Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 122

9 Ah! once to fame and bright dominion born, The earth and smiling ocean saw me rise, With time coeval and the star of morn, The first, the fairest daughter of the skies.

10 Then, when at Heaven's prolific mandate sprung The radiant beam of new-created day, Celestial harps, to airs of triumph strung, Hailed the glad dawn, and angels called me May.

11 s.p.a.ce in her empty regions heard the sound, And hills, and dales, and rocks, and valleys rung; The sun exulted in his glorious round, And shouting planets in their courses sung.

12 For ever then I led the constant year; Saw youth, and joy, and love's enchanting wiles; Saw the mild graces in my train appear, And infant beauty brighten in my smiles.

13 No winter frowned. In sweet embrace allied, Three sister seasons danced the eternal green; And Spring's retiring softness gently vied With Autumn's blush, and Summer's lofty mien.

14 Too soon, when man profaned the blessings given, And vengeance armed to blot a guilty age, With bright Astrea to my native heaven I fled, and flying saw the deluge rage;

15 Saw bursting clouds eclipse the noontide beams, While sounding billows from the mountains rolled, With bitter waves polluting all my streams, My nectared streams, that flowed on sands of gold.

16 Then vanished many a sea-girt isle and grove, Their forests floating on the watery plain: Then, famed for arts and laws derived from Jove, My Atalantis sunk beneath the main.

17 No longer bloomed primeval Eden's bowers, Nor guardian dragons watched the Hesperian steep: With all their fountains, fragrant fruits and flowers, Torn from the continent to glut the deep.

18 No more to dwell in sylvan scenes I deigned, Yet oft descending to the languid earth, With quickening powers the fainting ma.s.s sustained, And waked her slumbering atoms into birth.

19 And every echo taught my raptured name, And every virgin breathed her amorous vows, And precious wreaths of rich immortal fame, Showered by the Muses, crowned my lofty brows.

20 But chief in Europe, and in Europe's pride, My Albion's favoured realms, I rose adored; And poured my wealth, to other climes denied; From Amalthea's horn with plenty stored.

21 Ah me! for now a younger rival claims My ravished honours, and to her belong My choral dances, and victorious games, To her my garlands and triumphal song.

22 O say what yet untasted beauties flow, What purer joys await her gentler reign?

Do lilies fairer, violets sweeter blow?

And warbles Philomel a softer strain?

23 Do morning suns in ruddier glory rise?

Does evening fan her with serener gales?

Do clouds drop fatness from the wealthier skies, Or wantons plenty in her happier vales?

24 Ah! no: the blunted beams of dawning light Skirt the pale orient with uncertain day; And Cynthia, riding on the car of night, Through clouds embattled faintly wings her way.

25 Pale, immature, the blighted verdure springs, Nor mounting juices feed the swelling flower; Mute all the groves, nor Philomela sings When silence listens at the midnight hour.

26 Nor wonder, man, that Nature's bashful face, And opening charms, her rude embraces fear: Is she not sprung from April's wayward race, The sickly daughter of the unripened year?

27 With showers and sunshine in her fickle eyes, With hollow smiles proclaiming treacherous peace, With blushes, harbouring, in their thin disguise, The blasts that riot on the Spring's increase?

28 Is this the fair invested with my spoil By Europe's laws, and senates' stern command?

Ungenerous Europe! let me fly thy soil, And waft my treasures to a grateful land;

29 Again revive, on Asia's drooping sh.o.r.e, My Daphne's groves, or Lycia's ancient plain; Again to Afric's sultry sands restore Embowering shades, and Lybian Ammon's fane:

30 Or haste to northern Zembla's savage coast, There hush to silence elemental strife; Brood o'er the regions of eternal frost, And swell her barren womb with heat and life.

31 Then Britain--Here she ceased. Indignant grief, And parting pangs, her faltering tongue suppressed: Veiled in an amber cloud she sought relief, And tears and silent anguish told the rest.

FRANCIS FAWKES.

This 'learned and jovial parson,' as Campbell calls him, was born in 1721, in Yorkshire. He studied at Cambridge, and became curate at Croydon, in Surrey. Here he obtained the friendship of Archbishop Herring, and was by him appointed vicar of Orpington in Kent, a situation which he ultimately exchanged for the rectory of Hayes, in the same county. He translated various minor Greek poets, including Anacreon, Sappho, Bion and Moschus, Theocritus, &c. He died in 1777. His 'Brown Jug' breathes some of the spirit of the first of these writers, and two or three lines of it were once quoted triumphantly in Parliament by Sheil, while charging Peel, we think it was, with appropriating arguments from Bishop Philpotts--'Harry of Exeter.'

'Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale, Was once Toby Philpotts,' &c.

THE BROWN JUG.

1 Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale, (In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the Vale,) Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul As e'er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl; In boosing about 'twas his praise to excel, And among jolly topers lie bore off the bell.

2 It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease In his flower-woven arbour as gay as you please, With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away, And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay, His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut, And he died full as big as a Dorchester b.u.t.t.

3 His body, when long in the ground it had lain, And time into clay had resolved it again, A potter found out in its covert so snug, And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale; So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale.

JOHN LANGHORNE.

This poetical divine was born in 1735, at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland.

Left fatherless at four years old, his mother fulfilled her double charge of duty with great tenderness and a.s.siduity. He was educated at Appleby, and subsequently became a.s.sistant at the free-school of Wakefield, took deacon's orders, and gave promise, although very young, of becoming a popular preacher. After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, and publishing a number of works in prose and verse, Langhorne repaired to London, and obtained, in 1764, the curacy and lectureship of St John's, Clerkenwell. He soon afterwards became a.s.sistant-preacher in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, where he had a very intellectual audience to address, and bore a somewhat trying ordeal with complete success. He continued for a number of years in London, maintaining his reputation both as a preacher and writer. His most popular works were the 'Letters of Theodosius and Constantia,' and a translation of Plutarch's Lives, which Wrangham afterwards corrected and improved, and which is still standard. He was twice married, and survived both his wives. He obtained the living of Blagden in Somersetshire, and in addition to it, in 1777, a prebend in the Cathedral of Wells. He died in 1779, aged only forty-four; his death, it is supposed, being accelerated by intemperance, although it does not seem to have been of a gross or aggravated description. Langhorne, an amiable man, and highly popular as well as warmly beloved in his day, survives now in memory chiefly through his Plutarch's Lives, and through a few lines in his 'Country Justice,' which are immortalised by the well- known story of Scott's interview with Burns. Campbell puts in a plea besides for his 'Owen of Carron,' but the plea, being founded on early reading, is partial, and has not been responded to by the public.

FROM 'THE COUNTRY JUSTICE.'

The social laws from insult to protect, To cherish peace, to cultivate respect; The rich from wanton cruelty restrain, To smooth the bed of penury and pain; The hapless vagrant to his rest restore, The maze of fraud, the haunts of theft explore; The thoughtless maiden, when subdued by art, To aid, and bring her rover to her heart; Wild riot's voice with dignity to quell, Forbid unpeaceful pa.s.sions to rebel, Wrest from revenge the meditated harm, For this fair Justice raised her sacred arm; For this the rural magistrate, of yore, Thy honours, Edward, to his mansion bore.

Oft, where old Air in conscious glory sails, On silver waves that flow through smiling vales; In Harewood's groves, where long my youth was laid, Unseen beneath their ancient world of shade; With many a group of antique columns crowned, In Gothic guise such, mansion have I found.

Nor lightly deem, ye apes of modern race, Ye cits that sore bedizen nature's face, Of the more manly structures here ye view; They rose for greatness that ye never knew!

Ye reptile cits, that oft have moved my spleen With Venus and the Graces on your green!

Let Plutus, growling o'er his ill-got wealth, Let Mercury, the thriving G.o.d of stealth, The shopman, Ja.n.u.s, with his double looks, Rise on your mounts, and perch upon your books!

But spare my Venus, spare each sister Grace, Ye cits, that sore bedizen nature's face!

Ye royal architects, whose antic taste Would lay the realms of sense and nature waste; Forgot, whenever from her steps ye stray, That folly only points each other way; Here, though your eye no courtly creature sees, Snakes on the ground, or monkeys in the trees; Yet let not too severe a censure fall On the plain precincts of the ancient hall.

For though no sight your childish fancy meets, Of Thibet's dogs, or China's paroquets; Though apes, asps, lizards, things without a tail, And all the tribes of foreign monsters fail; Here shall ye sigh to see, with rust o'ergrown, The iron griffin and the sphinx of stone; And mourn, neglected in their waste abodes, Fire-breathing drakes, and water-spouting G.o.ds.

Long have these mighty monsters known disgrace, Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place; Where, round the hall, the oak's high surbase rears The field-day triumphs of two hundred years.

The enormous antlers here recall the day That saw the forest monarch forced away; Who, many a flood, and many a mountain pa.s.sed, Not finding those, nor deeming these the last, O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepared to fly, Long ere the death-drop filled his failing eye!