Part II

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THE POETICAL WORKS OF

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

WITH A MEMOIR

BY SIR HARRIS NICOLAS.

TO

PETER SMITH, ESQ.

THIS VOLUME

IS INSCRIBED

IN TESTIMONY OF ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP.

CONTENTS.

Memoir of Henry Kirke White

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

Clifton Grove

Time

Childhood; Part I

Part II

The Christiad

Lines written on a Survey of the Heavens

Lines supposed to be spoken by a Lover at the Grave of his

Mistress

My Study

Description of a Summer's Eve

Lines--"Go to the raging sea, and say, 'Be still!'"

Written in the Prospect of Death

Verses--"When pride and envy, and the scorn"

Fragment--"Oh! thou most fatal of Pandora's train"

"Loud rage the winds without.--The wintry cloud"

To a Friend in Distress

Christmas Day

Nelsoni Mors

Epigram on Robert Bloomfield

Elegy occasioned by the Death of Mr. Gill, who was drowned in the

River Trent, while bathing

Inscription for a Monument to the Memory of Cowper

"I'm pleased, and yet I'm sad"

Solitude

"If far from me the Fates remove"

"Fanny! upon thy breast I may not lie!"

Fragments--"Saw'st thou that light? exclaim'd the youth, and

paused:"

"The pious man"

"Lo! on the eastern summit, clad in gray"

"There was a little bird upon that pile;"

"O pale art thou, my lamp, and faint"

"O give me music--for my soul doth faint"

"And must thou go, and must we part"

"Ah! who can say, however fair his view,"

"Hush'd is the lyre--the hand that swept"

"When high romance o'er every wood and stream"

"Once more, and yet once more,"

Fragment of an Eccentric Drama

To a Friend

Lines on reading the Poems of Warton

Fragment--"The western gale,"

Commencement of a Poem on Despair

The Eve of Death

Thanatos

Athanatos

Music

On being confined to School one pleasant Morning in Spring

To Contemplation

My own Character

Lines written in Wilford Churchyard

Verses--"Thou base repiner at another's joy,"

Lines--"Yes, my stray steps have wander'd, wander'd far"

The Prostitute

ODES.

To my Lyre

To an early Primrose

Ode addressed to H. Fuseli, Esq. R. A.

To the Earl of Carlisle, K. G.

To Contemplation

To the Genius of Romance

To Midnight

To Thought

Genius

Fragment of an Ode to the Moon

To the Muse

To Love

On Whit-Monday

To the Wind, at Midnight

To the Harvest Moon

To the Herb Rosemary

To the Morning

On Disappointment

On the Death of Dermody the Poet

SONNETS.

To the River Trent

Sonnet--"Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,"

Sonnet supposed to have been addressed by a Female Lunatic to a

Lady

Sonnet supposed to be written by the unhappy Poet Dermody in a

Storm

The Winter Traveller

Sonnet--"Ye whose aspirings court the muse of lays,"

Recantatory, in Reply to the foregoing elegant Admonition

On hearing the Sounds of an Æolian Harp

Sonnet--"What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?"

To Capel Lofft, Esq.

To the Moon

Written at the Grave of a Friend

To Misfortune

Sonnet--"As thus oppress'd with many a heavy care,"

To April

Sonnet--"Ye unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,"

To a Taper

To my Mother

Sonnet--"Yes, 't will be over soon. This sickly dream"

To Consumption

Sonnet--"Thy judgments, Lord, are just;"

Sonnet--"When I sit musing on the chequer'd part"

Sonnet--"Sweet to the gay of heart is Summer's smile"

Sonnet--"Quick o'er the wintry waste dart fiery shafts"

BALLADS, SONGS, AND HYMNS.

Gondoline

A Ballad--"Be hush'd, be hush'd, ye bitter winds,"

The Lullaby of a Female Convict to her Child, the Night previous

to Execution

The Savoyard's Return

A Pastoral Song

Melody--"Yes, once more that dying strain"

Additional Stanza to a Song by Waller

The Wandering Boy

Canzonet--"Maiden! wrap thy mantle round thee'"

Song--"Softly, softly blow, ye breezes,"

The Shipwrecked Solitary's Song to the Night

The Wonderful Juggler

Hymn--"Awake, sweet harp of Judah, wake"

A Hymn for Family Worship

The Star of Bethlehem

Hymn--"O Lord, my God, in mercy turn"

TRIBUTARY VERSES.

Eulogy on Henry Kirke White, by Lord Byron

Sonnet on Henry Kirke White, by Capel Lofft

Sonnet occasioned by the Second of H. K. White, by the same

Written in the Homer of Mr. H. K. White, by the same

To the Memory of H. K. White, by the Rev. W. B. Collyer, A.M.

Sonnet to H. K. White, on his Poems, by Arthur Owen, Esq.

Sonnet, on seeing another written to H. K. White, by the same

Reflections on Reading the Life of the late H. K. White, by

William Holloway

On the Death of Henry Kirke White, by T. Park

Lines on the Death of Henry Kirke White, by the Rev. J. Plumptre

To Henry Kirke White, by H. Welker

Verses occasioned by the Death of H. K. White, by Josiah Conder

On Reading H. K. White's Poem on Solitude, by the same

Ode on the late Henry Kirke White, by Juvenis

Sonnet in Memory of Henry Kirke White, by J. G.

Lines on the Death of Henry Kirke White

Sonnet to H. K. White, on his Poems, by G. L. C.

To the Memory of Henry Kirke White, by a Lady

Stanzas supposed to have been written at the Grave of Henry Kirke

White, by a Lady

MEMOIR OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

BY SIR HARRIS NICOLAS.

Thine, Henry, is a deathless name on earth,

Thine amaranthine wreaths, new pluck'd in Heaven!

By what aspiring child of mortal birth

Could more be ask'd, to whom might more be given

TOWNSEND.

It has been said that the contrasts of light and shade are as

necessary to biography as to painting, and that the character

which is radiant with genius and virtue requires to be relieved

by more common and opposite qualities. Though this may be true

as a principle, there are many exceptions; and the life of Henry

Kirke White, whose merits were unalloyed by a single vice, is one

of the most memorable. The history of his short and melancholy

career, by Mr. Southey, is extremely popular; and when it is

remembered that its author is one of the most distinguished of

living writers, that as a biographer he is unrivalled, and that

he had access to all the materials which exist, it would be as

vain to expect from the present Memoir any new facts, as it would

be absurd to hope that it will be more worthy of attention than

the imperishable monument which his generous friend has erected

to his memory.

There is, however, nothing inconsistent with this admission, in

presuming that a Life of the Poet might be written almost as

interesting as the one alluded to, and without the writer assuming

to himself any unusual sagacity. As Mr. Southey's narrative is

prefixed to a collection of all Kirke White's remains, in prose as

well as in verse, his letters are inserted as part of his works,

instead of extracts from them being introduced into the Memoir.

This volume will, on the contrary, be confined to his Poems; and

such parts of his letters as describe his situation and feelings

at particular periods will be introduced into the account of his

life. Indeed, so frequent are the allusions to himself in those

letters as well as in his poems, that he may be almost considered

an autobiographer; and the writer who substitutes his own cold and

lifeless sketch for the glowing and animated portrait which these

memorials of genius afford, must either be deficient in skill, or

be under the dominion of overweening vanity.

Few who have risen to eminence were, on the paternal side at

least, of humbler origin than Henry Kirke White. His father, John

White, was a butcher at Nottingham; but his mother, who bore the

illustrious name of Neville, is said to have belonged to a

respectable family in Staffordshire. He was born at Nottingham on

the 21st of March, 1785; and in his earliest years indications

were observed of the genius for which he was afterwards

distinguished. In his poem "Childhood," he has graphically

described the little school where, between the age of three and

five, he

"enter'd, though with toil and pain,

The low vestibule of learning's fane."

The venerable dame by whom he was

"inured to alphabetic toils,"

and whose worth he gratefully commemorates, had the discernment

to perceive her charge's talents, and even foretold his future

celebrity:

"And, as she gave my diligence its praise,

Talk'd of the honour of my future days."

If he did not deceive himself, it was at this period that his

imagination became susceptible of poetic associations. Speaking

of the eagerness with which he left the usual sports of children

to listen to tales of imaginary woe, and of the effect which they

produced, he says,

"Beloved moment! then 't was first I caught

The first foundation of romantic thought;

Then first I shed bold Fancy's thrilling tear,

Then first that Poesy charm'd mine infant ear.

Soon stored with much of legendary lore,

The sports of childhood charm'd my soul no more;

Far from the scene of gaiety and noise,

Far, far from turbulent and empty joys,

I hied me to the thick o'erarching shade,

And there, on mossy carpet, listless laid;

While at my feet the rippling runnel ran,

The days of wild romance antique I'd scan;

Soar on the wings of fancy through the air,

To realms of light, and pierce the radiance there."

The peculiar disposition of his mind, having thus early displayed

itself, every day added to its force. Study and abstraction were his

greatest pleasures, and a love of reading became his predominant

passion. "I could fancy," said his eldest sister, "I see him in his

little chair with a large book upon his knee, and my mother calling,

'Henry, my love, come to dinner,' which was repeated so often

without being regarded, that she was obliged to change the tone of

her voice before she could rouse him."

At the age of six he was placed under the care of the Rev. John

Blanchard, who kept the best school in Nottingham, where he learnt

writing, arithmetic, and French; and he continued there for

several years. During that time two facts are related of him which

prove the precocity of his talents. When about seven, he was

accustomed to go secretly into his father's kitchen and teach the

servant to read and write; and he composed a tale of a Swiss

emigrant, which he gave her, being too diffident to show it to his

mother. In his eleventh year he wrote a separate theme for each of

the twelve or fourteen boys in his class; and the excellence of

the various pieces obtained his master's applause.

Henry was destined for his father's trade, and the efforts of his

mother to change that intention were for some time fruitless. Even

while he was at school, one day in every week, and his leisure

hours on the others, were employed in carrying meat to his father's

customers; but a dispute between his father and his master having

caused him to be removed from school, one of the ushers, from

malice or ignorance, told his mother that it was impossible to make

her son do any thing. The person who reported so unfavourably of

his abilities, little knew that he had then given ample evidence of

his talents, in some poetical satires which his treatment at school

had provoked, but which he afterwards destroyed.

Soon after he quitted Mr. Blanchard's school he was intrusted to

Mr. Shipley, who discovered his pupil's abilities, and relieved

his friends' uneasiness on the subject. His earliest production

that has been preserved was written in his thirteenth year, "On

being confined to School one pleasant Morning in Spring," in which

a schoolboy's love of liberty, and his envy of the freedom of a

neighbouring wren, are expressed with plaintive simplicity.

About this time a slight improvement took place in his situation.

His mother, to whom he was indebted for all the happiness of his

childhood, opened a day school, and, as it abstracted her from the

groveling cares of a butcher's shop, his home was made much more

comfortable; and, instead of being confined to his father's

business, he was placed in a stocking loom, with the view of

bringing him up to the trade of a hosier, the poverty of his

family still precluding the hope of a profession.

It may easily be believed that this occupation ill agreed with the

aspirations of his mind. From his mother he had few secrets, and in

her ear he breathed his disgust and unhappiness. "He could not bear,"

he said, "the idea of spending some years of his life in shining

and folding up stockings;" he wanted "something to occupy his brain,

and he should be wretched if he continued longer at this trade, or

indeed in any thing, except one of the learned professions." For a

year these remonstrances were ineffectual; but no persuasions, even

when urged with maternal tenderness, could reconcile him to his lot.

He sought for consolation with the Muses, and wrote an "Address to

Contemplation," in which he describes his feelings:

"Why along

The dusky track of commerce should I toil,

When, with an easy competence content,

I can alone be happy; where, with thee,

I may enjoy the loveliness of Nature,

And loose the wings of fancy! Thus alone

Can I partake of happiness on earth;

And to be happy here is man's chief end,

For to be happy he must needs be good."

There are few obstacles that perseverance will not overcome; and

penury and a parent's obstinacy were both surmounted by Kirke

White's importunity. Finding it useless to chain him longer to the

hosier's loom, he was placed in the office of Messrs. Coldham and

Enfield, Town Clerk and attorneys of Nottingham, some time in May,

1799, when he was in his fifteenth year; but as a premium could

not be given with him, it was agreed that he should serve two

years before he was articled. A few months after he entered upon

his new employment, he began a correspondence with his brother,

Mr. Neville White, who was then a medical student in London; and

in a letter, dated in September, 1799, he thus spoke of his

situation and prospects:

"It is now nearly four months since I entered into Mr. Coldham's

office; and it is with pleasure I can assure you, that I never yet

found any thing disagreeable, but, on the contrary, every thing I

do seems a pleasure to me, and for a very obvious reason,--it is a

business which I like--a business which I chose before all others;

and I have two good-tempered, easy masters, but who will,

nevertheless, see that their business is done in a neat and proper

manner."--"A man that understands the law is sure to have business;

and in case I have no thoughts, in case, that is, that I do not

aspire to hold the honourable place of a barrister, I shall feel

sure of gaining a genteel livelihood at the business to which I am

articled."

At the suggestion of his employers, he devoted the greater part of

his leisure to Latin; and, though he was but slightly assisted, he

was able in ten months to read Horace with tolerable facility, and

had made some progress in Greek. Having but little time for these

pursuits, he accustomed himself to decline the Greek nouns and

verbs during his walks to and from the office, and he thereby

acquired a habit of studying while walking, that never deserted

him. The account which Mr. Southey has given of his application,

and of the success that attended it, is astonishing. Though living

with his family, he nearly estranged himself from their society.

At meals, and during the evenings, a book was constantly in his

hands; and as he refused to sup with them, to prevent any loss of

time, his meal was sent to him in his little apartment. Law,

Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, chemistry,

astronomy, electricity, drawing, music, and mechanics, by turns

engaged his attention; and though his acquirements in some of

those studies were very superficial, his proficiency in many of

them was far from contemptible. His papers on law evince so much

industry, that had that subject alone occupied his leisure hours,

his diligence would have been commendable. He was a tolerable

Italian scholar, and in the classics he afterwards attained

reputation; but of the sciences and of Spanish and Portuguese, his

knowledge was not, it may be inferred, very great. His ear for

music was good, and his passionate attachment to it is placed

beyond a doubt by his verses on its effects:

"With her in pensive mood I long to roam

At midnight's hour, or evening's calm decline,

And thoughtful o'er the falling streamlet's foam,

In calm Seclusion's hermit-walks recline:"

But he checked his ardour, lest it might interfere with more

essential studies: and his musical attainments were limited to

playing pleasingly on the piano, composing the bass to the air

at the same time.

Ambition was one of the most powerful feelings of his nature, and

it is rare indeed, when it is not the companion of great talents.

It developed itself first in spurning trade; and no sooner did he

find himself likely to become an attorney, than he aspired to the

bar. But his earliest and strongest passion was for literary

distinction; and he was scarcely removed from the trammels of

school, before he sought admission into a literary society, in his

native town. His extreme youth rendered him objectionable; but,

after repeated refusals, he at last succeeded. In the association

there were six professors, and being, on the first vacancy,

appointed to the chair of literature, he soon justified the

choice. Taking "genius" as his theme, he addressed the assembly in

an extemporaneous lecture of two hours and three-quarters duration,

with so much success, that the audience unanimously voted him

their thanks, declaring that "the society had never heard a better

lecture delivered from the chair which he so much honoured." To

judge properly of this circumstance, it would be necessary to

know of whom the society was composed; but with so flattering a

testimony to his abilities, the sanguine boy naturally placed a

high estimate on them.

The establishment of a Magazine called the Monthly Preceptor,

which proposed prize themes for young persons, afforded Kirke

White an opportunity of trying his literary powers. In a letter

written in June, 1800, to his brother, speaking of that work he

says, "I am noticed as worthy of commendation, and as affording

an encouraging prospect of future excellence. You will laugh. I

have also turned poet, and have translated an Ode of Horace into

English verse." His productions gained him several of the prizes;

and he soon afterwards became a contributor to the Monthly Mirror,

his compositions in which attracted the attention of Mr. Hill, the

proprietor of the work, and of Mr. Capel Lofft, a gentleman who

distinguished himself by his patronage of Bloomfield.

Though on entering an attorney's office the bar was the object of

his hopes, a constitutional deafness soon convinced him that he

was not adapted for the duties of an advocate; and his thoughts,

from conscientious motives, became directed to the Church.

When about fifteen, his mind was agitated by doubt and anxiety on

the most important of all subjects; and the chaos of opinions

which extensive and miscellaneous reading so often produces on

ardent and imaginative temperaments, is well described in his

little poem entitled, "My own Character," wherein he represents

himself as a prey to the most opposite impressions, and as being

in a miserable state of incertitude:

"First I premise it's my honest conviction,

That my breast is the chaos of all contradiction,

Religious--deistic--now loyal and warm,

Then a dagger-drawn democrat hot for reform;

* * * * *

Now moody and sad, now unthinking and gay,

To all points of the compass I veer in a day."

In this sketch there is evidently much truth; and it affords a

striking idea of a plastic and active mind, on which every thing

makes an impression, where one idea follows another in such rapid

succession, that the former is not so entirely removed, but that

some remains of it are amalgamated with its successor. A youth

whose intellect is thus tossed in a whirlpool of conflicting

speculations, resembles a goodly ship newly launched, which, until

properly steadied by ballast, reels from side to side, the sport

of every undulation of the waters.

About this time young White's religious feelings were strongly

affected by the conversion of his friend, Mr. Almond, whose

opinions were previously as unsettled as his own. To escape the

raillery with which he expected White would assail him on learning

the change in his sentiments, Almond avoided his society; and when

his friend offered to defend his opinions, if Henry would allow

the divine originality of the Bible, he exclaimed, "Good God! you

surely regard me in a worse light than I deserve." The discussion

that followed, and the perusal of Scott's "Force of Truth," which

Almond placed in his hands, induced him to direct his attention

seriously to the subject; but an affecting incident soon afterwards

showed how deeply he was then influenced by religious considerations.

On the evening before Mr. Almond left Nottingham for Cambridge, he

was requested by White to accompany him to his apartment. The moment

they entered, Henry burst into tears, declaring that his anguish of

mind was insupportable; and he entreated Almond to kneel and pray

for him. Their tears and supplications were cordially mingled, and

when they were about to separate, White said, "What must I do? You

are the only friend to whom I can apply in this agonizing state,

and you are about to leave me. My literary associates are all

inclined to deism. I have no one with whom I can communicate."

It is instructive to learn to what circumstance such a person as

Kirke White was indebted for the knowledge "which causes not to

err." This information occurs in a letter from him to a Mr. Booth,

in August, 1801; and it also fixes the date of the happy change

that influenced every thought and every action of his future life,

which gave the energy of virtue to his exertions, soothed the

asperities of a temper naturally impetuous and irritable, and

enabled him, at a period when manhood is full of hope and promise,

to view the approaches of death with the calmness of a philosopher,

and the resignation of a saint.

After thanking Mr. Booth for the present of Jones's work on the

Trinity, he thus describes his religious impressions previous to

its perusal, and the effect it produced:

"Religious polemics, indeed, have seldom formed a part of my

studies; though whenever I happened accidentally to turn my

thoughts to the subject of the Protestant doctrine of the Godhead,

and compared it with Arian and Socinian, many doubts interfered,

and I even began to think that the more nicely the subject was

investigated, the more perplexed it would appear, and was on the

point of forming a resolution to go to heaven in my own way,

without meddling or involving myself in the inextricable labyrinth

of controversial dispute, when I received and perused this

excellent treatise, which finally cleared up the mists which my

ignorance had conjured around me, and clearly pointed out the real

truth."

From the moment he became convinced of the truths of Christianity,

all the enthusiasm of his nature was kindled. The ministry only,

was deemed worthy of his ambition; and he devoted his thoughts to

the sacred office with a zeal that justified a hope of the richest

fruits. In a letter to his friend, Mr. Almond, in November, 1803,

he says,

"My dear friend, I cannot adequately express what I owe to you on

the score of religion. I told Mr. Robinson you were the first

instrument of my being brought to think deeply on religious

subjects; and I feel more and more every day, that if it had not

been for you, I might, most probably, have been now buried in apathy

and unconcern. Though I am in a great measure blessed,--I mean

blessed with faith, now pretty steadfast, and heavy convictions,

I am far from being happy. My sins have been of a dark hue, and

manifold: I have made Fame my God, and Ambition my shrine. I have

placed all my hopes on the things of this world. I have knelt to

Dagon; I have worshipped the evil creations of my own proud heart,

and God had well nigh turned his countenance from me in wrath;

perhaps one step further, and he might have shut me for ever from

his rest. I now turn my eyes to Jesus, my Saviour, my atonement,

with hope and confidence: he will not repulse the imploring

penitent; his arms are open to all, they are open even to me; and

in return for such a mercy, what can I do less than dedicate my

whole life to his service? My thoughts would fain recur at

intervals to my former delights; but I am now on my guard to

restrain and keep them in. I know now where they ought to

concentre, and with the blessing of God, they shall there all tend.

"My next publication of poems will be solely religious. I shall

not destroy those of a different nature, which now lie before me;

but they will, most probably, sleep in my desk, until, in the good

time of my great Lord and Master, I shall receive my passport from

this world of vanity. I am now bent on a higher errand than that

of the attainment of poetical fame; poetry, in future, will be my

relaxation, not my employment.--Adieu to literary ambition! 'You

do not aspire to be prime minister,' said Mr. Robinson; 'you covet

a far higher character--to be the humblest among those who

minister to their Maker.'"

To the arguments of his friends on the impolicy of quitting a

profession to which he had given so much of his time, and on the

obstacles to the attainment of his wishes, he was impenetrable.

His employers generously offered to cancel his articles as soon as

he could show that his resources were likely to support him at the

University. Friends arose as they became necessary, and more than

one or two persons exerted themselves to promote his views; but

his principal reliance was on the sale of a little volume of

Poems, which, at the suggestion of Mr. Capel Lofft, he prepared

for the press.

The history of an author's first book is always interesting, and

Kirke White's was attended with unusual incidents. A novice in

literature often imagines that it is important his work should be

dedicated to some person of rank; and the Countess of Derby was

applied to, who declined, on the ground that she never accepted a

compliment of that nature. He then addressed the Duchess of

Devonshire; and a letter, with the manuscript, was left at her

house. The difficulty of obtaining access to her Grace proved so

great, that more than one letter to his brother was written on the

subject, in which he indignantly says, "I am cured of patronage

hunting; as for begging patronage, I am tired to the soul of it,

and shall give it up." Permission to inscribe the book to the

Duchess was at length granted: the book came out in 1803; and a

copy was transmitted to her, of which, however, no notice whatever

was taken.

On the publication of the volume, a copy was sent to each Review,

with a letter deprecatory of the severity of criticism, an act as

ill judged as it was useless, since all that a young writer could

properly say was to be found in the preface, in which he stated

that his inducement to publish was, "the facilitation through its

means of those studies which, from his earliest infancy, have been

the principal objects of his ambition, and the increase of the

capacity to pursue these inclinations, which may one day place him

in an honourable station in the scale of society."

His feelings received a severe wound from the notice of his Poems

in the Monthly Review, the writer of which, not satisfied with saying

that the production did not "justify any sanguine expectations,"

selected four of the worst lines in support of his opinion, and

showed himself insensible of the numerous beauties scattered

through the various pieces. Writing to a friend soon afterwards,

he thus spoke of himself; and more mental wretchedness has seldom

been described:

"I am at present under afflictions and contentions of spirit,

heavier than I have yet ever experienced. I think, at times, I am

mad, and destitute of religion; my pride is not yet subdued: the

unfavourable review (in the 'Monthly') of my unhappy work, has cut

deeper than you could have thought; not in a literary point of

view, but as it affects my respectability. It represents me actually

as a beggar, going about gathering money to put myself at college,

when my book is worthless; and this with every appearance of candour.

They have been sadly misinformed respecting me: this review goes

before me wherever I turn my steps; it haunts me incessantly, and

I am persuaded it is an instrument in the hand of Satan to drive me

to distraction. I must leave Nottingham. If the answer of the Elland

Society be unfavourable, I purpose writing to the Marquis of

Wellesley, to offer myself as a student at the academy he has

instituted at Fort William, in Bengal, and at the proper age to take

orders there. The missionaries at that place have done wonders

already; and I should, I hope, be a valuable labourer in the

vineyard. If the Marquis take no notice of my application, or do

not accede to my proposal, I shall place myself in some other way

of making a meet preparation for the holy office, either in the

Calvinistic Academy, or in one of the Scotch Universities, where I

shall be able to live at scarcely any expense."

The criticism just adverted to was as unfeeling as unjust; and but

for the generous conduct of a distinguished living poet, whose

benevolence of heart is equal to his genius, it might have entirely

crushed his hopes. Disgusted at the injustice of this criticism,

Mr. Southey instantly wrote to White, expressing his opinion of the

merits of his book, and giving him the encouragement and advice

which none was ever more ready or more able to bestow. Thus, an act

of cruel folly proved in its consequences the most beneficial of

the Poet's life. His spirits were invigorated by this considerate

kindness, and his feelings were expressed in glowing terms:

"I dare not say all I feel respecting your opinion of my little

volume. The extreme acrimony with which the Monthly Review (of all

others the most important) treated me, threw me into a state of

stupefaction. I regarded all that had passed as a dream, and I

thought I had been deluding myself into an idea of possessing

poetic genius, when, in fact, I had only the longing, without the

_afflatus._ I mustered resolution enough, however, to write

spiritedly to them: their answer, in the ensuing number, was a

tacit acknowledgment that they had been somewhat too unsparing in

their correction. It was a poor attempt to salve over a wound

wantonly and most ungenerously inflicted. Still I was damped,

because I knew the work was very respectable; and therefore could

not, I concluded, give a criticism grossly deficient in equity,

the more especially, as I knew of no sort of inducement to

extraordinary severity. Your letter, however, has revived me, and

I do again venture to hope that I may still produce something

which will survive me. With regard to your advice and offers of

assistance, I will not attempt, because I am unable, to thank you

for them. To-morrow morning I depart for Cambridge; and I have

considerable hopes that, as I do not enter into the University

with any sinister or interested views, but sincerely desire to

perform the duties of an affectionate and vigilant pastor, and

become more useful to mankind; I therefore have hopes, I say, that

I shall find means of support in the University. If I do not, I

shall certainly act in pursuance of your recommendations; and

shall, without hesitation, avail myself of your offers of service,

and of your directions. In a short time this will be determined;

and when it is, I shall take the liberty of writing to you at

Keswick, to make you acquainted with the result. I have only one

objection to publishing by subscription, and I confess it has

weight with me; it is, that, in this step, I shall seem to be

acting upon the advice so unfeelingly and contumeliously given by

the Monthly Reviewers, who say what is equal to this, that had I

gotten a subscription for my poems before their merit was known, I

might have succeeded; provided, it seems, I had made a particular

statement of my case; like a beggar who stands with his hat in one

hand, and a full account of his cruel treatment on the coast of

Barbary in the other, and so gives you his penny sheet for your

sixpence, by way of half purchase, half charity. I have materials

for another volume; but they were written principally while

Clifton Grove was in the press, or soon after, and do not now at

all satisfy me. Indeed, of late, I have been obliged to desist,

almost entirely, from converse with the dames of Helicon. The

drudgery of an attorney's office, and the necessity of preparing

myself, in case I should succeed in getting to college, in what

little leisure I could boast, left no room for the flights of the

imagination."

As soon as there were reasonable hopes of an adequate support

being obtained for him at Cambridge, he went to the village of

Wilford, for a month, to recruit his health, on which intense

application had made great inroads. Near this place were Clifton

Woods, the subject of one of his Poems, and which had long been

his favourite resort. Here he fully indulged in that love of the

beauties of nature, which forms a leading trait in the Poetic

character: and on this occasion he gave full reins to those

reveries of the imagination, of the delight of which a Poet only

is sensible. His lines on Wilford Church Yard show the melancholy

tone of his mind; and those Verses, as well as his "Ode to

Disappointment," of which no praise would be too extravagant,

appear to have been written, on learning from his mother, before

he left Wilford, that the efforts made to place him at Cambridge

had failed. It was evidently to this circumstance, which for the

time blighted his aspirations, that he alluded, when he says he

was,

"From Hope's summit hurl'd."

His remark to his mother on this occasion evinced, nevertheless,

great energy of mind. His complaints were confined to verse, for

the disappointment had no other effect upon his conduct than to

induce him to apply to his studies with unprecedented vigour,

that, since he was to revert to the law as a profession, he might

not be, as he observed, "a _mediocre_ attorney." He read regularly

from five in the morning until some time after midnight, and

occasionally passed whole nights without lying down; and the

entreaties, even when accompanied by the tears of his mother,

that he would not thus destroy his health, did not induce him to

relax his zeal.

Symptoms of consumption, the disease to which he ultimately became

a victim, and which he designates, in one of his many allusions to

it, as

"The most fatal of Pandora's train,"

began now to excite the anxiety of his family. Illness was, however,

forgotten in the realization of the hope dearest to his heart. The

exertions of his friends proved successful at a time when all

expectations had vanished; and by their united efforts it was

resolved that he should become a sizer of St. John's College,

Cambridge, his brother Neville, his mother, and a benevolent

individual, whose name is not mentioned, having agreed to contribute

to support him. It appears, that if he had not succeeded in that

object, he intended to have joined the society of orthodox dissenters,

for which purpose he underwent an examination. Though his attainments

and character proved satisfactory on that occasion, his volume of

Poems rose in judgment against him, and nothing but the approbation

Mr. Southey had expressed of them prevented his work from being

considered a disqualification for the ministry. His feelings on

the prospect of entering the Church are described with great force

in his letter, dated in April, 1804.

"Most fervently do I return thanks to God for this providential

opening: it has breathed new animation into me, and my breast

expands with the prospect of becoming the minister of Christ where

I most desired it; but where I almost feared all probability of

success was nearly at an end. Indeed, I had begun to turn my

thoughts to the dissenters, as people of whom I was destined, not

by choice, but necessity, to become the pastor. Still, although I

knew I should be happy anywhere, so that I were a profitable

labourer in the vineyard, I did, by no means, feel that calm, that

indescribable satisfaction which I do when I look toward that

Church, which I think in the main formed on the apostolic model,

and from which I am decidedly of opinion there is no positive

grounds for dissent. I return thanks to God for keeping me so long

in suspense, for I know it has been beneficial to my soul, and I

feel a considerable trust that the way is now about to be made

clear, and that my doubts and fears on this head will, in due

time, be removed."

Being advised to degrade for a year, and to place himself with a

private tutor, he went to the Rev. Mr. Grainger of Winteringham,

in Lincolnshire, in the autumn of 1804. While under that gentleman's

care he studied with such intense fervour, that fears were excited

not for his health only, but for his intellect; and a second severe

attack of illness was the consequence. Poetry was now laid aside,

and as he himself told a friend in February, 1805,

"My poor neglected Muse has lain absolutely unnoticed by me for

the last four months, during which period I have been digging in

the mines of Scapula for Greek roots, and instead of drinking with

eager delight the beauties of Virgil have been culling and drying

his phrases for future use."--"I fear my good genius, who was

wont to visit me with nightly visions in woods and brakes and by

the river's marge, is now dying of a fen ague, and I shall thus

probably emerge from my retreat not a hair-brained son of

imagination, but a sedate black-lettered book worm, with a head

like an etymologicon magnum."

To Mr. Capel Lofft, in the September following, after stating that

all his time was employed in preparing himself for orders, his

estimate of the necessary qualifications being, very high, he

observed:

"I often, however, cast a look of fond regret to the darling

occupations of my younger hours, and the tears rush into my eyes,

as I fancy I see the few wild flowers of poetic genius, with which

I have been blessed, withering with neglect. Poetry has been to me

something more than amusement; it has been a cheering companion

when I have had no other to fly to, and a delightful solace when

consolation has been in some measure needful. I cannot, therefore,

discard so old and faithful a friend without deep regret,

especially when I reflect that, stung by my ingratitude, he may

desert me for ever!"

But the old fire was, he adds, rekindled by looking over some of

his pieces which Mr. Lofft wished to print; and he transmitted to

that gentleman a short Poem, expressive of his sorrow at taking

leave of his favourite pursuit. The following passages could only

have arisen from a love of Poetry, which it was not in the power

of severer studies to extinguish:

Heart-soothing Poesy! Though thou hast ceased

To hover o'er the many voiced strings

Of my long silent lyre, yet thou canst still

Call the warm tear from its thrice hallow'd cell,

And with recalled images of bliss

Warm my reluctant heart. Yes, I would throw,

Once more would throw, a quick and hurried hand

O'er the responding chords. It hath not ceased,

It cannot, will not cease; the heavenly warmth

Plays round my heart, and mantles o'er my cheek;

Still, though unbidden, plays. Fair Poesy!

The summer and the spring, the wind and rain,

Sunshine and storm, with various interchange,

Have mark'd full many a day, and week, and month,

Since by dark wood, or hamlet far retired,

Spell-struck, with thee I loiter'd. Sorceress!

I cannot burst thy bonds!

In October, 1805, Kirke White became a resident member of St.

John's College, Cambridge; and such was the use he had made of his

time at Winteringham, that he was distinguished for his classical

knowledge. But he had dearly purchased his superiority. His

constitution was much shattered when he went to Mr. Grainger, and

every day brought with it new proofs that his career had nearly

reached its bounds. The only chance of prolonging his life was to

seek a milder climate, and to abandon study entirely. As in all

great minds, Fame was, however, dearer to him than existence. He

felt that every thing connected with his future prospects was at

stake; and he adhered to a course of rigorous application until

nature gave way. During his first term he became a candidate for

one of the University scholarships; but the increased exertion he

underwent was attended by results that obliged him to retire from

the contest. At this moment the general college examination

approached, and thinking that if he failed his hopes would be

blasted for ever, he taxed his energies to the uttermost, during

the fortnight which intervened, to meet the trial. His illness,

however, speedily returned; and, with tears in his eyes, he

informed his tutor, Mr. Catton, that he could not go into the Hall

to be examined. That gentleman, whose kindness to the Poet

entitles his name to respect, urged him to support himself during

the six days of the examination. Powerful stimulants were

administered, and he was pronounced the first man of his year. The

triumph, complete and exhilarating as it was, too closely

resembled that of the generous steed, who, in distancing his

competitors, reaches the goal, and dies; and his own ideas of the

sacrifices with which such an honour must be attended were very

poetical. He said to an intimate friend, almost the last time he

saw him, that were he to paint a picture of Fame crowning a

distinguished under graduate after the senate house examination,

he would represent her as concealing a death's head under a mask

of beauty.

Soon after this event, Kirke White went to London, and on

Christmas Eve he wrote to his mother from town, stating that his

health had been rather affected by study, that he came to London

for amusement, and that his tutor had, in the kindest manner,

relieved his mind from pecuniary cares, and cheered him with the

assurance that his talents would be rewarded by his College. But

it is from his letters to his friend that the real state to which

excitement and labour had reduced him, is to be learnt, because,

to allay the fears of his relations, he represented himself to

them, as being much better than he actually was:

London, Christmas, 1805.

"I wrote you a letter, which now lies in my drawer at St. John's;

but in such a weak state of body, and in so desponding and

comfortless a tone of mind, that I knew it would give you pain,

and therefore I chose not to send it. I have indeed been ill; but

thanks to God, I am recovered. My nerves were miserably shattered

by over application, and the absence of all that could amuse, and

the presence of many things which weighed heavy upon my spirits.

When I found myself too ill to read, and too desponding to endure

my own reflections, I discovered that it is really a miserable

thing to be destitute of the soothing and supporting hand when

nature most needs it. I wandered up and down from one man's room

to another, and from one College to another, imploring society, a

little conversation, and a little relief of the burden which

pressed upon my spirits; and I am sorry to say, that those who,

when I was cheerful and lively, sought my society with avidity,

now, when I actually needed conversation, were too busy to grant

it. Our College examination was then approaching, and I perceived

with anguish that I had read for the university scholarship until

I had barely time to get up our private subjects, and that as I

was now too ill to read, all hope of getting through the

examination with decent respectability was at an end. This was an

additional grief. I went to our tutor, with tears in my eyes, and

told him I must absent myself from the examination,--a step which

would have precluded me from a station amongst the prize-men until

the second year. He earnestly entreated me to run the risk. My

surgeon gave me strong stimulants and supporting medicines during

the examination week; and I passed, I believe, one of the most

respectable examinations amongst them. As soon as ever it was

over, I left Cambridge, by the advice of my surgeon and tutor,

and I feel myself now pretty strong. I have given up the thought

of sitting for the University scholarship, in consequence of my

illness, as the course of my reading was effectually broken. In

this place I have been much amused, and have been received with an

attention in the literary circles which I neither expected nor

deserved. But this does not affect me as it once would have done:

my views are widely altered; and I hope that I shall in time learn

to lay my whole heart at the foot of the cross."

Early in January following he returned to Cambridge, and

imprudently resumed his old habits of study, according to the

following plan: "Rise at half-past five; devotions and walk till

seven; chapel and breakfast till eight; study and lectures till

one; four and a half clear reading; walk, &c. and dinner, and

Wollaston, and chapel to six; six to nine reading, three hours;

nine to ten devotions; bed at ten." With him, however, exercise

was but slight relaxation, as his intellectual faculties were kept

on the stretch during his walks, and he is known to have committed

to memory a whole tragedy of Euripides in this manner, and as they

were not less exerted in his devotions, his mind must have been

intensely occupied for twelve or fourteen hours a day, at a moment

when perfect quiet and rest were indispensable. Within a very few

weeks he paid a heavy penalty for his indiscretion. To his friend,

Mr. Haddock, he wrote on the 17th of February, 1806:

"Do not think I am reading hard; I believe it is all over with

that. I have had a recurrence of my old complaint within this last

four or five days, which has half unnerved me for every thing. The

state of my health is really miserable; I am well and lively in

the morning, and overwhelmed with nervous horrors in the evening.

I do not know how to proceed with regard to my studies:--a very

slight overstretch of the mind in the daytime occasions me not

only a sleepless night, but a night of gloom and horror. The

systole and diastole of my heart seem to be playing at ball--the

stake, my life. I can only say the game is not yet decided:--I

allude to the violence of the palpitation. I am going to mount the

Gog-magog hills this morning, in quest of a good night's sleep.

The Gog-magog hills for my body, and the Bible for my mind, are my

only medicines. I am sorry to say, that neither are quite

adequate. Cui, igitur; dandum est vitio? Mihi prorsus. I hope, as

the summer comes, my spirits (which have been with the swallows, a

winter's journey) will come with it. When my spirits are restored,

my health will be restored:--the 'fons mali' lies there. Give me

serenity and equability of mind, and all will be well."

He, however, rallied again; but he seems to have been aware that

his end was not far distant, for in March he told his brother that

though his stay at Cambridge, in the long vacation, was important,

he intended to go to Nottingham for his health, and more

particularly for his mother's sake; adding, "I shall be glad to

moor all my family in the harbour of religious trust, and in the

calm seas of religious peace. These concerns are apt at times to

escape me; but they now press much upon my heart, and I think it

is my first duty to see that my family are safe in the most

important of all affairs."

In April, however, he drew a pleasing picture of his future life,

in which his filial and paternal tenderness are conspicuous; but

he soon afterwards went to Nottingham; and in a letter to his

friend Mr. Leeson, written from that town, on the 7th of April,

he gave a very melancholy account of himself:

"It seems determined upon, by my mother, that I cannot be spared,

since the time of my stay is so very short, and my health so very

uncertain. The people here can scarcely be persuaded that any

thing ails me; so well do I look; but occasional depressions,

especially after any thing has occurred to occasion uneasiness,

still harass me. My mind is of a very peculiar cast. I began to

think too early; and the indulgence of certain trains of thought,

and too free an exercise of the imagination, have superinduced a

morbid kind of sensibility; which is to the mind what excessive

irritability is to the body. Some circumstances occurred on my

arrival at Nottingham, which gave me just cause for inquietude

and anxiety; the consequences were insomnia, and a relapse into

causeless dejections. It is my business now to curb these

irrational and immoderate affections, and, by accustoming myself

to sober thought and cool reasoning, to restrain these freaks and

vagaries of the fancy, and redundancies of [Greek: melancholia].

When I am well, I cannot help entertaining a sort of contempt for

the weakness of mind which marks my indispositions. Titus when

well, and Titus when ill, are two distinct persons. The man, when

in health, despises the man, when ill, for his weakness, and the

latter envies the former for his felicity."

As his health declined his prospects seemed to brighten. He was

again pronounced first at the great College examination; he was

one of the three best theme writers, whose merits were so nearly

equal that the examiners could not decide between them; and he

was a prize-man both in the mathematical and logical or general

examination, and in Latin composition. His College offered him a

private tutor at its expense, and Mr. Catton obtained exhibitions

for him to the value of sixty-six pounds per annum, by which he

was enabled to give up the pecuniary assistance he had received

from his friends. But even at this moment, when the world promised

so much, his situation was truly deplorable. The highest honours

of the University were supposed to be within his grasp, and the

conviction that such was the general opinion, goaded him on to the

most strenuous exertions when he was incapable of the slightest.

This struggle between his mental and physical powers, was not,

however, of long duration. In July he was seized with an attack

that threatened his life, and which he thus described in a letter

to Mr. Maddock:

"Last Saturday morning I rose early, and got up some rather

abstruse problems in mechanics for my tutor, spent an hour with

him, between eight and nine got my breakfast, and read the Greek

History (at breakfast) till ten, then sat down to decipher some

logarithm tables. I think I had not done any thing at them, when

I lost myself. At a quarter past eleven my laundress found me

bleeding in four different places in my face and head, and

insensible. I got up and staggered about the room, and she, being

frightened, ran away, and told my gyp to fetch a surgeon. Before

he came I was sallying out with my flannel gown on, and my

academical gown over it; he made me put on my coat, and then I

went to Mr. Farish's: he opened a vein, and my recollection

returned. My own idea was, that I had fallen out of bed, and so I

told Mr. Farish at first; but I afterwards remembered that I had

been to Mr. Fiske, and breakfasted. Mr. Catton has insisted on my

consulting Sir Isaac Pennington, and the consequence is, that I

am to go through a course of blistering, &c. which, after the

bleeding, will leave me weak enough.

"I am, however, very well, except as regards the doctors, and

yesterday I drove into the country to Saffron Walden, in a gig.

My tongue is in a bad condition, from a bite which I gave it

either in my fall, or in the moments of convulsion. My nose has

also come badly off. I believe I fell against my reading desk.

My other wounds are only rubs and scratches on the carpet. I am

ordered to remit my studies for a while, by the common advice both

of doctors and tutors. Dr. Pennington hopes to prevent any

recurrence of the fit. He thinks it looks towards epilepsy, of the

horrors of which malady I have a very full and precise idea; and I

only pray that God will spare me as respects my faculties, however

else it may seem good to him to afflict me. Were I my own master,

I know how I should act; but I am tied here by bands which I

cannot burst. I know that change of place is needful; but I must

not indulge in the idea. The college must not pay my tutor for

nothing. Dr. Pennington and Mr. Farish attribute the attack to a

too continued tension of the faculties. As I am much alone now, I

never get quite off study, and I think incessantly. I know nature

will not endure this. They both proposed my going home, but Mr. * *

did not hint at it, although much concerned; and, indeed, I know

home would be a bad place for me in my present situation. I look

round for a resting place, and I find none. Yet there is one,

which I have long too, too much disregarded, and thither I must

now betake myself. There are many situations worse than mine, and

I have no business to complain. If these afflictions should draw

the bonds tighter which hold me to my Redeemer, it will be well.

You may be assured that you have here a plain statement of my case

in its true colours without any palliation. I am now well again,

and have only to fear a relapse, which I shall do all I can to

prevent, by a relaxation in study. I have now written too much.

"I am, very sincerely yours,

"H. K. WHITE.

"P. S. I charge you, as you value my peace, not to let my friends

hear, either directly or indirectly of my illness."

A few weeks afterwards he again directed his mother's hopes to a

tranquil retreat for his family in his parsonage, but said nothing

of his illness; and he told Mr. Haddock, in September,

"I am perfectly well again, and have experienced no recurrence of

the fit: my spirits, too, are better, and I read very moderately.

I hope that God will be pleased to spare his rebellious child;

this stroke has brought me nearer to Him; whom indeed have I for

my comforter but Him? I am still reading, but with moderation, as

I have been during the whole vacation, whatever you may persist

in thinking. My heart turns with more fondness towards the

consolations of religion than it did, and in some degree I have

found consolation."

But notwithstanding these flattering expressions, he appears to

have felt that he had but a short time to live; and it was

probably about this period that he wrote his lines on the

"Prospect of Death," perhaps one of the most beautiful and

affecting compositions in our language:

"On my bed, in wakeful restlessness,

I turn me wearisome; while all around,

All, all, save me, sink in forgetfulness;

I only wake to watch the sickly taper

Which lights me to my tomb.--Yes, 'tis the hand

Of Death I feel press heavy on my vitals,

Slow sapping the warm current of existence

My moments now are few--the sand of life

Ebbs fastly to its finish. Yet a little,

And the last fleeting particle will fall,

Silent, unseen, unnoticed, unlamented.

Come then, sad Thought, and let us meditate

While meditate we may.

* * * * *

I hoped I should not leave

The earth without a vestige; Fate decrees

It shall be otherwise, and I submit.

Henceforth, O world, no more of thy desires!

No more of Hope! the wanton vagrant Hope;

I abjure all. Now other cares engross me,

And my tired soul, with emulative haste,

Looks to its God, and prunes its wings for Heaven."

On the 22nd of September he wrote to Mr. Charlesworth, and his

letter indicates the possession of higher spirits and more

sanguine hopes, than almost any other in his correspondence.

About the end of that month he went to London, on a visit to his

brother Neville, but returned to College within a few weeks, in a

state that precluded all chance of prolonging his existence; but

still he did not cease to hope, or rather sought to delude his

brother into the belief that he should recover; for in a letter

addressed to him, which was found in his pocket after his decease,

dated Saturday, 11th of October, he says,

"I am safely arrived, and in College, but my illness has increased

upon me much. The cough continues, and is attended with a good

deal of fever. I am under the care of Mr. Parish, and entertain

very little apprehension about the cough; but my over-exertions

in town have reduced me to a state of much debility; and, until

the cough be gone, I cannot be permitted to take any strengthening

medicines. This places me in an awkward predicament; but I think

I perceive a degree of expectoration this morning, which will soon

relieve me, and then I shall mend apace. Under these circumstances

I must not expect to see you here at present; when I am a little

recovered, it will be a pleasant relaxation to me. Our lectures

began on Friday, but I do not attend them until I am better. I

have not written to my mother, nor shall I while I remain unwell.

You will tell her, as a reason, that our lectures began on Friday.

I know she will be uneasy if she do not hear from me, and still

more so, if I tell her I am ill.

"I cannot write more at present than that I am

"Your truly affectionate Brother,

"H. K. WHITE."

A friend acquainted his brother with his situation, who hastened

to him; but when he arrived he was delirious, and though reason

returned for a few moments, as if to bless him with the

consciousness that the same fond relative, to whose attachment

he owed so much, was present at his last hour, he sunk into a

stupor, and on Sunday, the 19th of October, 1806, he breathed

his last.

Thus died, in his twenty-second year, Henry Kirke White, whose

genius and virtues justified the brightest hopes, and whose

fitness for Heaven does not bring the consolation for his untimely

fate which perhaps it ought. It is impossible to refrain from

anticipating what his talents might have produced, had his

existence been extended; and though it is extremely doubtful if he

were capable of worldly happiness, there is a selfishness in our

nature which makes us grieve when those who are likely to increase

our intellectual pleasures are hurried to the grave.

In whatever light the character of this unhappy youth be

contemplated, it is full of instruction. His talents were unusually

precocious, and their variety was as astonishing as their extent.

Besides the Poetical pieces in this volume, and his scholastic

attainments, his ability was manifested in various other ways.

His style was remarkable for its clearness and elegance, and his

correspondence and prose pieces show extensive information. To

great genius and capacity, he united the rarest and more important

gifts of sound judgment and common sense. It is usually the

misfortune of genius to invest ordinary objects with a meretricious

colouring, that perverts their forms and purposes, to make its

possessor imagine that it exempts him from attending to those

strict rules of moral conduct to which others are bound to adhere,

and to render him neglectful of the sacred assurance that "to whom

much is given from him will much be required." Nature, in Kirke

White's case, appears, on the contrary, to have determined that

she would, in one instance at least, prove that high intellectual

attainments are strictly compatible with every social and moral

virtue. At a very early period of his life, religion became the

predominant feeling of his mind, and she imparted her sober and

chastened effects to all his thoughts and actions. The cherished

object of every member of his family, he repaid their affection by

the most anxious solicitude for their welfare, offering his advice

on spiritual affairs with impressive earnestness, and indicating,

in every letter of his voluminous correspondence, the greatest

consideration for their feelings and happiness. For the last six

years he deemed himself marked out for the service of his Maker,

not like the member of a convent, whose duties consist only in

prayer, but in the exercise of that philanthropy and practical

benevolence which ought to adorn every parish priest. To qualify

himself properly for the holy office, he subjected his mind to the

severest discipline; and his letters display a rational piety, and

an enlightened view of religious obligations, that confer much

greater honour upon his name, than his Poetical pieces, whether as

proofs of talent, or of the qualities of his heart.

Such was Henry Kirke White as he appeared to others; but there are

minuter traits of character which no observer can catch, and which

the possessor must himself delineate. Though early impressed with

melancholy, it was not of a misanthropic nature; and while despair

and disappointment were preying on his heart, he was all sweetness

and docility to others. A consciousness of the possession of

abilities, and of being capable of better things than those which

he seemed destined to perform, gives to some of his productions the

appearance of discontent, and of having overrated his pretensions.

He was, like many youthful Poets, too fond of complaining of

fortune, of supposing himself neglected, and of comparing his

humble lot with those situations for which he believed himself

qualified; but these were the lucubrations of his earliest years,

before he found friends to foster his talents. So far, indeed,

from having reason to lament the indifference of others to his

merits, his life affords one of the most striking examples in the

history of genius, that talents when united to moral worth, will be

rewarded by honours and fame, that obscure birth is no impediment

to advancement, and that a person of the humblest origin may, by

his own exertions, become, in the great arena of learning, an

object of envy even to those of the highest rank. It is due to him,

whose good sense was so remarkable, to point out the time in his

career to which the passages in question refer; and to add that his

correspondence, after he entered the University, expressed nothing

but satisfaction with his lot, and a desire to justify the kindness

and expectations of his patrons. Still, Kirke White was unhappy;

and, since no other cause then existed for his mental wretchedness,

it must be ascribed to a morbid temperament, induced partly by ill

health, and partly by constitutional infirmity. The uncertainty of

his early prospects, and the fear of ridicule if he expressed his

feelings, rendered him reserved, and made him confine his thoughts

to his own bosom, for he says,

"When all was new, and life was in its spring,

I lived an unloved solitary thing;

E'en then I learn'd to bury deep from day

The piercing cares that wore my youth away;"

and in a letter to Mr. Maddock, in September, 1804, he thus spoke

of himself:

"Perhaps it may be that I am not formed for friendship, that I

expect more than can ever be found. Time will tutor me; I am a

singular being under a common outside: I am a profound dissembler

of my inward feelings, and necessity has taught me the art. I am

long before I can unbosom to a friend, yet, I think, I am sincere

in my friendship: you must not attribute this to any suspiciousness

of nature, but must consider that I lived seventeen years my own

confidant, my own friend, full of projects and strange thoughts,

and confiding them to no one. I am habitually reserved, and

habitually cautious in letting it be seen that I hide any thing."

None knew better than himself that the aspirations and feelings of

which genius is the parent are often found to be inconsistent with

felicity:

"Oh! hear the plaint by thy sad favourite made,

His melancholy moan,

He tells of scorn, he tells of broken vows,

Of sleepless nights, of anguish-ridden days,

Pangs that his sensibility uprouse

To curse his being and his thirst for praise.

Thou gavest to him with treble force to feel

The sting of keen neglect, the rich man's scorn;

And what o'er all does in his soul preside

Predominant, and tempers him to steel,

His high indignant pride."

Nor was he unconscious that the toils necessary to secure literary

distinction, when endured by a shattered frame, are in the highest

degree severe. How much truth and feeling are there in the Lines

which he wrote after spending a whole night in study, an hour when

religious impressions force themselves with irresistible weight on

the exhausted mind:

"Oh! when reflecting on these truths sublime,

How insignificant do all the joys,

The gaudes, and honours of the world appear!

How vain ambition!--Why has my wakeful lamp

Out watch'd the slow-paced night?--Why on the page,

The schoolman's labour'd page, have I employ'd

The hours devoted by the world to rest,

And needful to recruit exhausted nature?

Say, can the voice of narrow Fame repay

The loss of health? or can the hope of glory

Lend a new throb unto my languid heart,

Cool, even now, my feverish aching brow,

Relume the fires of this deep sunken eye,

Or paint new colours on this pallid cheek?"

What a picture of mental suffering does the following passage

present, and how impressive does it become when the fate of the

author is remembered:

"These feverish dews that on my temples hang,

This quivering lip, these eyes of dying flame;

These, the dread signs of many a secret pang--

These are the meed of him who pants for Fame!"

Like so many other ardent students, the night was his favourite

time for reading; and, dangerous as the habit is to health, what

student will not agree in his descriptions of the pleasures that

attend it?

"The night's my own, they cannot steal my night!

When evening lights her folding star on high,

I live and breathe; and, in the sacred hours

Of quiet and repose, my spirit flies,

Free as the morning, o'er the realms of space,

And mounts the skies, and imps her wing for heaven."

Kirke White's poetry is popular, because it describes feelings,

passions, and associations, which all have felt, and with which

all can sympathize. It is by no means rich in metaphor, nor does

it evince great powers of imagination; but it is pathetic,

plaintive, and agreeable; and emanating directly from his own

heart, it appeals irresistibly to that of his reader. His meaning

is always clear, and the force and vigour of his expressions are

remarkable. In estimating his poetical powers, however, it should

be remembered, that nearly all his Poems were written before he

was nineteen; and that they are, in truth, but the germs of future

excellence, and ought not to be criticized as if they were the

fruits of an intellect on which time and education had bestowed

their advantages. It is, however, in his prose works, and

especially in his correspondence, that the versatility of his

talents, his acquirements, his piety, and his moral excellence

are most conspicuous.

A question arises with respect to him which, in the history of a

young Poet, is always interesting, but which Mr. Southey has not

touched. Abundance of proof exists in his writings of the

susceptibility of his heart; but it is not stated that he ever

formed an attachment. In many of his pieces he speaks with

tenderness of a female whom he calls Fanny; and in one of them,

from which it appears that she was dead, he expresses his regard

in no equivocal manner; but there are other grounds for concluding

that his happiness was affected by disappointed affection. To his

friend Mr. Maddock, in July, 1804, he observed:

"I shall never, never marry. It cannot, must not be. As to

affections, mine are already engaged as much as they ever will

be, and this is one reason why I believe my life will be a life

of celibacy. I love too ardently to make love innocent, and

therefore I say farewell to it."

With this passage one of his Sonnets singularly agrees:

When I sit musing on the chequer'd past

(A term much darken'd with untimely woes),

My thoughts revert to her, for whom still flows

The tear, though half disowned; and binding fast

Pride's stubborn cheat to my too yielding heart,

I say to her, she robb'd me of my rest,

When that was all my wealth. 'T is true my breast

Received from her this wearying, lingering smart;

Yet, ah! I cannot bid her form depart;

Though wrong'd, I love her--yet in anger love,

For she was most unworthy. Then I prove

Vindictive joy: and on my stern front gleams,

Throned in dark clouds, inflexible....

The native pride of my much injured heart.

Was the subject of this Sonnet wholly imaginary, or was there some

unfortunate story which, for sufficient reasons, his biographers

have suppressed? It is true, that in his letters, written at

a much later period, he speaks of marriage in a manner not to

be reconciled with the idea that he was then suffering from

recollections of that description; but he may, in the interval of

two years, have partially recovered from his loss.

Kirke White was buried in the Church of All Saints, Cambridge, but

no monument was erected to him until a liberal minded American,

Mr. Francis Boott, of Boston, placed a tablet to his memory, with

a medallion, by Chantrey, with the following inscription, by

Professor Smyth, one of his numerous friends:

"Warm'd with fond hope and learning's sacred flame,

To Granta's bowers the youthful Poet came;

Unconquer'd powers the immortal mind display'd,

But worn with anxious thought, the frame decay'd:

Pale o'er his lamp, and in his cell retired,

The martyr student faded and expired.

Oh! genius, taste, and piety sincere,

Too early lost 'midst studies too severe!

Foremost to mourn, was generous Southey seen,

He told the tale, and show'd what White had been,

Nor told in vain. For o'er the Atlantic wave

A wanderer came, and sought the Poet's grave;

On yon low stone he saw his lonely name,

And raised this fond memorial to his fame."

POEMS.

_CLIFTON GROVE._

_DEDICATION._

_To Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire, the following trifling

effusions of a very youthful Muse are, by permission, dedicated

by her Grace's much obliged and grateful Servant,_

_HENRY KIRKE WHITE_

_Nottingham._

PREFACE.

The following attempts in Verse are laid before the Public with

extreme diffidence. The Author is very conscious that the juvenile

efforts of a youth, who has not received the polish of Academical

discipline, and who has been but sparingly blessed with

opportunities for the prosecution of scholastic pursuits, must

necessarily be defective in the accuracy and finished elegance

which mark the works of the man who has passed his life in the

retirement of his study, furnishing his mind with images, and at

the same time attaining the power of disposing those images to

the best advantage.

The unpremeditated effusions of a Boy, from his thirteenth year,

employed, not in the acquisition of literary information, but in

the more active business of life, must not be expected to exhibit

any considerable portion of the correctness of a Virgil, or the

vigorous compression of a Horace. Men are not, I believe,

frequently known to bestow much, labour on their amusements; and

these poems were, most of them, written merely to beguile a

leisure hour, or to fill up the languid intervals of studies of a

severer nature.

[Greek: Pas to oicheios ergon agapao], "Every one loves his own

work," says Stagyrite; but it was no overweening affection of this

kind which induced this publication. Had the author relied on his

own judgment only, these Poems would not, in all probability, ever

have seen the light.

Perhaps it may be asked of him, what are his motives for this

publication? He answers--simply these: The facilitation, through

its means, of those studies which, from his earliest infancy, have

been the principal objects of his ambition; and the increase of

the capacity to pursue those inclinations which may one day place

him in an honourable station in the scale of society.

The principal Poem in this little collection (Clifton Grove) is,

he fears, deficient in numbers and harmonious coherency of parts.

It is, however, merely to be regarded as a description of a

nocturnal ramble in that charming retreat, accompanied with such

reflections as the scene naturally suggested. It was written

twelve months ago, when the Author was in his sixteenth year:--The

Miscellanies are some of them the productions of a very early

age.--Of the Odes, that "To an early Primrose" was written at

thirteen--the others are of a later date.--The Sonnets are chiefly

irregular; they have, perhaps, no other claim to that specific

denomination, than that they consist only of fourteen lines.

Such are the Poems towards which I entreat the lenity of the

Public. The Critic will doubtless find in them much to condemn;

he may likewise possibly discover something to commend. Let him

scan my faults with an indulgent eye, and in the work of that

correction which I invite, let him remember he is holding the iron

Mace of Criticism over the flimsy superstructure of a youth of

seventeen; and, remembering that, may he forbear from crushing, by

too much rigour, the painted butterfly whose transient colours may

otherwise be capable of affording a moment's innocent amusement.

H. K. WHITE.

Nottingham.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

CLIFTON GROVE.

A SKETCH.

Lo! in the west, fast fades the lingering light,

And day's last vestige takes its silent flight.

No more is heard the woodman's measured stroke,

Which with the dawn from yonder dingle broke;

No more, hoarse clamouring o'er the uplifted head,

The crows assembling seek their wind-rock'd bed;

Still'd is the village hum--the woodland sounds

Have ceased to echo o'er the dewy grounds,

And general silence reigns, save when below

The murmuring Trent is scarcely heard to flow;

And save when, swung by 'nighted rustic late,

Oft, on its hinge, rebounds the jarring gate;

Or when the sheep-bell, in the distant vale,

Breathes its wild music on the downy gale.

Now, when the rustic wears the social smile,

Released from day and its attendant toil,

And draws his household round their evening fire,

And tells the ofttold tales that never tire;

Or, where the town's blue turrets dimly rise,

And manufacture taints the ambient skies,

The pale mechanic leaves the labouring loom,

The air-pent hold, the pestilential room,

And rushes out, impatient to begin

The stated course of customary sin:

Now, now my solitary way I bend

Where solemn groves in awful state impend:

And cliffs, that boldly rise above the plain,

Bespeak, bless'd Clifton! thy sublime domain.

Here lonely wandering o'er the sylvan bower,

I come to pass the meditative hour;

To bid awhile the strife of passion cease,

And woo the calms of solitude and peace.

And oh! thou sacred Power, who rear'st on high

Thy leafy throne where wavy poplars sigh!

Genius of woodland shades! whose mild control

Steals with resistless witchery to the soul,

Come with thy wonted ardour, and inspire

My glowing bosom with thy hallow'd fire.

And thou, too, Fancy, from thy starry sphere,

Where to the hymning orbs thou lend'st thine ear,

Do thou descend, and bless my ravish'd sight,

Veil'd in soft visions of serene delight.

At thy command the gale that passes by

Bears in its whispers mystic harmony.

Thou wavest thy wand, and lo! what forms appear!

On the dark cloud what giant shapes career!

The ghosts of Ossian skim the misty vale,

And hosts of sylphids on the moonbeams sail.

This gloomy alcove darkling to the sight,

Where meeting trees create eternal night;

Save, when from yonder stream the sunny ray,

Reflected, gives a dubious gleam of day;

Recalls, endearing to my alter'd mind,

Times, when beneath the boxen hedge reclined,

I watch'd the lapwing to her clamorous brood;

Or lured the robin to its scatter'd food;

Or woke with song the woodland echo wild,

And at each gay response delighted smiled.

How oft, when childhood threw its golden ray

Of gay romance o'er every happy day,

Here, would I run, a visionary boy,

When the hoarse tempest shook the vaulted sky,

And, fancy-led, beheld the Almighty's form

Sternly careering on the eddying storm;

And heard, while awe congeal'd my inmost soul,

His voice terrific in the thunders roll.

With secret joy I view'd with vivid glare

The vollied lightnings cleave the sullen air;

And, as the warring winds around reviled,

With awful pleasure big,--I heard and smiled.

Beloved remembrance!--Memory which endears

This silent spot to my advancing years,

Here dwells eternal peace, eternal rest,

In shades like these to live is to be bless'd.

While happiness evades the busy crowd,

In rural coverts loves the maid to shroud.

And thou too, Inspiration, whose wild flame

Shoots with electric swiftness through the frame,

Thou here dost love to sit with upturn'd eye,

And listen to the stream that murmurs by,

The woods that wave, the gray owl's silken flight,

The mellow music of the listening night.

Congenial calms more welcome to my breast

Than maddening joy in dazzling lustre dress'd,

To Heaven my prayers, my daily prayers I raise,

That ye may bless my unambitious days,

Withdrawn, remote, from all the haunts of strife,

May trace with me the lowly vale of life,

And when her banner Death shall o'er me wave,

May keep your peaceful vigils on my grave.

Now as I rove, where wide the prospect grows,

A livelier light upon my vision flows.

No more above the embracing branches meet,

No more the river gurgles at my feet,

But seen deep down the cliff's impending side,

Through hanging woods, now gleams its silver tide.

Dim is my upland path,--across the green

Fantastic shadows fling, yet oft between

The chequer'd glooms the moon her chaste ray sheds,

Where knots of bluebells droop their graceful heads.

And beds of violets, blooming 'mid the trees,

Load with waste fragrance the nocturnal breeze.

Say, why does Man, while to his opening sight

Each shrub presents a source of chaste delight,

And Nature bids for him her treasures flow,

And gives to him alone his bliss to know,

Why does he pant for Vice's deadly charms?

Why clasp the syren Pleasure to his arms?

And suck deep draughts of her voluptuous breath,

Though fraught with ruin, infamy, and death?

Could he who thus to vile enjoyment clings

Know what calm joy from purer sources springs;

Could he but feel how sweet, how free from strife,

The harmless pleasures of a harmless life,

No more his soul would pant for joys impure,

The deadly chalice would no more allure,

But the sweet potion he was wont to sip

Would turn to poison on his conscious lip.

Fair Nature! thee, in all thy varied charms,

Fain would I clasp for ever in my arms!

Thine are the sweets which never, never sate,

Thine still remain through all the storms of fate.

Though not for me, 't was Heaven's divine command

To roll in acres of paternal land,

Yet still my lot is bless'd, while I enjoy

Thine opening beauties with a lover's eye.

Happy is he, who, though the cup of bliss

Has ever shunn'd him when he thought to kiss,

Who, still in abject poverty or pain,

Can count with pleasure what small joys remain:

Though were his sight convey'd from zone to zone,

He would not find one spot of ground his own,

Yet as he looks around, he cries with glee,

These bounding prospects all were made for me:

For me yon waving fields their burden bear,

For me yon labourer guides the shining share,

While happy I in idle ease recline,

And mark the glorious visions as they shine.

This is the charm, by sages often told,

Converting all it touches into gold.

Content can soothe where'er by fortune placed,

Can rear a garden in the desert waste.

How lovely, from this hill's superior height,

Spreads the wide view before my straining sight!

O'er many a varied mile of lengthening ground,

E'en to the blue-ridged hill's remotest bound,

My ken is borne; while o'er my head serene

The silver moon illumes the misty scene:

Now shining clear, now darkening in the glade,

In all the soft varieties of shade.

Behind me, lo! the peaceful hamlet lies,

The drowsy god has seal'd the cotter's eyes.

No more, where late the social faggot blazed,

The vacant peal resounds, by little raised,

But locked in silence, o'er Arion's[1] star

The slumbering Night rolls on her velvet car:

The church bell tolls, deep sounding down the glade,

The solemn hour for walking spectres made;

The simple ploughboy, wakening with the sound,

Listens aghast, and turns him startled round,

Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes,

Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise.

Now ceased the long, the monitory toll,

Returning silence stagnates in the soul;

Save when, disturbed by dreams, with wild affright,

The deep mouth'd mastiff bays the troubled night:

Or where the village alehouse crowns the vale,

The creaking signpost whistles to the gale.

A little onward let me bend my way,

Where the moss'd seat invites the traveller's stay.

That spot, oh! yet it is the very same;

That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave it name:

There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom,

There yet the violet sheds its first perfume,

And in the branch that rears above the rest

The robin unmolested builds its nest.

'T was here, when hope, presiding o'er my breast,

In vivid colours every prospect dress'd:

'T was here, reclining, I indulged her dreams,

And lost the hour in visionary schemes.

Here, as I press once more the ancient seat,

Why, bland deceiver! not renew the cheat!

Say, can a few short years this change achieve,

That thy illusions can no more deceive!

Time's sombrous tints have every view o'erspread,

And thou too, gay seducer, art thou fled?

Though vain thy promise, and the suit severe,

Yet thou couldst guile Misfortune of her tear,

And oft thy smiles across life's gloomy way

Could throw a gleam of transitory day.

How gay, in youth, the flattering future seems;

How sweet is manhood in the infant's dreams;

The dire mistake too soon is brought to light.

And all is buried in redoubled night.

Yet some can rise superior to the pain,

And in their breasts the charmer Hope retain;

While others, dead to feeling, can survey,

Unmoved, their fairest prospects fade away:

But yet a few there be,--too soon o'ercast!

Who shrink unhappy from the adverse blast,

And woo the first bright gleam, which breaks the gloom,

To gild the silent slumbers of the tomb.

So in these shades the early primrose blows,

Too soon deceived by suns and melting snows:

So falls untimely on the desert waste,

Its blossoms withering in the northern blast.

Now pass'd whate'er the upland heights display,

Down the steep cliff I wind my devious way;

Oft rousing, as the rustling path I beat,

The timid hare from its accustom'd seat.

And oh! how sweet this walk o'erhung with wood,

That winds the margin of the solemn flood!

What rural objects steal upon the sight!

What rising views prolong the calm delight!

The brooklet branching from the silver Trent,

The whispering birch by every zephyr bent,

The woody island, and the naked mead,

The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed,

The rural wicket, and the rural stile,

And frequent interspersed, the woodman's pile.

Above, below, where'er I turn my eyes,

Rocks, waters, woods, in grand succession rise.

High up the cliff the varied groves ascend,

And mournful larches o'er the wave impend.

Around, what sounds, what magic sounds arise,

What glimmering scenes salute my ravish'd eyes!

Soft sleep the waters on their pebbly bed,

The woods wave gently o'er my drooping head.

And, swelling slow, comes wafted on the wind,

Lorn Progne's note from distant copse behind.

Still every rising sound of calm delight

Stamps but the fearful silence of the night,

Save when is heard between each dreary rest,

Discordant from her solitary nest,

The owl, dull screaming to the wandering moon;

Now riding, cloud-wrapp'd, near her highest noon:

Or when the wild duck, southering, hither rides,

And plunges, sullen in the sounding tides.

How oft, in this sequester'd spot, when youth

Gave to each tale the holy force of truth,

Have I long linger'd, while the milkmaid sung

The tragic legend, till the woodland rung!

That tale, so sad! which, still to memory dear,

From its sweet source can call the sacred tear,

And (lull'd to rest stern Reason's harsh control)

Steal its soft magic to the passive soul.

These hallow'd shades,--these trees that woo the wind,

Recall its faintest features to my mind.

A hundred passing years, with march sublime,

Have swept beneath the silent wing of time,

Since, in yon hamlet's solitary shade,

Reclusely dwelt the far famed Clifton Maid,

The beauteous Margaret; for her each swain

Confess'd in private his peculiar pain,

In secret sigh'd, a victim to despair,

Nor dared to hope to win the peerless fair.

No more the Shepherd on the blooming mead

Attuned to gaiety his artless reed,

No more entwined the pansied wreath, to deck

His favourite wether's unpolluted neck,

But listless, by yon bubbling stream reclined,

He mix'd his sobbings with the passing wind,

Bemoan'd his hapless love; or, boldly bent,

Far from these smiling fields a rover went,

O'er distant lands, in search of ease, to roam,

A self-will'd exile from his native home.

Yet not to all the maid express'd disdain;

Her Bateman loved, nor loved the youth in vain.

Full oft, low whispering o'er these arching boughs,

The echoing vault responded to their vows,

As here deep hidden from the glare of day,

Enamour'd oft, they took their secret way.

Yon bosky dingle, still the rustics name;

'T was there the blushing maid confessed her flame.

Down yon green lane they oft were seen to hie,

When evening slumber'd on the western sky.

That blasted yew, that mouldering walnut bare.

Each bears mementos of the fated pair.

One eve, when Autumn loaded every breeze

With the fallen honours of the mourning trees,

The maiden waited at the accustom'd bower.

And waited long beyond the appointed hour,

Yet Bateman came not;--o'er the woodland drear,

Howling portentous did the winds career;

And bleak and dismal on the leafless woods

The fitful rains rush'd down in sullen floods;

The night was dark; as, now and then, the gale

Paused for a moment--Margaret listen'd pale;

But through the covert to her anxious ear

No rustling footstep spoke her lover near.

Strange fears now fill'd her breast,--she knew not why,

She sigh'd, and Bateman's name was in each sigh.

She hears a noise,--'t is he,--he comes at last,--

Alas! 't was but the gale which hurried past:

But now she hears a quickening footstep sound,

Lightly it comes, and nearer does it bound;

'T is Bateman's self,--he springs into her arms,

'T is he that clasps, and chides her vain alarms.

"Yet why this silence?--I have waited long,

And the cold storm has yell'd the trees among.

And now thou'rt here my fears are fled--yet speak,

Why does the salt tear moisten on thy cheek?

Say, what is wrong?" Now through a parting cloud

The pale moon peer'd from her tempestuous shroud,

And Bateman's face was seen; 't was deadly white,

And sorrow seem'd to sicken in his sight.

"Oh, speak! my love!" again the maid conjured,

"Why is thy heart in sullen woe immured?"

He raised his head, and thrice essay'd to tell,

Thrice from his lips the unfinished accents fell;

When thus at last reluctantly he broke

His boding silence, and the maid bespoke:

"Grieve not, my love, but ere the morn advance

I on these fields must cast my parting glance;

For three long years, by cruel fate's command,

I go to languish in a foreign land.

Oh, Margaret! omens dire have met my view,

Say, when far distant, wilt thou bear me true?

Should honours tempt thee, and should riches fee,

Wouldst thou forget thine ardent vows to me,

And on the silken couch of wealth reclined,

Banish thy faithful Bateman from thy mind?"

"Oh! why," replies the maid, "my faith thus prove,

Canst thou! ah, canst thou, then suspect my love?

Hear me, just God! if from my traitorous heart

My Bateman's fond remembrance e'er shall part,

If, when he hail again his native shore,

He finds his Margaret true to him no more,

May fiends of hell, and every power of dread,

Conjoin'd then drag me from my perjured bed,

And hurl me headlong down these awful steeps,

To find deserved death in yonder deeps!"[2]

Thus spake the maid, and from her finger drew

A golden ring, and broke it quick in two;

One half she in her lovely bosom hides,

The other, trembling, to her love confides.

"This bind the vow," she said, "this mystic charm

No future recantation can disarm,

The right vindictive does the fates involve,

No tears can move it, no regrets dissolve."

She ceased. The death-bird gave a dismal cry,

The river moan'd, the wild gale whistled by,

And once again the lady of the night

Behind a heavy cloud withdrew her light.

Trembling she view'd these portents with dismay;

But gently Bateman kiss'd her fears away:

Yet still he felt conceal'd a secret smart,

Still melancholy bodings fill'd his heart.

When to the distant land the youth was sped,

A lonely life the moody maiden led.

Still would she trace each dear, each well known walk,

Still by the moonlight to her love would talk,

And fancy, as she paced among the trees,

She heard his whispers in the dying breeze.

Thus two years glided on in silent grief;

The third her bosom own'd the kind relief:

Absence had cool'd her love--the impoverish'd flame

Was dwindling fast, when lo! the tempter came;

He offered wealth, and all the joys of life,

And the weak maid became another's wife!

Six guilty months had mark'd the false one's crime,

When Bateman hail'd once more his native clime.

Sure of her constancy, elate he came,

The lovely partner of his soul to claim;

Light was his heart, as up the well known way

He bent his steps--and all his thoughts were gay.

Oh! who can paint his agonizing throes,

When on his ear the fatal news arose!

Chill'd with amazement,--senseless with the blow,

He stood a marble monument of woe;

Till call'd to all the horrors of despair,

He smote his brow, and tore his horrent hair;

Then rush'd impetuous from the dreadful spot,

And sought those scenes (by memory ne'er forgot),

Those scenes, the witness of their growing flame,

And now like witnesses of Margaret's shame.

'T was night--he sought the river's lonely shore,

And traced again their former wanderings o'er.

Now on the bank in silent grief he stood,

And gazed intently on the stealing flood,

Death in his mein and madness in his eye,

He watch'd the waters as they murmur'd by;

Bade the base murderess triumph o'er his grave--

Prepared to plunge into the whelming wave.

Yet still he stood irresolutely bent,

Religion sternly stay'd his rash intent.

He knelt.--Cool play'd upon his cheek the wind,

And fann'd the fever of his maddening mind,

The willows waved, the stream it sweetly swept,

The paly moonbeam on its surface slept,

And all was peace;--he felt the general calm

O'er his rack'd bosom shed a genial balm:

When casting far behind his streaming eye,

He saw the Grove,--in fancy saw her lie,

His Margaret, lull'd in Germain's[3] arms to rest,

And all the demon rose within his breast.

Convulsive now, he clench'd his trembling hand,

Cast his dark eye once more upon the land,

Then, at one spring he spurn'd the yielding bank,

And in the calm deceitful current sank.

Sad, on the solitude of night, the sound,

As in the stream he plunged, was heard around:

Then all was still--the wave was rough no more,

The river swept as sweetly as before;

The willows waved, the moonbeams shone serene,

And peace returning brooded o'er the scene.

Now, see upon the perjured fair one hang

Remorse's glooms and never ceasing pang.

Full well she knew, repentant now too late,

She soon must bow beneath the stroke of fate.

But, for the babe she bore beneath her breast,

The offended God prolong'd her life unbless'd.

But fast the fleeting moments roll'd away,

And near and nearer drew the dreaded day;

That day foredoom'd to give her child the light,

And hurl its mother to the shades of night.

The hour arrived, and from the wretched wife

The guiltless baby struggled into life.--

As night drew on, around her bed a band

Of friends and kindred kindly took their stand;

In holy prayer they pass'd the creeping time,

Intent to expiate her awful crime.

Their prayers were fruitless.--As the midnight came

A heavy sleep oppress'd each weary frame.

In vain they strove against the o'erwhelming load,

Some power unseen their drowsy lids bestrode.

They slept till in the blushing eastern sky

The blooming Morning oped her dewy eye;

Then wakening wide they sought the ravish'd bed,

But lo! the hapless Margaret was fled;

And never more the weeping train were doom'd

To view the false one, in the deeps intomb'd.

The neighbouring rustics told that in the night

They heard such screams as froze them with affright;

And many an infant, at its mother's breast,

Started dismay'd, from its unthinking rest.

And even now, upon the heath forlorn,

They show the path down which the fair was borne,

By the fell demons, to the yawning wave,

Her own, and murder'd lover's, mutual grave.

Such is the tale, so sad, to memory dear,

Which oft in youth has charm'd my listening ear,

That tale, which bade me find redoubled sweets

In the drear silence of these dark retreats;

And even now, with melancholy power,

Adds a new pleasure to the lonely hour.

'Mid all the charms by magic Nature given

To this wild spot, this sublunary heaven,

With double joy enthusiast Fancy leans

On the attendant legend of the scenes.

This sheds a fairy lustre on the floods,

And breathes a mellower gloom upon the woods;

This, as the distant cataract swells around,

Gives a romantic cadence to the sound;

This, and the deepening glen, the alley green,

The silver stream, with sedgy tufts between,

The massy rock, the wood-encompass'd leas,

The broom-clad islands, and the nodding trees,

The lengthening vista, and the present gloom,

The verdant pathway breathing waste perfume:

These are thy charms, the joys which these impart

Bind thee, bless'd Clifton! close around my heart.

Dear Native Grove! where'er my devious track,

To thee will Memory lead the wanderer back.

Whether in Arno's polish'd vales I stray,

Or where "Oswego's" swamps obstruct the day;

Or wander lone, where, wildering and wide,

The tumbling torrent laves St. Gothard's side;

Or by old Tejo's classic margent muse,

Or stand entranced with Pyrenean views;

Still, still to thee, where'er my footsteps roam,

My heart shall point, and lead the wanderer home.

When Splendour offers, and when Fame incites,

I'll pause, and think of all thy dear delights,

Reject the boon, and, wearied with the change,

Renounce the wish which first induced to range;

Turn to these scenes, these well known scenes once more,

Trace once again old Trent's romantic shore,

And tired with worlds, and all their busy ways,

Here waste the little remnant of my days.

But if the Fates should this last wish deny,

And doom me on some foreign shore to die;

Oh! should it please the world's supernal King,

That weltering waves my funeral dirge shall sing;

Or that my corse should, on some desert strand,

Lie stretch'd beneath the Simoom's blasting hand;

Still, though unwept I find a stranger tomb,

My sprite shall wander through this favourite gloom,

Ride on the wind that sweeps the leafless grove,

Sigh on the wood-blast of the dark alcove,

Sit a lorn spectre on yon well known grave,

And mix its moanings with the desert wave.

Footnotes:

[1] The constellation Delphinus. For authority for this appelation, see

Ovid's Fasti, B. xi. 113.

[2] This part of the Trent is commonly called "The Clifton Deeps."

[3] Germain is the traditionary name of her husband.

TIME,

A POEM.[1]

Genius of musings, who, the midnight hour

Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,

Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,

Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;

Or when the vollied lightnings cleave the air,

And Ruin gaunt bestrides the winged storm,

Sitt'st in some lonely watchtower, where thy lamp,

Faint blazing, strikes the fisher's eye from far,

And, 'mid the howl of elements, unmoved,

Dost ponder on the awful scene, and trace

The vast effect to its superior source,--

Spirit, attend my lowly benison!

For now I strike to themes of import high

The solitary lyre; and, borne by thee

Above this narrow cell, I celebrate

The mysteries of Time!

Him who, august,

Was e'er these worlds were fashion'd,--ere the sun

Sprang from the east, or Lucifer display'd

His glowing cresset in the arch of morn,

Or Vesper gilded the serener eve.

Yea, He had been for an eternity!

Had swept unvarying from eternity

The harp of desolation--ere his tones,

At God's command, assumed a milder strain,

And startled on his watch, in the vast deep,

Chaos's sluggish sentry, and evoked

From the dark void the smiling universe.

Chain'd to the groveling frailties of the flesh,

Mere mortal man, unpurged from earthly dross,

Cannot survey, with fix'd and steady eye,

The dim uncertain gulf, which now the muse,

Adventurous, would explore; but dizzy grown,

He topples down the abyss.--If he would scan

The fearful chasm, and catch a transient glimpse

Of its unfathomable depths, that so

His mind may turn with double joy to God,

His only certainty and resting place;

He must put off awhile this mortal vest,

And learn to follow, without giddiness,

To heights where all is vision, and surprise,

And vague conjecture.--He must waste by night

The studious taper, far from all resort

Of crowds and folly, in some still retreat;

High on the beetling promontory's crest,

Or in the caves of the vast wilderness,

Where, compass'd round with Nature's wildest shapes,

He may be driven to centre all his thoughts

In the great Architect, who lives confess'd

In rocks, and seas, and solitary wastes.

So has divine Philosophy, with voice

Mild as the murmurs of the moonlight wave,

Tutor'd the heart of him, who now awakes,

Touching the chords of solemn minstrelsy,

His faint, neglected song--intent to snatch

Some vagrant blossom from the dangerous steep

Of poesy, a bloom of such a hue,

So sober, as may not unseemly suit

With Truth's severer brow; and one withal

So hardy as shall brave the passing wind

Of many winters,--rearing its meek head

In loveliness, when he who gathered it

Is number'd with the generations gone.

Yet not to me hath God's good providence

Given studious leisure,[2] or unbroken thought,

Such as he owns,--a meditative man;

Who from the blush of morn to quiet eve

Ponders, or turns the page of wisdom o'er,

Far from the busy crowd's tumultuous din:

From noise and wrangling far, and undisturb'd

With Mirth's unholy shouts. For me the day

Hath duties which require the vigorous hand

Of steadfast application, but which leave

No deep improving trace upon the mind.

But be the day another's;--let it pass!

The night's my own!--They cannot steal my night!

When evening lights her folding star on high,

I live and breathe; and in the sacred hours

Of quiet and repose my spirit flies,

Free as the morning, o'er the realms of space.

And mounts the skies, and imps her wing for Heaven.

Hence do I love the sober-suited maid;

Hence Night's my friend, my mistress, and my theme,

And she shall aid me now to magnify

The night of ages,--now when the pale ray

Of starlight penetrates the studious gloom,

And, at my window seated, while mankind

Are lock'd in sleep, I feel the freshening breeze

Of stillness blow, while, in her saddest stole,

Thought, like a wakeful vestal at her shrine,

Assumes her wonted sway.

Behold the world

Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paused

From trouble and turmoil. The widow now

Has ceased to weep, and her twin orphans lie

Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest.

The man of sorrow has forgot his woes;

The outcast that his head is shelterless,

His griefs unshared.--The mother tends no more

Her daughter's dying slumbers, but surprised

With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch,

Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic, lull'd

On Death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapp'd,

Crowning with Hope's bland wreath his shuddering nurse,

Poor victim! smiles.--Silence and deep repose

Reign o'er the nations; and the warning voice

Of Nature utters audibly within

The general moral:--tells us that repose,

Deathlike as this, but of far longer span,

Is coming on us--that the weary crowds,

Who now enjoy a temporary calm,

Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapp'd around

With grave clothes: and their aching restless heads

Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved,

Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.

Who needs a teacher to admonish him

That flesh is grass, that earthly things are mist?

What are our joys but dreams? and what our hopes

But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?

There's not a wind that blows but bears with it

Some rainbow promise:--Not a moment flies

But puts its sickle in the fields of life,

And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares.

'T is but as yesterday since on yon stars,

Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherd[3] gazed

In his mid watch observant, and disposed

The twinkling hosts as fancy gave them shape.

Yet in the interim what mighty shocks

Have buffeted mankind--whole nations razed--

Cities made desolate--the polish'd sunk

To barbarism, and once barbaric states

Swaying the wand of science and of arts;

Illustrious deeds and memorable names

Blotted from record, and upon the tongue

Of gray Tradition, voluble no more.

Where are the heroes of the ages past?

Where the brave chieftains, where the mighty ones

Who flourish'd in the infancy of days?

All to the grave gone down. On their fallen fame

Exultant, mocking at the pride of man,

Sits grim Forgetfulness.--The warrior's arm

Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame;

Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quench'd the blaze

Of his red eyeball.--Yesterday his name

Was mighty on the earth.--To-day--'t is what?

The meteor of the night of distant years,

That flash'd unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld,

Musing at midnight upon prophecies,

Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam

Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly

Closed her pale lips, and lock'd the secret up

Safe in the enamel's treasures.

Oh how weak

Is mortal man! how trifling--how confined

His scope of vision! Puff'd with confidence,

His phrase grows big with immortality,

And he, poor insect of a summer's day!

Dreams of eternal honours to his name;

Of endless glory and perennial bays.

He idly reasons of eternity,

As of the train of ages,--when, alas!

Ten thousand thousand of his centuries

Are, in comparison, a little point

Too trivial for account.--O, it is strange,

'Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies;

Behold him proudly view some pompous pile,

Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,

And smile, and say, My name shall live with this

Till time shall be no more; while at his feet,

Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust

Of the fallen fabric of the other day

Preaches the solemn lesson.--He should know

That time must conquer; that the loudest blast

That ever fill'd Renown's obstreperous trump

Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.

Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom

Of the gigantic pyramid? or who

Rear'd its huge walls? Oblivion laughs, and says,

The prey is mine.--They sleep, and never more

Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,

Their memory burst its fetters.

Where is Rome?

She lives but in the tale of other times;

Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home,

And her long colonnades, her public walks,

Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet,

Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace,

Through the rank moss reveal'd, her honour'd dust.

But not to Rome alone has fate confined

The doom of ruin; cities numberless,

Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy,

And rich Phoenicia--they are blotted out,

Half razed from memory, and their very name

And being in dispute.--Has Athens fallen?

Is polish'd Greece become the savage seat

Of ignorance and sloth? and shall we dare

* * * * *

And empire seeks another hemisphere.

Where now is Britain?--Where her laurel'd names.

Her palaces and halls? Dash'd in the dust.

Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,

And with one big recoil hath thrown her back

To primitive barbarity.----Again,

Through her depopulated vales, the scream

Of bloody Superstition hollow rings,

And the scared native to the tempest howls

The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,

Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry

Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash

Of distant billows, breaks alone the void;

Even as the savage sits upon the stone

That marks where stood her capitols, and hears

The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks

From the dismaying solitude.--Her bards

Sing in a language that hath perished;

And their wild harps suspended o'er their graves,

Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.

Meanwhile the Arts, in second infancy,

Rise in some distant clime, and then, perchance,

Some bold adventurer, fill'd with golden dreams,

Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,

Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow

Hath ever ploughed before,--espies the cliffs

Of fallen Albion.--To the land unknown

He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries

Some vestige of her ancient stateliness:

Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind

Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived

At science in that solitary nook,

Far from the civil world; and sagely sighs,

And moralizes on the state of man.

Still on its march, unnoticed and unfelt,

Moves on our being. We do live and breathe,

And we are gone. The spoiler heeds us not.

We have our springtime and our rottenness;

And as we fall, another race succeeds,

To perish likewise.--Meanwhile Nature smiles--

The seasons run their round--The Sun fulfils

His annual course--and heaven and earth remain

Still changing, yet unchanged--still doom'd to feel

Endless mutation in perpetual rest.

Where are conceal'd the days which have elapsed?

Hid in the mighty cavern of the past,

They rise upon us only to appall,

By indistinct and half-glimpsed images,

Misty, gigantic, huge, obscure, remote.

Oh, it is fearful, on the midnight couch,

When the rude rushing winds forget to rave,

And the pale moon, that through the casement high

Surveys the sleepless muser, stamps the hour

Of utter silence, it is fearful then

To steer the mind, in deadly solitude.

Up the vague stream of probability;

To wind the mighty secrets of the past,

And turn the key of time!--Oh! who can strive

To comprehend the vast, the awful truth,

Of the eternity that hath gone by,

And not recoil from the dismaying sense

Of human impotence? The life of man

Is summ'd in birthdays and in sepulchres;

But the Eternal God had no beginning;

He hath no end. Time had been with him

For everlasting, ere the dredal world

Rose from the gulf in loveliness.--Like him

It knew no source, like him, 't was uncreate.

What is it then? The past Eternity!

We comprehend a future without end;

We feel it possible that even yon sun

May roll for ever: but we shrink amazed--

We stand aghast, when we reflect that time

Knew no commencement.--That heap age on age,

And million upon million, without end,

And we shall never span the void of days

That were and are not but in retrospect.

The Past is an unfathomable depth,

Beyond the span of thought; 'tis an elapse

Which hath no mensuration, but hath been

For ever and for ever.

Change of days

To us is sensible; and each revolve

Of the recording sun conducts us on

Further in life, and nearer to our goal.

Not so with Time,--mysterious chronicler,

He knoweth not mutation;--centuries

Are to his being as a day, and days

As centuries.--Time past, and Time to come,

Are always equal; when the world began

God had existed from eternity.

* * * * *

Now look on man

Myriads of ages hence.--Hath time elapsed?

Is he not standing in the selfsame place

Where once we stood?--The same eternity

Hath gone before him, and is yet to come;

His past is not of longer span than ours,

Though myriads of ages intervened;

For who can add to what has neither sum,

Nor bound, nor source, nor estimate, nor end?

Oh, who can compass the Almighty mind?

Who can unlock the secrets of the high?

In speculations of an altitude

Sublime as this, our reason stands confess'd

Foolish, and insignificant, and mean.

Who can apply the futile argument

Of finite beings to infinity?

He might as well compress the universe

Into the hollow compass of a gourd,

Scoop'd out by human art; or bid the whale

Drink up the sea it swims in!--Can the less

Contain the greater? or the dark obscure

Infold the glories of meridian day?

What does philosophy impart to man

But undiscovered wonders?--Let her soar

Even to her proudest heights--to where she caught

The soul of Newton and of Socrates,

She but extends the scope of wild amaze

And admiration. All her lessons end

In wider views of God's unfathom'd depths.

Lo! the unletter'd hind, who never knew

To raise his mind excursive to the heights

Of abstract contemplation, as he sits

On the green hillock by the hedge-row side,

What time the insect swarms are murmuring,

And marks, in silent thought, the broken clouds

That fringe with loveliest hues the evening sky,

Feels in his soul the hand of Nature rouse

The thrill of gratitude, to him who form'd

The goodly prospect; he beholds the God

Throned in the west, and his reposing ear

Hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze

That floats through neighbouring copse or fairy brake,

Or lingers playful on the haunted stream.

Go with the cotter to his winter fire,

Where o'er the moors the loud blast whistles shrill,

And the hoarse ban-dog bays the icy moon;

Mark with what awe he lists the wild uproar.

Silent, and big with thought; and hear him bless

The God that rides on the tempestuous clouds,

For his snug hearth, and all his little joys:

Hear him compare his happier lot with his

Who bends his way across the wintry wolds,

A poor night traveller, while the dismal snow

Beats in his face, and, dubious of his path,

He stops, and thinks, in every lengthening blast,

He hears some village mastiff's distant howl,

And sees, far streaming, some lone cottage light;

Then, undeceived, upturns his streaming eyes,

And clasps his shivering hands; or overpowered,

Sinks on the frozen ground, weigh'd down with sleep,

From which the hapless wretch shall never wake.

Thus the poor rustic warms his heart with praise

And glowing gratitude,--he turns to bless,

With honest warmth, his Maker and his God!

And shall it e'er be said, that a poor hind,

Nursed in the lap of Ignorance, and bred

In want and labour, glows with nobler zeal

To laud his Maker's attributes, while he

Whom starry Science in her cradle rock'd,

And Castaly enchasten'd with his dews,

Closes his eyes upon the holy word,

And, blind to all but arrogance and pride,

Dares to declare his infidelity,

And openly contemn the Lord of Hosts?

What is philosophy, if it impart

Irreverence for the Deity, or teach

A mortal man to set his judgment up

Against his Maker's will? The Polygar,

Who kneels to sun or moon, compared with him

Who thus perverts the talents he enjoys,

Is the most bless'd of men! Oh! I would walk

A weary journey, to the furthest verge

Of the big world, to kiss that good man's hand,

Who, in the blaze of wisdom and of art,

Preserves a lowly mind; and to his God,

Feeling the sense of his own littleness,

Is as a child in meek simplicity!

What is the pomp of learning? the parade

Of letters and of tongues? e'en as the mists

Of the gray morn before the rising sun,

That pass away and perish.

Earthly things

Are but the transient pageants of an hour;

And earthly pride is like the passing flower,

That springs to fall, and blossoms but to die.

'T is as the tower erected on a cloud,

Baseless and silly as the schoolboy's dream.

Ages and epochs that destroy our pride,

And then record its downfall, what are they

But the poor creatures of man's teeming brain?

Hath Heaven its ages? or doth Heaven preserve

Its stated eras? Doth the Omnipotent

Hear of to-morrows or of yesterdays?

There is to God nor future nor a past;

Throned in his might, all times to him are present;

He hath no lapse, no past, no time to come;

He sees before him one eternal now.

Time moveth not!--our being 't is that moves;

And we, swift gliding down life's rapid stream,

Dream of swift ages and revolving years,

Ordain'd to chronicle our passing days:

So the young sailor in the gallant bark,

Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast

Receding from his eyes, and thinks the while,

Struck with amaze, that he is motionless,

And that the land is sailing.

Such, alas!

Are the illusions of this proteus life!

All, all is false: through every phasis still

'T is shadowy and deceitful. It assumes

The semblances of things and specious shapes;

But the lost traveller might as soon rely

On the evasive spirit of the marsh,

Whose lantern beams, and vanishes, and flits,

O'er bog, and rock, and pit, and hollow way,

As we on its appearances.

On earth

There is no certainty nor stable hope.

As well the weary mariner, whose bark

Is toss'd beyond Cimmerian Bosphorus,

Where storm and darkness hold their drear domain,

And sunbeams never penetrate, might trust

To expectation of serener skies,

And linger in the very jaws of death,

Because some peevish cloud were opening,

Or the loud storm had bated in its rage;

As we look forward in this vale of tears

To permanent delight--from some slight glimpse

Of shadowy, unsubstantial happiness.

The good man's hope is laid far, far beyond

The sway of tempests, or the furious sweep

Of mortal desolation.--He beholds

Unapprehensive, the gigantic stride

Of rampant Ruin, or the unstable waves

Of dark Vicissitude.--Even in death,--

In that dread hour, when, with a giant pang,

Tearing the tender fibres of the heart,

The immortal spirit struggles to be free,

Then, even then, that hope forsakes him not,

For it exists beyond the narrow verge

Of the cold sepulchre. The petty joys

Of fleeting life indignantly it spurn'd,

And rested on the bosom of its God.

This is man's only reasonable hope;

And 't is a hope which, cherish'd in the breast,

Shall not be disappointed. Even he,

The Holy One--Almighty--who elanced

The rolling world along its airy way,

Even He will deign to smile upon the good,

And welcome him to these celestial seats,

Where joy and gladness hold their changeless reign.

Thou, proud man, look upon yon starry vault,

Survey the countless gems which richly stud

The night's imperial chariot;--Telescopes

Will show thee myriads more innumerous

Than the sea sand;--each of those little lamps

Is the great source of light, the central sun

Round which some other mighty sisterhood

Of planets travel, every planet stock'd

With Hying beings impotent as thee.

Now, proud man! now, where is thy greatness fled?

What art thou in the scale of universe?

Less, less than nothing!--Yet of thee the God

Who built this wondrous frame of worlds is careful,

As well as of the mendicant who begs

The leavings of thy table. And shalt thou

Lift up thy thankless spirit, and contemn

His heavenly providence! Deluded fool,

Even now the thunderbolt is wing'd with death,

Even now thou totterest on the brink of hell.

How insignificant is mortal man,

Bound to the hasty pinions of an hour!

How poor, how trivial in the vast conceit

Of infinite duration, boundless space!

God of the universe! Almighty One!

Thou who dost walk upon the winged winds,

Or with the storm, thy rugged charioteer,

Swift and impetuous as the northern blast,

Ridest from pole to pole; Thou who dost hold

The forked lightnings in thine awful grasp,

And reignest in the earthquake, when thy wrath

Goes down towards erring man, I would address

To thee my parting pæan; for of Thee,

Great beyond comprehension, who thyself

Art Time and Space, sublime Infinitude,

Of Thee has been my song!--With awe I kneel

Trembling before the footstool of thy state,

My God!--my Father!--I will sing to thee

A hymn of laud, a solemn canticle,

Ere on the cypress wreath, which overshades

The throne of Death, I hang my mournful lyre,

And give its wild strings to the desert gale.

Rise, Son of Salem! rise, and join the strain,

Sweep to accordant tones thy tuneful harp,

And, leaving vain laments, arouse thy soul

To exultation. Sing hosanna, sing,

And halleluiah, for the Lord is great,

And full of mercy! He has thought of man;

Yea, compass'd round with countless worlds, has thought

Of us poor worms, that batten in the dews

Of morn, and perish ere the noonday sun.

Sing to the Lord, for he is merciful:

He gave the Nubian lion but to live,

To rage its hour, and perish; but on man

He lavish'd immortality and Heaven.

The eagle falls from her aërial tower,

And mingles with irrevocable dust:

But man from death springs joyful,

Springs up to life and to eternity.

Oh, that, insensate of the favouring boon,

The great exclusive privilege bestow'd

On us unworthy trifles, men should dare

To treat with slight regard the proffer'd Heaven,

And urge the lenient, but All-Just, to swear

In wrath, "They shall not enter in my rest."

Might I address the supplicative strain

To thy high footstool, I would pray that thou

Wouldst pity the deluded wanderers,

And fold them, ere they perish, in thy flock.

Yea, I would bid thee pity them, through Him,

Thy well beloved, who, upon the cross,

Bled a dread sacrifice for human sin,

And paid, with bitter agony, the debt

Of primitive transgression.

Oh! I shrink,

My very soul doth shrink, when I reflect

That the time hastens, when, in vengeance clothed,

Thou shalt come down to stamp the seal of fate

On erring mortal man. Thy chariot wheels

Then shall rebound to earth's remotest caves,

And stormy Ocean from his bed shall start

At the appalling summons. Oh I how dread,

On the dark eye of miserable man,

Chasing his sins in secrecy and gloom,

Will burst the effulgence of the opening Heaven;

When to the brazen trumpet's deafening roar

Thou and thy dazzling cohorts shall descend,

Proclaiming the fulfilment of the word!

The dead shall start astonish'd from their sleep!

The sepulchres shall groan and yield their prey,

The bellowing floods shall disembogue their charge

Of human victims. From the farthest nook

Of the wide world shall troop the risen souls,

From him whose bones are bleaching in the waste

Of polar solitudes, or him whose corpse,

Whelm'd in the loud Atlantic's vexed tides,

Is wash'd on some Caribbean prominence,

To the lone tenant of some secret cell

In the Pacific's vast ... realm,

Where never plummet's sound was heard to part

The wilderness of water; they shall come

To greet the solemn advent of the Judge.

Thou first shalt summon the elected saints

To their apportion'd Heaven! and thy Son,

At thy right hand, shall smile with conscious joy

On all his past distresses, when for them

He bore humanity's severest pangs.

Then shalt thou seize the avenging scimitar,

And, with a roar as loud and horrible

As the stern earthquake's monitory voice,

The wicked shall be driven to their abode,

Down the immitigable gulf, to wail

And gnash their teeth in endless agony.

* * * * *

Rear thou aloft thy standard.--Spirit, rear

Thy flag on high!--Invincible, and throned

In unparticipated might. Behold

Earth's proudest boasts, beneath thy silent sway,

Sweep headlong to destruction, thou the while,

Unmoved and heedless, thou dost hear the rush

Of mighty generations, as they pass

To the broad gulf of ruin, and dost stamp

Thy signet on them, and they rise no more.

Who shall contend with Time--unvanquish'd Time,

The conqueror of conquerors, and lord

Of desolation?--Lo! the shadows fly,

The hours and days, and years and centuries,

They fly, they fly, and nations rise and fall,

The young are old, the old are in their graves.

Heard'st thou that shout? It rent the vaulted skies;

It was the voice of people,--mighty crowds,--

Again! 't is hushed--Time speaks, and all is hush'd;

In the vast multitude now reigns alone

Unruffled solitude. They all are still;

All--yea, the whole--the incalculable mass,

Still as the ground that clasps their cold remains.

Rear thou aloft thy standard.--Spirit, rear

Thy flag on high, and glory in thy strength.

But do thou know the season yet shall come,

When from its base thine adamantine throne

Shall tumble; when thine arm shall cease to strike,

Thy voice forget its petrifying power;

When saints shall shout, and Time shall be no more.

Yea, he doth come--the mighty champion comes,

Whose potent spear shall give thee thy death wound,

Shall crush the conqueror of conquerors,

And desolate stern Desolation's lord.

Lo! where he cometh! the Messiah comes!

The King! the Comforter! the Christ!--He comes

To burst the bonds of Death, and overturn

The power of Time.--Hark! the trumpet's blast

Rings o'er the heavens! They rise, the myriads rise--

Even from their graves they spring, and burst the chains

Of torpor,--He has ransom'd them,...

Forgotten generations live again,

Assume the bodily shapes they own'd of old,

Beyond the flood:--the righteous of their times

Embrace and weep, they weep the tears of joy.

The sainted mother wakes, and in her lap

Clasps her dear babe, the partner of her grave,

And heritor with her of Heaven,--a flower,

Wash'd by the blood of Jesus from the stain

Of native guilt, even in its early bud.

And, hark! those strains, how solemnly serene

They fall, as from the skies--at distance fall--

Again more loud--the halleluiahs swell;

The newly risen catch the joyful sound;

They glow, they burn; and now with one accord

Bursts forth sublime from every mouth the song

Of praise to God on high, and to the Lamb

Who bled for mortals.

* * * * *

Yet there is peace for man.--Yea, there is peace

Even in this noisy, this unsettled scene;

When from the crowd, and from the city far,

Haply he may be set (in his late walk

O'ertaken with deep thought) beneath the boughs

Of honeysuckle, when the sun is gone,

And with fix'd eye, and wistful, he surveys

The solemn shadows of the Heavens sail,

And thinks the season yet shall come, when Time

Will waft him to repose, to deep repose,

Far from the unquietness of life--from noise

And tumult far--beyond the flying clouds,

Beyond the stars, and all this passing scene,

Where change shall cease, and Time shall be no more.

* * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] This Poem was begun either during the publication of Clifton Grove, or

shortly afterwards, but never completed: some of the detached parts were

among his latest productions.

[2] The Author was then in an attorney's office.

[3] Alluding to the first astronomical observations made by the Chaldean

shepherds.

CHILDHOOD.[1]

A POEM.