Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

Whole heaps of silver tokens, nightly paid
The careful wife or the neat dairy-maid,
Sunk not his stores, with smiles and powerful
bribes

He gain'd the leaders of his neighbour tribes, And ere the night the face of heav'n had chang'd,

Beneath his banners half the fairies rang'd. Mean-while driv'n back to earth, a lonely way

The cheerless Albion wander'd half the day, A long, long journey, choak'd with brakes and thorns,

Ill-measur'd by ten thousand barley-corns. Tir'd out at length, a spreading stream he spy'd Fed by old Thame, a daughter of the tide : 'Twas then a spreading stream, though now, its fame

Obscur'd, it bears the creek's inglorious name, And creeps, as through contracted bounds it

strays,.

A leap for boys in these degen'rate days.

On the clear crystal's verdant bank he stood, And thrice look'd backward on the fatal wood, And thrice he groan'd, and thrice he beat his breast,

[ocr errors]

And thus in tears his kindred gods address'd.

If true, ye wat'ry powers, my lineage came From Neptune mingling with a mortal dame; Down to his court, with coral garlands ' crown'd,

Through all your grottoes waft my plaintive sound,

And urge the god, whose trident shakes the ' earth,

To grace his offspring, and assert my birth.' He said. A gentle Naiad heard his pray'r, And, touch'd with pity for a lover's care, Shoots to the sea, where low beneath the tides Old Neptune in th' unfathom'd depth resides. Rous'd at the news, the sea's stern sultan swore Revenge, and scarce from present arms forbore; But first the nymph his harbinger he sends, And to her care his fav'rite boy commends.

As through the Thames her backward course
she guides,

Driven up his current by the refluent tides,
Along his banks the pigmy legions spread
She spies, and haughty Oriel at their head.
Soon with wrong'd Albion's name the host she
fires,

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

And counts the ocean's god among his sires;

She said. They bow'd: and on their shield up-bore

With shouts their new-saluted emperor.
Even Oriel smil'd at least to smile he strove,
And hopes of vengeance triumph'd over love.
See now the mourner of the lonely shade
By gods protected, and by hosts obey'd,
A slave, a chief, by fickle Fortune's play,
In the short course of one revolving day.
What wonder if the youth, so strangely blest,
Felt his heart flutter in his little breast!
His thick-embattel'd troops, with secret pride,
He views extended half an acre wide;
More light he treads, more tall he seems to rise,
And struts a straw-breadth nearer to the skies.
O for thy Muse*, great Bard, whose lofty

strains

In battle join'd the Pygmies and the Cranes!
Each gaudy knight, had I that warmth divine,
Each color'd legion in my verse should shine,
But simple I, and innocent of art,
The tale, that sooth'd my infant years, impart,
The tale I heard whole winter eves, untir'd,
And sing the battles, that my nurse inspir'd.

Now the shrill corn-pipes, echoing loud

to arms,

To rank and file reduce the straggling swarms. Thick rows of spears at once with sudden glare,

A grove of needles, glitter in the air;
Loose in the wind small ribbon streamers
flow,

Dipt in all colors of the heav'nly bow,
And the gay host, that now its march pursues,
Gleams o'er the meadows in a thousand hues.

On Buda's plains thus formidably bright,
Shone Asia's sons, a pleasing dreadful sight.
In various robes their silken troops were seen,
The blue, the red, and prophet's sacred green:
When blooming Brunswick near the Danube's
flood,

First stain'd his maiden sword in Turkish blood.

Unseen and silent march the slow brigades Through pathless wilds, and unfrequented shades,

In hope already, vanquish'd by surprise,
In Albion's power the fairy empire lies;
Already has he seis'd on Kenna's charms,
And the glad beauty trembles in his arms.
The march concludes; and now in prospect

near,

The ocean's god, by whom shall be o'er-But fenc'd with arms, the hostile towers

[blocks in formation]

To charge their foes they march, a glitt'ring band,

And in their van doth bold Azuriel stand. What rage that hour doth Albion's soul possess,

Let chiefs imagine, and let lovers guess!
Forth issuing from his ranks, that strove in vain
To check his course, athwart the dreadful
plain

He strides indignant: and with haughty cries
To single fight the fairy prince defies.

