網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,
And, all the elements thy puny growth
Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig.

Who lived when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou speak,

As in Dodona once thy kindred trees
Oracular, I would not curious ask

The future, best unknown, but, at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.

By thee I might correct, erroneous oft,
The clock of history, facts and events
Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts
Recovering, and misstated setting right—
Desperate attempt, till trees shall speak again!
Time made thee what thou wast-king of the
woods;

And Time hath made thee what thou art-a cave For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign; and the numerous

flocks

That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outlived Thy popularity, and art become

(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.

The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present
To the four-quarter'd winds, robust and bold,
Warp'd into tough knee-timber, many a load!
But the axe spared thee. In those thriftier days
Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply
The bottomless demands of contest waged
For senatorial honours. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away
With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge,
Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more,
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserved,
Achieved a labour which had, far and wide,
By man perform'd, made all the forest ring.
Embowell'd now,
and of thy ancient self
Possessing naught but the scoop'd rind that

seems

A huge throat calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root.
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd'st
The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite.
Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,
A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs,
Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp
The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.
So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet
Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid,

While thus through all the stages thou hast Though all the superstructure, by the tooth push'd

Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass;

Then twig; then sapling; and, as century roll'd Slow after century, a giant-bulk

Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root Upheaved above the soil, and sides emboss'd With prominent wens, globose-till at the last The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict On other mighty ones, found also thee.

What exhibitions various hath the world
Witness'd of mutability in all

That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. Skies uncertain, now the heat
Transmitting cloudness, and the solar beam
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds-
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life
In all that live, plant, animal, and man,
And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads,
Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,
Delight in agitation, yet sustain

The force that agitates not unimpair'd;
But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their best tone their dissolution owe.

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth
From almost nullity into a state
Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence,
Slow, into such magnificent decay.
Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly
Could shake thee to the root-and time has been
When tempests could not. At thy firmest age
Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents
That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the

deck

Of some flagg'd admiral; and tortuous arms,

Pulverized of venality, a shell

Stands now, and semblance only of itself!

Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent

them off

Long since; and rovers of the forest wild
With bow and shaft, have burnt them. Some

have left

A splinter'd stump bleach'd to a snowy white;
And some, memorial none where once they grew.
Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth
Proof not contemptible of what she can,
Even where death predominates. The Spring
Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force
Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood,
So much thy juniors, who their birth received
Half a millennium since the date of thine.

But since, although well qualified by age
To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice
May be expected from thee, seated here
On thy distorted root, with hearers none,
Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform
Myself the oracle, and will discourse
In my own ear such matter as I may.

One man alone, the father of us all,
Drew not his life from woman; never gazed,
With mute unconsciousness of what he saw,
On all around him; learn'd not by degrees,
Nor owed articulation to his ear;
But, moulded by his Maker into man
At once, upstood intelligent, survey'd
All creatures-with precision understood
Their purport, uses, properties-assign'd
To each his name significant, and, fill'd
With love and wisdom, render'd back to Heaven
In praise harmonious the first air he drew.
He was excused the penalties of dull
Minority. No tutor charged his hand
With the thought-tracing quill, or task'd his mind

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

TO MY COUSIN ANNE BODHAM.

ON RECEIVING FROM HER A NETWORK PURSE, MADE BY HERSELF.

My gentle Anne, whom heretofore,

When I was young, and thou no more

Than plaything for a nurse,

I danced and fondled on my knee,
A kitten both in size and glee,

I thank thee for my purse.

Gold pays the worth of all things here;
But not of Love;-that gem's too dear
For richest rogues to win it :

I, therefore, as a proof of Love,
Esteem thy present far above

The best things kept within it.

My Mary! But well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary!

[blocks in formation]

LINES ON HIS MOTHER'S PICTURE.

OH that those lips had language! Life has pass'd

With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine-thy own sweet smile I see,
The same, that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,

O welcome guest, though unexpected here!
Who biddest me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long.

I will obey, not willingly alone,

But gladly, as the precept were her own:
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,

A momentary dream, that thou art she.

My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed! Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun! Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! it answers-Yes. I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such ?-It was.-Where thou art gone Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting word shall pass my lips no more!

(Mrs. Unwin) one of the most touching, and certainly the most widely-known of all his poems. for it has been read by thousands who have never perused "The Tant perhaps seen or heard of any other of his works. —SCTBIT, Life of Cooper, vol. iii. p. 150.]

Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.
What ardently I wish'd, I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learn'd at last submission to my lot,
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.
Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capp'd,
"Tis now become a history little known,
That once we call'd the pastoral house our own.
Short-lived possession! but the record fair,
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced
A thousand other themes less deeply traced.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,
That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid;
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,
The biscuit, or confectionary plum;
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow'd:
All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and breaks,
That humour interposed too often makes;
All this still legible in memory's page,
And still to be so to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honours to thee as my numbers may;
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,
Not scorn'd in Heaven, though little noticed here.

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jessamine,

I prick'd them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while,

Could those few pleasant days again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?

I would not trust my heart-the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might.-
But no-what here we call our life is such,
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast
(The storms all weather'd and the ocean cross'd)
Shoots into port at some well-haven'd isle
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile,
There sits quiescent on the floods that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reach'd the
shore,

" Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life, long since has anchor'd by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distress'd-
Me, howling blasts drive devious, tempest-toss'd,
Sails ripp'd, seams opening wide, and compass lost,
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.
Yet oh the thought that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not, that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise-
The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
And now, farewell-Time unrevoked has run
His wonted course, yet what I wish'd is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem t' have lived my childhood o'er again;
To have renew'd the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;

And, while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft-

Wouldst softly speak,and stroke my head,and smile,) | Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

ERASMUS DARWIN.

[Born, 1732. Died, 1802.]

ERASMUS DARWIN was born at Elton, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, where his father was a private gentleman. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, and took the degree of bachelor in medicine; after which, he went to Edinburgh, to finish his medical studies. Having taken a physician's degree at that university, he settled in his profession at Litchfield; and, by a bold and successful display of his skill in one of the first cases to which he was called, established his practice and reputation. About a year after his arrival, he married a Miss Howard, the daughter of a respectable inhabitant of Litchfield, and by that connection strengthened his interest in the

place. He was, in theory and practice, a rigid enemy to the use of wine, and of all intoxicating liquors; and, in the course of his practice, was regarded as a great promoter of temperate habits among the citizens: but he gave a singular instance of his departure from his own theory, within a few years after his arrival in the very place where he proved the apostle of sobriety. Having one day joined a few friends who were going on a water-party, he got so tipsy after a cold collation, that, on the boat approaching Not tingham, he jumped into the river and swam ashore. The party called to the philosopher to return; but he walked on deliberately, in his

wet clothes, till he reached the market-place of Nottingham, and was there found by his friend, an apothecary of the place, haranguing the town'speople on the benefit of fresh air, till he was persuaded by his friend to come to his house and shift his clothes. Dr. Darwin stammered habitually; but on this occasion wine untied his tongue. In the prime of life, he had the misfortune to break the patella of his knee, in consequence of attempting to drive a carriage of his own Utopian contrivance, which upset at the first experiment.

He lost his first wife, after thirteen years of domestic union. During his widowerhood, Mrs. Pole the wife of a Mr. Pole, of Redburn, in Derbyshire, brought her children to his house to be cured of a poison, which they had taken in the shape of medicine, and, by his invitation, she continued with him till the young patients were perfectly cured. He was soon after called to attend the lady, at her own house, in a dangerous fever, and prescribed with more than a physician's interest in her fate. Not being invited to sleep in the house in the night after his arrival, he spent the hours till morning beneath a tree, opposite to her apartment, watching the passing and repassing lights. While the life which he so passionately loved was in danger, he paraphrased Petrarch's celebrated sonnet on the dream which predicted to him the death of Laura. Though less favoured by the muse than Petrarch, he was more fortunate in love. Mrs. Pole, on the demise of an aged partner, accepted, Dr. Darwin's hand in 1781; and, in compliance with her inclinations, he removed from Litchfield to practice at Derby. He had a family by his second wife, and continued in high professional reputation till his death, in 1802, which was occasioned by angina pectoris, the result of a sudden cold.

