With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse;
Whence, tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the tragic muse;
Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,
With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined,
How many, racked with honest1 passions, droop
In deep retired distress; how many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man2
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of Charity would warm,
And her wide wish Benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh,
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.
THE HYMN OF THE SEASONS.3
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
1 Honest-honourable, not debasing; this is the classical sense of the original word honestum.
2 Thought fond man, &c.-i. e. if foolish man thought of these, &c. Some copies erroneously point the passage thus :-"Thought, fond man, &c.," to the manifest violation of the sense.
This piece," remarks Dr. Aikin, "the sublimest production of its kind since the days of Milton, should be considered as the winding up of all the variety of matter and design contained in the preceding parts, [i. e. the four seasons] and thus is not only admirable as a separate composition, but is contrived with masterly skill to strengthen the unity and connection of the great whole."
Montgomery, too, designates this hymn as "unquestionably one of the most magnificent specimens of verse in any language, and only inferior to the inspired prototypes in the Book of Psalms, of which it is for the most part a. paraphrase:" Lectures on Poetry, p. 182.
This fine poem should be compared with Coleridge's "Hymnn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni," p. 149, and Milton's Morning Hymn, p. 338.
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing SPRING
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the SUMMER months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks:
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in AUTUMN unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In WINTER awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined,
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature: hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes;
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms,
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks,1 attune, ye trembling rills,1
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds, to Him, whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day, best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write, with every beam, His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world,
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And His unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake! a boundless song
Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men to the deep organ join
1 Brook, rill, torrent-A brook-from the Anglo-Saxon breac-an, to break— is water that breaks or bursts through from the ground; a rill-from the Latin rivulus, diminutive of rivus, a stream-is a little stream; a torrent-from the Latin torrens, foaming, boiling-is water that dashes impetuously along or down, foaming as it flows.
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening east,
Be my tongue mute, my Fancy' paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!
Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste, as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in Light ineffable;
Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise!
My fancy-i. e. may my fancy, &c.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.1
IN lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found.
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;
And there a season atween June and May,
Half prankt3 with spring, with summer half imbrowned,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne caréd e'en for play.
Was nought around but images of rest;
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;
And flowery beds, that slumbrous influence kest,+
From poppies breathed;5 and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played,
And hurléd everywhere their waters sheen;
That, as they bickered through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.
The "Castle of Indolence" from which the above extract is made, is considered one of the most successful of the many imitations of the style and manner of Spenser. The conception, diction, and measure, harmonise together with singular aptness.
Atween, &c.-i. e. combining the characteristic features of May with those of June.
3 Prankt-from the German prang-en to act proudly, display ostentatiouslygaudily arrayed or decked out.
4 Kest-old English for cast.
5 From poppies, &c.-i. e. which influence was from poppies breathed.
6 Bicker-a word of uncertain origin-to skirmish; to quiver or exhibit a tremulous motion.
7 Coil-See note 2, p. 277.
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