網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

With terrour shake, and pity move,
Rouse with revenge, or melt with love;
O deign t' attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottoes talk;
Teach him to scorn with frigid art
Feebly to touch th' unraptur'd heart;
Like lightning, let his mighty verse
The bosom's inmost foldings pierce;
With native beauties win applause
Beyond cold critics' studied laws;
O let each Muse's fame increase,
O bid Britannia rival Greece!

VERSES:

WRITTEN AT MONTAUBAN IN FRANCE, 1750.
TARN, how delightful wind thy willow'd waves,
But ah! they fructify a land of slaves!
In vain thy bare-foot, sun-burnt peasants hide
With luscious grapes yon hill's romantic side;
No cups nectareous shall their toil repay,

The priest's, the soldier's, and the fermier's prey :
Vain glows this Sun, in cloudless glory drest,
That strikes fresh vigour through the pining breast;

Give me, beneath a colder, changeful sky,
My soul's best, only pleasure, Liberty!
What millions perish'd near thy mournful flood*,
When the red papal tyrant cry'd out -"Blood!"
Less fierce the Saracen, and quiver'd Moor,
That dash'd thy infants 'gainst the stones of yore.
Be warn'd, ye nations round; and trembling see
Dire superstition quench humanity!

By all the chiefs in freedom's battles lost,
By wise and virtuous Alfred's aweful ghost;
By old Galgacus' scythed, iron car,

That, swiftly whirling through the walks of war, Dash'd Roman blood, and crush'd the foreign throngs;

By holy Druids' courage-breathing songs;
By fierce Bonduca's shield and foaming steeds;
By the bold Peers that met on Thames's meads;
By the fifth Henry's helm and lightning spear;
O Liberty, my warm petition hear;

Be Albion still thy joy! with her remain,
Long as the surge shall lash her oak-crown'd plain!

* Alluding to the persecutions of the Protestants, and the wars of the Saracens, carried on in the southern provinces of France.

THOMAS WARTON.

T

lamented the death of George II., in some lines addressed to Mr. Pitt, he continued the courtly strain in poems on the marriage of George III., and on the birth of the Prince of Wales, both printed in the uni.

volumes 4to., of the Greek poet Theocritus, whic gave him celebrity in other countries besides his own. At what time he first employed himself with the his tory of English poetry, we are not informed, but e 1774 he had so far proceeded in the work as to pub lish the first volume in 4to. He afterwards printre a second in 1778, and a third in 1781; but E labour now became tiresome to himself, and th great compass which he had allotted to his plan was so irksome, that an unfinished fourth volume w all that he added to it.

HOMAS WARTON, younger brother of the preceding, a distinguished poet, and a historian of poetry, was born at Basingstoke in 1728. He was educated under his father till 1743, when he was admitted a commoner of Trinity college, Oxford.versity collection. In 1770 he gave an edition, in tw Here he exercised his poetical talent to so much advantage, that, on the appearance of Mason's Elegy of Isis, which severely reflected on the disloyalty of Oxford at that period, he was encouraged by Dr. Huddesford, president of his college, to vindicate the cause of his university. This task he performed with great applause, by writing, in his twenty-first year, "The Triumph of Isis," a picce of much spirit and fancy, in which he retaliated upon the bard of Cam, by satirising the courtly venality then supposed to distinguish the rival university. His "Progress of Discontent," published in 1750, exhibited to great advantage his powers in the familiar style, and his talent for humour, with a knowledge of human life, extraordinary at his early age, especially if composed, as it is said, for a college exercise in 1746. In 1750 he took the degree of M. A., and in the following year became a fellow of his college.

His spirited satire, entitled "Newmarket," and pointed against the ruinous passion for the turf; his "Ode for Music ;" and his " Verses on the Death of the Prince of Wales," were written about this time; and, in 1753, he was the editor of a small collection of poems, under the title of "The Union," which was printed at Edinburgh, and contained several of his own performances. In 1754 he made himself known by Observations on Spenser's Faery Queen, in one volume, afterwards enlarged to two; a work well received by the public, and which made a considerable addition to his literary reputation. So high was his character in the University, that in 1757 he was elected to the office of its poetry professor, which he held for the usual period of ten years, and rendered respectable by the erudition and taste displayed in his lectures.

It does not appear necessary in this place to particularize all the prose compositions which, whether grave or humorous, fell at this time from his pen; but it may be mentioned that verse continued occasionally to occupy his thoughts, and that having

Br

The place of Camden professor of history, vacan by the resignation of Sir William Scott, was the close of his professional exertions; but soon zft! another engagement required his attention. His Majesty's express desire, the post of port laureat was offered to him, and accepted, and be determined to use his best endeavours for rendering it respectable. Varying the monotony of active"sary court compliment by topics better adapted to poetical description, he improved the style of th laureate odes, though his lyric strains underwer some ridicule on that account.

His concluding publication was an edition of t = juvenile poems of Milton, of which the first vo made its appearance in 1785, and the second in 179, a short time before his death. His constitution now began to give way. In his sixty-second year attack of the gout shattered his frame, and was sta ceeded in May, 1790, by a paralytic seizure, whic carried him off, at his lodgings in Oxford. His remains were interred, with every academical bone c", in the chapel of Trinity college.

The pieces of Thomas Warton are very various in subject, and none of them long, whence he mut only rank among the minor poets; but scarcely one of that tribe has noted with finer observation they minute circumstances in rural nature that afford pleasure in description, or has derived from the regions of fiction more animated and pictures g scenery.

ODE TO THE FIRST OF APRIL.

WITH dalliance rude young Zephyr wooes
Coy May. Full oft with kind excuse
The boisterous boy the fair denies,
Or with a scornful smile complies.
Mindful of disaster past,

And shrinking at the northern blast,
The sleety storm returning still,
The morning hoar, and evening chill;
Reluctant comes the timid Spring.
Scarce a bee, with airy ring,
Murmurs the blossom'd boughs around,
That clothe the garden's southern bound:
Scarce a sickly straggling flower,
Decks the rough castle's rifted tower :
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
From the dark dell's entangled steeps;
O'er the fields of waving broom
Slowly shoots the golden bloom :
And, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the transitory gale.

While from the shrubbery's naked maze,
Where the vegetable blaze

Of Flora's brightest 'broidery shone,
Every chequer'd charm is flown;
Save that the lilac hangs to view
Its bursting gems in clusters blue.

Scant along the ridgy land

The beans their new-born ranks expand:
The fresh-turn'd soil with tender blades
Thinly the sprouting barley shades:
Fringing the forest's devious edge,
Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge;
Or to the distant eye displays
Weakly green its budding sprays.

The swallow, for a moment seen,
Skims in haste the village green;
From the gray moor, on feeble wing,
The screaming plovers idly spring:
The butterfly, gay-painted soon,
Explores awhile the tepid noon :
And fondly trusts its tender dyes
To fickle suns, and flattering skies.
Fraught with a transient, frozen shower,
If a cloud should haply lower,
Sailing o'er the landscape dark,
Mute on a sudden is the lark;
But when gleams the Sun again
O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain,
And from behind his watery vail
Looks through the thin descending hail;
She mounts, and, lessening to the sight,
Salutes the blithe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues
Mid the dim rainbow's scatter'd hues.
Where in venerable rows
Widely waving oaks enclose
The mote of yonder antique hall,
Swarm the rooks with clamorous call;
And to the toils of nature true,
Wreath their capacious nests anew.
Musing through the lawny park,
The lonely poet loves to mark
How various greens in faint degrees
Tinge the tall groupes of various trees;
While, careless of the changing year,
The pine cerulean, never sere,

town.

Towers distinguish'd from the rest,
And proudly vaunts her winter vest.
Within some whispering osier isle,
Where Glym's low banks neglected smile;
And each trim meadow still retains
The wintry torrent's oozy stains:
Beneath a willow, long forsook,
The fisher seeks his custom'd nook;
And bursting through the crackling sedge,
That crowns the current's cavern'd edge,
He startles from the bordering wood
The bashful wild-duck's early brood.

O'er the broad downs, a novel race,
Frisk the lambs with faultering pace,
And with eager bleatings fill

The foss that skirts the beacon'd hill.

His free-born vigour yet unbroke
To lordly man's usurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play,
Basking beneath the noon-tide ray,
And stretch'd among the daisies pied
Of a green dingle's sloping side:
While far beneath, where Nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loose luxuriance taught to stray
A thousand tumbling rills inlay
With silver veins the vale, or pass
Redundant through the sparkling grass.
Yet, in these presages rude,
Midst her pensive solitude,
Fancy, with prophetic glance,
Sees the teeming months advance;
The field, the forest, green and gay,
The dappled slope, the tedded hay;
Sees the reddening orchard blow,
The harvest wave, the vintage flow;
Sees June unfold his glossy robe
Of thousand hues o'er all the globe;
Sees Ceres grasp her crown of corn,
And plenty load her ample horn.

ODE.

THE CRUSADE.

BOUND for holy Palestine,
Nimbly we brush'd the level brinc,
All in azure steel array'd;
O'er the wave our weapons play'd,
And made the dancing billows glow;
High upon the trophied prow,
Many a warrior-minstrel swung
His sounding harp, and boldly sung :
"Syrian virgins, wail and weep,
English Richard plows the deep!
Tremble, watchmen, as ye spy
From distant towers, with anxious eye,

* The Glym is a small river in Oxfordshire, flowing through Warton's parish of Kiddington, or Cuddington, and dividing it into upper and lower It is described by himself in his account of Cuddington, as a deep but narrow stream, winding through willowed meadows, and abounding in trouts, pikes, and wild-fowl. It gives name to the village of Glymton, which adjoins to Kiddington.

The radiant range of shield and lance
Down Damascus' hills advance :
From Sion's turrets as afar

Ye ken the march of Europe's war!
Saladin, thou paynim king,
From Albion's isle revenge we bring!
On Acon's spiry citadel,

Though to the gale thy banners swell,
Pictur'd with the silver Moon;
England shall end thy glory soon!
In vain, to break our firm array,
Thy brazen drums hoarse discord bray :
Those sounds our rising fury fan:
English Richard in the van,
On to victory we go,

A vaunting infidel the foe."

Blondel led the tuneful band,
And swept the wire with glowing hand.
Cyprus, from her rocky mound,
And Crete, with piny verdure crown'd,
Far along the smiling main
Echoed the prophetic strain.

Soon we kiss'd the sacred earth
That gave a murder'd Saviour birth;
Then with ardour fresh endu'd,
Thus the solemn song renew'd.

"Lo, the toilsome voyage past, Heaven's favour'd hills appear at last! Object of our holy vow,

We tread the Tyrian valleys now.
From Carmel's almond-shaded steep
We feel the cheering fragrance creep :
O'er Engaddi's shrubs of balm
Waves the date-empurpl'd palm:
See Lebanon's aspiring head
Wide his immortal umbrage spread!
Hail Calvary, thou mountain hoar,
Wet with our Redeemer's gore!
Ye trampled tombs, ye fanes forlorn,
Ye stones, by tears of pilgrims worn;
Your ravish'd honours to restore,
Fearless we climb this hostile shore!
And thou, the sepulchre of God;
By mocking pagans rudely trod,
Bereft of every aweful rite,

And quench'd thy lamps that beam'd so bright;
For thee, from Britain's distant coast,
Lo, Richard leads his faithful host!

Aloft in his heroic hand,

Blazing like the beacon's brand,
O'er the far-affrighted fields,
Resistless Kaliburn * he wields.
Proud Saracen, pollute no more
The shrines by martyrs built of yore!

From each wild mountain's trackless crown
In vain thy gloomy castles frown:
Thy battering engines, huge and high,
In vain our steel-clad steeds defy;
And, rolling in terrific state

On giant-wheels harsh thunders grate.
When eve has hush'd the buzzing camp,
Amid the moon-light vapours damp,
Thy necromantic forms, in vain,
Haunt us on the tented plain :

Kaliburn is the sword of king Arthur; which, as the monkish historians say, came into the possession of Richard I., and was given by that monarch, in the Crusades, to Tancred king of Sicily, as a royal present of inestimable value, about the year 1190.

We bid the spectre-shapes avaunt,
Ashtaroth, and Termagaunt!+
With many a demon, pale of hue,
Doom'd to drink the bitter dew,
That drops from Macon's sooty tree,
Mid the dread grove of ebony.
Nor magic charms, nor fiends of Hell,
The Christian's holy courage quell.

Salem, in ancient majesty
Arise, and lift thee to the sky!
Soon on thy battlements divine
Shall wave the badge of Constantine.

Ye barons, to the Sun unfold

Our cross with crimson wove and gold!"

THE

PROGRESS OF DISCONTENT.

WHEN now mature in classic knowledge,
The joyful youth is sent to college,
His father comes, a vicar plain,
At Oxford bred-in Anna's reign,
And thus, in form of humble suitor,
Bowing accosts a reverend tutor :
"Sir, I'm a Glo'stershire divine,
And this my eldest son of nine;
My wife's ambition and my own
Was that this child should wear a gown:
I'll warrant that his good behaviour
Will justify your future favour;
And, for his parts, to tell the truth,
My son's a very forward youth;
Has Horace all by heart-you'd wonder —
And mouths out Homer's Greek like thunder.
If you'd examine- and admit him,
A scholarship would nicely fit him;
That he succeeds 't is ten to one;
Your vote and interest, sir!"-'T is done.
Our pupil's hopes, though twice defeated,
Are with a scholarship completed:
A scholarship but half maintains,
And college-rules are heavy chains:
In garret dark he smokes and puns,
A prey to discipline and duns;
And now, intent on new designs,
Sighs for a fellowship- and fines.

When nine full tedious winters past,
That utmost wish is crown'd at last:
But the rich prize no sooner got,
Again he quarrels with his lot:
"These fellowships are pretty things,
We live indeed like petty kings:
But who can bear to waste his whole age
Amid the dullness of a college,
Debarr'd the common joys of life,
And that prime bliss-a loving wife!
O! what's a table richly spread,
Without a woman at its head?

[merged small][ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][ocr errors]

Of dean, vice præs. of bursar too; Come joys, that rural quiet yields,

-

Come, tythes, and house, and fruitful fields!" Too fond of freedom and of ease A patron's vanity to please, Long time he watches, and by stealth, Each frail incumbent's doubtful health; At length, and in his fortieth year, A living drops two hundred clear! With breast elate beyond expression, He hurries down to take possession, With rapture views the sweet retreat -What a convenient house! how neat! For fuel here 's sufficient wood: Pray God the cellars may be good! The garden-that must be new-plann'd Shall these old-fashion'd yew-trees stand? O'er yonder vacant plot shall rise The flow'ry shrub of thousand dyes: Yon wall, that feels the southern ray, Shall blush with ruddy fruitage gay : While thick beneath its aspect warm O'er well-rang'd hives the bees shall swarm, From which, ere long, of golden gleam Metheglin's luscious juice shall stream: This awkward hut, o'ergrown with ivy, We 'll alter to a modern privy: Up yon green slope, of hazels trim, An avenue so cool and dim Shall to an arbour at the end, In spite of gout, entice a friend. My predecessor lov'd devotionBut of a garden had no notion."

Continuing this fantastic farce on, He now commences country parson. To make his character entire,

[ocr errors]

He weds a cousin of the 'squire ;
Not over-weighty in the purse,
But many doctors have done worse:
And though she boasts no charms divine,
Yet she can carve and make birch wine.

Thus fixt, content he taps his barrel,
Exhorts his neighbours not to quarrel;
Finds his church-wardens have discerning
Both in good liquor and good learning;
With tythes his barns replete he sees,
And chuckles o'er his surplice fees;
Studies to find out latent dues,
And regulates the state of pews;
Rides a sleek mare with purple housing,
To share the monthly club's carousing;
Of Oxford pranks facetious tells,
And-but on Sundays-hears no bells;
Sends presents of his choicest fruit,
And prunes himself each sapless shoot;
Plants cauliflowers, and boasts to rear
The earliest melons of the year;
Thinks alteration charming work is,
Keeps Bantam cocks, and feeds his turkies;
Builds in his copse a fav'rite bench,
And stores the pond with carp and tench.

But ah! too soon his thoughtless breast By cares domestic is opprest; And a third butcher's bill, and brewing, Threaten inevitable ruin:

For children fresh expenses yet,

And Dicky now for school is fit.

"Why did I sell my college life,"
He cries, "for benefice and wife?
Return, ye days, when endless pleasure
I found in reading, or in leisure!
When calm around the common room
I puff'd my daily pipe's perfume!
Rode for a stomach, and inspected,
At annual bottlings, corks selected :
And din'd untax'd, untroubled, under
The portrait of our pious founder!
When impositions were supply'd
To light my pipe- or soothe my pride.
No cares were then for forward peas,
A yearly-longing wife to please;
My thoughts no christ'ning dinners crost,
No children cry'd for butter'd toast;
And ev'ry night I went to bed,
Without a modus in my head!"

Oh! trifling head, and fickle heart !
Chagrin'd at whatsoe'er thou art;
A dupe to follies yet untry'd,

And sick of pleasures, scarce enjoy'd!

Each prize possess'd, thy transport ceases, And in pursuit alone it pleases.

INSCRIPTION IN A HERMITAGE.

AT ANSLEY HALL IN WARWICKSHIRE.

BENEATH this stony roof reclin'd,
I soothe to peace my pensive mind;
And while, to shade my lowly cave,
Embowering elms their umbrage wave;
And while the maple dish is mine,
The beechen cup, unstain'd with wine;
I scorn the gay licentious crowd,
Nor heed the toys that deck the proud.

Within my limits lone and still
The blackbird pipes in artless trill;
Fast by my couch, congenial guest,
The wren has wove her mossy nest;
From busy scenes, and brighter skies,
To lurk with innocence, she flies:
Here hopes in safe repose to dwell,
Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.

At morn I take my custom'd round,
To mark how buds yon shrubby mound,
And every opening primrose count,
That trimly paints my blooming mount:
Or o'er the sculptures, quaint and rude,
That grace my gloomy solitude,

I teach in winding wreaths to stray
Fantastic ivy's gadding spray.

[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »