Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

From her age to his Lady Wachilses has received nothing but ragan from the kagjin picke. Her contemporaries disregarded 141 mifstofa, ws the nervell complaing, and in s there were still BABY, TWO Okections of her poems in MS, which no one had *AKEN THAMIZne to vint. To the public of the eighteenth century Why CONCRE OArráin d nature seemed less important than the dydacky Vynicam of Mrs. Barber or the frivolity of Lætitia Puxingtom. If those unpublished poems, to which reference has been made, are still in the possession of her family, it is highly desirable that they should be given to the world.

EDMUND W. GOSSE

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

Exert thy voice, sweet harbinger of Spring!
This moment is thy time to sing,
This moment I attend to praise,
And set my numbers to thy lays;
Free as thine shall be my song,
As thy music, short or long ;
Poets, wild as thou, were born,
Pleasing best when unconfined,
When to please is least designed,
Soothing but their cares to rest;
Cares do still their thoughts molest,
And still the unhappy poet's breast

Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn.

She begins! Let all be still!

Muse, thy promise now fulfil !

Sweet! oh sweet! still sweeter yet!

Can thy words such accents fit?

Canst thou syllables refine,

Melt a sense that shall retain

Still some spirit of the brain,

Till with sounds like those it join?
'Twill not be! then change thy note,
Let division shake thy throat!
Hark! division now she tries,

Yet as far the Muse outflies!
Cease then, prithee, cease thy tune,
Trifler, wilt thou sing till June?
Till thy business all lies waste
And the time of building's past?
Thus we poets that have speech,—
Unlike what thy forests teach,—
If a fluent vein be shown

That's transcendent to our own,
Criticise, reform or preach,
Censuring what we cannot reach.

THE TREE.

Fair Tree! for thy delightful shade
'Tis just that some return be made;
Sure some return is due from me
To thy cool shadows, and to thee.
When thou to birds dost shelter give
Thou music dost from them receive;
If travellers beneath thee stay
Till storms have worn themselves away,
That time in praising thee they spend,
And thy protecting power commend;
The shepherd here, from scorching freed,
Tunes to thy dancing leaves his reed,
Whilst his loved nymph in thanks bestows
Her flowery chaplets on thy boughs.
Shall I then only silent be,

And no return be made by me?

No! let this wish upon me wait,

And still to flourish be thy fate,
To future ages mayst thou stand
Untouched by the rash workman's hand,
Till that large stock of sap is spent,
Which gives thy summer's ornament;
Till the fierce winds, that vainly strive
To shock thy greatness whilst alive,
Shall on thy lifeless hour attend,
Prevent the axe and grace thy end,
Their scattered strength together call,
And to the clouds proclaim thy fall,
Who then their evening dews may spare,
When thou no longer art their care,
But shalt, like ancient heroes, burn
And some bright hearth be made thy urn.

A NOCTURNAL REVERIE.

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined,
And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings,

Or from some tree, framed for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wanderer right,—
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face,
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen,
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence spring the woodbind and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows,
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes,
Where scattered glowworms,—but in twilight fine,—
Shew trivial beauties, watch their hour to shine,
While Salisbury stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms and perfect beauty bright;
When odours, which declined repelling day,
Through temperate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;

When through the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric awful in repose;

While sunburned hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale;
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing thro' the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;

final dissolution out of which it was redeemed by Gray and Collins. Such a poem as her All is Vanity, full as it is of ingenious thought, and studded with noble and harmonious lines, fails to impress the attention as a vertebrate composition. Her Ode to the Spleen, from which Pope borrowed his famous 'aromatic pain,' is still more loose and fragmentary in structure. On the other hand, her less ambitious studies have a singular perfection of form and picturesqueness of manner. She lights upon the right epithet and employs it with precision, and gives a brilliant turn, even to a triviality, by some bright and natural touch. Her Nocturnal Reverie is worthy of Wordsworth's commendation; it is simply phenomenal as the creation of a friend of Prior and of Pope, and some of the couplets, especially those which describe the straying horse, and the cries of the birds, are worthy of the closest observers of nature in a naturalistic age. In light verse Lady Winchilsea took Prior as a model, and succeeded respectably; her reply to Pope's complimentary verses to her under the name of Ardelia deserves higher praise.

From her age to this Lady Winchilsea has received nothing but neglect from the English public. Her contemporaries disregarded her writings, as she herself complains, and in 1753 there were still existing two collections of her poems in MS., which no one had taken the trouble to print. To the public of the eighteenth century her delicate observation of nature seemed less important than the didactic lyricism of Mrs. Barber or the frivolity of Lætitia Pilkington. If those unpublished poems, to which reference has been made, are still in the possession of her family, it is highly desirable that they should be given to the world.

EDMUND W. GOSSE.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »