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93
A BIRTH-DAY EPISTLE.
Dear Gourley,
'Tis just thirty-three years this day,
Since I in my first state of nudity lay—
(I open, you see, with a modest simplicity,
Like Homer, so famous for verse and mendicity)
When my squall gave shrill notice to mam and to gossip,
That my lungs had found air, which was twitching my nose up.
Yet in that same squall, might a Prophet, if there,
Have found more than a simple reception of air—
An omen, in fact, undisputed and strong,
That now there was born a new screech-oml of song,
Predestined to utter as hideous a croon
As ever was hooted to night or the moon!
Since I in my first state of nudity lay—
(I open, you see, with a modest simplicity,
Like Homer, so famous for verse and mendicity)
When my squall gave shrill notice to mam and to gossip,
That my lungs had found air, which was twitching my nose up.
Yet in that same squall, might a Prophet, if there,
Have found more than a simple reception of air—
An omen, in fact, undisputed and strong,
That now there was born a new screech-oml of song,
Predestined to utter as hideous a croon
As ever was hooted to night or the moon!
94
Come, trace the long retrospect! Pleasure and grief
Shall find in this strain their epitome brief.
See pleasure and grief, then, alternately laid
Along my life's landscape, like sunshine and shade;
Or, lest this old simile hackneyed you deem,
Like ocean's broad surface in morning's first beam,
When the crests of his billows are bright with the glow,
And the furrows betwixt them are sable below.
Shall find in this strain their epitome brief.
See pleasure and grief, then, alternately laid
Along my life's landscape, like sunshine and shade;
Or, lest this old simile hackneyed you deem,
Like ocean's broad surface in morning's first beam,
When the crests of his billows are bright with the glow,
And the furrows betwixt them are sable below.
See, first, the world opens on childhood's young eye,
All novelty, beauty, in earth and in sky!
Then warm was the turf, and its flowerets how gay,
Where I rolled my light limbs in the long summer's day;
And winter, how strange! when my flowerets were lost,
And my principal dread was the dread of Jack Frost.
'Tis all like a dream—ah! what dream of the man,
Can equal the time ere his sorrows began?
'Tis a scene of calm light to our memories given,
'Tis tinged with the colours we image of heaven!
All novelty, beauty, in earth and in sky!
Then warm was the turf, and its flowerets how gay,
Where I rolled my light limbs in the long summer's day;
And winter, how strange! when my flowerets were lost,
And my principal dread was the dread of Jack Frost.
'Tis all like a dream—ah! what dream of the man,
Can equal the time ere his sorrows began?
'Tis a scene of calm light to our memories given,
'Tis tinged with the colours we image of heaven!
Next see me, “unwilling to school,” slowly creep,
Beneath the stern pedant to smart and to weep—
But on this head 'twould puzzle my brain to say more
Than Shakespeare has said so much better before;
I therefore pass on to the livelier scenes,
When life became life—in the midst of my teens.
Beneath the stern pedant to smart and to weep—
95
Than Shakespeare has said so much better before;
I therefore pass on to the livelier scenes,
When life became life—in the midst of my teens.
Then Passion, the despot, assumed his wild reign,
The seat of his empire my bosom or brain.
Then frolic to frolic, and revel to revel
Succeeded—the courtship, the siege, and the—devil;
(His Highness's name for the thing signified,
I think is a synonym not misapplied).
Then goading Ambition impelled me, sans aim,
On the wild-goose pursuit of distinction and fame.
Fame hovered before me in day-dreamy air,
Now offering the wreath won and worn by Voltaire—
Now showing the night-shade whose darkness of stain
Was relieved by no light on the temples of Paine—
Now naming their names who have battled till death
In the front ranks of law and of orthodox faith—
Then waving the garland whose flowers shall environ
For ages the brows of our Scott and our Byron.
I tried for them all!—To my friends, though no crime,
The last seemed a profitless wasting of time;
The next made their hopes in me lofty indeed,
I was called to the work (in the words of their creed);
But the other, alas! put them all the reverse,
(In the words of their creed) I was reckoned a curse,
And when deeper than wont did my arguments tickle,
I was flying post-haste to my master—old Nichol!
And this brings me down, you will own with some state,
To one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-plus-eight.
The seat of his empire my bosom or brain.
Then frolic to frolic, and revel to revel
Succeeded—the courtship, the siege, and the—devil;
(His Highness's name for the thing signified,
I think is a synonym not misapplied).
Then goading Ambition impelled me, sans aim,
On the wild-goose pursuit of distinction and fame.
Fame hovered before me in day-dreamy air,
Now offering the wreath won and worn by Voltaire—
Now showing the night-shade whose darkness of stain
Was relieved by no light on the temples of Paine—
Now naming their names who have battled till death
In the front ranks of law and of orthodox faith—
Then waving the garland whose flowers shall environ
For ages the brows of our Scott and our Byron.
I tried for them all!—To my friends, though no crime,
The last seemed a profitless wasting of time;
96
I was called to the work (in the words of their creed);
But the other, alas! put them all the reverse,
(In the words of their creed) I was reckoned a curse,
And when deeper than wont did my arguments tickle,
I was flying post-haste to my master—old Nichol!
And this brings me down, you will own with some state,
To one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-plus-eight.
Now see me here, after each freak and miscarriage,
Sufficiently settled and sobered by marriage—
Indulging in nothing a saint might not choose,
And doing devoirs to no maid but the Muse—
Detesting each principle leading to anarchy,
As much as its opposite—Absolute Monarchy;
A stickler for England, her freedom, and glory,
And your's, ever duly and truly,
Sufficiently settled and sobered by marriage—
Indulging in nothing a saint might not choose,
And doing devoirs to no maid but the Muse—
Detesting each principle leading to anarchy,
As much as its opposite—Absolute Monarchy;
A stickler for England, her freedom, and glory,
And your's, ever duly and truly,
R. STORY.
Gargrave, Oct. 17th, 1828.
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