as forming new poetic ground, by admitting a construction of the
emblematic signs, as relative to our planet, the Earth.--Hence the
following Poem.
THE
TERRESTRIAL YEAR,
ON HER PROGRESS THRO’ THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.
JANUARY IN ARIES.
Close to her ram cold January clings,
And on his beard her pearly ice-drop flings;
Awakes the shivering Year, yet young, to rise,
Tho’ wild winds whistle thro’ the iron skies.
FEBRUARY IN TAURUS.
Like fair Europa, February stands,
And wreathes her bull’s stout neck with floral bands.
Spurning the frozen circle, loud he roars,
And scorns her snowy and her golden flowers.
Pleas’d, yet with pensive smile, the dubious Year
Welcomes that primal tribute to her sphere.
MARCH IN GEMINI.
March o’er the twins her stormy wing expands,
And fills with violets sweet their infant hands;
They sooth the Year, on her tempestuous way,
Spite of her bleak blue cheek, and kirtle grey.
APRIL IN CANCER.
Young April laughs to see her Crab recede,
Then wets with peevish tears the glistering mead;
Soon, cheer’d again, on high her bow she bends;
On the moist grass one lucid horn descends.
With joy as wayward, she salutes the year,
Placing a crystal crown upon her hair;
With flowers and watry sun-beams wreathes it round,
Then strikes it soil’d and darken’d, to the ground.
Patient our timid Traveller deplores
The wild caprice of April’s veering hours;
Now, ’mid soft gales, throws back her wintry vest,
Now, in the rude storm, folds it o’er her breast;
Turns the soft eye of Hope on lively May,
Serene of smile, nor smiling to betray.
MAY IN LEO.
May, like celestial Una, mild and fair,
Her Lion leads thro’ roseate climes of air;
In chains of hyacinth content to stray,
He neither roars, nor rages on his way.
The blue-ey’d month her gladden’d Mistress greets,
And calls the vales to yield their bosom’d sweets;
Bids morning clouds with orient tinges glow,
Each clear brook warble, and each zephyr blow;
Each silver’d hedge, each arbour, newly blown,
And blossom’d fruit-tree, smile upon the sun;
From their green centre, while the plumy throng
Pour the wild music of the woodland song.
JUNE IN VIRGO.
June meets the Virgin with triumphant air,
Each the gay handmaid of the passing Year;
Charm’d they survey her, ’mid the zephyrs bland,
Bright and consummate, on the zenith stand.
She views on earth’s warm fields, the rustics blithe,
Sweep thro’ the shivering grass the gleamy scythe;
Stout maids th’ exhaling treasure shake around,
And ringing wains, yet empty, beat the ground.
Now heap’d, thro’ lanes, she sees them nodding slow,
Scattering their fragrant litter as they go.
So pass the hours of long-protracted light
Till glimmering falls the scarcely curtain’d night.
JULY IN LIBRA.
And now the Year, first with descending pace,
Slow down the Zodiac comes with smiling grace.
July the yet unfaded beauty hails,
And weighs her various gifts in golden scales.
Luxuriant roses his moist temples shield
From beams that smite the hill, and parch the field;
Thro’ the hush’d grove the lazy breezes sigh,
And half the river’s pebbly bed is dry.
AUGUST IN SCORPIO.
The glowing Year glides on, and to her clime
Lo! zoneless August gives the golden time!
Threads, indolent of step, th’ etherial bound,
And hears beneath the reaper’s shout resound;
Observes bright sheaves, like troops of dancers, stand
On hills, and laughing fields, and crown the land;
Sees full fruits redden in the sultry ray,
Peer thro’ the leaves, and bend the loaded spray.
She bids her Scorpion hear the reapers sing,
Sheath the fierce claw, nor dart the venom’d sting;
But, from the waning dog-star, oft he sheds
On stagnant pools, thick groves, and arid meads,
The deadly virus, whence disease prevails,
Steams from the loitering floods, and breathless dales.
With plenty cloy’d the swart Month saunters on,
And of the Sirian influence fearful grown,
Scarce marks her mistress’ path descending slope,
And leaves obeisance to the months of hope.
SEPTEMBER IN SAGITARIUS.
With looks that speak an apprehensive heart,
The Year perceives her summer joys depart,
Tho’ mild September by her archer stands,
Bearing his arrows in her gentle hands;
Or decks with wheaten ears her bended bow,
While horn and hound the welkin rend below.
OCTOBER IN CAPRICORN.
Now tann’d October and his Goat, appear,
And down the Zodiac lead the faded Year.
Her pensive eyes his dusky hand behold
Paint with fleck’d purple and with tarnish’d gold
His rustling leaves, ere yet they drop, or sail,
Slow circling, on the damp and mournful gale.
NOVEMBER IN AQUARIUS.
November, entering, bids Aquarius bear
His winds, and weltering rains thro’ gloomy air;
Chill, with dense fogs, the cheerless, tardy morn,
Wrap soon-invading night in pall forlorn,
And till December, and his train appear,
Pour the loud urn on the expiring Year.
DECEMBER IN PISCES.
He comes!--his deadly signals round her rise,
The naked branches, and the sunless skies;
Holds in his livid hands, a scaly pair,
Voiceless and dull, the types of her despair.
’Mid snows, that shroud the hard and ridgy land,
Stern, by his side, see blasting Silence stand;
Stretch widely her petrific wand, of force
To arrest the floods upon their eddying course!--
The Year beholds, and with the last dismay,
Her wither’d honours, and exhausted sway.
Mute all her streams!--no sound,--no motion cheers,
Each naked forest stands a pile of spears!
And now, amid the wreck of all she gave,
Shuddering she sinks in the oblivious grave.
INSCRIBED
ON THE BACK OF A LANDSCAPE, DRAWN BY THE
REV. WILLIAM BREE
OF COLESHILL, IN WARWICKSHIRE.
Here, from the hand of Genius, meets your eye
The tangled foliage of a shadowy dell;
Meets it in Nature’s truth;--and see, the brook
Thro’ yon wild thicket work its way oblique,
Hurrying and dashing thro’ the lonely wood!
INSCRIBED
ON THE
BACK OF THE COMPANION LANDSCAPE.
From the same vivid pencil, now appear
The social comforts;--Love them, as they rise
On the soft confines of a scene sublime!
Look up the right-hand glade; it surely leads
To the embosom’d village. Snowy white
The raiment see, which cleanliness prepares
Against the Sabbath morn. The good old horse,
Mark him, he drags, with weary neck, the cart
Bearing to yonder mill the bags, well fill’d
With life’s best nutriment. The mill-house mark,
Standing on the steep verge of the same brook,
Which late we saw laborious work its way
Over rough stones, and crags, and roots of trees,
Roaming the wood-wild solitude;--but now
Bright it emerges to the haunts of men,
To light, to usefulness.--Observe the mill
Dash the white waters from its clattering wheel!
Hark! thro’ the eye we hear it.--Cheering din,
Thou break’st the mountain-silence merrily!
INSCRIBED
ON THE BACK OF A LANDSCAPE, COPIED FROM GLOVER,
BY MISS FLEMING OF LICHFIELD.
It is a golden view, the sunny glow
Sleeps on the water!--Of unnumber’d tints
Gorgeous, this bordering wood, with its proud oak,
That lords it on the bank, have now put on
The burnish’d livery of receding suns,
Ere yet their fires grow pale. Pure, glassy stream,
The forest, skirting to thine utmost edge,
Curtains thee amply; while the far-off hill
Lifts its grey, barren summit, faintly gleam’d.
Look on the herd, how leisurely they pace,
In social line, the narrow, bloomy lane
Descending to the flood! Do you not see
A luxury of quiet in their step,
Congenial to the landscape?--farther on,
In yonder little goats?--how calm they sit
Close to the brink, and with declining head
Muse on their watry image!--Then the boy,
Heedfully following the full-udder’d train
On his staid horse! while up the left-hand glade
Streams the rich setting sun, and on his back
And shoulders warmly plays. No child, I ween,
Of fancy he; for sure his sober eye
Marks little of the beauty he beholds;
Yet we perceive a measureless content
Sit on his sun-burnt cheek. Dale, to thy charms
Pays or the poet’s or the painter’s mind
A better homage?--’Tis a right good boy;
He loves the brutes he follows;--they love him,
And we will say he earns his supper well.
ADDRESS
TO THE
RIVER IN A LANDSCAPE,
BEAUTIFULLY DRAWN BY THE REV. WILLIAM BREE, AND IN
THE POSSESSION OF THE REV. HENRY WHITE
OF LICHFIELD.
After a lonely course thro’ yon deep woods,
And the green quietness of distant vales,
Now, gentle River, to the haunts of men
The rude, stone arches, stretching o’er thy flood,
Note thine approach;--and, as with silent course,
Thou glidest under them, the staid old cow
And lumpish horse above, are driven a-field
By time-worn herdsman. Then, in swifter course,
Thy lately tranquil streams, jocund and loud,
Rush down the wier.--Again, soon calm’d, they flow,
And the young day shines on their glassy train.
So dost thou wander by the pleasant base
Of a clean village, climbing up the steep
And shrubby knoll; while, bosom’d in thick trees,
The church the hill-top crowns.--The day is young;
Clos’d yonder cottage door; the din and hum
Of clamorous infants and laborious man,
Unheard as yet; tho’ from the chimney-tops
The grey smoke, rising to the church-yard trees,
Curls its light vapours round the boughs, and gives
Promise of morning-meal.--Behold the cart,
That late, well loaded, on thy pebbled bank
Had creak’d and crept, at the yet silent mill
Stopt; those kind stores resigning, which shall soon
Employ thy loit’ring waters, and awake
The clattering hubbub of the busy scene.
Adown those rocky stairs, which to thy brink
Lead from the hamlet cots, ere while shall step,
With cleanly pail, light rocking on her head,
The rustic maid, new risen; for she has seen
Thro’ lattice, curtain’d by the briar-rose,
Her cow, slow pacing up thy left-hand bank,
Intelligent of hour; the burden rich
Duteous to yield;--and, yet more welcome, sees,
Not far behind, the youth belov’d, from cops’d
And hay-stack’d tenement, down in the vale.
Yes, and thou soon shalt hear the tender vows
Of true love breath’d; and breath’d in sweeter sound
Than song of linnet, or the quiet tune
Of thine own stream, when hush’d are all the woods.
Mark that clos’d door, for it shall ope ere long;
It is the good Dame’s school;--and in shall creep,
Like bees in spring-time to their dusky hive,
The little troop, and in resembling hum
Mutter the morning task;--but when yon tower
Shall tell, far heard, the welcome tale of noon,
Some striding, and some tumbling o’er the sill,
The infant-tribe releas’d, with clamour loud,
Shall totter down, and on thy shelving bank
Shout, laugh, and squabble, strenuous while they hurl
The frequent stone, dividing thy smooth waves.
But on the morrow Sabbath-bells shall ring,
And ’twixt the matin and the vesper hour,
And at the rosy setting of the sun,
That little, lawless multitude, which late,
Noisy and wild, had clamour’d on thy brink,
In Sunday vestment, and with sober gait,
Walk by their parent’s side, while from each hand
The varied posies, dappled pink and rose,
Woodbine, and fragrant southernwood and thyme,
Scent the wide air. Leisure and quietness,
Apparel clean, and vacant looks, all speak
The sacred day of rest; and thou shalt bear,
From that wood-mantled tower, the holy chimes,
Silver’d and mellow’d on thy liquid course,
To neighbouring farm, or cottage. There we trust
Right welcome is the sound; more welcome still
The Pastor’s voice persuasive, when he speaks
Of hopes eternal. Charitable deeds
Shedding a daily beauty on his life
That makes his doctrines saintly; while combin’d
They form a picture, delicate of trait,
Soft as the scene now mirror’d in thy breast;
While the soft scene, and thou, its mirror clear,
Are all the sweet creation of his hand
Whose touch is genius, and whose life is love.[149]
TO
MISS HONORA SMITH of LICHFIELD.[150]
WRITTEN JUNE 1800.
Screen’d, dear HONORA, by that icy veil
Of virgin modesty, incessant worn,
What playful wit, what plastic genius dwell
Coy glancing sun-beams of thy April morn!
Whate’er thy untaught harmonies impart
From volant fingers to the answering wires;
Or when thy slow strains melt upon the heart,
Sweeping each varying chord, as taste inspires,
At the creative wonders of thy hand
Rapt sons of Science in amazement start,
Listening the strains, that brilliant, soft, or grand,
Rise at thy touch, and smile on baffled art.
And when thy sportive fancies steal abroad,
So wild, so new, grotesque, and strange they show,
Not less we wonder at their cold abode,
Such roses bursting from their sheet of snow!
When filial love, by many a melting tear,
Dropt on thy mother’s breast, its force proclaims,
Surprised we see an ardent heart appear,
A little Hecla pouring forth its flames.
Expanding, strength’ning, may thy mind retain
Its powers, its worth, its latent fires thro’ life!
Priceless the blessing then which they shall gain;
Who hail thee sister, daughter, friend, or wife.
ADMONITION
TO
ROSILDA.
Florio the wild, the frolic, and the loud,
Of curb impatient and of outrage proud;
Skill’d on the turf, familiar in the stews,
Whose lawless senses not a vice refuse,
But young and titled, amorous and gay,
Deigns at thy feet his nuptial wreath to lay,
Admir’d ROSILDA!--ah, in time beware,
Trust not thy peace to the resplendent snare,
Nor from that man of errors hope to prove
The faith and tenderness of wedded love!
Thy fond attention, thy unswerving truth,
Thy beauties, given in such a morn of youth,
As fairly promises their rising sway
A brighter noon and long-enduring day,
While each auxiliar elegance combines,
The wit that sparkles, and the sense that shines.
These rare endowments!--ah, they all are vain,
Habitual vices boast a stronger chain!
Inured to change, change only can impart
Exhaustless transport to the sensual heart.
Blow not the bubble hope, that peerless charms
May bind the wedded wanderer to thine arms,
When soft attractions in a stranger face,
The wanton glance, the gay, voluptuous grace,
Venal, or libertine, his faith invade
Who asks not virtue’s or religion’s aid!
As soon expect, on yonder grassy height
The new-fall’n drifts of April’s winter’d night
Lasting should prove, as when on Jura’s side,[151]
Their pure expanse may Summer suns deride!
Lo! on our humbler mountains dawns the day,
And the warm south-wind meets him on his way;
Wide o’er their fleecy tops the sun shall glow,
And where is then their dissoluble snow?
A MARINE VIEW MORALIZED
ADDRESSED TO MISS ANNE LLOYD OF DERBY.[152]
In tender light, and softly shadow’d round,
Spreads yon smooth bay, with tall and lesser tower;
The distant land, by domes and turrets crown’d,
Gleams, yet almost eludes the visual power.
That slender pinnace, with its folded sails,
Seems o’er the glassy flood to glide serene,
Heedless of altering skies, tempestuous gales,
And future dread convulsions of the scene.
Now let us moralize this pencil’d page;
Perchance, dear maid, it shall admonish thee;
Its traits may oft thy serious thoughts engage,
The towers prove mystic, typical the sea!
View’d as life’s sea the calm and flattering wave;
As Truth and Wisdom’s strength the ampler tower,[153]
Whose fires from wreck may human vessels save
When Fate or Passion’s whelming billows roar.
Should, from yon lesser tower, the lamp of love
Fling o’er the veering deep its roseate ray,
Tho’ not like those, the guardian fires, that prove
Quenchless by storms, rage madly as they may,
Yet, if with tender HERO’S watchful care[154]
Thou striv’st to shield it from tempestuous breath,
May no congenial sorrow prompt thy tear,
Nor hovering danger, nor untimely death!
And be those far-off palaces and fanes
A prosperous city, whence thy bark may bear
Wealth, that used wisely, peace of mind obtains.
Wealth, that pale indigence may smiling share!
Then while, amid the rocks and shoals of time,
The frail love-lighted lamp may gild thy way,
From Wisdom’s tower her fires shall stream sublime,
And mark thy course to Realms of Nightless Day.
TO
CLARISSA.
Sweet maid, who culturest in thy vernal prime
Those plants that flourish ’mid the frosts of time,
Long, with assiduous care, proceed to store
A portion rich of wisdom’s varied lore,
Borne from thy native England’s classic fane,
Th’ historian’s record and the poet’s strain;
The moral pages, tracing to their source
Each subtle passion on its erring course,
And those blest leaves, which can their force controul,
The sacred tome, that anchor of the soul!
Thus when no more exterior blossoms rise,
Nor love’s gay torch shall kindle from those eyes,
The fruits of knowledge, and its lights, will shame
The fading florets, and th’ uncertain flame;
Attention, tenderness, respect ensure,
Which given to merit, shall thro’ life endure.
A FAREWELL
TO THE SEAT OF LADY ELEANOR BUTLER, AND MISS PONSONBY, IN LLANGOLLEN
VALE, DENBIGHSHIRE.
SEPTEMBER, 1802.
O Cambrian Tempe! oft with transport hail’d,
I leave thee now, as I did ever leave
Thee, and thy peerless mistresses, with heart
Where lively gratitude and fond regret
For mastery strive, and still the mastery gain
Alternate. Oft renew’d must be the strife
When, far from this loved region, and from all
That now its ancient witchery revives;[155]
Revives, with spells more potent erst than knew
Your white-rob’d Druids on their Deva’s bank
Aweful to frame; when the loud mystic song,
And louder clang of their unnumber’d harps,
Drown’d e’en the river’s thunder, where she throws
All, all her waters in one rocky chasm,
Narrow, but fathomless, and goads them on
Roaring and foaming, while Llangollen’s steeps
Rebellow to the noise. Ye, who now frame
Your talismans resistless, O! receive,
Ye mild Enchantresses, my warm adieu!
Time, that for me hath pass’d full many a year
On broad and withering pinion, may have quench’d
By the rude wafture of his dusky wing,
Fancy’s clear fires;--Enthusiasm may waste
In her own fruitless energies, and pine,
Vainly may pine for the exhausted powers
Of bankrupt language, bankrupt of the skill
To please, with varied praise, the taste made coy
By riot of encomium; but yet
The benediction of increasing love,
Bless’d pair, receive with no ungracious ear!
When first your Eden in this hallow’d vale
Stole on these eyes; its solemn graces first
Imprest my senses, pliant to their wish,
The muse of landscape came, and to my hand
Her pallet, glowing in ideal hues,
With smiles extended. Straight my doubtful pen
Eager I dipt, and, not unfaithful, rose
Some features of the scene. Yet, even then,
In Friendship’s primal hours, my soul perceiv’d
Feelings, that more defied expression’s power
To speak them truly, than to paint the charms
Of those distinguish’d bowers;--their mountains vast,
Here pale and barren, and there dark with woods;
Yon mural rocks, whose surface still defies
All change of seasons, though they deign to yield,
At intervals, their grey and wannish hue
Purpling to orient suns, and catching oft
The occidental amber; sylvan glades,
Bright fields, and shadowy lawn, whose concave bound
No beam of noon can pierce. Far to the left,
Beyond those walks which the tall branching trees
O’er-arching, darken; past the sunny field
On whose warm breast they open, lo! the shed
On mossy pillars propt, and its screen’d seat
Beneath its slant, thatch’d roof: Ah! pause we there,
For there we wander to the latest verge
Of a lone clamouring brook, which down its slop’d
And craggy channel struggles; for the stones,
Pointed and huge, ceaseless impede and vex
Its passage to the base of the rude mound
That rises opposite this shelter’d seat,
And instant rises. Dark the mound and rude,
But not inflexible. Its rocky steep
No longer spurns, as it had often spurn’d,
The mountain shrubs and trees, when infant roots,
O’er balanced by exterior boughs, possest
No strength to penetrate that rocky steep,
And wind its darkling fissures; till at length,
Art, with unwearied hand, had form’d a shield
Against the brook, that undermines when calm,
When violent, tears; ’gainst the repellant cliff,
And force it to receive in its rude breast
Each stranger-scion;--so, with lucky skill,
The guardian sisters wove their net-work firm
With tough, yet pliant withy, from the base
To flood-mark rising; upright and transverse
Bars, crossing each the other, forming each
Their vacant inch dividual. Therefore now
Nor waters mine the root, nor tear the branch;
Nor cliff, so late impenetrable, checks
Th’ insinuating fibres on their course,
Their thousand arms diverging far and wide,
And to the centre piercing; while the boughs
Bend their green heads o’er the chaf’d brawling stream,
Around the huge stones eddying; fearless now,
Conscious of deep-struck root, e’en when thick rain,
Heavy and loud, has, ’mid the tempest’s roar,
Fall’n vertical; and when the madden’d brook
No longer meets from tranquil human eye
The gaze contemplative. Appall’d we shrink
From the tumultuous flood, that tumbles down
Fearfully deep, and often hurling up
The yeasty billow, while the tide below
Thunders and groans. Remorseless in its rage,
But quickly spent, while under calmer skies,
Or ’mid the balmy drop of quiet rain,
Shallow it rushes, and innoxious raves.
Innoxious, said I? Pardon, clamorous brook!
Thy general course, rage madly as thou may,
Beneath a storm’d horizon, kind is found
And ministrant to man, for pass we yet
A little way along thy turfy bank,
And we shall view, well pleased, thy useful waves
Leap o’er a clattering mill-wheel, high above
In the brook’s hilly channel, ’mid whose brakes,
Thick and entangled, gleams the snowy foam.
See, higher yet on the still rising slope,
Another hub-bub tenement obtains
Ability from this oft violent stream
To yield the first, best nutriment we gain.
Haste to the scene, benignant powers of life,
Mild Lachesis, and gay Hygeia, haste,
From day to day propitious!--on that bank,
Mossy and canopied with gadding boughs,
Spin firm the vital thread! and brim the cup
With juice salubrious! breathing soft, the while,
Dear Eleanora, and her Zara’s name.
CONSOLATION,
ADDRESSED TO MR THOS. H----D, APRIL 1801,
WITH A POCKET-BOOK.
Accept this tribute, H----d, as the pledge
Of my assured conviction that thy trust
Ne’er had been stain’d by those imputed faults
Which hurl’d thee from thy station, where yon towers,
Gothic and grand, arise, diffusing far
The blessings of their Lord. Where still subsists
State, by swoln pride unstain’d; home-residence,
Munificence, with ever-open gate;
Ready supply to want; protection kind,
As Chieftains to their clans in olden time
When tenantry was filial. Haply now,
V----, in thy domain is found, exempt
From feudal vassalage, each feudal good.