Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads, Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, But he had traced it upward to its source, Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell, Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, He bade with lifted torch its starry walls Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts! O studious Poet, eloquent for truth ! Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love! Here, rather than on monumental stone, This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.
THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON.
In the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit to the author's cottage; and on the morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines in the garden-bower.
ELL, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, mean
Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, To that still roaring dell, of which I told; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock Flings arching like a bridge;-that branchless ash, Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fanned by the water-fall! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,1 That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone.
Now, my friends emerge Beneath the wide wide Heaven-and view again The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined And hungered after Nature, many a year, In the great City pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun!
1 Of long lank weeds.] The asplenium scolopendrium, called in some countries the Adder's Tongue, in others the Hart's Tongue: but Withering gives the Adder's Tongue as the trivial name of the ophioglossum only.
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds ! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue ocean ! So my Friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; and of such hues As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence.
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage! and I watched Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight: and though now the bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes 'Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
That we may lift the Soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had crossed the mighty orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still, 1 Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING
EAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween
That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount Hight Castalie and (sureties of thy faith) That Pity and Simplicity stood by,
And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce The world's low cares and lying vanities, Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse, And washed and sanctified to Poesy.
Flew creeking.] Some months after I had written this line, it gave me pleasure to find that Bartram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. "When these birds move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate and regular; and even when at a considerable distance or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers; their shafts and webs upon one another creek as the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea.'
Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son: And with those recreant unbaptized heels Thou'rt flying from thy bounden ministʼries— So sore it seems and burthensome a task
To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed! For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy,
And I have arrows1 mystically dipt,
Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead? And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth "Without the meed of one melodious tear ?" Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved bard, Who to the "Illustrious of his native Land So properly did look for patronage."
Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face! They snatched him from the sickle and the plough- To gauge ale-firkins.
On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount, There stands a lone and melancholy tree, Whose aged branches to the midnight blast Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough, Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled, And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's tomb. Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit, These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.
1 Pind. Olymp. ii. 1. 150.
2 Verbatim from Burns' dedication of his Poem to the Nobility and Gentry of the Caledonian Hunt.
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