Whose sylvan curtains slope and kiss her tide;
While through them gleam the tributary rills,
That rush, with frothing haste, to swell her pride.
I view thy friend’s paternal walls ascend
From her broad bosom to an height sublime;
While o’er her waves the shatter’d turrets bend,
And frown defiance vain to whelming time.
Yet there, amid the ravage of his powers,
The desolate Graces hold their pensive reign,
Silent they stand beneath the cloven towers,
Which, what they lose in strength, in interest gain.
Thou, WHALLEY, in the mansion large and drear,
Whose mouldering walls dismantled seem to scowl,
At midnight laid, wert not displeas’d to hear
The rising tempest o’er the waters howl.
Against the rattling windows as it beat,
And mutter’d thro’ the chasms, no weak alarm
Shock’d thy aw’d sense--tho’ oft the ponderous gate
Fiercely it shook, as with a giant’s arm.
Nor would my friend that solemn scene have changed
For all the hand of luxury knows to spread;
Not then his rapt imagination ranged
To the gilt roof, bright hearth, and downy bed.
Or if a wish in softer scenes to rove
Stole through his breast, amid that awful gloom,
’Twas for the murmurs of a cypress grove,
’Twas for the silence of a sister’s tomb.[161]
Thus, when the oak groan’d sullen in the wind,
And distant far the drizzling dawn of day,
Alone, and musing, at its roots reclin’d,
On cold Temora’s hill great OSSIAN lay;
And heard his harp, high on the riv’d boughs hung,
By pale dim hands disturb’d, low-jarring shake;
While shadowy shields amid the tempest rung,
Clash’d by the spirits of the troubled lake.
Nor griev’d, but that the loud, and angry storms
The voice of the heroic DEAD might drown;
The noble mind reveres terrific forms,
And grows enamour’d of their darkest frown.
Now from those scenes, where awful horror sheds
Gloom, that contrasts sweet beauty’s ruddy light,
My gentle friend his lov’d Eliza leads
Where throng’d Avignon’s lofty domes invite.
Yet there no ardour of his soul decays,
Fann’d, lone Valclusa, by thy amorous gales;[162]
He, as with SORGA’S winding wave he strays,
The rocks--the streams--the hallow’d FOUNTAIN hails!
And where those rocks, with shadowy summits, lean
O’er the clear waters, in their solemn rest,
And not a wave, upon the deep serene,
Disturbs the darken’d fountain’s glassy breast,
With Heaven-directed eyes I see him bend;
I see the shade of PETRARCH hovering nigh,
Pleas’d with his glory’s richest gale to blend
The rising incense of a generous sigh.--
Now, when the neighbouring mountain’s rigid snows,
Spring’s milder rays for aye inured to mock,
Sink, as the Summer’s sun more fiercely glows,
Deep to the fluid sources in the rock,
’Tis then the Naiad from their sullen sleep
Wakes her deep waters;--and in murmuring tones
High o’er the cavern’d basin bids them leap
Adown the shelving mound of rocky stones;
In flashing eddies swell thy lucid train,
Clear SORGA, wandering through the olive bowers,
Till, in an ampler mirror, proud SOMMANE[163]
Eyes the dark shadows of her lonely towers
It suits ye well, that air of stately gloom,
O towers, where high-born LAURA sojourn’d long!
The Nymph by beauty deck’d with peerless bloom,
The Nymph immortaliz’d in peerless song.
Thee, WHALLEY, breathing, as thou rangest there,
PETRARCH’S sweet lays, how often I behold!
The lays that paint Valclusa’s charming fair,
Bright as its laurels, as its fountain cold.
Shade of the Bard, who form’d that deathless lay,
And gave thy vale to fame, a dearer guest
Shall ne’er among its lone meanders stray,
Ne’er shalt thou hail a more congenial breast!
Yet still, sublimer SAVOY, still thy haunts
On Whalley’s mind in deeper trace shall dwell;
Not that alone thy loftier grace enchants
The spirit, touch’d by Fancy’s potent spell;
Those awful heights the stamp and image bear
Of dearest amity;--her living smile
Each recollected mountain long shall wear,
Each vale romantic and each rocky pile.
Where Matron excellence in friendship warm,[164]
Source, and Protectress of each dear delight,
Breath’d through the social walls the sacred charm
That gives to Virtue the convivial night.
There, with CHATILION’S duteous cares to vie,
Two other noble sons assiduous strove,
And watch’d each glance of her maternal eye,
In deep respect, and with preventive love.
While their sweet sister, whom the loves adorn,
With hope’s soft blush, and facile smile serene,
Bright as the star that leads the vernal morn,
Sat sparkling by, and more illum’d the scene.
A mother’s mild restrictions only known,
There, ‘twas thy lot, fair maid, to meet the rays,
That still on thee with cordial lustre shone,
In each fraternal glance, and social gaze;
Those suns of the cheer’d heart, that never shine
Within monastic walls;--in gloom precise,
From day to day, where Gallic virgins pine,
Or buy dismission at a fatal price.[165]
With-held the joys, that other joys excell,
And from progressive passion only flow,
Whose tender constancy may best repel
The gay contagion of the faithless vow,
Breath’d from the frolic dames, by vice ensnared,
Vice, whose attractions seize the unguarded heart
When conjugal indifference has prepared
The youthful bosom for their venom’d dart.
Ye Gallic parents, to the nuptial shrine
When you, to glut your avarice, or your pride,
From the unsocial convent’s shade malign
Lead to the altar the unsoften’d bride;
To Nature, and to Duty lost ye prove,
Ye, who from Youth’s soft bosom have with-held
That previous, gradual, voluntary love,
Of nuptial faith the adamantine shield.
Hard on your hoary heads the future crimes
Of this your filial sacrifice shall bear,
When the seductions of licentious times
Her young, and undefended heart ensnare.
Yet O! how general this parental guilt,
In France!--in Savoy!--miserable proof
Of tyranny, on proud example built,
From thrones descending to the private roof!
A rare exemption from the common doom,
Maid of CHATILION’S race, thou late didst prove,
When joys domestic gilt thy years of bloom,
Far from the lonely cloister’s frowning grove.
But O! if bliss illume our earthly course,
How soon, alas! its cheering lustres fly!
That matron-worth, of all those joys the source,
The silver cord, that link’d each social tie,
Smote by the ruthless hand of dire disease
Gasps on her fever’d couch!--my gentle friends,
What pain was yours to see the tyrant seize
The form, that duteous love in vain defends!
O! grieved reverse of those enlivening hours,
That stay’d you on your purpos’d way so long!
Now, for the soul’s, and senses’ darling powers,
Wit, science, music, and its melting song,--
The stealing step!--the hush’d and darken’d room!--
The anxious whisper!--the extended cross!
The manly grief that firmly meets its doom,
Yet inly ruminates, and mourns its loss!
The wailful accent,--the o’erwhelmed eye
Of helpless beauty!--trembling, chill’d, and faint,
With arms extended, and convulsive sigh,
Sunk on the pillow of the dying saint.--
And thou, my friend, a stranger though so late,
In this sad scene art not refus’d thy part;
Not shut to thee is sorrow’s silent gate,
Not cold to thee its agonizing heart.
Nor can thy hesitating step forbear,
Thy trembling hands the curtains slowly ope;
Thy faltering words the tender fraud prepare,
And half articulate the faithless hope.
Dim eyes that feebly rise to thine, the while,
In gaze incredulous;--the pale, cold hand
Wav’d gently; with a faint, and pensive smile
On the wan lip, that tender fraud withstand;
And in expression, far beyond the reach
Of vocal breath, while life is ebbing fast,
Solemn the task of resignation teach,
And say to griev’d affection--All is Past!
Yet, as with energy angelic fir’d,
The glowing interest in her pious breast,
By thine, and thy Eliza’s worth inspir’d,
O’er Nature’s final struggles rise confest;
For, as thou kneelest by the bed of death,
Thy fingers clasping o’er thy moisten’d eyes,
And hear’st, with ear appall’d, the short’ning breath,
Warming her icy hand with ceaseless sighs;
E’en in that awful, that momentous hour,
When the dark grave’s terrific portals ope,
On thee the expiring lips their blessings pour,
Mix’d with the accents of immortal hope!
O! may those fervent blessings, on my friends
Breath’d by departing goodness, be fulfill’d!
Then, as new joys each varying clime extends,
Shall health and peace their wandering footsteps gild.
Till back, at length, to Albion’s silver shores,
To open arms, and longing hearts they fly;--
Glad may they hail the period, that restores
Her soft green vallies, and her wayward sky!
If glow her suns less permanently bright,
If breathe her gales less exquisitely bland;
If her hills rise a less stupendous height,
Her glassy lakes in less expansion stand;
Yet o’er her lov’d, capricious region broods
Dear Safety, still on Halcyon pinions found;
No bursting mountain pours the fiery floods,
No dire convulsion rends the quiet ground;
No gloomy tyrant glares upon her throne,
Breaking with crimson hands the legal rod,
Nor raves Intolerance, with bigot frown,
Usurping still the attributes of GOD;
But liberal Freedom, in the gracious form
Of ALBION’S tutelary Genius, there
Breathes, with unchanging sway, her influence warm,
Though suns, and winds, and skies, and tempers veer.
With every soft affection in her train,
My friends, their purpos’d years of absence o’er,
Shall she not summon to her verdant plain?
Shall she not welcome to her silvery shore?
Since, though for her their hands, in state sublime,
Nor bear the olive, nor the laurel bough;
Their perfect worth, in many a foreign clime,
Reflects mild lustre on her sacred brow.
For this, when glad they furl the slacken’d sail,
Her quicken’d step shall print the yielding sands;
Their wish’d return delighted will she hail,
Whose virtues honour’d her in distant lands.
ODE
ON
GENERAL ELIOTT’s
RETURN FROM GIBRALTAR, IN 1787.
I.
With grateful welcome, with triumphant praise,
Thy honour’d Chief, O rescued Britain, meet!
Whose dauntless prowess, in resplendent rays,
Shone on the darkness of thy long defeat;
Gave thee, on thy silvery shores,
While Peace the civic crown restores,
Beneath her train of joys again to shine,
As loss had ne’er chastis’d, oppression ne’er been thine.
II.
Think, Britannia, think how late,
Around thy pale unshelter’d head,
To blast thy gloomy pride, avenging fate
Unequal war’s disastrous terrors spread;
While thy torn trophies, drench’d in blood,
She scatter’d o’er the western flood,
That the provincial standard high she rais’d,
By Gallia’s lilies deck’d, by Spain’s proud crest emblaz’d.
I.
That thy vain foes, elated to behold
The long INVINCIBLE at last subdued
Their tide of conquest to that fortress roll’d,
By sullen Spain with dread and envy view’d.
See! in united strength and pride,
At Calpe’s base their navies ride,
Hurl up its steeps the thunders of their power,
That burst the social roof, and rend the warrior tower!
II.
Crest-fall’n Britain, where were then
The rumours of thy matchless might?
And where had been the empress of the main,
Had skill and valour risen a common height?
No common height those bulwarks rose,
When ELIOTT lighten’d on thy foes,
Wing’d his red bolts, that wrapp’d their fleets in flame,
Resistless as his sword, and glowing as his fame!
I.
Mark the invading host, elate no more!
Recoiling pause between a choice so dire!
Alike they hear the British lion roar
In the o’erwhelming flood, and raging fire!
Groaning they plunge!--in wild despair,
With raiment scorch’d, and blazing hair!
The billows, closing o’er their struggling frames,
Are purpled by the gore, illumin’d by the flames!
II.