Forbear, rash youth, th' unequal war to try; Nor, sprung from mortals, with immortals vie. No god stands ready to avert thy doom, Nor yet thy grandsire of the waves is come. My words are vain no words the wretch can

move,

[ocr errors]

By beauty dazzled, and bewitch'd by love:
He longs, he burns to win the glorious prize,
And sees no danger, while he sees her eyes.

Now from each host the eager warrior start, And furious Albion flings his hasty dart: 'Twas feather'd from the bee's transparent wing, And its shaft ended in a hornet's sting; But, toss'd in rage, it flew without a wound, High o'er the foe, and guiltless pierc'd the ground.

Not so Azuriel's: with unerring aim
Too near the needle-pointed javelin came,
Drove through the seven-fold shield and silken
vest,

And lightly ras'd the lover's ivory breast.
Rous'd at the smart, and rising to the blow,
With his keen sword he cleaves his fairy foe,
Sheer from the shoulder to the waist he cleaves,
And of one arm the tott'ring trunk bereaves.
His useless steel brave Albion wields no
more,

But sternly smiles, and thinks the combat o'er;
So had it been, had aught of mortal strain,
Or less than fairy felt the deadly pain.
But empyreal forms, howe'er in sight
Gash'd and dismember'd, easily unite.
As some frail cup of China's purest mold,
With azure varnish'd, and bedrop'd with
gold,

Though broke, if cur'd by some nice virgin's hands,

In its old strength and pristine beauty stands;
The tumults of the boiling Bohea braves,
And holds secure the Coffee's sable waves:
So did Azuriel's arm, if fame say true,
Rejoin the vital trunk whence first it
And, whilst in wonder fix'd poor Albion stood,
Plung'd the curs'd sabre in his heart's warm
blood.

grew;

[merged small][ocr errors]

His fall the Dryads, with loud shrieks deplore,

By sister Naiads echo'd from the shore, Thence down to Neptune's secret realms convey'd,

Through grots and glooms, and many a cora

shade.

The sea's great sire, with looks denouncing

war,

The trident shakes, and mounts the pearly carr: With one stern frown the wide-spread deep deformis,

And works the madden'd ocean into storms. O'er foaming mountains, and through bursting tides,

Now high, now low, the bounding chariot rides,

"Till through the Thames in a loud whirlwind's

roar

It shoots, and lands him on the destin'd shore.

Now fix'd on earth his tow'ring stature stood, Hung o'er the mountains, and o'erlook'd the wood.

To Brumpton's grove one ample stride he took, The valleys trembled, and the forest shook) The next huge step reach'd the devoted shade, Where choak'd in blood was wretched Albion laid;

Where now the vanquish'd, with the victors join'd,

Beneath the regal banners stood combin'd.

Th' embattled dwarfs with rage and scorn

he past,

And on their town his eye vindictive cast:
Its deep foundations its strong trident cleaves,
And high in air th' uprooted empire heaves;
On his broad engine the vast ruin hung,
Which on the foe with force divine he Aung;
Aghast the legious in th' approaching shade,
Th' inverted spires and rocking domes survey'd,
That downward tumbling on the host below
Crush'd the whole nation at one dreadful blow.
Towers, arms, nymphs, warriors, are together
lost,

And a whole empire falls to sooth sad Albion's ghost.

Such was the period, long restrain'd by Fate,
And such the downfal of the fairy state.
This dale, a pleasing region, not unblest,
This dale possess'd they; and had still pos-
sess'd,

Had not their monarch, with a father's pride,
Rent from her lord th' inviolable bride,
Rash to dissolve the contract seal'd above,
The solemn vows and sacred bonds of love.
Now, where his elves so brightly danc'd the,
round,

No violet breathes, nor daisy paints the ground;
His towers and people fill one common grave,
A shapeless ruin, and a barren cave.

