Poems (1786) Part 7

Queen Mary's Complaint.

Euphelia, an Elegy.

Sonnet to Expression.

AN EPISTLE TO DR. MOORE.

Whether dispensing hope, and ease To the pale victim of disease, Or in the social crowd you sit, And charm the group with sense and wit, Moore's partial ear will not disdain Attention to my artless strain.

AN EPISTLE TO DR. MOORE,

AUTHOR OF

A VIEW OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS IN FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND GERMANY.

I mean no giddy heights to climb, And vainly toil to be sublime; While every line with labour wrought, Is swell'd with tropes for want of thought: Nor shall I call the Muse to shed Castalian drops upon my head; Or send me from Parna.s.sian bowers A chaplet wove of fancy's flowers.

At present all such aid I slight-- My heart instructs me how to write.

That softer glide my hours along, That still my griefs are sooth'd by song, That still my careless numbers flow To your successful skill I owe; You, who when sickness o'er me hung, And languor had my lyre unstrung, With treasures of the healing art, With friendship's ardor at your heart, From sickness s.n.a.t.c.h'd her early prey And bade fair health--the G.o.ddess gay, With sprightly air, and winning grace, With laughing eye, and rosy face, Accustom'd when you call to hear, On her light pinion hasten near, And swift restore with influence kind, My weaken'd frame, my drooping mind.

With like benignity, and zeal, The mental malady to heal, To stop the fruitless, hopeless tear, The life you lengthen'd, render dear, To charm by fancy's powerful vein, "The written troubles of the brain,"

From gayer scenes, compa.s.sion led Your frequent footsteps to my shed: And knowing that the Muses' art Has power to ease an aching heart, You sooth'd that heart with partial praise, And I before too fond of lays, While others pant for solid gain, Grasp at a laurel sprig--in vain-- You could not chill with frown severe The madness to my soul so dear; For when Apollo came to store Your mind with salutary lore, The G.o.d I ween, was pleas'd to dart A ray from Pindus on your heart; Your willing bosom caught the fire, And still is partial to the lyre.

But now from you at distance plac'd Where _Epping_ spreads a woody waste; Tho' unrestrain'd my fancy flies, And views in air her fabrics rise, And paints with brighter bloom the flowers, Bids Dryads people all the bowers, And Echoes speak from every hill, And Naiads pour each little rill, And bands of Sylphs with pride unfold Their azure plumage mix'd with gold, My heart remembers with a sigh That you are now no longer nigh.

The magic scenes no more engage, I quit them for your various page; Where, with delight I traverse o'er The foreign paths you trod before: Ah not in vain those paths you trac'd, With heart to feel, with powers to taste!

Amid the ever-jocund train Who sport upon the banks of Seine, In your light Frenchman pleas'd I see His nation's gay epitome; Whose careless hours glide smooth along, Who charms MISFORTUNE with a song.

She comes not as on Albion's plain, With death, and madness in her train; For here, her keenest sharpest dart May raze, but cannot pierce the heart.

Yet he whose spirit light as air Calls life a jest, and laughs at care, Feels the strong force of pity's voice, And bids afflicted love rejoice; Love, such as fills the poet's page Love, such as form'd the golden age-- FANCHON, thy grateful look I see-- I share thy joys--I weep with thee-- What eye has read without a tear A tale to nature's heart so dear!

There, dress'd in each sublimer grace Geneva's happy scene I trace; Her lake, from whose broad bosom thrown Rushes the loud impetuous Rhone, And bears his waves with mazy sweep In rapid torrents to the deep-- Oh for a Muse less weak of wing, High on yon Alpine steeps to spring, And tell in verse what they disclose As well as you have told in prose; How wrapt in snows and icy showers, Eternal winter, horrid lowers Upon the mountain's awful brow, While purple summer blooms below; How icy structures rear their forms Pale products of ten thousand storms; Where the full sun-beam powerless falls On crystal arches, columns, walls, Yet paints the proud fantastic height With all the various hues of light.

