Thy dear blue eyes, thy flaxen hair.
In this soft tint sweet violets glow,
In this the early harebells blow;
From their young hours stern Winter flies,
And shines the sun in sapphire skies.
Blue o’er smooth seas the halcyons skim;
Minerva’s eyes in azure swim;
In plain cerulean Luna stands,
When mild she looks on seas and lands.
If sturdy Whigs desire to see
The stubborn nymph, proud Liberty,
The supple Tory looks askew,
And crowns his forehead with true blue.
Hope from the prism this colour chose,
And blue her robe redundant flows.
So, in the tissue of thy fate,
This tint, so gay and fortunate,
All prevalent, dear child, be seen
To chase the pale forsaken green,
The yellow tinge of jealousy,
And every dim and dismal dye!
And may this hue of summer skies,
Of Wisdom’s fair, enlight’ning eyes,
Of vernal harebell’s modest bloom,
Of sea-born halcyon’s little plume,
Of Tory ribands, Luna’s plain,
The vest of Hope, the violet’s stain,
Still prove for thee, as years increase,
Emblem of innocence and peace.
INSCRIBED
ON THE BLANK LEAVES OF THE POEM
MADOC.
Reader, if instant thy soul-lighted eyes
Perceive the claims of Genius as they rise,
Welcome this noblest effort of the Nine,
To deck with epic wreath their English shrine,
Since here they rose, to emulate, at length,
The Mantuan sweetness, the Meonian strength,
And our green vales and silver shores along,
Pour’d Eden’s grand, imperishable song.
Again, in all their pomp, they strike the lyre,
Rapid, and glowing with primeval fire;
And in the Cambrian’s lofty story twine
Each human interest with each grace divine
Of rapt Imagination, when she soars
From common talents flat and glimmering shores,
Her lamp t’ illumine at that orbit prime,
Whose fires are quenchless by the floods of time.
Thus, for the glory of the nineteenth age,
The Epic Muse awakes her sacred rage;
In no false ornaments her numbers shine,--
The diamonds sparkle genuine from the mine.
What harmonies our captive ear engage!
What living landscapes glow on every page!
What characters, in Nature’s force display’d,
With coy Discrimination’s subtlest aid,
In Cimbric regions, and on Indian shores,
Call to the Epic verse the Drama’s powers!
O! mark, the thoughts with truth and virtue beam,
Shewing what God shall judge, and Christ redeem;
The asbestos robe which the chaste style arrays,[185]
Impassive shield from Envy’s lurid blaze;
Where simple, nervous as in early time,
Where plaintive, touching, and where rais’d, sublime.
If thou rememberest through how many a year
Deaf as the grave was found the general ear
To Verse, whose fame is now the nation’s cause,[186]
With scarce one voice appellant from her laws;
How long the owlish orb of general sight
Found mist and darkness in excessive light;
If conscious of each grandeur and each grace,
The Poet’s sun-track thy clear vision trace;
If thy heart throb to see thy native land
Once more the Muse’s eminence command;
And if thy spirit, o’er such glorious lays,
Wait not for tardy precedents in praise,--
Then, generous Reader, then, for MADOC claim,
With voice anticipant, the palm of Fame;
And on each leaf, in patriot pride, descry
The bursting germs of immortality!
Such minds, where never Envy’s cloud appears,
View MADOC buoyant on the tide of years,
Float, like the song, which left the mortal maze
For scenes “where angels tremble while they gaze,”
And, touch’d alike by Genius’ solar ray,
Vanquish Oblivion, and maintain the day!
TO
F. N. C. MUNDY, ESQ.
ON HIS POEM,
THE FALL OF NEEDWOOD FOREST.
Poet of Needwood, much my heart approves
This thy owed duty to his ravaged groves,
The lost! the lovely!--who, in better days,
View’d their each grace reflected in thy lays:[187]
And O! when many a future age has pass’d,
Rolling oblivious o’er his nameless waste,
Its some-time beauties shall again revive,
And in thy pictured strains for ever live.
Come, pensive list’ning, ye once jocund throng,
Whilome that roved those Forest Haunts along!
Explored, with pleasure bright’ning in your air,
Each coy, green labyrinth, and each turfy lair,
Still, as in prime of youth, the wanton Spring
Expanded to the sun her showery wing,
And cliffs, illustrious in their golden bloom,
Rose o’er the glades of light-besprinkled gloom.
Nor absent ye, when Summer’s fervid hours
Dropt more luxuriant curtains on the bowers,
And the vast oak’s writhed arms, of dusky green,
Shadow’d the dappled tenants of the scene;
With rival elm, whose mossy trunk appears
Out-numbering far the lonely eagle’s years.
Nor when the months consummate left their vales
To suns less ardent, less benignant gales,
And Autumn painted, with his tawny hand,
The shrinking foliage; and, in colours bland,
Streak’d the pale red with purple, faint and brief,
And tipt with tarnish’d gold each trembling leaf.
Nor e’en when Phœbus’ steeds, no longer fleet,
With mane dishevell’d, streaming to their feet,
Struggling through clouds, th’ hybernal solstice gain,
Their necks bedropt with globes of freezing rain,
And the loud tyrant of the dying year
Stript other groves, made other forests sear;
For Needwood to his sway disdain’d to yield,
His polish’d umbrage an unfailing shield,
Those numerous hollies on his breast and brow,
That thrust their scarlet clusters through the snow,
Or spread their glossy leaves to transient rays,
The rebel glory of the icy days.
Nor if, ere yet arisen, dim Morning heard
Your light-heel’d coursers paw the dewy sward,
When the sly prowler stole adown the wind,
And hoped he left no tell-tale scent behind.
Vain hope! your swift staunch hounds the scent began;
To right and left their hurrying numbers ran,
Till found the taint, in streaming files they hie,
And in one shrill, continuous clamouring cry,
To which th’ accordant forest joyous rings,
Hang on his rear while o’er the vale he springs;
Dash through the rhymy glades, and round the hills,
As when, receiving tribute brooks and rills,
O’er flinty bed a river foams and roars,
Loud and impatient of meandering shores,
Or, deepen’d, shews the Sun his mirror’d face,
Or zones with silver light the mountain’s base.
Now, come with MUNDY, where the ruin lowers,
He hymns the dirge of the devasted bowers!
Echo his wailing o’er their fallen state,
Whom centuries hail’d irregularly great!
Come, execrate the edict that destroy’d,
Leaving time-hallow’d Needwood bare and void!
There fell Imagination’s rural fane!
Thence fled fair-shafted Dian’s votive train;
All which the bard entranced in forest sees,
Satyrs and Fauns, and leaf-crown’d Dryades![188]
They fled, when Avarice, with rapacious frown,
From Mercia’s temples struck her sylvan crown.
Yet, gentle Minstrel, they whose raptured ears
Drank thy sweet song in the departed years,
Saw oaken wreaths thy auburn brows entwine,
The well-won meed at Needwood’s shadowy shrine,
Shall find thy Gratulation’s vivid glow
Match’d by the Requiem, in its mournful flow;
The orb of MUNDY’S muse-illumined day
Setting with rival, though with milder ray;
Pleased, shall compare the evening with the noon,
And feel, in equal power, the Cypress garland won.
TO
REMEMBRANCE.
Remembrance, while thy precious beam
Shines beauteous on my early life,
How kind a refuge dost thou seem
From worn Existence’ present dream,
Her weariness, her doubts and strife!
Dim are the mists that Time has thrown
On years which fled so fast away;
But, in thy humid lustre gone,
They leave those years, for ever flown,
To rise all lovely in thy ray.
When June’s red dawn had streak’d the plains,
And bade the kindling Orient throw
Her blushes on these Choral Fanes,
They shone, in her slant rosy stains,
Fairer than in the noontide glow.
Then with what fond delight I hail’d
The dawn, which must those eyes unclose
That o’er my destiny prevail’d,
Each joy increas’d, each grief repell’d,
Which in my youthful bosom rose!
E’en to exist was ecstacy,
To feel the sun, to breathe the gale;
Charm’d to expect, to hear, to see
Friends, whose dear smiles were more to me
Than all Peruvian mountains veil!
More rosy than the morn of June
Those happy days, now far removed;
And sweeter than the linnet’s tune,
That gaily choir’d its liquid sun,
The accents of the lips I loved!
But Earth, deprived, no longer seems
In fair ideal light to glow;
Pale as the ice-incrusted streams
Beneath the cold moon’s trembling gleams,
The brightest scene she now can show.
E’en tho’ the gay consummate year
Reveal, in her luxuriant pride,
All that her gorgeous livery wear,
Hills, dales, and woods, reflected fair,
In lake and river’s glassy tide.
Low in the chambers of the grave
Stretch’d are those forms, in iron sleep,
Who to these scenes their magic gave;
Whom vows, nor tears, nor prayers could save,
All, all I loved, and all I weep!
Where, Lichfield, the unrivall’d sway
Brave ANDRE once assign’d to thee?[189]
He bade thee thy spired head display
Amid thy vales, and proudly say,--
I am, and there is none but me!
Enchantress, broken is thy spell,
Snapt thy charm’d wand, eclips’d thy star;
And to the dark and narrow cell
The Spirit points, here wont to dwell,
And spread his purple beams afar.
Yes, the fair Spirit of delight,
So long who made these bowers his home!
Now sad he folds his pinions bright,
And, pondering the sepulchral blight,
Sits mute and sorrowing on the tomb;
Griev’d while I rove each well-known street,
And, with faint step, the fields explore;
Lost, lost the vital hope to greet
The friends, whom there I used to meet,
And whom, alas! I meet no more.
No more, HONORA, shall I see
Thy speaking eyes, that cheer’d my soul!
SAVILLE, the gates of harmony
Eternally were closed to me,
When thou didst pass the Mortal Goal!
No due return of months and years
Shall bring you, ever-loved, again;
Mine are feign’d smiles and genuine tears,
The darken’d hopes, the torpid fears,
And all Privation’s lonely pain.
Yet O! since Death’s avoidless hour,
Remembrance! may extinguish thee,
Beyond the grave disarm thy power
Terrestrial blessings to restore,
Which shone the mind’s soft sun to me.
Lest that should be, with all its gloom,
Life will I cherish to the last,
And grateful for its day of bloom,
Turn from the shadow of the tomb,
To muse and to recall the past.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This poem was written August 1788, on a journey through Derbyshire,
to a music-meeting at Sheffield. The author’s father was then Rector
of EYAM, an extensive village, that runs along a mountainous terrace,
in one of the highest parts of the Peak. She was born there, and there
past the first seven years of her life, and often, in future periods
of her youth and riper years, visited the place with her father, on
several weeks residence. The middle part of the village is built on the
edge of a deep dell, which has very picturesque and beautiful features.
[2] l. 1 _Amber wave_--From the peculiar nature of the clay on the
mountains from which it descends, the river DERWENT has a yellow tint,
that well becomes the dark foliage on its banks, and the foam produced
by a rocky channel.
[3] l. 19 _Now the low beams_--The ancient custom of hanging a garland
of white roses, made of writing paper, and a pair of white gloves, over
the pew of the unmarried villagers, who die in the flower of their
age, is observed to this day in the village of EYAM, and in most other
villages and little towns in the Peak.
[4] These verses were not sent to Mr Cowper, on account of the reported
depression on his spirits, and were during his life-time, for the same
reason, with-held from the press.
[5] l. 1. _I would not enter_, &c.--The line and half, with which this
poem opens, are taken from the TASK. So says its author of those who
feel no pang of conscience for having set their foot upon a noisome
reptile.
[6] l. 22. _Bolt of sarcasm_--See the invidious ridicule of the
Stratford jubilee in the 6th Book of the TASK, a poem whose descriptive
powers are always admirable, and whose morality and piety are often
sublime.
[7] l. 2. _Grudging eyes_--The use of that word here has been objected
to, as too low an expression and unmusical; but surely it had been
unwise to have expunged it, because it may be familiar in the dialect
of our peasantry, since the English vocabulary has no word which would
exactly give its meaning in the two passages where it occurs in this
Remonstrance. Learned men have asserted, that _grudge_ has no precise
synonime in any language. Its harsh sound, where an harsh feeling is to
be expressed, cannot be a just objection. Neither the words _envious_,
or _malignant_, nor yet _unwilling_, or _reluctant_, convey its perfect
meaning. The two first are too strong, the second not strong enough.
Grudge is a word so peculiar in its signification, that it should not
be banished from serious poetry. It stands between unwillingness that
our neighbour should possess a certain good, and hating, or envying him
its possession. Grudge denotes a feeling stronger than reluctance, yet
less bitter than hatred, less vile than envy; and finally, it has been
used by our best writers in their serious strains, as the authorities
in Johnson’s Dictionary prove. If false refinement has rejected any
word, the loss of which cannot with precision be supplied, and which
has no indecent meaning, those who wish rather to write nervously than
nicely, should endeavour, by using it themselves, to recall the exile.
Cowper, in the Task, has the word _grudge_ twice, see book iii. page
119, first edition.
[8] l. 10. _Kindred mind_--Rev. ---- Gastril, who having bought the
premises on which it stood, cut down Shakespear’s mulberry tree,
inhospitably to preclude the request of travellers to pay visits of
poetic veneration to the tree planted by the great poet of England.
[9] l. 15. _In a strain_--Vide 6th Book of the Task.
[10] l. 20.
“Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
“Like bold Briareus with his hundred hands!”
He certainly composed his Oratorios for a band whose complete
number the comparative fewness of musical performers rendered then
unattainable.
[11] l. 10. _Is vice_--The appropriation of those sums to charitable
purposes which were collected at the Handelian commemorations, places
the injustice of Cowper’s sarcasm upon a level with its absurdity,
accusing them, as it does, of a profane and idolatrous tendency.
[12] l. 13. _Beauteous strain_--See latter part of the first book of
the TASK. The episode begins,
But far above the rest, and with most cause
I pity thee.--
[13] l. 2 _Everlasting Light_--When this Remonstrance to Cowper was
written, its author only knew him in his publications. Mr Hayley’s
Biography of that unfortunate man softens, by excited pity, the
indignation which had arisen from the ungenerous passages reprobated
here;--but the delineation of Cowper’s character, and the records of
his life, compared with the illiberal censures which disgrace the
interesting and beautiful pages of the TASK, teach us, more than ever,
to deplore the dire Calvinistic principles, which ruined his peace, and
which could so freeze and narrow a heart, which Nature had made warm
and expansive. They taught him to anathematize for departed genius,
sublimer and more extensive than his own, Shakespear and Handel, that
praise for the magnificent talents they had cultivated, which his
published letters prove him to have been desirous to obtain for his own
poetry. March 1806.
[14] This, and the ensuing version, are not calculated for the admirers
of Ossian. Those who have a true taste for him, in the simple grandeur
of the translation in solemn prose, will think, with the author of this
Miscellany, that the most sonorous rhyme and best constructed measure
cannot improve his poetic charms. But there are people of genius,
who have fervent taste for lyric excellence, that consider poetry,
divested of measure, as bombastic prose. Influenced by that prejudice,
they perceive neither grandeur nor beauty in the awful and striking
imagery of the old Bard. The author of the above paraphrase, convinced
that the songs of Ossian contain poetic matter, potent to elevate and
render beautiful, any mode of composition, here tries the effect of
that, in which Pope has given us a still more ancient Bard than Ossian.
The passages very well bear being detached, and form in themselves a
perfect whole. She thinks the ghosts of CRUGAL, and CUCHULLIN, vie in
sublime and mournful grace with those of PATROCLUS and of HECTOR--with
that of MARGARET in the exquisite ballad, and almost with the SPIRIT,
in the Book of JOB, which passed before the eyes of Eliphaz, amid the
visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men.
[15] Since Dr Salt, of Birmingham.
[16] He died September the 3d, 1790, the week after he had conducted
the Musical Festival, at Birmingham. He sung in the New Church in
that town, “_Thy rebuke hath broken his heart_,” from the MESSIAH,
with great feeling, after he had been treated with cruel disrespect
by a part of his audience the preceding evening, who hissed, on a
mistaken supposition that he was intoxicated, when they saw him so much
oppressed by a song of parental woe, in JEPTHA, that he was unable to
finish it.
[17] It is gratifying to see this tribute of generous eulogy paid to
the memory of a gallant, unfortunate English officer, by a Frenchman,
whose nation was at war with ours, at the period of Major André’s death.
[18] The author put this Ode into verse, December 1790, from the prose
inserted below. In 1797, it appeared, translated by Mr Mason, in his
third volume of poems, then given to the world. His translation,
inverting the order of Harold’s triumphs, produces anti-climax, a
defect from which the original is free. After the boast of defeating a
mighty army, and of having slain their leader, it is bathos to exult in
the feats of riding, rowing, swimming, skating, &c.
[19] “The Scandinavian women were chaste, proud, and tenacious of their
lover’s glory, despising such as spent their life in obscurity. We,
therefore, often find an hero minutely detailing his accomplishments,
and pursuits, to the object of his passion, as in the following Ode of
Harold the Valiant.”--_See Alexander’s History of Women._
[20] l. 1. _Ocean blue_--“One day we were but sixteen in a vessel.
A storm arose, and swelled the sea. It filled the loaded ship, but
we diligently cleared it away. Thence I formed hopes of the happiest
success in love--but a Russian maiden scorns me.
“I know how to perform eight exercises. I dart the lance. I sit firmly
on horseback--I tune the pipe--I lead the dances--I am inured to
swimming--I am skilful at the oar--I know how to run along the ice with
skates--I fight valiantly;--and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.
“I was born in the high country of Norway, where the inhabitants handle
their bows so well, but I preferred guiding my ships amidst the rocks
of the ocean, far from the habitations of men. I have run through all
the seas with my vessels--and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.
“My ships have made the tour of Sicily--we were all magnificent and
splendid. My brown vessel, full of mariners, rapidly rowed to the
utmost extent of my wishes. Wholly taken up with war, I thought my
course would never slacken, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.
“Can she deny that on the great day when, posted near the city, I
joined the battle, and fought against the people of Drontheim? Their
troops trebled ours; it was a dreadful conflict. I valiantly handled my
arms, and left behind me lasting monuments of my exploits. I left the
renowned king of Drontheim breathless on the field, and yet a Russian
maiden scorns me.”
[21] l. 4. _Religion’s lustre_--Mrs H. More established Sunday schools
in her neighbourhood.
[22] See Mason’s quarto edition of Gray’s Poems and Letters, published
1775, page 168.
[23] This attempt is boldly paraphrastic. It appeared to the translator
that Gray must mean more than he has, at least, perspicuously
expressed, when he says, in this latin ode, that “the sublime scenery
round the Chartreuse inspires him with more religious reverence than
the statues of Phidias, adorned with gold.” Strange indeed, if it did
not; since, though such objects may excite admiration of human skill,
they have no obvious tendency to inspire devotion. Surely that was
saying too little for those awful monuments of their Creator’s power,
which inevitably lift the serious and feeling heart to its God. The
above English version ventures to make the poet say what he must have
meant;--that he there more powerfully feels the presence of the Deity,
than amid the pomp of the Romish altars, adorned with pictures, and
statues, steaming with incense, and blazing with gold. The translator
also takes the liberty to add another, and more pious idea to that,
with which Gray’s latin ode somewhat abruptly concludes.
[24] l. 6. _Endless day_--In his edition of his friend’s works Mason
observes, that this latin poem is “marked with some of the finest
touches of Gray’s melancholy muse. The extreme gloom and disgust to
the world, breathed through its stanzas, probably resulted from his
disagreement with Mr Walpole, which occasioned his premature return
to England.” Gray’s letters thus describe the situation of the grand
Chartreuse:--“We proceeded on horses which are used to the way, up
the mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top; the
road winds up it, generally not six feet broad. On one hand, rocks,
with woods of pine-trees hanging over their heads; on the other, a
monstrous precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom of which rolls
a torrent, that sometimes tumbling amongst the fragments of stone,
which have fallen from above, and sometimes precipitating itself down
vast descents, with noise like thunder, which is still increased by
the echoes from the mountains on each side, concurs to form one of
the most awful, the most romantic, the most astonishing scenes I ever
beheld. Add to this, the strange views made by the cliffs and craggs on
the other hand, which in many places throw themselves from the summit
down to the vale, and the river below, and you will conclude we had no
occasion to repent our pains.”
[25] l. 8. _Lov’d Maria’s_--Miss Gresley, then fourteen. Sir Nigel’s
eldest daughter.
[26] l. 12. _Bright Louisa_--Miss Louisa Gresley, Sir Nigel’s sister,
since Mrs William Gresley.
[27] That ingenious and learned gentleman had seen his charming Poem
absurdly and arrogantly criticised by one of the periodical Censors.
Amidst other utterly groundless objections, he accused the poet
of unlicensed and affected verbalism, instancing particularly the
words _slumberous_, and _memorize_. For both, Johnson shews the high
authority of Shakespear, Milton, and Pope; and for the latter, a prose
sentence of eminent beauty by Wotton, thus:--“Let their lives, which
were bravely lost, be memorized on the full tablets of time.” After
accusing Mr Polwhele of affectation in using them, the critic proceeds
to assert that such expressions have the effect of a November fog,
in completely annihilating every thing like sense and beauty in a
composition. Now, it is evident, that were they as unhappily, as, in
fact, they are happily used, their mal-influence could extend only to
the sentence in which they are found; and since he cannot deny that
they are clearly intelligible, at least, it is impossible they can
have the obscuring effect of a fog, even upon that single sentence.
The critic who could use such an inapplicable metaphor in prose, is
miserably incompetent to sit in judgment upon poetry, and under the
proud name too of the British Critic. By the same decider was the
author of these poems accused of rendering several of her passages
nonsense by the use of the word thrill. The following were some of the
lines instanced. Speaking of Roubilliac’s glorious monument in Wrexham
Church, she says,
“The sainted maid, amid the bursting tomb,
“Hears the last trumpet thrill its silent gloom.”
And also,
“Marks the soft tear from thrill’d remembrance sprung.”
Also,
“What strains Eolian thrill the dusk expanse.”
This critic must be poorly read in Milton, Pope, and Gray, and indeed,
in all our best poets, since in them he might repeatedly find the word
thrill used in the same sense Johnson thus defines it as a verb active,
“to thrill, to pass with a shuddering sensation.” Our hearts, or our
memory may certainly be thrilled either by pleasure, pain, surprise, or
terror, and so, in the language of poetry, may the tomb, the air, and
other things, which are literally inanimate.--Milton says, in his hymn
on the nativity,
“Nature, that heard such sound
“Beneath the hollow round
“Of Cynthia’s seat the airy region thrilling.”
And Addison,
“Ran thro’ each nerve, and thrill’d in every vein.”
And Prior,
“His killing pleasure, his extatic smart,
“And heavenly poison thrilling thro’ thy heart.”
But of similar use of the word thrill, the instances are endless.