The London Magazine/1820–1829/Series 1/Volume 6/Number 36/The Lion's Head
THE LION’S HEAD.
Several Correspondents have written to us on the Article in our last Number upon the Drama. Some declare that it contains an ex parte and prejudiced statement. Others, that it is the production of persons interested in the success of Covent Garden Theatre. We can only say, that we believe we have written under, and not over the facts of the case, and that we are quite prepared to meet any authorized answers to our statement, with evidence of their truth. We think we need not repeat that we have no interest to serve in writing upon either Theatre.
The Lady’s Magazine has, with that tenderness peculiar to its sex, adopted one of our children as its own, not from any supposed cruelty or neglect on our part we are sure,—nor from any extraordinary liberality on her’s,—but, as we conjecture, from that extravagance which often springs up in those who are themselves destitute of offspring. Her Ladyship has clipped the locks of one of our favourites, straitened its shape, given it a new name, and passed it off as her own. Now really this literary kidnapping is not to be endured. The fact is, for we must speak plainly on the point,—The Lady’s Magazine has pilfered one of the Tales of Lyddalcross (the Tale of Haddon Hall)—cut a little off the head of the Introduction, omitted the Ballads, christened it “The Elopement,” and sent it forth as an original production!We trust this notice of the abuse will be sufficient.
Eleven of our Editors protest that the following Stanzas are “from the elegant pen of the greatest lyrist of the day;” but there is one stubborn soul on the jury that will hold out—and we are therefore compelled to submit it, with its misleading signature, to our readers. Our Eleven, as Mary-le-bone cricketers call themselves, pin their faith upon the passages in italics.
STANZAS ON LEAVING ENGLAND.
Farewell to thee, Albion! blest land of my sires,
I saw thy white cliff like a pearl on the billow,
When sunk were thy meadows, thy walls, and the spires
That I hoped would have gleam’d o’er my turf-cover’d pillow.
And thou, whose remembrance will ever awaken
E’en warmer ideas than the isle of my birth,
Dearest girl! though awhile by thy lover forsaken,
His prayers will be thine from the ends of the earth.
May the wrinkle of care never wither thy brow,
Or, if grief should impress his rude seal upon thee,
May it vanish as fast as the circles that now
Spread and fade round my tears as they fall in the sea.
Yet with nought but the desolate ocean around me,
So dreadful beneath, and so dreary above,
Still a thousand sweet objects of pleasure surround me,
Rekindling my heart, when I think on my love.
Where the branches of coral beneath me are growing,
Pellucid as crystal, but rubies in hue,
I remember thy lips, how deliciously glowing,
When fondly they promised they’d ever be true.
While the breezes of eve in soft murmurs are dying,
As over the smooth rosy waters they sweep,
I believe that I hear my fond Isabel sighing,
Ere blushing she sinks, overpower’d in sleep.
In the depth of the night, as the maid of the ocean
Attunes her lone voice to the wild swelling wind,
Oh! I think of the strain that with tender emotion
Oft melted my soul, on the shore left behind.
When the beam of the moon on the billows, which, darkling,
Lie blue as the air, sheds her holiest light,
Can I fail to reflect on that azure eye sparkling,
My beacon of hope, that made noon-day of night?
No.—Thus, though the sun of thy presence hath faded,
The twilight of memory beams on me yet,
And Hope gently whispers, “though now overshaded,
“That sun shall arise brighter e’en than it set.”
With some omissions, and allowing for some objectionable lines, the following is simply and feelingly written:—
THE YOUNG POET DYING AT A DISTANCE FROM HOME.
O bury me not in yon strange spot of earth—
My rest never sweet, never tranquil can be!
But bear me away to the land of my birth,
To a scene, O how dear, and how pleasant to me!
If you saw how the sunbeams illumine the mountains—
How brightly they lie in the glen that I choose—
Could the song of its birds, and the gush of its fountains
Through your souls the rapture and freshness diffuse,
Which erst, in life’s morning, they shed over mine—
O, your hearts would confess, it is all but divine.
******
I know it—the grave which to me you assign,
Is black in the shade of your dreary church-wall,
Where nettle and hemlock their rankness combine,
And the worm and the sullen toad loathsomely crawl.
O! where is the primrose, so meet for adorning
The grave of a minstrel cut off in his bloom?
O! where is the daisy, to shed in the morning
The tear it has gather’d by night, for my doom?
And lastly—but dearer than anguish can tell—
Where, where are the friends that have loved me so well?
*******
See! one aged mourner comes, trembling, to place
A weak, wither’d hand on the grave of her son—
See! Friendship, to tell how I strove in the race,
But died ere the chaplet of glory was won—
And Beauty—I plaited a wreath for that maiden.
When warm was my heart and my fancy was high—
See! Beauty approaches, with summer-flowers laden,
And strews them when nought but the blackbird is nigh!
Thus, thus shall I rest, with a charm on my name,
In the shower-mingled sunshine of love and of fame!
We have occupied all our room, and there are before us at least two dozen more letters and papers requiring answers; but one word will suffice for the whole.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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