THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ANNA SEWARD;
WITH
EXTRACTS FROM HER LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
EDITED BY
WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.
FOR JOHN BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH;
AND LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW,
LONDON.
1810.
CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME THIRD.
PAGE
Eyam, 1
Remonstrance addressed to Wm. Cowper, Esq. 5
Crugal’s Ghost, appearing to Connal,--from Ossian, 5
The Ghost of Cuchullin,--from Ossian, 21
Epistle to Mr Newton, the Derbyshire Minstrel, 22
To Mr John Salt, of Lichfield, 25
On the sudden Death of the celebrated Mr Norris,
of Oxford, Batchelor of Music, 26
On Major Andre, 28
Harold’s Complaint, a Scandinavian Ode, 29
The Lake, or Modern Improvement in Landscape, 34
Written after having visited Miss More and her
Sisters, at Cowslip-Green, near Bristol, 39
Translation of Gray’s Apostrophe to the Memory
of his young Friend West, 41
Paraphrase of Gray’s Alcaick Ode, 44
To Sir Nigel Gresley, 47
To ---- Sherive, Esq., Student at Oxford, 49
Sonnet to the Rev. Richard Polwhele, 50
The first Psalm put into Verse, 53
137th Psalm Paraphrased, 55
To Charles Simpson, Esq., Barrister, 57
To Major Rooke of Mansfield, 59
To Charles Clarke, Esq., 60
A Warning Exhortation, 62
To Humphry Repton, Esq., 64
Philippic on a Modern Epic, 67
Llangollen Vale, 70
Verses on Wrexham, and the Inhabitants of its
Environs, 81
Hoyle Lake, 84
Herva, at the Tomb of Argantyr, a Runic Dialogue, 90
INSCRIPTIONS, 104-113
To Mrs Siddons, 114
Ode on England’s Naval Triumphs in the present
War, 115
To the Right Hon. the Marchioness of Donegall, 119
To Miss Godfrey, 121
SONNETS, I. to C. 122-222
Paraphrases and Imitations of Horace, 223
To Mæcenas, Book the First, Ode the 1st, 225
-- Pyrrha, Book the First, Ode the 5th, 229
-- Munatius Plancus, Book the First, Ode the 7th, 231
-- Lydia, Book the First, Ode the 8th, 236
To Thallarchus, Book the First, Ode the 9th, 238
-- Leuconoe, Book the first, Ode the 11th, 240
-- Apollo, Book the First, Ode the 31st, 242
-- his Attendant, Book the First, Ode the 38th, 245
-- Sallust, Book the Second, Ode the 2d, 246
-- the Hon. Thomas Erskine, Horace, Book the
Second, Ode the 3d--Imitated, 249
-- Barine, Book the Second, Ode the 8th, 252
-- Titus Valgius, Book the Second, Ode the 9th, 254
-- Licinius Murena, Book the Second, Ode the 10th, 257
-- Mæcenas, Book the Second, Ode the 12th, 261
-- Posthumus, Book the Second, Ode the 14th, 266
-- Lyce, Book the Third, Ode the 10th, 268
-- the Fountain of Blandusia, Book the Third,
Ode the 13th, 271
-- Telephus, Book the Third, Ode the 19th, 273
-- Phyllis, Book the Third, Ode the 23d, 278
-- Melpomene, Book the Fourth, Ode the 3d, 280
-- William Hayley, Esq. Book the Fourth, Ode
the 7th--Imitated, 282
-- Liguria, Book the Fourth, Ode the 10th, 285
-- Phyllis, Book the Fourth, Ode the 11th, 287
On the Pleasures of Rural Life, Book the Fifth,
Epode the 2d, 291
To Neaera, Book the Fifth, Epode the 15th, 302
-- the Roman People on their renewing the Civil
Wars, Book the Fifth, Ode the 7th, 304
Proem, Greville, and Julia, 306-308
Sonnet, 314
Speech of the Nymph of that Brook, which, after
heavy rain, becomes a deep, violent,
and formidable torrent, 315
Sonnet, 316
A Meditation, 317
Proem, to a Composition in Verse, intitled, “The
Terrestrial Year passing through the Signs of
the Zodiac,” 319
The Terrestrial Year on her Progress through the
Signs of the Zodiac, 323
Inscribed on the back of a Landscape, drawn by
the Rev. William Bree, 329
Inscribed on the back of the Companion Landscape, 330
Inscribed on the back of a Landscape, copied
from Glover, by Miss Fleming of Lichfield, 332
Address to the River in a Landscape, drawn by
the Rev. William Bree, 334
To Miss Honora Smith of Lichfield, 338
Admonition to Rosilda, 340
A Marine View Moralized, 342
To Clarissa, 344
A Farewell to the Seat of Lady Eleanor Butler,
and Miss Ponsonby, 345
Consolation, 351
To Robert Harper, Esq., 357
Ballad in the Ancient Scotch Dialect, 358
To the Rev. Thomas Sedgewick Whalley, 362
The Grave of Youth, 366
To Mrs Skerett, 368
To Miss Catherine Mallet, 370
Impromptu, written in the blank leaves of Miss
Anna Burt’s Repository of Friendship, 373
Elegy, written as from a French Lady, whose
husband had been three years prisoner of war
at Lichfield, 375
To Miss Mansel, of Trinity College, Cambridge, 380
Address to the Young Roscius, 382
A favourite Cat’s Dying Soliloquy, 386
To Little Catherine Harper, aged three years,
presenting her with a blue Sattin Bonnet, 389
Inscribed on the blank leaves of the Poem Madoc, 391
To F. N. C. Mundy, Esq., on his Poem the Fall
of Needwood Forest, 394
To Remembrance, 398
POEMS
BY
ANNA SEWARD.
EYAM.[1]
For one short week I leave, with anxious heart,
Source of my filial cares, the Full of Days,
Lur’d by the promise of Harmonic Art
To breathe her Handel’s soul-exalting lays.
Pensive I trace the Derwent’s amber wave[2],
Foaming through umbrag’d banks, or view it lave
The soft, romantic vallies, high o’er-peer’d
By hills and rocks, in savage grandeur rear’d.
Not two short miles from thee, can I refrain
Thy haunts, my native EYAM, long unseen?--
Thou and thy lov’d inhabitants, again
Shall meet my transient gaze.--Thy rocky screen,
Thy airy cliffs I mount; and seek thy shade,
Thy roofs, that brow the steep, romantic glade;
But, while on me the eyes of Friendship glow,
Swell my pain’d sighs, my tears spontaneous flow.
In scenes paternal, not beheld through years,
Nor view’d, till now, but by a Father’s side,
Well might the tender, tributary tears,
From keen regrets of duteous fondness glide!
Its pastor, to this human-flock no more
Shall the long flight of future days restore!
Distant he droops,--and that once gladdening eye
Now languid gleams, e’en when his friends are nigh.
Through this known walk, where weedy gravel lies,
Rough, and unsightly;--by the long, coarse grass
Of the once smooth, and vivid green, with sighs
To the deserted Rectory I pass;--
Stray through the darken’d chambers’ naked bound,
Where childhood’s earliest, liveliest bliss I found;
How chang’d, since erst, the lightsome walls beneath,
The social joys did their warm comforts breathe!
Ere yet I go, who may return no more,
That sacred pile, ’mid yonder shadowy trees,
Let me revisit!--Ancient, massy door,
Thou gratest hoarse!--my vital spirits freeze,
Passing the vacant pulpit, to the space
Where humble rails the decent altar grace,
And where my infant sister’s ashes sleep,
Whose loss I left the childish sport to weep.
Now the low beams, with paper garlands hung,[3]
In memory of some village youth, or maid,
Draw the soft tear, from thrill’d remembrance sprung,
How oft my childhood mark’d that tribute paid.
The gloves, suspended by the garland’s side,
White as its snowy flowers, with ribbons tied;--
Dear Village, long these wreaths funereal spread,
Simple memorials of thy early dead!
But O! thou blank, and silent pulpit!--thou,
That with a Father’s precepts, just, and bland,
Did’st win my ear, as reason’s strength’ning glow
Show’d their full value, now thou seem’st to stand
Before my sad, suffus’d, and trembling gaze,
The dreariest relic of departed days.
Of eloquence paternal, nervous, clear,
Dim Apparition thou--and bitter is my tear!
REMONSTRANCE
ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. IN 1788,
ON THE SARCASMS LEVELLED AT NATIONAL GRATITUDE IN
THE TASK.[4]
“I would not enter on my list of friends,[5]
“Tho’ grac’d with polish’d manners,” tho’ endow’d
With talents destin’d to immortal fame,
But wanting generosity, the man
Who darts the blighting of satiric wit,
Lanc’d from a spleenful heart, or sullen weaves
The dark anathemas of Calvin’s school
Against a nation’s praise, its grateful praise,
Pour’d for the assiduous culture of those gifts
Bestow’d by Heaven,--not on the general mind,
But on the chosen Few, ordain’d to prove
In what full portion to the human soul
God can impart intelligence; the rays
Destin’d to stream from their eternal source
Through future ages. O’er each feeling heart
Shed they not transport which allays each ill,
Sickness, and pain, and sorrow; lift the mind,
Seating its pleasures high, till waste expense
And frivolous pursuits, fatigue or pall,
While all the grosser train of sensual joys
Prove vapid as they are guilty?--Read we not
On Inspiration’s page, “Who loves not man
Whom he hath seen, how should he love his GOD,
Yet unbeheld?” So he, who would repress
The fervent tribute of each thankful heart
For true delights and pure, receiv’d from Man,
May fear his MAKER, but will never know
The nobler piety, that fits the soul
For happiness and HEAVEN. O! wintry Spirit,
Hurling thine icy bolt of sarcasm[6]
Against the loveliest and most generous rites
That e’er an honest, grateful nation paid
At the bright shrine of Genius! Look’st thou back
With grudging eyes on those applausive hours[7]
When Poesy and Music, with twin’d arms,
Attended jubilant?--to Avon’s bank
From the remotest confines of our isle,
Her silver shores, and mast-aspiring towns,
Her tower’d cities and her villa’d hills,
Her lakes, her rivers, and her golden vales,
Summon’d those glowing votaries, who with hearts
Exulting in their country’s proudest boast,
And by the patriot passion taller grown,
Stood tiptoe on Avona’s brink, and there
Strew’d all the rifled Summer’s bloomy stores;
The incense of the warmer Orient toss’d;
Pour’d in loud pæans the triumphant song,
And from the cup, carv’d from the hallow’d tree,
Sprinkled the bright libation; tree, that fell
At the harsh dictate of a kindred mind[8],
Kindred in spleen, though much unlike in power,
To thine, Misanthropist! Nor singly rose
This murmur, cold and dreary as the rill
That ink-like huddles through the russet moor,
Powerless to fertilize. Lo! in a strain[9]
Fanatic and illiberal as the lay
Maligning Avon’s festival, thou scorn’st
Thy country, marshalling in holy shrines
The harmonic strength of Europe, to fulfil
The great designs Briarean Handel plann’d;[10]
That mighty, matchless German, who attun’d
His lyre seraphic to thy native tongue!--
Thou heard’st with grudging and disgusted ear
Those great designs attain’d, when, thro’ the aisles
Of the vast ancient fane, in torrents burst
Those floods of harmony, that lift the soul
Upon their swelling and tumultuous waves
Up to the Throne of God.--O! what is Virtue,
If praise of those, who thus their talents ten
Ardent improv’d, is folly, or is vice?[11]
Nor only on the wreaths for Genius twined
Fall the deep shadows of this Cynic spleen;
Mark how ungenerous the beauteous strain[12]
Closes, that sings the desolate of heart,
Forlorn OMAI, on his native hills
Wandering, with eyes that search the watry waste
“For sight of ship from England!”--why pollute
Thy lovely requiem to his vanish’d joys
With heartless taunt on the illustrious band
That led him hither, and restor’d him back,
At his kind, natural wish, that nobly sprung
From patriot love, too probably, alas!
Requited ill, and pregnant with the pangs
Of fruitless, stung regret. Was it for gain
That those illustrious Chiefs, with daring hand,
Rais’d the pale curtains of the southern Pole?--
Loth as thou art to credit human worth,
O! Bard unjust! thou know’st that not for gold,
Gems, or false glory, they explor’d and brav’d
Climes dangerous and unknown; but to diffuse
The blessings mild of cultivated life
Amid the perilous and lonely haunts
Of the lugubrious savage, straying slow,
Silent and comfortless, o’er pathless wastes
Torrid, or frore. Thus on the worth, that rose
Its nation’s honour, thy immortal muse,
Which should record it to succeeding times,
For the bright, fostering dews of just applause,
Sheds cankerous scorn. And was it not enough
To impute to every wild and idle weed
Of human frailty, such envenom’d juice
As slowly circles through thy latent veins,
Death-giving hemlock?--Was not that enough,
Without enlisting a much favour’d muse
Against Just Praise, the spur of great designs,
And O! twice blest, like Mercy? Was thy lyre
Thus highly gifted for such warfare rude?
