University of Virginia Library

Clos'd is that curious ear, by Death's cold hand,
That mark'd each error of my careless strain
With kind severity; to whom my Muse
Still lov'd to whisper, what she meant to sing
In louder accent; to whose taste supreme
She first and last appeal'd, nor wish'd for praise,
Save when his smile was herald to her fame.
Yes, thou art gone; yet Friendship's fault'ring tongue
Invokes thee still; and still, by Fancy sooth'd,
Fain would she hope her Gray attends the call.
Why then, alas! in this my fav'rite haunt
Place I the urn, the bust, the sculptur'd lyre,
Or fix this votive tablet, fair inscrib'd
With numbers worthy thee, for they are thine?
Why, if thou hear'st me still, these symbols sad
Of fond memorial? Ah! my pensive soul!
He hears me not, nor ever more shall hear
The theme his candour, not his taste approv'd.

Oft, ‘smiling as in scorn,’ oft would he cry,
“Why waste thy numbers on a trivial art,
“That ill can mimic even the humblest charms
“Of all-majestic Nature?” at the word
His eye would glisten, and his accents glow
With all the Poet's frenzy, “Sov'reign Queen!
“Behold, and tremble, while thou view'st her state
“Thron'd on the heights of Skiddaw: call thy art
“To build her such a throne; that art will feel
“How vain her best pretensions. Trace her march
“Amid the purple craggs of Borrowdale;
“And try like those to pile thy range of rock
“In rude tumultuous chaos. See! she mounts
“Her Naiad car, and, down Lodore's dread cliff
“Falls many a fathom, like the headlong Bard
“My fabling fancy plung'd in Conway's flood;
“Yet not like him to sink in endless night:
“For, on its boiling bosom, still she guides
“Her buoyant shell, and leads the wave along;
“Or spreads it broad, a river, or a lake,
“As suits her pleasure; will thy boldest song
“E'er brace the sinews of enervate art
“To such dread daring? Will it ev'n direct
“Her hand to emulate those softer charms
“That deck the banks of Dove, or call to birth
“The bare romantic craggs, and copses green,
“That sidelong grace her circuit, whence the rills,
“Bright in their crystal purity, descend
“To meet their sparkling Queen? around each fount
“The hawthorns crowd, and knit their blossom'd sprays
“To keep their sources sacred. Here, even here,
“Thy art, each active sinew stretch'd in vain,
“Would perish in its pride. Far rather thou
“Confess her scanty power, correct, controul,
“Tell her how far, nor farther, she may go;
“And rein with Reason's curb fantastic Taste.”

Yes, I will hear thee, dear lamented Shade,
And hold each dictate sacred. What remains
Unsung shall so each leading rule select
As if still guided by thy judment sage;
While, as still modell'd to thy curious ear,
Flow my melodious numbers; so shall praise,
If ought of praise the verse I weave may claim,
From just posterity reward my song.

Erewhile to trace the path, to form the fence,
To mark the destin'd limits of the lawn,
The Muse, with measur'd step, preceptive, pac'd.
Now from the surface with impatient flight
She mounts, Sylvanus! o'er thy world of shade
To spread her pinions. Open all thy glades,
Greet her from all thy echoes. Orpheus-like,
Arm'd with the spells of harmony she comes,
To lead thy forests forth to lovelier haunts,
Where Fancy waits to fix them; from the dell
Where now they lurk she calls them to possess
Conspicuous stations; to their varied forms
Allots congenial place; selects, divides,
And blends anew in one Elysian scene.

Yet, while I thus exult, my weak tongue feels
Its ineffectual powers, and seeks in vain
That force of ancient phrase which, speaking, paints,
And is the thing it sings. Ah Virgil! why,
By thee neglected, was this loveliest theme
Left to the grating voice of modern reed?
Why not array it in the splendid robe
Of thy rich diction, and consign the charge
To Fame thy handmaid, whose immortal plume
Had born its praise beyond the bounds of Time?

Countless is Vegetation's verdant brood
As are the stars that stud yon cope of heaven;
To marshal all her tribes in order'd file,
Generic, or specific, might demand
His science, wond'rous Swede! whose ample mind,
Like ancient Tadmor's philosophic king,
Stretch'd from the hyssop creeping on the wall
To Lebanon's proudest cedars. Skill like this,
Which spans a third of Nature's copious realm,
Our art requires not, sedulous alone
To note those general properties of form,
Dimension, growth, duration, strength, and hue,
Then first imprest, when, at the dawn of time,
The form-deciding, life-inspiring word
Pronounc'd them into being. These prime marks
Distinctive, docile Memory makes her own,
That each its shadowy succour may supply
To her wish'd purpose; first, with needful shade,
To veil whate'er of wall, or fence uncouth
Disgusts the eye, which tyrant Use has rear'd,
And stern Necessity forbids to change.

Lur'd by their hasty shoots, and branching stems,
Planters there are who choose the race of pine
For this great end, erroneous; witless they
That, as their arrowy heads assault the sky,
They leave their shafts unfeather'd: rather thou
Select the shrubs that, patient of the knife,
Will thank thee for the wound, the hardy thorn,
Holly, or box, privet or pyracanth.
They, thickening from their base, with tenfold shade
Will soon replenish all thy judgment prun'd.

But chief with willing aid, her glittering green
Shall England's laurel bring; swift shall she spread
Her broad-leav'd shade, and float it fair and wide,
Proud to be call'd an inmate of the soil.
Let England prize this daughter of the East
Beyond that Latian plant, of kindred name,
That wreath'd the head of Julius; basely twin'd
Its flattering foliage on the traitor's brow
Who crush'd his country's freedom. Sacred tree,
Ne'er be thy brighter verdure thus debas'd!
Far happier thou, in this sequester'd bower,
To shroud thy Poet, who with fost'ring hand,
Here bade thee flourish, and with grateful strain
Now chaunts the praise of thy maturer bloom.
And happier far that Poet, if secure
His hearth and altars from the pilfering slaves
Of power, his little eve of lonely life
May here steal on, blest with the heartfelt calm
That competence and liberty inspire.

Nor are the plants which England calls her own
Few or unlovely, that, with laurel join'd
And kindred foliage of perennial green,
Will form a close-knit curtain. Shrubs there are
Of bolder growth, that, at the call of Spring,
Burst forth in blossom'd fragrance: lilacs rob'd
In snow-white innocence, or purple pride;
The sweet syringa yielding but in scent
To the rich orange; or the woodbine wild
That loves to hang, on barren boughs remote,
Her wreaths of flowery perfume. These beside,
Myriads, that here the Muse neglects to name,
Will add a vernal lustre to thy veil.

And what if chance collects the varied tribes,
Yet fear not thou but unexpected charms
Will from their union start. But if our song
Supply one precept here, it bids retire
Each leaf of deeper dye, and lift in front
Foliage of paler verdure, so to spread
A canvass, which when touch'd by Autumn's hand
Shall gleam with dusky gold, or russet rays.
But why prepare for her funereal hand
That canvass? she but comes to dress thy shades,
As lovelier victims for their wintry tomb.
Rather to flowery Spring, to Summer bright,
Thy labour consecrate; their laughing reign,
The youth, the manhood of the growing year,
Deserves that labour, and rewards its pain.
Yet, heedful ever of that ruthless time
When Winter shakes their stems, preserve a file
With everduring leaf to brave his arm,
And deepening spread their undiminish'd gloom.

But, if the tall defect demands a screen
Of forest shade high tow'ring, some broad roof
Perchance of glaring tile that guards the stores
Of Ceres; or the patch'd disjointed choir
Of some old fane, whose steeple's Gothic pride
Or pinnacled, or spir'd, would bolder rise
‘In tufted trees high bosom'd,’ here allot
Convenient space to plant that lofty tribe
Behind thy underwood, lest, o'er its head
The forest tyrants shake their lordly arms,
And shed their baleful dews. Each plant that springs
Holds, like the people of some free-born state,
Its right fair franchis'd; rooted to a spot
It yet has claim to air; from liberal heav'n
It yet has claim to sunshine, and to showers:
Air, showers, and sunshine are its liberty.

That liberty secur'd, a general shade,
Dense and impervious, to thy wish shall rise
To hide each form uncouth; and, this obtain'd,
What next we from the Dryad powers implore
Is grace, is ornament: For see! our lawn,
Though cloth'd with softest verdure, though reliev'd
By many a gentle fall and easy swell,
Expects that harmony of light and shade,
Which foliage only gives. Come then, ye plants!
That, like the village troop when Maia dawns,
Delight to mingle social; to the crest
Of yonder brow we safely may conduct
Your numerous train; no eye obstructed there
Will blame your interpos'd society:
But, on the plain below, in single stems
Disparted, or in sparing groups distinct,
Wide must ye stand, in wild, disorder'd mood,
As if the seeds from which your scions sprang
Had there been scatter'd from the affrighted beak
Of some maternal bird whom the fierce hawk
Pursued with felon claw. Her young meanwhile
Callow, and cold, from their moss-woven nest
Peep forth; they stretch their little eager throats
Broad to the wind, and plead to the lone spray
Their famish'd plaint importunately shrill.

Yet in this wild disorder Art presides,
Designs, corrects, and regulates the whole,
Herself the while unseen. No cedar broad
Drops his dark curtain where a distant scene
Demands distinction. Here the thin abele
Of lofty bole, and bare, the smooth'd-stemm'd beech,
Or slender alder, give our eye free space
Beneath their boughs to catch each lessening charm
Ev'n to the far horizon's azure bound.

Nor will that sov'reign arbitress admit,
Where'er her nod decrees a mass of shade,
Plants of unequal size, discordant kind,
Or rul'd by Foliation's different laws;
But for that needful purpose those prefers
Whose hues are friendly, whose coëval leaves
The earliest open, and the latest fade.

Nor will she, scorning truth and taste, devote
To strange, and alien soils, her seedling stems;
Fix the dank sallow on the mountain's brow,
Or, to the moss-grown margin of the lake,
Bid the dry pine descend. From Nature's laws
She draws her own: Nature and she are one.

Nor will she, led by Fashion's lure, select,
For objects interpos'd, the pigmy race
Of shrubs, or scatter with unmeaning hand
Their offspring o'er the lawn, scorning to patch
With many a meagre and disjointed tuft
Its sober surface: sidelong to her path
And polish'd foreground she confines their growth
Where o'er their heads the liberal eye may range.

Nor will her prudence, when intent to form
One perfect whole, on feeble aid depend,
And give exotic wonders to our gaze.
She knows and therefore fears the faithless train:
Sagely she calls on those of hardy class
Indigenous, who, patient of the change
From heat to cold which Albion hourly feels,
Are brac'd with strength to brave it. These alone
She plants and prunes, nor grieves if nicer eyes
Pronounce them vulgar. These she calls her friends,
That veteran troop who will not for a blast
Of nipping air, like cowards, quit the field.

Far to the north of thy imperial towers,
Augusta! in that wild and Alpine vale,
Through which the Swale, by mountain-torrents swell'd,
Flings his redundant stream, there liv'd a youth
Of polish'd manners; ample his domain,
And fair the site of his paternal dome.
He lov'd the art I sing; a deep adept
In Nature's story, well he knew the names
Of all her verdant lineage; yet that skill
Misled his taste; scornful of every bloom
That spreads spontaneous, from remotest Ind
He brought his foliage; careless of its cost,
Ev'n of its beauty careless: it was rare,
And therefore beauteous. Now his laurel screen,
With rose and woodbine negligently wove,
Bows to the axe; the rich magnolias claim
The station; now Herculean beeches fell'd
Resign their rights, and warm Virginia sends
Her cedars to usurp them; the proud oak
Himself, ev'n he, the sov'reign of the shade,
Yields to the fir that drips with Gilead's balm.
Now Albion gaze at glories not thy own!
Pause, rapid Swale! and see thy margin crown'd
With all the pride of Ganges: vernal showers
Have fix'd their roots; nutritious summer suns
Favour'd their growth; and mildest autumn smil'd
Benignant o'er them: vigorous, fair, and tall,
They waft a gale of spices o'er the plain.
But Winter comes, and with him watery Jove,
And with him Boreas in his frozen shroud;
The savage spirit of old Swale is rous'd;
He howls amidst his foam. At the dread sight
The aliens stand aghast; they bow their heads.
In vain the glassy penthouse is supply'd:
The pelting storm with icy bullets breaks
Its fragile barrier; see! they fade, they die.

Warn'd by his error, let the planter slight
These shiv'ring rarities; or if, to please
Fastidious Fashion, he must needs allot
Some space for foreign foliage, let him chuse
A sidelong glade, shelter'd from east and north,
And free to southern and to western gales;
There let him fix their station; thither wind
Some devious path, that, from the chief design
Detach'd, may lead to where they safely bloom.
So in the web of epic song sublime
The Bard Mæonian interweaves the charm
Of softer episode, yet leaves unbroke
The golden thread of his majestic theme.

What else to shun of formal, false, or vain,
Of long-lin'd vistas or plantations quaint
Our former strains have taught. Instruction now
Withdraws; she knows her limits; knows that Grace
Is caught by strong perception, not from rules;
That undrest Nature claims for all her limbs
Some simple garb peculiar, which, howe'er
Distinct their size and shape, is simple still:
This garb to chuse, with clothing dense, or thin,
A part to hide, another to adorn,
Is Taste's important task; preceptive song
From error in the choice can only warn.

But vain that warning voice; vain ev'ry aid
Of Genius, Judgment, Fancy, to secure
The planter's lasting fame: There is a power,
A hidden power, at once his friend, and foe:
'Tis Vegetation. Gradual to his groves
She gives their wish'd effect; and, that display'd,
Oh, that her power would pause! but active still,
She swells each stem, prolongs each vagrant bough,
And darts with unremitting vigour bold
From Grace to wild luxuriance. Happier far
Are you, ye sons of Claude! who, from the mine,
The earth, or juice of herb or flower concrete,
Mingle the mass whence your Arcadias spring;
The beauteous outline of your pictur'd shades
Still keeps the bound you gave it; time that pales
Your vivid hues, respects your pleasing forms.
Not so our landscapes: though we paint like you,
We paint with growing colours; ev'ry year
O'erpassing that which gives the breadth of shade
We sought, by rude addition mars our scene.

Rouse then, ye hinds! e'er yet yon closing boughs
Blot out the purple distance, swift prevent
The spreading evil: thin the crowded glades,
While yet of slender size each stem will thrive
Transplanted: twice repeat the annual toil;
Nor let the axe its beak, the saw its tooth
Refrain, whene'er some random branch has stray'd
Beyond the bounds of beauty; else full soon,
Ev'n e'er the planter's life has past its prime,
Will Albion's garden frown an Indian wild.

Forboding fears avaunt! be ours to urge
Each present purpose by what favouring means
May work its end design'd; why deprecate
The change that waits on sublunary things,
Sad lot of their existence? shall we pause
To give the charm of Water to our scene,
For that the congregated rains may swell
Its tide into a flood? or that yon Sun,
Now on the Lion mounted, to his noon
Impells him, shaking from his fiery mane
A heat may parch its channel? O, ye caves,
Deepen your dripping roofs! this feverish hour
Claims all your coolness; in your humid cells
Permit me to forget the planter's toil;
And, while I woo your Naiads to my aid,
Involve me in impenetrable gloom.

Blest is the man (if bliss be human boast)
Whose fertile soil is wash'd with frequent streams,
And springs salubrious: he disdains to toss
In rainbow dews their crystal to the sun;
Or sink in subterranean cisterns deep;
That so, through leaden siphons upwards drawn,
Those streams may leap fantastic. He his ear
Shuts to the tuneful trifling of the Bard,
Who trick'd a gothic theme with classic flowers,
And sung of fountains bursting from the shells
Of brazen tritons, spouting through the jaws
‘Of gorgons, hydras, and chimæras dire.’

Peace to his manes! let the nymphs of Seine
Cherish his fame. Thy Poet, Albion! scorns,
Ev'n for a cold unconscious element
To forge the fetters he would scorn to wear.
His song shall reprobate each effort vile,
That aims to force the Genius of the stream
Beyond his native height; or dares to press
Above that destin'd line th' unwilling wave.

Is there within the circle of thy view
Some sedgy flat, where the late-ripen'd sheaves
Stand brown with unblest mildew? 'tis the bed
On which an ample lake in crystal peace
Might sleep majestic. Pause we yet; perchance
Some midway channel, where the soil declines,
Might there be delv'd, by levels duly led
In bold and broken curves: for water loves
A wilder outline than the woodland path,
And winds with shorter bend. To drain the rest
The shelving spade may toil, till wint'ry showers
Find their free course down each declining bank.
Quit then the thought: a river's winding form,
With many a sinuous bay, and island green,
At less expense of labour and of land,
Will give thee equal beauty! seldom art
Can emulate that broad and bold extent
Which charms in native lakes; and, failing there,
Her works betray their character and name,
And dwindle into pools. Not that our strain,
Fastidious, shall disdain a small expanse
Of stagnant fluid, in some scene confin'd,
Circled with varied shade, where, through the leaves,
The half-admitted sunbeam trembling plays
On its clear bosom; where aquatic fowl
Of varied tribe, and varied feather sail;
And where the finny race their glittering scales
Unwillingly reveal: There, there alone,
Where bursts the general prospect on our eye,
We scorn these wat'ry patches: Thames himself,
Seen in disjointed spots, where Sallows hide
His first bold presence, seems a string of pools,
A chart and compass must explain his course.

He, who would seize the river's sov'reign charm,
Must wind the moving mirror through his lawn
Ev'n to remotest distance; deep must delve
The gravelly channel that prescribes its course;
Closely conceal each terminating bound
By hill or shade oppos'd; and to its bank
Lifting the level of the copious stream,
Must there retain it. But, if thy faint springs
Refuse this large supply, steel thy firm soul
With stoic pride; imperfect charms despise:
Beauty, like Virtue, knows no groveling mean.

Who but must pity that penurious taste,
Which down the quick-descending vale prolongs,
Slope below slope, a stiff and unlink'd chain
Of flat canals; then leads the stranger's eye
To some predestin'd station, there to catch
Their seeming union, and the fraud approve?
Who but must change that pity into scorn,
If down each verdant slope a narrow flight
Of central steps decline, where the spare stream
Steals trickling; or, withheld by cunning skill,
Hoards its scant treasures, till the master's nod
Decree its fall: Then down the formal stairs
It leaps with short-liv'd fury; wasting there,
Poor prodigal! what many a Summer's rain
And many a Winter's snow shall late restore.

Learn that, whene'er in some sublimer scene
Imperial Nature of her headlong floods
Permits our imitation, she herself
Prepares their reservoir; conceal'd perchance
In neighb'ring hills, where first it well behoves
Our toil to search, and studiously augment
The wat'ry store with springs and sluices drawn
From pools, that on the heath drink up the rain.
Be these collected, like the miser's gold,
In one increasing fund, nor dare to pour,
Down thy impending mound, the bright cascade,
Till richly sure of its redundant fall.

That mound to raise alike demands thy toil,
Ere art adorn its surface. Here adopt
That facile mode which his inventive powers
First plann'd, who led to rich Mancunium's mart
His long-drawn line of navigated stream.
Stupendous task! in vain stood tow'ring hills
Oppos'd; in vain did ample Irwell pour
Her tide transverse: he pierc'd the tow'ring hill,
He bridg'd the ample tide, and high in air,
And deep through earth, his freighted barge he bore.
This mode shall temper ev'n the lightest soil
Firm to thy purpose. Then let taste select
The unhewn fragments, that may give its front
A rocky rudeness; pointed some, that there
The frothy spouts may break; some slanting smooth,
That there in silver sheet the wave may slide.
Here too infix some moss-grown trunks of oak
Romantic, turn'd by gelid lakes to stone,
Yet so dispos'd as if they owed their change
To what they now control. Then open wide
Thy flood-gates; then let down thy torrent: then
Rejoice; as if the thund'ring Tees himself
Reign'd there amid his cataracts sublime.

And thou hast cause for triumph! Kings themselves,
With all a nation's wealth, an army's toil,
If Nature frown averse, shall ne'er achieve
Such wonders: Nature's was the glorious gift;
Thy art her menial handmaid. Listening youths!
To whose ingenuous hearts I still address
The friendly strain, from such severe attempt
Let Prudence warn you. Turn to this clear rill,
Which, while I bid your bold ambition cease,
Runs murmuring at my side: O'er many a rood
Your skill may lead the wanderer; many a mound
Of pebbles raise, to fret her in her course
Impatient: louder then will be her song:
For she will 'plain, and gurgle, as she goes,
As does the widow'd ring-dove. Take, vain Pomp!
Thy lakes, thy long canals, thy trim cascades,
Beyond them all true taste will dearly prize
This little dimpling treasure. Mark the cleft,
Through which she bursts to day. Behind that rock
A Naiad dwells: Lineia is her name;
And she has sisters in contiguous cells,
Who never saw the sun. Fond Fancy's eye,
That inly gives locality and form
To what she prizes best, full oft pervades
Those hidden caverns, where pale chrysolites,
And glittering spars dart a mysterious gleam
Of inborn lustre, from the garish day
Unborrow'd. There, by the wild Goddess led,
Oft have I seen them bending o'er their urns,
Chaunting alternate airs of Dorian mood,
While smooth they comb'd their moist cerulean locks
With shells of living pearl. Yes, let me own,
To these, or classic deities like these,
From very childhood was I prone to pay
Harmless idolatry. My infant eyes
First open'd on that bleak and boist'rous shore,
Where Humber weds the nymphs of Trent and Ouse
To His, and Ocean's Tritons: thence full soon
My youth retir'd, and left the busy strand
To Commerce and to Care. In Margaret's grove,
Beneath whose time-worn shade old Camus sleeps,
Was next my tranquil station: Science there
Sat musing; and to those that lov'd the lore
Pointed, with mystic wand, to truths involv'd
In geometric symbols, scorning those,
Perchance too much, who woo'd the thriftless muse.
Here, though in warbling whisper oft I breath'd
The lay, were wanting, what young Fancy deems
The life-springs of her being, rocks, and caves,
And huddling brooks, and torrent-falls divine.
In quest of these, at Summer's vacant hour,
Pleas'd would I stray, when in a northern vale,
So chance ordain'd, a Naiad sad I found
Robb'd of her silver vase; I sooth'd the nymph
With song of sympathy, and curst the fiend
Who stole the gift of Thetis. Hence the cause
Why, favour'd by the blue-ey'd sisterhood,
They sooth with songs my solitary ear.

Nor is Lineia silent—“Long,” she cries,
“Too long has Man wag'd sacrilegious war
“With the vext elements, and chief with that,
“Which elder Thales, and the Bard of Thebes
“Held first of things terrestrial; nor misdeem'd:
“For, when the Spirit creative deign'd to move,
“He mov'd upon the waters. O revere
“Our power: for were its vital force withheld,
“Where then were Vegetation's vernal bloom,
“Where its autumnal wealth? but we are kind
“As powerful; O let reverence lead to love,
“And both to emulation! Not a rill,
“That winds its sparkling current o'er the plain,
“Reflecting to the Sun bright recompense
“For ev'ry beam he lends, but reads thy soul
“A generous lecture. Not a pansy pale,
“That drinks its daily nurture from that rill,
“But breathes in fragrant accents to thy soul,
‘So by thy pity cheer'd, the languish'd head
‘Of poverty might smile.’ Who e'er beheld
“Our humble train forsake their native vale
“To climb the haughty hill? Ambition, speak!
“He blushes, and is mute. When did our streams,
“By force unpent, in dull stagnation sleep?
“Let Sloth unfold his arms and tell the time.
“Or, if the tyranny of Art infring'd
“Our rights, when did our patient floods submit
“Without recoil? Servility retires,
“And clinks his gilded chain. O, learn from us,
“And tell it to thy nation, British Bard!
“Uncurb'd Ambition, unresisting Sloth,
“And base Dependance are the fiends accurst
“That pull down mighty empires. If they scorn
“The awful truth, be thine to hold it dear.
“So, through the vale of life, thy flowing hours
“Shall glide serene; and, like Lineia's rill,
“Their free, yet not licentious course fulfill'd,
“Sink in the Ocean of Eternity.”