The big round tears run down his dappled face;
He groans in anguish; while the growling pack,
Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest,
And mark his beauteous chequer'd sides with gore.
Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth,
Whose fervent blood boils into violence,
Must have the chase; behold, despising flight,
The rous'd-up lion, resolute, and slow,
Advancing full on the protended spear,
And coward-band, that circling wheel aloof.
Slunk from the cavern, and the troubled wood,
See the grim wolf; on him his shaggy foe
Vindictive fix, and let the ruffian die:
Or, growling horrid, as the brindled boar
Grins fell destruction, to the monster's heart
Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm.
To cheat the thirsty moments, Whist awhile
Walks his dull round, beneath a cloud of smoke,
Wreath'd fragrant from the pipe; or the quick dice,
In thunder leaping from the box, awake
The sounding gammon: while romp-loving Miss
Is haul'd about, in gallantry robust.
At last these puling idlenesses laid
Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan
Close in firm circle; and set, ardent, in
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly,
Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch
Indulg'd apart; but earnest, brimming bowls
Lave every soul, the table floating round,
And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,
These Britain knows not; give, ye Britons, then Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses,
Your sportive fury, pitiless, to pour
Loose on the nightly robber of the fold:
Him, from his craggy winding haunts unearth'd,
Let all the thunder of the chase pursue.
Throw the broad ditch behind you; o'er the hedge
High bound, resistless; nor the deep morass
Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness
**Pick your nice way; into the perilous flood
Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full;
And as you ride the torrent, to the banks
Your triumph sound sonorous, running round,
From rock to rock, in circling echoes tost;
Then scale the mountains to their woody tops;
Rush down the dangerous steep; and o'er the lawn,
In fancy swallowing up the space between,
Pour all your speed into the rapid game,
For happy he! who tops the wheeling chase;
Has every maze evolv'd, and every guile
Disclos'd; who knows the merits of the pack ;
Who saw the villain seiz'd, and dying hard,
Without complaint, though by an hundred mouths
Relentless torn: O glorious he, beyond
fis daring peers! when the retreating horn
alls them to ghostly halls of grey renown,
With woodland honours grac'd; the fox's fur,
Depending decent from the roof; and spread
found the drear walls, with antic figures fierce,
he stag's large front: he then is loudest heard,
When the night staggers with severer toils,
With feats Thessalian Centaurs never knew,
nd their repeated wonders shake the dome.
But first the fuel'd chimney blazes wide;
he tankards foam; and the strong table groans
eneath the smoking surloin, stretch'd immense
rom side to side; in which, with desperate knife,
hey deep incision make, and talk the while
f England's glory, ne'er to be defac'd
While hence they borrow vigour or amain
to the pasty plung'd, at intervals,
stomach keen can intervals allow,
elating all the glories of the chase.
ben sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
oduce the mighty bowl; the mighty bowl,
well'd high with fiery juice, steams liberal round
potent gale, delicious as the breath
Maia to the love-sick shepherdess,
■ violets diffus'd, while soft she hears
r panting shepherd stealing to her arms.
wanting is the brown October, drawn,
ture and perfect, from his dark retreat
thirty years; and now his honest front
mes in the light refulgent, not afraid
n with the vineyard's best produce to vie.
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,
In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd.
Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud,
Th' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart;
That moment touch'd is every kindred soul;
And, opening in a full-mouth'd cry of joy,
The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse, go round;
While, from their slumbers shook, the kennell'd
hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep
The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls;
So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolv'd. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim, and blue, the double tapers dance,
Like the Sun wading through the misty sky.
Then sliding soft, they drop. Confus'd above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table ev'n itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene; and wide, below,
Is heap'd the social slaughter; where astride
The lubber power in filthy triumph sits,
Slumberous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till morn.
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch,
Aweful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Out-lives them all; and from his bury'd flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport
Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy
E'er stain the bosom of the British fair.
Far be the spirit of the chase from them!
Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill;
To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed;
The cap, the whip, the masculine attire;
In which they roughen to the sense, and all
The winning softness of their sex is lost.
In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at woe;
With every motion, every word, to wave
Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush;
And from the smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
And by this silent adulation, soft,
To their protection more engaging man.
O may their eyes no miserable sight,
Save weeping lovers, see! a nobler game,
Through Love's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled,
In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs
Float in the loose simplicity of dress!
And, fashion'd all to harmony, alone
Know they to seize the captivated soul,
In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips;
To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step,
Disclosing motion in its every charm,
To swim along, and swell the mazy dance;
To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn;
To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page;
To lend new flavour to the fruitful year,
And heighten Nature's dainties in their race
To rear their graces into second life;
To give society its highest taste;
Well-order'd home man's best delight to make;
And by submissive wisdom, modest skill,
With every gentle care-eluding art,
To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,
And sweeten all the toils of human life:
This be the female dignity and praise.
Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel bank;
Where, down yon dale, the wildly-winding brook
Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array,
Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub,
Ye virgins come. For you their latest song
The woodlands raise; the clustering nuts for you
The lover finds amid the secret shade;
And, where they burnish on the topmost bough,
With active vigour crushes down the tree;
Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk,
A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown,
As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair :
Melinda! form'd with every grace complete,
Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise,
And far transcending such a vulgar praise.
Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields,
In cheerful errour, let us tread the maze
Of Autumn, unconfin'd; and taste, reviv'd,
The breath of orchard big with bending fruit.
Obedient to the breeze and beating ray,
From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower
Incessant melts away. The juicy year
Lies, in a soft profusion, scatter'd round.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race;
By Nature's all-refining hand prepar'd;
Of temper'd sun, and water, earth, and air,
In ever-changing composition mixt.
Such, falling frequent through the chiller night,
The fragrant stores, the wide projected heaps
Of apples, which the lusty-handed Year,
Innumerous, o'er the blushing orchard shakes.
A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen,
Dwells in their gelid pores; and, active, points
The piercing cyder for the thirsty tongue :
Thy native theme, and boon-inspirer too,
Phillips, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse,
With British freedom sing the British song:
How, from Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods; some strong, to cheer
The wintery revels of the labouring hind;
And tasteful some, to cool the summer hours.
In this glad season, while his sweetest beams The Sun sheds equal o'er the meeken'd day; Oh, lose me in the green delightful walks Of, Doddington, thy seat, serene, and plain; Where simple Nature reigns; and every view, Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs, In boundless prospect: yonder shagg'd with wood, Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks! Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome, Far splendid, seizes on the ravish'd eye. New beauties rise with each revolving day;
New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring fin
New plants to quicken, and new groves to green.
Full of thy genius all! the Muses' seat:
Where, in the secret bower, and winding walk,
For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay.
Here wandering oft, fir'd with the restless thirst
Of thy applause, I solitary court
Th' inspiring breeze: and meditate the book
Of Nature ever open: aiming thence,
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song.
Here, as I steal along the sunny wall,
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep.
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought
Presents the downy peach; the shining plum;
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine; and dark,
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig.
The vine, too, here her curling tendrils shoots;
Hangs out her clusters, glowing to the south;
And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.
Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight
To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent;
Where, by the potent Sun elated high,
The vineyard swells refulgent on the day;
Spreads o'er the vale; or up the mountain climbs,
Profuse; and drinks amid the sunny rocks,
From cliff to cliff increas'd, the heighten'd blaze.
Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear,
Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame,
Or shine transparent; while perfection breathes
White o'er the turgent film the living dew.
As thus they brighten with exalted juice,
Touch'd into flavour by the mingling ray;
The rural youth and virgins o'er the field,
Fach fond for each to cull th' autumnal prime,
Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh.
Then comes the crushing swain; the country flots
And foams unbounded with the mashy flood;
That by degrees fermented and refin'd,
Round the rais'd nations pours
the cup of joy:
The claret smooth, red as the lip we press,
In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl;
The mellow-tasted Burgundy; and quick,
As is the wit it gives, the gay Champagne.
Now, by the cool declining year condens'd, Descend the copious exhalations, check'd As up the middle sky unseen they stole, And roll the doubling fogs around the hill No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime, Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides, And high between contending kingdoms rears The rocky long division, fills the view With great variety; but in a night Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far, The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain: Vanish the woods; the dim-seen river seems Sullen, and slow, to roll the misty wave Ev'n in the height of noon opprest, the Sun Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted ray; Whence glaring oft, with many a broaden'd orb He frights the nations. Indistinct on Earth, Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life Objects appear; and, wilder'd, o'er the waste The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last Wreath'd dun around, in deeper circles still Successive closing, sits the general fog Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick. A formless grey confusion covers all. As when of old (so sung the Hebrew bard) Light, uncollected, through the Chaos urg'd
Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn
His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.
