Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,'
Whose iron scourge, and torturing hour,
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse; thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others woe.
Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing folly's idle brood,
Wild laughter, noise, and thoughtless joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain prosperity receiv'd,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.

Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,
Immers'd in rapturous thought profound,
And melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm charity, the general friend,
With justice, to herself severe,

And pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy gorgon terrors clad,
Nor circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell disease, and ghastly poverty.

Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart.

The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, [vault,
Where through the long drawn aisle, and fretted
The peeling anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,.. And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood;

[ocr errors]

Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd
Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate:

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping woful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his favourite tree.
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next, with dirges due in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to misery all he had, a tear;
He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a
friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.
A PINDARIC ODE.

Awake, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;

The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the

roar.

Oh! sovereign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen cares,
And frantic passions, hear thy soft controul.
On Thracia's hills the lord of war
Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the scepter'd hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king,
With ruffled plume, and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned loves are seen,
On Cytherea's day,

With antic sports, and blue-ey'd pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating,
Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting strains their queen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns, the graces homage pay.

With arms sublime, that float upon the air,

In gliding state she wins her easy way:
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move

The bloom of young desire, and purple light of love.

Man's feeble race what ills await,
Labour, and penury, the racks of pain,
Disease, and sorrow's weeping train,

And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky;

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of

war.

In climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom,
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the odorous shade
Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,
In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursues, and generous shame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,

How do your tuneful echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;
Every shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:
Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant power,
And coward vice that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-cncircled

coast.

Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: The dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.
This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;

Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

Nor second he, that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw: but, blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-ey'd Fancy hovering o'er
Scatters from her pictur'd urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
But ah! 'tis heard no more—

Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun:
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.

THE BARD.

A PINDARIC ODE.

'Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
Confusion on thy banners wait,
Though, fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance :

To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair,
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)

And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave,
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, oh king! their hundred arms they weave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,
That hush'd the stormy main;
Brave Urien sleeps upon
Mountains, ye mourn in vain

his

Modred, whose magic song

craggy

bed:

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-top'd head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,
Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail :
The famish'd eagle screams and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries.
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a griesly band,

I see them sit: they linger yet,

Avengers of their native land:

With me in dreadful harmony they join,

And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.'

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,

The winding-sheet of Edward's race:
Give ample room, and verge enough,

[blocks in formation]

She wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heaven. What terrors round him
wait!

Amazement in his van, with flight combin'd;
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind.

"Mighty victor, mighty Lord,

Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye afford
A tear to grace his obsequies!

Is the sable warrior fled?

Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.

The swarm, that in thy noon-tide beam were born? Gone to salute the rising morn.

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,

While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That hush'd in grim repose,expects his evening prey.

66

Fill high the sparkling bowl,

The rich repast prepare;

Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair

Fell thirst and famine scowl

A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,

Lance to lance, and horse to horse!

Long years of havoc urge their destin'd course,
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way.
Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,
And spare the meek usurper's holy head.
Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled boar in infant gore

Wallows beneath the thorny shade.

Now, brothers, bending o'er th' accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

"Edward, lo! to sudden fate

(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.) Half of thy heart we consecrate.

[ocr errors]

(The web is wove. The work is done.)"

Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn

Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn:

In yon bright track, that fires the western skies, They melt, they vanish from my eyes.

But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll? Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!

Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!

No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.

All-hail, ye genuine kings; Britannia's issue, hail!

'Girt with many a baron bold Sublime their starry fronts they rear;

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old

In bearded majesty, appear.

In the midst a form divine!

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line;
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-colour'd
wings.

[blocks in formation]

Whom fancy chills with visionary fears,
Or bends to servile tameness with conceits
Of shame, of evil, or of base defect,
Fantastic and delusive. Here the slave,
Who droops abash'd when sullen pomp surveys
His humbler habit; here the trembling wretch,
Unnerv'd and struck with terror's icy bolts,
Spent in weak wailings, drown'd in shameful tears,
At every dream of danger: here subdued
By frontless laughter and the haughty scorn
Of old, unfeeling vice, the abject soul,
Who blushing half resigns the candid praise
Of temperance and honour; half disowns
A freeman's hatred of tyrannic pride;
And hears with sickly smiles the venal mouth
With foulest licence mock the patriot's name.

Last of the motley bands, on whom the power
Of gay derision bends her hostile aim,
Is that where shameful ignorance presides.
Beneath her sordid banners, lo! they march,
Like blind and lame. Whate'er their doubtful hands
Attempt, confusion straight appears behind,
And troubles all the work. Through many a maze,
Perplex'd they struggle, changing every path,
O'erturning every purpose; then at last

Sit down dismay'd, and leave the entangled scene
For scorn to sport with. Such then is the abode
Of folly in the mind; and such the shapes
In which she governs her obsequious train.
Through every scene of ridicule in things
To lead the tenour of my devious lay;
Through every swift occasion, which the hand
Of laughter points at, when the mirthful sting
Distends her sallying nerves and chokes her tongue;
What were it but to count each crystal drop
Which morning's dewy fingers on the blooms
Of May distil? Suffice it to have said,
Where'er the power of ridicule displays
Her quaint-ey'd visage, some incongruous form,
Some stubborn dissonance of things combin'd,
Strikes on the quick observer: whether pomp,
Or praise, or beauty, mix their partial claim
Where sordid fashions, where ignoble deeds,
Where foul deformity, are wont to dwell;
Or whether these with violation loath'd,
Invade resplendent pomp's imperious mien,
The charms of beauty, or the boast of praise.

Ask we for what fair end the Almighty Sire
In mortal bosoms wakes this gay contempt,
These grateful stings of laughter, from disgust
Educing pleasure? Wherefore, but to aid
The tardy steps of reason, and at once
By this prompt impulse urge us to depress
The giddy aims of folly? Though the light
Of truth slow dawning on the inquiring mind
At length unfolds, through many a subtle tie,
How these uncouth disorders end at last
In public evil! yet benignant heaven,
Conscious how dim the dawn of truth appears
To thousands; conscious what a scanty pause
From labours and from care, the wider lot
Of humble life affords for studious thought

To scan the maze of nature; therefore stamp'd
The glaring scenes with characters of scorn,
As broad, as obvious, to the passing clown,
As to the letter'd sage's curious eye.

Such are the various aspects of the mind-
Some heavenly genius, whose unclouded thought
Attain that secret harmony which blends
The ethereal spirit with its mold of clay;
O! teach me to reveal the grateful charm
That searchless nature o'er the sense of man
Diffuses, to behold, in lifeless things,
The inexpressive semblance of himself,
Of thought and passion. Mark the sable woods
That shade sublime yon mountain's nodding brow;
With what religious awe the solemn scene
Commands your steps! as if the reverend form
Of Minos or of Numa should forsake

[vel

The Elysian seats, and down the embowering glade Move to your pausing eye! Behold the expanse Of yon gay landscape, where the silver clouds Flit o'er the heavens before the sprightly breeze: Now their gray cincture skirts the doubtful sun: Now streams of splendour, through their opening Effulgent, sweep from off the gilded lawn The aerial shadows; on the curling brook, And on the shady margin's quivering leaves With quickest lustre glancing; while you view The prospect, say, within your cheerful breast Plays not the lively sense of winning mirth With clouds and sunshine checquer'd, while the Of social converse, to the inspiring tongue [round Of some gay nymph amid her subject train, Moves all obsequious? Whence is this effect, This kindred power of such discordant things? Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone To which the new-born mind's harmonious powers At first were strung? Or rather from the links Which artful custom twines around her frame? For when the different images of things By chance combin'd, have struck the attentive soul With deeper impulse, or, connected long, Have drawn her frequent eye; howe'er distinct The external scenes, yet oft the ideas gain From that conjunction an eternal tie, And sympathy unbroken. Let the mind Recal one partner of the various league, Immediate, lo! the firm confederates rise, And each his former station straight resumes: One movement governs the consenting throng, And all at once with rosy pleasure shine, Or all are sadden'd with the glooms of care. 'Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold, Two faithful needles from the informing touch Of the same parent stone, together drew Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd With fatal impulse quivering to the pole: Then, though disjoin'd by kingdoms, though the Roll'd its broad surge betwixt, and different stars Beheld their wakeful motions, yet preserv'd The former friendship, and remember'd still The alliance of their birth: whate'er the line Which once possess'd, nor pause, nor quiet knew

[main

« НазадПродовжити »