Among the papers of his in my possession are several detached poems
(in all nearly six hundred lines), which he wrote about this period,
but never printed--having produced most of them after the publication
of his "Hours of Idleness." The greater number of these have little,
besides his name, to recommend them; but there are a few that, from
the feelings and circumstances that gave rise to them, will, I have no
doubt, be interesting to the reader. When he first went to Newstead,
on his arrival from Aberdeen, he planted, it seems, a young oak in
some part of the grounds, and had an idea that as it flourished so
should he. Some six or seven years after, on revisiting the spot, he
found his oak choked up by weeds, and almost destroyed. In this
circumstance, which happened soon after Lord Grey de Ruthen left
Newstead, originated one of these poems, which consists of five
stanzas, but of which the few opening lines will be a sufficient
specimen:--
"Young Oak, when I planted thee deep in the ground,
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine;
That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around,
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.
"Such, such was my hope, when, in infancy's years,
On the land of my fathers I rear'd thee with pride;
They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,--
Thy decay, not the weeds that surround thee can hide.
"I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour,
A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my sire," &c. &c.
The subject of the verses that follow is sufficiently explained by the
notice which he has prefixed to them; and, as illustrative of the
romantic and almost lovelike feeling which he threw into his school
friendships, they appeared to me, though rather quaint and elaborate,
to be worth preserving.
"Some years ago, when at H----, a friend of the author engraved on a
particular spot the names of both, with a few additional words as a
memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the
author destroyed the frail record before he left H----. On revisiting
the place in 1807, he wrote under it the following stanzas:--
"Here once engaged the stranger's view
Young Friendship's record simply traced;
Few were her words,--but yet though few,
Resentment's hand the line defaced.
"Deeply she cut--but, not erased,
The characters were still so plain,
That Friendship once return'd, and gazed,--
Till Memory hail'd the words again.
"Repentance placed them as before;
Forgiveness join'd her gentle name;
So fair the inscription seem'd once more
That Friendship thought it still the same.
"Thus might the record now have been;
But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavour,
Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between,
And blotted out the line for ever!"
The same romantic feeling of friendship breathes throughout another of
these poems, in which he has taken for the subject the ingenious
thought "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes," and concludes every stanza
with the words, "Friendship is Love without his wings." Of the nine
stanzas of which this poem consists, the three following appear the
most worthy of selection:--
"Why should my anxious breast repine,
Because my youth is fled?
Days of delight may still be mine,
Affection is _not_ dead.
In tracing back the years of youth,
One firm record, one lasting truth
Celestial consolation brings;
Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,
Where first my heart responsive beat,--
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'
"Seat of my youth! thy distant spire
Recalls each scene of joy;
My bosom glows with former fire,--
In mind again a boy.
Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill,
Thy every path delights me still,
Each flower a double fragrance flings;
Again, as once, in converse gay,
Each dear associate seems to say,
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'
"My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep?
Thy falling tears restrain;
Affection for a time may sleep,
But, oh, 'twill wake again.
Think, think, my friend, when next we meet,
Our long-wish'd intercourse, how sweet!
From this my hope of rapture springs,
While youthful hearts thus fondly swell,
Absence, my friend, can only tell,
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'"
Whether the verses I am now about to give are, in any degree, founded
on fact, I have no accurate means of determining. Fond as he was of
recording every particular of his youth, such an event, or rather era,
as is here commemorated, would have been, of all others, the least
likely to pass unmentioned by him;--and yet neither in conversation
nor in any of his writings do I remember even an allusion to it.[66]
On the other hand, so entirely was all that he wrote,--making
allowance for the embellishments of fancy,--the transcript of his
actual life and feelings, that it is not easy to suppose a poem, so
full of natural tenderness, to have been indebted for its origin to
imagination alone.
"TO MY SON!
"Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue,
Bright as thy mother's in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
Recall a scene of former joy,
And touch thy Father's heart, my Boy!
"And thou canst lisp a father's name--
Ah, William, were thine own the same,
No self-reproach--but, let me cease--
My care for thee shall purchase peace;
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy,
And pardon all the past, my Boy!
"Her lowly grave the turf has prest,
And thou hast known a stranger's breast.
Derision sneers upon thy birth,
And yields thee scarce a name on earth;
Yet shall not these one hope destroy,--
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!
"Why, let the world unfeeling frown,
Must I fond Nature's claim disown?
Ah, no--though moralists reprove,
I hail thee, dearest child of love,
Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy--
A Father guards thy birth, my Boy!
"Oh, 'twill be sweet in thee to trace,
Ere age has wrinkled o'er my face,
Ere half my glass of life is run,
At once a brother and a son;
And all my wane of years employ
In justice done to thee, my Boy!
"Although so young thy heedless sire,
Youth will not damp parental fire;
And, wert thou still less dear to me,
While Helen's form revives in thee,
The breast, which beat to former joy,
Will ne'er desert its pledge, my Boy!
"B----, 1807."[67]
But the most remarkable of these poems is one of a date prior to any I
have given, being written in December, 1806, when he was not yet
nineteen years old. It contains, as will be seen, his religious creed
at that period, and shows how early the struggle between natural piety
and doubt began in his mind.
"THE PRAYER OF NATURE.
"Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
Father of Light, on thee I call!
Thou see'st my soul is dark within;
Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall,
Avert from me the death of sin.
No shrine I seek, to sects unknown,
Oh point to me the path of truth!
Thy dread omnipotence I own,
Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.
Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,
Let superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites beguile.
Shall man confine his Maker's sway
To Gothic domes of mouldering stone?
Thy temple is the face of day;
Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne.
Shall man condemn his race to hell
Unless they bend in pompous form;
Tell us that all, for one who fell,
Must perish in the mingling storm?
Shall each pretend to reach the skies,
Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,
Or doctrines less severe inspire?
Shall these, by creeds they can't expound,
Prepare a fancied bliss or woe?
Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground,
Their great Creator's purpose know?
Shall those who live for self alone,
Whose years float on in daily crime--
Shall they by Faith for guilt atone,
And live beyond the bounds of Time?
Father! no prophet's laws I seek,--
_Thy_ laws in Nature's works appear;--
I own myself corrupt and weak,
Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear!
Thou, who canst guide the wandering star
Through trackless realms of Æther's space;
Who calm'st the elemental war,
Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:
Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,
Who, when thou wilt, can take me hence,
Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,
Extend to me thy wide defence.
To Thee, my God, to Thee I call!
Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.
If, when this dust to dust restored,
My soul shall float on airy wing,
How shall thy glorious name adored,
Inspire her feeble voice to sing!
But, if this fleeting spirit share
With clay the grave's eternal bed,
While life yet throbs, I raise my prayer,
Though doom'd no more to quit the dead.
To Thee I breathe my humble strain,
Grateful for all thy mercies past,
And hope, my God, to thee again
This erring life may fly at last.
"29th Dec. 1806.