper through fair, and shady trees;
Trees oft responsive to the shepherd's tongue;
Majestic trees which Maro sung;
And under them, to mark the spot of woe,
Let yew, let ivy, and let cypress grow.
Let the most fragrant rose his tomb adorn,
With tint expressive of the morn:
The lily white, the violet blue,
Of mournful, and of pleasant hue;
And let the woodbine, there, it's breath exhale
To vesper's dying gale;
The jasmine too, that loves the wall;
Of elegant effluvias, all.
There let the modest laylock spring
(A tremor checks the muse's wing!)
By Delia worne, the laylock's dye
Hath often charmed the poet's eye:
As late I walked by Delia's side,
(Honour too great for human pride!)
The native lustre of the lovely maid
In art's refinements dangerously arrayed;

My heart exulting in the rapturous hour,
Her laylock robe confessed her power;
The magic influence of the fair
Improved it's colour, and it's air;
To her a brighter blush I felt it owe;
From her I felt it sweep with a celestial flow!