Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 105

Descend, some s.h.i.+ning servants from on high, Build me a hasty tomb; A gra.s.sy turf will raise my head; The neighbouring lilies dress my bed, And shed a sweet perfume.

Here I put off the chains of death, My soul too long has worn: Friends, I forbid one groaning breath, Or tear to wet my urn.

Raphael, behold me all undressed; Here gently lay this flesh to rest, Then mount and lead the path unknown.

Swift I pursue thee, flaming guide, on pinions of my own.

TO THE REV. MR JOHN HOWE.

Great man, permit the muse to climb, And seat her at thy feet; Bid her attempt a thought sublime, And consecrate her wit.

I feel, I feel the attractive force Of thy superior soul: My chariot flies her upward course, The wheels divinely roll.

Now let me chide the mean affairs And mighty toil of men: How they grow gray in trifling cares, Or waste the motion of the spheres Upon delights as vain!

A puff of honour fills the mind, And yellow dust is solid good;

Thus, like the a.s.s of savage kind, We snuff the breezes of the wind, Or steal the serpent's food.

Could all the choirs That charm the poles But strike one doleful sound, 'Twould be employed to mourn our souls, Souls that were framed of sprightly fires, In floods of folly drowned.

Souls made for glory seek a brutal joy; How they disclaim their heavenly birth, Melt their bright substance down to drossy earth, And hate to be refined from that impure alloy.

Oft has thy genius roused us hence With elevated song, Bid us renounce this world of sense, Bid us divide the immortal prize With the seraphic throng: 'Knowledge and love make spirits blest, Knowledge their food, and love their rest;'

But flesh, the unmanageable beast, Resists the pity of thine eyes, And music of thy tongue.

Then let the worms of grovelling mind Round the short joys of earthly kind In restless windings roam; Howe hath an ample orb of soul, Where s.h.i.+ning worlds of knowledge roll, Where love, the centre and the pole, Completes the heaven at home.

AMBROSE PHILIPS.

This gentleman--remembered now chiefly as Pope's temporary rival--was born in 1671, in Leicesters.h.i.+re; studied at Cambridge; and, being a great Whig, was appointed by the government of George I. to be Commissioner of the Collieries, and afterwards to some lucrative appointments in Ireland. He was also made one of the Commissioners of the Lottery. He was elected member for Armagh in the Irish House of Commons. He returned home in 1748, and died the next year in his lodgings at Vauxhall.

His works are 'The Distressed Mother,' a tragedy translated from Racine, and greatly praised in the _Spectator_; two deservedly forgotten plays, 'The Briton,' and 'Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester;' some miscellaneous pieces, of which an epistle to the Earl of Dorset, dated Copenhagen, has some very vivid lines; his Pastorals, which were commended by Tickell at the expense of those of Pope, who took his revenge by d.a.m.ning them, not with 'faint' but with fulsome and ironical praise, in the _Guardian_; and the subjoined fragment from Sappho, which is, particularly in the first stanza, melody itself. Some conjecture that it was touched up by Addison.

A FRAGMENT OF SAPPHO.

1 Blessed as the immortal G.o.ds is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee, And hears and sees thee all the while Softly speak, and sweetly smile.

2 'Twas this deprived my soul of rest, And raised such tumults in my breast; For while I gazed, in transport tossed, My breath was gone, my voice was lost.

3 My bosom glowed: the subtle flame Ran quickly through my vital frame; O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung, My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

4 In dewy damps my limbs were chilled, My blood with gentle horrors thrilled; My feeble pulse forgot to play, I fainted, sunk, and died away.

WILLIAM HAMILTON.

William Hamilton, of Bangour, was born in Ayrs.h.i.+re in 1704. He was of an ancient family, and mingled from the first in the most fas.h.i.+onable circles. Ere he was twenty he wrote verses in Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany.' In 1745, to the surprise of many, he joined the standard of Prince Charles, and wrote a poem on the battle of Gladsmuir, or Prestonpans. When the reverse of his party came, after many wanderings and hair's-breadth escapes in the Highlands, he found refuge in France.

As he was a general favourite, and as much allowance was made for his poetical temperament, a pardon was soon procured for him by his friends, and he returned to his native country. His health, however, originally delicate, had suffered by his Highland privations, and he was compelled to seek the milder clime of Lyons, where he died in 1754.

Hamilton was what is called a ladies'-man, but his attachments were not deep, and he rather flirted than loved. A Scotch lady, who was annoyed at his addresses, asked John Home how she could get rid of them. He, knowing Hamilton well, advised her to appear to favour him. She acted on the advice, and he immediately withdrew his suit. And yet his best poem is a tale of love, and a tale, too, told with great simplicity and pathos. We refer to his 'Braes of Yarrow,' the beauty of which we never felt fully till we saw some time ago that lovely region, with its 'dowie dens,'--its clear living stream,--Newark Castle, with its woods and memories,--and the green wildernesses of silent hills which stretch on all sides around; saw it, too, in that aspect of which Wordsworth sung in the words--

'The grace of forest charms decayed And pastoral melancholy.'

It is the highest praise we can bestow upon Hamilton's ballad that it ranks in merit near Wordsworth's fine trinity of poems, 'Yarrow Unvisited,' 'Yarrow Visited,' and 'Yarrow Revisited.'

THE BRAES OF YARROW.

1 A. Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow!

Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow.

2 B. Where gat ye that bonny bonny bride?

Where gat ye that winsome marrow?

A. I gat her where I darena weil be seen, Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow.

3 Weep not, weep not, my bonny bonny bride, Weep not, weep not, my winsome marrow!

Nor let thy heart lament to leave Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow.

4 B. Why does she weep, thy bonny bonny bride?

Why does she weep, thy winsome marrow?

And why dare ye nae mair weil be seen, Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow?

5 A. Lang maun she weep, lang maun she, maun she weep, Lang maun she weep with dule and sorrow, And lang maun I nae mair weil be seen Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow.

6 For she has tint her lover lover dear, Her lover dear, the cause of sorrow, And I hae slain the comeliest swain That e'er poued birks on the Braes of Yarrow.

7 Why runs thy stream, O Yarrow, Yarrow, red?

Why on thy braes heard the voice of sorrow?

And why yon melancholious weeds Hung on the bonny birks of Yarrow?

8 What's yonder floats on the rueful rueful flude?

What's yonder floats? O dule and sorrow!

Tis he, the comely swain I slew Upon the duleful Braes of Yarrow.

9 Wash, oh wash his wounds his wounds in tears, His wounds in tears with dule and sorrow, And wrap his limbs in mourning weeds, And lay him on the Braes of Yarrow.

10 Then build, then build, ye sisters sisters sad, Ye sisters sad, his tomb with sorrow, And weep around in waeful wise, His helpless fate on the Braes of Yarrow.

11 Curse ye, curse ye, his useless useless s.h.i.+eld, My arm that wrought the deed of sorrow, The fatal spear that pierced his breast, His comely breast, on the Braes of Yarrow.

12 Did I not warn thee not to lue, And warn from fight, but to my sorrow; O'er rashly bauld a stronger arm Thou met'st, and fell on the Braes of Yarrow.

13 Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the gra.s.s, Yellow on Yarrow bank the gowan, Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowan.

14 Flows Yarrow sweet? as sweet, as sweet flows Tweed, As green its gra.s.s, its gowan as yellow, As sweet smells on its braes the birk, The apple frae the rock as mellow.

15 Fair was thy love, fair fair indeed thy love In flowery bands thou him didst fetter; Though he was fair and weil beloved again, Than me he never lued thee better.