⚫ Dr. Darwin was between forty and fifty before he began the principal poem by which he is known. Till then he had written only occasional verses, and of these he was not ostentatious, fearing that it might affect his medical reputation to be thought a poet. When his name as a physician had, however, been established, he ventured, in the year 1781, to publish the first part of his "Botanic Garden." Mrs. Anna Seward, in her life of Darwin, declares herself the authoress of the opening lines of the poem; but as she had never courage to make this pretension during Dr. Darwin's life, her veracity on the subject is exposed to suspicion.* In 1789 and 1792, the second and third part of his botanic poem appeared. In 1793 and 1796, he published the first and second parts of his "Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life." In 1801, he published "Phy

FROM "THE BOTANIC GARDEN," CANTO II.

DESTRUCTION OF CAMBYSES'S ARMY.

WHEN Heaven's dread justice smites in crimes o'ergrown

The blood-nursed Tyrant on his purple throne,

[*"I was at Licthfield," writes R. L. Edgeworth to Sir Walter Scott, "when the lines in question were

tologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening;" and, about the same time, a smail treatise on female education, which attracted little notice. After his death appeared his poem, "The Temple of Nature," a mere echo of the "Botanic Garden."

Darwin was a materialist in poetry no less than in philosophy. In the latter, he attempts to build systems of vital sensibility on mere mechanical principles; and, in the former, he paints every thing to the mind's eye, as if the soul had no pleasure beyond the vivid conception of form, colour, and motion. Nothing makes poetry more lifeless than description by abstract terms and general qualities; but Darwin runs to the opposite extreme of prominently glaring circumstantial description, without shade, relief, or perspective.

His celebrity rose and fell with unexampled rapidity. His poetry appeared at a time peculiarly favourable to innovation, and his attempt to wed poetry and science was a bold experiment, which had some apparent sanction from the triumphs of modern discovery. When Lucretius wrote, science was in her cradle; but modern philosophy had revealed truths in nature more sublime than the marvels of fiction. The Rosicrucian machinery of his poem had, at the first glance, an imposing appearance, and the variety of his allusion was surprising. On a closer view, it was observable that the Botanic goddess, and her Sylphs and Gnomes, were useless, from their having no employment; and tiresome, from being the mere pretexts for declamation. The variety of allusion is very whimsical. Dr. Franklin is compared to Cupid; while Hercules, Lady Melbourne, Emma Crewe, Brindley's canals, and sleeping cherubs, sweep on like images in a dream. Tribes and grasses are likened to angels, and the truffle is rehearsed as a subterranean empress. His laborious ingenuity in finding comparisons is frequently like that of Hervey in his " Meditations," or of Flavel in his "Gardening Spiritualized.”

If Darwin, however, was not a good poet, it may be owned that he is frequently a bold personifier, and that some of his insulated passages are musical and picturesque. His Botanic Garden once pleased many better judges than his affected biographer, Anna Seward; it fascinated even the taste of Cowper, who says, in conjunc tion with Hayley,

"We, therefore pleased, extol thy song,
Though various yet complete,
Rich in embellishment, as strong
And learned as 'tis sweet.
And deem the bard, whoe'er he be,
And howsoever known,

That will not weave a wreath for thee,
Unworthy of his own."

Gnomes! your bold forms unnumber'd arms outstretch,

And urge the vengeance o'er the guilty wretch.Thus when Cambyses led his barbarous hosts From Persia's rocks to Egypt's trembling coasts,

written by Miss Seward."-Edgeworth's Memoirs, vil. B p. 267.]

Defiled each hallow'd fane and sacred wood,
And, drunk with fury, swell'd the Nile with blood;
Waved his proud banner o'er the Theban states,
And pour'd destruction through her hundred
gates;

In dread divisions march'd the marshall'd bands,
And swarming armies blacken'd all the lands,
By Memphis these to Ethiop's sultry plains,
And those to Hammon's sand-encircled fanes.
Slow as they pass'd, the indignant temples frown'd,
Low curses muttering from the vaulted ground;
Long aisles of cypress waved their deepen'd glooms,
And quivering spectres grinn'd amid the tombs!
Prophetic whispers breathed from Sphinx's tongue,
And Memnon's lyre with hollow murmurs rung;
Burst from each pyramid expiring groans,
And darker shadows stretch'd their lengthen'd

cones.

Day after day their deathful route they steer,
Lust in the van, and Rapine in the rear.

Gnomes! as they march'd, you hid the gather'd
fruits,

The bladed grass, sweet grains and mealy roots; Scared the tired quails that journey'd o'er their heads,

Retain'd the locusts in their earthy beds;

Bade on your sands no night-born dews distil, Stay'd with vindictive hands the scanty rill.— Loud o'er the camp the fiend of Famine shrieks, Calls all her brood and champs her hundred beaks; O'er ten square leagues her pennons broad expand, And twilight swims upon the shuddering sand: Perch'd on her crest the griffin Discord clings, And giant Murder rides between her wings; Blood from each clotted hair and horny quill, And showers of tears in blended streams distill; High poised in air her spiry neck she bends, Rolls her keen eye, her dragon claws extends, Darts from above, and tears at each fell swoop With iron fangs the decimated troop.

Now o'er their head the whizzing whirlwinds
breathe,

And the live desert pants, and heaves beneath;
Tinged by the crimson sun, vast columns rise
Of eddying sands, and war amid the skies;
In red arcades the billowy plain surround,
And whirling turrets stalk along the ground.
-Long ranks in vain their shining blades extend,
To demon-gods their knees unhallow'd bend,
Wheel in wide circle, form in hollow square,
And now they front, and now they fly the war,
Pierce the deaf tempest with lamenting cries,
Press their parch'd lips, and close their blood-shot
eyes.

Gnomes! o'er the waste you led your myriad

powers,

Climb'd on the whirls, and aim'd the flinty showers! Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge, Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge;

Wave over wave the driving desert swims, Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs ;

Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush, Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush-

Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,
And one great earthy ocean covers all!—
Then ceased the storm,-Night bow'd his Ethiop
brow

To earth, and listened to the groans below,-
Grim Horror shook,-awhile the living hill
Heaved with convulsive throes,-and all was still!

FROM CANTO III.

Persuasion to Mothers to suckle their own Children.

CONNUBIAL Fair! whom no fond transport

warms

To lull your infant in maternal arms.
Who, bless'd in vain with tumid bosoms, hear
His tender wailings with unfeeling ear;
The soothing kiss and milky rill deny
To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!-
Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof,
The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!
Oft hears the gilded couch unpitied plains,
And many a tear the tasseled cushion stains!
No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest,
So soft no pillow as his mother's breast!-
Thus charm'd to sweet repose, when twilight hours
Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers,
The cherub Innocence, with smile divine,
Shuts his white wings, and sleeps on beauty's shrine.

FROM THE SAME.

Midnight Conflagration; Catastrophe of the families of Woodmason and Molesworth.

FROM dome to dome when flames infuriate climb, Sweep the long street, invest the tower sublime; Gild the tall vanes, amid the astonish'd night, And reddening Heaven returns the sanguine light; While with vast strides and bristling hair aloof Pale Danger glides along the falling roof; And giant Terror howling in amaze Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze. Nymphs! you first taught the gelid wave to rise, Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies; In iron cells condensed the airy spring, And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing; -On the fierce flames the shower impetuous falls, And sudden darkness shrouds the shatter'd walls; Steam, smoke, and dust in blended volumes roll, And night and silence repossess the pole.

Where were ye, Nymphs! in those disastrous

hours,

Which wrapp'd in flames Augusta's sinking towers?

Why did ye linger in your wells and groves, When sad Woodmason mourn'd her infant loves? When thy fair daughters with unheeded screams, Ill-fated Molesworth! call'd the loiteringstreams?The trembling nymph on bloodless fingers hung, Eyes from the tottering wall the distant throng, With ceaseless shrieks her sleeping friends alarms, Drops with singed hair into her lover's arms,The illumined mother seeks with footsteps fleet, Where hangs the safe balcony o'er the street, Wrapp'd in her sheet her youngest hope suspends, And panting lowers it to her tiptoe friends;

« 上一頁繼續 »