Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 133

Son of night, retire: call thy winds, and fly! Why dost thou come to my presence, with thy shadowy arms? Do I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy s.h.i.+eld of clouds: feeble is that meteor, thy sword! The blast rolls them together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of night! Call thy winds, and fly!

Dost thou force me from my place? replied the hollow voice.

The people bend before me. I turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations, and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the winds: the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm, above the clouds; the fields of my rest are pleasant.

Dwell in thy pleasant fields, said the king; let Comhal's son be forgot. Do my steps ascend, from my hills, into thy peaceful plains? Do I meet thee, with a spear, on thy cloud, spirit of dismal Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why shake thine airy spear? Thou frownest in vain: I never fled from the mighty in war. And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? No: he knows the weakness of their arms!

Fly to thy land, replied the form: receive the wind, and fly! The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is mine. The king of Sora is my son, he bends at the storm of my power. His battle is around Carric-thura; and he will prevail! Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath!

He lifted high his shadowy spear! He bent forward his dreadful height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword; the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air, like a column of smoke, which the staff of the boy disturbs, as it rises from the half-extinguished furnace.

The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he rose on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound, the waves heard it on the deep. They stopped in their course with fear: the friends of Fingal started at once, and took their heavy spears. They missed the king; they rose in rage; all their arms resound!

ADDRESS TO THE MOON.

Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides.

Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of grief?

have thy sisters fallen from heaven? are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads: they, who were ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind! that the daughter of night may look forth! that the s.h.a.ggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves in light.

FINGAL'S SPIRIT-HOME.

His friends sit around the king, on mist! They hear the songs of Ullin: he strikes the half-viewless harp. He raises the feeble voice. The lesser heroes, with a thousand meteors, light the airy hall. Malvina rises in the midst; a blush is on her cheek. She beholds the unknown faces of her fathers. She turns aside her humid eyes. 'Art thou come so soon?' said Fingal, 'daughter of generous Toscar. Sadness dwells in the halls of Lutha. My aged son is sad! I hear the breeze of Cona, that was wont to lift thy heavy locks. It comes to the hall, but thou art not there. Its voice is mournful among the arms of thy fathers! Go, with thy rustling wing, O breeze! sigh on Malvina's tomb. It rises yonder beneath the rock, at the blue stream of Lutha. The maids are departed to their place. Thou alone, O breeze, mournest there!'

THE CAVE.

1 The wind is up, the field is bare, Some hermit lead me to his cell, Where Contemplation, lonely fair, With blessed content has chose to dwell.

2 Behold! it opens to my sight, Dark in the rock, beside the flood; Dry fern around obstructs the light; The winds above it move the wood.

3 Reflected in the lake, I see The downward mountains and the skies, The flying bird, the waving tree, The goats that on the hill arise.

4 The gray-cloaked herd[1] drives on the cow; The slow-paced fowler walks the heath; A freckled pointer scours the brow; A musing shepherd stands beneath.

5 Curved o'er the ruin of an oak, The woodman lifts his axe on high; The hills re-echo to the stroke; I see--I see the s.h.i.+vers fly!

6 Some rural maid, with ap.r.o.n full, Brings fuel to the homely flame; I see the smoky columns roll, And, through the c.h.i.n.ky hut, the beam.

7 Beside a stone o'ergrown with moss, Two well-met hunters talk at ease; Three panting dogs beside repose; One bleeding deer is stretched on gra.s.s.

8 A lake at distance spreads to sight, Skirted with shady forests round; In midst, an island's rocky height Sustains a ruin, once renowned.

9 One tree bends o'er the naked walls; Two broad-winged eagles hover nigh; By intervals a fragment falls, As blows the blast along the sky.

10 The rough-spun hinds the pinnace guide With labouring oars along the flood; An angler, bending o'er the tide, Hangs from the boat the insidious wood.

11 Beside the flood, beneath the rocks, On gra.s.sy bank, two lovers lean; Bend on each other amorous looks, And seem to laugh and kiss between.

12 The wind is rustling in the oak; They seem to hear the tread of feet; They start, they rise, look round the rock; Again they smile, again they meet.

13 But see! the gray mist from the lake Ascends upon the shady hills; Dark storms the murmuring forests shake, Rain beats around a hundred rills.

14 To Damon's homely hut I fly; I see it smoking on the plain; When storms are past and fair the sky, I'll often seek my cave again.

[1] 'Herd': neat-herd.

WILLIAM MASON.

This gentleman is now nearly forgotten, except as the friend, biographer, and literary executor of Gray. He was born in 1725, and died in 1797.

His tragedies, 'Elfrida' and 'Caractacus,' are spirited declamations in dramatic form, not dramas. His odes have the turgidity without the grandeur of Gray's. His 'English Garden' is too long and too formal. His Life of Gray was an admirable innovation on the form of biography then prevalent, interspersing, as it does, journals and letters with mere narrative. Mason was a royal chaplain, held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York Cathedral. We quote the best of his minor poems.

EPITAPH ON MRS MASON, IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL.

1 Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line?

Does sympathetic fear their b.r.e.a.s.t.s alarm?

Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine: Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.

2 Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free; As firm in friends.h.i.+p, and as fond in love; Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas even to thee,) yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids 'the pure in heart behold their G.o.d.'

AN HEROIC EPISTLE TO SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, COMPTROLLER-GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S WORKS, ETC.

Knight of the Polar Star! by fortune placed To s.h.i.+ne the Cynosure of British taste; Whose orb collects in one refulgent view The scattered glories of Chinese virtu; And spreads their l.u.s.tre in so broad a blaze, That kings themselves are dazzled while they gaze: Oh, let the Muse attend thy march sublime, And, with thy prose, caparison her rhyme; Teach her, like thee, to gild her splendid song, With scenes of Yven-Ming, and sayings of Li-Tsong; Like thee to scorn dame Nature's simple fence; Leap each ha-ha of truth and common sense; And proudly rising in her bold career, Demand attention from the gracious ear Of him, whom we and all the world admit, Patron supreme of science, taste, and wit.

Does envy doubt? Witness, ye chosen train, Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.

Let David Hume, from the remotest north, In see-saw sceptic scruples hint his worth; David, who there supinely deigns to lie The fattest hog of Epicurus' sty; Though drunk with Gallic wine, and Gallic praise, David shall bless Old England's halcyon days; The mighty Home, bemired in prose so long, Again shall stalk upon the stilts of song: While bold Mac-Ossian, wont in ghosts to deal, Bids candid Smollett from his coffin steal; Bids Mallock quit his sweet Elysian rest, Sunk in his St John's philosophic breast, And, like old Orpheus, make some strong effort To come from h.e.l.l, and warble Truth at Court.

There was a time, 'in Esher's peaceful grove, When Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love,'

That Pope beheld them with auspicious smile, And owned that beauty blest their mutual toil.

Mistaken bard! could such a pair design Scenes fit to live in thy immortal line?

Hadst thou been born in this enlightened day, Felt, as we feel, taste's oriental ray, Thy satire sure had given them both a stab, Called Kent a driveller, and the nymph a drab.

For what is Nature? Ring her changes round, Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground; Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter, The tedious chime is still ground, plants, and water.

So, when some John his dull invention racks, To rival Boodle's dinners, or Almack's; Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes, Three roasted geese, three b.u.t.tered apple-pies.

Come, then, prolific Art, and with thee bring The charms that rise from thy exhaustless spring; To Richmond come, for see, untutored Browne Destroys those wonders which were once thy own.

Lo, from his melon-ground the peasant slave Has rudely rushed, and levelled Merlin's cave; Knocked down the waxen wizard, seized his wand, Transformed to lawn what late was fairy-land; And marred, with impious hand, each sweet design Of Stephen Duck, and good Queen Caroline.

Haste, bid yon livelong terrace re-ascend, Replace each vista, straighten every bend; Shut out the Thames; shall that ign.o.ble thing Approach the presence of great Ocean's king?

No! let barbaric glories feast his eyes, August paG.o.das round his palace rise, And finished Richmond open to his view, 'A work to wonder at, perhaps a Kew.'

Nor rest we here, but, at our magic call, Monkeys shall climb our trees, and lizards crawl; Huge dogs of Tibet bark in yonder grove, Here parrots prate, there cats make cruel love; In some fair island will we turn to gra.s.s (With the queen's leave) her elephant and a.s.s.

Giants from Africa shall guard the glades, Where hiss our snakes, where sport our Tartar maids; Or, wanting these, from Charlotte Hayes we bring Damsels, alike adroit to sport and sting.

Now to our lawns of dalliance and delight, Join we the groves of horror and affright; This to achieve no foreign aids we try,-- Thy gibbets, Bagshot! shall our wants supply; Hounslow, whose heath sublimer terror fills, Shall with her gibbets lend her powder-mills.

Here, too, O king of vengeance, in thy fane, Tremendous Wilkes shall rattle his gold chain; And round that fane, on many a Tyburn tree, Hang fragments dire of Newgate-history; On this shall Holland's dying speech be read, Here Bute's confession, and his wooden head: While all the minor plunderers of the age, (Too numerous far for this contracted page,) The Rigbys, Calcrafts, Dysons, Bradshaws there, In straw-stuffed effigy, shall kick the air.

But say, ye powers, who come when fancy calls, Where shall our mimic London rear her walls?

That eastern feature, Art must next produce, Though not for present yet for future use, Our sons some slave of greatness may behold, Cast in the genuine Asiatic mould: Who of three realms shall condescend to know No more than he can spy from Windsor's brow; For him, that blessing of a better time, The Muse shall deal a while in brick and lime; Surpa.s.s the bold [Greek: ADELPHI] in design, And o'er the Thames fling one stupendous line Of marble arches, in a bridge, that cuts From Richmond Ferry slant to Brentford b.u.t.ts.

Brentford with London's charms will we adorn; Brentford, the bishopric of Parson Horne.

There, at one glance, the royal eye shall meet Each varied beauty of St James's Street; Stout Talbot there shall ply with hackney chair, And patriot Betty fix her fruit-shop there.