For notes, O! how unlike the strains that stole
From the sweet harp of Jesse’s pitying son,
Before whose kind, assuasive, melting tones
Flew the despair which spread her raven-wing
O’er the sunk spirit of Saul!--Thee, Bard morose,
Churlish amid thy fancy’s golden stores,
Thee will I teach, censorious as thou art,
What is not Virtue. Listen to my verse;
Confute it if thou canst;--if not, admit
The force of Truth, though rushing from a lyre
Less richly strung, less solemn than thine own!
It was not--is not--and can ne’er be virtue,
Merely from terror to abstain from vice;
Merely to sigh for sufferings, which result
From proud unfeeling Man’s abuse of power,
Careless, or rancorous;--nor yet to seize
The rod of indignation, to chastise
The vanities and follies of mankind
With that asperity, which ill becomes
A fellow-mortal frail.--’Tis not to check,
With cynic sneer, that fervour of the soul,
Which, grateful for the transport Genius gives,
Praises the unwearied culture of its powers,
GOD’s gift magnificent. No, sacred Virtue,
These constitute thee not;--for O ’tis thine
With soft compassion’s pleading eye to look,
And with benign allowance, on each fault
Not wearing crime’s dark hue, though thee thyself
No such weak errors taint. It is to hope
Much from the mercy of a parent judge
On him he made so frail.--It is to know
That all thou see’st of selfish, light, and vain,
Far less of sin possesses, than the pride,
Rigid and drear, which shuts the censor’s heart
Against construction charitable; against
Tender indulgence.--’Tis to love, applaud,
And emulate, whatever has its rise
In glad fraternal kindness, and the power
Of gratitude, dispersing by its glow
Envy, and Hate, and Fear, which darkling roam
That man’s cold mind, who feels another’s right
To Fame’s bright wreath, yet brings no votive flower.
Now, if disdainful of my humble verse,
It soften not the Satirist’s marble breast,
O! may he listen to an higher strain,
A strain of Inspiration, and it breathes
No precept hostile to my lays!--but list,
List, I adjure thee! since it much imports
Thy welfare temporal, and eternal!--try
The censures harsh of thy stern muse, who oft
As with the tongue of missive angels speaks,
Try them by test unerring, by the Voice
Which sounding brass and tinkling cimbal call’d
The human, and angelic strains combin’d,
If wanting Charity;--there should they fail,
Thy censures harsh to that pure ordeal brought,
Reform them, and grow social, just, and kind,
Reform them, and be happy!--With firm hand
Disroot thy bosom’s hemlock!--there it grows,
Dark spots denote the weed, illiberal spleen,
Adverse to praise, however nobly earn’d,
Where latent hope of a reward on high
Prompts not its fervour; sullen, bigot-pride,
Hating for errors, less perhaps than thine.
Since on that anxious and indignant brow
Genius has long her amaranthine crown
Exulting placed, may they, who hold their torch
High o’er the paths of Peace, Daughters of Heaven,
Star-pointing Hope, and meek-voic’d Charity,
Clear that gloom’d brow, illume those eyes severe,
Solicitous, and sad!--O, clasp the veil
Mild Charity extends, of sky-wove grain,
Blessing the hand, which gently lets it fall
Upon a brother’s frailty! From thy hand
When thus it may descend, immortal Hope
Shall, with her silver anchor, thy void grasp
Smiling supply, and, upward soaring, chase
Terror’s black clouds, and to thy gladden’d view
Disclose the realms of Everlasting Light![13]
CRUGAL’s GHOST,
APPEARING TO CONNAL,--FROM OSSIAN.[14]
Lull’d by the dashing of the mountain stream,
Beneath the aged tree, in quiet dream,
Brave CONNAL lies. A stone with moss o’erspread,
Forms a grey pillow for the warrior’s head.
At distance from the Chiefs he seeks repose;
The race of COLGAR fear no treacherous foes.
Shrill as the winds o’er heathy Lena sweep,
He hears the voice of night assail his sleep;
And waking, marks a gleam of dusky red
Glide down the hill, and reach his mossy bed.
Young CRUGAL’s semblance hovers in the ray,
Fall’n in the slaughter of that deathful day.
His face, is like the moon in shrouding rains;
His robes, the clouds, that rise from marshy plains;
Gleam, like decaying flames, his eyes around,
And dart upon his breast the livid wound!
As mortal visitant, with life-blood warm,
The dauntless chief accosts the shadowy form.
“Fam’d on the hill of Deer, what chance has led
“The valiant Crugal to my mossy bed?
“Ah! why so pale?--that never knew’st to yield,
“Son of the hill, and breaker of the shield!”
The airy head low bending, as in grief,
One dim hand stretch’d o’er the recumbent chief,
A wailful sound the bloodless lips exhale,
Thin as the reedy Lego’s rising gale.
“Wide o’er its native hills my ghost has stray’d,
“But my pale corse on Ullin’s shore is laid.
“No more wilt thou with CRUGAL commune kind,
“Or on the heath his lonely steps shalt find;
“My trackless feet through fields of air have past,
“Light as high Cromla’s ever-whistling blast.
“But, O! my warning voice may Connal mark!
“I see the cloud of death descending dark;
“O’er Lena’s plain it hovers!--Erin’s hosts
“Must fall!--fly, Connal, from the field of ghosts!”
He sighs!--and, like the darken’d moon, retires
Amid his whistling blast, and meteor fires.
“Stay,” cries the valiant Connal, “Crugal stay,
“Son of the windy hill, and meteor-ray!
“What mountain-cave has thy pale corse possest?
“What green cliff blossoms o’er thy house of rest?
“Shall not thy voice in wintry storms arise?
“Shall we not hear it in the torrent’s noise,
“When feeble children of the wind come forth,
“And shriek amid the tempests of the north?
Rising he moves, with rapid step, and light,
His armour ringing to the blast of night;
Speeds to the heroes, slumbering on the field,
And o’er CUCHULLIN strikes the clanging shield.
“Why, (says the ruler of the car,) why come
“The steps of Connal through the midnight-gloom?
“Against the alarming sound my spear might turn,
“And his slain friend the rash Cuchullin mourn.”
‘Rever’d CUCHULLIN, Chief of deathless fame,
‘To my late rest the ghost of Crugal came.
‘Dim through his form the midnight stars appear’d,
‘And like a distant stream his voice I heard.
‘Upon my startled ear it slowly broke,
‘And of the dark and narrow dwelling spoke,
‘For this he glided o’er the marshy heath,
‘The voice of woe, the messenger of death!--
‘For peace, or truce, O chief of Dunsaick, try,
‘Or o’er the heath of Lena instant fly.’
Then, gravely smiling, with intrepid air,
Replies the dauntless ruler of the war.
“He spoke to us of death’s impending storm,
“Though stars dim twinkled thro’ his misty form!--
“Connal, the rising gales, that murmur’d near,
“From Lena’s cavern rush’d upon thine ear;---
“Or if it was thy Crugal’s semblance pale,
“Why not to me impart the deathful tale?
“Thee did he teach his cave of rest to find,
“His narrow house, that feeble son of wind!
“My sword might penetrate its dark retreat,
“And force his knowledge from its secret seat.
“But small that knowledge, he was here to-day;--
“Knew’st thou he swell’d the slaughter of the fray?
“Scarce o’er these hills his ghost has wing’d its flight,
“Who there could tell him we should fall in fight?”
‘Yet heed the warning voice, brave Connal cries!
‘On the swift gale each warrior’s spirit flies;
‘They dwell together in their gloomy cave,
‘Talk of the fate of Chiefs, the hero’s grave.’
“Of other Chiefs--but let them ne’er presume
“To waste prediction on CUCHULLIN’S doom!
“May in their caves my fate neglected lie!--
“The Chief of Erin was not born to fly!
“I will not fly from Swaran!--if I fall,
“Swift shall my spirit seek their airy hall;
“My tomb, in years of future fame, shall rise,
“Sought by the brave, and hallow’d by their sighs;
“On my cold stone the hunter’s tear descend,
“And sorrowing o’er it fair Bragela bend.--
“I fear not death,--but fear ignoble flight,
“Stain of the youthful warrior’s former might!--
“Oft has great FINGAL, from his rapid car,
“Seen conquest mine amid the rage of war.--
“Dim phantom of the hill, appear to me!
“Shew in thy livid hand my death’s decree;
“No thought of flight shall thy pale doom inspire,
“Son of the whistling blast, the meteor-fire!
“Go, Connal, loudly strike the high-hung shield,
“From yon riv’d oak dark shadowing on the field;
“Peace is not in the sound.--My Chiefs shall hear,
“Start from their sleep, and snatch the prostrate spear.--
“Though Fingal yet no promis’d aid fulfils,
“Nor leads his heroes from their stormy hills,
“Yet, Son of Colgar, will we scorn to fly,
“But nobly conquer, or as nobly die!”
THE GHOST OF CUCHULLIN.
FROM OSSIAN.
On Dora’s hill, the fires of parting day,
With soften’d lustre, shed the yellow ray;
Yet scarce they sunk behind the mountain’s breast
Ere gathering storms the fading scene invest.
Loud hollow gales fell murmuring on the floods,
And shook Temora through his bending woods.
One ample cloud a sable curtain rear’d,
And faint, behind its edge, a red star peer’d,
And in its shade a tall, unreal form
Stalk’d through the air, and mourn’d amid the storm.
His lengthen’d steps o’er the vast mountain pass’d,
And his broad shield a pale effulgence cast.
Too well Cuchullin’s faded form I knew,
Yet, ere my lips could breathe their last adieu,
Swift, on his howling blast, away he strode,
And night, and horror, gather’d on the wood.
EPISTLE
TO
MR NEWTON, THE DERBYSHIRE MINSTREL,
ON RECEIVING HIS DESCRIPTION, IN VERSE, OF AN AUTUMNAL SCENE, NEAR EYAM,
IN THAT COUNTY, SEPTEMBER, 1791.
High on the airy mountain’s sunny side,
On the rais’d heath-bush, gay in purple pride,
You seat me, Edwin, where you sat serene,
And with the pen of Genius sketch’d the scene;
Taught his bold lines each feature wild to trace,
Each rude magnificence, each sylvan grace;
Vast barren hills, and deep luxuriant dales,
That the sun gilds, the volant cloud half veils,
Alternate. Ah! no spot recorded then,
No distant valley, and no nearer glen,
That twining Wye’s cerulean current laves,
Or yellow Derwent with his frothing waves;
No rock, no hamlet, on the mountain’s swell,
No village, nestling in the shadowy dell,
But, as I meet their lov’d, familiar name,
Swift, as the lightning’s penetrating flame,
To my charm’d soul return her morning years,
Their transports heighten’d, and dispell’d their cares.
Thus on the spirit Memory’s local spell
No time can weaken, and no change repel;
It melts the heart, and rushes through the brain,
With pleasure, sweeter for the mingled pain.
What heart but feels that pain, that pleasure’s strife,
Oft as it traces back the maze of life!
But O! where warm the ingenuous passions glow,
That avarice, pride, nor wild ambition know,
This local spell!--how instant is its power,
To chase the Present, and the Past restore!
SCOTLAND, than thine, what poets more endear
Their native scenes, and send our spirits there?
Ah! when they sing of Tay, of Forth, and Clyde,
Of Leader-Haughs, and Yarrow’s flowery side,
Their strains my heart with softer rapture fire
Than MASON’S, GRAY’S, or DARWIN’S lays inspire;
Their loftier rhyme though loftier Genius taught,
Glow in their image, and sublime their thought.
And when you, EDWIN, bid description’s truth
Recall the scenes that charm’d my early youth,
I feel these eyes suffus’d by gushing tears,
While through their crystal shine my happier years,
Fair as the Spring’s first flowers, and verdant fields,
Seen through the illumin’d rains departing April yields.
TO
MR JOHN SALT, OF LICHFIELD,[15]
ON HAVING READ SOME OF HIS COMPOSITIONS ON A RAINY EVENING, IN AUGUST,
1789.
