The scalps that we number'd in triumph were there, And the musket that never was levell'd in vain,- What a leap has it given to my heart To see thee suspend it in peace!
When the black and blood-banner was spread to the gale,
When thrice the deep voice of the war-drum was heard, I remember thy terrible eyes
How they flash'd the dark glance of thy joy.
I remember the hope that shone over thy cheek As thy hand from the pole reach'd its doers of death; Like the ominous gleam of the cloud Ere the thunder and lightning are born.
He went, and ye came not to warn him in dreams, Kindred Spirits of him who is holy and great! And where was thy warning, O Bird, The timely announcer of ill?
Alas! when thy brethren in conquest return'd; When I saw the white plumes bending over their heads And the pine-boughs of triumph before, Where the scalps of their victory swung,—
The war-hymn they pour'd, and thy voice was not there!
I call'd thee,-alas, the white deer-skin was brought; And thy grave was prepared in the tent Which I had made ready for joy!
Ollanahta, all day by thy war-pole I sit,
Ollanahta, all night I weep over thy grave! To-morrow the victims shall die, And I shall have joy in revenge.
THE OLD CHIKKASAH TO HIS GRANDSON.
And the youth of the nation were told To respect him and tread in his path.
My Boy! I have seen, and with hope, The courage that rose in thine eye When I told thee the tale of his death. His war-pole now is grey with moss, His tomahawk red with rust; His bowstring whose twang was death Now sings as it cuts the wind! But his memory is fresh in the land, And his name with the names that we love.
Go now and revenge him, my Boy! That his Spirit no longer may hover by day O'er the hut where his bones are at rest, Nor trouble our dreams in the night. My Boy, I shall watch for the warriors' return, And my soul will be sad
Till the steps of thy coming I see.
The three utilities of Poetry: the praise of Virtue and Goodness, the memory of things remarkable, and to invigorate the Affections. -Welsh Triad.
FOR A COLUMN AT NEWBURY. ART thou a Patriot, Traveller?-On this field Did FALKLAND fall, the blameless and the brave, Beneath a Tyrant's banners-Dost thou boast Of loyal ardour? HAMBDEN perished here, The rebel HAMBDEN, at whose glorious name The heart of every honest Englishman
Beats high with conscious pride. Both uncorrupt, Friends to their common country both, they fought, They died in adverse armies. Traveller!
If with thy neighbour thou shouldst not accord, In charity remember these good men, And quell all angry and injurious thoughts.
Now go to the battle, my Boy!
Dear child of my son,
There is strength in thine arm,
There is hope in thy heart,
Thou art ripe for the labours of war. Thy Sire was a stripling like thee When he went to the first of his fields. He return'd, in the glory of conquest return'd; Before him his trophies were borne,
These scalps that have hung till the Sun and the Rain Have rusted their raven locks.
Here he stood when the morn of rejoicing arrived, The day of the warrior's reward;
When the banners sun-beaming were spread, And all hearts were dancing in joy To the sound of the victory drum. The Heroes were met to receive their reward; But distinguish'd among the young Heroes that day, The pride of his nation, thy Father was seen: The swan-feathers hung from his neck, His face like the rainbow was tinged, And his eye,-how it sparkled in pride! The Elders approach'd, and they placed on his brow The crown that his valour had won, And they gave him the old honour'd name. They reported the deeds he had done in the war,
FOR A CAVERN THAT OVERLOOKS THE RIVER AVON.
ENTER this cavern, Stranger! the ascent Is long and steep and toilsome; here awhile Thou mayst repose thee, from the noontide heat Shelter'd beneath this bending vault of rock. Round the rude portal clasping with rough arms, The antique ivy spreads a canopy,
From whose grey blossoms the wild bees collect Their last autumnal stores. No common spot Receives thee, for the power who prompts the song Loves this secluded cell. The tide below Scarce sends the sound of waters to thine ear;
And yon high-hanging forest to the wind Varies its many hues. Gaze, Stranger, here!
