As one, who journeys over unknown lands,
Ere yet the sun withdraws his western ray,
Stops on some mountain’s brow, whose site commands
The shifting scenes and labyrinths of the way;
With fond reverted look his thoughts retrace,
Where flowers their sweets, and wild-birds gave their song,
And dwell, long dwell! on many a favourite space,
Where prodigal of time he loiter’d long;
Lovers and friends in bright perspective rise,
Companions of his morn, on yon blue hill;
Down that blank plain he drops a look, and sighs,
Whence seem their parting words to reach him still;
Here his pain’d eyes unkindly districts mark,
Where faint heats smote him or fierce storms o’ertook;
There strain o’er deep’ning woods at noonday dark,
Where his false steps their destin’d course forsook;
Pond’ring the change and chances of the day,
As warning eve prepares her veil to close,
Serious, he now proceeds with short survey,
Expecting night’s dark hour, and hoping calm repose:
So I look back on more than sixty years,
In life’s sequester’d walks obscurely spent,
Where tho’ its trophied head no column rears,
Inscrib’d with mighty deed, or proud event,
Yet, on some few small eminencies, glow
The heart’s rejoicing-lights of self-applause;
Some generous claims surmount the gloom below,
And shame and sharp regrets a moment pause;
Yet these prevail—ah! might my wish prevail
That Time would turn my near exhausted glass;
Then not a grain should of its harvest fail;—
Seeds are but sands when unimprov’d they pass.
Vain wish! vain promise! what dost thou presume,
O weak Humanity? thyself but dust!
Since from the cradle, hourly, to the tomb,
Toil, trifle, err and grieve, frail thing! thou must.
But pleasures, passions lose their dangerous force;
And the world’s business shrinks as age descends:
O spare Adversity! my evening course;
My little part is play’d, my small importance ends.
_To F. N. C. MUNDY, Esq._
ON HIS POEM
THE FALL OF NEEDWOOD.
Poet of Needwood, much my heart approves
This thy ow’d duty to his ravag’d groves,
The lost! the lovely! who in better days
View’d their each grace reflected in thy lays;
And O! when many a future Age has pass’d,
Rolling oblivious o’er his nameless Waste,
Its sometime beauties shall again revive,
And in thy pictur’d strains for EVER live.
Come, pensive listening, ye once jocund Throng,
Whilome that rov’d those forest-haunts along;
Explor’d, with pleasure brightening in your air,
Each coy, green labyrinth and each turfy lair,
Still, as in pride 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 writh’d 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 dishevel’d streaming to their feet,
Struggling thro’ 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 fear;
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 thro’ 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 lightheel’d Coursers paw the dewy swerd,
When the sly Prowler stole adown the wind,
And hop’d he left no tell-tale scent behind.
Vain hope! your swift staunch hounds the search 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 rhimy 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 wailings 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, entranc’d, in forest sees,
Satyrs and Fauns and leaf-crown’d Dryades.
They fled when Avarice, with rapacious frown,
From Mercia’s temples struck her sylvan crown.
Yet, gentle Minstrel, they whose raptur’d 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 thy Requiem in its mournful flow;
The orb of Mundy’s Muse-illumin’d day
Setting with rival tho’ with milder ray;
Pleas’d shall compare the evening with the noon,
And feel, in equal power, the Cypress Garland won.