 | The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale |  |
I. VOL. I.
THE POET;
A POEM.
Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior, atque os
Magna sonaturum, des nominis hujus Honorem.
Horace.
Magna sonaturum, des nominis hujus Honorem.
Horace.
1
1773.
Hard is the task the poet's life to scan,
So different from the common mode of man:
A Proteus he, assuming various shapes,
All but the philosophic sage escapes.
Conducted now by reason's purest ray,
Now driven by passion's unresisted sway:
A victim now to agonizing woe,
Now raised to raptures such as angels know:
Now indolent, now planning some great work;
Now dull as Crosby , and now bright as Burke:
Weak, vigorous, various, unexampled mind;
Thyself a microcosm of human kind!
So different from the common mode of man:
A Proteus he, assuming various shapes,
All but the philosophic sage escapes.
Conducted now by reason's purest ray,
Now driven by passion's unresisted sway:
A victim now to agonizing woe,
Now raised to raptures such as angels know:
Now indolent, now planning some great work;
Now dull as Crosby , and now bright as Burke:
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Thyself a microcosm of human kind!
Yet of these strange effects the latent cause
We may explore, by tracing nature's laws;
Those laws consistent, which to order bind
The seeming freaks of matter, and of mind;
Which guide the comet darting through the pole,
And rein the fervor of the Poet's soul.
We may explore, by tracing nature's laws;
Those laws consistent, which to order bind
The seeming freaks of matter, and of mind;
Which guide the comet darting through the pole,
And rein the fervor of the Poet's soul.
Is not the ball's velocity of course
Just in proportion to the impelling force?
Is not the river's current swift, or slow,
As watery weight, and slope promote it's flow?
Must not a being, then, by nature wrought,
To show her power in matter, and in thought,
Each light impression thrilling through his frame,
Inspired by heaven's most sublimated flame;
Must not he quit the common mortal sphere,
And take an ardent, and a wide career;
Now æther's heights undauntedly explore,
And wander now on Styx's dreary shore;
Prostrate his mind, and rapt in bliss, by turns,
As the man flags, or as the angel burns:
By virtue, now, to groves Athenian led,
Where Plato's genius hovers o'er his head;
A heedless victim, now, to low desire;
All nerve his body, and his soul all fire?
Just in proportion to the impelling force?
Is not the river's current swift, or slow,
As watery weight, and slope promote it's flow?
Must not a being, then, by nature wrought,
To show her power in matter, and in thought,
Each light impression thrilling through his frame,
Inspired by heaven's most sublimated flame;
Must not he quit the common mortal sphere,
And take an ardent, and a wide career;
Now æther's heights undauntedly explore,
And wander now on Styx's dreary shore;
Prostrate his mind, and rapt in bliss, by turns,
As the man flags, or as the angel burns:
3
Where Plato's genius hovers o'er his head;
A heedless victim, now, to low desire;
All nerve his body, and his soul all fire?
Hail, mild Philosophy! the province thine,
To chase the spectres of the dark Divine!
Not to fix errour, but with reason's art,
To root the stiff old-woman from the heart.
'Tis to thy calm investigation given
To reconcile to man the ways of Heaven;
To teach us to subdue the zealot's fire,
Nor rashly to detest, nor to admire;
Serenely to reject, and to approve,
Give vice our pity, virtue all our love;
By Bethlehem's candid star our course to steer,
Benign to others, to ourselves severe!
To chase the spectres of the dark Divine!
Not to fix errour, but with reason's art,
To root the stiff old-woman from the heart.
'Tis to thy calm investigation given
To reconcile to man the ways of Heaven;
To teach us to subdue the zealot's fire,
Nor rashly to detest, nor to admire;
Serenely to reject, and to approve,
Give vice our pity, virtue all our love;
By Bethlehem's candid star our course to steer,
Benign to others, to ourselves severe!
The pensive bard, even in his boyish days,
With witless hand anticipates the bays,
Unconscious yet of poetry and praise:
Leaves his companions to their trifling play,
In childish pastime to protract the day;
Feels the sweet charm of contemplation's power,
And steals from noise to her sequestered bower.
Or by more active instinct urged, he strays
Through nature's devious, and romantic ways;
Impatient seeks the venerable wood,
The rock impending, and the rushing flood:
Or woos the musick of a silver stream
(The murmuring opiate of the poet's dream)
Some stream like Avon's, where young Shakespeare thought,
His soul transported while the muses taught;
Seizing, even then, the drama's wondrous plan,
The varied character of motley man;
Now darting down to Pluto's dark abodes,
With bolder flight now mixing with the gods;
Already borne through earth, sea, air, and sky,
All fancy's world expanding to his eye.
With witless hand anticipates the bays,
Unconscious yet of poetry and praise:
Leaves his companions to their trifling play,
In childish pastime to protract the day;
4
And steals from noise to her sequestered bower.
Or by more active instinct urged, he strays
Through nature's devious, and romantic ways;
Impatient seeks the venerable wood,
The rock impending, and the rushing flood:
Or woos the musick of a silver stream
(The murmuring opiate of the poet's dream)
Some stream like Avon's, where young Shakespeare thought,
His soul transported while the muses taught;
Seizing, even then, the drama's wondrous plan,
The varied character of motley man;
Now darting down to Pluto's dark abodes,
With bolder flight now mixing with the gods;
Already borne through earth, sea, air, and sky,
All fancy's world expanding to his eye.
Thus the susceptible, and artless maid,
Novice to love, as yet of men afraid,
Warmed by a spark from some young amorous eye,
To shades from social haunts is wont to fly;
And there she sighs, and weeps, she knows not why.
But to his verse maturing years impart
A stronger ardour with a chaster art;
Genius and judgment happily conspire,
And calm design directs impetuous fire.
Gay fiction now adorns important truth;
He checks the intemperate sallies of his youth;
With eye severe the brilliant line surveys,
Conscious that poets must not snatch the bays;
By the slow critick's hand must fix their fame,
And life devote to an immortal name.
Novice to love, as yet of men afraid,
Warmed by a spark from some young amorous eye,
To shades from social haunts is wont to fly;
And there she sighs, and weeps, she knows not why.
5
A stronger ardour with a chaster art;
Genius and judgment happily conspire,
And calm design directs impetuous fire.
Gay fiction now adorns important truth;
He checks the intemperate sallies of his youth;
With eye severe the brilliant line surveys,
Conscious that poets must not snatch the bays;
By the slow critick's hand must fix their fame,
And life devote to an immortal name.
Whatever objects to mankind are dear
Within the sensitive, or mental sphere;
To life whatever comforts make us cling,
A tenfold pleasure to the Poet bring.
Then with what strong impressions must he prove
The joys ecstatick of all-powerful love!
Of love, whose laws the coldest hearts obey,
Who breathes a fervour in Bœotian clay;
Bids tenderness from savage natures flow,
And makes a miser even his gold forego;
Parent and sovereign of the human soul!
God of the line and god of either pole!
The Poet's love to sense is not confined;
It opes the world of fancy to his mind:
Love in the gross, the animal degree,
Talbot or Broughton feels as well as he:
Rude, heavy lumps of vegetative earth,
By nature viewed unkindly at their Birth;
Meant but by her some vacuum to supply,
To eat, and drink, and generate, and die.
Within the sensitive, or mental sphere;
To life whatever comforts make us cling,
A tenfold pleasure to the Poet bring.
Then with what strong impressions must he prove
The joys ecstatick of all-powerful love!
Of love, whose laws the coldest hearts obey,
Who breathes a fervour in Bœotian clay;
Bids tenderness from savage natures flow,
And makes a miser even his gold forego;
Parent and sovereign of the human soul!
God of the line and god of either pole!
6
It opes the world of fancy to his mind:
Love in the gross, the animal degree,
Talbot or Broughton feels as well as he:
Rude, heavy lumps of vegetative earth,
By nature viewed unkindly at their Birth;
Meant but by her some vacuum to supply,
To eat, and drink, and generate, and die.
When Sol descending shoots a milder light,
The placid medium 'twixt the day and night;
When vernal bloom, and musick cheer each grove,
Awaking genius, and awaking love;
The Poet, and his nymph sequestered stray,
Where magic fancy points the enchanted way.
The birds their carols chaunt; the jocund spring
Sheds all Arabia from his purple wing:
Soft zephyr breathes, with gentle pleasure fraught,
Diffusing fragrance, and inspiring thought.
With ardent eye the bard surveys the scene,
But brighter thinks his fair Arcadian queen:
From the creative lustre of her eye,
Nature's gay tints receive a livelier dye;
The feathered tribe, while she their chorus hears,
Not less than Linley's voice enchant his ears;
Him, by his Cælia's side, the zephyr greets
With softer whispers, and more balmy sweets.
All spring's rich gifts the power of beauty share,
All nature's charms concenter in the fair.
Her look, her step excites poetic flame,
And brings fine objects which elude a name:
The bliss he feels in this elysian hour,
Of deathless verse prepares the future power.
Ideas rising on ideas throng;
His working bosom teems with embryo-song.
Hear this, ye tinsel slaves, misnamed the great,
And curse the tedious pageantry of state.
The placid medium 'twixt the day and night;
When vernal bloom, and musick cheer each grove,
Awaking genius, and awaking love;
The Poet, and his nymph sequestered stray,
Where magic fancy points the enchanted way.
The birds their carols chaunt; the jocund spring
Sheds all Arabia from his purple wing:
Soft zephyr breathes, with gentle pleasure fraught,
Diffusing fragrance, and inspiring thought.
With ardent eye the bard surveys the scene,
But brighter thinks his fair Arcadian queen:
From the creative lustre of her eye,
Nature's gay tints receive a livelier dye;
7
Not less than Linley's voice enchant his ears;
Him, by his Cælia's side, the zephyr greets
With softer whispers, and more balmy sweets.
All spring's rich gifts the power of beauty share,
All nature's charms concenter in the fair.
Her look, her step excites poetic flame,
And brings fine objects which elude a name:
The bliss he feels in this elysian hour,
Of deathless verse prepares the future power.
Ideas rising on ideas throng;
His working bosom teems with embryo-song.
Hear this, ye tinsel slaves, misnamed the great,
And curse the tedious pageantry of state.
Oft with the love of simple nature smit,
May I the seat of noise, and folly quit;
It's tainted manners, and it's tainted air,
And to the calm of rural scenes repair:
Oft may I stray through Peckham's winding shades,
Sweet haunt of poets, and the tuneful maids;
In quest of imagery mount Haly-Hill,
Where varied views the eye, and fancy fill;
Where commerce, and where agriculture smile,
And show the matchless glory of our isle.
May I the seat of noise, and folly quit;
It's tainted manners, and it's tainted air,
And to the calm of rural scenes repair:
Oft may I stray through Peckham's winding shades,
Sweet haunt of poets, and the tuneful maids;
In quest of imagery mount Haly-Hill,
Where varied views the eye, and fancy fill;
8
And show the matchless glory of our isle.
In clouded majesty there London towers,
A striking contrast to Arcadian bowers.
Methinks I view it from the lofty stand,
The pride of Europe raised in freedom's land;
Abode of all that's great, and all that's base,
The shame, and honour of the human race.
A striking contrast to Arcadian bowers.
Methinks I view it from the lofty stand,
The pride of Europe raised in freedom's land;
Abode of all that's great, and all that's base,
The shame, and honour of the human race.
There Thames, of English bards the hallowed theme,
Pours his transparent, and majestic stream.
On the charmed eye the passing canvass plays,
It's bosom gilded with the solar rays:
Fair emblem of our wealth's exhaustless vein;
Fair emblem of our Empire on the main!
Pours his transparent, and majestic stream.
On the charmed eye the passing canvass plays,
It's bosom gilded with the solar rays:
Fair emblem of our wealth's exhaustless vein;
Fair emblem of our Empire on the main!
Hampstead and Highgate northward close the scene,
They front my hill; a world of sweets between!
In my mind's eye with joy the heights I see;
For Middlesex! my soul exults in thee!
Thy sons, at freedom's call, would rouse the land,
Should kings aspire to absolute command;
Boldly the rights of Englishmen would claim,
Would catch a Russel's or a Sydney's flame.
They front my hill; a world of sweets between!
In my mind's eye with joy the heights I see;
For Middlesex! my soul exults in thee!
Thy sons, at freedom's call, would rouse the land,
Should kings aspire to absolute command;
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Would catch a Russel's or a Sydney's flame.
There the long slope of Essex we pursue;
Another Eden there in Kent we view;
The hills of Berks and Hertford we descry,
And distant Suffolk mingles with the sky.
The blooming plain of Surry stretched below,
Bespeaks innoxious life exempt from woe:
But ah! too short it's distance is from town;
The neighbouring capital infects the clown.
Another Eden there in Kent we view;
The hills of Berks and Hertford we descry,
And distant Suffolk mingles with the sky.
The blooming plain of Surry stretched below,
Bespeaks innoxious life exempt from woe:
But ah! too short it's distance is from town;
The neighbouring capital infects the clown.
Yet though the bliss inspired by nature's charms,
The poet's breast with strongest influence warms;
He oft exerts imagination's power
Without the nymph, and the luxuriant bower;
Trusts to his native energy of mind,
And soars above the vulgar of mankind;
Enjoys existence, wakes the genial strain,
When souls inferiour only live to pain;
When a dire group of dark ideas meet,
The gloomy day, the catchpole, and the fleet.
Fancy to him his want of wealth supplies,
Brings her gay objects of a thousand dyes:
Possessing them he spurns the miser's hoard,
The splendid lacquey, the luxurious board;
Looks down on ---, whose power is but a bribe,
Whose glory, but to rule a venal tribe.
The poet's breast with strongest influence warms;
He oft exerts imagination's power
Without the nymph, and the luxuriant bower;
Trusts to his native energy of mind,
And soars above the vulgar of mankind;
Enjoys existence, wakes the genial strain,
When souls inferiour only live to pain;
When a dire group of dark ideas meet,
The gloomy day, the catchpole, and the fleet.
Fancy to him his want of wealth supplies,
Brings her gay objects of a thousand dyes:
10
The splendid lacquey, the luxurious board;
Looks down on ---, whose power is but a bribe,
Whose glory, but to rule a venal tribe.
Though fortune frowned on Savage from his birth,
Rather than doze a torpid son of earth,
Proprietor of India's richest mine,
I'd be that hapless favourite of the Nine:
And on the ashes of a glass-house laid,
But raised to heaven by each Aonian maid,
My soul to rapture more than human wrought,
By ardent genius, by excursive thought;
Strongly inspired, and panting for renown,
I would not envy kings the couch of down.
Rather than doze a torpid son of earth,
Proprietor of India's richest mine,
I'd be that hapless favourite of the Nine:
And on the ashes of a glass-house laid,
But raised to heaven by each Aonian maid,
11
By ardent genius, by excursive thought;
Strongly inspired, and panting for renown,
I would not envy kings the couch of down.
Ye happy few, who, in your genial hours,
Feel the fine raptures raised by fancy's powers—
While great Cervantes, in a Moorish jail,
But free in mind, composed his wondrous tale;
His wondrous tale, which, with unrivalled art,
Informs the head and captivates the heart;
Such animation to a fiction gives,
That still before our eyes his drama lives;
We still see Quixote's person with his name,
And fat round Sancho, of proverbial fame;
Fired by the fable, like the knight we rave,
And long to visit good Quixano's grave—
While thus, ye happy few, his ardent soul,
Of cruel fortune spurned the dire controul;
Maintained the right to chosen spirits given,
Soared above misery, and asserted heaven—
Was not this luminary happier far
Than mortals burnished with a tinsel star?
Feel the fine raptures raised by fancy's powers—
While great Cervantes, in a Moorish jail,
But free in mind, composed his wondrous tale;
His wondrous tale, which, with unrivalled art,
Informs the head and captivates the heart;
Such animation to a fiction gives,
That still before our eyes his drama lives;
12
And fat round Sancho, of proverbial fame;
Fired by the fable, like the knight we rave,
And long to visit good Quixano's grave—
While thus, ye happy few, his ardent soul,
Of cruel fortune spurned the dire controul;
Maintained the right to chosen spirits given,
Soared above misery, and asserted heaven—
Was not this luminary happier far
Than mortals burnished with a tinsel star?
No shocks the bard's propitious hours controul;
Onward he presses to his wished-for goal:
Fired with the prospect of immortal fame,
The heart-felt musick of a poet's name,
The world ideal which absorbs the mind,
He leaves his weaknesses, and wants behind.
The Delian God his hallowed bosom fills,
Precluding physical, and moral ills.
These are the enjoyments which the poet knows;
And these enjoyments balance all his woes.
The true, great poet's dignity of soul
Scorns to usurp, or bear unjust controul;
Warmly a brother-bard's desert befriends,
Nor aims, by sordid means, at noble ends:
He will not, like an envious bard, exclaim
Against a living candidate for fame;
Merit it's full applause he will not grudge;
In him the author will not warp the judge.
Parnassian luminaries, near, and bright,
May hurt, for him, a weak, distempered sight;
He will not sicken at the genial ray,
Nor e'er prefer a Parnell to a Gray.
Onward he presses to his wished-for goal:
Fired with the prospect of immortal fame,
The heart-felt musick of a poet's name,
The world ideal which absorbs the mind,
He leaves his weaknesses, and wants behind.
The Delian God his hallowed bosom fills,
Precluding physical, and moral ills.
These are the enjoyments which the poet knows;
And these enjoyments balance all his woes.
13
Scorns to usurp, or bear unjust controul;
Warmly a brother-bard's desert befriends,
Nor aims, by sordid means, at noble ends:
He will not, like an envious bard, exclaim
Against a living candidate for fame;
Merit it's full applause he will not grudge;
In him the author will not warp the judge.
Parnassian luminaries, near, and bright,
May hurt, for him, a weak, distempered sight;
He will not sicken at the genial ray,
Nor e'er prefer a Parnell to a Gray.
To find his lays make other bard's aspire,
Warms him with generous, not with hostile fire;
With eager eye the sacred wreath he views,
Withheld from malice, granted to the muse;
Conscious of noble powers, he spurns all art,
But that which moves, and captivates the heart;
Secure in genius, deigns not an appeal
To those who gape, and stare, but those who feel;
To those who soar, like him, on fancy's wings,
To those whose souls revibrate what he sings.
Warms him with generous, not with hostile fire;
With eager eye the sacred wreath he views,
Withheld from malice, granted to the muse;
Conscious of noble powers, he spurns all art,
But that which moves, and captivates the heart;
14
To those who gape, and stare, but those who feel;
To those who soar, like him, on fancy's wings,
To those whose souls revibrate what he sings.
But as the different talents of mankind
Act, in their just decrees, upon his mind,
Too warm to perpetrate deliberate wrong,
His soul in union ever with his tongue;
A stranger he to jealousy, and fear,
Imprudent oft, but never insincere;
As, on the few who with the greatest vie,
He will not cast a dark, malignant eye;
Nor will he prostitute a word of praise
On fluent writers of insipid lays:
Fears not to brand the selfish, and the vain,
Who mix presumptuous, with the tuneful train;
By profit rate the judgment of the town,
And fancy caprice will confirm renown.
Act, in their just decrees, upon his mind,
Too warm to perpetrate deliberate wrong,
His soul in union ever with his tongue;
A stranger he to jealousy, and fear,
Imprudent oft, but never insincere;
As, on the few who with the greatest vie,
He will not cast a dark, malignant eye;
Nor will he prostitute a word of praise
On fluent writers of insipid lays:
Fears not to brand the selfish, and the vain,
Who mix presumptuous, with the tuneful train;
By profit rate the judgment of the town,
And fancy caprice will confirm renown.
But still 'tis fashion Garrick to admire;
Yet his, and Shakespeare's powers no more inspire
Our dissipated souls with hope or fear,
Horror excite, or draw the tender tear.
Who like immortal Shakespeare ever wrote?
Who ere like Garrick imaged what he thought?
Hence the great actor, in our trifling age,
Is suffered, is applauded on the stage.
The well-earned laurels are allowed to bloom
Round Garrick's brow, and Shakespeare's hallowed tomb.
Coxcombs and ladies dare not yet condemn
The scenes they lounge at with a Dutchman's phlegm.
Yet his, and Shakespeare's powers no more inspire
Our dissipated souls with hope or fear,
Horror excite, or draw the tender tear.
15
Who ere like Garrick imaged what he thought?
Hence the great actor, in our trifling age,
Is suffered, is applauded on the stage.
The well-earned laurels are allowed to bloom
Round Garrick's brow, and Shakespeare's hallowed tomb.
Coxcombs and ladies dare not yet condemn
The scenes they lounge at with a Dutchman's phlegm.
Yet baubles brought from Italy, or France,
An eunuch's pipe, a new-imported dance,
Draw more attention than the finest play—
Heinel from Hamlet bears the palm away.
An eunuch's pipe, a new-imported dance,
Draw more attention than the finest play—
Heinel from Hamlet bears the palm away.
Yet, though through life you meet unequal fate
(Life, to great minds, is but a trifling date)
From just posterity be sure of praise,
And, like Apelles, paint for future days.
'Twas long ere Milton's epic powers were known,
And Thomsom, when he rose, but faintly shone.
Time gives to poets their meridian day,
And clears, at length, their morning's mist away;
When honest gratitude, with fancy flowed,
Through all a secular, or birth-day ode!
(Life, to great minds, is but a trifling date)
From just posterity be sure of praise,
And, like Apelles, paint for future days.
'Twas long ere Milton's epic powers were known,
And Thomsom, when he rose, but faintly shone.
16
And clears, at length, their morning's mist away;
When honest gratitude, with fancy flowed,
Through all a secular, or birth-day ode!
But now no Colbert with the brightest fame
Adorns a minister's, and monarch's name;
Rewards a soft Racine's persuasive art,
Draws virtue's tear, and purifies the heart;
Bids a Boileau be wholesomely severe,
And warms the satirist he needs not fear.
No longer now the nine Aonian maids
Find hospitable haunts in royal shades:
Poets are left to penury a prey,
The slaves of trade, the hirelings of the day.
Some pert, prim---, or some rougher Turk
Prescribes the theme, the measure of the work;
Checks the free thought, lops off the ardent word,
On genius frowns, and bows the knee to Hurde.
Yet though his strains, how well soe'er he sings,
Charm not the callous ear of modern kings;
Perhaps his generous lordship, or his grace,
Acquainted well with the poetic race,
Acquainted with the free, the fervid mind,
Which, in it's ardour, levels all mankind,
Some chosen favour for the bard intends;
Genius, at length, it's happy star befriends.
Adorns a minister's, and monarch's name;
Rewards a soft Racine's persuasive art,
Draws virtue's tear, and purifies the heart;
Bids a Boileau be wholesomely severe,
And warms the satirist he needs not fear.
No longer now the nine Aonian maids
Find hospitable haunts in royal shades:
Poets are left to penury a prey,
The slaves of trade, the hirelings of the day.
Some pert, prim---, or some rougher Turk
Prescribes the theme, the measure of the work;
Checks the free thought, lops off the ardent word,
On genius frowns, and bows the knee to Hurde.
17
Charm not the callous ear of modern kings;
Perhaps his generous lordship, or his grace,
Acquainted well with the poetic race,
Acquainted with the free, the fervid mind,
Which, in it's ardour, levels all mankind,
Some chosen favour for the bard intends;
Genius, at length, it's happy star befriends.
A poor black slave this noble lord would buy,
And marks our hero with a selfish eye;
A poet with a paltry sum invites,
To guard his mansion from infernal sprights;
To teach him how to live, and how to die—
For a rich miser to obtain the sky;
Priscian's cold rules minutely to explain,
To lead dull pupils to Minerva's fane;
To bear the pedagogue's oppressive load;
To reap where step-dame nature never sowed.
And marks our hero with a selfish eye;
A poet with a paltry sum invites,
To guard his mansion from infernal sprights;
To teach him how to live, and how to die—
For a rich miser to obtain the sky;
Priscian's cold rules minutely to explain,
To lead dull pupils to Minerva's fane;
To bear the pedagogue's oppressive load;
To reap where step-dame nature never sowed.
I blush to view a melancholy scene;
Poets, as mortals, must be sometimes mean.
Censure will rail when candour will forgive;
Few, through all trials, can undaunted live.
He, to whom fortune ever was a foe,
He, who hath struggled, from his birth, with woe,
May feel at length his generous powers decay;
The Muse's flame, neglected, dies away.
Perhaps you wish the Poet may retain
A mind as vigorous as his moral strain;
Then opportunely all his ills redress,
Nor suffer him to sink by long distress;
Give not humanity too much to bear;
All characters are levelled by despair.
Poets, as mortals, must be sometimes mean.
Censure will rail when candour will forgive;
Few, through all trials, can undaunted live.
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He, who hath struggled, from his birth, with woe,
May feel at length his generous powers decay;
The Muse's flame, neglected, dies away.
Perhaps you wish the Poet may retain
A mind as vigorous as his moral strain;
Then opportunely all his ills redress,
Nor suffer him to sink by long distress;
Give not humanity too much to bear;
All characters are levelled by despair.
The bard, against grim want no longer proof
(His robes turn brown, and Dodsley stands aloof)
Accepts this offer, and is dubbed, at once,
A chapel-organ, and a plodding dunce.
(His robes turn brown, and Dodsley stands aloof)
Accepts this offer, and is dubbed, at once,
A chapel-organ, and a plodding dunce.
Unequal station! most preposterous fate!
Worst of all bad connexions with the Great!
A Spartan Helot in a month he's grown,
Watches, with awe, my lady's smile and frown;
Hangs, with feigned rapture, on his grace's words,
On some stale nonsense from the house of lords;
Important truth investigates no more,
But seems surprised that two and two make four:
To servile art his genius is confined,
Each movement of his body and his mind:
His life he models by a blockhead's plan,
And for the fantocino quits the man.
Worst of all bad connexions with the Great!
A Spartan Helot in a month he's grown,
Watches, with awe, my lady's smile and frown;
Hangs, with feigned rapture, on his grace's words,
On some stale nonsense from the house of lords;
Important truth investigates no more,
But seems surprised that two and two make four:
19
Each movement of his body and his mind:
His life he models by a blockhead's plan,
And for the fantocino quits the man.
These constant fetters if he will not wear,
Almost as galling ills he's doomed to bear.
Severe, oh hapless genius, is thy fate!
While private knaves, or plunderers of the state
Shine in the box, or in the chariot roll,
What cruel torment oft invades thy soul!
Condemned, for bread, without the inspiring power,
To counteract the dull, the languid hour;
Beneath thy genuine energy to write,
To earn, with pain, the poor, extorted mite;
Condemned to drudge in sickness, and in health,
To starve, and raise thy dull oppressor's wealth,
Who pities thee, who values thee no more
Than Barbary-pirates those who tug the oar;
To sooth, with change, the idle, and the vain,
Who sick of trifles, trifle with thy strain;
Amuse a coxcomb lounging o'er his tea,
Or while the Frenchman forms the smart toupee;
Divert from cent per cent city-sage,
Tired with the ledger's more important page.
Almost as galling ills he's doomed to bear.
Severe, oh hapless genius, is thy fate!
While private knaves, or plunderers of the state
Shine in the box, or in the chariot roll,
What cruel torment oft invades thy soul!
Condemned, for bread, without the inspiring power,
To counteract the dull, the languid hour;
Beneath thy genuine energy to write,
To earn, with pain, the poor, extorted mite;
Condemned to drudge in sickness, and in health,
To starve, and raise thy dull oppressor's wealth,
Who pities thee, who values thee no more
Than Barbary-pirates those who tug the oar;
To sooth, with change, the idle, and the vain,
Who sick of trifles, trifle with thy strain;
Amuse a coxcomb lounging o'er his tea,
Or while the Frenchman forms the smart toupee;
20
Tired with the ledger's more important page.
But with the golden crisis when thou'rt blest,
And all the god inspires thy ardent breast;
When worthy themes the happy hours employ,
Strong is thy verse, Elysian is thy joy.
Then all the magick of the muse is thine,
Their powers, idea, and expression join;
And word gives force to word, and line ennobles line.
Music, from rapture sprung, thy strains impart,
At once they charm the ear, and thrill the heart.
In them no flower, no shady tree is placed
Of barren words amidst a dreary waste.
No weak effusions thine, no sleepy tale,
Begot by Langhorne on his Burton-ale:
In thee no languid epithets we find,
No words, which never were before combined:
Happy their bard, to find some hackneyed scene,
The chrystal fountain, or the velvet green!
And all the god inspires thy ardent breast;
When worthy themes the happy hours employ,
Strong is thy verse, Elysian is thy joy.
Then all the magick of the muse is thine,
Their powers, idea, and expression join;
And word gives force to word, and line ennobles line.
Music, from rapture sprung, thy strains impart,
At once they charm the ear, and thrill the heart.
In them no flower, no shady tree is placed
Of barren words amidst a dreary waste.
No weak effusions thine, no sleepy tale,
Begot by Langhorne on his Burton-ale:
In thee no languid epithets we find,
No words, which never were before combined:
Happy their bard, to find some hackneyed scene,
The chrystal fountain, or the velvet green!
Him fancy in his calmer hours inspires,
When warmed by books and her with gentler fires;
When Livy, or when Tacitus he reads,
And emulates, in thought, heroic deeds;
Enjoys, without the labour to compose,
Lucretian verse, or Ciceronian prose.
When warmed by books and her with gentler fires;
21
And emulates, in thought, heroic deeds;
Enjoys, without the labour to compose,
Lucretian verse, or Ciceronian prose.
Yet, in his mind, the moderns too excel
In great atchievements, and in writing well;
No nameless dignity to him appears
In the dread sanction of two thousand years.
In great atchievements, and in writing well;
No nameless dignity to him appears
In the dread sanction of two thousand years.
Gay Horace, for his pure Augustan lays
Better, he thinks, deserves the lyric bays
Than Pindar, for his Greek, and age renowned;
Now in the clouds, now in the low profound,
Now on the circus, now in Jove's abode,
Parent of nonsense in the shape of ode.
Better, he thinks, deserves the lyric bays
Than Pindar, for his Greek, and age renowned;
Now in the clouds, now in the low profound,
Now on the circus, now in Jove's abode,
Parent of nonsense in the shape of ode.
Old books he reads not to secure a claim,
By meagre learning, to scholastic fame;
Not for the Roman, or Athenian tongue,
But for the truths they've urged, the strains they've sung;
Not a Dutch commentator's art to show,
Which pedants, had they sense, would blush to know.
The bard, despising literary toys,
Each paper-edifice of bearded boys,
Studies the ancients with superior views,
His reason to inform, enrich his muse;
Of men the various nature to explore,
Select, with taste, from fancy's genial store;
Their spirit to imbibe, like them to shine,
And pour their lustre on his glowing line.
By meagre learning, to scholastic fame;
Not for the Roman, or Athenian tongue,
But for the truths they've urged, the strains they've sung;
Not a Dutch commentator's art to show,
Which pedants, had they sense, would blush to know.
22
Each paper-edifice of bearded boys,
Studies the ancients with superior views,
His reason to inform, enrich his muse;
Of men the various nature to explore,
Select, with taste, from fancy's genial store;
Their spirit to imbibe, like them to shine,
And pour their lustre on his glowing line.
Peace to the men with lucubration pale,
Who at the flights of modern genius rail;
A sounding rant from Æschylus rehearse,
Throw light on Lycophron's obscurest verse;
Their learning on the Laticlave display,
Of fools the wonder, and of wits the prey!
Who at the flights of modern genius rail;
A sounding rant from Æschylus rehearse,
Throw light on Lycophron's obscurest verse;
Their learning on the Laticlave display,
Of fools the wonder, and of wits the prey!
He cares not how the Spartan broth was made,
Nor how the old latrunculi were played;
The medal's dubious face he'll ne'er deplore,
Nor try the huge digamma to restore:
He leaves the childish torture of the brain
To father Bentley, and his critic-train;
Leaves the small graces, and the war of words
To slashing Warburtons and piddling Hurdes.
To feeling minds would men of learning write?
Let pleasure, in their works, with truth unite.
The bard whose lively sentiments require
Chaste elegance transfusing generous fire;
Who hates that clumsy Goth, scholastic pride,
With which bad taste is constantly allied;
Studious, himself, of composition's laws,
With toil, and langour erudition draws
From Warburton's profound, but muddy source,
Whose style is negligent, and rude his force;
Who, if great Julian for his theme he takes,
Of the sick reader an Apostate makes.
Nor how the old latrunculi were played;
The medal's dubious face he'll ne'er deplore,
Nor try the huge digamma to restore:
He leaves the childish torture of the brain
To father Bentley, and his critic-train;
Leaves the small graces, and the war of words
To slashing Warburtons and piddling Hurdes.
23
Let pleasure, in their works, with truth unite.
The bard whose lively sentiments require
Chaste elegance transfusing generous fire;
Who hates that clumsy Goth, scholastic pride,
With which bad taste is constantly allied;
Studious, himself, of composition's laws,
With toil, and langour erudition draws
From Warburton's profound, but muddy source,
Whose style is negligent, and rude his force;
Who, if great Julian for his theme he takes,
Of the sick reader an Apostate makes.
Seldom the poet's warmth such writers cool;
Nor the dogmatical, nor flimsy school
He seeks; but consecrates important hours
To names distinguished by sublimer powers;
From whom you read the dictates of the heart,
Where nature is, with ease, enforced by art;
Pedantic language who disdain to speak,
And fright not readers with superfluous greek;
Improve the thoughts of others by their own,
And work rough learning to a mellow tone;
Like Johnson, tuneful, animated, strong,
Our living glory both in prose and song.
Nor the dogmatical, nor flimsy school
He seeks; but consecrates important hours
To names distinguished by sublimer powers;
From whom you read the dictates of the heart,
Where nature is, with ease, enforced by art;
Pedantic language who disdain to speak,
And fright not readers with superfluous greek;
Improve the thoughts of others by their own,
And work rough learning to a mellow tone;
24
Our living glory both in prose and song.
The godlike few, who rouzed by glory's charms,
Acquire supremacy in arts, and arms,
Who urged by fervid energy of mind,
Shoot from the orbit of the human kind,
Poets with sympathetic warmth admire,
And while they view their deeds, catch all their fire.
Acquire supremacy in arts, and arms,
Who urged by fervid energy of mind,
Shoot from the orbit of the human kind,
Poets with sympathetic warmth admire,
And while they view their deeds, catch all their fire.
“Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
“From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
“The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find,
“Or make an enemy of all mankind.
“Not one looks forward; onward still he goes,
“Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose.”
“From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
“The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find,
“Or make an enemy of all mankind.
“Not one looks forward; onward still he goes,
“Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose.”
So sung the Twitnham-swan, whose throb for praise
To valour should have given more liberal lays.
How couldst thou, Pope, with sacrilegious pen,
With Bedlam's changelings rank the first of men;
Thou too, like them, a candidate for fame,
Your races different, but your goal the same?
Is this philosophy's expanded truth?
Is this the character of Pella's youth?
Of him, whose genius conquered like his sword,
Of men in letters, as in arms, the lord;
Relaxed from state, or from the martial plain,
Who soothed his nights with Homer's lofty strain;
With the dread steel it lay beneath his head,
Each Pallas guardian of the hero's bed.
To valour should have given more liberal lays.
How couldst thou, Pope, with sacrilegious pen,
With Bedlam's changelings rank the first of men;
Thou too, like them, a candidate for fame,
Your races different, but your goal the same?
25
Is this the character of Pella's youth?
Of him, whose genius conquered like his sword,
Of men in letters, as in arms, the lord;
Relaxed from state, or from the martial plain,
Who soothed his nights with Homer's lofty strain;
With the dread steel it lay beneath his head,
Each Pallas guardian of the hero's bed.
Divine humanity was all his own,
As bright his candour as his ardour shone.
Witness his feelings when Darius bled,
The pomp funereal, and the tears he shed.
His rival he had fought, and Greece's foe,
But gave to suffering virtue all his woe;
With soft compassion tempered conquest's plan,
The monarch vanquished, but deplored the man.
As bright his candour as his ardour shone.
Witness his feelings when Darius bled,
The pomp funereal, and the tears he shed.
His rival he had fought, and Greece's foe,
But gave to suffering virtue all his woe;
With soft compassion tempered conquest's plan,
The monarch vanquished, but deplored the man.
Tell me by what authentic marks we find
This king a rancorous foe to human kind?
At Babylon the victor yields his breath;
What unaffected sorrows grace his death!
Courtiers have that within which passeth show,
By stupor turned to monuments of woe;
Nations subdued lament their conqueror's fate;
Their love had stretched his life to Nestor's date.
The world's encomiums heedless verse defy,
And give succeeding obloquy the lye.
This king a rancorous foe to human kind?
At Babylon the victor yields his breath;
What unaffected sorrows grace his death!
Courtiers have that within which passeth show,
By stupor turned to monuments of woe;
26
Their love had stretched his life to Nestor's date.
The world's encomiums heedless verse defy,
And give succeeding obloquy the lye.
In vain for glory heroes toil, and bleed,
If madness gives the image of the Swede.
For me, let policy admire the Czar;
My soul adores this thunderbolt of war;
Led by the honest impulse of the muse,
Loves what dull Dutchmen call romantic views;
With pleasure sees this prodigy drawn forth
By three rapacious robbers of the North;
Beholds this unexpected comet rise,
Advance, and fix all trembling Europe's eyes,
And shoot its train athwart the polar skies.
If madness gives the image of the Swede.
For me, let policy admire the Czar;
My soul adores this thunderbolt of war;
Led by the honest impulse of the muse,
Loves what dull Dutchmen call romantic views;
With pleasure sees this prodigy drawn forth
By three rapacious robbers of the North;
Beholds this unexpected comet rise,
Advance, and fix all trembling Europe's eyes,
And shoot its train athwart the polar skies.
Yes, I exult, while fancy fees the boy,
New to war's music, pant with martial joy;
Rush on, impetuous, as his course began,
A dauntless youth, and a tremendous man;
Slave to no pleasure, to no mean desire,
But for disputed empire all on fire;
Nor rich domains, nor wine, nor love his aim,
His soul impelled, absorbed by glory's flame.
New to war's music, pant with martial joy;
Rush on, impetuous, as his course began,
A dauntless youth, and a tremendous man;
Slave to no pleasure, to no mean desire,
But for disputed empire all on fire;
27
His soul impelled, absorbed by glory's flame.
Anxious, his rise, meridian, and decline,
I view, and feel his varied fortune mine.
When victory quits him with perfidious wing,
Still more the muse admires her favourite king;
Whose soul erect, unconquerably great,
Impassive to the rudest shocks of fate,
Asserts to empire its inherent claim,
And what in power it loses, gains in fame.
I view, and feel his varied fortune mine.
When victory quits him with perfidious wing,
Still more the muse admires her favourite king;
Whose soul erect, unconquerably great,
Impassive to the rudest shocks of fate,
Asserts to empire its inherent claim,
And what in power it loses, gains in fame.
Famine, and cold against his arms conspire;
Nor cold, nor famine damp the hero's fire.
Corporeal wants may weaker minds appal,
Still he obeys his nature's noblest call;
By glory taught in Russian wilds to glow,
Like Hecla burning in a waste of snow:
Jealous of her, even in his fortune's wane,
He spurns cold treaties with a firm disdain,
Nor with one vulgar act obscures his reign.
Nor cold, nor famine damp the hero's fire.
Corporeal wants may weaker minds appal,
Still he obeys his nature's noblest call;
By glory taught in Russian wilds to glow,
Like Hecla burning in a waste of snow:
Jealous of her, even in his fortune's wane,
He spurns cold treaties with a firm disdain,
Nor with one vulgar act obscures his reign.
Successful greatness let the world descry,
To greatness in misfortune, blind it's eye;
I see him brightest in Pultowa's fray,
Bursting in splendour through the gloomy day:
I see him brightest, when in Bender's fort,
He fights the army of a powerful court,
A captive Swede alarming all the Porte.
To greatness in misfortune, blind it's eye;
28
Bursting in splendour through the gloomy day:
I see him brightest, when in Bender's fort,
He fights the army of a powerful court,
A captive Swede alarming all the Porte.
Beings original to poets give,
Not those who rightly, but who greatly live.
Had e'er this equal king been brought to yield,
At Bender proved more tame than in the field;
Swerved from the dauntless purpose of his heart,
And played, one hour, the driveling statesman's part;
I, though an humble suitor to the Nine,
Would not have thought him worth a single line;
Would have surveyed him with a mind as cool
As those who call him lunatick, or fool.
Not those who rightly, but who greatly live.
Had e'er this equal king been brought to yield,
At Bender proved more tame than in the field;
Swerved from the dauntless purpose of his heart,
And played, one hour, the driveling statesman's part;
I, though an humble suitor to the Nine,
Would not have thought him worth a single line;
Would have surveyed him with a mind as cool
As those who call him lunatick, or fool.
Let purblind kings, and ministers of state
Pronounce his actions mad, we'll deem them great.
And would those intellectual pigmies know
What to themselves, and to mankind they owe;
Let them pursue their art; with rule and line,
The safe, the right, the politic define;
Nor tempt the vast, the boundless, the divine.
Then Poets, judge not with the vulgar train;
Enlarged your thoughts, and liberal be your strain.
You should illustrate each important theme:
Keep you awake, though Aldermen must dream;
Whose muddy eyes perceive not glory's light,
Or dimmed with envy, sicken at the sight;
Who would not suffer wits, or kings to range
Beyond the frigid maxims of the 'Change;
Rashly applaud, or stupidly condemn,
Bluster in port, or gravitate in phlegm;
Political with moral right confound,
Too gross their opticks to discern the bound;
Vent with their wares, the nonsense of the day,
And read two Ledgers by the aid of Say.
Pronounce his actions mad, we'll deem them great.
And would those intellectual pigmies know
What to themselves, and to mankind they owe;
Let them pursue their art; with rule and line,
The safe, the right, the politic define;
Nor tempt the vast, the boundless, the divine.
29
Enlarged your thoughts, and liberal be your strain.
You should illustrate each important theme:
Keep you awake, though Aldermen must dream;
Whose muddy eyes perceive not glory's light,
Or dimmed with envy, sicken at the sight;
Who would not suffer wits, or kings to range
Beyond the frigid maxims of the 'Change;
Rashly applaud, or stupidly condemn,
Bluster in port, or gravitate in phlegm;
Political with moral right confound,
Too gross their opticks to discern the bound;
Vent with their wares, the nonsense of the day,
And read two Ledgers by the aid of Say.
As Sol his genial warmth, and brightness gives
To every clime where human nature lives;
So will the bard from none who merit fame
Withhold the influence of the muse's flame.
He loves each land where generous virtues reign,
The German valour, and the truth of Spain.
His soul, by no mean prejudice confined,
Expands, and meets it's brethren in mankind.
Within the hallowed space of Christian ground,
Candid and liberal priests there can be found;
Who strive to keep their simple flock in awe,
Of Christ's example, of his moral law;
A Wakefield's Vicar if the world can show,
In affluence humble, and august in woe;
Whose sermons recommend his generous deeds;
Who urges morals, and relaxes creeds;
Who makes the cause of human kind his own,
Who agonizes at the widow's groan;
Raised above self, deems virtue all his gain,
The naked clothes, and blunts the sting of pain;
Although he never hath bestowed a thought
On what Augustin, or Ignatius wrote;
Artless on words, on mysteries to refine,
Him he admires, and counts a great divine.
To every clime where human nature lives;
So will the bard from none who merit fame
Withhold the influence of the muse's flame.
He loves each land where generous virtues reign,
The German valour, and the truth of Spain.
His soul, by no mean prejudice confined,
Expands, and meets it's brethren in mankind.
30
Candid and liberal priests there can be found;
Who strive to keep their simple flock in awe,
Of Christ's example, of his moral law;
A Wakefield's Vicar if the world can show,
In affluence humble, and august in woe;
Whose sermons recommend his generous deeds;
Who urges morals, and relaxes creeds;
Who makes the cause of human kind his own,
Who agonizes at the widow's groan;
Raised above self, deems virtue all his gain,
The naked clothes, and blunts the sting of pain;
Although he never hath bestowed a thought
On what Augustin, or Ignatius wrote;
Artless on words, on mysteries to refine,
Him he admires, and counts a great divine.
Poets reject the sacerdotal strain,
Their verse a foe to voluntary pain:
They bid us all the sweets of life enjoy,
Which nor our conscience, nor our health annoy;
Bid us consider our ambiguous frame,
Nor think on earth to catch a seraph's flame:
Be half to sense, and half to soul inclined,
Nor chill the body while we warm the mind;
Bid us our fancy actuate, and refine
With love's high transports, and the joys of wine;
Worship, with generous deeds, the great first cause,
Nor dream by prayers and tears to change his laws;
Through life's short passage, innocent and gay,
Move to the dark, irremeable way;
Secure in Him who first inspired our breath,
Unerring Arbiter of life, and death.
Their verse a foe to voluntary pain:
They bid us all the sweets of life enjoy,
Which nor our conscience, nor our health annoy;
Bid us consider our ambiguous frame,
Nor think on earth to catch a seraph's flame:
31
Nor chill the body while we warm the mind;
Bid us our fancy actuate, and refine
With love's high transports, and the joys of wine;
Worship, with generous deeds, the great first cause,
Nor dream by prayers and tears to change his laws;
Through life's short passage, innocent and gay,
Move to the dark, irremeable way;
Secure in Him who first inspired our breath,
Unerring Arbiter of life, and death.
Say, to a proverb, why are Poets poor,
And why regardless of the golden store?
They surely, whose acute inquiries find
The various flexures of the human mind,
Must, from the slightest observation, see
That poverty and power but ill agree;
That want the outcast seems of earth and heaven,
That much is sold to man, but little given;
That wealth exempts us from ignoble art,
To godlike deeds impels the liberal heart;
Sheds warmth and lustre on the Poet's line,
And to full inspiration bribes the Nine.
But gradual riches to discretion flow,
In dull meanders regularly slow.
The bard, a gay economist of time,
Of life tenacious in it's transient prime,
Yields to the influence of the joyous hour,
Of interest prodigal in pleasure's bower.
And why regardless of the golden store?
They surely, whose acute inquiries find
The various flexures of the human mind,
Must, from the slightest observation, see
That poverty and power but ill agree;
That want the outcast seems of earth and heaven,
That much is sold to man, but little given;
That wealth exempts us from ignoble art,
To godlike deeds impels the liberal heart;
Sheds warmth and lustre on the Poet's line,
And to full inspiration bribes the Nine.
32
In dull meanders regularly slow.
The bard, a gay economist of time,
Of life tenacious in it's transient prime,
Yields to the influence of the joyous hour,
Of interest prodigal in pleasure's bower.
The call of Bacchus how can he refuse?—
The jovial God propitiates every muse;
Gently extracts misfortune's pungent stings,
And all Elysium to the fancy brings.
The jovial God propitiates every muse;
Gently extracts misfortune's pungent stings,
And all Elysium to the fancy brings.
Forgive him, stoics, if he should not wear
Your heavy armour, to resist the fair;
If Cupid oft allures him from your school,
If ardent feelings cannot work by rule.
Your heavy armour, to resist the fair;
If Cupid oft allures him from your school,
If ardent feelings cannot work by rule.
Must not the nymph whom amorous passion warms,
Whom love suffuses with celestial charms,
Attract him to the greatest bliss we know,
Which heightens every joy, sooths every woe;
The fiercest nature tames, with soft controul,
Refines, invigorates, and exalts the soul;
Auspicious ever to a Poet's aim,
Rapture congenial with the muse's flame?
Whom love suffuses with celestial charms,
Attract him to the greatest bliss we know,
Which heightens every joy, sooths every woe;
The fiercest nature tames, with soft controul,
Refines, invigorates, and exalts the soul;
33
Rapture congenial with the muse's flame?
Add that his conscious greatness makes him bold;
He feels a nobler power than that of gold.
To vice, or fortune is his fund a prey?
The generous muses will the loss repay.
Poets the blight of penury endure
With manly hearts, of future bliss secure;
Still with creative souls endowed, they know
The sweets of genius will not cease to blow;
In thoughts, productive of immortal strains,
Still a luxuriant Paradise remains.
He feels a nobler power than that of gold.
To vice, or fortune is his fund a prey?
The generous muses will the loss repay.
Poets the blight of penury endure
With manly hearts, of future bliss secure;
Still with creative souls endowed, they know
The sweets of genius will not cease to blow;
In thoughts, productive of immortal strains,
Still a luxuriant Paradise remains.
But by the providence of equal heaven,
No great endowments unallayed are given;
No bliss exclusive of it's woe we gain;
Even virtue, godlike virtue hath it's pain.
No great endowments unallayed are given;
No bliss exclusive of it's woe we gain;
Even virtue, godlike virtue hath it's pain.
If you, ye calmer souls no title claim
To joys ecstatic, or immortal fame;
Yet prudence often all your actions guides;
The watchful goddess o'er your life presides:
And he to whom she deigns her partial care,
Finds all the Gods propitious to his prayer.
To joys ecstatic, or immortal fame;
Yet prudence often all your actions guides;
The watchful goddess o'er your life presides:
34
Finds all the Gods propitious to his prayer.
Smoothly you glide along the stream of life,
Your bark unhurt by elemental strife;
For you a trade-wind speeds it's happy gale;
Fair blows the breeze, and gently swells the sail;
Of no rude storm are you the fatal sport,
By a strait course your pilot makes the port.
Your bark unhurt by elemental strife;
For you a trade-wind speeds it's happy gale;
Fair blows the breeze, and gently swells the sail;
Of no rude storm are you the fatal sport,
By a strait course your pilot makes the port.
But Poets, born beneath a baleful star,
Fortune opposes with perpetual war;
Rarely a happy medium smooths their lives;
A calm detains them, or a tempest drives.
Fortune opposes with perpetual war;
Rarely a happy medium smooths their lives;
A calm detains them, or a tempest drives.
On fancy too intent, their ardent youth
Forgets a simple, but important truth;
That gold, with magic power, our life befriends,
Promotes ignoble, or exalted ends;
Gives Harley's babble Ciceronian force,
Or speeds the Poet's Pegasean course:
That if slow prudence heaps the glittering hoard,
The vain, the dull, the worthless are adored,
That without gold fair virtue shines in vain,
And starving bards awake the tuneful strain;
Otways for callous kings prepare their lays,
Who tantalize their poverty with praise.
Forgets a simple, but important truth;
That gold, with magic power, our life befriends,
Promotes ignoble, or exalted ends;
35
Or speeds the Poet's Pegasean course:
That if slow prudence heaps the glittering hoard,
The vain, the dull, the worthless are adored,
That without gold fair virtue shines in vain,
And starving bards awake the tuneful strain;
Otways for callous kings prepare their lays,
Who tantalize their poverty with praise.
By harsh experience taught, at length they find
The unrelenting nature of mankind;
Are forced, their souls depressed with fortune's frown
(A state unfit for works of high renown!)
To animate the heart, to store the head,
To barter genius for their daily bread.
The unrelenting nature of mankind;
Are forced, their souls depressed with fortune's frown
(A state unfit for works of high renown!)
To animate the heart, to store the head,
To barter genius for their daily bread.
With all the sufferings of a feeling frame,
Poor is the solace of a deathless name.
The bard enjoys ethereal bliss to-day;
Bright are his thoughts, and vigorous is his lay:
To-morrow brings a melancholy scene;
Relaxed, untuned is all the fine machine;
Fancy no longer strews her glowing flowers,
But sad ideas crowd the dreary hours.
Dead to his poignant pleasures, and his muse,
Life's ills in all their magnitude he views;
The patron's lies, the meteor, public breath,
The pain of malady, the gloom of death.
Poor is the solace of a deathless name.
The bard enjoys ethereal bliss to-day;
Bright are his thoughts, and vigorous is his lay:
To-morrow brings a melancholy scene;
Relaxed, untuned is all the fine machine;
36
But sad ideas crowd the dreary hours.
Dead to his poignant pleasures, and his muse,
Life's ills in all their magnitude he views;
The patron's lies, the meteor, public breath,
The pain of malady, the gloom of death.
The Poet feels not for himself alone;
He makes the cause of human kind his own;
The labyrinth of life with grief surveys,
And tries in vain to thrid the clouded maze;
Surveys, with grief, the ills our passions cause,
And grandeur's bold contempt of moral laws:
Deplores the fatal progress of the mind,
More prone to vice as more by arts refined:
Deplores the modest widow's hapless lot,
By every friend and every saint forgot;
To cold, and want from social comforts driven,
The seeming outcast of mysterious heaven.
Regrets the peer's inhospitable door,
Barred on the learned, and the virtuous poor;
Spontaneous opening, by preposterous fate,
To every fox, and every wolf of state.
Yet is his pensive soul on heaven reclined;
Yet beams of consolation cheer his mind:
He hopes, and images a better life,
Where worth with misery quits the painful strife;
Where all Arabia sheds her sweet perfume,
Where zephyrs ever breathe, and roses bloom;
Where, without labour, truths sublime we know,
Where strains divine, and voluntary, flow;
Where bards to empyrean heights aspire,
And for the poet's catch the seraph's fire.
He makes the cause of human kind his own;
The labyrinth of life with grief surveys,
And tries in vain to thrid the clouded maze;
Surveys, with grief, the ills our passions cause,
And grandeur's bold contempt of moral laws:
Deplores the fatal progress of the mind,
More prone to vice as more by arts refined:
Deplores the modest widow's hapless lot,
By every friend and every saint forgot;
To cold, and want from social comforts driven,
The seeming outcast of mysterious heaven.
Regrets the peer's inhospitable door,
Barred on the learned, and the virtuous poor;
Spontaneous opening, by preposterous fate,
To every fox, and every wolf of state.
37
Yet beams of consolation cheer his mind:
He hopes, and images a better life,
Where worth with misery quits the painful strife;
Where all Arabia sheds her sweet perfume,
Where zephyrs ever breathe, and roses bloom;
Where, without labour, truths sublime we know,
Where strains divine, and voluntary, flow;
Where bards to empyrean heights aspire,
And for the poet's catch the seraph's fire.
Ye milder souls; ye men of simple prose,
Whose life in one unvaried tenour flows;
Oh! envy not a favourite of the muse
His thrilling pleasures, his expanded views!
'Tis true, your spirits are too cool to brand
With ardent satire a luxurious land:
'Twill not be yours, in some immortal work,
To spread the fame of Lyttelton, and Burke;
You'll not, like Harris, warm, at once, and sage,
Brighten, with Plato's fire, the moral page;
Nor by your tragedy's resistless power,
Make Ligonier a Vestal for an hour.
