The poetical works of James Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

Being a Supplement to the “Prison Amusements,” originally published under the name of Paul Positive, in which many of the Author's Juvenile Verses were composed. The following were written at Scarborough, whither he had retired, on being liberated from York Castle, for the recovery of his health, before he returned home. They are dated July 23. 1796, and were literally a summer-day's labour.

One beautiful morning, when Paul was a child,
And went with a satchel to school,
The rogue play'd the truant, which shows he was wild,
And, though little, a very great fool.

He came to a cottage that grew on the moor,
No mushroom was ever so strong;
'Twas snug as a mouse-trap; and close by the door
A river ran rippling along.

The cot was embosom'd in rook-nested trees,
The chestnut, the elm, and the oak;
Geese gabbled in concert with bagpiping bees,
While softly ascended the smoke.

At the door sat a damsel, a sweet little girl,
Array'd in a petticoat green;
Her skin was lovely as mother-of-pearl,
And milder than moonlight her mien.

She sang as she knotted a garland of flowers,
Right mellowly warbled her tongue;
Such strains in Elysium's romantical bowers,
To soothe the departed, are sung.

Paul stood like a gander, he stood like himself,
Eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, open'd wide;
When, suddenly rising, the pretty young elf
The wonder-struck wanderer spied.

She started and trembled, she blush'd and she smiled,
Then dropping a courtesy she said,
“Pray, what brought you hither, my dear little child?
Did your legs run away with your head?”

“Yes! yes!” stammer'd Paul, and he made a fine bow,
At least 'twas the finest he could,
Though the lofty-bred belles of St. James's, I trow,
Would have call'd it a bow made of wood.

No matter, the dimple-cheek'd damsel was pleased,
And modestly gave him her wrist;
Paul took the fine present, and tenderly squeezed,
As if 'twere a wasp in his fist.

Then into the cottage she led the young fool,
Who stood all aghast to behold
The lass's grim mother, who managed a school,
A beldame, a witch, and a scold.

Her eyes were as red as two lobsters when boil'd,
Her complexion the colour of straw;
Though she grinn'd like a death's head whenever she smiled,
She show'd not a tooth in her jaw.

Her body was shrivell'd and dried like a kecks,
Her arms were all veins, bone, and skin;
And then she'd a beard, sir, in spite of her sex,
I don't know how long, on her chin.

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Her dress was as mournful as mourning could be,
Black sackcloth, bleach'd white with her tears;
For a widow, fair ladies! a widow was she,
Most dismally stricken in years.

The charms of her youth, if she ever had any,
Were all under total eclipse;
While the charms of her daughter, who truly had many,
Were only unfolding their lips.

Thus, far in a wilderness, bleak and forlorn,
When winter deflowers the year,
All hoary and horrid, I've seen an old thorn,
In icicle trappings appear:

While a sweet-smiling snow-drop enamels its root,
Like the morning-star gladdening the sky;
Or an elegant crocus peeps out at its foot,
As blue as Miss Who-ye-will's eye.

“Dear mother!” the damsel exclaim'd with a sigh,
“I have brought you a poor little wretch,
Your victim and mine,”—but a tear from her eye
Wash'd away all the rest of her speech.

The beldame then mounting her spectacles on,
Like an arch o'er the bridge of her nose,
Examined the captive, and, crying “Well done!”
Bade him welcome with twenty dry blows.

Paul fell down astounded, and only not dead,
For death was not quite within call;
Recovering, he found himself in a warm bed,
And in a warm fever and all.

Reclined on her elbow, to anguish a prey,
The maiden, in lovely distress,
Sate weeping her soul from her eyelids away:
How could the fair mourner do less?

But when she perceived him reviving again,
She caroll'd a sonnet so sweet,
The captive, transported, forgot all his pain,
And presently fell at her feet.

All rapture and fondness, all folly and joy,
“Dear damsel! for your sake,” he cried,
“I'll be your cross mother's own dutiful boy,
And you shall one day be my bride.”

“For shame!” quoth the nymph, though she look'd the reverse,
“Such nonsense I cannot approve;
Too young we're to wed.”—Paul said, “So much the worse;
But are we too young, then, to love?”

The lady replied in a language that speaks
Not unto the ear but the eye;
The language that blushes through eloquent cheeks,
When modesty looks very sly.

Our true lovers lived—for the fable saith true—
As merry as larks in their nest,
Who are learning to sing while the hawk is in view,
—The ignorant always are blest.

Through valleys and meadows they wander'd by day,
And warbled and whistled along;
So liquidly glided their moments away,
Their life was a galloping song.

When they twitter'd their notes from the top of a hill,
If November did not look like May,
If rocks did not caper, nor rivers stand still,
The asses at least did not bray.

If the trees did not leap nor the mountains advance,
They were deafer than bailiffs, 'tis clear;
If sun, moon, and stars, did not lead up a dance,
They wanted a musical ear.

But sometimes the beldame, cross, crazy, and old,
Would thunder, and threaten, and swear;
Expose them to tempests, to heat, and to cold,
To danger, fatigue, and despair.

For wisdom, she argued, could only be taught
By bitter experience to fools;
And she acted, as every good school-mistress ought
Quite up to the beard of her rules.

Her school, by-the-bye, was the noblest on earth
For mortals to study themselves;
There many great folks, who were folios by birth,
She cut down to pitiful twelves.

Her rod, like Death's scythe, in her levelling hand
Bow'd down rich, poor, wicked, and just;

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Kings, queens, popes, and heroes, the touch of her wand
Could crumble to primitive dust.

At length, in due season, the planets that reign,
By chance or some similar art,
Commanded the damsel to honour her swain
With her hand as the key to her heart.

The grisly old mother then bless'd the fond pair;
—“While you live, O my darlings!” she cried,
“My favours unask'd for you always shall share,
And cleave like two ribs to my side.

“Poor Paul is a blockhead in marrow and bone,
Whom nought but my rod can make wise;
The fellow will only, when all's said and done,
Be just fit to live when he dies.”

The witch was a prophetess, all must allow,
And Paul a strange moon-stricken youth,
Who somewhere had pick'd up, I'll not tell you how,
A sad knack of telling the truth.

His sorrows and sufferings his consort may paint,
In colours of water and fire;
She saw him in prison, desponding and faint,
She saw him in act to expire:

Then, melting her voice to the tenderest tone,
The lovely enthusiast began
To sing in sweet numbers the comforts unknown,
That solace the soul of the man,

Who, hated, forsaken, tormented, opprest,
And wrestling with anguish severe,
Can turn his eye inward, and view in his breast
A conscience unclouded and clear.

The captive look'd up with a languishing eye,
Half quench'd in a tremulous tear;
He saw the meek Angel of Hope standing by,
He heard her solicit his ear.

Her strain then exalting, and swelling her lyre,
The triumphs of patience she sung,
While passions of music and language of fire
Flow'd full and sublime from her tongue.

At length the gay morning of liberty shone,
At length the dread portals flew wide;
Then, hailing each other with transports unknown,
The captive escaped with his bride.

Behold in a fable the Poet's own life,
From which this lean moral we draw,—
The Muse is Paul Positive's nightingale-wife,
Misfortune his mother-in-law.