Poetical works of the late F. Sayers to which have been prefixed the connected disquisitions on the rise and progress of English poetry, and on English metres, and also some biographic particulars of the author, supplied by W. Taylor |
 |
|
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
LINES ON THORPE GROVE. |
 | Poetical works of the late F. Sayers |  |
269
LINES ON THORPE GROVE.
Non umbra altorum nemorum, non mollia possunt
Prata movere animum.
Virg.
Prata movere animum.
Virg.
Hark! 't is the closing crash! the ruffian axe
Has ceas'd its toil—with its last, hated, blow,
A shriek arose, and from his lov'd domain
The lingering genius of the grove is fled.
'T is ruin all—no lonely pine-tree waves
On yonder brow, not e'en a blasted stem
Swart, sear, and riven, points the hill that rose
In tufted verdure; on its deep-scarr'd side
The shiver'd trunk, the withering branch is spread,
In careless desolation. We might deem
The fierce invader's bands had won the shore
Of fair Icenia, and had mark'd their course
By wrath destructive. Sweetly-soothing shades
270
To memory dear, when cold the ruthless hand
That bow'd you to the dust. In fancy's eye
Ye oft would seem a holy fragment spar'd
Of that deep wood, which, antique legends tell,
Once fring'd the steep of Mosswold, and inwrapp'd,
In its dark bosom, him, the sainted youth,
From whose carv'd choir the chanted mass would float
Now loud, now low, along the arched path,
And guide the stranger pilgrim to his shrine.
And oft, again, methought your western verge
Had skirted Surrey's bowers, who erst would start
At break of dawn, from wild and feverish dreams,
Would wander, heart-struck, through your chilly dews,
And mingle with the mournful woodlark's song
His plaintive love-lays, only heedless heard
By Geraldine, his dear and matchless theme.
Th' illusion's fled—but not from me alone
Is harmless pleasure wrested by your fall.
The boy, from thraldom 'scaped, would hither haste
With bounding step, and mount, with lightsome heart,
The mossy slope, and while he careful cull'd
The suckling wild, or seiz'd the linnet's nest,
271
Freshness, and health, and spirit from your breeze.
The lover too would lead from prying eyes,
Along your secret glen, his mistress coy;
Her blush was veiled by the circling gloom,
And safe concealment chas'd the fear that clos'd
Those lips, which long'd to tell the softest tale.
Here the pale student, who had patient por'd
O'er lore profound, would slowly stalk at close
Of twilight gray, what time the thrush's note
Rang shrill; and still his busy thoughts would turn
To the high lessons and nice subtilties
With which his brain was fraught, till Nature's charms
Won him, reluctant, from his crabbed dream
To pensive peace; now on his glancing eye
The star of eve arises, through the trees
Twinkling by starts—and deeper darkness now
Creeps o'er the sky, and all the sparkling host
In quick succession catch his learned gaze.
But to the son of song far dearer still
Your calm and dim retreat; at midnight damp,
When the white moon-beam slanted thro' your breaks,
He'd sit entranc'd beneath the loftiest pine,
And listen to the wind, that fitful swell'd
Amid its restless boughs, and then, perchance,
The dying cadence of the bird of night
272
In linked melody, is loudly pour'd.
Or harsher was the hour; the thicken'd clouds
Roll'd the loud thunder—Sudden burst the glare
Of lightnings livid, wavy—quick succeeds
A blacker night—and now the grove assumes
A sacred horror, such as erst appall'd
The druid in his woods, who shuddering bent
Before his Gods, and fear'd his potent prayer
Might force, embodied, on his quivering sight,
The awful, frowning Spirit of the shade.
Such the pure pleasures which thou once hast given;
And e'en the hasty traveller shall mourn
Your fallen pride, and miss the spot, where, pleas'd,
His eye had rested; mid the wide-spread scene,
Where Wensome glides along his sedgy meads,
Bounded by sloping hills, with wood embrown'd,
Yon bleak, bare ridge shall mock the scornful arm
That robb'd it of its honours—yes, fair grove,
For thee the sigh shall rise, while feeling glows,
While taste inspires, and rural beauty charms.
Nov. 1808.
| Poetical works of the late F. Sayers | |