'Twill not be yours, in a soft vernal eve,
The noisy haunts of vulgar minds to leave;
Serenely pensive, in the silent glade,
To walk, inspired by each parnassian maid;
To view the mild descending god of day,
Your fancy kindled by his parting ray:
And when Diana, with her fairer light,
Displays the sober majesty of night;
To mount, through space, beyond her silver car,
And dart, in thought, to the remotest star.
Whose life in one unvaried tenour flows;
Oh! envy not a favourite of the muse
His thrilling pleasures, his expanded views!
'Tis true, your spirits are too cool to brand
With ardent satire a luxurious land:
'Twill not be yours, in some immortal work,
To spread the fame of Lyttelton, and Burke;
You'll not, like Harris, warm, at once, and sage,
Brighten, with Plato's fire, the moral page;
Nor by your tragedy's resistless power,
Make Ligonier a Vestal for an hour.
38
The noisy haunts of vulgar minds to leave;
Serenely pensive, in the silent glade,
To walk, inspired by each parnassian maid;
To view the mild descending god of day,
Your fancy kindled by his parting ray:
And when Diana, with her fairer light,
Displays the sober majesty of night;
To mount, through space, beyond her silver car,
And dart, in thought, to the remotest star.
'Twill not be yours to make the lighter hours
Gay handmaids to the intellectual powers:
Bacchus, to whom promiscuous mortals bow,
Solace of Cæsars, and of Catos too,
Will ne'er make you poetically gay,
Nor to your mind the ideal world display.
Gay handmaids to the intellectual powers:
Bacchus, to whom promiscuous mortals bow,
Solace of Cæsars, and of Catos too,
Will ne'er make you poetically gay,
Nor to your mind the ideal world display.
Love you may feel; but not its heavenly charms,
It's finer magic which the fancy warms;
Gives Phœbus' sons the bliss of gods to share,
To need no muses if they win the fair.
It's finer magic which the fancy warms;
Gives Phœbus' sons the bliss of gods to share,
To need no muses if they win the fair.
You'll ne'er with magnanimity despise
The pomp of life which dazzles vulgar eyes.
Thread-bare, or ragged, boldly walk the street,
Nor gratify with shame the fools you meet;
Calmly move on, intent on moral song,
Deaf to the jibings of the tinsel throng;
Fortune defy, man's dignity maintain,
And vice in splendour view with just disdain;
In virtue's cause inflexibly severe,
Drag forth the villain lurking in the peer.
The pomp of life which dazzles vulgar eyes.
39
Nor gratify with shame the fools you meet;
Calmly move on, intent on moral song,
Deaf to the jibings of the tinsel throng;
Fortune defy, man's dignity maintain,
And vice in splendour view with just disdain;
In virtue's cause inflexibly severe,
Drag forth the villain lurking in the peer.
Yet liberal tenets learn, ye men of phlegm,
And be not rash to envy, or condemn:
Contented with your humble talents live,
And genius its eccentric flights forgive.
Let not your spleen arraign the great first Cause,
But calmly study his impartial laws.
He, bounteous parent of this earthly ball,
Imparts, with equal hand, his gifts to all.
Comfort in each privation we may find,
Some soothing bliss to equipoise the mind.
Sad contrasts gall the rich and joyous train;
Near Pleasure's palace is the cave of Pain.
The peasant oft may boast an envied store:
What man, with health, and innocence, is poor?
Harmonious world! where beings of each frame
In concert act with heaven's unerring aim!
Thus the bard's quick, and comprehensive soul,
Whose flights no gross, material clogs controul;
Who to his view, with strange attraction, brings
This universe, and all created things;
Who snatches powers beyond a mortal's fate,
And when he scorns to picture, can create—
The bard, with properties divine endowed,
Proclaims how ill it suits us to be proud:
From sensibility, that active spring,
Which gives rapidity to fancy's wing,
Rude shocks he feels, by which are dearly bought
His short-lived joys, his luxury of thought;
Condemned with numerous, and with pungent pains
To pay the glory of immortal strains.
And be not rash to envy, or condemn:
Contented with your humble talents live,
And genius its eccentric flights forgive.
Let not your spleen arraign the great first Cause,
But calmly study his impartial laws.
He, bounteous parent of this earthly ball,
Imparts, with equal hand, his gifts to all.
Comfort in each privation we may find,
Some soothing bliss to equipoise the mind.
Sad contrasts gall the rich and joyous train;
Near Pleasure's palace is the cave of Pain.
The peasant oft may boast an envied store:
What man, with health, and innocence, is poor?
40
In concert act with heaven's unerring aim!
Thus the bard's quick, and comprehensive soul,
Whose flights no gross, material clogs controul;
Who to his view, with strange attraction, brings
This universe, and all created things;
Who snatches powers beyond a mortal's fate,
And when he scorns to picture, can create—
The bard, with properties divine endowed,
Proclaims how ill it suits us to be proud:
From sensibility, that active spring,
Which gives rapidity to fancy's wing,
Rude shocks he feels, by which are dearly bought
His short-lived joys, his luxury of thought;
Condemned with numerous, and with pungent pains
To pay the glory of immortal strains.
A quiet tenour it is yours to keep;
Passion in you, and reason, half asleep.
In placid apathy you draw your breath,
Your lives a prelude to the calm of death:
And varied raptures if you never know,
You 'scape the rack of complicated woe.
Passion in you, and reason, half asleep.
In placid apathy you draw your breath,
Your lives a prelude to the calm of death:
And varied raptures if you never know,
You 'scape the rack of complicated woe.
That I may strongly exemplify the constitution and fortune of the poet, I shall here quote two passages from Johnson's Life of Savage: though, I fear, the energy and harmony of their prose, will eclipse the poetry which they are cited to illustrate.
“He lodged as much by accident as he dined, and passed the night sometimes in mean houses, which are set open at night to any casual wanderers; sometimes in cellers, among the riot and filth of the meanest and most profligate of the rabble; and sometimes, when he had no money to support even the expences of these receptacles, walked about the streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon a bulk, or in the winter, with his associates in poverty, AMONG THE ASHES OF A GLASS-HOUSE.
“In this manner were passed those days, and those nights, which nature had enabled him to have employed in elevated speculations, useful studies, or pleasing conversation. On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass-house, among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of the wanderer, a man of exalted sentiments, extensive views, and curious observations; the man whose remarks on life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas of virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose eloquence might have influenced senates, and whose delicacy might have polished courts.”
Life of Savage.Don Quixote's name, before he commenced Knight-Errant, was Alonso Quixano; and for his virtues he was called El Bueno, The Good. See the last chapter of Quixote.
[Parnell's] “Night-Piece on Death, deserves every praise, and, I should suppose, with very little amendment, might be made to surpass all the Night-Pieces, and Church-Yard Scenes that have since appeared.” Goldsmith's Life of Parnell.
I must here express my gratitude: I am now in the seventy third year of my age, and afflicted with a severe nervous disorder. I might now have been a curate and writing for my bread; but I owe my present easy and independent circumstances, to the Duke of Northumberland, and Lord Thurlow.
41
POETICAL EXCURSIONS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
------ Casia, atque aliis intexens suavibus herbis,
Mollia luteola pingit vaccinia caltha.
Et vos, O Lauri, carpam; et Te, proxima, myrte;
Sic positæ quoniam suaves miscetis odores.
Virgil. Eclog. II. ver. 49.
Mollia luteola pingit vaccinia caltha.
Et vos, O Lauri, carpam; et Te, proxima, myrte;
Sic positæ quoniam suaves miscetis odores.
Virgil. Eclog. II. ver. 49.
43
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD CAMDEN.
49
1777.
Once more, Elysian isle,
Receive me with thy vernal smile;
Nor to a grateful muse
Thy powerful aid refuse:
Propitious to the poet's mind,
Thy striking scenes impart;
His fancy warm, improve his art;
Who from the anxious follies of mankind,
Who from the selfish, and the splendid throng,
Harrassed with trifles, joys to flee
To sacred solitude, and thee,
To wake his long-neglected song;
By pleasing melancholy rapt, delights to rove,
On thy bright verdure, through some twilight grove;
There to recall the mighty dead,
Who greatly thought, or greatly bled;
To see, through fancy's magic eye,
Lycurgus plan, and Cato die;
There, in poetic luxury to grieve;
To melt in strong imagined woe;
The sympathetic sigh to heave;
Till, as the sweet enchantment steals,
It nobly triumphs, and he feels
Enthusiastic tears for struggling virtue flow.
Receive me with thy vernal smile;
Nor to a grateful muse
Thy powerful aid refuse:
Propitious to the poet's mind,
Thy striking scenes impart;
His fancy warm, improve his art;
Who from the anxious follies of mankind,
Who from the selfish, and the splendid throng,
Harrassed with trifles, joys to flee
To sacred solitude, and thee,
To wake his long-neglected song;
50
On thy bright verdure, through some twilight grove;
There to recall the mighty dead,
Who greatly thought, or greatly bled;
To see, through fancy's magic eye,
Lycurgus plan, and Cato die;
There, in poetic luxury to grieve;
To melt in strong imagined woe;
The sympathetic sigh to heave;
Till, as the sweet enchantment steals,
It nobly triumphs, and he feels
Enthusiastic tears for struggling virtue flow.
And oft the bard's elastic mind
To lighter images inclined;
In concord with Anacreon's measure,
Courts the jovial gods of pleasure;
For livelier aid invokes the tuneful maids;
And feels a modern Cyprus in thy shades.
Then ideas fair, and gay
Chace the rapid hours away;
Then, created by the muse,
A festal groupe the poet views;
Of dance, of song, of love, the powers,
Their sprightly revels hold amid thy bowers:
Bacchus, and his train are there;
Rosy Cupids, light as air,
Meet his warm, enamoured eye,
Scattering odours as they fly.
He hears the flute's relaxing sound;
A purple glory spreads around:
The graces, and the Cyprian queen
Advance and dignify the scene;
The graces model beauty's pride,
Their lustre to her charms apply,
Direct the lightning of her eye,
Wave her celestial robe, and o'er her steps preside.
Through all his frame he feels her soft controul;
Each motion charms the sight; each look pervades the soul.
To lighter images inclined;
In concord with Anacreon's measure,
Courts the jovial gods of pleasure;
For livelier aid invokes the tuneful maids;
And feels a modern Cyprus in thy shades.
Then ideas fair, and gay
Chace the rapid hours away;
Then, created by the muse,
A festal groupe the poet views;
51
Their sprightly revels hold amid thy bowers:
Bacchus, and his train are there;
Rosy Cupids, light as air,
Meet his warm, enamoured eye,
Scattering odours as they fly.
He hears the flute's relaxing sound;
A purple glory spreads around:
The graces, and the Cyprian queen
Advance and dignify the scene;
The graces model beauty's pride,
Their lustre to her charms apply,
Direct the lightning of her eye,
Wave her celestial robe, and o'er her steps preside.
Through all his frame he feels her soft controul;
Each motion charms the sight; each look pervades the soul.
Since, then, alike the grave, and gay,
The moral, and the sportive lay
I cultivate in thee, my favourite isle,
And all my pungent woes beguile;
Oh! let thy rural genius deign
Again to animate my strain;
Enlarge my judgment, guide my fire,
For with no mean ambition I aspire
O'er a fair sister-isle thy beauties to diffuse:
To consecrate thy humble name,
And rank it, in poetic fame,
With Cooper's-Hill, with Windsor, with Vaucluse;
From rigorous time to vindicate my theme;
To give, by my descriptive page,
Congenial minds, through every age,
In thee to trace the bold, romantic shore;
From the steep mountain to explore
The charms of the contiguous vale,
Where blooms the pastoral scene; where breathes the pastoral tale;
Where nature knows not art's alloy,
The vale of peace, and unembittered joy:
To bid thy flowers perennial blow,
Thy trees with never-fading verdure grow,
In silver strains thy soft Medina flow,
Winding, and clear, and smooth, as Arno's hallowed stream.
Oh! Knighton, where the sight pursues
Rich, various, and majestic views;
Oft, when the early lark ascends the skies,
Let me from life's oblivion rise,
And to thy land-mark's height repair,
To breathe its down's elastic air;
With eye poetic to survey
The glories of the new-born day;
Where scenes of nature, works of art,
Expand the mind, and move the heart;
Where, on the soul, the beautiful, and grand
Impress the ocean, and the land;
Here, an extended vale of sweets
The senses, and the fancy greets;
There, at Spithead, with canvass furled,
Britannia's floating castles ride,
The spirit strong that armed their pride,
That sent their thunder, oft, round an affrighted world.
The moral, and the sportive lay
I cultivate in thee, my favourite isle,
And all my pungent woes beguile;
52
Again to animate my strain;
Enlarge my judgment, guide my fire,
For with no mean ambition I aspire
O'er a fair sister-isle thy beauties to diffuse:
To consecrate thy humble name,
And rank it, in poetic fame,
With Cooper's-Hill, with Windsor, with Vaucluse;
From rigorous time to vindicate my theme;
To give, by my descriptive page,
Congenial minds, through every age,
In thee to trace the bold, romantic shore;
From the steep mountain to explore
The charms of the contiguous vale,
Where blooms the pastoral scene; where breathes the pastoral tale;
Where nature knows not art's alloy,
The vale of peace, and unembittered joy:
To bid thy flowers perennial blow,
Thy trees with never-fading verdure grow,
In silver strains thy soft Medina flow,
Winding, and clear, and smooth, as Arno's hallowed stream.
53
Rich, various, and majestic views;
Oft, when the early lark ascends the skies,
Let me from life's oblivion rise,
And to thy land-mark's height repair,
To breathe its down's elastic air;
With eye poetic to survey
The glories of the new-born day;
Where scenes of nature, works of art,
Expand the mind, and move the heart;
Where, on the soul, the beautiful, and grand
Impress the ocean, and the land;
Here, an extended vale of sweets
The senses, and the fancy greets;
There, at Spithead, with canvass furled,
Britannia's floating castles ride,
The spirit strong that armed their pride,
That sent their thunder, oft, round an affrighted world.
When thus, by prospect, and by thought,
My mind to harmony is wrought;
Already conscious of the rising strain,
The path to Knighton I regain.
My progress is arrested near the vane;
For there I view, below, the mansion, and the trees,
Not yet saluted by the gentlest breeze;
And there I take my favourite stand,
Their solemn graces to command.
'Tis silence, all; and all around
I feel the force of rural ground.
But, hark! the distant voice of Chanticleer,
With note protracted soothes my ear;
And hark, I hear attentive Tray
The flock directing on their way.
While yet no human triflers, vain, and rude,
On thoughts contemplative intrude;
No noise, nor tinsel of the day;
The mansion says, or seems to say;
(The mansion, is a fabric old,
Ivy, and yew it's walls infold;
A grove, in high, and verdant pride,
Extends a winding length on either side;
The nod majestic of the groves
Their mansion's oracle approves.)
My mind to harmony is wrought;
Already conscious of the rising strain,
The path to Knighton I regain.
My progress is arrested near the vane;
54
Not yet saluted by the gentlest breeze;
And there I take my favourite stand,
Their solemn graces to command.
'Tis silence, all; and all around
I feel the force of rural ground.
But, hark! the distant voice of Chanticleer,
With note protracted soothes my ear;
And hark, I hear attentive Tray
The flock directing on their way.
While yet no human triflers, vain, and rude,
On thoughts contemplative intrude;
No noise, nor tinsel of the day;
The mansion says, or seems to say;
(The mansion, is a fabric old,
Ivy, and yew it's walls infold;
A grove, in high, and verdant pride,
Extends a winding length on either side;
The nod majestic of the groves
Their mansion's oracle approves.)
“Although my blooming ground is low,
Even from that ground a bard should know,
That as this hallowed house, at first was given
To spirits who conversed with heaven,
None yet admittance here should find
But beings of exalted mind.
Or they whose gentle natures could not bear
Society's inclement air;
Who, vice deserting, but to virtue true,
Have bid a faithless world adieu.
Or they who have a right to claim
A sacred, but a prostituted name,
That such a god-like habit comprehends!
The few sincere, and ardent Friends,
Whose lives, nor interest, nor low pleasure blends,
But noble means, exerted still for noble ends:
Or poets blessed with rich, expanded views,
With souls impassioned by the muse;
Or they, whose generous bosoms prove
All the divine romance of love.”
Even from that ground a bard should know,
55
To spirits who conversed with heaven,
None yet admittance here should find
But beings of exalted mind.
Or they whose gentle natures could not bear
Society's inclement air;
Who, vice deserting, but to virtue true,
Have bid a faithless world adieu.
Or they who have a right to claim
A sacred, but a prostituted name,
That such a god-like habit comprehends!
The few sincere, and ardent Friends,
Whose lives, nor interest, nor low pleasure blends,
But noble means, exerted still for noble ends:
Or poets blessed with rich, expanded views,
With souls impassioned by the muse;
Or they, whose generous bosoms prove
All the divine romance of love.”
The charms of Shanklin, now their picture claim;
Shanklin, a rude, and unrecorded name,
Asserts it's title to poetic fame.
Here nature, spurning art's controul,
Surprises, and absorbs the soul;
Here soars the poet, all, impassioned mind,
And leaves his earthly clog behind.
Then let the form, and pressure of the place
With style unlaboured my description grace;
It's free, wild beauties let the bard rehearse,
With native strength, in corresponding verse:
Let it's own genius his attempt inspire
With negligent, with rapid fire;
Draw forth expression bold, the raptures of the lyre.
Shanklin, a rude, and unrecorded name,
Asserts it's title to poetic fame.
Here nature, spurning art's controul,
Surprises, and absorbs the soul;
56
And leaves his earthly clog behind.
Then let the form, and pressure of the place
With style unlaboured my description grace;
It's free, wild beauties let the bard rehearse,
With native strength, in corresponding verse:
Let it's own genius his attempt inspire
With negligent, with rapid fire;
Draw forth expression bold, the raptures of the lyre.
Here, on old ocean's brink,
Oh! be it oft my bliss to think;
And let my vigorous, my aspiring thought
To genuine poetry be wrought.
Let me from fair, and from majestic scenes,
Catch all, their form, their hue, their disposition, means.
Let the muse bear me o'er the main;
And let me Neptune's region find
Expressive of the poet's mind,
As active, and as large as his domain.
To gain more images, I'll draw
My contemplation from the deep;
Turn to the shore's abrupt, and towering steep,
That rears it's head aloft, and strikes with pleasing awe.
But lo! the rugged cliffs between,
Steals on my view a mild, contrasted scene;
A blooming valley to my memory brings
All that my long-neglected Ovid sings,
In his harmonious, and descriptive page,
Of times of better gold, of the primæval age.
Oh! be it oft my bliss to think;
And let my vigorous, my aspiring thought
To genuine poetry be wrought.
Let me from fair, and from majestic scenes,
Catch all, their form, their hue, their disposition, means.
Let the muse bear me o'er the main;
And let me Neptune's region find
Expressive of the poet's mind,
As active, and as large as his domain.
To gain more images, I'll draw
My contemplation from the deep;
Turn to the shore's abrupt, and towering steep,
That rears it's head aloft, and strikes with pleasing awe.
57
Steals on my view a mild, contrasted scene;
A blooming valley to my memory brings
All that my long-neglected Ovid sings,
In his harmonious, and descriptive page,
Of times of better gold, of the primæval age.
The labours, here, of needy art
Nor hurt the eye, nor wound the heart;
Nor nature's liberty restrain,
Nor mark the bondage of the swain.
Spontaneous, here, the hawthorn grows,
And with profusion yields it's fragrant rose.
No modern axe, with unrelenting wound,
Has yet polluted this innoxious ground.
Old beeches, here, exclude meridian day,
And through the vale repeat the shepherd's lay;
For Tityrus, wide their verdure spread,
And canopy his careless head.
No Melibæus, in Sicilian strains,
Of Mars's crimson car,
Of the destructive rage of civil war,
Of merciless prætorian bands,
Let loose on cultivated lands,
Of his invaded fields; of tyrants yet complains.
Congenial scenes to fancy's eye succeed,
The waving field, the flowery mead;
And while her mimic objects rise,
Their imagery to realize,
The neighbouring beauties to explore,
I quit the grandeur of the shore;
Ascend the precipice, with winding way,
And meet the sun's declining ray.
O'er him his clouds fantastic spread,
Hues of ethereal glory shed,
Sable, and violet, and red;
Veil his insufferable blaze of light;
Attract, and fix, and charm the steddy sight;
Mild, yet august, he gilds the summer's eve,
The beauteous landscape loth to leave;
Night's leaden sway the rosy god regrets,
And hesitates, and lingers, while he sets.
Nor hurt the eye, nor wound the heart;
Nor nature's liberty restrain,
Nor mark the bondage of the swain.
Spontaneous, here, the hawthorn grows,
And with profusion yields it's fragrant rose.
No modern axe, with unrelenting wound,
Has yet polluted this innoxious ground.
Old beeches, here, exclude meridian day,
And through the vale repeat the shepherd's lay;
For Tityrus, wide their verdure spread,
And canopy his careless head.
No Melibæus, in Sicilian strains,
Of Mars's crimson car,
Of the destructive rage of civil war,
Of merciless prætorian bands,
Let loose on cultivated lands,
Of his invaded fields; of tyrants yet complains.
58
The waving field, the flowery mead;
And while her mimic objects rise,
Their imagery to realize,
The neighbouring beauties to explore,
I quit the grandeur of the shore;
Ascend the precipice, with winding way,
And meet the sun's declining ray.
O'er him his clouds fantastic spread,
Hues of ethereal glory shed,
Sable, and violet, and red;
Veil his insufferable blaze of light;
Attract, and fix, and charm the steddy sight;
Mild, yet august, he gilds the summer's eve,
The beauteous landscape loth to leave;
Night's leaden sway the rosy god regrets,
And hesitates, and lingers, while he sets.
The browzing flock, along the verdant slope,
Nor pained by fear, nor lured by hope,
Unconscious of the murdering knife,
Enjoy the blessings of immediate life.
Inbosomed in a deep, and solemn shade,
Nor needing Brown's expensive aid.
The peaceful cottage, hoary grown with age,
Instructs us better than the moral page,
And woos mistaken foppery, to be sage;
Enforces each important theme,
Dissolves the gay, luxurious dream;
Warns us the villa's tawdry show
Allures us to disease, and woe:
Subdues irregular desires,
And kindles in the breast its purer fires;
Of grandeur's pomp corrects the childish awe;
Warns us there's but one flowery way,
Whate'er the sons of dissipation say;
The way the wise have ever trod;
'Tis nature; and it terminates in God;—
Our legislator, this; and that, his easy law.
Nor pained by fear, nor lured by hope,
Unconscious of the murdering knife,
Enjoy the blessings of immediate life.
Inbosomed in a deep, and solemn shade,
Nor needing Brown's expensive aid.
59
Instructs us better than the moral page,
And woos mistaken foppery, to be sage;
Enforces each important theme,
Dissolves the gay, luxurious dream;
Warns us the villa's tawdry show
Allures us to disease, and woe:
Subdues irregular desires,
And kindles in the breast its purer fires;
Of grandeur's pomp corrects the childish awe;
Warns us there's but one flowery way,
Whate'er the sons of dissipation say;
The way the wise have ever trod;
'Tis nature; and it terminates in God;—
Our legislator, this; and that, his easy law.
In it's fine frenzy moves the poet's eye,
Creates new forms 'twixt earth and sky;
Celestial forms, which rise not at the call
Of the great vulgar, or the small.
He sees Hygeia, rosy queen,
With agile flight, and lively mien,
The fair antagonist of grisly Death
Diffuse her aromatic breath;
Impregnate all the circumambient air,
The cottages, and woods, each dryad's care;
Skim o'er the hamlet, and inhale
Her own essential sweets in every gale.
Of aspect soft, tranquillity he sees
Recumbent on the dying breeze:
The placid goddess, on her downy wings,
Her zephyrs bland, her soothing odours brings:
O'er the calm landscape gently floats,
Listening to Philomela's notes.
There, how the peasants are supremely blest,
By solitude, by silence is expressed;
Their sprightly health, by day; by night, their balmy rest.
Creates new forms 'twixt earth and sky;
Celestial forms, which rise not at the call
Of the great vulgar, or the small.
He sees Hygeia, rosy queen,
With agile flight, and lively mien,
The fair antagonist of grisly Death
Diffuse her aromatic breath;
60
The cottages, and woods, each dryad's care;
Skim o'er the hamlet, and inhale
Her own essential sweets in every gale.
Of aspect soft, tranquillity he sees
Recumbent on the dying breeze:
The placid goddess, on her downy wings,
Her zephyrs bland, her soothing odours brings:
O'er the calm landscape gently floats,
Listening to Philomela's notes.
There, how the peasants are supremely blest,
By solitude, by silence is expressed;
Their sprightly health, by day; by night, their balmy rest.
Harrassed with public life, with generous care,
With all the toil that patriots bear,
Wilkes, by philosophy inspired,
To Shanklin, from applauding crowds retired;
To cherish thoughts exalted, and refined,
To meditate the weal of human kind,
To soothe an attic, and a spartan mind.
There, while, at eve, along the grove he trod;
Sent by Britannia's tutelary god,
Ghosts who inspire to conquer, or to die,
In Roman armour, passed before his eye.
The pensive Cassius, there, with smile severe,
Bade him, the patriot's course undaunted steer.
Next, the humaner Brutus came,
The first, of liberty's illustrious band,
The deathful weapon in his better hand!
It caught Diana's candid ray,
And flashed with momentary day;
For thrice he shook the sword, and thrice approved his flame.
With all the toil that patriots bear,
Wilkes, by philosophy inspired,
To Shanklin, from applauding crowds retired;
To cherish thoughts exalted, and refined,
To meditate the weal of human kind,
To soothe an attic, and a spartan mind.
There, while, at eve, along the grove he trod;
Sent by Britannia's tutelary god,
61
In Roman armour, passed before his eye.
The pensive Cassius, there, with smile severe,
Bade him, the patriot's course undaunted steer.
Next, the humaner Brutus came,
The first, of liberty's illustrious band,
The deathful weapon in his better hand!
It caught Diana's candid ray,
And flashed with momentary day;
For thrice he shook the sword, and thrice approved his flame.
He made the Briton all his own;
Gave him his soul's determined tone;
Our freedom only with his life to yield:
O'er the whole figure of the godlike shade
All the last Roman was displayed;
His arms, his port, his aspect were the same
That met the giant-form at famed Philippi's field .
Say, whither shall the muse next point her flight,
Since landscapes all around allure the sight?
Shall she to lofty Carisbrook urge her wing,
An awful Pharos to each British king?
Where from the mouldering fort she may command
A fair expanse of ocean, and of land.
Or shall she bend her course to Under-way,
A fertile shore for the descriptive lay?
Where sea, and ether's border bound the eye;
On land, where nature's rampart threats the sky:
And where, these noble views between,
The humble cottage beautifies the scene;
The spot surrounding it arrayed
With brilliant flowers, with spreading shade,
And herbage of a lively green.
Let not self-love, my muse, thy powers beguile;
Think not to paint each prospect of this isle;
Presume not from thy limits to depart;
Nature, exhaustless in her stores,
Through heaven, through air, through ocean, and the land,
With a profuse, yet a judicious hand,
Infinite elegance, and grandeur pours,
That mock the poet's fire, that mock the poet's art.
Gave him his soul's determined tone;
Our freedom only with his life to yield:
O'er the whole figure of the godlike shade
All the last Roman was displayed;
His arms, his port, his aspect were the same
That met the giant-form at famed Philippi's field .
