ON A LANDSCAPE OF GASPAR POUSSIN.
GASPAR! how pleasantly thy pictured scenes
Beguile the lonely hour! I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till dreaming Fancy makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded human-kind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain Liberty. My willing soul
All eager follows on thy faery flights,
Fancy! best friend; whose blessed witcheries
With cheering prospects cheat the traveller
O'er the long wearying desert of the world.
Nor dost thou, Fancy! with such magic mock
My heart, as, demon-born, old Merlin knew,
Or Alquif, or Zarzafiel's sister sage,
Who in her vengeance for so many a year
Held in the jacinth sepulchre entranced
Lisuart, the pride of Grecian chivalry.
Friend of my lonely hours! thou leadest me
To such calm joys as Nature, wise and good,
Proffers in vain to all her wretched sons,
Her wretched sons who pine with want amid
The abundant earth, and blindly bow them down
Before the Moloch shrines of Wealth and Power,
Authors of Evil. Well it is sometimes
That thy delusions should beguile the heart,
Sick of reality. The little pile
That tops the summit of that craggy hill
Shall be my dwelling: craggy is the hill
My quiet heart. The traveller, who beheld
The low tower of the little pile, might deem
It were the house of God; nor would he err
So deeming, for that home would be the home
Of peace and love, and they would hallow it
To Him. Oh, life of blessedness! to reap
The fruit of honorable toil, and bound
Our wishes with our wants! Delightful thoughts,
That soothe the solitude of weary Hope,
Ye leave her to reality awaked,
Like the poor captive, from some fleeting dream
Of friends, and liberty, and home restored,
Startled, and listening as the midnight storm
Beats hard and heavy through his dungeon bars.
Bath, 1795.
How many hearts are happy at this hour
In England! Brightly o'er the cheerful hall
Flares the heaped hearth, and friends and kindred
And the glad mother round her festive board
Beholds her children, separated long
Amid the wide world's ways, assembled now
A sight at which affection lightens up
With smiles the eye that age has long bedimm'd.
I do remember, when I was a child,
How my young heart, a stranger then to care,
With transport leap'd upon this holyday,
And steep; yet through yon hazels upward leads As o'er the house, all gay with evergreens,
The easy path, along whose winding way
Now close embower'd I hear the unseen stream
Dash down, anon behold its sparkling foam
Gleam through the thicket; and ascending on,
Now pause me to survey the goodly vale
That opens on my prospect. Half way up,
Pleasant it were upon some broad, smooth rock
To sit and sun myself, and look below,
And watch the goatherd down yon high-bank'd path
Urging his flock grotesque; and bidding now
His lean, rough dog from some near cliff go drive
The straggler; while his barkings, loud and quick,
Amid their tremulous bleat, arising oft,
Fainter and fainter from the hollow road
Send their far echoes, till the waterfall,
Hoarse bursting from the cavern'd cliff beneath,
Their dying murmurs drown. A little yet
Onward, and I have gain'd the upmost height.
Fair spreads the vale below: I see the stream
Stream radiant on beneath the noontide sky.
A passing cloud darkens the bordering steep,
Where the town-spires behind the castle-towers
Rise graceful; brown the mountain in its shade,
Whose circling grandeur, part by mists conceal'd,
Part with white rocks resplendent in the sun,
Should bound mine eyes, - ay, and my wishes too,
For I would have no hope or fear beyond.
The empty turmoil of the worthless world,
Its vanities and vices, would not vex
From friend to friend with joyful speed I ran,
Bidding a merry Christmas to them all.
Those years are past; their pleasures and their pains
Are now like yonder convent-crested hill
That bounds the distant prospect, indistinct,
Yet pictured upon memory's mystic glass
In faint, fair hues. A weary traveller now
I journey o'er the desert mountain tracks
Of Leon, wilds all drear and comfortless,
Where the gray lizards in the noontide sun
Sport on the rocks, and where the goatherd starts,
Roused from his sleep at midnight when he hears
The prowling wolf, and falters as he calls
On Saints to save. Here of the friends I think
Who now, I ween, remember me, and fill
The glass of votive friendship. At the name
Will not thy cheek, Beloved, change its hue,
And in those gentle eyes uncall'd-for tears
Tremble? I will not wish thee not to weep;
Such tears are free from bitterness, and they
Who know not what it is sometimes to wake
And weep at midnight, are but instruments
Of Nature's common work. Yes, think of me,
My Edith, think that, travelling far away,
Thus I beguile the solitary hours
With many a day-dream, picturing scenes as fair
Of peace, and comfort, and domestic bliss,
As ever to the youthful poet's eye
Creative Fancy fashion'd. Think of me.
Though absent, thine; and if a sigh will rise, And tears, unbidden, at the thought steal down, Sure hope will cheer thee, and the happy hour Of meeting soon all sorrow overpay.
WRITTEN AFTER VISITING
THE CONVENT OF ARRABIDA,
NEAR SETUBAL, MARCH 22, 1796.
HAPPY the dwellers in this holy house;
For surely never worldly thoughts intrude
On this retreat, this sacred solitude,
Where Quiet with Religion makes her home.
And ye who tenant such a goodly scene,
How should ye be but good, where all is fair,
And where the mirror of the mind reflects
Serenest beauty? O'er these mountain wilds
The insatiate eye with ever-new delight
Roams raptured, marking now where to the wind
The tall tree bends its many-tinted boughs
With soft, accordant sound; and now the sport
Of joyous sea-birds o'er the tranquil deep,
And now the long-extending stream of light
Where the broad orb of day refulgent sinks
Beneath old Ocean's line. To have no cares
That eat the heart, no wants that to the earth
Chain the reluctant spirit, to be freed
From forced communion with the selfish tribe
Who worship Mammon, - yea, emancipate
From this world's bondage, even while the soul
Inhabits still its corruptible clay, -
Almost, ye dwellers in this holy house,
Almost I envy you. You never see
Pale Misery's asking eye, nor roam about
Those huge and hateful haunts of crowded men,
Where Wealth and Power have built their palaces,
Fraud spreads his snares secure, man preys on man,
Iniquity abounds, and rampant Vice,
With an infection worse than mortal, taints
The herd of human-kind.
Ye tenants of this sacred solitude,
Here to abide, and when the sun rides high,
Seek some sequestered dingle's coolest shade;
And at the breezy hour, along the beach
Stray with slow step, and gaze upon the deep,
And while the breath of evening fann'd my brow,
And the wild waves with their continuous sound
Soothed my accustom'd ear, think thankfully
That I had from the crowd withdrawn in time,
And found a harbor Yet may yonder deep
Suggest a less unprofitable thought,
Monastic brethren. Would the mariner,
Though storms may sometimes swell the mighty
And o'er the reeling bark with thundering crash
Impel the mountainous surge, quit yonder deep,
And rather float upon some tranquil sea,
Whose moveless waters never feel the gale,
In safe stagnation? Rouse thyself, my soul!
No season this for self-deluding dreams;
It is thy spring-time; sow, if thou wouldst reap;
Then, after honest labor, welcome rest,
In full contentment not to be enjoy'd
Unless when duly earn'd. Oh, happy then
To know that we have walked among mankind
More sinn'd against than sinning! Happy then
To muse on many a sorrow overpast,
And think the business of the day is done,
And as the evening of our lives shall close,
The peaceful evening, with a Christian's hope
Expect the dawn of everlasting day.
ON MY OWN MINIATURE PICTURE,
TAKEN AT TWO YEARS OF AGE.
AND I was once like this! that glowing cheek
Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes; that brow
Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze
Dies o'er the sleeping surface! -twenty years
Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends
Who once so dearly prized this miniature,
And loved it for its likeness, some are gone
To their last home; and some, estranged in heart,
Beholding me, with quick-averted glance
Pass on the other side. But still these hues
Remain unalter'd, and these features wear
The look of Infancy and Innocence.
I search myself in vain, and find no trace
Of what I was: those lightly-arching lines
Dark and o'erchanging now; and that sweet face
Settled in these strong lineaments! - There were
Who form'd high hopes and flattering ones of thee,
Young Robert! for thine eye was quick to speak
Each opening feeling: should they not have known,
If the rich rainbow on a morning cloud
Reflects its radiant dyes, the husbandman
Beholds the ominous glory, and foresees
Impending storms! - They argued happily,
That thou didst love each wild and wondrous tale
Of faery fiction, and thine infant tongue
Lisp'd with delight the godlike deeds of Greece
And rising Rome; therefore they deem'd, forsooth,
That thou shouldst tread Preferment's pleasant path.
Ill-judging ones! they let thy little feet
Stray in the pleasant paths of Poesy,
[crowd,
And when thou shouldst have press'd amid the
There didst thou love to linger out the day,
Loitering beneath the laurel's barren shade.
SPIRIT OF SPENSER! was the wanderer wrong?
ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OLD SPANIEL.
And they have drown'd thee, then, at last! poor
The burden of old age was heavy on thee,
And yet thou shouldst have lived! What though | And tread in fancy once again the road,
Was dim, and watch'd no more with eager joy
The wonted call that on thy dull sense sunk
With fruitless repetition? The warm Sun
Might still have cheer'd thy slumbers; thou didst
love
To lick the hand that fed thee, and though past
Youth's active season, even Life itself
Was comfort. Poor old friend, how earnestly
Would I have pleaded for thee! thou hadst been
Still the companion of my boyish sports;
And as I roam'd o'er Avon's woody cliffs,
From many a day-dream has thy short, quick bark
Recall'd my wandering soul. I have beguiled
Often the melancholy hours at school,
Sour'd by some little tyrant, with the thought
Of distant home, and I remember'd then
Thy faithful fondness; for not mean the joy,
Returning at the happy holidays,
I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively
Sometimes have I remark'd thy slow decay,
Feeling myself changed too, and musing much
On many a sad vicissitude of Life.
Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last
Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate
Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity.
But fare thee well! Mine is no narrow creed;
And He who gave thee being did not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless Man. There is another world
For all that live and move - a better one!
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
INFINITE GOODNESS to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee.
Where twelve months since I held my way, and thought
Of England, and of all my heart held dear,
And wish'd this day were come.
Well I remember, hovered o'er the heath,
When with the earliest dawn of day we left
The solitary Venta.* Soon the Sun
Rose in his glory; scatter'd by the breeze
The thin fog roll'd away, and now emerged
We saw where Oropesa's castled hill
Tower'd dark, and dimly seen; and now we pass'd
Torvalva's quiet huts, and on our way
Paused frequently, look'd back, and gazed around;
Then journey'd on, yet turn'd and gazed again,
So lovely was the scene. That ducal pile
Of the Toledos now with all its towers
Shone in the sunlight. Half way up the hill,
Embower'd in olives, like the abode of Peace,
Lay Lagartina; and the cool, fresh gale,
Bending the young corn on the gradual slope,
Play'd o'er its varying verdure. I beheld
A convent near, and could almost have thought
The dwellers there must needs be holy men,
For as they look'd around them, all they saw
Was good.
But when the purple eve came on,
How did the lovely landscape fill my heart!
Trees scatter'd among peering rocks adorn'd
The near ascent; the vale was overspread
With ilex in its wintry foliage gay,
Old cork-trees through their soft and swelling
Bursting, and glaucous olives, underneath
Whose fertilizing influence the green herb
Grows greener, and with heavier ears enrich'd
The healthful harvest bends. Pellucid streams
Through many a vocal channel from the hills
Wound through the valley their melodious way;
And o'er the intermediate woods descried,
Naval-Moral's church tower announced to us
Our resting-place that night, - a welcome mark;
RECOLLECTIONS OF A DAY'S JOUR- Though willingly we loiter'd to behold
Nor less delighted do I call to mind,
Land of Romance, thy wild and lovely scenes,
Than I beheld them first. Pleased I retrace
With memory's eye the placid Minho's course,
And catch its winding waters gleaming bright
Amid the broken distance. I review
Leon's wide wastes, and heights precipitous,
Seen with a pleasure not unmix'd with dread,
As the sagacious mules along the brink
Wound patiently and slow their way secure ;
And rude Galicia's hovels, and huge rocks
And mountains, where, when all beside was dim,
Dark and broad-headed the tall pines erect
Rose on the farthest eminence distinct,
Cresting the evening sky.
And damp and heavy is the unwholesome air; I by this friendly hearth remember Spain,
In long expanse Plasencia's fertile plain,
And the high mountain range which bounded it,
Now losing fast the roseate hue that eve
Shed o'er its summit and its snowy breast;
For eve was closing now. Faint and more faint
The murmurs of the goatherd's scattered flock
Were borne upon the air, and sailing slow
The broad-wing'd stork sought on the church tower
His consecrated nest. O lovely scenes!
I gazed upon you with intense delight,
And yet with thoughts that weigh the spirit down.
I was a stranger in a foreign land,
And knowing that these eyes should never more
Behold that glorious prospect, Earth itself
Appear'd the place of pilgrimage it is.
Bristol, January 15, 1797.
WRITTEN FROM LONDON. 1798.
Like my old friend the Pilgrim, this huge pack
So heavy on my shoulders, I and mine
Right pleasantly will end our pilgrimage.
If not, if I should never get beyond
This Vanity-town, there is another world
Where friends will meet. And often, Margaret,
I gaze at night into the boundless sky,
The exalted native of some better star;
And, like the untaught American, I look
To find in Heaven the things I loved on earth.
MARGARET! My Cousin, - nay, you must not smile, And think that I shall there be born again,
I love the homely and familiar phrase:
And I will call thee Cousin Margaret,
However quaint amid the measured line
The good old term appears. Oh! it looks ill
When delicate tongues disclaim old terms of kin,
Sir-ing and Madam-ing as civilly
As if the road between the heart and lips Were such a weary and Laplandish way, That the poor travellers came to the red gates Half frozen. Trust me, Cousin Margaret, For many a day my memory hath play'd
The creditor with me on your account,
NAY, William, nay, not so! the changeful year, In all its due successions, to my sight
And made me shame to think that I should owe Presents but varied beauties, transient all,
So long the debt of kindness. But in truth,
Like Christian on his pilgrimage, I bear
So heavy a pack of business, that albeit
I toil on mainly, in our twelve hours' race
Time leaves me distanced. Loath indeed were I
That for a moment you should lay to me
Unkind neglect; mine, Margaret, is a heart
That smokes not; yet methinks there should be some
Who know its genuine warmth. I am not one
Who can play off my smiles and courtesies
To every Lady of her lap-dog tired
Who wants a plaything; I am no sworn friend
Of half-an-hour, as apt to leave as love;
Mine are no mushroom feelings, which spring up
At once without a seed, and take no root,
Wiseliest distrusted. In a narrow sphere,
The little circle of domestic life,
I would be known and loved: the world beyond
Is not for me. But, Margaret, sure I think
That you should know me well; for you and I
Grew up together, and when we look back
Upon old times, our recollections paint
The same familiar faces. Did I wield
The wand of Merlin's magic, I would make
Brave witchcraft. We would have a faery ship,
Ay, a new Ark, as in that other flood
Which swept the sons of Anak from the earth;
The Sylphs should waft us to some goodly isle
Like that where whilom old Apollidon,
Retiring wisely from the troublous world,
Built up his blameless spell; and I would bid
The Sea-Nymphs pile around their coral bowers,
That we might stand upon the beach, and mark
The far-off breakers shower their silver spray,
And hear the eternal roar, whose pleasant sound
Told us that never mariner should reach
Our quiet coast. In such a blessed isle
We might renew the days of infancy,
And life, like a long childhood, pass away,
Without one care. It may be, Margaret,
That I shall yet be gather'd to my friends;
For I am not of those who live estranged
Of choice, till at the last they join their race
In the family vault. If so, if I should lose,
All in their season good. These fading leaves,
That with their rich variety of hues
Make yonder forest in the slanting sun
So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter, -cold, drear winter, when the trees
Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare, brown boughs; when not a flower shall
Its colors to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyance, - but all nature wear
One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many-color'd beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,
The year's best holiday: I call to mind
The school-boy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christmas; when at morn I took
My wooden calendar, and counting up
Once more its often-told account, smoothed off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
To you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broken,
Bending beneath the burden of his years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful, "full of aches and pains,"
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show
The calm decay of nature when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy
That makes old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world
See some destroying principle abroad,
Air, earth, and water full of living things,
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange, perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope
That should in death bring comfort. Oh, my friend,
That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst see
Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold
The strifes and troubles of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest! All things, |
then,
Would minister to joy, then should thine heart
Be heal'd and harmonized, and thou wouldst feel
God, always, every where, and all in all.
HARK-how the church-bells, with redoubling
peals,
Stun the glad ear! Tidings of joy have come,
Good tidings of great joy! two gallant ships
Met on the element, - they met, they fought
A desperate fight!-good tidings of great joy!
Old England triumph'd! yet another day
Of glory for the ruler of the waves! [cause,
For those who fell, - 'twas in their country's
They have their passing paragraphs of praise,
And are forgotten.
THOU chronicle of crimes! I read no more;
For I am one who willingly would love
His fellow-kind. O gentle Poesy,
Receive me from the court's polluted scenes,
From dungeon horrors, from the fields of war,
Receive me to your haunts, - that I may nurse
My nature's better feelings; for my soul
Sickens at man's misdeeds!
There stood before me, in her majesty,
Clio, the strong-eyed Muse. Upon her brow
Sate a calm anger. Go, young man, she cried,
Sigh among myrtle bowers, and let thy soul
Effuse itself in strains so sorrowful sweet,
That love-sick Maids may weep upon thy page,
Soothed with delicious sorrow. Oh shame! shame!
Was it for this I waken'd thy young mind?
Was it for this I made thy swelling heart
Throb at the deeds of Greece, and thy boy's eye
So kindle when that glorious Spartan died?
Boy! boy! deceive me not! - What if the tale
Of murder'd millions strike a chilling pang;
What if Tiberius in his island stews,
And Philip at his beads, alike inspire
Strong anger and contempt; hast thou not risen
With nobler feelings, with a deeper love
In that day's glory, whose obscurer name
No proud historian's page will chronicle.
Peace to his honest soul! I read his name,
'Twas in the list of slaughter, - and thank'd God For freedom? Yes; if righteously thy soul
The sound was not familiar to mine ear.
But it was told me after, that this man
Was one whom lawful violence had forced
From his own home, and wife, and little ones,
Who by his labor lived; that he was one
Whose uncorrupted heart could keenly feel
A husband's love, a father's anxiousness;
That from the wages of his toil he fed
The distant dear ones, and would talk of them
At midnight when he trod the silent deck
With him he valued, - talk of them, of joys
Which he had known, - oh God! and of the hour
When they should meet again, till his full heart,
His manly heart, at times would overflow,
Even like a child's, with very tenderness.
Peace to his honest spirit! suddenly
It came, and merciful the ball of death,
That it came suddenly and shatter'd him,
Nor left a moment's agonizing thought
On those he loved so well.
Loathes the black history of human crimes
And human misery, let that spirit fill
Thy song, and it shall teach thee, boy! to raise
Strains such as Cato might have deign'd to hear,
As Sidney in his hall of bliss may love.
WRITTEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING
THE SPEECH OF ROBERT EMMET,
ON HIS TRIAL AND CONVICTION FOR HIGH TREASON,
SEPTEMBER, 1803.
"LET no man write my epitaph; let my grave
Be uninscribed, and let my memory rest
Till other times are come, and other men,
Who then may do me justice.” *
He ocean-deep
Now lies at rest. Be Thou her comforter,
Who art the widow's friend! Man does not know No withering curse hath dried my spirit up,
What a cold sickness made her blood run back
When first she heard the tidings of the fight!
Man does not know with what a dreadful hope
She listened to the names of those who died;
Man does not know, or knowing will not heed,
With what an agony of tenderness
She gazed upon her children, and beheld
His image who was gone. O God! be Thou,
Who art the widow's friend, her comforter!
That I should now be silent, - that my soul
Should from the stirring inspiration shrink,
Now when it shakes her, and withhold her voice,
* These were the words in his speech: "Let there be no inscription upon my tomb. Let no man write my epitaph. No man can write my epitaph. I am here ready to die. I am not allowed to vindicate my character; and when I am prevented from vindicating myself, let no man dare to calumniate me. Let my character and my motives repose in obscurity and peace, till other times and other men can do them justice. Then shall my character be vindicated; then may my epitaph be written. I HAVE DONE."
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