And let thy soften'd heart intensely feel
How good, how lovely, Nature! When from hence Departing to the city's crowded streets,
Thy sickening eye at every step revolts
From scenes of vice and wretchedness; reflect That Man creates the evil he endures.
FOR A TABLET AT SILBURY-HILL.' THIS mound in some remote and dateless day Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills, May here detain thee, Traveller! from thy road Not idly lingering. In his narrow house Some Warrior sleeps below, whose gallant deeds Haply at many a solemn festival
The Bard hath harp'd; but perish'd is the song Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs The wind that passes and is heard no more. Go, Traveller, and remember when the pomp Of earthly Glory fades, that one good deed, Unseen, unleard, unnoted by mankind, Lives in the eternal register of Heaven.
FOR A MONUMENT IN THE NEW FOREST. This is the place where William's kingly power Did from their poor and peaceful homes expel, Unfriended, desolate, and shelterless, The habitants of all the fertile track
Far as these wilds extend. He levell'd down Their little cottages, he bade their fields. Lie barren, so that o'er the forest waste He might more royally pursue his sports! If that thine heart be human, Passenger! Sure it will swell within thee, and thy lips Will mutter curses on him. Think thou then What cities flame, what hosts unsepulchred Pollute the passing wind, when raging Power Drives on his blood-hounds to the chase of Man; And as thy thoughts anticipate that day When God shall judge aright, in charity Pray for the wicked rulers of mankind.
His relics rest, there by the giddy throng With blind idolatry alike revered! Wiselier directed have thy pilgrim feet Explored the scenes of Ermenonville. RouSSEAU Loved these calm haunts of Solitude and Peace; Here he has heard the murmurs of the lake, And the soft rustling of the poplar grove, When o'er their bending boughs the passing wind Swept a grey shade. Here, if thy breast be full, If in thine eye the tear devout should gush, HIS SPIRIT shall behold thee, to thine home From hence returning, purified of heart.
FOR A MONUMENT AT OXFORD.
HERE Latimer and Ridley in the flames Bore witness to the truth. If thou hast walk'd Uprightly through the world, proud thoughts of joy Will fill thy breast in contemplating here Congenial virtue. But if thou hast swerved From the right path, if thou hast sold thy soul, And served, with hireling and apostate zeal, The cause thy heart disowns,-oh! cherish well The honourable shame that sure this place Will wake within thee, timely penitent, And let the future expiate the past.
FOR A MONUMENT IN THE VALE OF EWIAS.
HERE was it, Stranger, that the patron Saint Of Cambria past his age of penitence,
A solitary man; and here he made
His hermitage, the roots his food, his drink
Of Hodney's mountain stream. Perchance thy youth
FOR A TABLET ON THE BANKS OF A STREAM. Has read with eager wonder how the Knight
STRANGER! awhile this upon bauk mossy Recline thee. If the Sun rides high, the breeze, That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet, Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound Of running waters soothe thee. Mark how clear It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed Yon glossy insect, on the sand below
llow the swift shadow flits. The stream is pure In solitude, and many a healthful herb Bends o'er its course and drinks the vital wave: But passing on amid the haunts of man, It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence A tainted tide. Seek'st thou for HAPPINESS? Go, Stranger, sojourn in the woodland cot OF INNOCENCE, and thou shalt find her there.
FOR THE CENOTAPH AT ERMENONVILLE. STRANGER! the MAN OF NATURE lies not here: Enshrined far distant by the Scoffer's 2 side
1 The northern nations distinguished the two periods when the bodies of the dead were consumed by fire, and when they were buried beneath the tumuli so common in this country, by the Age of Fire and the Age of Hills.
Of Wales in Ormandine's enchanted bower, Slept the long sleep: and if that in thy veins Flow the pure blood of Britain, sure that blood Hath flow'd with quicker impulse at the tale Of David's deeds, when through the press of war His gallant comrades follow'd his green crest To conquest. Stranger! Batterill's mountain heights And this fair vale of Ewias, and the stream Of Hodney, to thine after-thoughts will rise More grateful, thus associate with the name Of David and the deeds of other days.
EPITAPH ON ALGERNON SIDNEY.
HERE Sidney lies, he whom perverted law, The pliant jury and the bloody judge, Doom'd to the traitor's death. A tyrant King Required, an abject country saw and shared The crime. The noble cause of Liberty He loved in life, and to that noble cause In death bore witness. But his Country rose Like Sampson from her sleep, and broke her chains, And proudly with her worthies she enroll'd Her murder'd Sidney's name. The voice of man Gives honour or destroys; but earthly power Gives not, nor takes away, the self-applause
JOHN rests below. A man more infamous Never hath held the sceptre of these realms, And bruised beneath the iron rod of Power The oppressed men of England. Englishman! Curse not his memory. Murderer as he was, Coward and slave, yet he it was who sign'd
That Charter which should make thee morn and night Be thankful for thy birth-place:-Englishman! That holy Charter, which, shouldst thou permit Force to destroy, or Fraud to undermine, Thy children's groans will persecute thy soul, For they must bear the burthen of thy crime.
STRANGER! Whose steps have reach'd this solitude, Know that this lonely spot was dear to one Devoted with no unrequited zeal
To Nature. Here, delighted he has heard
The rustling of these woods, that now perchance Melodious to the gale of summer move; And underneath their shade on yon smooth rock, With grey and yellow lichens overgrown, Often reclined; watching the silent flow Of this perspicuous rivulet, that steals Along its verdant course,-till all around Had fill'd his senses with tranquillity, And ever sooth'd in spirit he return'd
A happier, better man. Stranger! perchance, Therefore the stream more lovely to thine eye Will glide along, and to the summer gale
The woods wave more melodious. Cleanse thou then The weeds and mosses from this letter'd stone.
FOR A MONUMENT AT TORDESILLAS. SPANIARD! if thou art one who bows the knee Before a despot's footstool, hie thee hence! This ground is holy; here Padilla died, Martyr of Freedom. But if thou dost love Her cause, stand then as at an altar here,
And thank the Almighty that thine honest heart, Full of a brother's feelings for mankind, Rebels against oppression. Not unheard Nor unavailing shall the grateful prayer Ascend; for loftiest impulses will rise To elevate and strengthen thee, and prompt To virtuous action. Relics silver-shrined, And chaunted mass, would wake within the soul Thoughts valueless and cold compared with these.
FOR A COLUMN AT TRUXILLO.
PIZARRO here was born; a greater name The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Pain, Famine and hostile Elements, and Hosts Embattled, fail'd to check him in his course,
FOR THE CELL OF HONORIUS, AT THE CORK CONVENT, NEAR CINTRA.
HERE cavern'd like a beast Honorius dwelt In self-denial, solitude, and prayer, Long years of penance. He had rooted out All human feelings from his heart, and fled With fear and loathing from all human joys As from perdition. But the law of Christ Enjoins not this. To aid the fatherless, Comfort the sick, and be the poor man's friend, And in the wounded heart pour gospel-balm; These are the active duties of that law, Which whoso keeps shall have a joy on earth, Calm, constant, still increasing, preluding
The eternal bliss of Heaven. Yet mock not thou, Stranger, the Anchorite's mistaken zeal! He paiufully his painful duties kept,
Sincere though erring: Stranger, do thou keep Thy better and thine easier rule as well.
FOR A MONUMENT AT TAUNTON.
THEY suffer'd here whom Jefferies doom'd to death In mockery of all justice, when the Judge Unjust, subservient to a cruel King, Perform'd his work of blood. They suffer'd here, The victims of that Judge, and of that King, In mockery of all justice here they bled, Unheard! But not unpitied, nor of God Unseen, the innocent suffered! not in vain The innocent blood cried vengeance! for at length, The indignant Nation in its power arose, Resistless. Then that wicked Judge took flight, Disguised in vain:-not always is the Lord Slow to revenge! a miserable man
He fell beneath the people's rage, and still The children curse his memory. From his throne The lawless bigot who commission'd him, Inhuman James, was driven. He lived to drag Long years of frustrate hope, he lived to load More blood upon his soul. Let tell the Boyne, Let Londonderry tell his guilt and shame; And that immortal day when on thy shores, La Hogue, the purple ocean dash'd the dead!
FOR A TABLET AT PENSHURST. ARE days of old familiar to thy mind, O Reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour
Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived With high-born beauties and enamour'd chiefs, Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy Whose expectation touch'd the verge of pain, Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore Hath ever thrill'd thy bosom, thou wilt tread, As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts, The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born, Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man His own delightful genius ever feign'd, Illustrating the vales of Arcady
With courteous courage and with royal loves. Upon his natal day the acorn here Was planted. It grew up a stately oak, And in the beauty of its strength it stood And flourish'd, when his perishable part lad moulder'd dust to dust. That stately oak Itself hath moulder'd now, but Sidney's fame Endureth in his own immortal works.
To prey upon her, frequent in attack, Yet with such flattering intervals as mock The hopes of anxious love, and most of ali The sufferer, self-deceived. During those days Of treacherous respite, many a time hath he, Who leaves this record of his friend, drawn back Into the shadow from her social board, Because too surely in her cheek he saw
The insidious bloom of death; and then her smiles And innocent mirth excited deeper grief Than when long-look'd-for tidings came at last, That, all her sufferings ended, she was laid Amid Madeira's orange groves to rest.
O gentle Emma! o'er a lovelier form
Than thine, Earth never closed; nor e'er did Heaven Receive a purer spirit from the world!
THIS to a mother's sacred memory
Her son hath hallow'd. Absent many a year Far over sea, his sweetest dreams were still Of that dear voice which soothed his infancy: And after many a fight against the Moor And Malabar, or that fierce Cavalry Which he had seen covering the boundless plain Even to the utmost limits where the eye
Could pierce the far horizon,-his first thought In safety was of her, who when she heard The tale of that day's danger, would retire And pour her pious gratitude to Heaven In prayers and tears of joy. The lingering hour Of his return, long-look'd-for, came at length, And full of hope he reach'd his native shore. Vain hope that puts its trust in human life! For ere he came the number of her days Was full. O Reader, what a world were this, How unendurable its weight, if they
Whom Death hath sunder'd did not meet again!
HERE in the fruitful vales of Somerset Was Emma bore, and here the Maiden grew To the sweet season of her womanhood Beloved and lovely, like a plant whose leaf And bud and blossom all are beautiful. In peacefulness her virgin years were past; And when in prosperous wedlock she was given, Amid the Cumbrian mountaius far away She had her summer bower. 'T was like a dream Of old Romance to see her when she plied Her little skiff on Derwent's glassy lake; The roseate evening resting ou the hills, The lake returning back the hues of heaven, Mountains and vales and waters all imbued With beauty and in quietness; and she, Nymph-like, amid that glorious solitude A heavenly presence, gliding in her joy. But soon a wasting malady began
The following Eclogues, I believe, bear no resemblance to any poems in our language. This species of composition has become popular in Germany, and I was induced to attem t it by an account of the German Idylls given me in conversation. They cannot properly be styled imitations, as I am ignorant of that language at present. and have never seen any translations or specimens in this kind.With bad Eclogues I am sufficiently acquainted, from Tityrus and Corydon down to our English Strephons and Thirsisses. No kind of poetry can boast of more illustrious names, or is more distinguished by the servile dulness of imitated nonsense. Pastoral writers, more silly than their sheep, have, like their sheep, gone on in the same track one after another. Gay stumbled into a new path. His i eclogues were the only ones which interested me when I was a boy, and did not know they were burlesque. The subject would furnish matter for an essay, but this is not the place for it.-1799.
My grandfather could just remember back When they were planted there. It was my task To keep them trimm'd, and 't was a pleasure to me; All straight and smooth, and like a great green wall! My poor old Lady many a time would come And tell me where to shear, for she had play'd In childhood under them, and 't was her pride To keep them in their beauty. Plague, I say, On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon Have plough'd my father's grave as cut them down!
But 't will be lighter and more cheerful now; A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road Round for the carriage,-now it suits my taste.
I like a shrubbery too, it looks so fresh; And then there's some variety about it. In spring the lilac and the snow-ball flower, And the laburnum with its golden strings Waving in the wind: And when the autumn comes The bright red berries of the mountain-ash, With pines enough in winter to look green,
And show that something lives. Sure this is better Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look All the year round like winter, and for ever Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under boughs Wither'd and bare!
Ah! so the new Squire thinks, And pretty work he makes of it! what 't is To have a stranger come to an old house!
It seems you know him not?
They tell me he's expected daily now; But in my Lady's time he never came But once, for they were very distant kin.
If he had play'd about here when a child In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries,
And sate in the porch threading the jessamine flowers Which fell so thick, he had not had the heart To mar all thus!
Come-come! all is not wrong;
They 're demolish'd too,
As if he could not see through casement glass!
The very red-breasts, that so regular Came to my Lady for her morning crumbs, Wo'n't know the window now!
Nay they were small, And then so darken'd round with jessamine, Harbouring the vermin;-yet I could have wish'd That jessamine had been saved, which canopied And bower'd and lined the porch.
It did one good To pass within ten yards when 't was in blossom. There was a sweet-briar too that grew beside; My Lady loved at evening to sit there
And knit; and her old dog lay at her feet
And slept in the sun; 't was an old favourite dog,
She did not love him less that he was old And feeble, and he always had a place By the fire-side: and when he died at last She made me dig a grave in the garden for him. Ah! she was good to all! a woeful day
T was for the poor when to her grave she went!
Or you wouldn't ask that question. Were they sick? She had rare cordial waters, and for herbs She could have taught the Doctors. Then at winter, When weekly she distributed the bread
In the poor old porch, to see her and to hear The blessings on her! and I warrant them They were a blessing to her when her wealth Had been no comfort else. At Christmas, Sir! It would have warm'd your heart if you had seen Her Christmas kitchen,-how the blazing fire Made her fine pewter shine, and holly boughs So cheerful red,-and as for miseltoe,- The finest bough that grew in the country round Was mark'd for Madam. Then her old ale went So bountiful about! a Christmas cask, And 't was a noble one!-God help me, Sir! But I shall never see such days again.
Things may be better yet than you suppose, And you should hope the best.
These alterations, Sir! I'm an old man, And love the good old fashions; we don't find Old bounty in new houses. They 've destroy'd All that my Lady loved; her favourite walk Grubb'd up,--and they do say that the great row Of elms behind the house, which meet a-top, They must fall too. Well! well! I did not think To live to see all this, and 't is perhaps
A comfort I sha'n't live to see it long.
But sure all changes are not needs for the worse, My friend?
May-hap they mayn't, Sir;-for all that I like what I've been used to. I remember All this from a child up, and now to lose it, 'Tis losing an old friend. There 's nothing left As 't was;-I go abroad and only meet
With men whose fathers I remember boys; The brook that used to run before my door, That's gone to the great pond; the trees I learnt To climb are down; and I see nothing now That tells me of old times,-except the stones In the church-yard. You are young, Sir, and I hope Have many years in store,-but pray to God You mayn't be left the last of all your friends.
Well! well! you've one friend more than you're aware of If the Squire's taste don't suit with yours, I warrant That's all you'll quarrel with: walk in and taste His beer, old friend! and see if your old Lady E'er broach'd a better cask. You did not know me, But we 're acquainted now. 'T would not be easy To make you like the outside; but within,
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