Let others brave the flood in quest of gain
And beat for joyless months, the gloomy wave.
_Let such as deem it glory to destroy,
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek;
Unpierced, exulting in the widow's wail,
The virgin's shriek and infant's trembling cry._
* * * * *
While he, from all the stormy passions free
That restless men involve, hears and _but_ hears,
At distance safe, the human tempest roar,
Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,
The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
Move not the man, who from the world escaped,
In still retreats and flowery solitudes,
To nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, through the revolving year;
Admiring sees her in her every shape;
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;
Takes what she liberal gives, nor asks for more.
He, when young Spring, protudes the bursting gems
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
Into his freshened soul; her genial hour
He full enjoys, and not a beauty blows
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.
Thomson in his description of Lord Townshend's seat of Rainham--another
English estate once much celebrated and still much admired--exclaims:
Such are thy beauties, Rainham, such the haunts
Of angels, in primeval guiltless days
When man, imparadised, conversed with God.
And Broome after quoting the whole description in his dedication of his
own poems to Lord Townshend, observes, in the old fashioned fulsome
strain, "This, my lord, is but a faint picture of the place of your
retirement which no one ever enjoyed more elegantly."[019] "A faint
picture!" What more would the dedicator have wished Thomson to say?
Broome, if not contented with his patron's seat being described as an
earthly Paradise, must have desired it to be compared with Heaven
itself, and thus have left his Lordship no hope of the enjoyment of a
better place than he already possessed.
Samuel Boyse, who when without a shirt to his back sat up in his bed to
write verses, with his arms through two holes in his blanket, and when
he went into the streets wore paper collars to conceal the sad
deficiency of linen, has a poem of considerable length entitled _The
Triumphs of Nature_. It is wholly devoted to a description of this
magnificent garden,[020] in which, amongst other architectural
ornaments, was a temple dedicated to British worthies, where the busts
of Pope and Congreve held conspicuous places. I may as well give a
specimen of the lines of poor Boyse. Here is his description of that
part of Lord Cobham's grounds in which is erected to the Goddess of
Love, a Temple containing a statue of the Venus de Medicis.
Next to the fair ascent our steps we traced,
Where shines afar the bold rotunda placed;
The artful dome Ionic columns bear
Light as the fabric swells in ambient air.
Beneath enshrined the Tuscan Venus stands
And beauty's queen the beauteous scene commands:
The fond beholder sees with glad surprize,
Streams glisten, lawns appear, and forests rise--
Here through thick shades alternate buildings break,
There through the borders steals the silver lake,
A soft variety delights the soul,
And harmony resulting crowns the whole.