Poems consisting of a tour through parts of North and South Wales, sonnets, odes, and an epistle to a friend on physiognomy. By W. Sotheby |
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| ODES. |
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ODES.
ODE TO CLYDA.
I.
Naïd, receive my votive wreath!The woodbine's interwoven locks
That hid their clustering growth thy cliffs beneath;
Fresh gather'd from the gelid cave
The moss that drops the crystal of thy wave;
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Upon the steep side of thy pendant rocks;
And now I blend with closest care,
While the prest fragrance floats in air,
The wild thyme's tender flow'r,
That from the bee's light feathers fell
A seed within thy grassy cell,
What time the restless wand'rer flew,
Winding his plaintive hum along thy nightly bow'r.
II.
Clyda, when late the grey-eyed dawnGleam'd on the dewy lawn,
And all the distant hills around,
With the blue mist's wreath'd volumes crown'd,
Flung forth their incense to the God of day,
For thy wild haunts I left my wonted way,
Where oft with frequent pause I toil'd to climb
The mountain brow sublime,
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As gradual from the world the veil of night withdrew.
III.
Now while the sounds that down thy water move,With lengthen'd swell of melody repeat
The music of the grove;
Not with rude steps my pilgrim feet
Shall rouse the clamours of thy mountain's hoar;
Nor shall these hands I bend to take
The icy stream my thirst to slake,
Profane thy miny treasure's secret seat,
And draw from its dark bed the unsun'd ore.
IV.
I come not worn with hopeless griefTo pillow on thy rocks my lonely head,
Nor by pale melancholy led
To seek in dreary wilds a sad relief;
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Dim'd by the broad oak's depth of shade,
Whose twisted roots beneath the flood display'd,
Are turn'd to living stone:
From the bold arch sublimely thrown
In cluster'd columns the bright spar depends,
And noiseless 'mid the eddies of the wave
Slow down their lengthen'd points the ling'ring drop descends.
V.
Hid in the lap of solitude,In secret glens and caverns rude,
Where'er the lone enthusiast bends
A visionary world attends,
And airy shapes advance, and airy voices sound.
But oh, how blest! if aught of ancient worth
Shed inspiration round,
To slumber on the hallow'd earth,
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And forms of ancient days flash on the tranced eye.
VI.
Though wild trees tremble o'er yon tow'rOf old where Gothic banners hung,
And peace has scatter'd many a flow'r
On the rent walls in ruins flung,
Bright pageants of the poet's dream,
Prompting the high heroic theme,
Swarm round the castle's shiver'd head,
That beetling o'er the cliff a fragment lies;
Aloft th'aërial battlements arise,
And on the gleaming rocks the steel-clad warriors tread.
VII.
Not such at haunted eve,Poor shepherd of the dale!
The visions that thy wilder'd sight deceive,
When wing'd with fear thy footstep hies
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Where the bridge trembles o'er the gulph below;
Amid the foamy tides
That burst through the dark mountain's riven sides,
Thou view'st the shapeless spectre rise,
While shrieks of loud lament and horror load the gale.
VIII.
Spirit! who from thy wat'ry graveSad wander'st through the gloomy cave,
That erst re-echoed to thy yell,
When hurl'd from yon impending height,
The deep flood, as thy bleeding body fell,
Mournfully sounded on the ear of night,
Break not death's deep repose—
Hence! in my breast no passion glows,
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Unites in golden chains the mind,
Form'd by the hand of chaste connubial love.
Naïd! receive my votive wreath!
The pure delights that in my bosom move,
Rise from the thoughts thy haunts inspiring breathe.
Nymph! with regret I leave thy soothing cell,
Clyda, to virtue dear, dear to the muse—farewell!
A mountain torrent, near Abergavenny, which winding along a stony channel, among steep hills, in many parts luxuriantly covered to the water's brink with wild trees and underwood, is precipitated into various waterfalls, from the interruption of vast masses of rock that cross the current in all directions.
The most remarkable fall, both for its height and romantic beauty, rushes through a cavity of the rock into a pool call'd the Pult-y-Comb, or the Dog's Pool, from a tradition, that the body of a woman who had been seduced, murdered, and afterwards flung into the river from a bridge that directly impends over the pool, had been there discovered by her dog.
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NETLEY ABBEY.
MIDNIGHT.
I
Soft on the wave the oars at distance sound,The night-breeze sighing through the leafy spray,
With gentle whisper murmurs all around,
Breathes on the placid sea, and dies away.
As sleeps the Moon upon her cloudless height,
And the swoln spring-tide heaves beneath the light,
Slow lingering on the solitary shore
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Lonely to yon forsaken fane descend,
To muse on youth's wild dreams amid the ruins hoar.
II
Within the shelter'd center of the aisle,Beneath the ash whose growth romantic spreads
Its foliage trembling o'er the funeral pile,
And all around a deeper darkness sheds;
While through yon arch, where the thick ivy twines,
Bright on the silver'd tow'r the moon-beam shines,
And the grey cloyster's roofless length illumes,
Upon the mossy stone I lie reclin'd,
And to a visionary world resign'd,
Call the pale spectres forth from the forgotten tombs.
III
Spirits! the desolated wreck that haunt,Who frequent by the village maiden seen,
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And shapeless shadows sweep along the green;
And ye, in midnight horrors heard to yell
Round the destroyer of the holy cell,
With interdictions dread of boding sound;
Who, when he prowl'd the rifled walls among,
Prone on his brow the massy fragment flung;—
Come from your viewless caves, and tread this hallow'd ground!
IV
How oft, when homeward forc'd, at day's dim close,In youth, as bending back I mournful stood
Fix'd on the fav'rite spot, where first arose
The pointed ruin peeping o'er the wood;
Methought I heard upon the passing wind
Melodious sounds in solemn chorus join'd,
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Oft through the veil of night's descending cloud,
Saw gleaming far the visionary croud
Down the deep vaulted aisle in long procession float.
V
But now; no more the gleaming forms appear,Within their graves at rest the fathers sleep;
And not a sound comes to the wistful ear,
Save the low murmur of the tranquil deep:
Or from the grass that in luxuriant pride
Waves o'er yon eastern window's sculptur'd side,
The dew-drops bursting on the fretted stone:
While faintly from the distant coppice heard,
The music of the melancholy bird
Trills to the silent heav'n a sweetly-plaintive moan.
VI
Farewell, delightful dreams, that charm'd my youth!Farewell th'aërïal note, the shadowy train!
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While cloyster'd echo breathes a solemn strain,
In the deep stillness of the midnight hour,
Wisdom shall curb wild fancy's magic pow'r,
And as with life's gay dawn th'illusions cease,
Though from the heart steal forth a sigh profound;
Here Resignation o'er its secret wound
Shall pour the lenient balm that sooths the soul to peace.
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