Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 't is true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,
Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintain'd
The citadel unconquer'd, and in joy

Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden Path, that to the Shades
Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads,
Lurk'd undiscover'd 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 cull'
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.

[blocks in formation]

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,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the waterfall! and there my friends
Behold the dark-green file of long lank weeds,*
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

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 hunger'd 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 !
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.

A delight

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 mark'd
Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
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 pure :
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
"T is 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 cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still,
Flew creakingt o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

TO A FRIEND

Now, my Friends emerge WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING

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

NO MORE POETRY.

DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount

• The Asplenium Scolopendrium, called in some countries † Some months after I had written this line, it gave me pleaAnd promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,

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.

sure to observe 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

Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,

Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,

received

Hight Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith)

That Pity and Simplicity stood by,

The world's low cares and lying vanities,

Stedfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.

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 ministeries-

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 arrows* mystically dipp'd,
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 "Illustrioust of his native land
* So properly did look for patronage."
Ghost of Mecenas! hide thy blushing face!
They snatch'd him from the Sickle and the Plow-
To gauge Ale-Firkins.

Oh! for shame return!

On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian Mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches in 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 stopp'd nostril and glove-guarded hand
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

1796.

When Power stream'd from thee, and thy soul

The light reflected, as a light bestow'd-
Of Fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in Vales and Glens
Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills!
Or on the lonely High-road, when the Stars
Were rising; or by secret Mountain-streams,
The Guides and the Companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and Man beloved as Man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the Main. For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general heart of human-kind Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity! -Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, So summon'd homeward, thenceforth calm and sure, From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute Self, With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on-herself a glory to behold, The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain) Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice, Action and Joy!-An orphic song indeed, A song divine of high and passionate thoughts, To their own music chanted!

O great Bard!

Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air, With stedfast eye I view'd thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly Great Have all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! They, both in power and act,

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION Are permanent, and Time is not with them, OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL

MIND.

FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!
Into my heart have I received that lay
More than historic, that prophetic lay,
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up
Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to the understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind,
By vital breathings secret as the soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words !-

Theme hard as high! Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),

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 creak as the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea."

• Vide Pind. Olymp. iii. 1. 156.

↑ Verbatim from Burns's dedication of his Poems to the Nobility and Gentry of the Caledonian Hunt.

Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,

Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
Ah! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew:
And even as life returns upon the drown'd,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains
Keen Pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outery in the heart;
And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye of Hope
And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear
Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain
And Genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
And all which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all,
Commune with thee had open'd out-but flowers
Strew'd on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me, Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,

[blocks in formation]

Eve following eve,

Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hail'd
And more desired, more precious for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by the various strain
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary Stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated Foam,* still darting off
Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon.

And when-O Friend! my comforter and guide!
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!
Thy long sustained song finally closed,
And thy deep voice had ceased-yet thou thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of beloved faces-
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it? or Aspiration ? or Resolve?)
Absorb'd, yet hanging still upon the sound-
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

THE NIGHTINGALE:

A CONVERSATION POЕМ;
WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.

No cloud, no relic of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently,
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,

• "A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness." - The Friend, p. 220.

"Most musical, most melancholy "t bird!
A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.

But some night-wandering man, whose heart was

pierced

With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

Or slow distemper, or neglected love

(And so, poor Wretch! filled all things with himself,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow), he and such as he,

First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit;
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By Sun or Moon-light, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his frame forgetful! so his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature! But 't will not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still,
Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many Nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other's song,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all-
Stirring the air with such a harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright

and full,

Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

† This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the melancholy man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible.

A most gentle Maid,

Who dwelleth in her hospitable home

Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (Even like a lady vow'd and dedicate

To something more than Nature in the grove)

By its own moods interprets, everywhere
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,

Glides through the pathways; she knows all their How oft, at school, with most believing mind

notes,

That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space,
What time the Moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence; till the Moon
Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful Birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if some sudden gale had swept at once
A hundred airy harps! And she hath watch'd
Many a Nightingale perch'd giddily
On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
And now for our dear homes. That strain again?
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe,
Who, capable of no articulate sound,

Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,

And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirr'd and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lull'd me to sleep, and sleep prolong'd my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fix'd with mock study on my swimming book:
Save if the door half-open'd, and I snatch'd
A hasty glance, and still my heart leap'd up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

To make him Nature's Play-mate. He knows well My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought!

The evening-star; and once, when he awoke

In most distressful mood (some inward pain
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream),
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,

And he beheld the Moon, and, hush'd at once,

Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was rear'd
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!

It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy! Once more, farewell,
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends! farewell.

While his fair eyes, that swam with undropp'd tears By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

FROST AT MIDNIGHT.

THE Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelp'd by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suite
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Láes on my low burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which flutter'd on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,

Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops

fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

TO A FRIEND.

TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM

THUS far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling: yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers

I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse,
Tedious to thee, and from my anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I too a Sister had, an only Sister-
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her!
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows
(As a sick patient in his nurse's arms),
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That shrink ashamed from even Friendship's eye.
Oh! I have woke at midnight, and have wept
Because SHE WAS NOT! Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year:
Such warm presages feel I of high Hope.
For not uninterested the dear maid

I've view'd-her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories,
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
Aught to implore* were impotence of mind)
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepared, when he his healing ray vouchsafes,
To pour forth thanksgiving with lifted heart,
And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's joy!
December, 1794.

THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN.
COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN ABSENCE.

DIM hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar,
O rise and yoke the turtles to thy car!
Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove,
And give me to the bosom of my love!
My gentle love, caressing and carest,
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest;
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes,
Lull with fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs:
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek,
Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek.
Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May
Mourns the long absence of the lovely day;
Young Day, returning at her promised hour,
Weeps o'er the sorrows of her fav'rite flower;
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs,
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes.
New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels:
His pitying Mistress mourns, and mourning heals!

LINES TO JOSEPH COTTLE.

Embow'rs me from noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless riv'let stealing by,
Your modest verse, to musing Quiet dear,
Is rich with tints heaven-borrow'd: the charm'd eye
Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky.

Circling the base of the Poetic mount
A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow
Its coal-black waters from Oblivion's fount:
The vapor-poison'd birds, that fly too low,
Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.
Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet,
Beneath the Mountain's lofty-frowning brow,
Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,

A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlab'ring feet.

Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,
That like some giant-king, o'erglooms the hill;
Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music! But th' unceasing rill
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill
Murmurs sweet under-song 'mid jasmin bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander'd-there collecting flow'rs
Of sober tint, and herbs of medicinable powers!

There for the monarch-murder'd Soldier's tomb
You wove th' unfinish'd wreath of saddest hues
And to that holier chaplett added bloom,
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews.
But lo! your Hendersont awakes the Muse
His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height!
You left the plain and soar'd 'mid richer views'
So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light,
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of

night!

Still soar, my friend, those richer views among,
Strong, rapid, fervent flashing Fancy's beam!
Virtue and Truth shall love your gentler song;
But Poesy demands th' impassion'd theme:
Waked by Heaven's silent dews at eve's mild gleam,
What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around!
But if the vext air rush a stormy stream,
Or Autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound,
With fruits and flowers she loads the tempest-

My honor'd friend! whose verse concise, yet clear, tended to be dramatic; that is, suited to the narrator: and the

Tunes to smooth melody unconquer'd sense, May your fame fadeless live, as "never-sere" The ivy wreathes yon oak, whose broad defence

I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind,

it being written in Seripture, "Ask, and it shall be given you," and my human reason being moreover convinced of the propriety of offering petitions as well as thanksgivings to the Deity.

honor'd ground.

IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

THE THREE GRAVES.

A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON'S TALE.

[The Author has published the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was in

metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but of a common Ballad-tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not profess edly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as Poetry, and it is in no way connected with the Author's judgment concerning Poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively Psychological. The story

War, a Fragment.

↑ John the Baptist, a Poem.

Monody on John Henderson.

« AnteriorContinuar »