The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper

A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form'd, at first, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,
New joy was sprung in Heaven, as well as here on
For sure the milder planets did combine [Earth?
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
And ev'n the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother angels at thy birth

Strung each bis lyre, and tun'd it high,
That all the people of the sky

Might know a poetess was born on Earth.
And then, if ever, mortal ears

Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees

On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew,
'Twas that such vulgar miracles
Heaven had not leisure to renew:
For all thy blest fraternity of love
Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holy-day

[above.

O gracious God! how far have we
Profan'd thy heavenly gift of Poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debas'd to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?
O wretched we! why were we hurry'd down
This lubrique and adulterate age,
(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own)
Tincrease the streaming ordures of the stage?
What can we say t' excuse our second fall?
Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd,
Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd;

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

Art she had none, yet wanted none;
For Nature did that want supply:
So rich in treasures of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy:
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,

That it seem'd borrow'd, where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,

To the next realm she stretch'd her sway,
For Painture near adjoining lay,

A plenteous province, and alluring prey.
A chamber of dependencies was fram'd,
(As conquerors will never want pretence,
When arm'd, to justify th' offence)
And the whole fief, in right of Poetry, she claim'é.
The country open lay without defence:
For poets frequent inroads there had made,
And perfectly could represent

The shape, the face, with every lineament;
And all the large domains which the dumb sister
All bow'd beneath her government, [sway'd.
Receiv'd in triumph whereso'er she went.
Her pencil drew, whate'er her soul design'd,
And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image in her
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, [mind,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks, that flow'd so clear,
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper too and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrours, show'd the woods;
Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades,
Where nymphs of brightest form appear,
And shaggy satyrs standing near,
Which them at once admire and fear.
The ruins too of some majestic piece,
Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
Whose statues, freezes, columns, broken lie,
And, though defac'd, the wonder of the eye;
What Nature, Art, bold Fiction, e'er durst frame,
Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
But when the peopled ark the whole creation bore.

The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look
Our martial king the sight with reverence strook:
For, not content t' express his outward part,
Her hand call'd out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
His high-designing thoughts were figur'd there,
As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear.

Our phenix queen was pourtray'd' too so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observ'd, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands:
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.

Thus nothing to her genius was deny'd, But, like a ball of fire, the further thrown, Still with a greater blaze she shone,

And her bright soul broke out on every side. What next she had design'd, Heaven only knows:

What in the best of books, her father's life, she read. To such immoderate growth her conquest rose,

And to be read herself she need not fear;
Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear,
Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
Ev'n love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest)
Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her
Light as the vapours of a morning dream, [breast:
So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

That Fate alone its progress could oppose.

Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-proportion'd shape and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.

Not wit, nor piety, could fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel Destiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a harden'd felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously slow,
And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.

O double sacrilege on things divine,

To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!

But thus Orinda dy'd:

ness, and many troubles,, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banish

Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate:ment, and writing from on shipboard to his friends,

As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas His waving streamers to the winds displays, And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays. Ah, generous youth, that wish forbear, The winds too soon will waft thee here! Slack all thy sails, and fear to come, Alas, thou know'st not, thou art wreck'd at home! No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face, Thou hast already had her last embrace. But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star, If any sparkles than the rest more bright; 'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When in the valley of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God shall close the book of Fate;
And there the last assizes keep,

For those who wake, and those who sleep :
When rattling bones together fly,

From the four corners of the sky;
When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

And foremost from the tomb shall bound, For they are cover'd with the lightest ground; And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shall go, As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learnt below.

III.

UPON THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF DUndee.
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN OF DR. PITCAIRN.

Он, last and best of Scots! who did maintain
Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;
New people fill the land, now thou art gone,
New gods the temples, and new kings the throne.
Scotland and thou did each in other live;
Nor wouldst thou her, nor could she thee survive.
Farewell, who dying didst support the state,
And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate.

IV. ELEANORA:

A PANEGYRICAL POEM, DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF
ABINGDON, &c.

MY LORD,
THE Commands with which you honoured me
some months ago are now performed; they had
been sooner; but, betwixt ill health, some busi-

excused the faults of his poetry by his misfor. tunes, and told them, that good verses never flow but from a serene and composed spirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fastened to his head and heels, can fly but slowly in a damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey you late than ill; if at least I am capable of writing any thing, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say, that I have escaped from a shipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard swimming; where I may pant a while and gather breath: for the doctors give me a sad assurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in per forming this inconsiderable service to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait till the god comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to resist: which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my lord; for I have really felt it on this occasion, and proLet me phesied beyond my natural power. add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I swam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe, that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my similitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonness of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my assistance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pass for beautiful faults amongst the better sort of critics: for the whole poem, though written in that which they call heroic verse, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expression; and, as such, requires the same grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship sees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheosis, indeed, if a heathen word may be applied to a Christian use. And on all occasions of praise, if we take the ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the sublimity of thoughts. Isocrates

amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero and | been so truly loved by you while she was living and so gratefully honoured after she was dead. Few there are who have either had, or could have, such a loss; and yet fewer who carried their love and constancy beyond the grave. The exteriors of mourning, a decent funeral, and black habits, are the usual stints of common hus bands; and perhaps their wives deserve no better than to be mourned with hypocrisy, and forgot with ease. But you have distinguished yourself from ordinary lovers, by a real and lasting grief for the deceased; and by endeavouring to raise for her the most durable monument, which is that of verse. And so it would have proved, if the workman had been equal to the work, and your choice of the artificer as happy as your design, Yet, as Phidias, when he had made the statue of Minerva, could not forbear to engrave his own name, as author of the piece: so give me leave to hope, that, by subscribing mine to this poem, I may live by the goddess, and transmit my name to posterity by the memory of hers. 'Tis no flattery to assure your lordship, that she is re

the younger Pliny amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our security: for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches on these pinions out of sight, and is carried upward, as it were, into another world. This, at least, my lord, I may justly plead, that, if I have not performed so well as I think I have, yet I have used my best endeavours to excel myself. One disadvantage I have had; which is, never to have known or seen my lady: and to draw the lineaments of her mind from the description which I have received from others, is for a painter to set himself at work without the living original before him: which, the more beautiful it is, will be so much the more difficult for him to conceive, when he has only a relation given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the rest) that their own ocular observations would have discovered more perfections, at least others, than have been deli-membered, in the present age, by all who have vered to them though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my lady's worth, nor a due veneration for her memory.

had the honour of her conversation and acquaintance; and that I have never been in any company, since the news of her death was first brought me, where they have not extolled her virtues, and even spoken the same things of her in prose which I have done in verse.

I therefore think myself obliged to thank your lordship for the commission which you have given me: how I have acquitted myself of it, must be left to the opinion of the world, in spite of any

Doctor Donne, the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation, acknowledges, that he had never seen Mrs. Drury, whom he has made immortal in his admirable Anniversaries. I have had the same fortune, though I have not succeeded to the same genius. However, I have followed his footsteps in the design of his panegy-protestation which I can enter against the present ric; which was to raise an emulation in the living, to copy out the example of the dead. And therefore it was, that I once intended to have called this poem The Pattern: and though, on a second consideration, I changed the title into the name of the illustrious person, yet the design continues, and Eleonora is still the pattern of charity, devotion, and humility; of the best wife, the best mother, and the best of friends.

age, as incompetent or corrupt judges. For my comfort, they are but Englishmen, and, as such, if they think ill of me to day, they are inconstant enough to think well of me to morrow. And, after all, I have not much to thank my fortune that I was born amongst them. The good of both sexes are so few in England, that they stand like exceptions against general rules: and though one of them has deserved a greater commendation than I could give her, they have taken care that I should not tire my pen with frequent exercise on the like subjects; that praises, like taxes, should be appropriated, and left almost as indi

And now, my lord, though I have endeavoured to answer your commands, yet I could not answer it to the world, nor to my conscience, if I gave not your lordship my testimony of being the best husband now living: I say my testimonyvidual as the person. They say, my talent is only; for the praise of it is given you by yourself. They who despise the rules of virtue both in their practice and their morals, will think this a very trivial commendation. But I think it the peculiar happiness of the countess of Abingdon, to have

satire: if it be so, it is a fruitful age, and there is an extraordinary crop to gather. But a single hand is insufficient for such a harvest: they have sown the dragon's teeth themselves, and it is but just they should reap each other in lampoons.

You, my lord, who have the character of honour, | The distant heard, by fame, her pious deeds, And laid her up for their extremest needs; though it is not my happiness to know you, may A future cordial for a fainting mind; stand aside, with the small remainders of the For, what was ne'er refus'd, all hop'd to find, English nobility, truly such, and, unhurt your- Each in his turn: the rich might freely come, selves, behold the mad combat. If I have pleased As to a friend; but to the poor, 'twas home. As to some holy house th' afflicted came, you, and some few others, I have obtained my The hunger-starv'd, the naked, and the lame; end. You see I have disabled myself, like an Want and diseases fled before her name. elected speaker of the house: yet like him I have For zeal like her's her servants were too slow; undertaken the charge, and find the burthen suf- She was the first, where need requir'd, to go; Herself the foundress and attendant too. ficiently recompensed by the honour. Be pleased to accept of these my unworthy labours, this paper monument; and let her pious memory, which I am sure is sacred to you, not only plead the pardon of my many faults, but gain me your protection, which is ambitiously sought by,

As when some great and gracious monarch dies,
Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise
Among the sad attendants; then the sound
Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around,
Through town and country, till the dreadful blast
Is blown to distant colonies at last;
Who, then, perhaps, were offering vows in vain,
For his long life, and for his happy reign:
So slowly, by degrees, unwilling Fame
Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim,
Till public as the loss the news became.

The nation felt it in th' extremest parts,
With eyes o'erflowing, and with bleeding hearts;
But most the poor, whom daily she supply'd,
Beginning to be such but when she dy'd.
For, while she liv'd, they slept in peace by night,
Secure of bread, as of returning light;
And with such firm dependence on the day,
That Need grew pamper'd, and forgot to pray:
So sure the dole, so ready at their call,
They stood prepar'd to see the manna fall.

Such multitudes she fed, she cloth'd, she nurst,
That she herself might fear her wanting first.
Of her five talents, other five she made;
Heaven, that had largely given, was largely paid:
And in few lives, in wondrous few, we find
A fortune better fitted to the mind.
Nor did her alms from ostentation fall,
Or proud desire of praise; the soul gave all:
Unbrib'd it gave; or, if a bribe appear,

No less than Heaven, to heap huge treasures there.
Want pass'd for merit at her open door:
Heaven saw, he safely might increase his poor,
And trust their sustenance with her so well,
As not to be at charge of miracle.

None could be needy, whom she saw, or knew;
All in the compass of her sphere she drew :
He, who could touch her garment, was as sure,
As the first Christians of th' apostles' cure,

Sure she had guests sometimes to entertain, Guests in disguise, of her great Master's train: Her Lord himself might come, for aught we know ; Since in a servant's form he liv'd below: Beneath her roof he might be pleas'd to stay; Or some benighted angel, in his way, Might ease his wings, and, seeing Heaven appear In its best work of mercy, think it there: Where all the deeds of charity and love Were in as constant method as above, All carry'd on; all of a piece with theirs; As free her alms, as diligent her cares; As loud her praises, and as warm her prayers.

Yet was she not profuse; but fear'd to waste, And wisely manag'd, that the stock might last, That all might be supply'd, and she not grieve, When crowds appear'd, she had not to relieve: Which to prevent, she still increas'd her store; Laid up, and spar'd, that she might give the more. So Pharaoh, or some greater king than he, Provided for the seventh necessity : Taught from above his magazines to frame; That famine was prevented ere it came. Thus Heaven, though all-sufficient, shows a thrift In his economy, and bounds his gift: Creating, for our day, one single light; And his reflection too supplies the night; Perhaps a thousand other worlds, that lie Remote from us, and latent in the sky, Are lighten'd by his beams, and kindly nurst; Of which our earthly dunghill is the worst.

Now, as all virtues keep the middle line, Yet somewhat more to one extreme incline, Such was her soul; abhorring avarice, Bounteous, but almost bounteous to a vice: Had she given more, it had profusion been, And turn'd th' excess of goodness into sin.

These virtues rais'd her fabric to the sky;
For that, which is next Heaven, is Charity.
But, as high turrets, for their airy steep,
Require foundations, in proportion deep;
And lofty cedars as far upward shoot,
As to the nether heavens they drive the root
So low did her secure foundation lie,
She was not humble, but Humility.
Scarcely she knew that she was great, or fair,
Or wise, beyond what other women are,
Or, which is better, knew, but never durst compare:
For to be conscious of what all admire,
And not be vain, advances virtue higher.
But still she found, or rather thought she found,
Her own worth wanting, others to abound;
Ascrib'd above their due to every one,
Unjust and scanty to herself alone.

Such her devotion was, as might give rules
Of speculation to disputing schools,
And teach us equally the scales to hold
Betwixt the two extremes of hot and cold;

That pious heat may moderately prevail,
And we be warm'd, but not be scorch'd with zeal.
Business might shorten, not disturb, her prayer;
Heaven had the best, if not the greater share.
An active life long orisons forbids;

Yet still she pray'd, for still she pray'd by deeds.
Her every day was sabbath; only free
From hours of prayer, for hours of charity.
Such as the Jews from servile toil releas'd;
Where works of mercy were a part of rest;
Such as blest angels exercise above,

Vary'd with sacred hymns and acts of love:
Such sabbaths as that one she now enjoys,
Ev'n that perpetual one, which she employs
(For such vicissitudes in Heaven there are)
In praise alternate, and alternate prayer.
All this she practis'd here; that, when she sprung
Amidst the choirs, at the first sight she sung:
Sung, and was sung herself in angels' lays;
For, praising her, they did her Maker praise.
All offices of Heaven so well she knew,
Before she came, that nothing there was new:
And she was so familiarly receiv'd,
As one returning, not as one arriv'd.

