——— Then the charm, by fate prepared,Diffuseth its enchantment; fancy dreams,Rapt into. high discourse with prophets old,And wandering through Elysium, fancy dreamsOf sacred fountains, of o'ershadowing groves,Whose walks with godlike harmony resound;Fountains, which Homer visits, happy groves,Where Milton dwells. The intellectual powerOn the mind's throne suspends his graver cares,And smiles; the passions to divine reposePersuaded yield, and love and joy aloneAre waking; love and joy, such as awaitAn angel's meditation. O! attend,Whoe'er thou art, whom these delights can touch,Whom nature's aspect, nature's simple garb,Can thus command: O! listen to my song,And I will guide thee to her blissful walks,And teach thy Solitude her voice to hear,And point her gracious features to thy view.PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.
ON THE MIND.
SONNET.
Ye fond companions of my early years,Whose converse cherished many an hour of bliss,Whom yet the tie of mutual love endears,Receive this offering with a welcome kiss.
Warm from the minstrel's heart the tribute springs,Pure, as the breath of eve; in truth it flowsTo yield some solace to your kindred woes;Well may I know the pangs despondence brings:
O! be the generous care forever mine,To steal the tear from pity's shivering cheek;The tear of love with eloquence can speak,And friendship's hand the wreath of peace entwine;
And I were blest, should your approving smileGreet my young stranger, and his fears beguile.
ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND PART.
THE poem opens with an invocation to the spirits of the lighter Gothic mythology—The grandeur of Greece and Rome resulted from the incessant study and philosophic lives of their heroes and sages—Hence also the perfection of the arts and sciences—The bold developement of the mind in Seclusion contrasted with its languor in society—Hence the necessity of retirement to the artist, the poet, and the philosopher—The influence of Seclusion in strengthening the mind in adversity, in awakening independence of character, and fostering the love of freedom—The influence of local scenery, in exciting corresponding sentiments and belief, leads next to the mention of superstition; the doctrine of its origin illustrated in the sublime imagery of the Highlands, and the beautiful fablings of the Lowlands, of Scotland—Hence also the fondness of devotees to retirement—Digression on the evils of monastic life, and religions frenzy—The influence of local scenery in awakening the poetic powers; and the Celtic bards celebrated—Some reflections on the comparative pleasures of a splendid and rural life, with a description of the native of the Alps—The dangers of Solitude to persons of hypochondriac constitutions and of predisposition to religious melancholy—The folly of useless repinings against our fate—A tale introduced, illustrative of the influence of Solitude in sorrow and madness—The choice of the Author follows, and the poem concludes with an address to Poetry.
THE
POWER OF SOLITUDE.
AËRIAL ELVES, who fondly hovering round,On silver sandals print historic ground,Who oft with witching music charmed his ears,Danced in his;miles, and ambushed in his tears,As grief or joy their tints alternate spred,In floating visions round your Darwin's head; (1)Aërial elves, at Oberon's golden lance,Who form in mystic rings the fairy dance,Or, carred on meteors, thro the mazy nightIn frolic circles wheel your amorous flight,O'er the soft lips of artless beauty creep,And paint strange fancies on the lover's sleep:Wind sweet your bugle horns, and swiftly callMemory's wild spirits from the wizard's hall,Bid them the scenes of ancient worth restore,Chant glory's deathless deeds in epic lore,With sportive fingers trill the harp of time,And wake reflection by their powers sublime,Till raptured wisdom hear the sacred lay,And own meek solitude's impressive sway.
Lo, at the word the shades of genius leap,Touched by enchantment, from oblivion's sleep,Burst the dark clouds round memory's empire rolled,And fling on fancy's sight her floods of gold:Again the scenes of elder time revive,The statue weeps, the picture starts alive;Again proud Athens from her cumbrous tombIn awful grandeur renovates her bloom,And Rome's bright graces blaze, as when of yoreHer conquering eagles perched on every shore.
Immortal climes! where classic learning taughtIn domes, that reasoned, and in groves, that thought; (2)Where Plato's pure, informing spirit litTranscendant lore and philosophic wit;Where Tully's soul, illumed with light intense,Shot streams of fire, and cleansed the moral sense;Whence sprung the virtues, whose exalted swayShed quenchless glory o'er your ancient day?Whence rose the arts, whose plastic touch beneathThe canvass wakens, and the marbles breathe?Whence rose the strains, which sweep the frantic lyreWith nature's pathos, and with freedom's fire,Or on the tyrant's ears in music roll,To change the purpose of his gloomy soul?
For these the sage consumed his midnight oil,And patient study nurtured ceaseless toil;For these ambition fled the social door,To muse with truth on history's treasured lore,And there in shades of deep retirement caughtThe bold conception, and the embodied thought.
But when oppression reared her sanguine form,And yoked her chariot to the gathering storm,When murderous riot seized her bloody robe,Or guilt and slaughter ruled the trembling globe;Quick at the call in learning's sacred grovesThe classic heroes left their peaceful loves,With dauntless prowess bared their panting breast,While ripening thunders slumbered on their crest,And claimed the martial wreath, to science due,Whose polish smooths the mind, and strengthens too.
Ye hallowed seats, where oft in elder timeRetiring science poured her strains sublime,Still shall the classic genius, wandering near,Drop o'er your sad remains the grateful tear:Still pay religious rites, as holy ground,Where learning breathes mysterious virtue round.Soft float, ye gales, the vocal groves along,Where lingers yet the pure, Socratic song,Mid circling planes, erewhile with music fraught,When Athens acted, what her sages taught:Soft float, ye gales, where thro Lyceum's shadeWith tuneful murmurs charmed Ilyssus strayed,When the bold Stagirite, by lore refined,To moral grandeur raised the daring mind:Soft float, ye gales, around his ruined home,Where Tully's spirit loves at eve to roam,Or pause with studious look, adown the streamAs pallid moonlight steals with flickering beam;For there instruction blest ambitious youth,And freedom breathed the flame of vestal truth.
And hence your magic powers, unrivalled nine,To rouse invention, and mature design;Far from the world your votive offspring stray,And shun the busy hum of vulgar day,In lonely haunts with rural fancy dwell,Or muse the lettered hymn in wisdom's cell.Let wealth and prudence lead their sparkling trainThro empty show and mercenary gain;For nobler ends shall destined genius rise,Wing all its strength, and emulate the skies;For daring themes the mystic strains assume,Conceived in silence, and inwrought in gloom,
Time was, when these with mighty spells could bindIts lawless rage, and tame the barbarous mind:In classic bowers the moral precept grew,Kingdoms obeyed, and tyrants owned it true;Fixed, as responses pealed from Delphi's fane,Rolled thro admiring crowds the lofty strain;Now from the forum burst a world to save,Toned to the wild roar of the thundering wave;Now, veiled in scenic charms, the passions led;Now hymned the peans o'er the patriot dead;And, as by turns the varying humor rose,In joys exalted, or in horrors froze.Yet still supreme majestic genius swayed,Pregnant with life, tho nourished in the shade,And where he reigned, beyond the world's controlOne centred motion shook the bounding soul.
Thus when the host of warlike Nicias bled, (3)And Syracuse entombed the Grecian dead,What time her chiefs in victory's proud commandWith lawless outrage mocked the vanquished band,To quarried cells consigned a hopeless few,Whom glutted vengeance saved from murder's crew;Lo! on their ears as tones of tragic woeFrom attic lips in mournful pathos flow,Forgot their ire, by fiction's gifts subdued,They weep, they melt, in pity's tenderest mood,Grant the rich boon to fancy's peerless train,Which valor asked, which justice claimed in vain,The destined slaves to freedom's joys restore,And waft the captives to their native shore.
So oft traditionary tales rehearseThe wonderous powers of music and of verse;How Linus sung, how Ophrus' magic lyreMoved the live rocks, and quelled the tiger's ire;How Runic bards prophetic ills foretold,And chanted witchery brought the age of gold.
But hence such dreams; truth's faithful page shall tellOf themes more glorious, than the wizard's spell;Shall tell of powers, which animate the greatTo brave the terrors of impending fate,With love and nature charm in Sappho's lays,In Homer thunder, and in Pindar blaze,Unawed in Brutus seek the hero's fate,Or calmly perish at the Grecian strait! (4)
Span, if thou durst, the mighty march of mind,Its views, how vast, its projects unconfined!Then trace the source, whence mental grandeur rose,Its orbit measure, and its height disclose.No flowery paths, to win aspiring youth,Marked the bold route to scientific truth;Slow moved invention many a tardy year,Toil led the van, and patience closed the rear!
Since first the twilight gleamed on eastern plains,Where studious Magi taught admiring swains,What darkling length of ages rolled away,Ere modern genius lit the perfect day,Traced the fleet planets on their march profound,Their laws unfolded, and their wanderings bound!But once achieved, tho faithless to its trust,The lettered marble crumble with the dust,Tho Vandal rage the breathing arts efface,And kings and empires slumber in disgrace,The brilliant enterprise of thought shall claimThro every age imperishable fame.
Then, if thy soul this, groveling scene transcends,And pants for truths, immortal science lends,If, winged by fancy to the ebb of days,Thy rapt ambition asks her noblest praise;Give to her sacred shrine perennial rites,Youth's vigorous days, and manhood's studious nights;Turn every page with anxious vigils o'er,Profuse of thought, and prodigal of lore;Nor let the world with strong temptation rife,Steal thy bright hours from solitary life,Nor pause, till learning all her gates unfold,Her altars plundered, and her mysteries told,Till deep inbreathings all thy soul inspireWith classic virtue, and poetic fire.So, as the ancient seer from Pisgah's heightSaw burst the promised land in cloudless sight;Thy raptured glance shall seize the peering ray,Which ushers in the morn of glory's day,That day, when genius, all his foes o'erthrown,Shall rule, like Jove, unrivalled and alone,Like shadowed time, shall boast no local claim,Impart all wisdom, and embalm all fame.
But most seclusion boasts her strong controlTo rouse the energies, which brace the soul,For centred action nerve the lofty sense,Inform its courage, and its fires condense!As from the living pencil's plastic traceSoft beauty swells, and breathes impassioned grace,When mellowed tints with deepening shades unite,And clouds of darkness mist the blaze of light;So from the mind expression's flashes startWith coloring warmth beyond the reach of art,When fancy lifts the veil from memory's eye,And deep reflection sheds her sombrous dye:Triumphant virtue scorns the frowns of fate,Firm, tho oppressed; tho sad, severely great.
So Scotia's queen, while yet with matchless grace (5)Love's glowing lustres lit her youthful face,Condemned to pace the sepulchre of joyBy rival pride, which conquered to destroy,Would oft in memory longlost scenes renew,More dark by contrast pictured to her view,And bless confinement, since its rigors gaveStrength to endure, and fortitude to brave.
Yea more, when glory's sun, distained with blood,Hangs thro the mists, which veil the eternal flood,When victory's sons the post of danger meet,And death and havoc crowd the fierce defeat,Shall bound the soul with life's proportioned fire,Its sufferings vanquish, and its hopes inspire,E'en in the chills of death, the dungeon's gloom,Support its grandeur, and its strength resume.Exalted triumph, on famed Abram's plainToo dearly purchased by Montgomery slain! (6)What tho few years his laurolled brows adorn?Those years were glory's clear, unsullied morn:In him kind heaven its richest graces wrought,The soul of pity, and the blaze of thought;Gave to his patriot zeal in war's alarmsThe adventurous field, the noblest boast of arms,In freedom's cause to yield his latest breath,And bless his country in the hour of death.
How sleep the brave, who gently sink to rest; (7)Mourned by the virtuous, by their country blest.Theirs is the sweet reward of praise sincere,The kind remembrance, and the grateful tear;For them shall nations rear the storied bust,In holiest reverence sacred to their dust:Nor less the tribute due the generous band,Who chase the fiends of want from every land,With ready kindness aid the prisoner's cause,Melt the harsh soul, and hush the murderous laws,Mid death and peril urge their bold designs,And flash hope's lightning thro the midnight mines.Tho here awhile, detained in sad employ,They sow in tears, yet shall they reap in joy;For them shall village nymphs at sober eveOf fragrant flowerets many a garland weave;The listening orphan pause from infant playsTo hear their deeds rehearsed in funeral lays,Glow at the sound, and half a hero made,With pious lispings hymn the sainted shade.
Such thro the prison's dank, unwholesome night,Where clanking chains the sullen spirit fright,What time the captive cast his hungry eyesIn fretful question of the dubious skies,Immortal Howard bends his heavenly way, (8)To wake the fettered slumberer into day;In vain lean fever's shivering wails appal,Slime moulds the vault, and sickness lines the wall,Intent on deeds divine the martyr flies,Where the plagued million every moment dies,Wrings from oppressive power unwilling aid,And claims the debt to mercy yet unpaid,With health and friendship cheers the drear abode,And moves an angel of the pitying god.
Can the dark dungeon e'er those souls confine, (9)Who draw rich transport from invention's mine?Who firm in virtue perils joy to share,And gain fresh ardor from increased despair?Theirs is the light, whose brilliant tints impart.Life to the mind, and vigor to the heart,With ceaseless lustre print the gloomy cells,Where, leagued with hate, cadaverous slavery dwells,And beam reflection's pure, expansive day,Unquenched by age, uninjured by decay.
Turn your sad glance to Abbaye's living tomb,Where scarce the dayspring streaks the swarthy gloom,But death's cold dews the ghastly cheek o'erspread,And coils the lank worm hideous round the dead!No tones of love the drowsy silence cheer,No voice of friendship dries the prisoner's tear;Unholy groans the shrinking soul appal,And horror's wild throes agonize the wall;Or strain'd to madness, misery shrieks her rave,To curse the murderers of the hopeless brave.
Doomed there to languish by the fiends of power,And waste in cold dismay the lingering hour,While patriot ardor fired her throbbing breastTo free the slave, and renovate the opprest,What buoyed Roland, when o'er the opening day (10)Stern desolation swept with sanguine sway,When on her ears oppression's mandate fell,That chained the martyr to the fateful cell?What, but that power, whose intellectual lightRays heaven's effulgence thro the dead of night,With conscious virtue calms the dying slave,Glows mid despair, and points beyond the grave,To memory's shades imparts a ripening dye,More fair, than twilight paints on Hesper's eye,And, tho rude horror every scene deform,Walks the fierce whirlwind, and enjoys the storm?
So injured Raleigh, (merit's sad return!) (11)Condemned thro many a fingering year to mourn,Hid in the tower's dull gloom by tyrant pride,Each solace rifled, and each wish denied,Still scorned the varied ills his spirit bore,Still thro each scene the smile of courage wore,That tranquil smile, unruffled, unsubdued,Which conscious greatness lends to solitude.
In vain shall tyrants leagued in arms opposeThe generous virtue, which from freedom flows;Vain frowns the prison's ignominious gloom,The rack of torture, or the scaffold's doom;The fearless soul, in blest retirement nursed,Still lightens vengeance on the wretch accursed;Still bids her thunders round his slumbers rollWith powers more fatal to convulse the soul,Than o'er the Greeks a dubious terror spred,When quivering flames enwrapt her sweating head,As struck with life the fierce Palladium stood, (12)Clashed her huge shield, and bathed her lance in blood,With startling horrors from the marble broke,And, strange to tell, in mortal accents spoke!
For this life's priceless forfeit Sidney paid,And daring Corde bared her righteous blade; (13)On Bunker's heights undaunted Warren bled,And exiled Cato fearless sought the dead.
Dark was that hour, when through affrighted GaulRetreating Science saw her children fall,Youth, beauty, genius, wit, unnoticed bleed,And hideous slaughter urge 'the nameless deed'!Oft the blithe peasant, as with placid moodHe piped his strains near Loire's meandering flood,Saw, shuddering saw, the frequent corse float by,Nor dared complain, nor vent his bursting sigh;Saw, linked in union, float the wedded pair,Lovely in death, and faithful in despair,While seemed the hurrying blast with kindred tonesTo swell by fits in shrieks, or die in moans!Most dark that hour, when o'er the loitering Seine (14)Stern murder sat in hellish gloom serene,While stalked fierce massacre from street to street,Tracing in sanguine print her bloated feet,Till all her furies roused their vengeance hurled,And crushed at once the genius of the world!E'en yet in mourning learning hangs her head,And seeks with pilgrim steps her classic dead,Unsettled glooms her wasted altars veil,And screams of horror rend the passing gale:But chase these tears, nor urge these deep complaints,Returning order hails the martyred saints;Yes, deathless shades, your hallowed worth repairsA life of misery, and an age of cares;For you shall fame her richest chaplet twine,And glory's halo wreathe a blaze divine,While distant worlds confess with voice combinedSeclusion's power to nerve the generous mind.
As feels the soul its loftier passions rise,Nursed in the tranquil shades, the generous skies;So fancy wakes, by lonely scenes imprest,Her wild creations, when the real rest:Then all her silver tribes, that lightly sportRound gay illusion's legendary court,In fiction's dress expand their silken charms,And bind o'er reason's couch perturbed alarms.
Hence superstition owns her guiding power,When silence pauses on the evening hour;Pants but a breeze along the twilight heath,Some viewless spirit whispers words of death;Hums the hoarse beetle, strangest notes of woeFrom airy harps in mournful music flow;Flings the deep grove its murmur o'er the stream,Fays wildly flutter in the moonlight gleam:'Strange things have happened,' as the village read,Where yon scathed cypress guards the humbler dead;Light spectres there at midnight form their ring,Dance o'er the graves, and hollow dirges sing;Or from the minster's spine the curfew's knellTolls for the wandering nighthags, loosed from hell!
Deep felt and awful are the wilder viewsMajestic horrors thro the soul transfuse:The Gothic ruin, stained by impious rite;The sullen forest, wrapt in pathless night;Stupendous heights, whose towering shoulders bearThe ponderous heavens, and weigh them in the air;The gathering torrents, down the vales which sweep,Or course impėtuous o'er the eternal steep;All, touched by fancy's living virtue, rollTerrific visions thro the startled soul,Wake from its sleep the spectre's troubled rave,Heard mid the whirlwind, shrieked along the wave,Or mould gigantic forms, whose powers unseenWith mystic wonders crowd the fearful scene.
So, cherished still beyond the farthest Tweed, (15)Linger the awful forms of Celtic creed,Unbodied forms, in essence pure who floatOn the wild blast, and guide its fitful note;Roll the gray mists along the lonely grave, (16)Where dwell unsung the spirits of the brave;Sigh thro the harp with many an accent shrill,And dart loose meteors on the misty hill;Or, when red clouds the etherial vault deform,Launch the fierce flash, and scoop the vollied storm,Shake from their flaming locks the dewy vest,And scatter terror round the guilty breast.There too in grisly state the Kelpie sits, (17)Drinks the wrecked seaman's cries, and laughs by fits;Or, while the tempest scours the troubled deep,Hung o'er some whirlpool, rocks himself to sleep.
Well suits such dread belief the kindred clime,Vast and abrupt, stupendous and sublime;Here, caverned crags with ponderous horror bend;There, dismal heaths their barren lengths extend;Wild echoes scream, impetuous torrents roar,And mists and glooms obscure the frithy shore.Unholy haunts! where, clothed in murky frowns,The sullen year its lurid season crowns,And scarce the sunlight, shorn of many a ray,Looks thro the haze a dun, disastrous day.
Hence oft the Thane from Bendoran's huge brow (18)With dizzy wonder marks the world below,Sees thro mishappen fogs the wëird trainSail o'er the clouds in lightning and in rain,And, while his zeal the awful scene sublimes,Portends impending woes and funeral times.
But where the classic Ayr, the lucid ClydeWind thro the sloping vales their murmuring tide,True to the site, a gentler genius reigns, (19)The elfin empress of the pastoral plains.Here Gothic sprites, on pensive errands seen,Disturb the ghostly hours of Halloween; (20)Or, leagued with witchcraft, strangest feats perform,Wilder the traveller's path, and brew the storm;Lead the wild corpse light round the omened grave; (21)Dance in the bog, or whistle on the wave;Or, bent on mischief, round some pillow creep,To ride their nightmare thro the virgin's sleep.There too disport, for gambols deftly dight,The silver legions of Arabia's sprite:Winds her blithe horn, and, lo, the busy troopTrail in light meteors many a fiery whoop;On posting glow worms wing some soft desire,And breathe from ruby lips innocuous fire;With mellow warbles charm the curious ears,Or weave of moonlight hues pellucid tears:Strikes her fine wand, and, clad in tunics blue,Her armoured warriors pass their bright review,Attendant graces, veiled in gauzy snow,With tiptoe kiss salute them row by row;Heaven, earth, and ocean, laugh with centred mirth,For fairy spells pervade, heaven, ocean, earth!
Delicious visions! oft in days of oldTo valiant knights, and courtly damsels told;In holy credence round the poet's eyesYe swim in fancy's gay, translucent guise;Ye raised his strains, and while your forms divineShot thro his soul, and lit his breathing line,His magic genius caught the dazzling view,And deeply painted, what he felt was true.
Nor rashly cherished deem the vulgar thoughtFrom local glooms, and native scenery caught:Oft shall the hymn, to fancied sprites addrest,Wake gentler virtues in the barbarous breast,Oft lend to truth the passions' subtler aid,Arrest the fell design, the murderous blade:The untutored soul thro all its senses feels,Acts, what they urge, and, what they teach, reveals.
Hence too devotion e'er with fondest loveSought the deep glen, and lingered in the grove;There mid the sylvan shades her temples reared,By silence hallowed, and by glooms endeared;For there her guardian gods in mystic laysUnfolded heavenly truths to mortal gaze.
So Numa loved the consecrated grots, (22)Where holy sybils wove their fatal knots;Drew deep instruction from their shadowy page,To govern realms, and form the rising age.
So mid the caves of Mona's rifted heightsThe darkbrowed druid spelled his troubled rites, (23)With strange prophetic skill the fates explored,And trembling uttered, what the spirit poured;Or hymned his wild song round the muttering coast,To lure deep madness from the screamful ghost.
Sweet, as the gentlest dews of heaven distil,Religion's dictates meet the chastened will;Her zeal most prompt the moral powers to raise,By prayer exalt them, and refine by praise!But when the soul, to pious musing's given,Marks in prophetic dreams the hand of heaven,When wrapt devotion feels a sacred springHer flights ennoble, and her fancies wing,If oft indulged, where local glooms conspire,Disordered passions sting with fierce desire,Wild frenzies seize, tumultuous transports roll,And holy madness rules the unsettled soul.