Why is no poet call'd to birth In such a favour'd spot of earth?

How high his vent'rous Muse might rise, And proudly scorn to ask supplies From the Parna.s.sian hill, the fire Of verse, _Mont Blanc_ might well inspire.

O SWITZERLAND! how oft these eyes Desire to view thy mountains rise; How fancy loves thy steeps to climb, So wild, so solemn, so sublime; And o'er thy happy vales to roam, Where freedom rears her humble home.

Ah, how unlike each social grace Which binds in love thy manly race, The HOLLANDERS phlegmatic ease Too cold to love, too dull to please; Who feel no sympathetic woe, Nor sympathetic joy bestow, But fancy words are only made To serve the purposes of trade, And when they neither buy, nor sell, Think silence answers quite as well.

Now in his happiest light is seen VOLTAIRE, when evening chas'd his spleen, And plac'd at supper with his friends, The playful flash of wit descends-- Of names renown'd you clearly shew The finer traits we wish to know-- To Prussia's martial clime I stray And see how FREDERIC spends the day; Behold him rise at dawning light To form his troops for future fight; Thro' the firm ranks his glances pierce, Where discipline, with aspect fierce, And unrelenting breast, is seen Degrading man to a machine; My female heart delights to turn Where GREATNESS seems not quite so stern: Mild on th' IMPERIAL BROW she glows, And lives to soften human woes.

But lo! on ocean's stormy breast I see majestic VENICE rest; While round her spires the billows rave, Inverted splendours gild the wave.

Fair liberty has rear'd with toil, Her fabric on this marshy soil.

She fled those banks with scornful pride, Where cla.s.sic Po devolves her tide: Yet here her unrelenting laws Are deaf to nature's, freedom's cause.

Unjust! they seal'd FOSCARI'S doom, An exile in his early bloom.

And he, who bore the rack unmov'd, Divided far from those he lov'd, From all the social hour can give, From all that make it bliss to live, These worst of ills refus'd to bear, And died, the victim of despair.

An eye of wonder let me raise, While on imperial ROME I gaze.

But oh! no more in glory bright She fills with awe th' astonish'd sight: Her mould'ring fanes in ruin trac'd, Lie scatter'd on _Campania's_ waste.

Nor only these--alas! we find The wreck involves the human mind: The lords of earth now drag a chain Beneath a pontiff's feeble reign; The soil that gave a _Cato_ birth No longer yields heroic worth, Whose image lives but on the bust, Or consecrates the medal's rust: Yet if no heart of modern frame Glows with the antient hero's flame, The dire _Arena's_ horrid stage Is banish'd from this milder age; Those savage virtues too are fled At which the human feelings bled.

While now at _Virgil's_ tomb you bend, O let me on your steps attend!

Kneel on the turf that blossoms round, And kiss, with lips devout, the ground.

I feel how oft his magic powers Shed pleasure on my lonely hours.

Tho' hid from me the cla.s.sic tongue, In which his heav'nly strain was sung, In _Dryden's_ tuneful lines, I pierce The shaded beauties of his verse.

Bright be the rip'ning beam, that shines Fair FLORENCE, on thy purple vines!

And ever pure the fanning gale That pants in Arno's myrtle vale!

Here, when the barb'rous northern race, Dire foes to every muse, and grace, Had doom'd the banish'd arts to roam The lovely wand'rers found a home; And shed round _Leo's_ triple crown Unfading rays of bright renown.

Who e'er has felt his bosom glow With knowledge, or the wish to know; Has e'er from books with transport caught The rich accession of a thought; Perceiv'd with conscious pride, he feels The sentiment which taste reveals; Let all who joys like these possess, Thy vale, enchanting FLORENCE bless-- O had the arts benignant light No more reviv'd from Gothic night, Earth had been one vast scene of strife, Or one drear void had sadden'd life; Lost had been all the sage has taught, The painter's sketch, the poet's thought, The force of sense, the charm of wit, Nor ever had your page been writ; That soothing page, which care beguiles, And dresses truth in fancy's smiles: For not with hostile step you prest Each foreign soil, a thankless guest!

While travellers who want the skill To mark the shapes of good and ill, With vacant stare thro' Europe range, And deem all bad, because 'tis strange; Thro' varying modes of life, you trace The finer trait, the latent grace, And where thro' every vain disguise You view the human follies rise, The stroke of irony you dart With force to mend, not wound the heart.

While intellectual objects share Your mind's extensive view, you bear, Quite free from spleen's inc.u.mb'ring load, The little evils on the road-- So, while the path of life I tread, A path to me with briers spread; Let me its tangled mazes spy Like you, with gay, good-humour'd eye; Nor at those th.o.r.n.y tracts repine, The treasure of your friendship, mine.

Grange Hill, Ess.e.x.

PART OF AN IRREGULAR [Transcriber's note: Original "IRREGULAL"] FRAGMENT, FOUND IN A DARK Pa.s.sAGE OF THE TOWER.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

The following Poem is formed on a very singular and sublime idea. A young gentleman, possessed of an uncommon genius for drawing, on visiting the Tower of London, pa.s.sing one door of a singular construction, asked what apartment it led to, and expressed a desire to have it opened. The person who shewed the place shook his head, and answered, "Heaven knows what is within that door--it has been shut for ages."--This answer made small impression on the other hearers; but a very deep one on the imagination of this youth. Gracious Heaven! an apartment shut up for ages--and in the Tower!

"Ye Towers of Julius! London's lasting shame, By many a foul and midnight murder fed."

Genius builds on a slight foundation, and rears beautiful structures on "the baseless fabric of a vision." The above transient hint dwelt on the young man's fancy, and conjured into his memory all the murders which history records to have been committed in the Tower; Henry the Sixth, the Duke of Clarence, the two young princes, sons of Edward the Fourth, Sir Thomas Overbury, &c. He supposes all their ghosts a.s.sembled in this unexplored apartment, and to these his fertile imagination has added several others. One of the spectres raises an immense pall of black velvet, and discovers the remains of a murdered royal family, whose story is lost in the lapse of time.--The gloomy wildness of these images struck my imagination so forcibly, that endeavouring to catch the fire of the youth's pencil, this Fragment was produced.

PART OF AN IRREGULAR FRAGMENT, FOUND IN A DARK Pa.s.sAGE OF THE TOWER.

I.

Rise, winds of night! relentless tempests rise!

Rush from the troubled clouds, and o'er me roll; In this chill pause a deeper horror lies, A wilder fear appals my shudd'ring soul.-- 'Twas on this day[A], this hour accurst, That Nature starting from repose Heard the dire shrieks of murder burst-- From infant innocence they rose, And shook these solemn towers!-- I shudd'ring pa.s.s that fatal room For ages wrapt in central gloom;-- I shudd'ring pa.s.s that iron door Which Fate perchance unlocks no more; Death, smear'd with blood, o'er the dark portal lowers.

[A] The anniversary of the murder of Edward the Fifth, and his brother Richard, Duke of York.

II.

How fearfully my step resounds Along these lonely bounds:-- Spare, savage blast! the taper's quiv'ring fires, Deep in these gath'ring shades its flame expires.

Ye host of heaven! the door recedes-- It mocks my grasp--what unseen hands Have burst its iron bands?

No mortal force this gate unbarr'd Where danger lives, which terrors guard-- Dread powers! its screaming hinges close On this dire scene of impious deeds-- My feet are fix'd!--Dismay has bound My step on this polluted ground-- But lo! the pitying moon, a line of light Athwart the horrid darkness dimly throws, And from yon grated window chases night.--