[light.

Muse, down again precipitate thy flight:
For how can mortal eyes sustain immortal light?
But as the Sun in water we can bear,
Yet not the Sun, but his reflexion there,
So let us view her, here, in what she was,
And take her image in this watery glass:
Yet look not every lineament to see;
Some will be cast in shades, and some will be
So lamely drawn, you'll scarcely know 'tis she.
For where such various virtues we recite,
'Tis like the milky way, all over bright,
But sown so thick with stars, 'tis undistinguish'd
Her virtue, not her virtues let us call;
For one heroic comprehends them all:
One, as a constellation is but one,
Though 'tis a train of stars, that, rolling on,
Rise in their turn, and in the zodiac run:
Ever in motion; now 'tis Faith ascends,
Now Hope, now Charity, that upward tends,
And downwards with diffusive good descends.
As in perfumes compos'd with art and cost,
Tis hard to say what scent is uppermost ;
Nor this part musk or civet can we call,
Or amber, but a rich result of all;
So she was all a sweet, whose every part,

Thus we love God, as author of our good;
So subjects love just kings, or so they should.
Nor was it with ingratitude return'd;
In equal fires the blissful couple burn'd;
One joy possess'd them both, and in one grief they
mourn'd.

His passion still improv'd; he lov'd so fast,
As if he fear'd each day would be her last.
Too true a prophet to foresee the fate

That should so soon divide their happy state:
When he to Heaven entirely must restore

That love, that heart, where he went halves be-
fore.

Yet as the soul is all in every part,

So God and he might each have all her heart,
So had her children too; for Charity
Was not more fruitful, or more kind than she:
Each under other by degrees they grew;
A goodly perspective of distant view.
Anchises look'd not with so pleas'd a face,
In numbering o'er his future Roman race,
And marshaling the heroes of his name,
As, in their order, next, to light they came.
Nor Cybele, with half so kind an eye,
Survey'd her sons and daughters of the sky;
Proud, shall I say, of her immortal fruit?
As far as pride with heavenly minds may suit.
Her pious love excell'd to all she bore;
New objects only multiply'd it more.
And as the chosen found the pearly grain
As much as every vessel could contain;
As in the blissful vision each shall share
As much of glory as his soul can bear;
So did she love, and so dispense her care.
Her eldest thus, by consequence, was best,
As longer cultivated than the rest.
The babe had all that infant care beguiles,
And early knew his mother in her smiles:
But when dilated organs let in day
To the young soul, and gave it room to play,
At his first aptness, the maternal love
Those rudiments of reason did improve:
The tender age was pliant to command;
Like wax it yielded to the forming hand:
True to th' artificer, the labour'd mind
With ease was pious, generous, just, and kind;
Soft for impression, from the first prepar'd,
Till virtue with long exercise grew hard:
With every act confirm'd, and made at last

In due proportion mix'd, proclaim'd the Maker's art. So durable as not to be effac'd,

No single virtue we could most commend,
Whether the wife, the mother, or the friend;
For she was all, in that supreme degree,
That as no one prevail'd, so all was she.
The several parts lay hidden in the piece;
Th' occasion but exerted that, or this.

A wife as tender, and as true withal,
As the first woman was before her fall:
Made for the man, of whom she was a part;
Made, to attract his eyes, and keep his heart.
A second Eve, but by no crime accurst;
As beauteous, not as brittle as the first.
Had she been first, still Paradise had been,
And Death had found no entrance by her sin.
So she not only had preserv'd from ill
Her sex and ours, but liv'd their pattern still.
Love and obedience to her lord she bore;
She much obey'd him, but she lov'd him more:
Not aw'd to duty by superior sway,
But taught by his indulgence to obey.

It turn'd to habit; and, from vices free,
Goodness resolv'd into necessity.

Thus fix'd she Virtue's image, that's her own,
Till the whole mother in the children shone;
For that was their perfection; she was such,
They never could express her mind too much.
So unexhausted her perfections were,
That, for more children, she had more to spare;
For souls unborn, whom her untimely death
Depriv'd of bodies, and of mortal breath;
And (could they take th' impressions of her mind)
Enough still left to sanctify her kind.

Then wonder not to see this soul extend
The bounds, and seek some other self, a friend:
As swelling seas to gentle rivers glide,
To seek repose, and empty out the tide ;
So this full soul, in narrow limits pent,
Unable to contain her, sought a vent,
To issue out, and in some friendly breast
Discharge her treasures, and securely rest:

« Anterior Continuar »

Libros

The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volumen8