TO G. C. HOLLAND, M.D.
HOLLAND! thou lov'st the little songful lyre,
On which, well-pleased thy bidding to obey,
For the first time, I now attempt to play,
Fretting, with skill-less touch, the sonnet's wire.
Alas! the strings of this small harp require,
To bring forth half their worth, a master's hand!
Yet, as I wander through a lovely land,
And stop, at times, its marvels to admire,
May I not sing them too? Yea, while the breeze,
Sighing o'er moated grange, or castle bold,
Awakes the music of their ancient trees,
The lyre, beloved of bards whose fires re-cold,
That sweetest lyre I'll place before my knees,
And make my theme the wonders I behold.
POWERS OF THE SONNET.
WHY should the tiny harp be chain'd to themes In fourteen lines with pedant rigour bound? The sonnet's might is mighter than it seems : Witness the bard of Eden lost and found,
Who gave this lute a clarion's battle sound.
And, lo! another Milton calmly turns
His eyes within on light that ever burns,
Waiting till Wordsworth's second peer be found!
Meantime, Fitzadam's mournful music shows
That the scorn'd sonnet's charm may yet endear
Some long deep strain, or lay of well-told woes;
Such as, in Byron's couplet, brings a tear
To manly cheeks, or o'er his stanza throws
Rapture and grief, solemnity and fear.
KNARESBRO'! thou wilt be famous through all time, Because poor Aram's history imparts
A dreadful unsolv'd riddle to all hearts
A half-told secret, in its gloom sublime,
Though trite and common are death, want, and crime ! But Bulwer, o'er thy caverns, rocks, and trees, Throws the deep charm of thoughtful melodies, Heart cherish'd, like a dim cathedral's chime.
That charm will live when rock-built towers decay
That charm, when rocks themselves are turn'd to
Will to the slanderers of the great and just,
And the grim ghost of buried envy, say—
"Though Time hath plough'd your graves and ground thy bust,
I am not of the things which pass away."
WHO would not here become a hermit? here
Grow old in song? here die, on Nature's breast,
Hush'd, like yon wild bird on the lake, to rest?
Then laid asleep beneath the branches sere,
Till the Awakener in the east appear,
And call the dead to judgment? Quietness,
Methinks the heart-whole rustic loves thee less
Than the town's thought-worn smiler. Oh! most
dear
Art thou to him who flies from care to bowers
That breathe of sainted calmness! and, to me,
More welcome than the breath of hawthorn flowers
To children of the city, when delight
Leads them from smoke to cowslips, is the sight
Of these green shades, those rocks, this little sea.
SPIRITS of wonder, loveliness, and fear,
Dwell in these groves, beneath o'er-arching trees,
With the dim presence of their mysteries
Haunting the rocks and mountain shadows near:
They pass the lone enthusiast, wandering here,
By strangled Wharfe, or Barden's ancient tower;
Pass him, nor shake a dew-drop from a flower,
But with their whispers soothe his soul-taught ear,
As with a dream of prayer; until he starts,
Awaken'd from deep thoughts of Time's calm might
And Nature's beauty, and in awe departs ;-
When, to the Abbey's moonlight-tinted walls,
The demon of the spectred river calls,(*)
Mock'd by the voices of mysterious night.
THE Vicar's house is smother'd in its roses,
His garden glows with dahlias large and new;
"Bees murmur in his limes the summer through;"
And on the seat beneath them often dozes
A better man than Calumny supposes.
His living is three hundred pounds a-year;
"But not of servants, wife, and children clear."
He gives away his common right and closes,
And keeps no horse. When winter strips the tree,
To poor men's homes his wife and daughters go,
With needful gifts of flannel, food, or fire,
And made-wines for the sick. Now, would not he,
Who deem'd the labourer worth of his hire,
Have paid it to his faithful servant ?—No.
A HIRELING'S wages to the priest are paid;
While lives and dies, in want and rags, the bard!
But preaching ought to be its own reward,
And not a sordid, if an honest trade.
Paul, labouring proudly with his hands, array'd
Regenerated hearts in peace and love;
And when, with power, they preach'd the mystic dove,
Penn, Barclay, Clarkson, ask'd not Mammon's aid.
As, for its own sake, poetry is sweet
To poets-so, on tasks of mercy bound,
Religion travels with unsandaled feet,
Making the flinty desert holy ground;
And never will her triumph be complete
While one paid pilgrim upon earth is found.
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