The Fall of the Leaf :: :: University of Virginia Library

The principal part of this hymn was written at Bedgellart, Carnarvonshire, one evening after having seen the moon set in the Irish sea, from the summit of a mountain, forming a portion of the Snowdon chain.

With this Hymn I wish to associate the name of Thomas Davison, Esq.; an ardent, active, and unwearied friend of many years.

------ Thou silver Queen of Heaven!
Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair!
What title or what name endears thee most? [OMITTED]
Come!—But from heavenly banquets with thee bring
The soul of song, and whisper in mine ear
The theft divine.
Narcissa.

I.

O thou! who, rising from the vault of eve,
Tingest each rock and mountain with thy light,
Tranquil and solemn;—who in yonder main

Behold'st thy form reflected, and thy face
Furrow'd with many a scar;—impressions rude
Of Nature's seal;—more lasting than the signs
Carved on Mount Sinai; from whose sacred top
Th' Egyptian shepherd view'd the aged piles
Of pyramids immortal;—listen to my lay!
And pour thine influence on thy poet's lyre;
That he may charm the silent ear of night,
And teach vain man the moral of thy song.
For now eve's web invests each distant hill
With twilight grey; as if some spirit wove
The net aerial:—while the golden west
Melts into purple;—such as oft were seen
In old Atlantis, or the orange groves
Of fair Hesperia, when immortal nymphs
Guarded the sacred fruit:—O listen to my lay!
For now the bee no longer buoyant flies,
With loaded thigh, or sweet, distended bag,
And fluttering wings so musical;—but hangs
On a rough cluster of its murmuring tribe,
While all is silence in its honey'd hive.
The flocks repose;—the weary hunter rests;
And lowing herds now ruminate alone
Beside the babbling brook;—the peasant's nest,

'Neath yonder copse, that overlooks the glen,
Dusky and secret, mantled o'er with vines,
E'en from its threshold to its chimney top,
No longer winds its volumes through the air,
Marking the comfort and the peace within.—
Winding round shrubs, and arch'd by towering pines,
Oaks, elms, or sycamores, the woodbine wild
Throws a righ fragrance on the wing of night;
While birds of eve the blushing rose-bud woo,
Or hymn soft vespers to thy rising ray.

II.

Which love thee most of all the timid race
That traverse the wide region of the air?
—The bird of wisdom and the bird of love.—
Deep in his solitude immured the day,
At thy approach, the Owl,—pensive and wise,—
Forsakes his haunts, and flits from tree to tree,
As if he fear'd the earth.—The Nightingale?
With many a deep-toned orison she hails
Thy rising beam, and fills the forest wide
With warblings, grateful to a poet's ear.—
Beneath thy ray, in other climes, the moth
Flits with light wing, from slumbering shrub to shrub:

The Hippotamus, in circumference vast,
From whose rich blood the Indian artist draws
His tints of purple, leaves the slimy bed
Of Nile or Niger; and, as evening draws
Her mystic robe, devours the sugary cane.
The Armadillo, too, with pliant bands
Circling its back, and cover'd with a shell,
Forming an animal, distinct from all
That live on herbage, slumbers through the day;
And like the Tapir, roving through the woods
Of sea-girt Darien, or the Amazon,
Crops its pure food from sunset to the morn.

III.

From beings animate to vegetive—In thee
Delight the sober Night-shade of Peru;
The flower which charms the midnight of the Cape;
The rich Nyctanthes,—blushing on the banks
Of sultry Ganges;—and the splendid flower,
Surpassing all that blossom in the day,
Thence call'd Magnificent.—The solemn tree,
That bears mild Melancholy's sacred name,
Beholds thee, too, with silent gratitude;
Lulling the spice-trees of the balmy isles

Of rich Molucca; while the midnight air
Wafts the stolen fragrance o'er the murmuring main.

IV.

By thy mild beam light Fairies love to dance,
(As rosy maids in Ebwy's vale believe,)
On the torn margin of a torrent, grazed
By fearless goat;—on mountain's thymy side
To weave green circles for the shepherds;—or
To lie, the holy-bush beneath, to warn
The weary stranger o'er the pathless bog,
Against the ignis fatuus.—Echo, too,
Soothed by the azure of thy beauty, rests
Beside th' unwearied waterfall;—alone,
Silent, and pensive;—meditating where
The artless shepherd sleeps, who all the day
Had made each glen and moss-grown valley ring.

V.

Thee, too, each poet, crown'd with wreaths divine,
In every age hath honour'd:—from the time
When Grecian groves, and Grecian mountains charm'd
The soul of wise Euripides;—to when
Th' accomplish'd Petrarch sought the laureate shade.

Petrarch!—How oft, when far from men retired,
Deep in the valley of his fountain,—lost
In silent wonder,—has he tuned his lyre,
And called thee Laura's emblem!—Laura heard,
And blush'd to own how well the poet sung:
Guiltless she blush'd;—while tears of fond regret
Oft down her pallid cheek, in copious streams, would flow.

Thee Spenser woo'd;—the sweetest bard, that e'er
Gave to the trials of earth's pilgrimage
A sacred charm:—and Shakespeare,—bard sublime,—
Who walk'd with Nature, yet who dwelt with man;
And probed him to the bottom of his heart,
From infancy to age:—E'en Shakespeare loved
T' invite thy solemn lustre.—Tasso, too,
Kindled his genius at thy midnight lamp:
And that sweet poet, who resembled him;—
Who made the passions musical;—who knew
The bond and charm of liberty divine;—
Mercy's rich attributes, the soul of man
Quickening with heavenly love: He knew;—he felt,
How sweet the calm thine influence distils,
When from the convent, or the gothic aisle,

Floats holy music through the green arcade,
Or chequer'd vista, to the secret bower,
Whence, through the loop-holes, form'd by blushing vines,
Thy form is view'd in each recoiling wave,
That gilds the surface of the solemn deep.

Collins.

VI.

What mourn'd the poet of the Western Isles?
When blind, and old, and tearful, and forlorn,
He walk'd with heartless men?—That he no more
Could watch thee, rising o'er the distant hill
From opening clouds of mist.—And Milton,—he—
Second to none but Homer,—fall'n on days,
Evil and dark, disgracing and disgraced,
In numbers soft, pathetic, and sublime,
Lamented long, that he alone could see,
With mental organ, Nature's wond'rous works;
And, from the seat of memory alone,
Compare the compass of the infernal shield
To the broad circle of thy spotty globe.
And Haller too,—the frame and mind's physician—
Mourning in exile from his native home:

And he who sung of solitude; —and he,
Who, 'mid the gardens of romantic Sheen,
Would rove, enchanted, while each nightingale
Vied with its rival, which should charm him most.
Thee Klopstock oft, amid his song divine,
Hails with a wild and melancholy grace:
And Dyer, too, who oft, in happier times,
Has charm'd my fancy, and has warm'd my heart;
When 'mid the groves of Grongar I have sat,
Beneath the hawthorn; where, at close of day,
The poet sung old Grongar's matchless shade.

Zimmermann.

Thomson.

VII.

Thee, too, the sea-worn Mariner adores;
When, near the point of Horn's tempestuous cape,
Or 'mid th' enormous piles of wandering ice,
Which, 'neath the northern circle, bound the rocks
Of Nova Zembla, hung with hoary threads,
Form'd like the tissue of a spider's web,
Or clad in one continual robe of snow.
Or when wide tost on Biscay's sounding bay,
Now high in air, and now emerged below
Deep in its fathomless abyss, each wave

Towers like a mountain o'er the labouring bark;
Scattering wild, concave, surges to the sky;
And forming rainbows in thy sphere of light.

Or, when benighted on a foreign land,
Desert and waste, where never rainbow yet
Circled the wide horizon; where no bee
E'er sipp'd rich nectar from the blooming cup,
Perfum'd from heav'n; the weary traveller roves,
Lost in the frightful darkness. Round he turns
His visual organ:—all is dark:—profound
The silent concave!—Deep his withering soul
Sinks with his frame;—while pitiless despair
Sits like a nightmare on his feverish brain.
Soon in the horizon of the vaulted east,
Remote and shrouded with the dews of heaven,
In awful state, magnificent appears
Thy matchless form!—The wanderer hails the sight:
His frame, so lately sinking, throbs with hope;
Life quickens fresh;—his grateful bosom glows;
And his whole soul with holy transport fills.

VIII.

Why sits the Hermit on yon rocky cliff,
That screens his cave from rushing winds and waves?
While near his feet the azure beetle creeps

Its drowsy course, and round his hoary head
The moth, benighted, flies?—Why bends his eye
Full towards the west?—To see thy shadowy car
Sink in the bosom of the Atlantic waste!
Long has he watch'd the progress of thy course:
Nor will he slumber on his bed of moss,
Till in the east, dark Memnon's mother calls
Each fragrant zephyr from the pearls, that gem
The lips of roses, to enrich the ray,
That tips with coral every cloud of morn.—
To him thy waning is more beautiful
Than is thy high meridian. The stem
Of oak gigantic, wither'd by the blast,
More sacred is, than when it rear'd its head,
Peerless and proud, the monarch of the plain.
Th' embattled tower, o'ergrown with bearded moss,
And by the melancholy skill of time,
Moulded to beauty, charms his bosom more
Than all the palaces of princes.—Rocks,
Which raise their crested heads into the clouds,
Piled in rude grandeur, form a scene sublime,
More rich, more soothing to his pensive soul,
Than Rome, with all its palaces and ruins;
When through the lucid atmosphere of Claude,

In awful state, the glowing sun descends,
And every fragment wears the golden hue,
That robes the concave of Italian skies.

IX.

Beneath thy ray pale Melancholy roves,
In awful silence, to yon ruin'd tower;
Beneath whose ivied arch profoundly sleeps
The history of ages.—There she sits,
Musing the midnight on the varied change
Of earthly objects;—on the varied ills
That wring the bosom of the sensitive young,
And reasoning old:—and, sighing from the soul,
Deeply laments, how oft the sacred form
Of Virtue bends before the frown of Fate.

X.

Led by thy light the Lover roves, to muse
On her, who first engaged his secret sigh.
Thee, too, the fond Enthusiast deems his friend;
When o'er the scented grave of her he loved,
Untimely lost in death's oblivious shade,
He drops the silent tear, and bending kneels
To kiss the sacred spot, and sigh “Farewell.”

XI.

Ye heartless many!—Ye, who know so well
To use th' intriguing faculties;—and who,
Remorseless, poison all the purer springs
Of mental youth, and ridicule the soul;
As insects, perforating buds of flowers,
Steal their sweet juice, and wither them away;—
Why do ye smile to see th' enthusiast weep?
And why to see the fond enthusiast gaze,
With mournful silence, on the chequer'd light,
That beams, through vi'lets, on the sacred grave?
Ye are unholy!—Hasten to your homes,
That friendless, cheerless, speak the heartless man.
Away!—ye are unholy.—Not a tear
Would swell your eye-lids, were the world to die;
So that yourselves might live.—In vain for you,
The Catholic virgin gazes on the light,
Which gilds her rosary of beads;—in vain
Tears,—melting tears,—denote a broken heart;
While sighs,—responsive to her evening hymn,—
Steal through the cloisters of her convent grey.

XII.

Away!—ye are unholy.—Often have I stood
On the wild banks of Severn and the Wye,

Avon and Usk, the Towy, and the Cam,
Isis and Trent, green Medway, and the stream,
That winds Langollen's lovely vale along,
To view thy form reflected!—Often have I stray'd
Beneath the shade of venerable piles,
Netley, or Strata Florida, the walls
Of sacred Tintern, or the moss-grown abbey,
Bosom'd in mountains, near the winding banks
Of “wizard Dee;”—in silence to reflect,
How calm and constant thou pursu'st thy course,
Unheeding of man's passions!—As I've paused—
A fragrant balm has visited my heart,
Stealing a character from Paradise,
Which soothed my soul, and “wing'd it to the skies.”—
Where in the volume of thy wandering globe,
Names are inscribed of those, who, deep retired,
Through optic glass, beheld thy liquid zones,
Thy streams and mountains;—where at times is seen,
Circling thy space, a party-colour'd crown,
Like aureolas on the sacred head
Of saint or martyr;—and where oft appears
Refracted and reflected in the drops,
That lightly fall from heaven, the midnight bow,
Arching the deep horizon;—while the cot,
O'er which it rises in magnificence

Solemn and sacred, from the falling rain
Protects the weary woodman, as he sleeps
Secure,—unheeding of impending storms.

XIII.

O thou!—that turn'st thy fair yet furrow'd face,
Still towards the illuminating orb of day,
Like to a blooming heliotrope;—who round
The earth's proud surface wield'st thy constant course,
As round the sanctuary of her husband's bed,
The faithful matron,—loving and beloved,—
Travels the pilgrimage of life:—Oh! thou,
Whose sons and daughters are more fair than those
Of this terrestrial globe;—inhabitants,
Worthy thyself,—the sister of the sun,—
Whose splendid temple at rich Ephesus,
Built by the manual industry of kings,
Attest the glory of thine ancient reign.
When thou appearest in the ebony,
Each constellation beams with joy divine
Around thy splendid circle:—every star
Seems, as if listening to the tremulous note,
That, with harmonious melody, awake
Those forms aërial of infinity,

Which on th' electric fluid ride through space
From satellites to planets; thence to suns,
Circled by comets; and to systems vast,
Forming the volume of the universe,
To age eternal.—When thy mystic form
Eclipst appears, surrounding nations gaze,
In silent wonder:—stern Orion, who,
Like a huge giant, hangs his circling belt
And threatening sword, as if the concave wide
Were ruled by him:—Arcturus, and the gems,
That form the watery Pleiads;—and the star,
That burns with heat intense, behold thy form
—Darken'd—with terror; as if Nature's hour
For dissolution into space were come.
But as thou reassum'st thy wonted light,
More lovely in thy beauty, than when seen
First by the wise Endymion, who enjoy'd
Thy secret converse on the Syrian mount;
They gaze with awe, soon softening with delight,
And with charm'd hope resign their reign to thee!—
While the rude bear, revolving round the pole,
In one unvaried circle, and who ne'er
Bathes his wild forehead in the echoing main,

Beholds how firm thine influence enchants
The raging billows to their rocky beds,
From gulf of Ormus to the vast profound
Of old Atlantic:—constant in thy change!
Yet constant in thine influence, from month
To year, from year to cycle, and to age!

Since first the penetrating eye of man
Beheld thee, rising o'er the balmy skirts
Of blooming Eden, thou art still the same;
And all now gaze on that, which Adam saw!
Adam and Moses, Thales, and the man
Who first taught Nature to th' astonish'd sons
Of western regions.—Oh! transporting thought!
To think that these unhallow'd eyes have seen
What Adam, Moses, and great Newton saw!

Pope's Iliad.

Pythagoras.

XIV.

But all beneath the constant Moon decay!
All change!—All spring from infancy to age;
And, at the appointed season of decay,
Melt into dust;—to be reform'd again.
Reform'd in splendour more magnificent,

Than eye has seen, or ear has ever heard!
And by that power, Omnipotent, whose name,
Inscribed on all the Universe, proclaims
Him past, him present, future, and sole cause,
Sole power, sole love, sole wisdom, and sole end.