Warm in virtue’s native glow,
Heroic ELIOTT’S great ally,
His valiant CURTIS, bending o’er the prow,
With all the twice-bless’d angel in his eye,[166]
Commands to push his conquering oars,
Where most the fiery torrent pours;
The victims from their instant fate to save,
And snatch them back to life, from the devouring wave.
I.
O Britain!--O my country! then ‘twas thine
T’ emerge from ev’ry cloud that veil’d thy light!
In all the splendour of that worth to shine,
Which erst, with ray peculiar, deck’d thy might;
What time, amidst thy vanquish’d foes,
Thy name with added lustre rose,
For that thy precepts to thy sons impart,
With the undaunted soul, the generous melting heart.
II.
High thy martial influence soar’d,
On Belgian plains when Gallic gore,
In Freedom’s cause, intrepid Marlborough pour’d;
And white for England, the eventful hour,
Beneath the royal William’s sword,[167]
When gaunt rebellion grimly cower’d,
When, of her scorpion stings disarm’d, she fled,
In Scotia’s desert caves to hide her recreant head.
I.
Nor sacred less the youthful warrior’s fame,
Dear-bought Quebec! upon thy plains beheld,
Who fall’n and bleeding--at the loud acclaim
That hail’d Britannia mistress of the field;
That bade her crimson standard rise
Victorious in the echoing skies,
Lifts the pale eye, a gleam of transport fires,
And, smiling on his wounds, triumphantly expires!
II.
Palms unfading round their urn
Let their favour’d country strew!
Since to the lavish wreaths she long had worn,
They brought new laurels of enduring glow;
To ELIOTT, more indebted, raise
In higher tone, the notes of praise,
Who hid, in glory’s blaze, her livid stain,
Impress’d by rash attempts, irresolute and vain.
I.
So when the wintry tempest’s baleful powers
Have risen a vernal day-spring to deform,
If the all-cheering sun, at evening hours,
Throws back the sable curtains of the storm,
Green hills, and gilded mountains gay,
In dewy brightness meet his ray;
Creation kindles, as its lustre flows,
Till, in a soften’d night, he leaves her to repose.
II.
Fruitful as the ensuing morn,
When smiling May with zephyr sports,
The graceful arts Britannia’s dome adorn,
And floats her Commerce to the distant ports.
To thee, brave ELIOTT! well she knows
Their mild prosperity she owes;
Since awful honour must his beams unveil,
Ere full the arts can bloom, or Commerce widely sail.
I.
A meaner mind, such signal conquest gain’d,
Had rush’d to meet its country’s pæans warm;
But ELIOTT, calm, through circling years, remain’d
Beneath the Rock, defended by his arm;
Her shatter’d ramparts to restore,
And firm through ages bid them tower;
That from her brow the British flag may stream,
To proud Iberia’s gales in majesty supreme.
II.
Not the trophies, not the strains
Of transport, on his Albion’s shore,
When ELIOTT’S deeds rung thro’ her vaulted fanes,
The acknowledg’d bulwarks of her falling power,
Could lure, with all that joy prepares,
The hero from his guardian cares;
No praise, no meed, no trophy he desir’d,
Save that which conscious worth, in all its glow, inspired.
I.
His toils accomplish’d, to his native clime,
In unassuming greatness, lo! he comes!--
And can it be, that the elapse of time
The sacred sense of gratitude consumes?
No, Britain, no!--thy raptur’d gaze,
Thy fairest meed, thy warmest lays,
Shall chase the doubt, and shame the injurious fear,
In thy resounding ports when ELIOTT’S sails appear
II.
May the blessings that await
Honour on the lap of Peace,
Illustrious soldier! mark thy future fate,
Bloom like thy virtues, with thy years increase!
Long may’st thou, benignly, see
Britannia, generous, brave, and free,
Wide o’er the world, as in her laurel’d prime,
Dart the commanding glance, and lift the brow sublime!
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] These verses were sent to the Gentleman’s Magazine by Dr Darwin, a
short time after they had been presented to him by their author, and
sent without her knowledge, and with an alteration in the concluding
lines; which alteration invokes the nymph of Botany to grace the scene.
They are here inscribed as they were originally printed. Fourteen years
after, in the spring 1792, the first part of that splendid poem, THE
BOTANIC GARDEN, appeared, which had been some years oddly preceded by
the second part of the work. In that first part its author has placed
the above verses as the exordium of his poem, with some slight verbal
alterations, and with a few brilliant lines of his own interwoven.
There is no hint in the notes, or even by a quotation mark, that this
poetic landscape was the work of another pen. The circumstance would
have been immaterial, if the lines had not appeared in print with
the name of their author; but that circumstance rendered that claim
necessary. Other periodical publications of that day copied them from
the Gentleman’s Magazine.
[2] l. 10. In a gloomy recess of this dell, there is a rock that drops
about once in every minute, alike in dry and wet seasons.
[3] l. 17. Dr DARWIN is here considered as the GENIUS of the place,
since he first cultivated and adorned the tangled and swampy plain.
[4] l. 10. The Author claimed these verses in Dr Darwin’s lifetime. Two
years before he died, they appeared in _her name_, in Shaw’s History of
Staffordshire.
[5] l. 1. The institution of Bath-Easton was a charitable one.
[6] l. 8. Lear.
[7] l. 9. Macbeth.
[8] l. 13. Hamlet.
[9] l. 16. Richard the Third.
[10] l. 9. _Samian Sage._--Pythagoras.
[11] l. 16. Alluding to a celebrated picture of Mrs Kauffman’s, THE
NYMPHS DISARMING CUPID.
[12] l. 1. _Massy Pillars._--These are very tall rocks around Bermuda.
[13] l. 2. _Ceaseless rave._--See Shakspeare’s Tempest, where Ariel
alludes to the high surf around this island.
“Thou call’st me at midnight, to fetch dews
“From the still vex’d Bermuda.”
[14] l. 3. _Punctual breeze._--The sea breezes at Bermuda come on about
noon, and last till day-dawn.
[15] l. 13. _No twilight._--In those latitudes the sun shines out
instantaneously on the break of dawn.
[16] l. 11. _Peterels soar._--The Peterel is a bird found in the frozen
seas; its neck and tail are white, and its wings of a bright blue.
[17] l. 18. _The floating fragments._--“In the course of the last 24
hours, we passed through several fields of broken ice; they were in
general narrow, but of considerable extent. In one part the pieces of
ice were so close, that the ship had much difficulty to _thread_ them.”
[18] l. 3. _Furling the iron sails._--“Our sails and rigging were so
frozen, that they seemed plates of iron.”
[19] l. 6. _And the vast ruin._--The breaking of one of these immense
mountains of ice, and the prodigious noise it made, is particularly
described in Cook’s second voyage to the South Pole.
[20] l. 14. _Till Nature_, &c.--“After running four leagues this
course, with the ice on our starboard side, we found ourselves quite
embayed, the ice extending from north-north-east, round by the west and
south, to east, in one compact body; the weather was tolerably clear,
yet we could see no end to it.”
[21] l. 5. _The olive branch._--“To carry a green branch in the hand
on landing, is a pacific signal, universally understood by all the
islanders in the South Seas.”
[22] l. 16. _And name exchang’d._--The exchange of names is a pledge
of amity among these islanders, and was frequently proposed by them to
Captain Cook and his people; so also is the joining noses.
[23] l. 17. _His living store._--Captain Cook left various kinds of
animals upon this coast, together with garden-seeds, &c. The Zealanders
had hitherto subsisted upon fish, and such coarse vegetables as their
climate produced; and this want of better provision, it is supposed,
induced them to the horrid practice of eating human flesh.
[24] l. 2. _Walls of coral._--The coral rocks are described as rising
perpendicularly from the greatest depths of the ocean, insomuch that
the sounding-line could not reach their bottom; and yet they were but
just covered with water. These rocks are now found to be fabricated by
sea-insects.
[25] l. 4. _And sleepless Patience._--“We had now passed several months
with a man constantly in the chains heaving the lead.”
[26] l. 3. _A rock-built temple._--“On one part of this isle there
was a solitary rock, rising on the coast with arched cavities, like a
majestic temple.”
[27] l. 11. _First gentle Flora._--Flora is the Goddess of modern
Botany, and Fauna of modern Zoology: hence the pupils of Linnæus call
their books _Flora Anglica--Fauna Danica_, &c. “The Flora of one of
these islands contained 30 new plants.”
[28] l. 13. _Vegetable silk._--In New Zealand is a flag of which the
natives make their nets and cordage. The fibres of this vegetable are
longer and stronger than our hemp and flax; and some, manufactured in
London, is as white and glossy as fine silk. This valuable vegetable
will probably grow in our climate.
[29] l. 2. _A playful Kangroo_.--The Kangroo is an animal peculiar to
those climates. It is perpetually jumping along on its hind legs, its
fore legs being too short to be used in the manner of other quadrupeds.
[30] l. 3. _Beauteous Pois._--“The Poi-bird, common in those countries,
has feathers of a fine mazarine blue, except those of the neck, which
are of a beautiful silver grey; and two or three short white ones,
which are in the pinion-joint of the wing. Under its throat hang two
little tufts of curled white feathers, called its _poies_, which, being
the Otaheitean word for ear-rings, occasioned our giving that name to
the bird; which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage,
than for the exquisite melody of its note.”
[31] l. 5. _A Giant-bat._--The bats which captain Cook saw in some of
these countries were of incredible dimensions, measuring three feet and
a half in breadth, when their wings were extended.
[32] l. 2. _Rolls the white surf._--“As we passed this island, many of
its trees had an unusual appearance, and the richness of the vegetation
much invited our naturalists to land, but their earnest wishes were in
vain, from the dangerous reefs and the violence of the surfs.”
[33] l. 17. _Chasten’d love._--Captain Cook observes, in his second
voyage, that the women of Otaheite were grown more modest, and that the
barbarous practice of destroying their children was lessened.
[34] l. 22. _Morai._--The Morai is a kind of funeral altar, which the
people of Otaheite raise to the memory of their deceased friends.
They bring to it a daily tribute of fruits, flowers, and the plumage
of birds. The chief mourner wanders around it in a state of apparent
distraction, shrieking furiously, and striking at intervals a shark’s
tooth into her head. All people fly her, as she aims at wounding not
only herself, but others.
[35] l. 9. _Frore._--Milton, in his Paradise Lost, uses that fine old
word, synonimous to the common word frozen.
--------- “The parching Air
“Burns _frore_, and Cold performs the effect of Fire.”
Also Spencer, “O! my heart’s blood is well nigh _frore_, I feel.”
[36] l. 19. _Highly-favoured year._--This Ode was written at the end
of that remarkable fine year, 1779, during which there was scarce any
winter; but at that period England was involved in the ruinous miseries
of the American war.
[37] l. 22. See the Dying Indian in Dodsley’s poems:
“The dart of Isdabel prevails! ‘twas dipt
“In double poison.”
[38] l. 5. _Ate._--Goddess of Vengeance.
[39] l. 16. Alluding to captain Donellan’s murder of sir Theodosius
Boughton by laurel-water--an event, which at that time agitated the
public mind considerably.
[40] l. 8. _Victor-garland._--Alluding to the conquest by Lord
Cornwallis.
[41] l. 11. _Bloody Scroll._--The Court-martial decree, signed at
Tappan, for Major Andre’s execution.
[42] l. 2. _Julia._--The name by which Mr Andre addressed the author in
his correspondence with her.
[43] l. 16. _All his gifts._--Mr Andre had conspicuous talents for
poetry, music, and painting. The newspapers mentioned a satiric poem
of his upon the Americans, which was supposed to have stimulated their
barbarity towards him. Of his wit and vivacity, the letters subjoined
to this poem afford ample proof. They were addressed to the author by
Mr Andre when he was a Youth of eighteen.