Bencath huge hills of smoaking piles he lay Stun'd and confounded a whole summer's day. At length awak'd (for what can long restrain Unbody'd spirits!) but awak'd in pant

And

And as he saw the desolated wood,
And the dark den where once his empire stood,
Grief chill'd his heart: to his half-open'd eyes
In every oak a Neptune seem'd to rise:
He fled and left, with all his trembling peers,
The long possession of a thousand years.
Thro' bush, thro' brake, thro' groves and
gloomy dales,

Thro' dank and dry, o'er streams and flowery vales,

Direct they fled; but often look'd behind,
And stop'd and startled at each rustling wind.
Wing'd with like fear, his abdicated bands
Disperse, and wander into different lands;
Part did beneath the Peak's deep caverns lie,
In silent glooms impervious to the sky;
Part on fair Avon's margin seek repose,
Whose stream o'er Britain's midmost region
flows,

Where formidable Neptune never came,
And seas and oceans are but known by fame;
Some to dark woods and secret shades retreat,
And some on mountains choose their airy seat.
There haply by the ruddy damsel seen,
Or shepherd-boy, they featly foot the green,
While from their steps a circling verdure springs;
But fly from towns, and dread the courts of
kings.

Mean-while sad Kenna, loth to quit the grove,

Hung o'er the body of her breathless love, Try'd every art (vain arts!) to change his doom, And vow'd (vain vows!) to join him in the

tomb.

What cou'd she do? the Fates alike deny
The dead to live, or fairy forms to die.

An herb there grows (the same old * Homer
tells

Ulysses bore to rival Circe's spells)
Its root is ebon-black, but sends to light
A stein that bends with flow'rets milky white,
Moly the plant, which gods and fairies know,
But secret kept from mortal men below.
On his pale limbs its virtuous juice she shed,
And murmur'd mystic numbers o'er the dead,
When lo! the little shape by magic_power
Grew less and less, contracted to a flower;
A flower, that first in this sweet garden smil'd,
To virgins sacred, and the Snow-drop styl'd.
The new-born plant with sweet regret she
view'd,

Warm'd with her sighs, and with her tears bedew'd,

Its ripen'd seeds from bank to bank convey'd, And with her lover whiten'd half the shade. Thus won from death each spring she sees him grow,

And glories in the vegetable snow, Which now increas'd through wide Britannia's plains,

Its parent's warmth and spotless name retains;

First leader of the flowery race aspires, And foremost catches the sun's genial fires, 'Midst frosts and snows triumphant dares ap

pear,

Mingles the seasons, and leads on the year.
Deserted now of all the pigmy race,
Nor man nor fairy touch'd this guilty place.
In heaps on heaps, for many a rolling age,
It lay accurs'd, the mark of Neptune's rage;
"Till great Nassau recloath'd the desart shade,
Thence sacred to Britannia's monarchs made.
'Twas then the green-rob'd nymph, fair Kenna,

came

(Kenna that gave the neighb'ring town its name)

Proud when she saw th' ennobled garden shine
With nymphs and heroes of her lover's line.
She vow'd to grace the mansions once her own,
And picture out in plants the fairy town.
To far-fam'd Wise her flight unseen she sped,
And with gay prospects fill'd the craftsman's
head,

Soft in his fancy drew a pleasing scheme,
And plan'd that landskip in a morning dream.

With the sweet view the sire of gardens fir'd,
Attempts the labor by the nymph inspir'd,
The walls and streets in rows of yew designs,
And forms the town in all its antient lines;
The corner trees he lifts more high in air,
And girds the palace with a verdant square:
Nor knows, while round he views the rising

[blocks in formation]

plan,

Bliss is alone th' important task of man.
All else is trifling, whether grave or gay,
A Newton's labors, or an infant's play;
Whether this vainly wastes th' unheeded sun,
Or those more vainly mark the course it run;
For of the two, sure smaller is the fault,
To err unthinking, than to err with thought;
But if, like them, we still must trifles use,
Harmless at least, like theirs, be those we
choose.

Enough it is that reason blames the choice,
Join not to her's the wretch's plaintive voice,

• Odyss. 1. 10.

Be

[blocks in formation]

Lo! heav'n spreads all its stars; let those ex-
plain,

What balanc'd pow'rs the rolling orbs sustain;
Nor in more humble scales, pernicious weigh
Sense, justice, truth, against seducing pay.
So distant regions shall employ their thought,
And spotless senates here remain unbought.
Well had great Charles, by early want in-
spir'd,

With warring puppets, guiltless praise acquir'd;
So would that flame have nimic fights engag'd,
Which, fann'd by pow'r, o'er wasted nations
rag'd.

