Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

TO MRS. THROCKMORTON,

ON HER BEAUTIFUL TRANSCRIPT OF HORACE'S ODE "AD LIBRUM SUUM."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

FOR A STONE ERECTED AT THE SOWING OF A GROVE OF OAKS AT CHILLINGTON, THE SEAT OF T. GIFFARD, ESQ. 1790.

June, 1790

OTHER stones the era tell

When some feeble mortal fell;
I stand here to date the birth
Of these hardy sons of earth.

Which shall longest brave the sky,
Storm and frost-these Oaks or I?
Pass an age or two away,

I must moulder and decay;
But the years that crumble me
Shall invigorate the tree,
Spread its branch, dilate its size,
Lift its summit to the skies.

Cherish honour, virtue, truth,
So shalt thou prolong thy youth:
Wanting these, however fast
Man be fixed, and formed to last,
He is lifeless even now,

Stone at heart, and cannot grow.

ANOTHER,

FOR A STONE ERECTED ON A SIMILAR OCCASION AT THE SAME PLACE IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR.

Reader! behold a monument

That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.

Anno 1791.

TO MRS. KING,

ON HER KIND PRESENT TO THE AUTHOR, A PATCHWORK QUILT of HER OWN MAKING.

THE Bard, if e'er he feel at all,
Must sure be quickened by a call
Both on his heart and head,

To
pay with tuneful thanks the care
And kindness of a lady fair

Who deigns to deck his bed.

A bed like this, in ancient time,
On Ida's barren top sublime,

(As Homer's Epic shows), Composed of sweetest vernal flowers, Without the aid of sun or showers, For Jove and Juno rose.

Less beautiful, however gay,
Is that which in the scorching day
Receives the weary swain,

Who, laying his long scythe aside,
Sleeps on some bank with daisies pied,
Till roused to toil again.

August 14, 1790.

What labours of the loom I see!

Looms numberless have groaned for me!
Should every maiden come

To scramble for the patch that bears
The impress of the robe she wears,
The bell would toll for some.

And oh, what havoc would ensue !
This bright display of every hue

All in a moment fled !

As if a storm should strip the bowers
Of all their tendrils, leaves, and flowers,--
Each pocketing a shred.

Thanks, then, to every gentle fair,
Who will not come to peck me bare
As bird of borrowed feather,
And thanks to one, above them all,
The gentle fair of Pertenhall,
Who put the whole together.

STANZAS

ON THE LATE INDECENT LIBERTIES TAKEN WITH THE REMAINS OF THE

GREAT MILTON, ANNO 1790.

"ME too, perchance, in future days,
"The sculptured stone shall show,
"With Paphian myrtle, or with bays
"Parnassian on my brow.

August, 1790.

"But I, or ere that season come,

66

Escaped from every care,

"Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
"And sleep securely there."*

So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordained to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.

Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest

Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?

Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones
Where Milton's ashes lay,

That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!

O ill-requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And blind idolatrous respect
As much affronts thee dead.

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE JOHN THORNTON, ESQ.

POETS attempt the noblest task they can,
Praising the Author of all good in man,
And, next, commemorating worthies lost,
The dead in whom that good abounded most.

Thee, therefore, of commercial fame, but more
Famed for thy probity from shore to shore;
Thee, THORNTON ! worthy in some page to shine,
As honest and more eloquent than mine,
I mourn; or, since thrice happy thou must be,
The world no longer thy abode, not thee.
Thee to deplore were grief misspent indeed;
It were to weep that goodness has its meed,
That there is bliss prepared in yonder sky,
And glory, for the virtuous when they die.
What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard
Or spendthrift's prodigal excess afford,
Sweet as the privilege of healing woe
By virtue suffered combating below?

* Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus
Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri
Fronde comas-At ego securâ pace quiescam.
MILTON in Manso

That privilege was thine; Heaven gave thee means
To illumine with delight the saddest scenes,
Till thy appearance chased the gloom, forlorn
As midnight, and despairing of a morn.
Thou hadst an industry in doing good,
Restless as his who toils and sweats for food;
Avarice in thee was the desire of wealth
By rust unperishable or by stealth;
And if the genuine worth of gold depend
On application to its noblest end,

Thine had a value in the scales of Heaven,
Surpassing all that mine or mint had given.
And, though God made thee of a nature prone
To distribution boundless of thy own,
And still by motives of religious force
Impelled thee more to that heroic course,
Yet was thy liberality discreet,

Nice in its choice, and of a tempered heat,
And though in act unwearied, secret still,
As in some solitude the summer rill
Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,
And cheers the drooping flowers, unheard, unseen.
Such was thy charity; no sudden start,
After long sleep, of passion in the heart,
But steadfast principle, and, in its kind,
Of close relation to the Eternal Mind,
Traced easily to its true source above,

To Him whose works bespeak His nature Love.
Thy bounties all were Christian, and I make
This record of thee for the Gospel's sake:
That the incredulous themselves may see
Its use and power exemplified in thee.

[blocks in formation]

"I COULD be well content, allowed the use

Of past experience, and the wisdom gleaned
From worn-out follies, now acknowledged such,

To recommence life's trial, in the hope

Of fewer errors, on a second proof!"

Thus, while grey evening lulled the wind, and called
Fresh odours from the shrubbery at my side,

Taking my lonely winding walk, I mused,

And held accustomed conference with my heart;
When from within it thus a voice replied:

"Couldst thou in truth? and art thou taught at length

This wisdom, and but this, from all the past?
Is not the pardon of thy long arrear,
Time wasted, violated laws, abuse

Of talents, judgments, mercies, better far
Than opportunity vouchsafed to err
With less excuse, and, haply, worse effect?"
I heard, and acquiesced: then to and fro
Oft pacing, as the mariner his deck,
My gravelly bounds, from self to human kind
I passed, and next considered, What is man?
Knows he his origin? can he ascend

By reminiscence to his earliest date?
Slept he in Adam? and in those from him
Through numerous generations, till he found
At length his destined moment to be born?
Or was he not, till fashioned in the womb?

Deep mysteries both! which schoolmen must have toiled
To unriddle, and have left them mysteries still.

It is an evil incident to man,

And of the worst, that unexplored he leaves
Truths useful and attainable with ease,
To search forbidden deeps, where mystery lies
Not to be solved, and useless if it might.
Mysteries are food for angels; they digest
With ease, and find them nutriment; but man,
While yet he dwells below, must stoop to glean
His manna from the ground, or starve, and die.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »