Time, Night. Scene, the Woods.
WHERE shall I turn me? whither shall I bend
My weary way? thus worn with toil and faint,
How through the thorny mazes of this wood
Attain my distant dwelling? That deep cry
That rings along the forest, seems to sound
My parting knell: it is the midnight howl
Of hungry monsters prowling for their prey!
Again! O save me-save me, gracious Heaven!
I am not fit to die.
Why heaves thy trembling heart? why shake thy limbs
Beneath their palsied burden? Is there aught
So lovely in existence? Wouldst thou drain
Even to its dregs the bitter draught of life?
Stamped with the brand of vice and infamy,
Why should the villain Frederic shrink from death?
Death! Where the magic in that empty name
That chills my inmost heart? Why at the thought
Starts the cold dew of fear on every limb ?
There are no terrors to surround the grave,
When the calm mind, collected in itself,
Surveys that narrow house: the ghastly train
That haunt the midnight of delirious guilt
Then vanish. In that home of endless rest
All sorrows cease. Would I might slumber there!
Why, then, this panting of the fearful heart?
This miser love of life, that dreads to lose
Its cherish'd torment? Shall the diseased man
Yield up his members to the surgeon's knife,
Doubtful of succour, but to ease his frame
Of fleshly anguish; and the coward wretch,
Whose ulcerated soul can know no help,
Shrink from the best Physician's certain aid?
Oh, it were better far to lay me down
Here on this cold damp earth, till some wild beast
Seize on his willing victim!
Were all, it were most sweet to rest my head
On the cold clod, and sleep the sleep of death.
But if the archangel's trump at the last hour
Startle the ear of death, and wake the soul
To phrensy!-dreams of infancy: fit tales
For garrulous beldames to affrighten babes!
What if I warred upon the world? the world
Had wronged me first: I had endured the ills
Of hard injustice: all this goodly earth
Was but to me one wild waste wilderness;
I had no share in nature's patrimony,
Blasted were all my morning hopes of youth,
Dark disappointment followed on my ways,
Care was my bosom inmate, and keen want
Gnawed at my heart. Eternal one, thou knowest
How that poor heart, even in the bitter hour
Of lewdest revelry, has inly yearned
For peace.
My Father! I will call on thee,
Pour to thy mercy-seat my earnest prayer,
And wait thy righteous will, resigned of soul.
Oh, thoughts of comfort! how the afflicted heart,
Tired with the tempest of its passions, rests
On you with holy hope! The hollow howl
Of yonder harmless tenant of the woods
Bursts not with terror on the sobered sense.
If I have sinned against mankind, on them
Be that past sin-they made me what I was.
In these extremest climes can want no more
Urge to the deeds of darkness, and at length
Here shall I rest. What though my hut be poor-
The rains descend not through its humble roof:
Would I were there again! The night is cold;
And what if in my wanderings I should rouse
The savage from his thicket!
And lo, the fire of safety! I shall reach
My little hut again! again by toil
Force from the stubborn earth my sustenance,
And quick-eared guilt will never start alarmed
Amid the well-earned meal. This felon's garb-
Will it not shield me from the winds of heaven P
And what could purple more? Oh, strengthen me,
Eternal One, in this serener state!
Cleanse thou mine heart, so penitence and faith
Shall heal my soul, and my last days be peace.
The following Eclogues, I believe, bear no resemblance to any poems in our language. This species of composition has become popular in Germany, and I was induced to attempt it by an account of the German Idylls given me in conversation. They cannot properly be styled imitations, as I am ignorant of that language at present, and have never seen any translations or specimens in this kind.
With bad Eclogues I am sufficiently acquainted, from Tityrus and Corydon down to our English Strephons and Thirsisses. No kind of poetry can boast of more illustrious names, or is more distinguished by the servile dulness of imitated nonsense. Pastoral writers, "more silly than their sheep," have like their sheep gone on in the same track one after another. Gay stumbled into a new path. His eciogues were the only ones which interested me when I was a boy, and did not know they were burlesque. The subject would furnish matter for a long essay, but this is not the place for it.
How far poems requiring almost a colloquial plainness of language may accord with the public taste, I am doubtful. They have been subjected to able criticism, and revised with care.
OLD friend! why, you seem bent on parish duty,
Breaking the highway stones; and 'tis a task
Somewhat too hard, methinks, for age like yours.
Why, yes! for one with such a weight of years,
Upon his back.... I've lived here, man and bey,
In this same parish, near the age of man;
For I am hard upon threescore and ten.
I can remember, sixty years ago,
The beautifying of this mansion here,
When my late lady's father, the old squire,
Came to the estate.
Why, then you have outlasted
All his improvements, for you see they're making
Great alterations here.
And if my poor old lady could rise up
God rest her soul!-'twould grieve her to behold
The wicked work is here.
In right good earnest. All the front is gone:
Here's to be turf, they tell me, and a road
There were some yew-trees, too,
Aye, master! fine old trees!
My grandfather could just remember back
When they were planted there. It was my task
To keep them trimm'd, and 'twas a pleasure to me:
All straight and smooth, and like a great green wall!
My poor old lady many a time would come
And tell me where to shear; for she had played
In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride
To keep them in their beauty. Plague, I say,
On their new-fangled whimsies! We shall have
A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs
And your pert poplar trees. I could as soon
Have plough'd my father's grave as cut them down!
But 'twill be lighter and more cheerful now-
A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road
Round for the carriage-now it suits my taste.
I like a shrubbery, too, it looks so fresh;
And then there's some variety about it.
In spring the lilac and the Gueldres rose,
And the laburnum with its golden flowers
Waving in the wind. And when the autumn comes,
The bright red berries of the mountain ash,
With firs enough in winter to look green,
And show that something lives. Sure this is better Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look
All the year round like winter, and for ever
Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under boughs
Ah! so the new squire thinks;
And pretty work he makes of it. What 'tis
To have a stranger come to an old house!
It seems you know him not?
They tell me he's expected daily now;
But in my lady's time he never came
But once, for they were very distant kin.
If he had played about here when a child
In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries,
And sate in the porch threading the jessamine flowers,
That fell so thick, he had not had the heart
To mar all thus.
Come-come! all is not wrong.
As if he could not see through casement glass!
The very red-breasts that so regular
Came to my lady for her morning crumbs,
Wont know the window now!
And then so darken'd up with jessamine,
Harbouring the vermin. That was a fine tree,
However. Did it not grow in and line
The porch P
All over it: it did one good
To pass within ten yards when 'twas in blossom.
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