Of Greece's sightless master-bard *: the breast
Beats high, with stern PELIDES to the plain
We rush; or o'er the corpse of HECTOR slain
Hang pitying; and lo! where pale, opprest
With age and grief, sad PRIAM comes +; with beard
All white, he bows, kissing the hands besmear'd
With his last hope's best blood!
Now from the mountain sounds; the sylvan muse,
Reclin❜d by the clear stream of Arethuse,
Wakes the Sicilian pipe;-the sunny mead
Swarms with the bees, whose drowsy lullaby
Soothes the reclining ox with half-clos'd eye;
While in soft cadence to the madrigal,
From rock to rock the whispering waters fall!
But who is he§, that, by yon wretched cave,
Bids heav'n and earth bear witness to his woe?
And hark! how hollowly the ocean-wave
Echoes his plaint, and murmurs deep below!-
"Haste-let the tall ship stem the tossing tide,
That he may leave his cave, and hear no more
The Lemnian surges unrejoicing roar
And be Great Fate thro' the dark world thy guide,
Sad PHILOCTETES!"....
So Instruction bland, With young-eyed Sympathy, went hand in hand. O'er classick fields; and let my heart confess
Its holier joy, when I essay'd to climb
The lonely heights, where SHAKSPEARE sat sublime,
Lord of the mighty spell; around him press
Spirits and fairy-forms-He, ruling wide
His visionary world, bids terror fill
The shiv'ring breast, or softer pity thrill L'en to the inmost heart: within me died
All thoughts of this low earth, and higher pow'rs Seem'd in my soul to stir-till, strain'd too long, The senses sunk :
Then, OSSIAN, thy wild song
Haply beguil'd th' unheeded midnight hours,
And, like the blast that swept Berrathron's tow'rs,
Came pleasant and yet mournful' to my soul!
"See! o'er th' autumnal heath the grey mists roll!-
Hark! to the dim ghosts' faint and feeble cry,
As on the cloudy tempest they pass by!-
§ Philoctetes, see Sophocles,-Youthful impressions on first reading it.
Saw ye huge LAGO's spectre-shape advance,
Through which the stars look pale!"....
Which bound the erring fancy, till dark night
Flew silent by, and at my window-grate
The morning bird sung loud-nor less delight
The spirit felt, when still and charm'd I sate
Great MILTON's solemn harmonies to hear,
That swell from the full chord, and strong and clear,
(Beyond the tuneless couplets' weak control)
Their long-commingling diapason roll,
In numerous sweetness. ••••
Of pealing minstrelsy, was thy own lyre,
WARTON, unheard;-as Fancy pour'd the song,
The measur'd music flow'd along,
Till all the heart and all the sense
Felt her divinest influence,
In throbbing sympathy:-" Prepare the car*,
And whirl us, goddess, to the war,
Where crimson banners fire the skies,
Where the mingled shouts arise,
Where the steed, with fetlock red,
Tramples the dying and the dead;'
And amain, from side to side,
Death his pale horse is seen to ride!-
Or rather, sweet enthusiast, lead
Our footsteps to the cowslip mead,
Where (as the magic spell is wound)
Dying music floats around:-
Or seek we some grey ruin's shade,
And pity the cold beggar + laid
Beneath the ivy-rustling tow'r,
At the dreary midnight hour,
Scarce shelter'd from the drifting snow;
While her dark locks the bleak winds blow
O'er her sleeping infant's' cheek!
Then let the shrilling trumpet speak,
And pierce in louder tones the ear,
Till, while it peals, we seem to hear
The sounding march, as of the Theban's song;
And varied numbers, in their course,
With gath'ring fullness, and collected force,
Like the broad cataract, swell and sweep along!"
*See Warton's Ode to Fancy.
+ Alluding to some pathetic lines in Warton's Ode to Fancy.
See Warton's Ode on West's Translation of Pindar.
Struck by the sounds, what wonder that I laid,
As thou, O WARTON, didst the theme inspire,
My inexperienc'd hand upon the lyre,
And soon with transient touch faint music made,
As soon forgotten. ・・
By the wild streams of Elfin poesy,
Rapt in strange musings: but when life began
I never roam'd, a visionary man,
(For taught by thee, I learnt with sober eyes
To look on life's severe realities)
I never made (a dream-distemper'd thing)
Poor Fiction's realm, my world; but to cold truth
Subdu'd the vivid shapings of my youth;
Save when the drisly woods were murmuring,
Or some hard crosses had my spirit bow'd,
Then I have left, unseen, the careless crowd,
And sought the dark sea roaring, or the steep
That brav'd the storm; or in the forest deep,
As all its grey leaves rustled, wooed the tone
Of the lov'd lyre, that, in my spring-tide gone,
Wak'd me to transport:
Eighteen summers now
Have smil'd on Itchin's margin, since the time
When these delightful visions of our prime
Rose on my view in loveliness.—And thou,
Friend of my muse, in thy death-bed art cold,
Who, with the tenderest touches, didst unfold
The shrinking leaves of fancy, else unseen
And shelterless: therefore to thee are due
Whate'er their summer sweetness; and I strew,
Sadly, such flow'rets as on hillocks green,
Or mountain-slope, or hedge-row, yet my hand
May cull, (with many a recollection bland,
And mingled sorrow) WARTON, on THY TOMB,
TO WHOM, IF BLOOM THEY BOAST, THEY OWE THEIR BLOOM!
[From GRESWELL'S MEMOIRS of LITERARY CHARACTERS.]
N blushing beams of soften'd light
Aurora steals upon the sight:
With chaste effulgence dart from far
The splendors of her dewy car;
Cheer'd with the view, I bless the ray
That mildly speaks returning day.
Retire, ye gloomy shades, to spread
Your brooding horrors o'er the dead!-
Bane of my slumbers, spectres gaunt,
Forbear my frighted couch, to haunt!
Phantoms of darkness, horrid dreams,-
Begone! for lo! fair Morning beams.
Emerging from the incumbent shade,
Her lustre cheers the brilliant mead :-
Haste, boy, the tuneful lyre,-I long
To meet the goddess with a song ;-
Haste, while the Muse exerts her powers,
And strew her smiling path with flowers.
The violet charg'd with early sweets,
Fair Morn! thy cheerful presence greets;
The crocus lifts her saffron head,
And bloomy shrubs their odours shed;
Ah! deign our incense to inhale
Borne on the gently-swelling gale.
When Morning's charms the song inspire,
Be mine to wake the warbling lyre;
Oh, waft, ye breezes, to her ear
The mingled strains of praise and prayer:
Bid her approve our faint essays,
And teach the offer'd gift to please.
For, ah! thy beauties to pourtray,
Fair mother of the infant day,-
What time in mildest splendors drest
Thy lucid form appears confest,-
Still must the admiring bard despair,-
O Nymph-superlatively fair!
Thy crimson cheeks a blush disclose
More vivid than the opening rose;
Thy softly-waving locks unfold
More lustre than the burnish'd gold;
The envious stars their lights resign,
And Luna's beam is lost in thine.
Mortals had lain, without thine aid,
Ingulph'd in night's perpetual shade:
The brightest colours but display
A lustre borrow'd from thy ray;
And every grace that art can boast,
Without thy genial help were lost.
Fast bound in Lethe's dull embrace,
'Tis thine the sluggard to release;
Thou wak'st to life the torpid mind,
To deathful slumbers else consign'd:
And pleas'd to share thy tranquil smile,
Man with new vigour meets his toil.
Betimes the sprightly traveller wakes:
The sturdy ox his stall forsakes,
Patient his sinewy neck to bow,
And bear the yoke, and drag the plough;
His fleecy charge the shepherd leads
To graze beneath the sylvan shades.
Lull'd in his fair one's gentle arms,
The lover if thy voice alarms;
If with regret the attractive couch
He leaves, and blames thy near approach,
Still let him deem thy call unkind,
And cast the lingering look behind.'
His be the illusive joys of night;
My boast shall be the cheerful light:
Give me to watch the orient ray,
And hail the glad return of day;
And long, oh long-ye Pow'rs divine,
May such reviving joys be mine!
THE RESOLVE. (Supposed to be written by SAPPHO *.)
[From Mr. G. DYER'S POEMS.]
ES! I have lov'd: yet often have I said,
Love in thy breast shall never revel more;
But I will listen to wild Ocean's roar;
Or, like some outcast solitary shade,
Will cling upon the howlings of the wind,
Till I grow deaf with list'ning, cold and blind.
But ah! enchantress, cease that tender lay,
Nor tune that lyre to notes thus softly slow;
Those eyes, oh! take those melting eyes away,
Nor let those lips with honey'd sweets o'erflow;
Nor let meek Pity pale that lovely cheek,
Nor weep, as wretches their long suffering speak:
With forms so fair endow'd, oh! Venus, why
Are Lesbian maids, or with such weakness I?
Do Lesbian damsels touch the melting lyre;
My lyre is mute, and I in silence gaze;
*See her celebrated ode in Longinus.
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