Late on a sullen Summer night
Thy intellectual morning hung;
I mark’d its dawn with calm delight,
Whose vivid, soft, and dewy ray,
From the rich orb of Genius sprung,
Each adolescent grace among,
Gives lovely promise of a golden day.
But, leaving metaphoric lays,
Let me, ingenuous Youth, impart,
Warm in the glow of honest praise,
Fond, local hopes to see thy name
Increase the claims to classic art,
Philosophy and high desert,
That raise thy LICHFIELD to the heights of Fame.
ON THE
SUDDEN DEATH
OF THE
CELEBRATED Mr NORRIS, of OXFORD,
BATCHELOR OF MUSIC.[16]
Instant the mortal stroke the warbler smote!
Eternal silence seals the tuneful throat!
Ah, NORRIS, thine! whom Albion heard so long
Pour in impressive tones the hallow’d song,
With all thy HANDEL’S glorious page inspires,
Pathos that melts, and energy that fires.
High o’er the numerous band we saw him late,
Saw choirs combin’d his graceful mandate wait;
And heard the too, too applicable lay
His drooping spirit’s mild complaint convey
Of that injurious, that ungrateful sound,
Which the shock’d ear with ruthless force could wound,
For that his trembling nerves, oppress’d with pain,
Whelm’d in resistless tears one tender strain.
Oh, when that powerful voice, in peals of praise,
Led the loud chorus through the harmonic maze,
Breath’d the pathetic song, that on the breast
Religious awe, and contrite grief imprest,
How little we divin’d, who heard ere while
His full notes floating through the vaulted aisle,
That death’s dark clouds around the minstrel hung,
That the sweet Swan his own sad requiem sung!
ON MAJOR ANDRE.
SERIOUS EPIGRAM TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.[17]
In youth’s gay bloom illustrious André died,
Flower of a day, nipt by the wintry storm;
His heart strung high by valour’s noblest pride,
His mien with love’s seducing ardour warm.
Glory, in characters of living gold,
Writes on his sacred shrine the patriot name,
And one Great Act, which bids e’en warriors old
Thank its example for their fresh-earn’d fame.
HAROLD’s COMPLAINT.[18]
A SCANDINAVIAN ODE.
FROM DR ALEXANDER’S HISTORY OF WOMEN.[19]
I.
One day, while on the Ocean blue[20]
The glittering sun-beams pour,
With vessel light, and scanty crew,
We gaily left the shore.
Black rose the storm, and in the hold
The frothing waters lay,
But toil their whelming force controul’d,
And clear’d them all away.
Then swift we flew before the wind,
And gain’d the distant isle;
The omen fair I hop’d to find
Of beauteous Aura’s smile;
But yet, my toils, though fortune crown,
Has all I love forsworn me,
My constancy sustains her frown,
The Russian maiden scorns me.
II.
In manly sports, and manly toils,
Twice four, I proudly shine,
And kinder nymphs, with rosy smiles,
For me the garlands twine.
’Tis mine to dart the gleaming lance;
To curb the bounding steed;
To tune the pipe, the mazy dance,
With graceful step, to lead;
To ply the oar, to rove the deep,
And, o’er the frozen wave,
On volant steel, like winds, to sweep;
To meet in fight the brave;
But ah, though great in arts and arms,
From love’s blest hope she warns me,
Not all my well-won glory charms,
A Russian maiden scorns me.
III.
On Norway’s wintry mountains high
My natal morn arose,
Whose sons can teach their shafts to fly,
Unerring from their bows:
But o’er the lone sea bends my course,
The bounding ship I guide,
Where, ’mid vast rocks, with fatal force,
Surges the confluent tide.
On every sea my flying sails
The rising winds have caught,
And though to tempest swell’d the gales,
No sheltering harbour sought;
But ah! though courage speed my prow,
And subject seas have borne me,
A frozen heart impels, I know,
The Russian maid to scorn me.
IV.
Around Calabria’s winding shore
My dark ships grandly ride,
With mariners, a numerous store,
Their youthful leader’s pride.
Devoted to the clang of arms,
Victorious in their strife,
I gloried in their loud alarms,
And liv’d a warrior’s life:
Nor dreamt that long indulgent Fate
Would ever cloud her brow,
And with a peevish woman’s hate,
My fondest hopes o’erthrow.
Now rival chiefs my woes deride,
And generous friendship mourns me;
Hates (while it chides my vanquish’d pride,)
The Russian maid that scorns me.
V.
O! wou’d this charming maid recall
The wonders of that day,
When near the southern city’s wall,
I join’d the bloody fray;
When Drontheim’s armies trebled ours,
And thunder’d o’er the plain,
While every wave its river pours
Ran purple to the main;
When conquest, on her eagle-wing,
Flew hovering o’er my shield,
And Drontheim’s long-resistless king
Lay breathless on the field;
Yet, yet, to blight my youth with cares,
Has all I love forsworn me,
The garland of the war she tears,
The Russian maiden scorns me.
THE LAKE;
OR,
MODERN IMPROVEMENT IN LANDSCAPE.
Grand, ancient, gothic, mark this ample dome,
Of fashion’s slave, the uncongenial home!
Long have its turrets braved the varying clime,
And mock’d the ravage of relentless time.
The owner shrugs his shoulders, and deplores
One vile effect of his self-squander’d stores,
That the triste edifice must still remain
To shock his lordship’s gaze, and blot the plain;
That no gay villa may supply its place,
Rise in Italian, or in Gallic grace.
“But, yet,” he cries, “by Fashion’s aid divine,
“Rescued from sylvan shrouds, my scenes may shine;
“Resistless goddess, to thy votary come,
“And chace the horrors of this leafy gloom!”
She comes!--the gaudy despot stands confest,
Known by her mien assur’d, and motley vest;
The vest, mistaken by her servile train
For beauty’s robe of sky-enwoven grain,
Deck’d with each varying form, each living hue,
T hat Nature hallow’d, and her REPTON drew.
Scorning their power, and reckless of expense,
The foe of beauty, and the bane of sense;
Close by my lord, and with strange projects warm,
Stalks o’er the scenes her edicts shall deform.
“Yon broad, brown wood, now darkening to the sky,
“Shall prostrate soon with perish’d branches lie;
“Yield golden treasures for our great design,
“Till all the scene one glassy surface shine.”
Mid shrubs, and tangled grass, with sparkling waves,
A little vagrant brook the valley laves;
Now hid, now seen, the wanton waters speed,
Hurrying loquacious o’er their pebbly bed.
“A Lake! she cries, this source can never fail,
“A lake shall fill our undulating dale!
“No more the dingles shall sink dark and deep,
“No waving hedgerows round the meadows sweep;
“All must be Lake this level lawn between,
“And those bare hills, and rocks, that form the screen,
“Peer o’er the yet proud woods, and close the scene.”
What recks it her that, many a tedious year,
Barren and bleak its naked banks appear!
Since, tho’ the pliant Naiad swiftly pours
Her urn exhaustless to receding shores,
Sullen and tardy found, the Dryad train
Are still, thro’ circling seasons, woo’d in vain,
Ere the dusk umbrage shall luxuriant flow,
And shadowy tremble o’er the lake below;
Which curtain’d thus, changes its leaden hue,
Rising a silver mirror to the view.
See, at the pert behest, subservient toil
Plough with the victim woods the echoing soil!
See, the forced flood th’ o’erwhelmed valley laves,
O’er fields, lanes, thickets, spread the silent waves!--
No lively hue of spring they know to wear,
No gorgeous glow of the consummate year;
No tinge that gold-empurpled autumn spreads
O’er the rich woodland, sloping from the meads,
But stagnant, mute, unvarying, cold, and pale,
They meet the winter-wind, and summer-gale.
Between the base of yonder gothic pile,
Whose towers frown sullen o’er the wat’ry spoil,
And the chill lake’s uncomfortable breast,
Lo! on the lawn, with venerable crest,
A few old oaks defend the tired survey,
In part, from that dull pool’s eternal grey;
While, gleaming, underneath their darksome boughs,
With better grace the torpid water shows.
Again the dame her swarthy agents calls,
Raised is the ready axe--and--ah! it falls!
They who had seen whole centuries roll away,
No more half-veil the lake, and mitigate the day.
Too late the slumbering Genius of the scene
Starts from his mossy couch, with wilder’d mien;
Dismay’d beholds, and all too late to save,
His graces destined to a watery grave;
His winding brook, green wood, and mead and dell,
His grassy lanes, and moss-encircled well;
And for the guardian oaks, now prostrate laid,
His winter screen, his sultry summer’s shade,
Sees the weak saplings, dotted on the lawn,
With dark and clumsy fence around them drawn,
Warp in the noon-tide ray, with shrivell’d rind,
And shrink, and tremble in the rising wind.
In vain he curses the fantastic power,
And the pale ravage of her idiot-hour;
But no vindictive ire the spell revokes,
Fall’n are the woods, and lawn-adorning oaks!
Fled every varied charm boon Nature gave,
No green field blossoms, and no hedge-rows wave!
On the dim waters nods the useless sail,
And Eurus howls along the deluged vale.
His reign usurp’d, since Time can ne’er restore,
Indignant rising to return no more,
His eyes concealing with one lifted hand,
Shadowing the waters, as his wings expand,
The injured Genius seeks the distant coast,
Like Abdiel, flying from the rebel host.
WRITTEN
AFTER HAVING VISITED MISS MORE, AND HER SISTERS AT COWSLIP GREEN, NEAR
BRISTOL, IN AUGUST 1791.
Fair, silent scene, soft rising in the vale,
By mountains guarded from each stormy gale,
Long, ’mid thy sloping lawn, and winding glade,
And mossy cell, for contemplation made,
Be seen, in health and peace, the virgin train,
Led by the boast of Britain’s tuneful plain,
Where Genius oft has fed its kindling fires,
Roll’d the rapt eye, and struck the golden wires,
Bristol; that hears her MORE’S distinguish’d name
Wafted, by echoes, round the shrine of Fame.
On whose mild brow she sees bright laurels twine,
Cull’d from their choicest bowers by all the nine,
Enwreath’d with charity’s assuasive balm,
And faith, and virtue’s never-dying palm.
And ye, sweet satellites, that gently bear
Your lesser radiance round this beamy star,
Aiding her pious efforts to impart
Religion’s lustre to the youthful heart,[21]
That else in lightless ignorance must stray,
Where guilt’s fell snares the indigent betray,
Ye fair examples of an heedless age,
Ye glowing votaries of the sacred page,
O! may your virtues wake the just desire,
“To live like you, and be what we admire!”
TRANSLATION
OF
GRAY’S APOSTROPHE,
TO THE MEMORY OF
HIS YOUNG FRIEND, WEST,
IN HIS UNFINISHED LATIN POEM,
De principiis cogitandi.[22]
Thus far my youth has labour’d to explore
The springs of thought, and Nature’s mystic lore;
No languid votary of the Muse I came,
To trace her footsteps up the steeps of Fame;
To bid the streams, that Roman fountains yield,
Flow in full currents o’er Britannia’s field.
Ah, lov’d Favonius, who those labours shared,
Whose voice could animate, whose praise reward;
The prop, the stimulus of all my powers,
On thee the rayless cloud incumbent lours;
There, my fond grasp thy fading form evades,
Sunk, and involv’d in death’s eternal shades.
Friend of my youth, O! with what pangs I found
The gloomy mists of sickness gathering round!
Saw thy heart struggling with convulsive throes,
That heart, so quick to feel for others’ woes!
Saw, in dire progress, fell disease prevail,
Dim thy clear eye, thy vivid colour pale;
Saw numbing languor steal each youthful grace,
From those light limbs, from that expressive face,
Where piety sublime, affections mild,
And all the soul of truth ingenuous smiled.
Yet once, O once! the flattering foe of life
Seem’d to recede, and quit the cruel strife;
Then did my grateful vows ascend the skies,
Then did bright hopes anticipating rise,
That we again thro’ classic groves shou’d stray,
And mutually deceive the tardy day.
Ah, hopes presumptuous!--ah ungranted pray’rs!
Ah, helpless efforts!--and ah, wasted cares!
Ah, mournful hours, condemn’d to lasting pain,
To sighs incessant, and to anguish vain!
But thou, dear shade, to whom superfluous flows
This bitter flood of unavailing woes,
Full bliss enjoy the starry plains among,
In the pure ether whence thy essence sprung!
And if, beyond misfortune’s icy blight,
Pitying, thou bendest from thy throne of light,
To view the turbulence of human fate,
Rash love, and envy, fear, and pride, and hate,
Behold these griefs! that, desolate of heart,
Pierc’d by deprived affection’s rankling dart,
Amid the silence of the lonely hour,
To thee, O long belov’d! to thee I pour!
More is not mine to give, since now remains
But the sad luxury of these cherish’d pains,
Casting their fruitless wail, their hopeless tear
To thy dumb ashes, and thy timeless bier!
PARAPHRASE
OF
GRAY’s ALCAICK ODE,
WRITTEN IN THE
ALBUM OF THE GRAND CHARTREUSE,
ON HIS WAY BACK TO ENGLAND, AFTER HAVING VISITED THE ITALIAN CITIES WITH
MR WALPOLE.[23]
Hail, guardian of this deep severe retreat,
Divine Religion! by whatever name
Thou would’st my lips thy sacred power should greet:
No common power these solemn scenes proclaim.
Here, ’mid the desert cliffs that sternly frown,
O’er trackless mountains as my slow step roves,
These giant rocks, that waving pines embrown,
These roaring waters, and this night of groves,
To my aw’d spirit, and my throbbing heart
Plainer a present DEITY disclose,
Than Raphael tints, or Phidian forms impart
When bright with gold the fragrant altar glows.
Hail, solemn scenes! and to my wearied mind
Your sheltering shades, your placid quiet yield;
But O! should fate deny my youth to find
In your wrapt silence a protecting shield,
Swift should she bear me to the vortex wild,
By human strife in storms perpetual whirl’d,
Grant me, kind Heaven, some climate lone and mild,
Some vale sequester’d from the struggling world!
Where, free from vulgar tumults of the vain,
Calm I may feel my vital powers decay,
And all unvex’d, at least by mental pain,
Meet the long night with hope of endless day![24]
TO
SIR NIGEL GRESLEY.
APOLOGY FOR NOT ACCEPTING HIS INVITATION TO A MASQUERADE-BALL AT HIS
SEAT, DRAKELOW, IN STAFFORDSHIRE.
Ah, Gresley! skill’d to deck the festal rite
With Taste’s coy art, and Fancy’s various light,
Charm’d when the summon’d train forsake their home,
Grotesque and gay, to fleet beneath thy dome;
Could I, amid the jocund band, convene
Youth, health, or spirit, to the glittering scene,
Then should my pen thy flattering passport greet
With gladden’d heart, and with acceptance meet;
But long-precarious health, life’s faded bloom,
And recent ravage of the ruthless tomb,
Clos’d o’er my friends, forbid the pageant bowers
To shine before me with magnetic powers.
When graver Pleasures, and domestic Mirth,
Rise the soft Lares of that glowing hearth,
Where Drakelow, white as o’er the vale she gleams,
Eyes her fair form in Trent’s pellucid streams,
Mine may it be to share the joys benign,
More grateful to existence’ dim decline;
To view expanding mind, with effluence warm,
Illume thy lov’d MARIA’S youthful form;[25]
To mark around that ever liberal board,
Bless’d by glad welcome from its graceful lord,
With sportive glee his lovely infants sit,
And bright LOUISA lance the darts of wit;[26]
While most his sense and spirit render gay
The golden leisure of the social day.
TO
---- SHERIVE, ESQ.
STUDENT AT OXFORD.
When Sherive breathes, the classic bowers among,
For me the honours of the plausive song,
He wakes the hope, that dormant long had lain,
Sunk amid life’s dull cares, and grief, and pain;
The hope, that yet my verse-encircled themes,
Buoyant may rise above oblivion’s streams,
While still the guiding star of praise benign
Shall o’er the cold and darkling waters shine.
SONNET,
TO THE REV. RICHARD POLWHELE,
ON HIS poem UPON THE INFLUENCE OF LOCAL ATTACHMENT.[27]
Polwhele, whose genius, in the colours clear
Of poesy and philosophic art,
Traces the sweetest impulse of the heart,
Scorn, for thy Muse, the envy-sharpen’d spear,
In darkness thrown, when shielded by desert
She seeks the lyric fane. To virtue dear
Thy verse esteeming, feeling minds impart
Their vital smile, their consecrating tear.
Fancy and judgment view with gracious eyes
Its kindred tints, that paint the silent power
Of local objects, deeds of high emprize
To prompt; while their delightful spells restore
The precious vanish’d days of former joys,
By Love, or Fame, enwreath’d with many a flower.
THE FIRST PSALM
PUT INTO VERSE.
Blest is the man, who ne’er hath stay’d
Where sinners idly meet,
Nor in their dangerous mazes stray’d,
Nor press’d the scorner’s seat!
But still the Lord’s eternal law
Proves his uncloy’d delight,
To ponder it with sacred awe
Each passing day and night.
Like the fair tree, beside the stream,
Whose roots the waters lave;
While ripening in the summer beam,
Its fruits luxuriant wave.
No blight shall on his leaf descend,
For still hath Heav’n decreed,
That full prosperity attend
His every thought and deed.
But for the unrepenting race,
Not such their transient day,
They are like chaff, which wild winds chase,
Scatter’d from earth away.
Therefore the wicked shall not stand
In Judgment’s dread abode,
Nor sinners ’midst the righteous band
That meet before their God.
For He discerns the pure of heart,
But, at the impious hurl’d,
Eternal Vengeance speeds the dart,
Which strikes them from the world.
137TH PSALM PARAPHRASED.
By clear Euphrates’ palmy tide
Near Babylon’s high towers,
Remembering Sion, oft we sigh’d
And wept her vanquish’d powers.
Our silent harps on trees we hung
That wav’d along its shores;
Then our proud foes required the song
Of Sion’s hallow’d bowers.
How shall we sing the sacred strains,
O Solyma! that flow’d,
And taught thy echoing rocks and plains
The mercies of our God!
If thee, Jerusalem, my heart
E’er ceases to regret,
Let my right hand its tuneful art,
And all its skill forget!
If I forget thee, let my tongue,
Parch’d to my palate cleave!
Yes, if to thee, amid the song,
My sighs forbear to heave.
Remember Edom’s sons, O Lord!
In Sion’s fatal day,
Howling aloud their fell award
Amid th’ unequal fray!
When red with Idumean gore
Fair Olivet was found,
These fanes, they cried, shall rise no more,
Down with them to the ground!
Daughter of Babylon, thy doom,
From God’s avenging hand,
In retribution dread shall come,
And desolate the land.
And blest the man, whom Heav’n ordains
To ’whelm thy boasted towers,
And dash thy infants on the plains,
As thou did’st slaughter ours!
TO
CHARLES SIMPSON, ESQ.
BARRISTER;
WITH THOS. WARTON’S EDITION OF MILTON’S LESSER POEMS, ENRICHED BY THE
EDITOR’S CRITICAL NOTES.
Accept, most worthy of thy studious hours,
This brightest effluence of the critic powers,
Pervading every source whence Milton drew
Dim thoughts of others into radiant view,[28]
Or shaped, and kindled, with Promethean strife,
Their crude, cold images to endless life.
Rival of JOHNSON’S tomes in every glow[29]
That Talent sheds, or Judgment can bestow;
Guiltless of all which stains their specious page,
Envy’s fell blight, and Party’s stormy rage,
More learn’d to trace, more generous to admire,[30]
This pours on Genius Taste’s enlightning fire.
Accept it, SIMPSON, who art skill’d to rove,
With firm unerring step, the classic grove;
And while thou feel’st the poet’s ray divine,
Rejudge the justice of the critic line
Unlike the general eye of owlish sight,
Thou find’st not darkness in excessive light.
O! while this great essay of learned art
Meets thy clear judgment, charms thy liberal heart,
Still may the donor thy kind friendship claim,
Than gold more welcome, and more wish’d than fame!
TO
MAJOR ROOKE OF MANSFIELD,
ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS DIURNAL REGISTER OF THE WINDS FOR THE TWO LAST
YEARS.
OCTOBER, 1796.
No gale unlucky may thy fortunes find,
Benign historian of the wayward wind!
But, when it rises with proverbial sway,
O! may it cast all fickleness away
On grateful wings, from blight, and tempest free,
Blow only good, from every point, to thee!
TO
CH. CLARKE, ESQ.
ON HIS REQUEST TO OBTAIN THE AUTHOR’S SIGNATURE WRITTEN WITH HER OWN
HAND.
(IMPROMPTU.)
Our self-inscrib’d name, as the scroll were a treasure,
When strangers request, in their fanciful pleasure,
It flatters the hope that our bark may be scudding
From this corporal climate of beef and of pudding,
To the high shrine of Fame, where posterity know men,
And we deem such request a right prosperous omen.
But gales inauspicious oft blow from that region,
And for one who attains it they blow back a legion;
Then in spite of CLARK’S wish, and his brother’s kind record,[31]
Whose rays from that shrine my pale streamers have checker’d,
Its winds will too probably soon blow from leeward,
And sink in oblivion’s cold waves ANNA SEWARD.
A
WARNING EXHORTATION.
Celia, I read thy melting eye;
Thy check’d, yet stealing sighs I hear;
See from thy cheek the roses fly,
Or doubly glow when FLORIO’S near.
Ah! not from his seducing glance
Too rashly drink the nectar’d bane!
Avoid him in the graceful dance,
Nor listen to his warbled strain!
It helps not, it avails not there,
Thy beauty’s rising power to charm;
That his stung senses own thee fair
Is but thy too triumphant harm.
Ne’er to the sacred, marriage shrine
Thee shall the haughty FLORIO lead;
O lost, if still that heart of thine,
On latent, hopeless wishes feed!
Long shall thy love-lit eyes be dim
If soon thou art not bravely free;
The dart will not be barb’d for him,
Which surely shall be barb’d for thee.
Amid the busy scenes of life
Proud FLORIO shall thy image lose,
Forgotten in Ambition’s strife,
Eclipsed by Grandeur’s dazzling views;
While thou, supine, in lonely shades,
Shalt pale and sullen willows weave,
Swelling the list of hapless maids,
Who sigh disdain’d, neglected grieve.
O then, in time, from future woes
A shield in resolution seek,
And twine no more the thorny rose
’Mid chains thy juster pride should break!
Now, while thou may’st, the bliss dissolve,
That lightens but with transient ray!
Since clouds are gathering, to involve
This shining, faithless, April day.
TO
HUMPHRY REPTON, ESQ.
ON BEING PRESENTED BY HIM WITH HIS LANDSCAPE OF
STOWE-VALLEY.[32]
Ingenious REPTON, from thy pencil warm,
Shines this loved scene, with more than scenic charm;
Since each soft feature, by th’ associate powers,
Of youth and love and friendship’s blissful hours,
Brings back, thro’ every season, as it veers,
Some striking image of the vanish’d years;
Whether the months of bloom, and light, and love,
With silver blossoms curtain yonder grove;
With golden king-cups bid the mead be gay,
And all the lake in molten glass inlay;
Or when less genial mornings of the spring,
Chill’d by retreating Winter’s icy wing,
The darkling waters with their gusts assail,
And curl the mists along the rainy vale.
Dear is that vale, when Summer’s sultry days
In one white, dazzling, circumambient blaze,
Shadeless, excessive, all distinctness hide,
Straining the visual rays, that scarce divide
The circling hills, blue lake, and mossy tower,
The hedge-row motionless, the silent bower;
While shrink mute birds, where central branches spread,
And lowing mothers hang the heavy head,
Wade in the sedgy brook that sluggish flows,
Or crowd beneath the alder’s dusky boughs.
Dear, when the amber noon of autumn gilds
The flame-tipt umbrage, and the level fields;
Dear, e’en tho’ sullen wintry clouds impend,
And showers of leaves, in eddying winds, descend;
While the mild auburn nymph, that crowns the year,
Mourns her swoln waters, and her forests sear;
To Fancy’s eye her exile seems to wail,
And, down the little, desolated vale,
To press, with lingering step, as one that grieves,
Its white, shrunk petals, and its rustling leaves.
When o’er the livid lake, and grey waste fields
His blasting rod the stormy despot wields;
And thro’ the rifled grove, in wild career,
Howls the loud knell of the expiring year,
Yet loved the scene:--And now, when tempests roar,
Thick snows descend, and ice incrusts the shore,
On its changed face no more my eye shall dwell,
No fruitless sighs ’gainst Nature’s laws rebel;
But be it mine the glowing hearth to pile,
And woo the mild Penates’ lively smile![33]
Thus, while ascending fires, with influence bright,
Deride the sickly sun and howling night,
In as disarming power thy tints shall foil
The year’s grim tyrant, yelling o’er his spoil,
Charm’d, since the consecrated vale I see
In one eternal Summer cloth’d by thee.
PHILIPPIC
ON A MODERN EPIC.