Ye hallowed domes, thro many a darkling raceThe sad retreats of learning in disgrace,Yet doomed to hear the bigot's reverend creedBy sainted errors urge some impious deed,Who bade your drear and funeral spires invadeThe mountain solitudes, and cypress shade?Who bade ascetic vows your votaries keep,And penant service haunt the hours of sleep?The virgin's bloom in vaults unheeded pine,When heaven and earth pronounced her charms divine?Sure the same power, by museful fancy fed,Which thro the desert wilds St. Francis led; (24)By passion's ties round lovelier Armelle twined, (25)And touched thro sense the young enthusiast's mind;With zeal's warm life ecstatic visions drew,Poured inspiration on the Bramin's view;Led Hindoo's damsel to the funeral pile (26)A willing victim of religious guile;With awful rage the Delphic Pythia fired,Spoke in her strains, and all her rites inspired.
Cursed was that hour, when first the passions brewed (27)Their cowled fiend, monastic solitude!Thence rose the hags, whose persecuting breathConsigned whole millions to the torturing death,On holy pretexts bared the murderer's blade,Slaughtered with Charles, with innocent betrayed: (28)Thence rose the lusts, which, hot from convent rage,With nameless crimes polluted many an age,And, still to nature true, with meek pretenceAbsolved the pious frauds of glutted sense.
Say, at the hour when night her sabbath keeps,And scarce a whisper o'er the greensward creeps,Why pensive Thomson wooed the willing muse, (29)Who round his lays her rich profusion strews?Why solemn Young thro shattered aisles would stray,And wear in moral thought his life away?Grief haunts the shade, and active wisdom poursHer purest streams, when silence rules the hours.
So Gibbon loved, retired from censure's ken, (30)To muse with wisdom on the deeds of men!Mid pensile shades, whence broad Geneva glidesMild, as the zephyr sleeping on his tides,Oft would the studious sage delighted poreOn themes of Attic wit, or Roman lore?For there reflection every image caught,Gave force to truth, and eloquence to thought.
And hence the charms poetic genius gleansFrom grandeur's bold, or beauty's polished scenes;His eye can trace creation's beauties o'er,Illume the dark, the faded hues restore;Art, science, nature, aid his swift career,The torrents lift him, and the tempests cheer;True to his natal clime, refined or rude,His varying numbers seize the varying mood,Imbued with vivid life his paintings start,Strong, daring, rich, and fasten on the heart.
All powerful Muse! in Ossian's darling strainHow swell thy notes by turns with joy and pain;Now, clothed in night, death's inexpressive formHowls in the blast, and thunders in the storm;Now slow and wan in melancholy laysFloat the loose forms of memory's elder days:Sweet was his gentle harp, on Morven's heightWere heard its moanings thro the misty night!And are all fled, the Celtic bards sublime,Whose chanted music dwelt in other time?Sunk in the valley's deep, oblivious shade,No customed honors to their relics paid?Yet shall their strains, conceived in ancient lore,By fancy cherished, kindle every shore,Inspire those grand, ideal views, which raiseDeep inspiration and poetic praise,With holy workings urge the daring soul,In horrors freeze it, or in frenzies roll!
So fiercely wild, and passionately great,The Northern warriors dwell in gloomy state: (31)High swells the harp, and crowds on crowds ariseHeroes in battle famed, in council wise;Thick round the bard the panting audience throng,Loud pour his forceful strains in funeral song;He sings the chiefs, whose daring valor bledIn victory's arms on mountains of the dead."Spirits, advance; beyond the western main"Ye hunt the deer, and scour the woody plain,"In lofty halls the smoking feast consume,"Drink the full bowl, and puff the votive fume:"No more the shell awakes at danger's call,"No more the warwhoop sounds the hero's fall,"At ease in airy groups ye weave the dance,"Bathe the pure streams, or couch the glittering lance;"Spirits, advance; lo, on the flying cloud"Ye ride sublime, in awful grandeur proud,"Smile, while the windharp flings its thrilling strain,"And point your sons to worlds beyond the main!"We come, we come, the welcome pipe prepare,"Skulls of slain foes shall grace your halls of air."Fired at the sounds, the warriors clash their shield,And ask once more the perils of the field;Brisk pants the youth, the aged melt in tears,And mourn their valor lost with perished years:But softer song's succeed, the minstrel bows,Love guides his hand, and passion speaks her vows,He hymns the fair, and still the strain prolongs,Till bursts resistless praise from thousand tongues:Such bards, such chiefs, creative grandeur forms,Nursed in the wilds, and cradled in the storms,They draw from nature's works inspiring zeal,And souls of passion join to nerves of steel.
Grandeur may dazzle with its transient glareThe herd of folly, and the tribe of care,Who sport and flutter thro their listless days,Like motes, that bask in summer's noontide blaze,With anxious steps round vacant splendor while,Live on a look, and banquet on a smile;But the firm race, whose high endowments claimThe laurel wreath, that decks the brow of fame;Who born, when passion kindled wild desire,Express with frenzy, and conceive with fire,Or, warmed by sympathy's electric glow,In rapture tremble, and dissolve in woe,Blest in retirement Scorn the frowns of fate,And feel a transport, power can ne'er create.
So the great chief, who led her patriot host,When war's red millions thronged Columbia's coast,Retired from state, like famed Saolona's sage,With rural pleasures cheered declining age.———While Charles's Minstrels raise their epic lay, (32)With wealth of fancy copious, as the day,To listening worlds proclaim his deeds sublime,And give the hero's name to deathless time;Thou, fair Potomac, whose green banks besideRest the rich relics of our country's pride,Shalt often hear his hallowed requiem roll,Breathed from impressive eloquence of soul,Shalt often mark around his sacred heapThe hoary pilgrim bend, and bend to weep,And bless the veteran, as he lingers there,Leant on his crutch to pour his soul in prayer.
