Introduction.
“The Muse, nae Poet ever fand her,
“'Till by himsel he learned to wander,
“Adown some trotting burn's meander,
“An' no think lang.
“O sweet, to stray, and pensive ponder
“A heart-felt sang.”
Burns.
Away! ye Cares of th' ever-toiling World,
Toiling for gain, and reaping but dismay;
Still on the rack of Disappointment hurled,
Alike the wise, the busy, and the gay,
In the pursuit of that prismatic ray
Of luring Hope, that, as they follow, flies,
Each,—all,—enjoying ne'er the present day,
Still doating on the morrow, as it dies,
Until no morrow comes, to cheer their stony eyes!
Away, ye Cares!—and let me calm survey
The blushes of the western skies, that tell
The steps of the departure of the day;
And bid the broad pavilioned Sun farewell;
And muse, along the sweet sequestered dell,
On every charm of Nature, as I stray;
And wish for some lone, melancholy cell,
All silent, save the birds, and dashing spray,
There would I tune my harp, and meditate the lay!
My Soul delights in every sylvan spot,
Where she may find the Beauteous and the Grand,
And trace the semblance of her inmost thought
On every work of her Creator's hand!
But not to me 'tis given to command
My flight o'er wave, rock, mountain, wood, and wild,
Nor e'en in rurals of my father land
To learn the things dear to poetic child;
In Thracian coil for aye, and City strife turmoiled!
Nor frequent to these shades may I retire:
Nor here is Nature throned in native charms
To wake the notes from the consenting lyre—
The fields partake Trade's dissonant alarms!
This not her
Temple, redolent of balms,
And made of music! perfect and supreme,
Whose solemn grandeur every passion calms
That pines for base desires:—and speaks of Him,
Who framed the finished whole, Nature's immortal Theme!
No! this is not the Centre of her Dome,
Where soars her incense from the sacred shrine,
Whence Bards convey the genuine rapture home,
Their fragrance steal, their minstrelsy design—
Oh, that their blessings were, my soul! but thine—
Yet, 'tis the Portal to her ample Fane,
And, at the threshold, thou may'st well divine,
As thou dost down the aisles thy vision strain,
From the long levelled beams, the Glories of her reign!
But 'twas not always so.—In days of yore,
Ere lawless Trade his landmark did remove,
And on the pastures won still more and more,
These plains the Goddess ruled with fertile love!
Deer wantoned in the wood, the hawk above,
“—but we know it did of old belong to the Court,
and was a place where the King's hawks were kept, and
the master falconer had both a manor and abode, so that
it was the properest place to entertain foreigners at, and
for princes to take pleasure in, since there was abundance
of game in the woods and forests about it, both for
hawking and hunting, which occasioned the princes and
nobles of Scotland (to whom the whole parish once
belonged) to be pleased with their sojourning here.”
The Right Hon. Henry Lord Viscount Coleraine, and
F.S.A. his “History and Antiquities of the Town and
Church of Tottenham, in the County of Middlesex, 1795.”
And Fays in every field, by moonlight, made
Their ringlets quaint, and haunted spring and grove,
The Fauns and Sylvans danced in ev'ry shade,
The Zephyrs waved their wings, and hill and lawn surveyed.
The Seat of Happiness! if mortal life
Certain were not to teem with mortal woe;
Where is the place without convulsive strife
That will, at least, dash every joy below?
Of those old dusky times my numbers flow,
When he,
the young and royal Martyr, fell!
Ere on his lips her offered wine could glow,
Her coward stroke behind did Treachery deal!—
Woman! thy tender breast can thus Ambition steel?
Not that my theme.—O, ye who love to feel!
To follow vagrant Fancy's wayward flight,
And yield the soul, in sympathetic zeal,
To sorrows not your own, with sweet delight,
While stillness murmurs through the pensive night:—
List to the Minstrel, and his Tale of Woe:
Scorn not the verse, although a youth invite;
So may the wild Song thro' your bosom glow,
And thrill the tender thought with Grief's delicious throe!
