Exemption from the city’s mingled sound;
The iron rattling in the heavy drays,
The rumbling coaches, and the whirling chaise;
The clank of weary steeds, released the rein,
That slowly seek the neighbouring pond, or plain;
The town-cries, dinning from the crowded mart,
And the loud hammers of assiduous art!
Here (only when the organ’s solemn sound
Shall swell, or sink, the vaulted roofs around,
While, from the full-voiced choir, the echoes bear
The pealing anthem through the circling air,)
No ruder voice the noon-day silence knows,
Than birds soft warbling ’mid luxuriant boughs.
For now in graceful freedom flow the trees[23],
That skirt the lawn, and wanton in the breeze.
Their light arcades in soft perspective throw
Stowe’s shelter’d fields, that gently slope below;--
Th’ embosom’d lake, that, curling to the gale,
Shines, the clear mirror of the sylvan vale;
While on its bank, to humble virtue kind,
Where still the poor man’s prayers acceptance find,
The mouldering tower[24], that ’mid the shade appears,
Green with the gather’d moss of countless years.
There his pale corse may quiet shelter crave,
As swells th’ unequal turf with many a grave;
And there the suns of summer-evening look,
There tinge the waters of its huddling brook.
We mark the villa[25], rising near the lake,
And fairer she, that ’midst the verdant brake,
From sultry gleam, and wintry tempest shrill,
Stands softly curtain’d on the eastern hill;
The suburb-cots, that to the right extend,
And, half embower’d in village-semblance, bend
Towards the lone, rustic spire[26], that stands serene
Upon the south-hill top, and awes the smiling scene;
While, save that to the left, o’er sloping fields,
Her soft, blue glimpse the distant country yields,
Closed are the gentle hills, that curve around,
And form the beauteous valley’s early bound;
Throw every single feature it displays
Distinct and forward on the placid gaze;
Where nought disturbs, as soft the landscape glows,
Its silent graces in their sweet repose.
Now blends the liberal Spring thro’ all the scene
The blossoms, silvering ’mid their tender green;
With king-cups gay each swelling mead she fills,
And strews them yellow o’er the circling hills.
Yet more majestic fanes may meet my gaze,
And vallies, winding in a richer maze,
But ah! ’tis those remember’d days that flew,
When life and all her golden joys were new,
That, beaming o’er the thrill’d remembrance, bring
Illusions brighter than the lucid Spring.
Compared with them, May’s rosy morning spreads
No poignant sweetness from her violet beds;
Dim her bright noon, and rude her softest gale,
And June’s purpureal evening cold and pale.
Days, that delight so vivid knew to bring,
Why did ye hasten on so swift a wing?
Ye taught angelic Friendship to impart
Sweets from a lovely sister’s[27] feeling heart.
Mild was my SARAH as the vernal hours
That ope the tender almond’s blushing flowers;
And O! blest days of Pleasure’s soft increase,
That rose in gladness, and that set in peace,
Ye saw HONORA, loveliest of the maids
That deck’d our winter dome, our summer shades!
What sweetness beaming o’er that peerless face!
O’er that light form what animated grace!
How did that mind’s warm energies disdain
Whate’er allures the haughty and the vain!
How spurn the tinsel claims of wealth and birth!
How cherish every gleam of wit and worth!
What varying charms, in turn, ascendance gain’d,
And in her voice, her air, her glances reign’d!
Ninon’s gay spirit, gladness to inspire,
Lucretia’s modesty, Cornelia’s fire;
O! of all hours was she!--Those hours are past,
And the wide world contains her not!--such haste
Make happy times to join the vanish’d train,
That shadow’d o’er by grief, or rack’d by pain,
In mercy fled:--but you, in light array’d,
Why paused you not in Lichfield’s bloomy shade?
Why set your suns so soon, whose kindling rays
Made all the summer of my youthful days?
When first this month, stealing from half-blown bowers,
Bathed the young cowslip in her sunny showers,
Pensive I travell’d, and approach’d the plains,
That met the bounds of Severn’s wide domains.
As up the hill I rose, from whose green brow
The village church[28] o’erlooks the vale below,
O! when its rustic form first met my eyes,
What wild emotions swell’d the rising sighs!
Stretch’d the pain’d heart-strings with the utmost force
Grief knows to feel, that knows not dire remorse;
For there--yes there,--its narrow porch contains
My dear HONORA’s cold and pale remains,
Whose lavish’d health, in youth, and beauty’s bloom,
Sunk to the silence of an early tomb.
* * * * *
Thus, as I journied, grieved Reflection rose
To meet the lone memorial of my woes,
HONORA’s timeless grave;--then first beheld,
Since, in that little porch, beside the field,
It sunk neglected, while no stone remains
To guard the sacred relics it contains.
The wearied steeds, in languid pace and slow,
Indulged the rising luxury of woe;
With drooping neck, as they had shared my pain,
Lingering they passed the solitary fane.
Swift-rushing tears my straining eye-balls glazed,
And thus my Spirit whispered as I gazed.
“O! fairest among women!--dark and deep,
Beneath that rude stone arch, thy lasting sleep!
With all her woodland choir, resounding clear,
The voice of Morning does not pierce thine ear;
Gay Evening Suns, in Summer-glory drest,
In vain look golden on thy bed of rest,
Since from those rayless eyes their splendours fail
To lift the dim impenetrable veil!
“How early rose the intellectual powers
In bloom, in strength, that shamed maturer hours!
On that dear lip what mute attention hung,
As dropt the precept from the Sage’s tongue,
While from his fruitful mind, in Science train’d,
She caught the sense, ere language half explain’d!
How soon did Genius all her soul engage!
How glow’d those eyes along the Poet’s page!
What generous goodness taught that now cold heart
To bear in others’ joys so warm a part;
Pour o’er another’s woe the ready tear;
Watch by the couch of pain with tender fear;
Each wish prevent, each injury forgive,
“And, heedless of herself, for others live!”
“And is this all of my HONORA’s fate?
O! wasted thus!--O! transient thus the date
Of every excellence, that e’er combined
To breathe perfection on the female mind!
“Serene the day, and balmy is the gale;
Spring’s lucid hues are glistening o’er the vale;
Blue gleams the lake[29] the circling trees between,
And one sweet blackbird hymns the smiling scene.
Thus mildly bright the hours of promise shine,
But O! an all-resisting woe is mine;
My soul not e’en the hours of promise cheer,
And vernal music sickens on my ear;
Peace, little warbler! mute forsake thy spray,
Intrusive all the sweetness of thy lay;
Or cease thy strain that cannot sooth my woes!
Or wake HONORA from her long repose.”
Then roll’d the wheels, descending to the plain,
Swift from the silent hill and rustic fane;
Me to the life-warm scene[30] they soon convey’d,
When glad’ning eyes the mists of grief pervade.
But to this vale[31] restored, where all I see,
My dear HONORA, seems so full of thee;
Where not indeed thy pale remains are laid,
But, warm with life, thou seem’st to deck the glade,
I half reproach my heart, that gayer hours
Beheld it yielding to the social powers;
When the kind glance, and smile of friendship stole,
At intervals, thy image from my soul!
Ye shades of Lichfield, will ye always bring
Illusions brighter than the shining spring?
O! ere these eyes, that all our haunts explore
With fond affection’s gaze, shall ope no more,
Lose not of her one consecrated trace,
Whose image gives you this exclusive grace!
Present it still, by Memory’s potent aids,
Ye choral turrets, and ye arching shades!
Waft her remember’d voice in every gale!
Wear her etherial smile, thou lovely vale,
When Spring, in wayward April’s veering days,
Shoots the spruce foliage from the naked sprays;
When Summer bids, thro’ ev’ry splendid hour,
Consummate beauty glow in ev’ry bower;
When Autumn, turning back her golden eyes,
Of parting Summer asks his varied dyes,
With which she decks, but ah! to vanish soon,
Her saffron morning, her pellucid noon;
Nay, e’en when Winter sheds o’er the dim plains
His shrouding snows, loud winds, and beating rains!
Then, should or Fame, or Pleasure, to my ear
Whisper that Talent blooms neglected here,
Lure to the circles where congenial fire
Might Emulation’s generous warmth inspire;
Yet here the spirit of departed joy
Shall chain my step, shall fascinate my eye;
Chace with his local spells awakening powers,
Each languid consciousness of wasted hours;
And o’er the present all that lustre cast
That beams reflected from the fairer past.
INVOCATION
TO THE
GENIUS OF SLUMBER.
WRITTEN, OCT. 1787.
Spirit of Dreams, that when the dark hours steep
In the soft dews of life-embalming sleep,
Our busy senses, canst restore the lost,
The loved, the mourn’d, from Death’s mysterious coast,
Propitious lately to my votive lay,
And the lone musing of the joyless day,
From ’whelming years, and from sepulchral night,
Thou gav’st HONORA to my slumbering sight:
Deck’d in those varied graces that array’d
In youth’s first bloom, the fair ingenuous maid;
In all those pure affections gladd’ning powers,
That wing’d with joy the animated hours,
Alike when her sweet converse welcome made
Morn’s rising light, and Evening’s stealthy shade;
The months with flowers adorn’d, with radiance warm
The vernal day, and e’en the wintry storm.
She look’d, as in those golden years foregone,
Spoke, as when love attuned each melting tone;
When, by my side, her cautious steps she moved,
Watching the friend solicitously loved,
Whose youthful strength, in one disastrous day,
Had fall’n to luckless accident a prey,
And needed much, to save from future harm,
The eye attentive, the supporting arm.
Remember’d looks, ye rays of Friendship’s flame,
Long my soul’s light, and guardians of my frame!
Why, visionary Power, so seldom kind
To the deprived, the life-retracing mind;
Withholding oft, ’mid thy obtrusive swarm,
My day-dream’s idol, fair HONORA’s form?
O! when thou giv’st it, then, and only then,
Lost to my woes, I live with her again.
Again on me those soft’ning eye-balls shine!
I hear her speak! I feel her arm on mine!
Real as fair, the tender pleasures glow,
Sweet, as the past was potent to bestow,
Freed from that sense which shrouds with dire controul
Volition’s image in a cypress stole;
That tells me, searching wide creation o’er,
My dear HONORA I shall find no more;
That on her lonely grave, and mouldering form,
Six dreary winters poured the ruthless storm,
Violent and dark as my soul’s primal woe
When first I found that beauteous head laid low.
On that unshrined, yet ever-sacred spot,
By faithless Love deserted and forgot,
Six bloomy springs their crystal light have show’d,
Their sun-gilt rains in fragrant silence flow’d,
Mild as my sorrows (calm’d by passing years)
Time-soften’d sighs, and time-assuaged tears.
Once, as the taper’s steady light convey’d
Upon the white expanse the graceful shade
Of sweet HONORA’s face, the traces fair
My anxious hand pursued, and fixed them there;
To throw, in spite of Fate’s remorseless crimes,
Soft soothing magic o’er succeeding times.
For this dear purpose, near my couch I placed
The shade, by Love assiduously traced;
And, while no sullen curtain drops between,
The image consecrates the sombrous scene;
Serenely sweet it stands,--at morn, at eve,
The first, last object these fond eyes perceive
And still my heart, and oft my lips address
The shadowy form of her who lived to bless.
Now strikes the midnight clock;--the taper gleams
With the faint flash of half-expiring beams,
And soon that lovely semblance shall recede,
And Sleep’s dim veils its thrilling powers impede.
I feel their balmy, kind, resistless charms
Creep o’er my closing eyes,--I fold my arms,
Breathing in murmurs thro’ the paly gloom,
“Come to my dreams, my lost HONORA, come!
Back as the waves of Time benignly roll,
Shew thy bright face to my enchanted soul!”
MONODY
ON MRS RICHARD VYSE,
ADDRESSED TO HER HUSBAND, SINCE GENERAL VYSE.[32]
I.
’Tis gloom, and silence all!--where late so gay
The strains of pleasure in each gale were borne;
Where white-robed Truth had fix’d her stedfast sway,
And love’s bright florets deck’d the rising morn.
How constantly, beneath yon shade,
The little, rosy Comforts play’d!
While to the warblings of the plumy choir
Responsive transport struck her golden lyre!--
Thou dashing stream, swift hurrying down the glade,
Oft has thy clear and sparkling wave convey’d
The balmy whispers tender thoughts inspire,
As shed the bridal star its gay enamour’d fire.
II.
Now through the vale a sullen stillness reigns,
The shades embrown’d by woe,
Frown o’er the house of death!--the blasted plains
No more with beauty glow!
Or is it Sorrow’s misty shower
That dims the hue of every flower,
Draws from the lake the livid gleam,
And hears the ominous raven scream?--
Round ANNA’s bower the damps of horror rise,
And shroud the splendours of the azure skies,
Since she, who brighten’d summer’s charms,
Is torn in life’s gay bloom,
From young RICARDO’s widow’d arms,
The victim of the tomb.
To that loved bower she shall no more return!
Bend your dark tops, ye pines, and guard her sacred urn!
III.
Ah! gentle pair, your bliss was too refined,
Too subtly sweet, too exquisite to last;
For ne’er shall man unfading pleasures find,
Where Grief, and Pain, may breathe the withering blast.
How dire the ravage in that hour
When sunk, beneath their baleful power,
Each joy, bright springing from congenial taste,
From warm impassion’d Love, from Friendship chaste;
From Plenty, summon’d by approving Fate,
To glide serenely through your open gate;
From all that softens life, from all that cheers,
And nurses Eden’s rose in this chill vale of tears.
IV.
Rash man was made to mourn:--exempt alone
Who transport ne’er have felt;
Whose hearts, girt round by Dulness’ leaden zone,
Nor Love, nor Pity melt;
On whose dead calm of vacant hours
Nor Rapture beams, nor Anguish lours.--
Lone mourner o’er thy ANNA’s grave,
Since Youth and Love were weak to save,
Thy fruitless sorrows with this truth controul,
Soft whispering to thy fond, thy faithful soul,
That all the woes, which shroud thy noon-tide rays,
Bend thee to earth, and lay thy prospects waste;
Are borne for her, whose fair, unclouded days
Of wintry storm had never felt the blast;
The large arrears of grief she must have paid,
Had she not early sunk in death’s eternal shade.
V.
O! think, had fell disease assaulted thee,
The rushing fever, or the slow decline,
These sufferings had been hers--this agony
Wrung her mild bosom, that now tortures thine;
And shall not her far happier doom
Gild, with its seraph rays, thy gloom?
Since sun-eyed Faith empowers thee to pervade
The dreary grave’s incumbent shade;
Lift its dark curtains from the regions bright,
And see thy love ascend her throne of light,
Where bliss, that ne’er shall end, and ne’er can cloy,
Succeeds your nuptial year of seldom equall’d joy.
TO
MRS COLTMAN OF HULL.
OCTOBER 1772.
Bright as the dew-drop on the brow of morn,
Fair as the lily by the fountain side,
Sweet as the damask rose-bud, newly born
On verdant banks, where glassy rivers glide,
Thou, ISABELLA, in the vale of life,
Far from Ambition’s paths art charm’d to stray,
Shunning the haunts of pride and envious strife,
Each Muse, each Grace, companions of thy way.
Thy winter’s cheerful hearth, thy summer suns,
May attic wit and virtue still adorn!
Brightning thy destin’d hour-glass as it runs,
Crowning thy night with peace, with joy thy morn!
Long may Hygeia lead thee to her springs,
And with full draughts thy glowing lip bedew!
And while Prosperity her garland brings,
May nought that blesses bid thee once adieu!
RECEIPT
FOR A SWEET JAR.
Through freezing hours would you pervade your rooms
With each fine odour of the summer-blooms,
Learn from the Muse to form the fragrant spell,
And bid her rhymes its artful process tell.
When Spring’s first sweets the pendant violets pour,
Strew, with unsparing hand, that lovely flower;
When Fraxanella’s spicy sighs exhale,
And pale Syringas languish on the gale;
When all the aromatic tribe entwine
Their vernal garlands round Hygeia’s shrine,
Crop the rich spoils beneath the noon-day sun,
And be with these thy grateful task begun!
Then when the nymph, that decks the glowing year,
Bids to the day her loveliest boast appear,
As her gay rose expands its crimson gems,
Of the bright offspring rob the parent stems;
From noon to noon the splendid foliage lay,
The added heaps shall added sweets convey;
And scarce less liberally, to swell thy hoard,
Her spikes let azure lavender afford;
From orange-groves be silvery blooms consign’d,
With starry jessamine of scent refined.
From the soft umbrage of Idalian bowers
Bid graceful myrtles shed their blossom’d showers;
And, emulous of raspberry’s tempting sweet,
Let mignionets their floral sisters greet.
With cinnamon let cloves and mace descend,
And in the marble vase their virtues blend,
One ounce of each;--and then, with sparing hand,
Bid luscious musk his potent scent expand,
A few small grains;--dispersing ’mid the rest,
No sick’ning odours shall the sense molest,
But, when time mellows their too cloying power,
They shall increase the sweets of spice and flower.
Yet liberal most the snowy mineral spread
Between each layer, in sparkling plenty shed,
Since where bright Salt her crystalines extends,
She brings an active host of powerful friends,
To whose pervading and protecting sway,
Fell Dissolution yields his languid prey.
And you, who wish your breathing flowers may rise
With scent primeval, on December’s skies,
Still, as you spread them, every layer between,
Profusely let this white preserver gleam,
While scantier sprinklings of the spicy dust,
By art thus blended, aid the poignant gust.
And let each rising morn behold with care
Thy busy fingers mix each former layer;
And be that task renew’d when setting light
Resigns her faded empire to the night.
So shall no taint pollute thy treasured flowers,
No must offensive foil their fragrant powers;
But odours, rich as those of Saba’s vale,
Rise on hybernal Albion’s bleakest gale,
Sweets, which the breath of her gay months excells,
While in thy vase eternal summer dwells.
INVOCATION
TO THE SHADE OF PETRARCH, AND TO THE SPIRITS OF THE PERSIAN POETS,
ON THEIR COMPOSITIONS BEING TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, BY SIR WILLIAM
JONES.[33]
Boast of Italian plains, that once did’st rove
Where lucid Sorga leads her winding wave
From its deep fountain in Valclusa’s grove,
Whose lavish laurels in her waters lave,
Thou, who so oft hast struck the silver shell
To hopeless Love, and wedded LAURA’s charms,
See passing ages yet enchanted dwell,
On thy sweet verse, and feel thy soft alarms!
Ah! sacred shade of that enamour’d youth,
Still shall thy myrtles bloom with fairest hue,
While one kind tear descends from tender Truth,
Again each fading blossom to renew.
But share those myrtles with that minstrel bland,
Whose skill afresh hath strung thy silver lyre,
And taught the echoes of his native land
The plaint harmonious of thy fond desire.
With him your bright poetic honours share,
You that awaked the song on Mithra’s plains,
Breath’d your wild warblings on the fragrant air,
And at the fount of light illumed your strains.
The veils that hid you thro’ the rounds of time
From European eyes, are torn away,
And all the fire of oriental rhyme
Glows in our isle with undiminish’d ray.
Spirits of eastern bards, where’er shall rove
Your British guardian, from your musky vales,
Sun-hallow’d hills, and each odorous grove,
Bring the rich incense that perfumes your gales!
O’er his young head the spicy treasures blend,
And from your brightest gems a crown obtain!
On him may all the tribute stores descend
Who hung with Persian wreaths the Albion Muses’ fane!
ODE
TO WILLIAM BOOTHBY, ESQ.
WRITTEN IN THE SUMMER 1775.
Ere yet ALEXIS bend his purposed way
The Peak’s rude rocks and devious vales among,
O! may he pause, and, listening to my lay,
Accept the moral precept of the song!
And ye, blest sisters of th’ inspiring spring,
Too partial, cease to wander and to sing
Where Arethusa’s silver fountain flows!
Or, if Castalian plains ye haunt, ah, bend
Your steps where rival scenes extend,
And every varied tint of beauty glows,
Mix’d with the spirit of the mountain gale,
Whose stolen perfumes float and wanton o’er the vale!
There, under pendant rocks, his amber flood,
As Hebrus swift, impetuous Derwent pours;
And now, beneath the broad, incumbent wood,
Silent and smooth and deep, he laves the shores;
Till, gaily rushing from his darksome way,
His foamy waters glitter on the day,
Resistless, dashing o’er each rugged mound;
And still, on his umbrageous bank, he shows
Woodbines and harebells and the musky rose,
The heavy, velvet wild bees murmuring sound.
His every grace that decks Pieria’s clime,
Green vale, and steepy hill, and broken rock sublime.
Here, in meanders swift, the silver Wie[34]
Wantons around the Naiads of his wave,
Thro’ scenes, where mighty Nature’s spirit free
Each coy and wood-wild grace luxuriant gave.
Behold, in lucid beauty, from the tide
Rise his kind nymphs, and for the race that glide
With sinuous track, and in their eddies play,
Ask mercy!--Wilt thou then, with barbarous care,
Th’ unreal insect, false and fair,
Seductive fling along their glassy way?
Hasten, ye Muses, from Sicilian glades,
The guiltless tenants guard of these all-lovely shades!
And may your strains a purer joy impart,
And cruel purposes in pity melt!
Humane of song! O steal into his heart,
Till life-destroying hopes no more are felt!
Tell him how much profaned that eye benign,
By Nature form’d with other fires to shine,
Love’s ardent beam, and Mercy’s dewy ray,
How much profaned, when, with inhuman lour,
Its deathful level streams!--ah, pour
The sacred strain, and save the tender prey!
Avert each cruel, unresisted blow,
Tell him, no laureate meeds for such achievements grow!
Of wasted hours may generous minds beware,
Nor fatal be their strength, their skill, their speed!
Link’d with the Graces, lo, the Nine appear!
Hark, how they warn thee from each ruthless deed!
Now, while thy life’s purpureal moments reign,
Rove with these guardian nymphs, hill, dale, and plain!
Their zones shall gird thee, and their lays inspire,
Storing each sense with permanent delight;
That, when thy youth has wing’d its flight,
When faded all the tints of gay desire,
On the mild evening of thy vital day
Science and Taste may shine with cloud-dispelling ray!
ODE[35]
TO BROOKE BOOTHBY, ESQ. AFTERWARDS
SIR BROOKE BOOTHBY.
Not yet is it reveal’d, ye sacred Nine,
If, with humane accordance to my lay,
Ye rear’d, in Peak’s sweet vales, your rocky shrine,
And lured ALEXIS from the sylvan prey.--
That late his brother’s chorded shell
Ye struck, its charming numbers tell;
They bear the symbols of your quire,
Aonian sweetness, Attic fire;
So prompt with happiest melody to flow
When your HILARIO strikes the lyre;
And with the clearest light to glow,
As gay or pensive themes his song inspire.--
All uninvoked, upon HILARIO’s brows,
Each rival Muse and Grace her loveliest garland throws.
Flying from shades, which veil the sultry day,
From gales, that breathe the essence of the spring,
From streams, where pearly-wristed Naiads play,
From echoes, faithful to each tuneful string,
The muses seek yon garish plain[36],
Haunt of the frolic and the vain.--
Forsaken Nine! HILARIO there
Leads in light dance a mortal fair,
And all your soft and silver harps are drown’d
Amid the viol’s scrannel noise,
And hautboy’s loud, metallic sound,
Skilless, yet suiting well such vulgar joys,
As, with the wanderer, ye reluctant rove
Far from poetic plain, or Learning’s hallow’d grove.
For the moist, orient lustres, as they stream,
Sloping and trembling on the mazy rill,
The splendours of the white meridian beam,
That warms the vale, and flames upon the hill,
Eve’s crimson throne, and golden rays,
The lustre’s many-pointed blaze
A noon-day night profusely pours,
Of gaudy violated hours;
And for the shining locks, the rural crown,
The wavy robe, so light and free,
That flows thy agile limbs adown,
And decks thy smiling brow, Simplicity,
Quaint Fashion, by her own trim fingers drest,
Pranks, with a vacant smile, her stiff, fantastic vest.
Ah! more than potent is the myrtle chain,
Since Folly can a heart like thine ensnare!
While kindred Genius views thee with disdain,
Loit’ring, and listening to each idiot fair.
Resigning thus thy wasted day,
Exclusive own Love’s magic sway,
If thus his fires delusive lead
Thy charmed foot to marshy mead,
Where sinks its languid step, tho’ form’d to gain
The height sublime, where brightly glows,
Above the gems that deck the vain,
The sweet, unfading, scientific rose:
But thou, since meaner garlands bind thy brows,
Boast not those rival claims thy despot disallows![37]