62
Since landscapes all around allure the sight?
Shall she to lofty Carisbrook urge her wing,
An awful Pharos to each British king?
Where from the mouldering fort she may command
A fair expanse of ocean, and of land.
Or shall she bend her course to Under-way,
A fertile shore for the descriptive lay?
Where sea, and ether's border bound the eye;
On land, where nature's rampart threats the sky:
63
The humble cottage beautifies the scene;
The spot surrounding it arrayed
With brilliant flowers, with spreading shade,
And herbage of a lively green.
Let not self-love, my muse, thy powers beguile;
Think not to paint each prospect of this isle;
Presume not from thy limits to depart;
Nature, exhaustless in her stores,
Through heaven, through air, through ocean, and the land,
With a profuse, yet a judicious hand,
Infinite elegance, and grandeur pours,
That mock the poet's fire, that mock the poet's art.
Thrice fortunate, thrice happy isles!
For most in them propitious beauty smiles.
It's fame in Grecian isles the world shall know
As long as Grecian numbers flow.
We feel, in England, all it's powerful sway;
It's generous dictates active to obey.
There every noble deed the sex inspire;
'Tis theirs to animate the soldier's fire,
And wake to extasy the poet's lyre.
And Vectis, too, may boast her numerous fair;
Mild are the charms of her Trohair;
Who can behold, and not admire
Her Lee's vivacity, and fire!
While in my being memory holds a place,
Can I forget what elegance, what grace
In the Delgarnos are combined
With inoffensive wit, with dignity of mind!
If hospitality deserves it's fame;
If poets feel the force of beauty's claim;
Oh! may the muse give splendour to my line,
And bid the name of Worseley shine!
To Christian, too, my gratitude must pay
The tribute of its ardent lay.
The winning beauties of her frame
Her soul's auguster charms proclaim.
Nature, in her, and culture blend
The gay companion, and the zealous friend,
With all the sacred virtues of the wife;
Bright ornament of private, and of publick life !
For most in them propitious beauty smiles.
It's fame in Grecian isles the world shall know
As long as Grecian numbers flow.
We feel, in England, all it's powerful sway;
It's generous dictates active to obey.
There every noble deed the sex inspire;
'Tis theirs to animate the soldier's fire,
And wake to extasy the poet's lyre.
64
Mild are the charms of her Trohair;
Who can behold, and not admire
Her Lee's vivacity, and fire!
While in my being memory holds a place,
Can I forget what elegance, what grace
In the Delgarnos are combined
With inoffensive wit, with dignity of mind!
If hospitality deserves it's fame;
If poets feel the force of beauty's claim;
Oh! may the muse give splendour to my line,
And bid the name of Worseley shine!
To Christian, too, my gratitude must pay
The tribute of its ardent lay.
The winning beauties of her frame
Her soul's auguster charms proclaim.
Nature, in her, and culture blend
The gay companion, and the zealous friend,
With all the sacred virtues of the wife;
Bright ornament of private, and of publick life !
In this fair island, in a summer's eve
Our common pleasures oft I leave;
And hold my unpremeditated way,
Till night has moved through half her sway:
O'er down, through vale, through grove I stray;
Where Philomela tunes her plaintive lay;
And where to heighten contemplation's hour,
From ancient wall, or gothic tower,
Responsive owls their dirge prolong;
And though their voice is not the ton;
Though fops of taste abhor their song;
Yet he whom nature strongly charms,
Whom true poetic genius warms,
With all the beautiful and grand,
Which then adorn the sky, the sea, the land,
Would rather hear their note of woe
Than all the tricks the Linleys know.
The sweets of solitude completely to display;
To give them philosophick day,
In her full orb , the conscious moon
Arrives at her nocturnal noon;
The moon, whose oracle, through every age,
Inspires the poet, and instructs the sage.
Objects like these were meant, in Heaven's high plan,
As it relates to sublunary man,
To bid us leave low cares, and joys behind;
By them collected, and composed the mind,
By them concentered, with more strength it flows
Through the rich, various, ample fields that fancy shows.
Our common pleasures oft I leave;
65
Till night has moved through half her sway:
O'er down, through vale, through grove I stray;
Where Philomela tunes her plaintive lay;
And where to heighten contemplation's hour,
From ancient wall, or gothic tower,
Responsive owls their dirge prolong;
And though their voice is not the ton;
Though fops of taste abhor their song;
Yet he whom nature strongly charms,
Whom true poetic genius warms,
With all the beautiful and grand,
Which then adorn the sky, the sea, the land,
Would rather hear their note of woe
Than all the tricks the Linleys know.
The sweets of solitude completely to display;
To give them philosophick day,
In her full orb , the conscious moon
Arrives at her nocturnal noon;
66
Inspires the poet, and instructs the sage.
Objects like these were meant, in Heaven's high plan,
As it relates to sublunary man,
To bid us leave low cares, and joys behind;
By them collected, and composed the mind,
By them concentered, with more strength it flows
Through the rich, various, ample fields that fancy shows.
While thus the fair nocturnal queen
Sheds her soft rays on each romantic scene,
Improved, compleated by her orb serene;
While her warm pupil fancy leads
O'er hills, o'er rivulets, o'er meads:
While her attentive student reads
A nervous eloquence in all he sees,
And feels a muse in every breeze,
A spire salutes his sight, that gleams athwart the trees.
The prospect of the venerable fane
Corrects the bard's luxuriant strain;
The sallies of imagination breaks,
And reason from her flowery vision wakes;
Spread it's grave influence all around,
And consecrates Arcadian ground;
Gives a severer majesty to night,
And throws a pleasing horrour o'er the silver light.
Sheds her soft rays on each romantic scene,
Improved, compleated by her orb serene;
While her warm pupil fancy leads
O'er hills, o'er rivulets, o'er meads:
While her attentive student reads
A nervous eloquence in all he sees,
And feels a muse in every breeze,
A spire salutes his sight, that gleams athwart the trees.
The prospect of the venerable fane
Corrects the bard's luxuriant strain;
The sallies of imagination breaks,
And reason from her flowery vision wakes;
67
And consecrates Arcadian ground;
Gives a severer majesty to night,
And throws a pleasing horrour o'er the silver light.
Religion lends her salutary aid,
Impressed more strongly by the silvan shade,
Impressed more strongly by the lunar beam,
Propitious ever to the hallowed theme.
She bids him recollect the time,
When he'll despise the trifle, rhyme;
Call to his mind that awful hour,
When nought will cheer his soul but her celestial power.
When he must bid his last adieu
To every rich, and varied view;
No more must haunt Idalian groves,
To meet the graces, and the loves;
Pervade no more, with the quick lightning's glance,
Creation's infinite expanse;
The vernal earth, the star be-spangled sky;
When death shall draw his veil before the poet's eye:
But soon the strong memento fades,
Urged by the temple, through the shades.
For though the sun enlightens idle play,
In which we fritter time away;
Though gilded trifles waste the day;
Even in the calm, and solemn reign of night,
Meteors, and glow-worms mock the sight:
Still virtue's guards insidious foes annoy,
Some gaudy vapour, some delusive joy:
Still we forget the proper thoughts of man,
How life must end, why life began.
Though reason's oracles unfold
Our mad rapacity for gold;
Our airy tenure of a name,
And break the glittering bubble, fame;
Yet the delirium soon returns,
Again the moral fever burns;
Intent on selfish, on luxuriant views,
The miser hoards his wealth; the poet woos his muse.
Impressed more strongly by the silvan shade,
Impressed more strongly by the lunar beam,
Propitious ever to the hallowed theme.
She bids him recollect the time,
When he'll despise the trifle, rhyme;
Call to his mind that awful hour,
When nought will cheer his soul but her celestial power.
When he must bid his last adieu
To every rich, and varied view;
No more must haunt Idalian groves,
To meet the graces, and the loves;
Pervade no more, with the quick lightning's glance,
Creation's infinite expanse;
The vernal earth, the star be-spangled sky;
When death shall draw his veil before the poet's eye:
68
Urged by the temple, through the shades.
For though the sun enlightens idle play,
In which we fritter time away;
Though gilded trifles waste the day;
Even in the calm, and solemn reign of night,
Meteors, and glow-worms mock the sight:
Still virtue's guards insidious foes annoy,
Some gaudy vapour, some delusive joy:
Still we forget the proper thoughts of man,
How life must end, why life began.
Though reason's oracles unfold
Our mad rapacity for gold;
Our airy tenure of a name,
And break the glittering bubble, fame;
Yet the delirium soon returns,
Again the moral fever burns;
Intent on selfish, on luxuriant views,
The miser hoards his wealth; the poet woos his muse.
Then in his bosom bright ideas teem;
Each tender, each exalted theme:
Not the gay follies of the present age,
Nor past barbarity his thoughts engage.
Not to
Cornellys' dome his fancy flies,
Where the fell sorceress her dread magic plies.
Breaks friendly, breaks connubial ties;
Untainted honour turns to foul disgrace;
And changes, by her instantaneous wand,
To monstrous shapes the nobles of our land;
Impious transformer of the human race!
Each tender, each exalted theme:
Not the gay follies of the present age,
Nor past barbarity his thoughts engage.
69
Where the fell sorceress her dread magic plies.
Breaks friendly, breaks connubial ties;
Untainted honour turns to foul disgrace;
And changes, by her instantaneous wand,
To monstrous shapes the nobles of our land;
Impious transformer of the human race!
Nor doth he muse on sacerdotal gloom;
On abject prayers at the proud Becket's tomb;
On Britain once enslaved by papal Rome:
On the black empire of the priestly tribe,
Who paradise preclude, or open, for a bribe,
Who substitute, for generous deeds,
Unnatural penance, puerile beads,
And blind belief in doating creeds:
Who darken reason's heaven-descended ray,
Usurp fair virtue's rightful sway,
Her golden sceptre of benign command;
And wield an iron rod, with a relentless hand.
On abject prayers at the proud Becket's tomb;
On Britain once enslaved by papal Rome:
On the black empire of the priestly tribe,
Who paradise preclude, or open, for a bribe,
Who substitute, for generous deeds,
Unnatural penance, puerile beads,
And blind belief in doating creeds:
Who darken reason's heaven-descended ray,
Usurp fair virtue's rightful sway,
Her golden sceptre of benign command;
And wield an iron rod, with a relentless hand.
To him on brighter scenes intent,
The azure sky, the shade, the moon are lent;
On scenes congenial with the mind;
Endeared by nature to mankind.
Borne by the muse in these excursive hours,
He flies to myrtle and to laurel bowers;
He feels the lover's joys, the lover's woes;
For every sentimental critick knows,
That if the charms of an imaginary dame
Inspire his genius with fictitious flame;
Or, from a real fascinating eye,
If the decisive lightnings fly,
That kindle hope, or wake severest care;
Raise him to bliss, or sink him to despair;—
The sentimental critick knows,
The soul exalted above prose,
That every genuine poet's lyre,
Is most responsive still to Cupid's fire;
That then it plays it's most emphatick part,
So strongly vibrates with its master's heart,
That he, unconscious of the rules of art,
Nor effort, nor elaborate order knows;
But all, spontaneous, just, and strong, and ardent flows.
The azure sky, the shade, the moon are lent;
70
Endeared by nature to mankind.
Borne by the muse in these excursive hours,
He flies to myrtle and to laurel bowers;
He feels the lover's joys, the lover's woes;
For every sentimental critick knows,
That if the charms of an imaginary dame
Inspire his genius with fictitious flame;
Or, from a real fascinating eye,
If the decisive lightnings fly,
That kindle hope, or wake severest care;
Raise him to bliss, or sink him to despair;—
The sentimental critick knows,
The soul exalted above prose,
That every genuine poet's lyre,
Is most responsive still to Cupid's fire;
That then it plays it's most emphatick part,
So strongly vibrates with its master's heart,
That he, unconscious of the rules of art,
Nor effort, nor elaborate order knows;
But all, spontaneous, just, and strong, and ardent flows.
Well-pleased, in fancy he surveys,
With fancy's mimick tint pourtrays
The fate elysian of the swain,
Who, stranger to his nymph's disdain,
Feels the true zest of Cupid's reign,
His lasting joys enhanced by momentary pain.
Oh! energy of bliss! transporting days!
Superiour far to my aspiring lays!
The fair-one rules with magic sway!
And what strange miracles her spell obey!
His path of life is decked with flowers;
Rapid, and rosy are his hours;
With spirit flushed, he knows no fears:
Knows none but rapture's, and compassion's tears;
For generous love expands the mind,
And bids it glow for all the human kind.
He shines with graces not his own;
His voice assumes a soft, harmonious tone;
Envious the men, and charmed, the fair,
Remark his easy, lively, gallant air:
For happy in himself, his manners tend
Others to please, and to befriend.
Conscious of his unrivalled state,
Whom can he dread; whom can he hate?
Nay, with romantick soul, he pities all,
Whome'er it is his chance to see,
Who are not in her heart enthroned, as he,
Imaginary monarch of this earthly ball!
With fancy's mimick tint pourtrays
71
Who, stranger to his nymph's disdain,
Feels the true zest of Cupid's reign,
His lasting joys enhanced by momentary pain.
Oh! energy of bliss! transporting days!
Superiour far to my aspiring lays!
The fair-one rules with magic sway!
And what strange miracles her spell obey!
His path of life is decked with flowers;
Rapid, and rosy are his hours;
With spirit flushed, he knows no fears:
Knows none but rapture's, and compassion's tears;
For generous love expands the mind,
And bids it glow for all the human kind.
He shines with graces not his own;
His voice assumes a soft, harmonious tone;
Envious the men, and charmed, the fair,
Remark his easy, lively, gallant air:
For happy in himself, his manners tend
Others to please, and to befriend.
Conscious of his unrivalled state,
Whom can he dread; whom can he hate?
Nay, with romantick soul, he pities all,
72
Who are not in her heart enthroned, as he,
Imaginary monarch of this earthly ball!
But when of gold the ruthless power,
And the grim priest, in a tremendous hour,
To woe devoting beauty's prime,
Pander to legal prostitution's crime,
The passion of two hearts defeat,
Which long in unison have beat;
Say, can the most pathetic strain
Describe the lover's agonizing pain?
Solace, from business, pleasure, or the muse,
By love absorbed, his thoughts refuse;
He wastes, in gloom domestic, balmy days;
There, on his drooping soul the poison preys;
There, he's intent his misery to deplore;
To think departed objects, o'er.
He sees the dress, each ornament she wore,
When last with rapture he beheld the fair,
Then of his bliss the cause; but now of his despair.
He sees how gracefully she walked;
Hears with what sense, and harmony she talked;
He hears each word that formed her last adieu;
Feels what expression marked her lingering view.
External signs, while thus he thinks, imply
What strong emotions agitate his breast,
How exquisitely he's distressed:—
He stops;—now moves a quick, now tardy pace;
The rose of youth has left his pallid face;
Abruptly fixed, or voluble, his haggard eye.
And the grim priest, in a tremendous hour,
To woe devoting beauty's prime,
Pander to legal prostitution's crime,
The passion of two hearts defeat,
Which long in unison have beat;
Say, can the most pathetic strain
Describe the lover's agonizing pain?
Solace, from business, pleasure, or the muse,
By love absorbed, his thoughts refuse;
He wastes, in gloom domestic, balmy days;
There, on his drooping soul the poison preys;
There, he's intent his misery to deplore;
To think departed objects, o'er.
He sees the dress, each ornament she wore,
When last with rapture he beheld the fair,
Then of his bliss the cause; but now of his despair.
He sees how gracefully she walked;
Hears with what sense, and harmony she talked;
73
Feels what expression marked her lingering view.
External signs, while thus he thinks, imply
What strong emotions agitate his breast,
How exquisitely he's distressed:—
He stops;—now moves a quick, now tardy pace;
The rose of youth has left his pallid face;
Abruptly fixed, or voluble, his haggard eye.
Stranger to rest, he'll often roam
(Where can the wounded lover find a home?)
Alas! the fatal dart
Still rankles in his heart!
In the full town, or solitary grove,
Objects that gained high lustre from his love,
Gave ten-fold pleasure to the happy swain,
With fate capricious now conspire,
With hostile gloom reproach his hopeless fire,
And mock intolerable pain.
Dusky, to him, and vapid is the rose,
How fragrant, and how bright soe'er it blows.
In him the senses are all dead;
Their animating friend is fled;
The soul's impression they no longer share;
His soul is hovering round his distant fair.
In ardent thought when he hath passed the night;
Just when the dawn restores her sober light,
Sleep seals his eyes, and a delusive dream,
With flowery prospect, brings his constant theme.
In some soft region like Cythera's isle,
He hears the nymph converse; he sees her smile;
While vernal glories decorate the ground;
While myrtle bowers their odour shed around,
And amorous musick breathes a tender sound.
More soothing is her voice:—but lo! he wakes;—
What barbarous dæmon this fair vision breaks!—
While the gay forms of airy fiction fly,
And real objects wound his eye,
The sun invades him with obtrusive ray,
And his benighted soul o'erwhelms with day.
Long hath he sickened at the light,
And courted, long, the hospitable night.
For when inveloped in her friendly shade,
And on the couch, remote from every witness laid;
He vainly there anticipates relief;
There the fond sigh, unnoticed he can heave;
Give scope to all the luxury of grief,
Unchecked by a tormenting world he longs to leave.
(Where can the wounded lover find a home?)
Alas! the fatal dart
Still rankles in his heart!
In the full town, or solitary grove,
Objects that gained high lustre from his love,
Gave ten-fold pleasure to the happy swain,
With fate capricious now conspire,
With hostile gloom reproach his hopeless fire,
And mock intolerable pain.
Dusky, to him, and vapid is the rose,
How fragrant, and how bright soe'er it blows.
74
Their animating friend is fled;
The soul's impression they no longer share;
His soul is hovering round his distant fair.
In ardent thought when he hath passed the night;
Just when the dawn restores her sober light,
Sleep seals his eyes, and a delusive dream,
With flowery prospect, brings his constant theme.
In some soft region like Cythera's isle,
He hears the nymph converse; he sees her smile;
While vernal glories decorate the ground;
While myrtle bowers their odour shed around,
And amorous musick breathes a tender sound.
More soothing is her voice:—but lo! he wakes;—
What barbarous dæmon this fair vision breaks!—
While the gay forms of airy fiction fly,
And real objects wound his eye,
The sun invades him with obtrusive ray,
And his benighted soul o'erwhelms with day.
Long hath he sickened at the light,
And courted, long, the hospitable night.
For when inveloped in her friendly shade,
And on the couch, remote from every witness laid;
He vainly there anticipates relief;
75
Give scope to all the luxury of grief,
Unchecked by a tormenting world he longs to leave.
Next, under Phœbe's placid light,
As love another object bright,
A favourite object he pursues;
Fair freedom, next, his genius woos:
And let him hope, the critick, here,
Howe'er acute, howe'er severe,
His just connexion will commend;
For still she's love's inseparable friend.
Where has the goddess found a safe retreat;
Or in what country claims her publick seat?
Her sway no more degenerate Europe shows;
Not where the Thames, nor where the Texel flows;
Nor where Geneva's lake, near Alpine snows,
A scene magnificent compleats
Of nature's grandeur, and her sweets.
For freedom, there, is but an empty name;
A senate, there, impassive to the fame
Of their incorruptible son;
Unmoved by all the laurels he had won,
Of tyranny the most illustrious foe,
Exiled a modern Brutus in Rousseau;
While virtue's hoary pest, Voltaire,
They suffer still to taint their air.
He flies, in fancy, to a distant strand;
Flies to America for British land .
Freedom her votaries there inspires,
And bids them emulate their sires:
They hear her voice, they catch her flame,
It shoots, it thrills through every frame;
And nobly prodigal of breath,
They march undaunted forth to liberty, or death.
Him, by his own sagacious view,
Who all the human privileges knew;
And first to freedom's standard flew,
Hamden he sees, majestick form!
Presiding o'er the civil storm:
Stern Sydney's manes, too, is there,
Their triumphs, their distress to share:
And Russel, shade of amiable renown,
Impassive to a ruthless tyrant's frown,
Reluctant gives his high command,
And animates the patriot-band;
The steel decisive bids them draw;
Bids them assert the generous plan,
The universal cause of man,
Impartial policy, and unobstructed law.
As love another object bright,
A favourite object he pursues;
Fair freedom, next, his genius woos:
And let him hope, the critick, here,
Howe'er acute, howe'er severe,
His just connexion will commend;
For still she's love's inseparable friend.
Where has the goddess found a safe retreat;
Or in what country claims her publick seat?
Her sway no more degenerate Europe shows;
Not where the Thames, nor where the Texel flows;
Nor where Geneva's lake, near Alpine snows,
A scene magnificent compleats
Of nature's grandeur, and her sweets.
For freedom, there, is but an empty name;
A senate, there, impassive to the fame
Of their incorruptible son;
Unmoved by all the laurels he had won,
76
Exiled a modern Brutus in Rousseau;
While virtue's hoary pest, Voltaire,
They suffer still to taint their air.
He flies, in fancy, to a distant strand;
Flies to America for British land .
Freedom her votaries there inspires,
And bids them emulate their sires:
They hear her voice, they catch her flame,
It shoots, it thrills through every frame;
And nobly prodigal of breath,
They march undaunted forth to liberty, or death.
77
Who all the human privileges knew;
And first to freedom's standard flew,
Hamden he sees, majestick form!
Presiding o'er the civil storm:
Stern Sydney's manes, too, is there,
Their triumphs, their distress to share:
And Russel, shade of amiable renown,
Impassive to a ruthless tyrant's frown,
Reluctant gives his high command,
And animates the patriot-band;
The steel decisive bids them draw;
Bids them assert the generous plan,
The universal cause of man,
Impartial policy, and unobstructed law.
Russel, and Sydney while I sing,
While in their eulogy my numbers flow;
The muse, with jealous, with indignant wing,
Stoops to her quarry, their abandoned foe;
To lasting infamy consigns
Dalrymple, in vindictive lines.
Could thy polluted art their glory stain,
Portentous to a tyrant's reign?
No:—from the putrid marsh, and lake,
As vapours pestilential shroud,
Awhile, the splendid god of day;
And as we soon behold him break
Forth from the black, sulphureous cloud,
And shine with more effulgent ray:—
So they, the prodigies of Charles's age,
Illumine our historic page
With brighter life, with more illustrious death,
Fresh-beaming from the vapour of Dalrymple's breath.
While in their eulogy my numbers flow;
The muse, with jealous, with indignant wing,
Stoops to her quarry, their abandoned foe;
To lasting infamy consigns
Dalrymple, in vindictive lines.
Could thy polluted art their glory stain,
Portentous to a tyrant's reign?
78
As vapours pestilential shroud,
Awhile, the splendid god of day;
And as we soon behold him break
Forth from the black, sulphureous cloud,
And shine with more effulgent ray:—
So they, the prodigies of Charles's age,
Illumine our historic page
With brighter life, with more illustrious death,
Fresh-beaming from the vapour of Dalrymple's breath.
While thus he ranges unconfined,
And glory fires his ardent mind;
While primitive enjoyments are forgot;
The simple objects of the rural vale
Suggest their interesting tale;
The smoak that issues from a neighbouring cot
Reminds him of the peasant's happy lot;
And by the bleating sheep, from their adjacent fold,
With stronger energy the rustic tale is told.
And glory fires his ardent mind;
While primitive enjoyments are forgot;
The simple objects of the rural vale
Suggest their interesting tale;
The smoak that issues from a neighbouring cot
Reminds him of the peasant's happy lot;
And by the bleating sheep, from their adjacent fold,
With stronger energy the rustic tale is told.
The chaste, the philosophick muse,
Enamoured of these humble views,
Invites him to the sage's favourite home;
Whence that her votary ne'er may wish to roam,
She paints the scenes of public life,
Their tumult, their anxiety, their strife;
Describes the pangs of an illustrious fate;
Tells him, ambition's palm to gain,
To vice exposes, and to pain;
'Tis safety, to be good; 'tis danger, to be great.
She paints the realms of rosy health,
Who dwells not with the pallid lords of wealth;
Who dwells not with the literary train,
Of erudition's toil, of lucubration, vain:
She paints the pure and lasting joys,
Which care, with haggard aspect, ne'er annoys:
Tells him, if genuine bliss he means to know,
He must not soar too high, nor sink too low;
Nor court the gorgeous throne, nor seek the dreary cell;—
With nature, peace, and truth, she bids the wanderer dwell.
Enamoured of these humble views,
79
Whence that her votary ne'er may wish to roam,
She paints the scenes of public life,
Their tumult, their anxiety, their strife;
Describes the pangs of an illustrious fate;
Tells him, ambition's palm to gain,
To vice exposes, and to pain;
'Tis safety, to be good; 'tis danger, to be great.
She paints the realms of rosy health,
Who dwells not with the pallid lords of wealth;
Who dwells not with the literary train,
Of erudition's toil, of lucubration, vain:
She paints the pure and lasting joys,
Which care, with haggard aspect, ne'er annoys:
Tells him, if genuine bliss he means to know,
He must not soar too high, nor sink too low;
Nor court the gorgeous throne, nor seek the dreary cell;—
With nature, peace, and truth, she bids the wanderer dwell.
I here viewed Mr. Wilkes, in his publick character; as a conspicuous patron, and defender of British freedom. I cannot now recapitulate all his successful exertions for the rights of Englishmen; I shall only mention one, his prosecution of the king's ministers for their Turkish infliction on his domestic securities, by a general warrant; and to this constitutional act, I add the glorious and independent decision of Lord Chief Justice Pratt, for their abolition. Mr. Wilkes's intrepid and persevering opposition to the power of a court, will greatly contribute to make his name interesting to posterity. Whenever any defender of a character high in publick life, can find nothing splendid and magnanimous in it, he lays a particular stress on his private virtues, which have very little connexion with the prosperity of the state, and which it is the duty of every good christian to possess, and to practise. My passage in favor of Mr. Wilkes, is, if I may be allowed to judge of any thing that I have written, luminous, and strong; but I have always highly dissapproved the assassination of Julius Cæsar. 1809.
I drew this political, and martial prospect of America, at the commencement of our civil war on that continent. My opinion of an individual, or of a state, is not hastily formed; therefore it is not changed, or influenced by superficial observation, or false narrative. I have by no means inferred from some trivial, and temporary advantages gained by Government on the other side of the Atlantick, nor from the servile ostentation of private correspondence, and report; nor from the pompous tale of the Gazette, that the Americans are divided in their councils; that they want arms, ammunition, courage, and the necessaries of life; or that any of the regal officers deserve the name of generals: therefore I do not yet apprehend the subjugation of our colonies.
81
AN ELEGY;
OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF A LADY's LINNET.
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.
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.
83
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.
85
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?
86
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!
87
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?
88
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.
89
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;
90
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,
91
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;
92
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 graceAdorn, 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:
93
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.
94
X.
There let the soft, refreshing breezeWhisper 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;
95
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!
97
THREE POEMS
Cantantes, licet usque (minus via lædet) eamus.
Virgil. Eclog. IX. ver. 64.
99
TO HENRY COLLINGWOOD SELBY, ESQ.
101
SIDDONS:
A POEM.
Vehemens in flectendo, in quo uno vis omnis oratoris est.
Cicero.—Orator.
105
A bard, whom no poetic ills appall,
The patron's coldness, or the critic's gall;
With generous effort, still asserts the bays;
Or gives a brother's genius all its praise.
