EDWIN AND EMMA.
Mark it, Cesario, it is true and plain. The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it. It is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age."
Far in the windings of a vale,
Fast by a sheltering wood,
The safe retreat of health and peace, An humble cottage stood.
There beauteous Emma flourish'd fair, Beneath a mother's eye; Whose only wish on earth was now To see her blest, and die.
The softest blush that nature spreads
Gave colour to her cheek:
Such orient colour smiles through heaven, When vernal mornings break.
Nor let the pride of great-ones scorn This charmer of the plains:
That sun, who bids their diamonds blaze, To paint our lily deigns.
Long had she fill'd each youth with love, Each maiden with despair; And though by all a wonder own'd, Yet knew not she was fair.
Till Edwin came, the pride of swains, A soul devoid of art;
And from whose eye, serenely mild,
Shone forth the feeling heart.
A mutual flame was quickly caught, Was quickly too reveal'd; For neither bosom lodg'd a wish, That virtue keeps conceal'd.
What happy hours of home-felt bliss Did love on both bestow!
But bliss too mighty long to last, Where fortune proves a foe.
His sister, who, like form'd, envy Like her in mischief joy'd,
To work them harm, with wicked skill, Each darker art employ'd.
The father too, a sordid man, Who love nor pity knew, Was all-unfeeling as the clod,
From whence his riches grew.
PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.
With what attractive charms this goodly frame Of nature touches the consenting hearts Of mortal men; and what the pleasing stores Which beauteous imitation thence derives To deck the poet's, or the painter's toil; My verse unfolds. Attend, ye gentle powers Of musical delight! and while I sing Your gifts, your honours, dance around my strain. Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast, Indulgent Fancy! from the fruitful banks Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf Where Shakspeare lies, be present: and with thee Let Fiction come, upon her vagrant wings Wafting ten thousand colours through the air, Which, by the glances of her magic eye,
She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms, Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre, Which rules the accents of the moving sphere, Wilt thou, eternal harmony! descend
And join this festive strain? for with thee comes The guide, the guardian of their lovely sports, Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come, Her sister Liberty will not be far.
Be present all ye genii, who conduct
The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard, New to your springs and shades: who touch his ear With finer sounds: who heighten to his eye The bloom of nature, and before him turn The gayest, happiest attitude of things.
Oft have the laws of each poetic strain The critic verse employ'd; yet still unsung Lay this prime subject, though importing most A poet's name: for fruitless is the attempt, By dull obedience and by creeping toil Obscure to conquer the severe ascent Of high Parnassus. Nature's kindling breath Must fire the chosen genius; nature's hand Must string his nerves, and imp his eagle wings, Impatient of the painful steep, to soar High as the summit; there to breathe at large Ethereal air; with bards and sages old, Immortal sons of praise. These flattering scenes To this neglected labour court my song; Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task To paint the finest features of the mind, And to most subtle and mysterious things Give colour, strength, and motion. But the love Of nature and the Muses bids explore, Through secret paths erewhile untrod by man, The fair poetic region, to detect
Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts, And shade my temples with unfading flowers Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess, Where never poet gain'd a wreath before. [scends From Heaven my strains begin; from Heaven de- The flame of genius to the human breast, And love and beauty, and poetic joy And inspiration. Ere the radiant sun Sprang from the east, or mid the vault of night The moon suspended her serener lamp; Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorn'd the globe, Or wisdom taught the sons of men her lore; Then liv'd the Almighty One: then, deep retir'd In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms, The forms eternal of created things;
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp, The mountains,woods, and streams, the rolling globe, And wisdom's mien celestial. From the first Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, His admiration: till in time complete, What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital smile Unfolded into being. Hence the breath Of life informing each organic frame; Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves; Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold; And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers, And all the fair variety of things.
But not alike to every mortal eye
Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims Of social life, to different labours urge The active powers of man! with wise intent The hand of nature on peculiar minds Imprints a different bias, and to each Decrees its province in the common toil. To some she taught the fabric of the spheres, The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars, The golden zones of Heaven; to some she gave To weigh the moment of eternal things, Of time, and space, and fate's unbroken chain, And will's quick impulse: others by the hand She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore What healing virtue swells the tender veins Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind In balmy tears. But some, to higher hopes Were destin'd; some within a finer mould She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame. To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds The world's harmonious volume, there to read The transcript of himself. On every part They trace the bright impressions of his hand: In earth or air, the meadow's purple stores, The moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's form Blooming with rosy smiles, they see pourtray'd
That uncreated beauty, which delights The mind supreme. They also feel her charms, Enamour'd; they partake the eternal joy.
For as old Memnon's image long renown'd By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string Consenting, sounded through the warbling air Unbidden strains; even so did nature's hand To certain species of external things Attune the finer organs of the mind: So the glad impulse of congenial powers, Or of sweet sounds, or fair proportion'd form, The grace of motion, or the bloom of light, Thrills through imagination's tender frame, From nerve to nerve: all naked and alive They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul At length discloses every tuneful spring, To that harmonious movement from without Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain Diffuses its enchantment: fancy dreams Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, And vales of bliss: the intellectual power Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away, Sink to divine repose, and love and joy Alone are waking; love and joy, serene As airs that fan the summer. O! attend, Whoe'er thou art, whom these delights can touch, Whose candid bosom the refining love Of nature warms, O! listen to my song; And I will guide thee to her favourite walks, And teach thy solitude her voice to hear, And point her loveliest features to thy view. Know then, whate'er of nature's pregnant stores, Whate'er of mimic art's reflected forms, With love and admiration thus inflame The powers of fancy, her delighted sons To three illustrious orders have referr'd; Three sister graces, whom the painter's hand, The poet's tongue, confesses; the sublime, The wonderful, the fair. I see them drawn! I see the radiant visions, where they rise, More lovely than when Lucifer displays His beaming forehead through the gates of morn, To lead the train of Phœbus and the spring. Say, why was man so eminently rais'd Amid the vast creation; why ordain'd Through life and death to dart his piercing eye, With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame; But that the Omnipotent might send him forth In sight of mortal and immortal powers, As on a boundless theatre, to run The great career of justice; to exalt His generous aim to all diviner deeds;
To chase each partial purpose from his breast: And through the mists of passion and of sense, And through the tossing tide of chance and pain, To hold his course unfaultering, while the voice Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent Of nature, calls him to his high reward,
The applauding smile of Heaven? Else wherefore In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope,
That breathes from day to day sublimer things, And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind, With such resistless ardour to embrace Majestic forms; impatient to be free, Spurning the gross controul of wilful might; Proud of the strong contention of her toils; Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns To Heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame? Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade
And continents of sand; will turn his gaze To mark the windings of a scanty rill
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm; Rides on the vollied lightning through the heavens; Or, yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast, Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars The blue profound, and hovering round the sun Beholds him pouring the redundant stream Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway Bend the reluctant planets to absolve The fated rounds of time. Thence far effus'd She darts her swiftness up the long career Of devious comets; through its burning signs Exulting measures the perennial wheel Of nature, and looks back on all the stars, Whose blended light, as with a milky zone, Invests the orient. Now amaz'd, she views The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold, Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode; And fields of radiance, whose unfading light Has travel'd the profound six thousand years, Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things. Even on the barriers of the world untir'd She meditates the eternal depth below; Till half recoiling, down the headlong steep She plunges; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up In that immense of being. There her hopes Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said, That not in humble nor in brief delight, Not in the fading echoes of renown, Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap, The soul should find enjoyment: but from these Turning disdainful to an equal good, Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view, Till every bound at length should disappear, And infinite perfection close the scene.
Call now to mind what high capacious powers Lie folded up in man; how far beyond The praise of mortals, may the eternal growth Of nature to perfection half divine Expand the blooming soul? What pity then Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to earth Her tender blossom; choke the streams of life,
The branches shoot with gold; where'er his step Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters grow With purple ripeness, and invest each hill As with the blushes of an evening sky?
And blast her spring! Far otherwise design'd Almighty wisdom; nature's happy cares The obedient heart far otherwise incline. Witness the sprightly joy when aught unknown Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power To brisker measures: witness the neglect Of all familiar prospects, though beheld With transport once; the fond attentive gaze Of young astonishment; the sober zeal Of age, commenting on prodigious things: For such the bounteous providence of Heaven, In every breast implanting this desire Of objects new and strange, to urge us on With unremitted labour to pursue
Those sacred stores that wait the ripening soul, In truth's exhaustless bosom. What need words To paint its power? For this the daring youth Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms, In foreign climes to rove: the pensive sage, Heedless of sleep, or midnight's harmful damp, Hangs o'er the sickly taper; and untir'd The virgin follows, with enchanted step, The mazes of some wild and wondrous tale, From morn till eve; unmindful of her form, Unmindful of the happy dress that stole The wishes of the youth, when every maid With envy pin'd. Hence, finally, by night The village matron, round the blazing hearth, Suspends the infant audience with her tales, Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes, And evil spirits; of the death-bed call
Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. At every solemn pause the crowd recoil Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd With shivering sighs: till eager for the event, Around the beldame all erect they hang, Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd. But lo! disclos'd in all her smiling pomp, Where beauty onward moving claims the verse Her charms inspire: the freely-flowing verse In thy immortal praise, O form divine, Smooths her mellifluent stream. Thee, Beauty, thee The regal dome, and thy enlivening ray The mossy roofs adore: thou, better sun! For ever beamest on the enchanted heart Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight Poetic. Brightest progeny of Heaven! How shall I trace thy features? where select The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom? Haste then, my song, through nature's wide expanse, Haste then, and gather all her comeliest wealth, Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains, Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air, To deck thy lovely labour. Wilt thou fly With laughing autumn to the Atlantic isles, And range with him the Hesperian field, and see, Where'er his fingers touch, the fruitful grove
Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume, Where gliding through his daughter's honour'd The smooth Peneus from his glassy flood [shades, Reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene? Fair Tempe! haunt belov'd of sylvan powers, Of nymphs and fauns; where in the golden age They play'd in secret on the shady brink With ancient Pan: while round their choral steps Young hours and genial gales with constant hand Shower'd blossoms, odours, shower'd ambrosial dews,
And spring's Elysian bloom. Her flowery store To thee nor Tempe shall refuse; nor watch Of winged Hydra guard Hesperian fruits From thy free spoil. O bear then, unreprov'd, Thy smiling treasures to the green recess Where young Dione stays. With sweetest airs Entice her forth to lend her angel form For beauty's honour'd image. Hither turn Thy graceful footsteps; hither, gentle maid, Incline thy polish'd forehead: let thy eyes Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn; And may the fanning breezes waft aside Thy radiant locks: disclosing, as it bends With airy softness from the marble neck, The cheek fair blooming, and the rosy lip, Where winning smiles and pleasures sweet as love, With sanctity and wisdom, tempering blend Their soft allurement. Then the pleasing force Of nature, and her kind parental care Worthier I'd sing: then all the enamour'd youth, With each admiring virgin, to my lyre Should throng attentive, while I point on high Where beauty's living image, like the morn That wakes in Zephyr's arms the blushing May, Moves onward: or as Venus, when she stood Effulgent on the pearly car and smil'd, Fresh from the deep, and conscious of her form, To see the Tritons tune their vocal shells, And each cerulean sister of the flood With loud acclaim attend her o'er the waves, To seek the Idalian bower. Ye smiling band Of youths and virgins, who through all the maze Of young desire with rival steps pursue This charm of beauty; if the pleasing toil Can yield a moment's respite, hither turn Your favourable ear, and trust my words. I do not mean to wake the gloomy form Of superstition dress'd in wisdom's garb, To damp your tender hopes; I do not mean To bid the jealous thunderer fire the heavens, Or shapes infernal rend the groaning earth To fright you from your joys: my cheerful song With better omens calls you to the field, Pleas'd with your generous ardour in the chase, And warm like you. Then tell me, for ye know, Does beauty ever deign to dwell where health And active use are strangers! Is her charm
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