These roving mists, that constant now begin
To smoke along the hilly country, these,
With weighty rains, and melted Alpine snows,
as The mountain-cisterns fill, those ample stores
Of water, scoop'd among the hollow rocks; [play,
Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains
And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw.
Some sages say, that, where the numerous wave
For ever lashes the resounding shore,
Drill'd through the sandy stratum, every way,
The waters with the sandy stratum rise;
Amid whose angles infinitely strain'd,
They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind,
And clear and sweeten, as they soak along.
Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still,
Though oft amidst th' irriguous vale it springs;
But to the mountain courted by the sand,
That leads it darkling on in faithful maze,
Far from the parent main, it boils again
Fresh into day; and all the glittering hill
Is bright with spouting rills.
Amusive dream! why should the waters love
To take so far a journey to the hills,
When the sweet valleys offer to their toil
Inviting quiet, and a nearer bed?
Or if, by blind ambition led astray,
They must aspire; why should they sudden stop
Among the broken mountain's rushy dells,
And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert
The miny caverns, blazing on the day,
Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs,
And of the bending Mountains of the Moon! +
O'ertopping all these giant sons of Earth,
Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line
Stretch'd to the stormy seas that thunder round
The southern Pole, their hideous deeps unfold!
Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose,
I see the rivers in their infant beds!
Deep, deep I hear them, labouring to get free!
I see the leaning strata, artful rang'd;
The gaping fissures to receive the rains,
The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs.
Strow'd bibulous above I see the sands,
The pebbly gravel next, the layers then
Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths,
The gutter'd rocks, and mazy-running clefts;
That, while the stealing moisture they transmit,
Retard its motion, and forbid its waste.
Beneath th' incessant weeping of these drains,
I see the rocky syphons stretch'd immense,
The mighty reservoirs, of harden'd chalk,
Or stiff compacted clay, capacious form❜d.
O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores,
The crystal treasures of the liquid world,
Through the stirr'd sands a bubbling passage burst,
And swelling out, around the middle steep,
Or from the bottoms of the bosom'd hills,
In pure effusion flow. United, thus,
Th' exhaling Sun, the vapour-burden'd air,
The gelid mountains, that to rain condens'd
Th' attractive sand that charm'd their course so long? These vapours in continual current draw,
Besides, the hard agglomerating salts,
The spoil of ages, would impervious choke
Their secret channels; or, by slow degrees,
High as the hills protrude the swelling vales:
Old Ocean too, suck'd through the porous globe,
Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed,
And brought Deucalion's watery times again.
Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs,
That, like Creating Nature, lie conceal'd
From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores
Refresh the globe, and all its joyous tribes?
), thou pervading Genius, given to man,
To trace the secrets of the dark abyss,
), lay the mountains bare! and wide display
their hidden structure to th' astonish'd view!
Strip from the branching Alps their piny load;
The huge encumbrance of horrific woods
From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretch'd
Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds!
Give opening Hemus to my searching eye,
And high Olympus pouring many a stream!
), from the sounding summits of the north,
The Dofrine hills, through Scandinavia roll'd
Co farthest Lapland and the Frozen Main;
From lofty Caucasus, far-seen by those
Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil;
From cold Riphean rocks, which the wild Russ
Believes the stony girdle of the world;
And all the dreadful mountains, wrapt in storm,
Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods;
, sweep th' eternal snows! Hung o'er the deep,
hat ever works beneath his sounding base,
id Atlas, propping Heaven, as poets feign,
lis subterranean wonders spread! unveil
* The Muscovites call the Riphean mountains Veliki Camenypoys, that is, the great stony girdle; cause they suppose them to encompass the whole rth.
And send them, o'er the fair divided earth,
In bounteous rivers to the deep again,
A social commerce hold, and firm support
The full-adjusted harmony of things.
When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,
Warn'd of approaching Winter, gather'd, play
The swallow-people; and toss'd wide around,
O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift,
The feather'd eddy floats: rejoicing once,
Ere to their wintery slumbers they retire;
In clusters clung, beneath the mouldering bank,
And where, unpierc'd by frost, the cavern sweats,
Or rather into warmer climes convey'd,
With other kindred birds of season, there
They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months
Invite them welcome back: for, thronging, now
Innumerous wings are in commotion all.
Where the Rhine loses his majestic force
In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep,
By diligence amazing, and the strong
Unconquerable hand of Liberty,
The stork-assembly meets; for many a day,
Consulting deep, and various, ere they take
Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky.
And now their route design'd, their leaders chose,
Their tribes adjusted, clean'd their vigorous wings;
And many a circle, many a short essay,
Wheel'd round and round, in congregation full
The figur'd flight ascends; and, riding high
Th' aerial billows, mixes with the clouds.
Or where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides;
Who can recount what transmigrations there
A range of mountains in Africa, that surround almost all Monomotapa.
Are annual made? what nations come and go?
And how the living clouds on clouds arise?
Infinite wings! till all the plume-dark air
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry.
Here the plain harmless native his small flock,
And herd diminutive of many hues,
Tends on the little island's verdant swell,
The shepherd's sea-girt reign; or, to the rocks
Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food;
Or sweeps the fishy shore; or treasures up
The plumage, rising full, to form the bed
Of luxury.
And here awhile the Muse,
High hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene,
Sees Caledonia, in romantic view:
Her airy mountains, from the waving main,
Invested with a keen diffusive sky,
Breathing the soul acute; her forests huge,
Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand
Planted of old; her azure lakes between,
Pour'd out extensive, and of watery wealth
Full; winding deep, and green, her fertile vales;
With many a cool translucent brimming flood
Wash'd lovely from the Tweed (pure parent stream,
Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed,
With sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook)
To where the north-inflated tempest foams
O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak:
Nurse of a people, in misfortune's school
Train'd up to hardy deeds; soon visited
By Learning, when before the Gothic rage
She took her western flight. A manly race,
Of unsubmitting spirit, wise, and brave;
Who still through bleeding ages struggled hard,
(As well unhappy Wallace can attest,
Great patriot-hero! ill-requited chief!)
To hold a generous undiminish'd state;
Too much in vain! Hence of unequal bounds
Impatient, and by tempting glory borne
O'er every land, for every land their life
Has flow'd profuse, their piercing genius plann'd
And swell'd the pomp of peace their faithful toil,
As from their own clear north, in radiant streams,
Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal morn.
Oh, is there not some patriot, in whose power
That best, that godlike luxury is plac'd,
Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn,
Through late posterity? some, large of soul,
To cheer dejected industry? to give
A double harvest to the pining swain?
And teach the labouring hind the sweets of toil?
How, by the finest art, the native robe
To weave; how, white as Hyperborean snow,
To form the lucid lawn; with venturous oar
How to dash wide the billow; nor look on,
Shamefully passive, while Batavian fleets
Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms,
That heave our friths, and crowd upon our shores;
How all-enlivening trade to rouse, and wing
The prosperous sail, from every growing port,
Uninjur'd, round the sea-encircled globe;
And thus, in soul united as in name,
Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep?
Yes, there are such. And full on thee, Argyll,
Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast,
From her first patriots and her heroes sprung,
Thy fond imploring country turns her eye;
In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees
Her every virtue, every grace combin'd,
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn,
Her pride of honour, and her courage try'd,
Calm, and intrepid, in the very throat
Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field.
Nor less the palm of peace inwreathes thy brow:
For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue
Persuasion flows, and wins the high debate;
While mix'd in thee combine the charm of youth,
The force of manhood, and the depth of age.
Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends,
As truth sincere, as weeping friendship kind,
Thee, truly generous, and in silence great,
Thy country feels through her reviving arts,
Plann'd by thy wisdom, by thy soul inform'd;
And seldom has she known a friend like thee.
But see the fading many-colour'd woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun,
Of every hue, from wan-declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome Muse,
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks,
And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether; whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current: while illumin'd wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the Sun,
And through their lucid vale his soften'd force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,
For those whom Wisdom and whom Nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things;
To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet;
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace;
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.
Thus solitary, and in pensive guise, Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead, And through the sadden'd grove, where scarce is One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil. Haply some widow'd songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse; While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late Swell'd all the music of the swarming shades, Robb'd of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock; With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And nought save chattering discord in their note. O, let not, aim'd from some inhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey, In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove, Oft startling such as, studious, walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air. But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams; Till chok'd, and matted with the dreary shower, The forest-walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields; And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign. Ev'n what remain'd Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
He comes! he comes! in every breeze the power Of philosophic Melancholy comes! His near approach the sudden-starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The soften'd feature, and the beating heart,
Pierc'd deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes!
Inflames imagination; through the breast
-Infuses every tenderness; and far
Beyond dim Earth exalts the swelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye.
As fast the correspondent passions rise,
As varied, and as high: devotion rais'd
To rapture, and divine astonishment;
The love of Nature unconfin'd, and, chief,
Of human race; the large ambitious wish,
To make them blest; the sigh for suffering worth
Lost in obscurity; the noble scorn
Of tyrant-pride; the fearless great resolve;
The wonder which the dying patriot draws,
Inspiring glory through remotest time;
Th' awaken'd throb for virtue, and for fame;
The sympathies of love, and friendship dear;
With all the social offspring of the heart.
Oh, bear me then to vast embowering shades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales;
To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms;
Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along;
And voices more than human, through the void
Deep-sounding, seize th' enthusiastic ear!
Or is this gloom too much? Then lead, ye powers,
That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Preside, which shining through the cheerful land
In countless numbers blest Britannia sees;
O, lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradise of Stowe! *
Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore
E'er saw such sylvan scenes; such various art
By genius fir'd, such ardent genius tam'd
By cool judicious art; that, in the strife,
All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, O Pitt, thy country's early boast,
There let me sit beneath the shelter'd slopes,
Or in that temple + where, in future times,
Thou well shalt merit a distinguish'd name;
And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
While there with thee th' enchanted round I walk
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then
Will tread in thought the groves of Attic land;
Will from thy standard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the purest truth
Of Nature, or, the unimpassion'd shades
Forsaking, raise it to the human mind.
Or if hereafter she, with juster hand,
Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou,
To mark the varied movements of the heart,
What every decent character requires,
And every passion speaks: O, through her strain
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds
Th' attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts,
Of honest zeal the indignant lightning throws,
And shakes Corruption on her venal throne.
While thus we talk, and through Elysian vales
Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes:
What pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files
Of order'd trees shouldst here inglorious range,
* The seat of the Lord Viscount Cobham. The temple of Virtue in Stowe-gardens.
Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,
And long-embattled hosts! when the proud foe,
The faithless vain disturber of mankind,
Insulting Gaul, has rous'd the world to war;
When keen, once more, within their bounds to press
Those polish'd robbers, those ambitious slaves,
The British youth would hail thy wise command,
Thy temper'd ardour, and thy veteran skill.
The western Sun withdraws the shorten'd day;
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress, to the ground condens'd
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the Moon, Full-orb'd, and breaking through the scatter'd
Shows her broad visage in the crimson'd east.
Turn'd to the Sun direct, her spotted disk,
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,
A smaller Earth, gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
But when half-blotted from the sky her light,
Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn
With keener lustre through the depth of Heaven;
Or near extinct her deaden'd orb appears,
And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white;
Oft in this season, silent from the north
A blaze of meteors shoots: ensweeping first
The lower skies, they all at once converge
High to the crown of Heaven, and all at once
Relapsing quick, as quickly re-ascend,
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew,
All ether coursing in a maze of light.
From look to look, contagious through the crowd,
The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes
Th' appearance throws: armies in meet array,
Throng'd with aërial spears and steeds of fire;
Till the long lines of full-extended war
In bleeding fight commix'd, the sanguine flood
Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of Heaven.
As thus they scan the visionary scene,
On all sides swells the superstitious din,
Incontinent; and busy Phrenzy talks
Of blood and battle; cities overturn'd,
And late at night in swallowing earthquake sunk,
Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame;
Of sallow famine, inundation, storm;
Of pestilence, and every great distress;
Empires subvers'd, when ruling Fate has struck
Th' unalterable hour: ev'n Nature's self
Is deem'd to totter on the brink of time.
Not so the man of philosophic eye,
And inspect sage; the waving brightness he
Curious surveys, inquisitive to know
The causes, and materials, yet unfix'd,
Of this appearance beautiful and new.
Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall,
A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are Heaven and Earth.
Order confounded lies; all beauty void;
Distinction lost; and gay variety
|