The patron's coldness, or the critic's gall;
With generous effort, still asserts the bays;
Or gives a brother's genius all its praise.
Poets not merely, to their Phœbus owe
That art which bids immortal numbers flow;
The kind inspirer, to his favourite train,
Gives, with his tuneful, his prophetick strain.
They feel ambition's late, but lasting power
And leave the vain their tinsel of the hour;
Of justice from posterity secure,
Calmly the malice of their age endure.
That art which bids immortal numbers flow;
The kind inspirer, to his favourite train,
Gives, with his tuneful, his prophetick strain.
They feel ambition's late, but lasting power
And leave the vain their tinsel of the hour;
106
Calmly the malice of their age endure.
But celebrated actors hardly save
Their well-earned laurel from the ruthless grave;
Their glory sickens at it's owner's death,
And scarce outlives cotemporary breath.
With eastern flowers, to strew their path of life,
Fame, luxury, gold, maintain a friendly strife;
But they bequeathe no strong, immortal verse;
And hence their fame droops pallid o'er their herse.
Their well-earned laurel from the ruthless grave;
Their glory sickens at it's owner's death,
And scarce outlives cotemporary breath.
With eastern flowers, to strew their path of life,
Fame, luxury, gold, maintain a friendly strife;
But they bequeathe no strong, immortal verse;
And hence their fame droops pallid o'er their herse.
Poets, a more august, and sacred name,
Their art, our glory, and their fate, our shame,
Bear, and anticipate, a different doom,
In mortal fortune, and beyond the tomb.
Their art, our glory, and their fate, our shame,
Bear, and anticipate, a different doom,
In mortal fortune, and beyond the tomb.
Those talents which produce the godlike strain,
Subject the man to poverty, and pain;
Mean labours his ethereal fire controul;
And want unnerves his energy of soul.
Whenever God, for his mysterious ends,
Pressed with all evils, destitute of friends,
Presents a Chatterton to human view,
The Devil conjures up a Walpole too.
Subject the man to poverty, and pain;
Mean labours his ethereal fire controul;
And want unnerves his energy of soul.
Whenever God, for his mysterious ends,
Pressed with all evils, destitute of friends,
107
The Devil conjures up a Walpole too.
Yet well they know, ere glory's wreath is won,
And far from Orford's more unfeeling son,
Through glades Elysian ere their spirits rove,
Or through the fragrance of the laurel grove;
Full well they know (the presage heals their woes)
That even on earth their fame eternal flows;
That their existence was by heaven designed
To give the distant sons of human kind
The brightest emanations of the mind.
And far from Orford's more unfeeling son,
Through glades Elysian ere their spirits rove,
Or through the fragrance of the laurel grove;
Full well they know (the presage heals their woes)
That even on earth their fame eternal flows;
That their existence was by heaven designed
To give the distant sons of human kind
The brightest emanations of the mind.
A splendid object, full in fancy's view,
On bards and actors my reflexions drew;
Candour my verse digressive will forgive;
They write correctly who securely live;
The poet, from his theme before he strayed,
For Siddons had invoked the muse's aid.
His liberal strain requests the publick ear,
Not with presumption, nor fictitious fear.
Talents pre-eminent are sure to find
From him the verdict of an honest mind;
He wishes that the laurel still may bloom
Round the right brow, and round the sacred tomb;
Admires, with ardour, each illustrious name;
Himself, through all his soul, alive to fame.
On bards and actors my reflexions drew;
Candour my verse digressive will forgive;
They write correctly who securely live;
The poet, from his theme before he strayed,
For Siddons had invoked the muse's aid.
His liberal strain requests the publick ear,
Not with presumption, nor fictitious fear.
Talents pre-eminent are sure to find
From him the verdict of an honest mind;
108
Round the right brow, and round the sacred tomb;
Admires, with ardour, each illustrious name;
Himself, through all his soul, alive to fame.
Siddons! bright subject for a poet's page!
Born to augment the glory of the stage!
Our soul of tragedy restored I see;
A Garrick's genius is renewed in thee.
To give our nature all it's glorious course;
With moral beauty, with resistless force,
To call forth all the passions of the mind,
The good, the brave, the vengeful, the refined;
The sigh, the thrill, the start, the angel's tear;
Thy Isabella is our Garrick's Lear.
Born to augment the glory of the stage!
Our soul of tragedy restored I see;
A Garrick's genius is renewed in thee.
To give our nature all it's glorious course;
With moral beauty, with resistless force,
To call forth all the passions of the mind,
The good, the brave, the vengeful, the refined;
The sigh, the thrill, the start, the angel's tear;
Thy Isabella is our Garrick's Lear.
'Tis not the beauties of thy form alone,
Thy graceful motion, thy impassioned tone;
Thy charming attitudes, thy magic pause,
That speaks the eloquence of nature's laws;
Not these have given thee high theatrick fame,
Nor fired the muse to celebrate thy name.
Thy graceful motion, thy impassioned tone;
Thy charming attitudes, thy magic pause,
That speaks the eloquence of nature's laws;
Not these have given thee high theatrick fame,
Nor fired the muse to celebrate thy name.
When Thomson's epithets, to nature true,
Recall her brightest glories to my view;
Whene'er his mind-illumined aspect brings
The look that speaks unutterable things;
In fancy, then, thy image I shall see;
Then, heavenly artist, I shall think on thee!
Whatever passion animates thine eye;
Thence, whether pity steals, or terrours fly;
Or heaven commands, to fix a verse benign,
With power miraculous, thy face to shine;
Whatever feeling 'tis thy aim to move,
Fear, vengeance, hate, benevolence, or love;
Still do thy looks usurp divine controul,
And on their objects rivet all the soul:
Thy lightning far outstrips the poet's race;
Even Otway's numbers yield to Siddons' face.
Recall her brightest glories to my view;
109
The look that speaks unutterable things;
In fancy, then, thy image I shall see;
Then, heavenly artist, I shall think on thee!
Whatever passion animates thine eye;
Thence, whether pity steals, or terrours fly;
Or heaven commands, to fix a verse benign,
With power miraculous, thy face to shine;
Whatever feeling 'tis thy aim to move,
Fear, vengeance, hate, benevolence, or love;
Still do thy looks usurp divine controul,
And on their objects rivet all the soul:
Thy lightning far outstrips the poet's race;
Even Otway's numbers yield to Siddons' face.
Long after thou hast closed the glowing scene;
Withdrawn thy killing, or transporting mien;
Humanely hast removed from mortal sight,
Those eyes that shed insufferable light;
Effects continue, rarely seen before;
The tumult of the passions is not o'er;
Imagined miseries we still deplore:
We see a few (oh! England's pride, and shame!
But 'tis where Picq, and Vestris have a name!)
Who still are clinging to the tale of woe,
Aud give, without reserve, their tears to flow;
Still thy strong pathos works the generous heart;
Still, still we grieve, and cannot think it art.
Withdrawn thy killing, or transporting mien;
Humanely hast removed from mortal sight,
Those eyes that shed insufferable light;
Effects continue, rarely seen before;
The tumult of the passions is not o'er;
Imagined miseries we still deplore:
We see a few (oh! England's pride, and shame!
But 'tis where Picq, and Vestris have a name!)
110
Aud give, without reserve, their tears to flow;
Still thy strong pathos works the generous heart;
Still, still we grieve, and cannot think it art.
Even yet distress on meditation grows;
Even yet I feel all Isabella's woes;
The dreadful thoughts, raised by the magick ring,
With all her agonies my bosom sting;
I feel, where Biron ascertains his life,
All the severe amazement of the wife:
When she, by force, from his remains is borne,
Myself by ruffians, from myself am torne;
Where the keen dagger gives her soul relief,
Frees her from frenzy, and o'erwhelming grief;
At vain compassion, with her latest breath,
I laugh, and triumph in fictitious death.
The poet, born with elegant desires,
Born to diffuse, in ease, the muse's fires;
Inspired by thee, forgets his rigorous doom,
In fate's long winter feels his genius bloom;
Forgets each taint that checks his growing bays,
Avowed hostilities, or frugal praise;
Nor can grim poverty his warmth restrain;
The squalid spectre threats his gripe in vain.
On other heroines is attention hung;
In them, we're charmed with a mellifluous tongue;
All action's grace, in them, our eyes admire;
Yet, with these powers, from genius we require
Thy rare prerogative, resistless fire.
Even yet I feel all Isabella's woes;
The dreadful thoughts, raised by the magick ring,
With all her agonies my bosom sting;
I feel, where Biron ascertains his life,
All the severe amazement of the wife:
When she, by force, from his remains is borne,
Myself by ruffians, from myself am torne;
Where the keen dagger gives her soul relief,
Frees her from frenzy, and o'erwhelming grief;
At vain compassion, with her latest breath,
I laugh, and triumph in fictitious death.
The poet, born with elegant desires,
Born to diffuse, in ease, the muse's fires;
Inspired by thee, forgets his rigorous doom,
In fate's long winter feels his genius bloom;
Forgets each taint that checks his growing bays,
Avowed hostilities, or frugal praise;
Nor can grim poverty his warmth restrain;
The squalid spectre threats his gripe in vain.
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In them, we're charmed with a mellifluous tongue;
All action's grace, in them, our eyes admire;
Yet, with these powers, from genius we require
Thy rare prerogative, resistless fire.
More gentle arts the calm spectator views;
Their softer pleasure soothes: but fire subdues;
This, in a moment, thrilling through the frame,
Makes voluntary victims to it's flame:
Of common motion scorns the laws assigned;
To Thebes, or Athens, whirls the ravished mind;
Sends it's contending passions from the stage,
And racks us with ambition, grief, or rage.
This magick property, this fire divine,
Pours heaven's own lightning through the poet's line.
This Hayley wants; and hence his golden lays
A respite give us; give us breath to praise.
But when great Dryden flies along his plain,
And gives his foaming Pegasus the rein,
We fight old battles, and we slay the slain.
This fire diffused it's warmth when Milton sung;
And sways the soul, in Siddons, and in Younge.
Celestial property! at thy display,
How feebler lustre fades, and dies away!
Thus, if we recollect Blandusia's stream,
Of Horace, once, the sportive, rural theme;
It's grot, it's trees, it's murmurs we admire,
And in our bosom feel Arcadian fire.
Next, should our fancy o'er the Atlantick stray,
Where nobler objects wake a bolder lay;
Where Orellana, from his mighty source,
Holds a magnificent, stupendous course;
And borne through many a far-extended plain,
Repels the jealous, and reluctant main;
Small images, indignant, we discard;
We lose the fountain; nay we lose the bard;
The mind expands; it's genius sweeps along;
And pours it's fervour in congenial song.
Their softer pleasure soothes: but fire subdues;
This, in a moment, thrilling through the frame,
Makes voluntary victims to it's flame:
Of common motion scorns the laws assigned;
To Thebes, or Athens, whirls the ravished mind;
Sends it's contending passions from the stage,
And racks us with ambition, grief, or rage.
This magick property, this fire divine,
Pours heaven's own lightning through the poet's line.
This Hayley wants; and hence his golden lays
A respite give us; give us breath to praise.
But when great Dryden flies along his plain,
And gives his foaming Pegasus the rein,
We fight old battles, and we slay the slain.
This fire diffused it's warmth when Milton sung;
And sways the soul, in Siddons, and in Younge.
112
How feebler lustre fades, and dies away!
Thus, if we recollect Blandusia's stream,
Of Horace, once, the sportive, rural theme;
It's grot, it's trees, it's murmurs we admire,
And in our bosom feel Arcadian fire.
Next, should our fancy o'er the Atlantick stray,
Where nobler objects wake a bolder lay;
Where Orellana, from his mighty source,
Holds a magnificent, stupendous course;
And borne through many a far-extended plain,
Repels the jealous, and reluctant main;
Small images, indignant, we discard;
We lose the fountain; nay we lose the bard;
The mind expands; it's genius sweeps along;
And pours it's fervour in congenial song.
Or, thus, if Mason's page a poet reads;
Sports among dews, and trees, and flowers, and meads;
The mind, too candid to the florid strain,
Expects emotion, but expects, in vain.
But, if to raise imagination's force,
He seeks, in Homer's muse, a sure resource;
Perhaps, where Priam his grave council calls,
And Helen moves divinely on the walls;
While Troy's astonished youth new raptures prove,
And age grows tender to the faults of love;
The modern bard imbibes the Grecian fires,
To the sublime, and beautiful aspires;
He emulates, in thought, Homerick lays,
And boldly meditates a Devon's praise.
Sports among dews, and trees, and flowers, and meads;
The mind, too candid to the florid strain,
Expects emotion, but expects, in vain.
But, if to raise imagination's force,
He seeks, in Homer's muse, a sure resource;
113
And Helen moves divinely on the walls;
While Troy's astonished youth new raptures prove,
And age grows tender to the faults of love;
The modern bard imbibes the Grecian fires,
To the sublime, and beautiful aspires;
He emulates, in thought, Homerick lays,
And boldly meditates a Devon's praise.
115
A POETICAL EPISTLE TO SIR ASHTON LEVER.
Nostris acerbissimis doloribus, variisque, et undique circumfusis molestiis, alia nulla potuit inveniri Levatio.
Cicero's Conclusion of his Tusculan Questions.
117
A strange, unfashionable modern muse,
Who, with charmed eye the works of nature views;
Still fond to walk in her eternal road,
And still despising perishable mode;
No flatterer of the great, nor of the vain,
To Lever wakes her tributary strain.
Who, with charmed eye the works of nature views;
Still fond to walk in her eternal road,
And still despising perishable mode;
No flatterer of the great, nor of the vain,
To Lever wakes her tributary strain.
Whilst others make mankind their easy prey;
Of folly, and of vice, extend the sway;
Some new incentives plan, to loose desire;
Or stimulate the gamester's desperate fire;
A war with sense, to please the coxcomb, wage;
And dupe him with a vile Italian stage;
Lever expands creation's mighty roll;
Suggests our Maker to the languid soul;
Kindles, in torpid breasts, a generous flame;
And bids us glow with virtue, or with shame.
Of folly, and of vice, extend the sway;
Some new incentives plan, to loose desire;
Or stimulate the gamester's desperate fire;
118
And dupe him with a vile Italian stage;
Lever expands creation's mighty roll;
Suggests our Maker to the languid soul;
Kindles, in torpid breasts, a generous flame;
And bids us glow with virtue, or with shame.
In order fair, we view, disposed by thee,
Inhabitants of earth, and air, and sea;
The various wonders of our globe explore,
From Siam's realm, to California's shore;
From where Magellan's thundering billows roll,
To the fixed winter of the northern pole.
Inhabitants of earth, and air, and sea;
The various wonders of our globe explore,
From Siam's realm, to California's shore;
From where Magellan's thundering billows roll,
To the fixed winter of the northern pole.
Ye, who, with impious pride, contemn that law,
Meant, from our lives the best effects to draw;
That law, which Milton's heaven-taught genius fired,
Which Locke's, and Newton's thoughts, and acts inspired;
Ye, who impute disorder of the brain
To those who worship in a Christian fane;
For once, reject your light, and glittering toys;
For once, emerging into men, from boys,
Of thought and sentiment, the pleasures try;
No earthly gain can with their blessings vie;
Perhaps they'll teach you how to live, and die.
Repair to Lever's temple, and adore;
And blush, and shudder, and be fools no more.
To mar your piety, you'll find, at least,
No wanton organ, and no drawling priest.
Meant, from our lives the best effects to draw;
That law, which Milton's heaven-taught genius fired,
Which Locke's, and Newton's thoughts, and acts inspired;
Ye, who impute disorder of the brain
To those who worship in a Christian fane;
For once, reject your light, and glittering toys;
For once, emerging into men, from boys,
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No earthly gain can with their blessings vie;
Perhaps they'll teach you how to live, and die.
Repair to Lever's temple, and adore;
And blush, and shudder, and be fools no more.
To mar your piety, you'll find, at least,
No wanton organ, and no drawling priest.
Thither, with me, you condescend to go;
I'm confident you love what makes a show.
We, surely, tread on consecrated ground;
How nature's Author strikes us, all around!
I feel profaneness in each idle sound!
'Tis God who speaks: will you refuse to hear?
Nay, he reproves; will you not learn to fear?
Ye, who can only essences inhale;
Who shrink, and tremble, at the frosty gale;
Will you not dread that Being, who presides
O'er the wind's force, and o'er the swelling tides;
Who shakes with earthquakes, now, some guilty shore,
Now bids his thunder, now, Vesuvius, roar!
I'm confident you love what makes a show.
We, surely, tread on consecrated ground;
How nature's Author strikes us, all around!
I feel profaneness in each idle sound!
'Tis God who speaks: will you refuse to hear?
Nay, he reproves; will you not learn to fear?
Ye, who can only essences inhale;
Who shrink, and tremble, at the frosty gale;
Will you not dread that Being, who presides
O'er the wind's force, and o'er the swelling tides;
Who shakes with earthquakes, now, some guilty shore,
Now bids his thunder, now, Vesuvius, roar!
Yet, generous Lever! in our leaden days,
All thy reward may prove, the poet's praise!
For, thy magnificent and varied store,
Which gives to science views unknown before;
Which more unfolds the worlds harmonious plan,
The mind eternal, and the mind of man
(It's master, in some inauspicious hour,
Meanly by wealth deserted, and by power)
Like Houghton's monuments of art, may go
To find a patroness in Russian snow;
May be received (since taste is, here, no more)
With genial ardour on a frozen shore.
All thy reward may prove, the poet's praise!
120
Which gives to science views unknown before;
Which more unfolds the worlds harmonious plan,
The mind eternal, and the mind of man
(It's master, in some inauspicious hour,
Meanly by wealth deserted, and by power)
Like Houghton's monuments of art, may go
To find a patroness in Russian snow;
May be received (since taste is, here, no more)
With genial ardour on a frozen shore.
And yet, there was a more propitious time,
Ere knowledge, vigorous, once, in England's clime
Had all it's honours lost, and all it's prime;
Ere luxury, more general, and refined,
And venal baseness, quite enslaved the mind;
Gave all a Dæmon's rage to low desire,
And quenched the fainting sparks of generous fire;
When English liberality was shown
To ores, and spars, and butterflies of Sloane.
Ere knowledge, vigorous, once, in England's clime
Had all it's honours lost, and all it's prime;
Ere luxury, more general, and refined,
And venal baseness, quite enslaved the mind;
Gave all a Dæmon's rage to low desire,
And quenched the fainting sparks of generous fire;
When English liberality was shown
To ores, and spars, and butterflies of Sloane.
Ye Fair! the pride of celebrated isles!
What power is in your frowns, and in your smiles,
I need not say: you may retard our doom;
And bid, again, a nation's virtue bloom.
When great Lycurgus formed the Spartan state,
As fixed by him, impregnable to fate;
His rough Laconian sons were taught to feel
No ardour, like the love of publick weal:
They sought no foes; they owned no haughty Lord;
And only for their country drew their sword:
Then were they nobly prodigal of breath;
And all their wish was, Liberty, or Death.
Through either sex the brave infection ran;
They all pursued their legislator's plan.
Ere a young Spartan soldier took the field,
His mother brought him forth the sacred shield;
And said;—“Let this, from thee, by none be torne;
“Bear home thy shield; or on thy shield be borne.”
He felt the precept throb in every vein:
He conquered; or was numbered with the slain.
What power is in your frowns, and in your smiles,
I need not say: you may retard our doom;
And bid, again, a nation's virtue bloom.
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As fixed by him, impregnable to fate;
His rough Laconian sons were taught to feel
No ardour, like the love of publick weal:
They sought no foes; they owned no haughty Lord;
And only for their country drew their sword:
Then were they nobly prodigal of breath;
And all their wish was, Liberty, or Death.
Through either sex the brave infection ran;
They all pursued their legislator's plan.
Ere a young Spartan soldier took the field,
His mother brought him forth the sacred shield;
And said;—“Let this, from thee, by none be torne;
“Bear home thy shield; or on thy shield be borne.”
He felt the precept throb in every vein:
He conquered; or was numbered with the slain.
To England's fair, the poet recommends
Means more adventurous, aimed at distant ends.
But, ever, to the great, and arduous deed,
Peculiar honour is the destined meed.
The task auspicious of the Spartan dame,
Was, but to speed the course of virtue's flame;
Yours is the task, when all her power is fled,
To bid her warmth re-animate the dead;
To aid the weaker influence of my pen;
And to substantiate shadows into men;
Shadows of those, who conquered in the fray,
At Cressy's, Agincourt's, and Blenheim's day.
Yet let not hope on your bright aspects lower;
Scarce is a miracle beyond your power.
Means more adventurous, aimed at distant ends.
But, ever, to the great, and arduous deed,
Peculiar honour is the destined meed.
The task auspicious of the Spartan dame,
Was, but to speed the course of virtue's flame;
Yours is the task, when all her power is fled,
122
To aid the weaker influence of my pen;
And to substantiate shadows into men;
Shadows of those, who conquered in the fray,
At Cressy's, Agincourt's, and Blenheim's day.
Yet let not hope on your bright aspects lower;
Scarce is a miracle beyond your power.
Prescribe us, by your exemplary lives,
As tender mothers, faithful, generous wives,
The moral excellence we must pursue,
If we aspire to be approved by you.
On you those sentiments kind Heaven bestowed,
Which urge us on, in glory's thorny road;
Then, let them, by exertion, be refined;
And into culture shame each dozing mind.
Chuse fine amusements; let them not be vain;
And oft, at Lever's, join the sober train;
The female form, august; the female mien,
Inspired by thought, will dignify the scene.
Still, in your minds, let judgment hold her seat;
Scorn an Italian trill; a Frenchman's feet:
Still, let the path to happiness be trod;
And give your hours to Nature, and to God.
Our living race the Tarentines renew;
Or softer Sybarites, in them, we view.
By principle they never will be led
To emulate the glory of the dead.
Of English manners, then, ye English Fair,
To give reforming models, be your care.
Let, from your influence, our improvement flow;
Extort from love, what we to reason owe;
And since neglectful of her card we sail,
Let us to virtue steer, by passion's gale.
As tender mothers, faithful, generous wives,
The moral excellence we must pursue,
If we aspire to be approved by you.
On you those sentiments kind Heaven bestowed,
Which urge us on, in glory's thorny road;
Then, let them, by exertion, be refined;
And into culture shame each dozing mind.
Chuse fine amusements; let them not be vain;
And oft, at Lever's, join the sober train;
The female form, august; the female mien,
Inspired by thought, will dignify the scene.
Still, in your minds, let judgment hold her seat;
Scorn an Italian trill; a Frenchman's feet:
Still, let the path to happiness be trod;
And give your hours to Nature, and to God.
123
Or softer Sybarites, in them, we view.
By principle they never will be led
To emulate the glory of the dead.
Of English manners, then, ye English Fair,
To give reforming models, be your care.
Let, from your influence, our improvement flow;
Extort from love, what we to reason owe;
And since neglectful of her card we sail,
Let us to virtue steer, by passion's gale.
125
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG OFFICER OF THE ARMY.
127
Born, with the virtues of maturer age,
To warm the poet's, or historian's page;
Born, life's best deeds, and best rewards to prove,
To merit friendship, and to merit love;
Born with that fire, by which, of old, was hurled
Britannia's thunder on a hostile world:
But all this worth, just opening into bloom,
Is closed, for ever, by the ruthless tomb.
To warm the poet's, or historian's page;
Born, life's best deeds, and best rewards to prove,
To merit friendship, and to merit love;
Born with that fire, by which, of old, was hurled
Britannia's thunder on a hostile world:
But all this worth, just opening into bloom,
Is closed, for ever, by the ruthless tomb.
Severely for my heart, too soon a shade,
Accept this tribute, from affection payed;
Well-pleased accept it; for the poet's verse,
More than funereal pomp adorns the herse;
Gives us, at once, improvement, and relief;
Refines our morals, while it soothes our grief;
While it commands our tears afresh to flow,
Indulging soft, and salutary woe.
Accept this tribute, from affection payed;
Well-pleased accept it; for the poet's verse,
More than funereal pomp adorns the herse;
128
Refines our morals, while it soothes our grief;
While it commands our tears afresh to flow,
Indulging soft, and salutary woe.
Forming the numbers to thy memory due,
The frowns of fortune unappalled I view;
For never could the wanton tyrant's reign
Extinguish, in my breast, the liberal strain;
Ne'er cool my ardour for a poet's name,
By her gay fops of fashionable fame;
Ne'er sink my heart beneath it's noblest ends;
To honour living, or departed friends.
The frowns of fortune unappalled I view;
For never could the wanton tyrant's reign
Extinguish, in my breast, the liberal strain;
Ne'er cool my ardour for a poet's name,
By her gay fops of fashionable fame;
Ne'er sink my heart beneath it's noblest ends;
To honour living, or departed friends.
And let not the severe, ye martial train,
Tell me my grief is weak, and flows in vain!
Oh! let the short-lived joys, and hopes of youth,
Impress you, ever, with important truth!
Since life is short, with virtue fill the span;
The habits of the youth decide the man.
The good from fate their deathless graces save,
And are mature, though minors, for the grave.
Tell me my grief is weak, and flows in vain!
Oh! let the short-lived joys, and hopes of youth,
Impress you, ever, with important truth!
Since life is short, with virtue fill the span;
The habits of the youth decide the man.
The good from fate their deathless graces save,
And are mature, though minors, for the grave.
And oft to pleasure's gay, luxuriant bower,
Contrast the dark, irrevocable hour;
Which, haply, gives you, long, the golden light,
Or adds it's gloom to the returning night.
For not alone, on Mars's purple field,
The sons of war their generous spirits yield;
Death still attends us, on whatever ground;
Lurks in our frame, and hovers all around:
Oft, even the light, elastic spring of life,
With life's duration is at fatal strife:
We draw our dissolution with our breath;
Our vital air impregnated with death;
And thus as surely by an atom fall,
As by the Culverin's destructive ball.
Contrast the dark, irrevocable hour;
129
Or adds it's gloom to the returning night.
For not alone, on Mars's purple field,
The sons of war their generous spirits yield;
Death still attends us, on whatever ground;
Lurks in our frame, and hovers all around:
Oft, even the light, elastic spring of life,
With life's duration is at fatal strife:
We draw our dissolution with our breath;
Our vital air impregnated with death;
And thus as surely by an atom fall,
As by the Culverin's destructive ball.
Ambitious of no mean effects, my muse
Extends to either world her moral views:
Then may these lays, enforcing human weal,
Firmly to act, and tenderly to feel;
To my friend's memory, to our species kind,
Still move the heart, and still impell the mind;
With sympathy producing virtue, read,
Preserve the living, and embalm the dead.
Extends to either world her moral views:
Then may these lays, enforcing human weal,
Firmly to act, and tenderly to feel;
To my friend's memory, to our species kind,
Still move the heart, and still impell the mind;
With sympathy producing virtue, read,
Preserve the living, and embalm the dead.
315
THE INVINCIBLE ISLAND; A POEM:
WITH INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT WAR.
The Douglas, and the Hotspur, both together,
Are confident against the world in arms.
Shakespeare.
Are confident against the world in arms.
Shakespeare.
317
1797.
Can all the mind's fertility pourtray
Man's pride, and madness, on some future day!
France, governed long by absolute command;
Formed to convulse, but not to rule a land;
France, that hath left no path of crimes untrod;
Foe to all virtue; even at war with God!
Whom slaves, before, whom tyrants, now, we find;
(The natural progress of the human mind!)
France, (have I lived these monstrous times to see!)
France is to teach Britannia to be free!
Man's pride, and madness, on some future day!
France, governed long by absolute command;
Formed to convulse, but not to rule a land;
France, that hath left no path of crimes untrod;
Foe to all virtue; even at war with God!
Whom slaves, before, whom tyrants, now, we find;
(The natural progress of the human mind!)
France, (have I lived these monstrous times to see!)
France is to teach Britannia to be free!
318
Island of bliss! renowned for laurels won
Accept this ardent service of thy son!
While at this awfully momentous time;
Alike unparalleled in prose, and rhyme,
Others with civick wreaths crown every hour,
More blessed with wealth, or strengthened more with power;
Poets can only add a sprig of bay;
Poets can only give their zealous lay!
Oh! were my muse as warm as my desires;
Were her flame equal to my patriot fires;
Fine coruscations, darting from my page,
Haply might stimulate the generous rage
That glows in every British, free-born soul;
While Gallia threats her insolent controul!
Accept this ardent service of thy son!
While at this awfully momentous time;
Alike unparalleled in prose, and rhyme,
Others with civick wreaths crown every hour,
More blessed with wealth, or strengthened more with power;
Poets can only add a sprig of bay;
Poets can only give their zealous lay!
Oh! were my muse as warm as my desires;
Were her flame equal to my patriot fires;
Fine coruscations, darting from my page,
Haply might stimulate the generous rage
That glows in every British, free-born soul;
While Gallia threats her insolent controul!
Jealous of Liberty's, of Glory's plan,
Must we be victims to those apes of man!
Never!—All Englishmen their Shakespeare know;
To bards 'tis given in prophecy to flow;
Shakespeare, the jest of every Gallick fool;
Echoes of Ferney's superficial school;
Who think all genius by their own surpassed;
Whose verse is rhyme; whose eloquence, bombast:—
England her Shakespeare knows; but what says he?
Like brethren let our island but agree;
The dauntless Hotspur, and the Douglas, joined,
In unison of wealth; of heart; of mind;
Will win the god who drives the crimson car;
And wage against the world successful war.
Then by the gallant Scottish ghosts I swear,
Blessed with the fragrance of Elysian air;
Who rushed impetuous on the patriot's doom;
Repelling from their land ambitious Rome!
Nay (for no obstinate, mean hate, I know,
To union summoned by the common foe)
I swear by those who fell at Flodden's field;
With hearts that knew to conquer, not to yield;
And by our English ghosts; the glorious dead;
Who at famed Agincourt, and Cressy, bled;
If we obey the maxim of our seer;
A poet; prophet; politician, here;
Life's current still shall prove, in British blood,
Of valour an insuperable flood;
Still other Marlboroughs; other Wolfes shall rise;
To glad a nation's hearts; a nation's eyes;
Again their thunder, with just vengeance, hurled,
By land, shall crush the robbers of the world;
While Hawkes, and Howes; and Duncans, on the main,
Impurple Neptune's realm with Frenchmen slain:
With murmur flits each melancholy ghost;
Cursing it's dreams of treading England's coast.
Must we be victims to those apes of man!
Never!—All Englishmen their Shakespeare know;
To bards 'tis given in prophecy to flow;
Shakespeare, the jest of every Gallick fool;
Echoes of Ferney's superficial school;
Who think all genius by their own surpassed;
319
England her Shakespeare knows; but what says he?
Like brethren let our island but agree;
The dauntless Hotspur, and the Douglas, joined,
In unison of wealth; of heart; of mind;
Will win the god who drives the crimson car;
And wage against the world successful war.
Then by the gallant Scottish ghosts I swear,
Blessed with the fragrance of Elysian air;
Who rushed impetuous on the patriot's doom;
Repelling from their land ambitious Rome!
Nay (for no obstinate, mean hate, I know,
To union summoned by the common foe)
I swear by those who fell at Flodden's field;
With hearts that knew to conquer, not to yield;
And by our English ghosts; the glorious dead;
Who at famed Agincourt, and Cressy, bled;
If we obey the maxim of our seer;
A poet; prophet; politician, here;
Life's current still shall prove, in British blood,
Of valour an insuperable flood;
Still other Marlboroughs; other Wolfes shall rise;
To glad a nation's hearts; a nation's eyes;
320
By land, shall crush the robbers of the world;
While Hawkes, and Howes; and Duncans, on the main,
Impurple Neptune's realm with Frenchmen slain:
With murmur flits each melancholy ghost;
Cursing it's dreams of treading England's coast.
But while my mind approves; admires; reveres
The hand intrepid that our vessel steers;
Not with French rant; with English firmness braves
Meteors of anarchy, and faction's waves;
While I revere each patron of the state;
Let me not class too low the poet's fate.
Poets give grace, and energy to mind;
And speed the noble passions of mankind.
Pindar in Theban bosoms lighted flames,
To pant for glory at Olympia's games;
And to deserve their country's beauteous dames.
The bard, Tyrtæus, with his patriot song,
Raised from despair the listening Spartan throng;
Taught their chilled hearts with ancient heat to glow;
And drove their arms, in thunder, on the foe.
For his first pleasure of nocturnal hours,
Young Ammon, blest with ardent mental powers,
Close to his conquering sword the Iliad laid,
Invoking Homer's venerable shade:
The god-like strain he read with sleepless eyes;
And fired his soul with verse, to great emprize.
The hand intrepid that our vessel steers;
Not with French rant; with English firmness braves
Meteors of anarchy, and faction's waves;
While I revere each patron of the state;
Let me not class too low the poet's fate.
Poets give grace, and energy to mind;
And speed the noble passions of mankind.
Pindar in Theban bosoms lighted flames,
To pant for glory at Olympia's games;
And to deserve their country's beauteous dames.
The bard, Tyrtæus, with his patriot song,
Raised from despair the listening Spartan throng;
Taught their chilled hearts with ancient heat to glow;
And drove their arms, in thunder, on the foe.
321
Young Ammon, blest with ardent mental powers,
Close to his conquering sword the Iliad laid,
Invoking Homer's venerable shade:
The god-like strain he read with sleepless eyes;
And fired his soul with verse, to great emprize.
Oh! then, might Dryden's muse my numbers fire;
His easy force; his eloquence inspire;
Give all his fervour to my vigorous line;
“His long, majestick march, and energy divine ;”
Which multiplied Britannia's naval balls;
And drove them home, through Holland's oaken walls;
Or would our Pope's more cultivated muse;
Whose graceful robe floats with celestial hues;
Tune in my ravished ears his golden strain,
That urged our cannon on the pride of Spain;
By powers poetick I might, then, regain
A loyal phalanx from Sedition's train;
Those powers would clear their intellectual sight
From democratick fogs of Stygian night:—
Yes; loyal to the code of publick sway,
Praised in the sage's prose; the poet's lay;
That equal code which Montesquieu admires;
Which warms Helvetius with the purest fires.
Blest pair! while two such Frenchmen plead our cause,
How England feels her salutary laws!
Your country's glory, while she valued fame;
Now, in her Scythian state, your country's shame!
His easy force; his eloquence inspire;
Give all his fervour to my vigorous line;
“His long, majestick march, and energy divine ;”
Which multiplied Britannia's naval balls;
And drove them home, through Holland's oaken walls;
Or would our Pope's more cultivated muse;
Whose graceful robe floats with celestial hues;
Tune in my ravished ears his golden strain,
That urged our cannon on the pride of Spain;
By powers poetick I might, then, regain
A loyal phalanx from Sedition's train;
322
From democratick fogs of Stygian night:—
Yes; loyal to the code of publick sway,
Praised in the sage's prose; the poet's lay;
That equal code which Montesquieu admires;
Which warms Helvetius with the purest fires.
Blest pair! while two such Frenchmen plead our cause,
How England feels her salutary laws!
Your country's glory, while she valued fame;
Now, in her Scythian state, your country's shame!
Would but one spirit of the mighty dead
His heat benign on his admirer shed;
Would Burke, who gave us poetry in prose,
While strength of argument collateral flows:
With great suggestions fill my poorer breast;
'Twould then, with glorious agitation blest,
Congenial sense, and imagery produce,
Of private rapture, and of publick use.—
Transfuse his fervid æther to my line;
The coyness I could bear of all the Nine.
Oh! come, to man disposed for ever well;
People with Plato's forms my lonely cell;
Those forms, in eloquence by thee conveyed;
In thy mellifluous style, celestial shade!
A splendid world of poetry would show;
And with more musick teach my verse to flow;
Come, then; to letters warmly still inclined;
Enrich my fancy, and inform my mind!
His heat benign on his admirer shed;
Would Burke, who gave us poetry in prose,
While strength of argument collateral flows:
With great suggestions fill my poorer breast;
'Twould then, with glorious agitation blest,
Congenial sense, and imagery produce,
Of private rapture, and of publick use.—
Transfuse his fervid æther to my line;
The coyness I could bear of all the Nine.
Oh! come, to man disposed for ever well;
People with Plato's forms my lonely cell;
323
In thy mellifluous style, celestial shade!
A splendid world of poetry would show;
And with more musick teach my verse to flow;
Come, then; to letters warmly still inclined;
Enrich my fancy, and inform my mind!
When freed from low pursuits, our minds attend;
Each moral poet is his country's friend:
'Tis true, the precepts glide: they softly steal,
But surely, to the mass of publick weal,
The favourites of the muse, with fine controul;
With force delightful, draw the captive soul;
Suffuse all moral truth with charming grace;
And push the virtues of the human race;
Their own they push; intent on high renown,
They feel not, while the Nine their temples crown,
Envy's mean arts, nor Pride's presumptuous frown.
Each moral poet is his country's friend:
'Tis true, the precepts glide: they softly steal,
But surely, to the mass of publick weal,
The favourites of the muse, with fine controul;
With force delightful, draw the captive soul;
Suffuse all moral truth with charming grace;
And push the virtues of the human race;
Their own they push; intent on high renown,
They feel not, while the Nine their temples crown,
Envy's mean arts, nor Pride's presumptuous frown.
Would Heaven's omnipotence on me bestow
Those powers which in poetick story flow;
Which fiery souls could with it's magick tame;
And change the passions of the human frame;
Then should my country soon possess, combined,
All her dread force of matter, and of mind:
To matter, powerless to destroy, or save;
“The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave ;”
All act; all energy, by mind is given;
That emanation from the throne of heaven!
Our earth were dead; our sun; our days; our years;
Unless a God for ever wheeled the spheres;
Then let two god-like minds no longer jar;
But drive, in harmony, the storm of war!
When Eloquence's bright, resistless flood,
Shall roll, united, for your country's good;
When she shall hear you plead her urgent cause,
With ardent concord, of endangered laws;
Of property; of life; of all that's dear;
Of all that moves the smile; or draws the tear;
The force electrick shall pervade our isle;
The queen of nations shall resume her smile:—
Hear;—by the miser's vote the war supplied;
See! cowards pant to die as Burgess died!
Who can each powerful stimulus withstand;
When Robbers threaten; and when you command?
Well pleased, though prostrate, falls poetick pride;
By Oratory's pathos far outvied:—
But let my verse with stronger interest flow;—
By your exertions prostrate falls the foe!
Those powers which in poetick story flow;
324
And change the passions of the human frame;
Then should my country soon possess, combined,
All her dread force of matter, and of mind:
To matter, powerless to destroy, or save;
“The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave ;”
All act; all energy, by mind is given;
That emanation from the throne of heaven!
Our earth were dead; our sun; our days; our years;
Unless a God for ever wheeled the spheres;
Then let two god-like minds no longer jar;
But drive, in harmony, the storm of war!
When Eloquence's bright, resistless flood,
Shall roll, united, for your country's good;
When she shall hear you plead her urgent cause,
With ardent concord, of endangered laws;
Of property; of life; of all that's dear;
Of all that moves the smile; or draws the tear;
The force electrick shall pervade our isle;
The queen of nations shall resume her smile:—
325
See! cowards pant to die as Burgess died!
Who can each powerful stimulus withstand;
When Robbers threaten; and when you command?
Well pleased, though prostrate, falls poetick pride;
By Oratory's pathos far outvied:—
But let my verse with stronger interest flow;—
By your exertions prostrate falls the foe!
Of all the talents that from heaven we share,
We find the first-rate orator's most rare.
In ancient times, two commonwealths were blest,
Each, with one genius, of these powers possessed;
The first, in Athens, lengthened Freedom's date;
Her drooping life, in a degenerate state:
The next (great victim to a tyrant's doom!)
Repelled destruction from majestick Rome!—
Two first-rate orators in Britain live;
(Such glories can her constitution give!)—
If, then, in former governments, one sage,
By Hermes fired, could vanquish hostile rage;
Sure, two such patriots may preserve our own;
Secure our senate, and protect our throne.
We find the first-rate orator's most rare.
In ancient times, two commonwealths were blest,
Each, with one genius, of these powers possessed;
The first, in Athens, lengthened Freedom's date;
Her drooping life, in a degenerate state:
The next (great victim to a tyrant's doom!)
Repelled destruction from majestick Rome!—
Two first-rate orators in Britain live;
(Such glories can her constitution give!)—
If, then, in former governments, one sage,
By Hermes fired, could vanquish hostile rage;
Sure, two such patriots may preserve our own;
Secure our senate, and protect our throne.
326
Thou orator! whose praise would speed my muse!
Her numbers polish, and expand her views;
Whose social character I love; whose fire,
Pregnant with splendid genius, I admire!
Forgive the liberal poet, who presumes
(His muse, with awe, contracts her burnished plumes!)
On ground political to move with thee;
But this great crisis bids us all be free.
Would Fox for a wild horde of Tartars plead;
Who still for freedom is prepared to bleed?
All masks those savages have Thrown away;
Have now announced themselves in open day.
Peace they despise; their trade is to annoy;
Deceit, and insult, are a Frenchman's joy!
To an old proverb Punic faith gave birth;
French faith be now the proverb, o'er the earth:
'Tis true, that faith was of notorious fame,
When all it's realms adored a monarch's name;
But then their court politely broke it's word;
Like gentlemen, whose honour is their sword:
But now the low mechanics of the land;
Those chieftains, “of exceeding good command ;”
Unmoved with shame, advance the grossest lie;
Callous to refutation's calm reply;
Or with some bold affront it's force defy:
Assume their kindred rabble's brutal airs;
And almost kick ambassadours down stairs.
Oh! cruel task, by Providence assigned,
To try a learned, polished, candid mind;
That mind opposed by artificial spheres,
To ignorance, and insolence;—its peers!
May Malmesbury deign attention to my lays;
And from no venal pen accept his praise!
Let from the scholar's mind a tribute flow;
And as a Briton take the thanks I owe.
Oft with thy father my enamoured youth
Wooed, in his groves Athenian, beauteous Truth:
And as his comment on my spirit wrought,
The Stagyrite more clearly met my thought:
The more I loved what god-like Plato taught.
While thus I reasoned with the good, and wise,
Phœbus, in June, too early left the skies!
The son is worthy to succeed the sire;
Thine is his virtue; thine his Attic fire;
Born to contrast thyself, in wayward times,
With dire abettors of all human crimes;
Born, as a British delegate, to show
How far ingenuous dignity can go;
While by the French transactions was expressed
What baseness can pollute the human breast.
Her numbers polish, and expand her views;
Whose social character I love; whose fire,
Pregnant with splendid genius, I admire!
Forgive the liberal poet, who presumes
(His muse, with awe, contracts her burnished plumes!)
On ground political to move with thee;
But this great crisis bids us all be free.
Would Fox for a wild horde of Tartars plead;
Who still for freedom is prepared to bleed?
All masks those savages have Thrown away;
Have now announced themselves in open day.
Peace they despise; their trade is to annoy;
Deceit, and insult, are a Frenchman's joy!
To an old proverb Punic faith gave birth;
French faith be now the proverb, o'er the earth:
'Tis true, that faith was of notorious fame,
When all it's realms adored a monarch's name;
But then their court politely broke it's word;
Like gentlemen, whose honour is their sword:
But now the low mechanics of the land;
Those chieftains, “of exceeding good command ;”
327
Callous to refutation's calm reply;
Or with some bold affront it's force defy:
Assume their kindred rabble's brutal airs;
And almost kick ambassadours down stairs.
Oh! cruel task, by Providence assigned,
To try a learned, polished, candid mind;
That mind opposed by artificial spheres,
To ignorance, and insolence;—its peers!
May Malmesbury deign attention to my lays;
And from no venal pen accept his praise!
Let from the scholar's mind a tribute flow;
And as a Briton take the thanks I owe.
Oft with thy father my enamoured youth
Wooed, in his groves Athenian, beauteous Truth:
And as his comment on my spirit wrought,
The Stagyrite more clearly met my thought:
The more I loved what god-like Plato taught.
328
Phœbus, in June, too early left the skies!
The son is worthy to succeed the sire;
Thine is his virtue; thine his Attic fire;
Born to contrast thyself, in wayward times,
With dire abettors of all human crimes;
Born, as a British delegate, to show
How far ingenuous dignity can go;
While by the French transactions was expressed
What baseness can pollute the human breast.
These are the pygmies, who, all-good, all-wise,
In their vain fancy, to old Romans rise;
These are the generous fathers of mankind,
Who promise that by some propitious wind,
Their Heaven-sent fleets our coasts, ere long, shall see;—
They land; they conquer; and they make us free!
Who would not laugh, this impious boast to hear;
Did not it's impious nonsense wound our ear?
Say, since your monarch's death, ye vaunting elves,
What liberty have you enjoyed, yourselves?
Now, nine long years in acting madly wrong
(Various, and dire events have made them long!)
You've passed: thus, from your revolution's date,
Crimes heaped on crimes have driven your headlong fate.
Those years what deeds of genuine glory grace?
Bombast, and blood, and rapine fill the space!
Eager, abroad, your neighbour's rights to seize;
At home, to trample on your own decrees;
Confusion on confusion you have hurled;
The Pandæmonium of our upper world!
In their vain fancy, to old Romans rise;
These are the generous fathers of mankind,
Who promise that by some propitious wind,
Their Heaven-sent fleets our coasts, ere long, shall see;—
They land; they conquer; and they make us free!
Who would not laugh, this impious boast to hear;
Did not it's impious nonsense wound our ear?
Say, since your monarch's death, ye vaunting elves,
What liberty have you enjoyed, yourselves?
Now, nine long years in acting madly wrong
(Various, and dire events have made them long!)
329
Crimes heaped on crimes have driven your headlong fate.
Those years what deeds of genuine glory grace?
Bombast, and blood, and rapine fill the space!
Eager, abroad, your neighbour's rights to seize;
At home, to trample on your own decrees;
Confusion on confusion you have hurled;
The Pandæmonium of our upper world!
Not polity's mere elements you know;
Of order ignorant; to it's bliss a foe!
Tell me:—with intellectual vision strong;
While a blind chaos whirls your state so long;—
Tell me; with tranquil study have you seen,
What Locke, what Montesquieu, what Sydney mean?
Have you the paths to the best science trod;
By which a man participates his God?
Have you implored that God to dart a beam,
To light you through the complicated theme?
That mighty theme, whose blessings, as they flow,
Cheer, and exalt our being here below;
The theme that spreads fair plenty o'er a land;
While just obedience bows to just command;
That cheers the husband's labour; charms the wife;
And throws Elysium round connubial life;
That, brought to action, fires all minds; all hearts;
Stirs all great passions; urges all fine arts;
To love of country, and to glory, wakes
The souls of Duncans, as the souls of Drakes;
Excites the bard to energetick lays;
His dearest recompence, that country's praise:
Brings matchless orators to splendid day;
Gives Pitt's, and Fox's genius, all their play!
That theme; that constitution, at this hour,
(Blest influence of her large, pervading power!)
That theme; that constitution now invites,
Intreats her Fox to plead her sacred rights;
She hopes, in the palladium of his mind,
For safety from the refuse of mankind;
Woos him his less ambition to forego;
And pour his greater on the common foe;
To grasp, in friendship, England's whole expanse;
To feel nought hostile to his peace but France;
His British brother-lion proud to join;
And add new lustre to the fearless line:
She woos him still to earn more high renown;
More vivid foliage for the patriot's crown.
Of order ignorant; to it's bliss a foe!
Tell me:—with intellectual vision strong;
While a blind chaos whirls your state so long;—
Tell me; with tranquil study have you seen,
What Locke, what Montesquieu, what Sydney mean?
Have you the paths to the best science trod;
By which a man participates his God?
Have you implored that God to dart a beam,
To light you through the complicated theme?
That mighty theme, whose blessings, as they flow,
Cheer, and exalt our being here below;
The theme that spreads fair plenty o'er a land;
While just obedience bows to just command;
330
And throws Elysium round connubial life;
That, brought to action, fires all minds; all hearts;
Stirs all great passions; urges all fine arts;
To love of country, and to glory, wakes
The souls of Duncans, as the souls of Drakes;
Excites the bard to energetick lays;
His dearest recompence, that country's praise:
Brings matchless orators to splendid day;
Gives Pitt's, and Fox's genius, all their play!
That theme; that constitution, at this hour,
(Blest influence of her large, pervading power!)
That theme; that constitution now invites,
Intreats her Fox to plead her sacred rights;
She hopes, in the palladium of his mind,
For safety from the refuse of mankind;
Woos him his less ambition to forego;
And pour his greater on the common foe;
To grasp, in friendship, England's whole expanse;
To feel nought hostile to his peace but France;
His British brother-lion proud to join;
And add new lustre to the fearless line:
She woos him still to earn more high renown;
More vivid foliage for the patriot's crown.
331
Sage policy! how powerful is it's plan!
To his last excellence it brightens man!
It's complex operations steal along;
In silence, active; in gradation strong;
For ever verging to their parent-goal;
Their god-like aim; the welfare of the whole!
To his last excellence it brightens man!
It's complex operations steal along;
In silence, active; in gradation strong;
For ever verging to their parent-goal;
Their god-like aim; the welfare of the whole!
Ye stupid atheists! moves this fine machine
In your tumultuous, sanguinary scene?
Make you it's laws your knowledge, or your care?
Murderers of all that's good, and wise, and fair!
In your tumultuous, sanguinary scene?
Make you it's laws your knowledge, or your care?
Murderers of all that's good, and wise, and fair!
Your nation with the farce of kingly power
At first you mocked; poor phantom of an hour;
No proper pressure to that King you gave,
In the state's weight;—a mere conspicuous slave!
Statesmen unparalleled through every age!
Shall all your crudities disgrace my page?
Councils; conventions; and assemblies loud;
Each, a mechanick, upstart, bawling crowd!
Directories, more grave, and famous far;
Great in their nervous arguments for war;
Let me but skim these monsters in my strains;
The shapeless progeny of moon-struck brains.
No railing, this; men of discerning eye
Blunders in all your plans at once descry!
You work on no strong base; your fabricks all,
As soon as reared, are tottering to their fall;
Soon (for no part supports; no part coheres)
They sink, and crash, and thunder round your ears.
At first you mocked; poor phantom of an hour;
No proper pressure to that King you gave,
In the state's weight;—a mere conspicuous slave!
Statesmen unparalleled through every age!
Shall all your crudities disgrace my page?
Councils; conventions; and assemblies loud;
Each, a mechanick, upstart, bawling crowd!
Directories, more grave, and famous far;
Great in their nervous arguments for war;
Let me but skim these monsters in my strains;
The shapeless progeny of moon-struck brains.
332
Blunders in all your plans at once descry!
You work on no strong base; your fabricks all,
As soon as reared, are tottering to their fall;
Soon (for no part supports; no part coheres)
They sink, and crash, and thunder round your ears.
From all the practice of your motley sway,
Your civil justice bears the palm away.
When honest lawyers, whom all tyrants hate,
Pled for their clients, doomed to lawless fate;
When by your orders; by your forms they pled;
Anticipating vengeance marked them dead;
Your justice, like your axe, a mere machine;
And both were sentenced to the guillotine!
Your civil justice bears the palm away.
When honest lawyers, whom all tyrants hate,
Pled for their clients, doomed to lawless fate;
When by your orders; by your forms they pled;
Anticipating vengeance marked them dead;
Your justice, like your axe, a mere machine;
And both were sentenced to the guillotine!
But now their genius finds a stranger mode;
Their penal statutes take a longer road.
Now, with the Deity these judges vie;
Now, with intuitive omniscient eye,
They see the traitor;—in ethereal minds,
A dull, cold process no admission finds;
Power self-derived; power self-informed commands;
And off he sails to Afric's burning sands.
This is Morocco's comprehensive plan;—
A model of the Algerine divan.
These men have promised, on some genial day,
To cheer our darkened isle with Freedom's ray;
Transcendent merit passed our own to make;
And spare our nation for their Newton's sake.
Oh! hallowed, long; oh! venerable name!
Art thou dishonoured by injurious fame!
Thy name should strike those fiends with silent awe;
Saint of Religion's; priest of Nature's law!
Yet to these wretches must we go to school,
To learn to flourish under equal rule!
Need I say more?—If more I had to say,
My English feelings would impede it's way!
Their penal statutes take a longer road.
Now, with the Deity these judges vie;
Now, with intuitive omniscient eye,
They see the traitor;—in ethereal minds,
A dull, cold process no admission finds;
Power self-derived; power self-informed commands;
And off he sails to Afric's burning sands.
333
A model of the Algerine divan.
These men have promised, on some genial day,
To cheer our darkened isle with Freedom's ray;
Transcendent merit passed our own to make;
And spare our nation for their Newton's sake.
Oh! hallowed, long; oh! venerable name!
Art thou dishonoured by injurious fame!
Thy name should strike those fiends with silent awe;
Saint of Religion's; priest of Nature's law!
Yet to these wretches must we go to school,
To learn to flourish under equal rule!
Need I say more?—If more I had to say,
My English feelings would impede it's way!
Let these incentives, Fox, have all their force;
And shape, magnanimous, by them, thy course;
Give ill-timed opposition to the wind;
And leave all party-spirit far behind.
Who would not act what millions will approve?
What gains it's author universal love?
Who would not, with ambition fraught, aspire
To conduct which the coldest hearts admire?
Think of the summit of immortal fame;
And think of each illustrious English name!
Perhaps, of Britain some departed friend,
At times; may, now, thy silent thoughts attend;
Suggest that when the brightest glory calls,
In the great soul, self-love defeated, falls;
That such a soul, clogged with no gross allay,
Wings it's direct, and elevated way!
Let Hamden's whisper prompt the generous deed;
Let Sydney's hint illumine Virtue's meed;
And let not Russel's aspect tinge thy dreams
With clouds of sorrow, but with heavenly gleams!
And shape, magnanimous, by them, thy course;
Give ill-timed opposition to the wind;
And leave all party-spirit far behind.
334
What gains it's author universal love?
Who would not, with ambition fraught, aspire
To conduct which the coldest hearts admire?
Think of the summit of immortal fame;
And think of each illustrious English name!
Perhaps, of Britain some departed friend,
At times; may, now, thy silent thoughts attend;
Suggest that when the brightest glory calls,
In the great soul, self-love defeated, falls;
That such a soul, clogged with no gross allay,
Wings it's direct, and elevated way!
Let Hamden's whisper prompt the generous deed;
Let Sydney's hint illumine Virtue's meed;
335
With clouds of sorrow, but with heavenly gleams!
By minds of no deep thought, we all have heard
A proposition hastily averred;
That as the postdiluvian race of men
Sink to the grave, at threescore years and ten;
Rise, flourish, and decay; then yield their breath;
Such is of empires, too, the life, and death:
They, in their infancy, and youth, proceed,
With every arduous; every glorious deed:
Matured, with great, and rival states, they vie:—
Commerce, and luxury spread; they droop; they die.
A proposition hastily averred;
That as the postdiluvian race of men
Sink to the grave, at threescore years and ten;
Rise, flourish, and decay; then yield their breath;
Such is of empires, too, the life, and death:
They, in their infancy, and youth, proceed,
With every arduous; every glorious deed:
Matured, with great, and rival states, they vie:—
Commerce, and luxury spread; they droop; they die.
This doctrine will not bear the test of truth;
A state may hold interminable youth;
That state, unlimited in age mature,
Against the worst events may prove secure:
Frail man is made of one compacted frame;
And soon the grave must have it's awful claim:
But empires long may ward their fatal date;
Long may succeeding lives protract their fate.
Think what depends on one illustrious life:
Think how the Theban, with his martial strife;
With all his virtues, all his talents, blessed;
Sprung, like an eagle, for his Thebes distressed;
Like Jove's own lightning, darted on his prey;
And Greece's palm imperial bore away!
But when divine Epaminondas died,
His matchless worth no equal chief supplied;
Withered, at once, was all his country's bloom;
And Thebes, and he, were buried in one tomb.
Great orators will die; great heroes bleed;
New heroes, and new orators succeed;
Apparent ruin at mankind is hurled:
Some Atlas rises, and he props the world!
So Pitts, and Foxes, strong in virtuous will,
The spheres of our best ancestors may fill;
May join the factious to their country's friends;
And as the social mass harmonious blends,
May breathe a flame impetuous through the whole;
And make a people, one, all-conquering soul.
Then, by the pressing evils of the times;
Their indolence; corruption; luxury; crimes;
Slightly the purer passion is annoyed;
By it's afflatus is the nation buoyed;
It's heat these noxious vapours clears away;
As clouds disperse before the god of day.
A state may hold interminable youth;
That state, unlimited in age mature,
Against the worst events may prove secure:
Frail man is made of one compacted frame;
And soon the grave must have it's awful claim:
But empires long may ward their fatal date;
Long may succeeding lives protract their fate.
Think what depends on one illustrious life:
Think how the Theban, with his martial strife;
336
Sprung, like an eagle, for his Thebes distressed;
Like Jove's own lightning, darted on his prey;
And Greece's palm imperial bore away!
But when divine Epaminondas died,
His matchless worth no equal chief supplied;
Withered, at once, was all his country's bloom;
And Thebes, and he, were buried in one tomb.
Great orators will die; great heroes bleed;
New heroes, and new orators succeed;
Apparent ruin at mankind is hurled:
Some Atlas rises, and he props the world!
So Pitts, and Foxes, strong in virtuous will,
The spheres of our best ancestors may fill;
May join the factious to their country's friends;
And as the social mass harmonious blends,
May breathe a flame impetuous through the whole;
And make a people, one, all-conquering soul.
Then, by the pressing evils of the times;
Their indolence; corruption; luxury; crimes;
Slightly the purer passion is annoyed;
By it's afflatus is the nation buoyed;
It's heat these noxious vapours clears away;
As clouds disperse before the god of day.
337
Thus the Creator! thus the Lord of all,
Impresses, ever, and preserves our ball;
Works plastick nature, through her varied range;
And stimulates her powers, at every change;
Bids them their acts essential still maintain;
And deluges, and earthquakes rage in vain.
Impresses, ever, and preserves our ball;
Works plastick nature, through her varied range;
And stimulates her powers, at every change;
Bids them their acts essential still maintain;
And deluges, and earthquakes rage in vain.
Mute be the croaking prophets of the day;
Creating danger; raising vain dismay,
Whene'er a speck of publick ill appears;—
French, in their hopes; or female, in their fears!
Creating danger; raising vain dismay,
Whene'er a speck of publick ill appears;—
French, in their hopes; or female, in their fears!
As on it's solid base our empire stands;
And all it's forces unimpaired commands;
Let us, if we peruse grave history's page,
To dignify this world's inferior stage,
Adopt examples from a better age.
While yet unshaken, let us learn from Rome
Of ancient fame, to spurn a servile doom;
Or should our sea-girt isle her danger share;
Her let us emulate, and spurn despair.
True to itself, the greatly conscious soul
No petty smiles, nor petty frowns controul;
When the worst ills assail, it's conflicts rise;
From firmness, and the justice of the skies,
It still anticipates complete relief,
In all the majesty of Roman grief.
And all it's forces unimpaired commands;
338
To dignify this world's inferior stage,
Adopt examples from a better age.
While yet unshaken, let us learn from Rome
Of ancient fame, to spurn a servile doom;
Or should our sea-girt isle her danger share;
Her let us emulate, and spurn despair.
True to itself, the greatly conscious soul
No petty smiles, nor petty frowns controul;
When the worst ills assail, it's conflicts rise;
From firmness, and the justice of the skies,
It still anticipates complete relief,
In all the majesty of Roman grief.
When dreadful Annibal; stupendous foe!
Fearless of Alpine heights; of Alpine snow;
Those heights had passed; he poured, along the plains,
A furious tide of war on Rome's domains!
Genius; the love of fame; of Rome the hate,
Wrought all the splendour of this hero's fate.
No bounds to glorious deeds hath heaven assigned,
When three such powerful engines move the mind.
First at Ticinum were his rapid arms
Victorious; and through Latium spread alarms;
The frighted river rolled a purple flood;
Great Po, with horrour, felt the generous blood.
Still Afric's lion the proud eagle tore,
And Trebia's stream was red with Roman gore.
Fearless of Alpine heights; of Alpine snow;
Those heights had passed; he poured, along the plains,
A furious tide of war on Rome's domains!
Genius; the love of fame; of Rome the hate,
Wrought all the splendour of this hero's fate.
No bounds to glorious deeds hath heaven assigned,
When three such powerful engines move the mind.
First at Ticinum were his rapid arms
Victorious; and through Latium spread alarms;
339
Great Po, with horrour, felt the generous blood.
Still Afric's lion the proud eagle tore,
And Trebia's stream was red with Roman gore.
Almost with filial grief the classick muse
The lake, the hills of Trasimenus views!
Patavium's glory: how, thy page divine
Makes Roman valour in misfortune shine!
Nature, with squalid mien, predicts the fray;
She sends a gloomy, dank, and weeping day;
The realms of Italy with earthquakes reel;
Which all but the contending armies feel;
Divine, and human rage, at once are hurled;
And Jove, and Annibal divide the world.
Sickly, through Nature's horrours, gleams the sun;
Carnage completes the scene which they begun.
The lake, the hills of Trasimenus views!
Patavium's glory: how, thy page divine
Makes Roman valour in misfortune shine!
Nature, with squalid mien, predicts the fray;
She sends a gloomy, dank, and weeping day;
The realms of Italy with earthquakes reel;
Which all but the contending armies feel;
Divine, and human rage, at once are hurled;
And Jove, and Annibal divide the world.
Sickly, through Nature's horrours, gleams the sun;
Carnage completes the scene which they begun.
Of common minds the fortitude is less,
As deeper swells the climax of distress;
Not so the Romans; even to Cannæ's field
Their unsubmitting spirit scorned to yield.
A heavier chain of woes can history tell?—
At Cannæ fifty thousand Romans fell!
The rapid Aufidus was near the plain;
The melancholy tidings of the slain
He rolled, in blood Patrician, to the main!
How imminent was, now, the Roman doom!
The conqueror, but an easy march from Rome!
And what a conqueror! say, can history show
So great a people matched with such a foe?
Curse on my lays, if ever they refuse
Praise to the man who shades my favourite views;
In whom the world admires the real charms
Of genius, or in letters, or in arms;
If, though conspicuous gallantry prevail,
I tell De Winter's cold, Dutch, envious tale!
But the French Corsican will France oppose,
Though wild her gasconading rhetorick flows,
With feeble modern Italy o'errun;
Nay, with his trophies even from Austria won;—
Will she oppose him to Amilcar's son?
As deeper swells the climax of distress;
Not so the Romans; even to Cannæ's field
Their unsubmitting spirit scorned to yield.
340
At Cannæ fifty thousand Romans fell!
The rapid Aufidus was near the plain;
The melancholy tidings of the slain
He rolled, in blood Patrician, to the main!
How imminent was, now, the Roman doom!
The conqueror, but an easy march from Rome!
And what a conqueror! say, can history show
So great a people matched with such a foe?
Curse on my lays, if ever they refuse
Praise to the man who shades my favourite views;
In whom the world admires the real charms
Of genius, or in letters, or in arms;
If, though conspicuous gallantry prevail,
I tell De Winter's cold, Dutch, envious tale!
But the French Corsican will France oppose,
Though wild her gasconading rhetorick flows,
With feeble modern Italy o'errun;
Nay, with his trophies even from Austria won;—
Will she oppose him to Amilcar's son?
Let me, with ardour, following glory's call,
View Rome's consummate greatness in her fall.
When from his favourites Jove awhile withdrew;
And turned to Carthage, with propitious view;
Evils oppressed; but still the Roman rose;
Humane, in triumphs, and august, in woes:
When Cannæ's field to fresh alarms gave birth;
And shook those energies that shook the earth;
When plans were offered, in a warm debate,
Unequal to the high decrees of fate;
To court renown, like sons of Rome, no more;
To breathe ignobly, on some foreign shore;
The youthful Scipio drew his flaming sword;
Worthy companion of each fiery word!
The destined saviour of his country swore
By Jove, who had protected Rome before,
That all who heard him should resist the foe;
That valour still might ward the fatal blow;
That strength, and honour were reserved for Rome,
Of long duration; of perpetual bloom:
“If one man here shrinks from his country's good,
“My vengeful blade shall seek the dastard's blood!”
His oath with patriot hearts his audience feel;
Awed less by Annibal's than Scipio's steel.
View Rome's consummate greatness in her fall.
341
And turned to Carthage, with propitious view;
Evils oppressed; but still the Roman rose;
Humane, in triumphs, and august, in woes:
When Cannæ's field to fresh alarms gave birth;
And shook those energies that shook the earth;
When plans were offered, in a warm debate,
Unequal to the high decrees of fate;
To court renown, like sons of Rome, no more;
To breathe ignobly, on some foreign shore;
The youthful Scipio drew his flaming sword;
Worthy companion of each fiery word!
The destined saviour of his country swore
By Jove, who had protected Rome before,
That all who heard him should resist the foe;
That valour still might ward the fatal blow;
That strength, and honour were reserved for Rome,
Of long duration; of perpetual bloom:
“If one man here shrinks from his country's good,
“My vengeful blade shall seek the dastard's blood!”
His oath with patriot hearts his audience feel;
Awed less by Annibal's than Scipio's steel.
342
But not alone thus acted Scipio's soul;
The same intrepid thoughts inspired the whole.
When Varro to the capital returned;
Whose valour had with warmth destructive burned;
All orders in procession met the chief;
Eager to pour into his mind relief;
Thanked him for bravely bearing Fate's harsh doom;
“For not despairing of imperial Rome!”
What was the consequence?—Rome's empire rose
On the vast ruins of her Punic foes;
Great deeds achieved; and greater still designed;
For pressure but new-springs the generous mind;
As gold by Vulcan's torture is refined.
The same intrepid thoughts inspired the whole.
When Varro to the capital returned;
Whose valour had with warmth destructive burned;
All orders in procession met the chief;
Eager to pour into his mind relief;
Thanked him for bravely bearing Fate's harsh doom;
“For not despairing of imperial Rome!”
What was the consequence?—Rome's empire rose
On the vast ruins of her Punic foes;
Great deeds achieved; and greater still designed;
For pressure but new-springs the generous mind;
As gold by Vulcan's torture is refined.
Even in the fiercest war is Britain blessed;
With no destructive ravages distressed;
Even now her sons are not compelled to cease
The sweet employments, and the joys of peace:
Environed with tranquillity, the swain
Rears the new hay; and reaps the golden grain;
Commerce with usual vigour spreads her sails;
And England's fortune sends auspicious gales;
From human bliss no sounds discordant jar,
But faction's clamour, with it's wordy war.
What most we value; property; law; life;
From all the horrours of the martial strife,
Nature, and man, alike, with us defend;
—Their generous efforts let us all befriend.
No Buonapartes in our isle shall rage;
No dreadful Punic war have we to wage;
The god of ocean ever guards our shore;
His waves, and our victorious cannon roar;
Still we possess our old internal powers;
And English wealth, and hearts, and hands are ours.
With no destructive ravages distressed;
Even now her sons are not compelled to cease
The sweet employments, and the joys of peace:
Environed with tranquillity, the swain
Rears the new hay; and reaps the golden grain;
Commerce with usual vigour spreads her sails;
And England's fortune sends auspicious gales;
343
But faction's clamour, with it's wordy war.
What most we value; property; law; life;
From all the horrours of the martial strife,
Nature, and man, alike, with us defend;
—Their generous efforts let us all befriend.
No Buonapartes in our isle shall rage;
No dreadful Punic war have we to wage;
The god of ocean ever guards our shore;
His waves, and our victorious cannon roar;
Still we possess our old internal powers;
And English wealth, and hearts, and hands are ours.
Then let each honest man dismiss his fears;
Let every timorous woman dry her tears:
And you, domestick enemies, who spread,
With souls malignant, artificial dread;
Let phantoms court you to some foreign strand;
And quit, too good for you, your native land.
Let every timorous woman dry her tears:
And you, domestick enemies, who spread,
With souls malignant, artificial dread;
Let phantoms court you to some foreign strand;
And quit, too good for you, your native land.
When France imperial dignity maintained;
When Louis' fortune, and her Colbert reigned;
When female charms, and female wit inspired;
And all that splendour with their ether fired;
Her threats; her force, if we could then disdain;
Of France degenerate shall we bear the chain?
Shall we, to English fame no longer true,
Stoop to a vile, marauding, ruffian crew?
Shall English talents their protection owe
To De la Croix; to Monge, and to Lepaux?
Shall Gallia's hireling chief these realms command;
Dissolve our senate, and divide our land?
Is any price enormous that we pay
To quell the tempest of chaotick sway?
No;—if at ease we draw not British breath;
We'll court a glorious poverty, or death
When Louis' fortune, and her Colbert reigned;
When female charms, and female wit inspired;
And all that splendour with their ether fired;
344
Of France degenerate shall we bear the chain?
Shall we, to English fame no longer true,
Stoop to a vile, marauding, ruffian crew?
Shall English talents their protection owe
To De la Croix; to Monge, and to Lepaux?
Shall Gallia's hireling chief these realms command;
Dissolve our senate, and divide our land?
Is any price enormous that we pay
To quell the tempest of chaotick sway?
No;—if at ease we draw not British breath;
We'll court a glorious poverty, or death
345
There are incentives in the roll of fate;
Which, in collision with a mighty state,
Would so strike fire;—such talents would shoot forth;
Such emulation; such exerted worth;
That were it's constitution in decline;
With all it's ancient lustre it would shine.
My country! justly every Briton's pride;
Where Freedom still is anxious to reside;
Because, constrained from other lands to flee,
She found her walls of adamant in thee!
Great patroness of man's eternal cause;
His mild religion, and his equal laws!
From distant ages Providence's care;
Parent of gallant sons, and daughters fair!
Where, in the cultivated rural scene,
Ceres and Flora wear their brightest mien!
And where, in social elegance are joined
The charms of person, and the charms of mind:
Of sage philosophers a numerous train;
Of men most powerful in poetick strain!
Should human excellence our search engage,
In recollecting down, from age to age;
While memory travels, too, from pole to pole;
The first achievements of the human soul,
Great Queen of Islands, we shall find in thee;
Divine at land, and terrible at sea!
Since Europe, now, her arbitress reveres;
And looks to thee, with mingled hopes, and fears;
Of all the deeds that British annals praise,
From virtuous Alfred's down to George's days;
When thou must act the most distinguished part;
When all thy glories press upon my heart;
When with emphatick voice thy honour calls;
Accept the verse that flows; the tear that falls!
Which, in collision with a mighty state,
Would so strike fire;—such talents would shoot forth;
Such emulation; such exerted worth;
That were it's constitution in decline;
With all it's ancient lustre it would shine.
My country! justly every Briton's pride;
Where Freedom still is anxious to reside;
Because, constrained from other lands to flee,
She found her walls of adamant in thee!
Great patroness of man's eternal cause;
His mild religion, and his equal laws!
From distant ages Providence's care;
Parent of gallant sons, and daughters fair!
Where, in the cultivated rural scene,
Ceres and Flora wear their brightest mien!
And where, in social elegance are joined
The charms of person, and the charms of mind:
Of sage philosophers a numerous train;
Of men most powerful in poetick strain!
Should human excellence our search engage,
In recollecting down, from age to age;
While memory travels, too, from pole to pole;
The first achievements of the human soul,
346
Divine at land, and terrible at sea!
Since Europe, now, her arbitress reveres;
And looks to thee, with mingled hopes, and fears;
Of all the deeds that British annals praise,
From virtuous Alfred's down to George's days;
When thou must act the most distinguished part;
When all thy glories press upon my heart;
When with emphatick voice thy honour calls;
Accept the verse that flows; the tear that falls!
Sons of the men, whom times remoter saw
Their conquering swords against oppression draw;
With hearts elate, and steady march advance,
To the pale lilies of their trembling France;
Oft taught to bleed; but never taught to fly;
Resolve, once more, to conquer, or to die!
Oh! give not peerless beauty; strongest mind,
To the declared assassins of mankind!
Make no mean peace with monsters that retain
Nought faithful; nought religious; nought humane:
Against our universe their threats are hurled;
Defend yourselves; and you defend the world!
Their conquering swords against oppression draw;
With hearts elate, and steady march advance,
To the pale lilies of their trembling France;
Oft taught to bleed; but never taught to fly;
Resolve, once more, to conquer, or to die!
Oh! give not peerless beauty; strongest mind,
To the declared assassins of mankind!
Make no mean peace with monsters that retain
Nought faithful; nought religious; nought humane:
347
Defend yourselves; and you defend the world!
Never desert the man who rules our helm;
Whom furious surges cannot overwhelm:
Resolved, while trusted with Britannia's weal,
For this, alone, to think; for this to feel;
This, the great source, and end of all his cares;
And still, intrepid, to this point he bears.
Revered example more inflames the son,
To earn such honours as his father won;
Who, haply darts a fond, paternal eye,
Sent, with a smile approving, from the sky!
Whom furious surges cannot overwhelm:
Resolved, while trusted with Britannia's weal,
For this, alone, to think; for this to feel;
This, the great source, and end of all his cares;
And still, intrepid, to this point he bears.
Revered example more inflames the son,
To earn such honours as his father won;
Who, haply darts a fond, paternal eye,
Sent, with a smile approving, from the sky!
For me; while in calm solitude I view
Thee, to thyself, on every trial, true;
To England true; I feel; or seem to feel,
Through all my frame the fine contagion steal;
I feel the natural, ardent passion rise,
To gain my country's praise; the poet's prize;
Next, kindling Fancy views the threatened storm;
Then fired by thee, a bolder wish I form;
By thy commanding genius borne along,
To act in conduct, what I praise, in song!
Thee, to thyself, on every trial, true;
To England true; I feel; or seem to feel,
Through all my frame the fine contagion steal;
I feel the natural, ardent passion rise,
To gain my country's praise; the poet's prize;
Next, kindling Fancy views the threatened storm;
Then fired by thee, a bolder wish I form;
By thy commanding genius borne along,
To act in conduct, what I praise, in song!
348
Still magnanimity and candour join;
Then surely both the properties are thine:
Let not that magnanimity refuse
The grateful verse of an ingenious muse;
“ Who shades thy” high, meridian “walk with bays;”
“No hireling, she; no prostitute to praise;”
“Through” Faction's fog “one truly great can see;”
Worthy to rouse the brave; and guide the free.
Then surely both the properties are thine:
Let not that magnanimity refuse
The grateful verse of an ingenious muse;
“ Who shades thy” high, meridian “walk with bays;”
“No hireling, she; no prostitute to praise;”
“Through” Faction's fog “one truly great can see;”
Worthy to rouse the brave; and guide the free.
O! Thou! at whose benign, all powerful call,
Up sprung, from chaos, our stupendous ball;
And who, from tumult, still, of field, or flood,
From present ill educest greater good;
Propitious, hear thy humble suppliant's prayer;
Is not thy creature his Creator's care!
Sufficient influence of thy Spirit give;
That in the little space I now can live,
Each hour I may respect; and thus atone
For all my wrongs from others; and my own!
Oh! let my common, meaner wants, be few;
My mental treasures, various, rich, and new;
Then shall my nature for itself suffice;
Perpetual flux, and reflux of supplies:
Old years in renovated youth shall roll;
Well strung my nerves of body and of soul.
Temperance my system will exalt, at home;
A wanderer, abroad I need not roam;
Of a precarious world my life the sport;
Tossed on the waves of caprice for support!
Up sprung, from chaos, our stupendous ball;
And who, from tumult, still, of field, or flood,
From present ill educest greater good;
Propitious, hear thy humble suppliant's prayer;
Is not thy creature his Creator's care!
Sufficient influence of thy Spirit give;
That in the little space I now can live,
Each hour I may respect; and thus atone
For all my wrongs from others; and my own!
Oh! let my common, meaner wants, be few;
My mental treasures, various, rich, and new;
Then shall my nature for itself suffice;
Perpetual flux, and reflux of supplies:
349
Well strung my nerves of body and of soul.
Temperance my system will exalt, at home;
A wanderer, abroad I need not roam;
Of a precarious world my life the sport;
Tossed on the waves of caprice for support!
As Independence, even unarmed with power,
Speaks, writes the truth; whatever dangers lower;
Snares to it's weal as foes in ambush lay;
And poor, pretended Friendship sneaks away;
Teach me, by virtuous discipline, to find
A comprehensive kingdom, in my mind;
There, with serene, yet with despotick reign,
To guard the small but well-improved domain!
Speaks, writes the truth; whatever dangers lower;
Snares to it's weal as foes in ambush lay;
And poor, pretended Friendship sneaks away;
Teach me, by virtuous discipline, to find
A comprehensive kingdom, in my mind;
There, with serene, yet with despotick reign,
To guard the small but well-improved domain!
Concentered, then, with more effectual force,
My faculties will hold their destined course;
Will execute their duties here below;
To all thy foes, an active, ardent foe:
But mounting above Nature's works, they'll flee
Still with the greatest energy, to Thee!
My faculties will hold their destined course;
350
To all thy foes, an active, ardent foe:
But mounting above Nature's works, they'll flee
Still with the greatest energy, to Thee!
And as the raptures of the poet rise
Above the pleasures of the good, and wise;
Goodness, and wisdom, too, as he can teach
With greater emphasis than Sherlocks preach;
Let poetry still bless thy suppliant's views;—
It's beauteous images; it's vivid hues;
It's fire celestial; all-sufficient store!
Kings; emperours; none but Thou, can give us more!
And while the grosser lumps of mortals lie,
(A living death!) in Epicurus' sty;
To ruin's gloom while meteors draw the vain;
While Avarice petrifies her shivering train;
Grant me, with pure, and strong Parnassian ray,
To float, and wanton, in the blaze of day!
Above the pleasures of the good, and wise;
Goodness, and wisdom, too, as he can teach
With greater emphasis than Sherlocks preach;
Let poetry still bless thy suppliant's views;—
It's beauteous images; it's vivid hues;
It's fire celestial; all-sufficient store!
Kings; emperours; none but Thou, can give us more!
And while the grosser lumps of mortals lie,
(A living death!) in Epicurus' sty;
To ruin's gloom while meteors draw the vain;
While Avarice petrifies her shivering train;
Grant me, with pure, and strong Parnassian ray,
To float, and wanton, in the blaze of day!
In this passage I allude to the works of the late celebrated James Harris, Esq. of Salisbury; which I studied with great pleasure; and which are highly, and equally distinguished by their learning; their elegance; and their zeal for virtue.
An unfair, or superficial reasoner may tell me, that Mr. Fox has relinquished opposition to the Minister, by seceding from Parliament. To this I reply, that we may be industrious to defeat a rival in many ways besides that of immediate, personal contest;—that negative often operate more powerfully than positive hostilities;—that they should never be adopted by great minds, because they are the common warfare of the meanest;—and that as I highly respect Mr. Fox, I can never reflect on his retreat from his senatorial station, at this time, without pain.
If Charles the First was a tyrant (though I believe that he never meant to be a tyrant) we now have thousands of tyrants to oppose.
I here anticipate the cavil, and the puny triumph of democratical ignorance. So long as any state can provide the necessary supplies of war, and, at the same time, preserve it's national health and vigour; the forces of that state are unimpaired.
Their civil, are analagous to their penal laws. Buonaparte, who is a general, affects to be a statesman, too, without a particle of political knowledge; indeed, all that he writes, is in the peremptory, ostentatious, empty manner of that nation of which he has the honour to be the first lawless myrmidon. He advises his Ligurian republick to divide their state into ten military departments; each of them is to be commanded by an officer of the line: by this institution, adds the Solon of France, you will be sure of an accurate administration of justice. I hope that this Corsican Draco will never have it in his power to establish his simple, concise, and salutary code, in England.
In proportion as a created being, in any mode of it's existing, or acting, resembles the Supreme Being; (though, at the best, in an insignificant comparative degree,) the general happiness of that being is augmented, Now, the Supreme Being is pure mind; he is all, mind,
Here I refer to the immediate degree of impulse and impression. God forbid that I should insinuate that, in the amount of life, it is better to be a poet than a truly wise, and virtuous man.
357
POEMS.
Compassed round
With solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania! and fit audience find, though few.
Paradise Lost, B. vii. v. 27.
With solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania! and fit audience find, though few.
Paradise Lost, B. vii. v. 27.
359
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BEVILLE.
365
TO EDMUND WALLER, ESQ. Of Hall-Barn, in Buckinghamshire,
On seeing the tomb of Edmund Waller, the poet, in the Church-yard of Beconsfield, neglected, and going to ruin.
Shalt thou from public shame exempt.
Thy reverence to this tomb refuse!
A Waller, with profane contempt,
Dares to insult a Waller's muse!
Thy reverence to this tomb refuse!
A Waller, with profane contempt,
Dares to insult a Waller's muse!
Whom chiefs of the fanatic train
Loved, for they felt her purer fire;
Whom in our present monarch's reign,
The sons of England yet admire;
Loved, for they felt her purer fire;
Whom in our present monarch's reign,
The sons of England yet admire;
Yet, for the tomb's unequal fate,
Our indignation we may spare;
The memory of the truly great
Depends not on a stupid heir.
Our indignation we may spare;
The memory of the truly great
Depends not on a stupid heir.
366
For canst thou, parricide, destroy
The deathless force of Waller's mind?
Canst thou his flame, his wit annoy,
Which will but die with human kind?
The deathless force of Waller's mind?
Canst thou his flame, his wit annoy,
Which will but die with human kind?
The glory of the poet's page
Shall brighten still, and still expand,
In spite of envy's feeble rage,
Or mammon's cold, tenacious hand.
Shall brighten still, and still expand,
In spite of envy's feeble rage,
Or mammon's cold, tenacious hand.
Then let that page, inspired by love,
And by the muse's hallowed flame,
The merit of dead Waller prove,
The Poet's character proclaim.
And by the muse's hallowed flame,
The merit of dead Waller prove,
The Poet's character proclaim.