What if the proud with high disdain derideThe hamlet rude, the peasant's humbler pride;More real greatness marks his honest mind,Tho low in manners, and in thoughts confined,Whose opening soul to misery lends a sigh,And wipes the tear from cold misfortune's eye,To friendless merit lends a cheer respect,And shields unlettered genius from neglect,Than all the minions, who on fortune waitTo feed the luxury of lazy state.
The artless Swiss each morn his toil renews,And gaily whistles, as he skims the dews,High mid the Alps his rustic carol swells,Heard mid the tinklings of the wild sheep bells;In vain around the darkling vapors roll,To quench his sweet tranquillity of soul;O'er the cleft precipice when thunders sleep,And lightnings frolic with tremendous leap,Perched on the clouds, which round his cottage float,He tracks with daring steps the chamois-goat; (33)Though far above the Avalanche impend,And at his feet the cracking icerift bend,Unmoved he climbs along with heedless cheer,In jokes more merry, than the muleteer;Sees unappalled the torrent's headlong way,And mocks the rainbow, arching o'er its spray:Or, when mild evening shades the blushing scene,With village dances charms the merry green,O'er his young offspring bends with silent care,And cheers with tales of love his favorite fair.
Blest haunts of nature, where contentment's reignBreathes smiling pleasures o'er the healthy plain,May no rude ruffian e'er your peace annoy,Or blight the blossoms of domestic joy.
Yet nursed too long e'en solitude may shedA sickly musing, and distempered dread,On souls of softer mould with horrors prey,And steep in blood the elements of day.
Pass but yon cave, where dimly left behindGleam the last ruins of the lofty mind:Lo, what strange looks of wild disorder press,What sullen jealousies, what fierce distress!How blest, if madness ruled the troubled brain,Nor left one glimmering sense to feed its pain!Here every hour with deadly phantoms teems,Ideal woes, and misbegotton dreams,While strong, as fate, the hydra evil swimsWith palsying horror thro the shivering limbs!On the crushed soul bloat hypochondria sits,Starts into rage, or broods in sullen fits,With shapeless monsters crowds the savage scene;Hell vomits flames, and demons float between.
Nor happier they, whom morbid cares oppress,Whom pleasures court not, nor affections bless;Who look on nature's charms with loathsome eye,Wrapt in the spleen of black misanthropy.No health for them the fragrant breeze bestows,No music warbles, and no rapture flows;The breathing scenes, by fancy's pencil caught,The muse's grandeur, and the sage's thought,Impart no relish to their fretful sense,Where dark disorder grows with impotence!
On human life what maladies attend,Crowd every walk, and darken, to the end!Here Spain's famed monarch, humbled to the dust, (34)Pines lone and friendless in austere St. Just;Religious fears life's sad remains consume,And monks and missals haste him to the tomb.There, where invention all his glory shed,Where learning triumphed o'er the lettered dead,Great Haller kneels with superstitious glare, (35)And moody Tasso parleys with the air.
Kind be the heart to sufferings such, as these,Fixed by despair, and nourished by disease;Let pitying love her sweetest braid inweave,And learn to pardon, where she scarce can grieve.
But ye, whom gentler fates unite to pleaseWith wholesome friendship, and domestic ease,Why will ye scorn the proffered boon, and broodIn peevish gloom, and harsh solicitude?Why will ye squander life's best years away,To tender griefs a melancholy prey?Why will ye seek the soothing shades, and thereMark but the demon of disturbed despair?What if your modest merit' blush unseen,'Like some wild flower neglected on the green;If splendid fortune spurn your fond embrace,While fools and minions gain the pensioned place;If smiling love disdain your youthful heart,Or flattered passion yield to treacherous art;Are these all painless? Solon's warning voiceShall point, how vain the Lydian monarch's choice;The curse of fame deserted Lucan prove,And Grey bewail the hour, that crowned her love. (36)
Then from your lips let cheerful hymns ascend,And hope and joy harmonious pæans blend;Leave the dark frown, the minster's sullen pride,For monks to canonize, and saints divide;Such ghostly forms beseem the pious race,Who dream o'er rubrics, and believe it grace.But shall young genius, buried from the day,In low repinings murmur life away?Shall slavish fondness curb the generous thought?Or envy triumph in the death she wrought?Shame to the coward heart, nor more invadeWith weak complaints the literary shade:The charms of love, the smiles of joy are there,Tears for distress, and kindness for despair;There nature's various works shall court the eyes,And liberal study form for bold emprize;There sober reason muse on nobler themes,Than worldly grandeur, or monastic dreams.
But can seclusion chase the demon's reign,When madness settles on the burning brain?Say, can her art each subtler instinct guide,That buoys the will on frenzy's fevered tide?Thro the fine nerves each thrilling touch dispense,That links the motions of disordered sense?Vain were the toil, she boasts no potent charmTo cool distraction, or its rage disarm;Still must the maniac sigh, by woe opprest,Till passion slumber in the grave's cold rest.Yet shall her power some secret peace impart,Some moral solace to the wildered heart,With tempered sweetness healing balm disclose,And soften grief, tho not restore repose.
Once did an old monk tell his simple tale,As erst I wandered round Chamouni's vale, (37)Thin, scattered locks with silver lustre playedO'er his wan cheeks, and secret care betrayed;In tender accents flowed his honied speech,Alike the heart to mend, the mind to teach;And, as he spoke of all his spirit felt,The griefs, that harrow, and the joys, that melt,He seemed some angel from the pitying sky,To link the hallowed trains of sympathy.
'Such, stranger, was the scene mine eyes surveyed,When first I sought Chamouni's cooling shade;As now meek evening o'er the landscape threwIn fainting folds her robe of twilight blue!High round yon Glaciers clouds of vapor rolled,And tints of purple glowed with mingling gold;Soft murmured Arve, for not a ruffling breezeSkimmed its smooth breast, or shook its pensile trees:The jocund shepherd penned his bleating flock,And gay songs carolled from the mountain rock:All, all was peace, enchantment hovered round,And scarce a footfall pressed the sleeping ground.
'Here as I paused the dying scene to sketch,Far where the dim mist bounds thy vision's stretch,Beside yon limpid stream soft music stole,Breathed in the voice of love, the tone of soul;Strange was the note, and as my steps drew near,Its simple warblings swept my wistful ear;When lo, emerging from a chequered shade,The lovelier minstrel stood in form displayed,The blush of youth her melting cheek o'erspred,Where the bright ivory vied with liquid red;Clasped in gay folds around her polished waist,A white robe fluttering marked the limbs, it graced;Adown her side a ribboned pipe declined,And loose her ringlets mantled on the wind.Sweet, pastoral beauty, unadorned by art,'Tis yours to charm the eye, to fix the heart."Father," she cried, "thy faultering feet decline,"Come, let me aid thee with the strength of mine;"Thy hoary locks the man of care bespeak,"And I will wipe the cold tear from thy cheek;"Low is my cot, and simply good my fare,"But Julio dwells with tranquil fondness there;"And he shall cheer thee with his song so sweet;"Come, father, sojourn in our calm retreat."
'Such winning kindness, such benign address,Might lure a ruffian's heart to tenderness:So pure the tones, so warm the language glowed,As from her trembling lips this welcome flowed,Saints might have paused from heavenly hymns to hear,And listening angels lent a raptured ear.
'My bending steps I urged, as led the guide,Whose soothing converse constant cheer supplied;Her lively taste each blended beauty caught,And o'er the scene diffused her warmth of thought;And not a flower in cultured grace expands,But gained fresh ripeness from her fostering hands.Deep from the bosom of a silent dellBurst on my startled soul the rural cell;Yet ere enchantment loosed my first surprise,Where the charmed Eden met my raptured eyes,She fled, and, pillowed in her lover's arms,With throbbing kisses veiled her blushing charms,"Come, Julio, welcome to our native home"Yon aged hermit, doomed by grief to roam,"Thy love shall give the weary pilgrim rest,"And lure each sorrow from his anxious breast,"And I entranced will hymn the vocal lay,"To calm his spirit at the eve of day."
'O! dear seclusion, friend of nuptial joy,Thine are the sweets of love, that never cloy;Vain is the midnight pomp, the masquerade,Where idiot grandeur flaunts in gay`parade;One moment here, by years of anguish gained,Outweighs more wealth, than ever miser feigned;Here nature lives, in virtue's form confest,And wisdom triumphs in her offspring blest.
'Forgive me, stranger, if with prattling careAn old man linger on these visions fair;Still glows the scene in nature's living prime,Its features strengthened with the lapse of time,And life must close, ere snatched from memory's eye,One colored beauty fade, one image die.
'But why my thoughts on these fond pictures range?What saddening contrast marks the dreadful change!Here, where I loved at closing day to traceThe sunbeam dancing on the streamlet's face,While Clara's pipe, to rapture tuned no more!Swelled thro the vales, and woke the echoing shore,The owl's deep scream now frights the plaintive rook,And brooding silence guards the weedy brook.
'One night the tempest shrilly howled around,And peals on peals convulsive rocked the ground;Impetuous rains in furious torrents swept,And wide thro heaven the forky lightnings leaped;In dumb distress I held the fainting fair,For Julio absent claim'd our mutual care,To ply the fisher's art in evil hourHis bark consigned him to the whirlwind's power.With promised hopes I cheered the weeping maid,Tho creeping horrors half my fears betrayed;Round my wet neck her snowy arms she flung,While feared affliction spelled her moveless tongue;At length, as starting from a trance, she cried,"Oh save him, save him, from the whelming tide,"My Julio's buried in the fatal wave,"Oh save him, save him, from a timeless grave."
'Shocked at the sound I burst the cottage door,And, swift as thought, explored the troubled shore;Good heavens! what horrors chilled each torpid vein,What strong convulsions tore my panting brain!When on my strained eye flashed the dismal truth,The rude surf billowing o'er the lifeless youth.
'I saw, and tottering raised an anguished screech,Then, sunk in faintness, pressed the muttering beach;All else, deep buried in oblivion's night,Fly from the swimming glance of memory's sight;Yet many a year has vainly rolled between,To steal one horror from the fatal scene,The pall of death diseased remembrance throwsO'er the dark picture of unuttered woes.
'But who can pencil Clara's fixed despair,Her wild disorder, and her frantic glare,When o'er her lover's corse in throes she laughed,And thought it nectar, while her tears she quaffed!
'The mad enthusiast, tranced in thought, will roamRound the dim precincts of her saddened home,For Julio meets her in each opening flower,Nursed by his hand, that scents the morning hour;His plaintive voice is heard in every gale,Whose hollow murmurs sweep the twilight vale;And then she tunes her pipe, and strangely poursWild train of sorrow round the glimmering shores,Strains, such as seraphs wake from heavenly lyresTo chant his requiem, when the saint expires.
'But when the furies, waked from fitful sleep,From cloud to cloud in gathered lightnings leap,While sails on whirlwinds night's unholy form,His laugh the thunder, and his shriek the storm;On some lone cliff, against whose shaggy rocksThe raving billows beat with deafening shocks,She sits entranced, while horror's wrathful fireWhirls round her cheek, and spends its useless ire,With muttered transport clasps the forky dart,And wooes its flashes to her burning heart.
'Yet oft in happier moments will she sit,To charm my sorrows with her bursts of wit ,Dear is the stream, that skirts yon mountain's sideTo waft her flowery skiff's athwart its tide;There, while her feet 'along the margin stray,And o'er the watery waste the blossoms play,"Queen Mab," she shouts, shall guide ye thro the grove"To wake with tales of joy my sleeping love."
'But thou shalt see the maniac, and declareThe speechless agony of mad despair:Yes, thou shalt own seclusion's power to blessIn the dark tumults of supreme distress.'
With solemn pace the hermit bent his way:Deep bowered in woods the rural cottage lay;One pebbly streamlet washed its cultured green,Where many a shrub in rich undress was seen;Eve's fragrant breath diffused its sweetest zest;The hermit called, and Clara stood confest.Her white robe floated on the buoyant air,And one green ribbon knit her auburn hair;Wreaths of rich flowers her pallid temples bound;Her step was thoughtful, and her look profound.Soon her quick eyes athwart the stranger flew,He seemed young Julio, imaged to her view;"Ah, do not weep, my love shall never fade:"She turned unthinking, and her sad pipe played.
"My Julio lies in yonder grave,Wild roses grace the turf so sweet,And weeping willows kiss the wave,That lightly trickles round his feet.
"His gentle bosom knew no strife,For peace and love were cherished there,And calm, as summer, flowed his life,His death has caused my heart's despair.
"Oh, when shall I, my Julio, restBeside thyself in pure repose?When shall the blossoms o'er my breastShed their rich balm at evening's close.
"I hear thy pensive spirit call;Soon, soon shall Clara come away;Haste, haste, the dews of darkness fall,And bear me to the realms of day."
She paused; and, bending o'er a rude urn, prayed,Shed bitter tears, and blest the parted shade;The monk embraced her to his aged breast,Then waved adieu, and fled his weeping guest.
Hail, classic solitude, who lovest to dwellWith dreaming memory in her haunted dell,To fame's bright temple leadest the aspiring way,And pourest on sleeping truth the blaze of day,Come, o'er thy votary's wayward fate preside,To guard his footsteps from the haunts of pride.
Each gay pursuit, each dream of grandeur fled,Whose treacherous light with cheating hopes misled,Be mine, retired in some sequestered grot,'The world forgetting, by the world forgot,'Thro the sweet paths of ancient lore to rove,My study, nature, and my object, love;To trace the secret cause, whose power connectsEach moving impulse with evolved effects,Thro every form, which life or motion sways,To essence subtler, than the mental rays;By moral musings social feelings start,And mould to truth the sympathies of heart;So may the cherub peace perchance returnTo smooth my passage through this drear sojourn.
O! may my life, to such pure maxims true,Bless, as it glides, and sooth me in review,By calm research, where truth and sense preside,My wishes temper, and my actions guide;O! may each taste, that mellows or endears,Hold fond communion with my blameless years,Each liberal science lend its lucid aidTo cheer the minstrel's philosophic shade,And friendship oft with willing feet repairTo smile away the hours in welcome there.
How happy he, whose generous leisure knows.In rural scenes its pleasures and repose!Blest with alternate sway of pure employ,The studious reverie, the guileless joy,Unmoved may he behold his hours decay,Nor urge their flagging speed, nor chide day;Calm in ambition, rich in various lore,As fancy wills, may every age explore,With Plato muse the philosophic theme,With Tully moralize, with Sidney dream,Or charmed thro many a soothing page to roam,Make feeling, sympathy, and love, his home;Him shall no dangers frighten or oppress,Above the frown of power and false caress;Resigned, yet cheerful, active, yet serene,With silent dignity he quits the scene;Hope gently slopes the way to life's release,His glory brightening, till it sets in peace.
So in retirement may my years decline,Truth light the path, and studious taste refine;May no wild passions e'er disturb my breast,But wisdom sanction, what the heart has blest;The smiles of love, the peace of thought befriend,Cheer my sick couch, and brighten to my end;And o'er the turf spring's earliest blossoms wave,When moonlight slumbers on my tranquil grave.
And thou, fair poesy, whose visions wildMy youth's fond sorrows brightened and beguiled,Thou, who delightest to roam, where twilight reignsIn silent sadness o'er the glimmering plains,Along the moonwitched wave thy lyre to sweep,Calling light phantoms from the shadowy deep;Or, rocked in storms, thy fearful hands to flingWith hurried madness o'er the quivering string,The deepened notes of mystic sorcery swell,And wake strange concord from the demon's yell;If e'er I marked thee, veiled in purple sheen,On clouds of lightning walk the breezy green,Arun's fair banks with sainted Otway tread, (38)Or garland laurels round young Collins' head,Kiss from his cheek the tear of melting woe,And fondly lull him on thy neck of snow;If e'er I marked thee haunt the holy plain,Where he, the woecrazed suicide, is lain,Hymning, "oh drop the briny tear with me,"My true love sleeps beside yon willow tree;" (39)Attend indulgent to thy suppliant's prayer,And be his humble muse thy favoured care,Still let thy presence o'er his fate preside,His sweetest solace, and his darling pride.O! call thy minstrels from the rapturous shores,Whence silver streams enamoured ARno pours, (40)Poized on his sapphire car, while Nereids laveHis golden tresses in the sparkling wave,Lists native music, warbled o'er his tideIn the full melody of lyric pride;Bid them seclusion's wonderous powers rehearse,And strike the impetuous chords of lofty verse;So memory's train shall burst their magic trance,And fancy wake the spirits of romance,Till in full strains to her the song aspire,Queen of the thoughts, and empress of the lyre.