Curs'd be the wretch, should all the mouths
of fame,

Wide o'er the world his deathless deeds pro-
claim,

Who like a baneful comet spreads his blaze,
While trembling crowds in stupid'wonder gaze;
Whose potent talents serve his lawless will,
Which turns each virtue to a public ill,
With direful rage perverted right employs,
And heav'n's great ends with heav'n's best means
destroys.

Though all were full as high as thought can

soar,

"Till fancy fires, and wishes crave no more :
Let lovely woman artless charms display,
Where truth and goodness bask in beauty's ray;
Let heav'nly melody luxuriant float

In swelling sounds, and breathe the melting

note;

Let gen'rous wines enliv'ning thoughts inspire,
While social converse sooths the genial fire:
If aught can yet more potent charms dispense,
Some stronger rapture, some sublimer sense;
Be these enjoy'd.
- Then from the crowd arise
Some chief, in life's full pride maturely wise.
Ev'n you, my Lord, with titles, honors grac'd,
And higher still by native merit plac'd:
By stinted talents to no sphere confiu'd,
Free ranging every province of the mind:
Equally fit, a nation's weight to bear,
Or shine in circles of the young and fair;
In grave debates instructed senates move,
Or melt the glowing danie to mutual love.
To heighten these, let conscious worth infuse
Sweet ease, and smiling mirth th inspiring
Muse.

Then answer, thou of every gift possess'd,
Say, from thy soul, art thou sincerely blest!
To various objects wherefore dost thou range?
Pleasure must cease, ere man can wish to
change.

Hast thou not quitted Flaccus sacred lay,

The praise of pow'r is his, whose hand sup-To talk with Bavius, or with Flavia play;
plies

Fire to the bold, and prudence to the wise;
While man this only real merit knows,
Fitly to use the gifts which heav'n bestows:
If savage valor be his vaunted fame,
The mountain-lion shall dispute his claim:
Or, if perfidious wiles deserve applause,
Through slighted vows, and violated laws;
The subtle plotter's title stands confess'd,
Whose dagger gores the trusting tyrant's breast.
And sure the villain less deserves his fate,
Who stabs one wretch, than he who stabs a

[blocks in formation]

When wasted nature shuns the large expence
Of deep attention to exalted sense!
Precarious bliss! which soon, which oft must
cloy,

And which how few, how very few enjoy!
Say, is there aught, on which, completely

blest,

Fearless and full the raptur'd mind may rest?
Is there aught constant? Or, if such there be,
Can varying man be pleas'd with constancy?
Mark then what sense the blessing must em-
ploy !

The senses change, and loath accustom'd joy :
Filen in vain immortal sweets displays,
If the taste sickens, or our frame decays.

[ocr errors]

The range of life contracted limits bound
Yet more confiu'd is pleasure's faithless round ;
Fair op'ning to the sight, when first we run,
But, ah! how alter'd, when again begun!
When tir'd we view the same known prospect
o'er,

Yet seek not there for bliss! your toil were vain,
(And disappointed toil is double pain)
Though from the living fount your nectar-Now
bowls

Pour the soft balm upon your thirsty souls;
Though pure
pure the spring, though every draught

sincere,

By pain unbitter'd, and unpall'd by feat;

Job, chap. xxxviii.

And lagging, tread the steps we trod before. clogg'd with spleeu, the lazy current flows,

Through doubts, and fears, and self-augmenting

woes :

"Till sated, loathing, hopeless here of bliss, Some plunge to seek it into death's abyss.

+ Charles V, Emperor of Germany, who in his retirement amused himself with puppets. See Strada de bello Belgico.

Of

Of all superfluous wealth's unnuinber'd Ambrosial sweets her infant's lip distils, While through the mother's heart quick rap ture thrills.

stings,
The sharpest is that knowledge which it
brings,

Enjoyment purchas'd makes its object known,
And then, alas! each soft illusion's flown:
Love's promis'd sweet, ambition's lofty scheme,
The painter's image, and the poet's theme.

These, in perspective fair exalted high,
Attract with seeming charms the distant eye;
But when by envious Fortune plac'd too near,
Mis-shapen forms, and grosser tints appear:
Where lovely Venus led her beauteous train,
Some fiend gigantic holds her monstrous reign;
Crowns, sceptres, laurels are confusely strow'd,
A wild, deform'd, unmeaning, heavy load.
Some pleasures here with sparing hand are
giv❜n,

That sons of earth should taste their promis'd
heav'n;

But what was meant to urge us to the chace,
Now stops, or sideway turns our devious race :
Though still to make the destin'd course more
plain,

Thick are our erring paths beset with pain;
Nor has one object equal charms to prove
The fitting centre of our restless love.
And when the great Creator's will had join'd,
Unequal pair! the body and the mind,
Lest the proud spirit should neglect her clay,
He bade corporeal objects thought convey;
Each strong sensation to the soul impart,
Ecstatic transport or afflicting smart:
By that entic'd, the useful she enjoys;
By this deterr'd, she flies whate'er destroys:
Hence from the dagger's point sharp anguish
flows,

And the soft couch is spread with sweet repose.
In something frail, though gen'ral this de-
sign,

For some exceptions every rule confine :

Yet few were they, while nature's genuine store
Supply'd our wants, nor man yet sought for

more;

F'er diff'rent mixtures left no form the same,
And vicious habits chang'd our sickly frame.
Now subtle art may gild the venom'd pill,
And bait with soothing sweets destructive ill.
To narrow self heav'n's 'impulse unconfin'd
Diffusive reigns, and takes in all our kind.
The smile of joy reflected joy imparts;
The wretch's groans pierce sympathising
Yet not alike are all conjoin'd with all,
Nor throng with rival heat to nature's call:
By varying instinct different ties are known,
While love superior points to each his own;
Those next the reach of our assisting hands,
And those to whom we're link'd by kindred
bands:

hearts.

Those who most want, and best deserve our

care,

In warmer streams the sacred influence share:

The social fires friend, servant, neighbour claim,
Which blaze collected in the patriot's flame:
Hence Britain throbs superior in thy soul,
Nor idly wak'st thou for the distant pole.

Yet farther still the saving instinct moves,
And to the future wide extends our loves;
Glows in our bosoms for an unboru race,
And warms us mutual to the kind einbrace.
For this, to man was giv'n the graceful air;
For this, was woman form'd divinely fair.

But now to pleasure sensual views confin'd,
Reach not the use, for which it was design'd :
To this one point our hopes, our wishes tend,
And thus mistake the motive for the end.
Whate'er sensations from enjoyment flow,
Our erring thought to matter's force would

owe;

To that ascribe our pleasures and our pains,
And blindly for the cause mistake the means;
In od'rous meads the vernal gale we praise,
Or dread the storm, that blows the wintry seas;
While he's unheeded, who alone can move,
Claims all our fears, and merits all our love;
Alone to souls can sense and thought convey,
Through the dark mansions of surrounding
clay.

Man, part from heav'n, and part from hum-
ble earth,

A motley substance, takes his various birth;
Close link'd to both, he hangs in diffrent

chains,

The pliant fetter length'ning as he strains,
If, bravely conscious of her native fires,
To the bold height his nobler fraine aspires;
Near as she soars to join th' approaching skies,
Our earth still lessens to her distant eyes.
But if o'erpois'd she sinks, her downward

Course

Each moment weighs, with still augmenting force;

Low and more low, the burden'd spirits bends,
While weaker still each heav'nly link extends;
"Till prostrate, grov'ling, fetter'd to the ground,
She lies in matter's heap o'erwhelm'd and
bound.

Wrapt in the toils of sin, just heav'n employs
What caus'd her guilt, to blast her lawless joys:
Love, potent guardian of our length'ning race,
Unnerves the feeble lecher's cold embrace;
And appetite, by nature giv'n to save,
Sinks the gorgd glutton in his early grave.

What sends you fleet o'er boist'rous sces to
roll,

Beneath the burning line, and frozen pole?
Why ravage men the hills, the plains, the
wood?

Why spoil all nature, earth, and air, and floods?
Seek they some prize to help a sinking state?
No!-this must all be done ere * Bernard eat.

A Frenchman rendered famous for a most extravagant expence in eating.

Tell

« НазадПродовжити »