The rugged tree, with yellow tinged;
The icy monumental stone;
The iron oft with rags befringed,
With many a noxious weed o'ergrown;
The icy monumental stone;
The iron oft with rags befringed,
With many a noxious weed o'ergrown;
While far from chance's blind controul
Great Edmund's bays perpetual bloom,
Let these describe a wretch's soul,
And be the breathing Waller's tomb.
Great Edmund's bays perpetual bloom,
Let these describe a wretch's soul,
And be the breathing Waller's tomb.
367
Sons of low care, how long, in vain,
To you shall useful truth be told?
Yet hear once more, the moral strain;
You damn yourselves to save your gold.
To you shall useful truth be told?
Yet hear once more, the moral strain;
You damn yourselves to save your gold.
Beconsfield, April 12th, 1778.
A SONG.
DO great atchievements fire thy breast;
Do martial trophies break thy rest?
Or laurels of eternal bloom,
Like those that hallow Cæsar's tomb?
To memory bring the fatal ball,
Perhaps not sent from Frederickshall,
Which proved the Swede's illustrious fame,
An air-balloon, an empty name.
Do martial trophies break thy rest?
Or laurels of eternal bloom,
Like those that hallow Cæsar's tomb?
To memory bring the fatal ball,
Perhaps not sent from Frederickshall,
Which proved the Swede's illustrious fame,
An air-balloon, an empty name.
Or does the bright poetic muse
To nobler glory raise your views?
Sagacious malice checks your aim,
And poverty repels your flame.
When envy with the poet dies,
His rapid same through Europe flies;
But 'tis to genius, after death,
An air-balloon, an empty breath.
To nobler glory raise your views?
368
And poverty repels your flame.
When envy with the poet dies,
His rapid same through Europe flies;
But 'tis to genius, after death,
An air-balloon, an empty breath.
Or fonder of domestic life,
The lover weds a charming wife;
Anticipates unfading joys,
And gentle girls, and sprightly boys;
But female tyranny comes forth,
And throws aside fictitious worth;
The course of one revolving moon
May prove your bliss an air-balloon.
The lover weds a charming wife;
Anticipates unfading joys,
And gentle girls, and sprightly boys;
But female tyranny comes forth,
And throws aside fictitious worth;
The course of one revolving moon
May prove your bliss an air-balloon.
Through life, what'er our lot, we're all
Like Montgolfier's elastic ball;
We all attract admiring eyes;
The court or village we surprize;
Now soar to some ethereal height;
Met by rude gales, now sink our flight;
To parent earth, at length, descend;
The trivial sport, and wonder end.
Like Montgolfier's elastic ball;
We all attract admiring eyes;
The court or village we surprize;
Now soar to some ethereal height;
Met by rude gales, now sink our flight;
To parent earth, at length, descend;
The trivial sport, and wonder end.
London, Feb. 16th, 1784.
369
THE RIVAL FLOWERS.
[_]
In the month of November, a young lady had an elegant bouquet; it was composed of a rose and a jasmine. A gentleman, who was in her company, pronounced the flowers artificial. She assured him that they were not; he still doubted; she plucked two or three leaves from the rose' and gave them to him; by them he was convinced that the nosegay was a natural one. This scene, totally uninteresting to a phlegmatic mind, suggested to a poet the following imagery:
EVEN partial to a northern clime,
Where nature strews her frugal sweets,
And smiling on the poet's rhyme,
The generous Flora slow retreats.
Where nature strews her frugal sweets,
And smiling on the poet's rhyme,
The generous Flora slow retreats.
Fair Leonora, dangerous maid,
Who reared, and wore, each beauteous flower,
Took, one day, for superfluous aid,
The rose's and the jasmines's power.
Who reared, and wore, each beauteous flower,
Took, one day, for superfluous aid,
The rose's and the jasmines's power.
370
Clitander, with adventurous choice,
To specious warfare seated nigh,
Inhaled soft musick from her voice,
Delicious poison from her eye.
To specious warfare seated nigh,
Inhaled soft musick from her voice,
Delicious poison from her eye.
Cupid, to whom all archers yield,
Perched in her breast;—the bright bouquet
Before him glowed; and thus concealed,
The God in charming ambush lay.
Perched in her breast;—the bright bouquet
Before him glowed; and thus concealed,
The God in charming ambush lay.
Unseen, a small, but piercing dart,
Flew from his unrelenting bow;
I need not tell you, that the heart
Is always reached when he's the foe.
Flew from his unrelenting bow;
I need not tell you, that the heart
Is always reached when he's the foe.
Some blushing leaves, transfixed and borne
On the dread arrow winged their way;
Now, beyond cure, the heart was torne;
Compleat the triumph of the day.
On the dread arrow winged their way;
Now, beyond cure, the heart was torne;
Compleat the triumph of the day.
The fragrant foliage of the rose,
But more decisive made the wound;
In Kent such foliage never blows,
Nor yet on Sharon's holy ground.
But more decisive made the wound;
In Kent such foliage never blows,
Nor yet on Sharon's holy ground.
371
Unfading flower! the Sibyl's leaves,
Fraught with Jove's friendship, or his hate,
As every feeling soul believes,
Were never charged with surer fate!
Fraught with Jove's friendship, or his hate,
As every feeling soul believes,
Were never charged with surer fate!
Oh! dire effect of beauty's pride!
As Pope, in his immortal strain
Hath sung, the hapless lover died,
Entranced, “of aromatick pain!”
As Pope, in his immortal strain
Hath sung, the hapless lover died,
Entranced, “of aromatick pain!”
The God of keenest joys and, woes,
Exulting, to Olympus flew;
And envious of the honoured rose,
The jasmine drooped, and paler grew.
Exulting, to Olympus flew;
And envious of the honoured rose,
The jasmine drooped, and paler grew.
Durham.
TO MRS. JORDAN.
THALIA's pupil! her accomplished friend!
Whose genius eager crowds with rapture view;
Whom spirit, ease, and harmony attend;
Alike to Imogen, to Hoyden true:
Whose genius eager crowds with rapture view;
Whom spirit, ease, and harmony attend;
Alike to Imogen, to Hoyden true:
372
The faultless powers of the gay muse we prove,
In thee, chief guardian of her brilliant throne!
In thee, simplicity, and nature move;
And Garrick and perfection are thy own.
In thee, chief guardian of her brilliant throne!
In thee, simplicity, and nature move;
And Garrick and perfection are thy own.
And if the pathos of thy varied art
Breathes in a tender interlude of song;
How the vibrations of each feeling heart
Tuned by thy voice, the liquid notes prolong!
Breathes in a tender interlude of song;
How the vibrations of each feeling heart
Tuned by thy voice, the liquid notes prolong!
Let others vocal art, extent, and tone
Applaud, while Mara's undulations roll;
My faculties a stronger influence own;—
The soft, impassioned musick of the soul.
Applaud, while Mara's undulations roll;
My faculties a stronger influence own;—
The soft, impassioned musick of the soul.
First favourite of the drama's cheerful muse!
Her pride, in mirth; in sentiment refined;
Whose magick brightens fancy's vivid hues;
Accept the tribute of an honest mind.
Her pride, in mirth; in sentiment refined;
Whose magick brightens fancy's vivid hues;
Accept the tribute of an honest mind.
Yet as fair truth by me was ne'er suppressed!—
May not self love with honesty agree?
Ambition rouzes justice in my breast;
And bids me grace my poetry with thee!
May not self love with honesty agree?
Ambition rouzes justice in my breast;
And bids me grace my poetry with thee!
373
For taste must ever such a theme inspire;
And were it urged with a congenial flame,
Not less the subject than the poet's fire
Would prove my talents, and ensure my fame.
And were it urged with a congenial flame,
Not less the subject than the poet's fire
Would prove my talents, and ensure my fame.
London, June 17, 1793.
374
THE BLUE EYE.
Marked you her eye of heavenly blue?Marked you her cheek of roseate hue?
That eye in liquid circles moving,
That cheek abashed at man's approving:
The one, love's arrows darting round;
The other, blushing at the wound!
IN THE DUENNA.
AN ANSWER TO THE ENCOMIUM ON THE BLUE EYE.
Faint are your eyes of heavenly blue,While Delia's eyes of jet I view;
375
To these, the fire, and force of heaven:
With rapid stroke they reach the heart;
They, from their liquid circles dart
(More magical their circles prove!)
The flame of Cupid, and of Jove.
Her cheeks no blushes need betray,
That man approving owns her sway;
With rose as lenient as benign,
Need not regret that lovers pine;
To them denied, the leisure hour,
To them denied the frigid power,
With lightning, and in rapture slain,
Or to approve, or to complain,
The dread decree they do not wait:
Her look is instantaneous fate;
They heave not the repeated sigh;
Of electricity they die!
Windsor Great Park, Nov. 26th, 1793.
376
------ THE FIXED, AND NOBLE MIND
TURNS ALL OCCURRENCE TO IT'S OWN ADVANTAGE.
Young.
TURNS ALL OCCURRENCE TO IT'S OWN ADVANTAGE.
Young.
[_]
The following verses were the ruling object of their authour when he could not move himself, nor be moved, without agony. They were composed by several short exertions of his mind, which were interrupted by debility, or by pain. After this honest apology, they will never incur the frown of generous criticism.
VERSES ADDRESSED TO OXFORD.
FAIR seat of sages, and of bards divine!
Terrestrial residence of all the nine!
Oh! had my ardent, and aspiring youth
Felt in thy hallowed groves, important truth;
Inhaled, in them, the God's inspiring ray;
Caught the strong thought, and waked the glowing lay;
Then, reason, fancy, happily combined,
And tuneful diction, had my verse refined:
Then would thy liberal sons have raised my fame;
And high above my merit, fixed my name.
Terrestrial residence of all the nine!
Oh! had my ardent, and aspiring youth
Felt in thy hallowed groves, important truth;
Inhaled, in them, the God's inspiring ray;
Caught the strong thought, and waked the glowing lay;
Then, reason, fancy, happily combined,
And tuneful diction, had my verse refined:
Then would thy liberal sons have raised my fame;
And high above my merit, fixed my name.
377
But now, my life's, my mind's meridian o'er;
Poetick vigour, active hope, no more;
Thy shades, my faint, my setting fires, receive,
Just ere our vital hemisphere they leave.
Yet, could I live, one effort more to make,
For verse's and for fairer virtue's sake,
(Oh! might I fill our ancient province, here;
And prove at once, a poet, and a seer!)
Haply, some verdict, of decisive praise,
Would crown my memory with perpetual bays:
Oxford herself might mark my merit's tomb;
Restore it's life, and bid it's honours bloom.
Poetick vigour, active hope, no more;
Thy shades, my faint, my setting fires, receive,
Just ere our vital hemisphere they leave.
Yet, could I live, one effort more to make,
For verse's and for fairer virtue's sake,
(Oh! might I fill our ancient province, here;
And prove at once, a poet, and a seer!)
Haply, some verdict, of decisive praise,
Would crown my memory with perpetual bays:
Oxford herself might mark my merit's tomb;
Restore it's life, and bid it's honours bloom.
Thus (for, like Maro's swain, an object small
I near a great one place) at Dryden's call,
Britons enamoured grew of nature's rules,
And spurned the jargon of the doating schools;
To genius, and to taste, were converts made;
With wonder Milton's vast sublime surveyed;
Imbibed seraphick rapture from his page,
To glory rescued from a barbarous age.
I near a great one place) at Dryden's call,
Britons enamoured grew of nature's rules,
And spurned the jargon of the doating schools;
To genius, and to taste, were converts made;
With wonder Milton's vast sublime surveyed;
Imbibed seraphick rapture from his page,
To glory rescued from a barbarous age.
Middleton-Stoney, Oxfordshire, July 10th, 1794.
378
VERSES TO A ROBIN-RED-BREAST, WHO SINGS EVERY MORNING, NEAR MY BED-CHAMBER.
SWEET bird; thy music charms my rest;
It's warbling soothes my pensive breast.
Delighted fancy hears thy song
It's artless melody prolong;
For oh! when nature strikes the heart,
She leaves no trace of Cramer's art.
It's warbling soothes my pensive breast.
Delighted fancy hears thy song
It's artless melody prolong;
For oh! when nature strikes the heart,
She leaves no trace of Cramer's art.
Care, pain, and dire misfortune flee
The powers of Morpheus, and of thee;
Those powers combined, with soft controul
Diffuse Elysium o'er my soul;
The sails of persecution furled,
I steer to some ideal world;
Some finer world, where Zephyr's breeze
Panting on aromatick trees,
Descends from æther ne'er o'ercast
With clouds that hurl the wintry blast.
There I repose in fragrant bowers,
Where Flora crowns the glowing flowers;
Where a meandring, murmuring stream
Prompts, and improves the muse's theme:
Through shades imagination roves,
Which far exceed St. Dial's groves;
Where a majestick river flows,
Disdaining all descriptive prose;
His deep, clear floods, the Thames outvie;
His playful beauties, even the Wye.
The powers of Morpheus, and of thee;
Those powers combined, with soft controul
Diffuse Elysium o'er my soul;
The sails of persecution furled,
I steer to some ideal world;
Some finer world, where Zephyr's breeze
Panting on aromatick trees,
Descends from æther ne'er o'ercast
With clouds that hurl the wintry blast.
There I repose in fragrant bowers,
Where Flora crowns the glowing flowers;
379
Prompts, and improves the muse's theme:
Through shades imagination roves,
Which far exceed St. Dial's groves;
Where a majestick river flows,
Disdaining all descriptive prose;
His deep, clear floods, the Thames outvie;
His playful beauties, even the Wye.
In this bright, visionary scene,
Our species with angelick mien,
And friendly voice, the stranger greet;
Their virtues, as their forms, complete:
Illusive dream! in which I find
That generous actions mark mankind!
Our species with angelick mien,
And friendly voice, the stranger greet;
Their virtues, as their forms, complete:
Illusive dream! in which I find
That generous actions mark mankind!
Since, then, sweet songster of the town,
Whose accents bid me sleep on down,
With numerous ills thy tuneful strife
Dispels their gloom, and gilds my life;
When Boreas heaps our world with snow,
Come to a heart inured to woe;
Hence, quick, when miseries are displayed,
To recollect;—to feel;—to aid;
With safe, and timely pinion, fly
The wild oppression of the sky;
Fly to protectors, mild, like thee;
Compassion, and tranquillity;
Each ruffled, and each flagging plume,
With me, their health shall soon resume;
Restored from cold, from famine's pain,
Shall soon their equal gloss regain:
Thy genius we shall soon descry
In the new lustre of thine eye:
And soon shall thy harmonious throat
Pour forth, again, it's liquid note!
Who can with hold the generous deed,
When innocence, and beauty plead?
Then, surely, for thy life, thy weal,
A poet ardently must feel!
Yes;—he will give thee all thy claim;
Present relief; and future fame!
Whose accents bid me sleep on down,
With numerous ills thy tuneful strife
Dispels their gloom, and gilds my life;
When Boreas heaps our world with snow,
Come to a heart inured to woe;
380
To recollect;—to feel;—to aid;
With safe, and timely pinion, fly
The wild oppression of the sky;
Fly to protectors, mild, like thee;
Compassion, and tranquillity;
Each ruffled, and each flagging plume,
With me, their health shall soon resume;
Restored from cold, from famine's pain,
Shall soon their equal gloss regain:
Thy genius we shall soon descry
In the new lustre of thine eye:
And soon shall thy harmonious throat
Pour forth, again, it's liquid note!
Who can with hold the generous deed,
When innocence, and beauty plead?
Then, surely, for thy life, thy weal,
A poet ardently must feel!
Yes;—he will give thee all thy claim;
Present relief; and future fame!
Monmouth, Sept. 13th, 1794.
381
[Here lies]
[_]
The following epitaph I wrote for General WASHINGTON, about three years before the death of that good, and great man; whose talents and virtues I had always respected, and admired. At this moment I extremely regret that the epitaph was so soon as applicable in time as in character.
The only part that could be changed, and corrupted,
of
GEORGE WASHINGTON;
a man, whose rare, and great
accomplishments
gained an accession of splendour
from the depraved and abandoned European age
in which he lived.
After he had saved the British colonies in America from tyranny, and slavery,
by his personal valour, and masterly knowledge of the art of war;
he long preserved them in peace, and prosperity,
by his political, moral, and religious virtues.
To dispassionate, distinguishing, and good minds,
it must be evident,
that his conduct had soared
to the utmost pitch
of
human excellence;
of which
he undoubtedly owed
not a little to himself;
yet much of it
to beings
of
very different ranks, and dispositions.
His GOD had endowed him with an uncommon rectitude of heart:
and with as uncommon a union of calmness, vigour, & elevation of mind:
and these inestimable qualities
were stimulated, and impelled,
to their full exertion, and display,
by the most iniquitous enemies,
and oppressours of his country.
382
AN EPITAPH ON MRS. POPE.
HERE lies the female celebrated Young;Whose talents well deserve my plaintive song:
Oft with fine fiction she resigned her breath;
She suffered with decorum, nature's death.
A greater actress never trod the stage,
In comick elegance, or tragick rage.
But since the force of mind; the person's grace;
All the best honours of the human race,
Soon cease to strike the soul, and charm the eye;
Since all that flourishes but blooms to die;
Let us to virtue fix the wandering heart;
And through life's drama nobly act our part;
While conscience issues, from her critick laws
A verdict happier than the world's applause.
Bishop's-gate: by Windsor Great Park;
March 20th, 1797.
383
AN EPITAPH ON THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE.
HERE lies of Burke the cold, inactive clay;
His soul exulting in perpetual day:
With universal genius born to shine;
All themes, at once to strengthen, and refine;
Science, in aid of fancy, to engage;
And pour it, softened, on his ardent page.
Survey the beauties of his classick mind;
The critick leaves Longinus far behind.
Hear the great legislator plead the cause
Of instituted; of eternal laws;
Oppression, and rapacity submit
To matchless reason; eloquence, and wit.
See, while his thunders iron hearts assail,
The tyrants of each hemisphere turn pale!
His soul exulting in perpetual day:
With universal genius born to shine;
All themes, at once to strengthen, and refine;
Science, in aid of fancy, to engage;
And pour it, softened, on his ardent page.
Survey the beauties of his classick mind;
The critick leaves Longinus far behind.
Hear the great legislator plead the cause
Of instituted; of eternal laws;
Oppression, and rapacity submit
To matchless reason; eloquence, and wit.
See, while his thunders iron hearts assail,
The tyrants of each hemisphere turn pale!
Of private virtue by the warmth, and light;
This luminary, more serenely bright,
Beamed with descending, yet effulgent ray;
And varied thus, and beautified his day.
This luminary, more serenely bright,
Beamed with descending, yet effulgent ray;
And varied thus, and beautified his day.
384
Hail! shade beatified! thou friend of man!
Friend of God's mortal, and immortal plan!
Thy moral fame, too strong to be withstood,
Must make our youth ambitious to be good;
Thy noble works which guard us while we live,
Of heavenly bliss a demonstration give;
For surely minds like thine can never die;
They mount, by nature, and assert the sky;
Their glory fires us to our latest breath;
Protects, through life; and animates, in death!
Friend of God's mortal, and immortal plan!
Thy moral fame, too strong to be withstood,
Must make our youth ambitious to be good;
Thy noble works which guard us while we live,
Of heavenly bliss a demonstration give;
For surely minds like thine can never die;
They mount, by nature, and assert the sky;
Their glory fires us to our latest breath;
Protects, through life; and animates, in death!
Durham, July 14th, 1797.
AN INSCRIPTION FOR A COTTAGE, IN A PICTURESQUE AND BEAUTIFUL VALE IN NORTHUMBERLAND.
WHOE'ER thou art, from life's low joys refined;
Of nature, and the first, eternal mind
Enamoured; welcome to these modern shades;
Thy genuine worship needs no classick aids;
Nor Phœbus; nor the nine Aonian maids.
Of nature, and the first, eternal mind
Enamoured; welcome to these modern shades;
Thy genuine worship needs no classick aids;
Nor Phœbus; nor the nine Aonian maids.
385
Objects this rude, this humble roof surround,
Which aggrandize, which consecrate the ground.
Here let thy soul it's noble scope enjoy;
And deem a palace but a childish toy.
While the descending sun attracts the sight;
The fancy charms with varied tints of light;
Or when the moon, with her inspiring ray
Beams on the poet's mind a softer day,
Then view the mead, the stream, the wood, the sky;
And paper houses with Escurials vie.
Which aggrandize, which consecrate the ground.
Here let thy soul it's noble scope enjoy;
And deem a palace but a childish toy.
While the descending sun attracts the sight;
The fancy charms with varied tints of light;
Or when the moon, with her inspiring ray
Beams on the poet's mind a softer day,
Then view the mead, the stream, the wood, the sky;
And paper houses with Escurials vie.
Or, if thou readest here those deathless lines,
Where the sublime that conquers Homer shines;
While Eden it's expanded bloom displays;
Or, to “the living throne; the sapphire blaze,”
While fancy soars, on bold, Miltonian wings;
Look down on lords; on ministers, and kings.
Where the sublime that conquers Homer shines;
While Eden it's expanded bloom displays;
Or, to “the living throne; the sapphire blaze,”
While fancy soars, on bold, Miltonian wings;
Look down on lords; on ministers, and kings.
August 29th, 1798.
386
THE NAVAL FIRST OF AUGUST, 1798.
A SONG.
YES! Nelson, the Godhead our gratitude owns;
The protector of kings; the supporter of thrones!
Our faith hears his thunder; his lightning we see,
Launched by Howe, by St. Vincent, by Duncan, and thee!
The protector of kings; the supporter of thrones!
Our faith hears his thunder; his lightning we see,
Launched by Howe, by St. Vincent, by Duncan, and thee!
For as soon as the sails of our fleets are unfurled,
Glory smiles on our isle, and enlivens the world.
Glory smiles on our isle, and enlivens the world.
The worst plague of old Egypt through thee will he cure;
For compared with French freedom, who would not endure
Of darkness oppressive the palpable fogs;
The pelting of hailstones; the croaking of frogs?
For compared with French freedom, who would not endure
Of darkness oppressive the palpable fogs;
The pelting of hailstones; the croaking of frogs?
But as soon as the sails, &c.
The Turk feels a joy, not unmingled with fear;
Down the blush of the Czar steals of rapture a tear;
Then, ourselves the Great Nation we surely might name,
Had not France's Directors polluted the claim.
Down the blush of the Czar steals of rapture a tear;
Then, ourselves the Great Nation we surely might name,
Had not France's Directors polluted the claim.
For as soon as the sails, &c.
387
Ye traitors in heart, your malignity cease;
Rail no more at this war; it will dictate a peace:
But with heaven, and with earth still these wretches will jar;
And infer our destruction from peace, or from war.
Rail no more at this war; it will dictate a peace:
But with heaven, and with earth still these wretches will jar;
And infer our destruction from peace, or from war.
Yet as soon as the sails, &c.
While ingratitude chills the seditious, below;
From Olympus new beams of beatitude flow;
Hawke is proud of the laurels that Nelson hath won,
And great Chatham with transport looks down on his son.
From Olympus new beams of beatitude flow;
Hawke is proud of the laurels that Nelson hath won,
And great Chatham with transport looks down on his son.
For as soon as the sails of our fleets are unfurled,
Glory smiles on our isle, and enlivens the world.
Glory smiles on our isle, and enlivens the world.
Durham, Oct. 6th, 1798.
AN EPITAPH ON DAVID GARRICK.
THE frost prevailing of a barbarous age,
Bœtian fogs impended on our stage;
When Shakespeare's genius, with a flood of light,
Dispelled the darkness of dramatick night:
With a new blaze our skies this comet fired;
The fathers wondered;—but the sons admired.
Bœtian fogs impended on our stage;
When Shakespeare's genius, with a flood of light,
Dispelled the darkness of dramatick night:
388
The fathers wondered;—but the sons admired.
Beneath it's influence; by it's powerful aid,
Our hearts, and minds completely were displayed;
Guilt fled, affrighted, from it's piercing ray;
But virtue courted it's propitious day.
Our hearts, and minds completely were displayed;
Guilt fled, affrighted, from it's piercing ray;
But virtue courted it's propitious day.
By him, from nature is her sceptre torne;
Yet, on her plan, he peoples worlds unborn:
Hence pleased we view the monster of his Isle,
Contrasted with Miranda's magick smile:
The dapper elves adorn the lunar scene;
And suck the flower, or skim along the green.
Yet, on her plan, he peoples worlds unborn:
Hence pleased we view the monster of his Isle,
Contrasted with Miranda's magick smile:
The dapper elves adorn the lunar scene;
And suck the flower, or skim along the green.
But honest time must fix the poet's claim;
Must conquer malice, and perpetuate fame:
Milton, and Dryden, urged the publick praise,
By Pope led captive, with seraphick lays.
Must conquer malice, and perpetuate fame:
Milton, and Dryden, urged the publick praise,
By Pope led captive, with seraphick lays.
Yet the first power of Avon's swan was great;
Great was his rising, his deciding fate:
His early glory fired the coldest heart;
Even Ben despised his learning, and his art;
Shakespeare subdued the critick's rugged mind;
Still more victorious in an age refined,
Inspiring Garrick, he subdued mankind.
Great was his rising, his deciding fate:
His early glory fired the coldest heart;
Even Ben despised his learning, and his art;
389
Still more victorious in an age refined,
Inspiring Garrick, he subdued mankind.
Lesbury, Oct. 2d, 1799.
AN EPITAPH ON A FINE, PROMISING BOY, WHO DIED, AFTER A LONG AND EXCRUCIATING ILLNESS.
SURE is the truth; though hid from mortal sight;“Whatever is, is,” ultimately, “right.”
Friends may lament; but he, who early dies,
Quits earth, and misery, for the blissful skies.
He, whose existence, woes, and joys contrast,
More charming feels the present by the past.
Here lies the frame terrestrial of a boy,
Mature, through torment, for the realms of joy.
Though young, he practised his Redeemer's mind,
The prayer, pathetic, but the will, resigned:
Now purer rapture gives his soul a flow
Which unembodied spirits only know;
390
He thanks his Maker for his previous pain.
AN EPITAPH ON PRINCE SUWARROW.
HE, whose mean soul pollutes the name of Paul,
With France conspiring, dooms great Suwarrow's fall;
Just when the fervour of his dauntless mind
Aspired completely to avenge mankind.
With France conspiring, dooms great Suwarrow's fall;
Just when the fervour of his dauntless mind
Aspired completely to avenge mankind.
If martial glory, stung with keen distress,
Her drooping laurels views, and hints redress;
If heaven-born genius bids the man be free;
Away, with magick speed his honours flee;
Despair, with iron hand precludes relief;
He fought unconquered; but he dies with grief:
No friend repeats fair fame's harmonious breath;
No friend consoles him in the hour of death.
Her drooping laurels views, and hints redress;
If heaven-born genius bids the man be free;
Away, with magick speed his honours flee;
Despair, with iron hand precludes relief;
He fought unconquered; but he dies with grief:
No friend repeats fair fame's harmonious breath;
No friend consoles him in the hour of death.
391
If despotism excites not all thy hate,
Indignant reader, think on Suwarrow's fate:
With servile adulation art thou pained?
Oh! think how Alfred; think how Virtue reigned!
Indignant reader, think on Suwarrow's fate:
With servile adulation art thou pained?
Oh! think how Alfred; think how Virtue reigned!
Lesbury, June 20th, 1800.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
| The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale | |