Full in the midst, and o'er thy num'rous train Displays the awful wonders of her reign. There thron'd supreme in native state, If Sirius flame with fainting heat, She calls; ideal groves their shade extend, The cool gale breathes, the silent show'rs descend. Or, if bleak Winter, frowning round, Disrobe the trees, and chill the ground, She, mild magician, waves her potent wand, And ready summers wake at her command. See, visionary suns arise Through silver clouds and azure skies; See, sportive zephyrs fan the crisped streams; Through shadowy brakes light glance the sparkling beams: While, near the secret moss-grown cave, That stands beside the crystal wave, Sweet Echo, rising from her rocky bed, Mimics the feather'd chorus o'er her head. Rise, hallow'd Milton! rise, and say, How, at thy gloomy close of day, How, when "deprest by age, beset with wrongs;" When "fall'n on evil days and evil tongues;" When darkness, brooding on thy sight, Each scene, that Tyber's banks supplied; Were still thine own; thy ample mind Recall'd the long-lost beams of grace, That whilom shot from Nature's face, When God, in Eden, o'er her youthful breast Spread with his own right hand Perfection's gor geous vest. ODE TO INDEPENDENCY. HERE, on my native shore reclin'd, And bid these ruffling gales of grief subside: Come to thy vot'ry's ardent prayer, Thou scatter'st blessings round with lavish hand, As now o'er this lone beach I stray, And artless wove his Dorian lay, Thou heard'st him, goddess, strike the tender string, In vain oppression lifts her iron hand; He scorns them both, and, arm'd with truth alone, Behold, like him, immortal maid, And fan them to that dazzling blaze of song, "Fond youth! to Marvell's patriot fame, ""Tis he, my son, alone shall cheer At that sad hour, when all thy hopes decline; "This fragrant wreath, the Muses' meed, Receive, thou favor'd son, at my command, *Andrew Marvell, born at Kingston-upon-Hull in the year 1620. † See The Rehearsal Transposed, and an account of the effect of that satire, in the Biographia Britannica, art. Marvell. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A LADY. THE midnight clock has toll'd; and hark, the bell Of death beats slow! heard ye the note profound? It pauses now; and now, with rising knell, Flings to the hollow gale its sullen sound. Yes, **** is dead. Attend the strain, Daughters of Albion! Ye that, light as air, So oft have tript in her fantastic train, With hearts as gay, and faces half as fair: For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom; (This envy owns, since now her bloom is filed ;) Fair as the forms, that, wove in fancy's loom, Float in light vision round the poet's head. Whene'er with soft serenity she smil'd, Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise, How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild, The liquid lustre darted from her eyes! Each look, each motion, wak'd a new-born grace, That o'er her form its transient glory cast: Some lovelier wonder soon usurp'd the place, Chas'd by a charm still lovelier than the last. That bell again! it tells us what she is: On what she was, no more the strain prolong: Luxuriant fancy, pause: an hour like this Demands the tribute of a serious song, Maria claims it from that sable bier, Know, ye were form'd to range yon azure field, Your hopes, your fears, in doubt, in dullness steep More than those preachers of your fav'rite creed Who proudly swell the brazen throat of war, Who form the phalanx, bid the battle bleed; Nor wish for more: who conquer, but to die. Hear, Folly, hear, and triumph in the tale: Like you, they reason; not, like you, enjoy The breeze of bliss, that fills your silken sail: On Pleasure's glitt'ring stream ye gaily steer Your little course to cold oblivion's shore: They dare the storm, and, through th' inclement year Stem the rough surge, and brave the torrent's roar. Is it for glory? that just Fate denies. Long must the warrior moulder in his shroud, Ere from her trump the heav'n-breath'd accents rise That lift the hero from the fighting crowd. Is it his grasp of empire to extend? To curb the fury of insulting foes? Ambition, cease: the idle contest end: 'Tis but a kingdom thou canst win or lose. Where cold and wan the slumberer rests her head; And why must murder'd myriads lose their all, In still small whispers to reflection's ear, She breathes the solemn dictates of the dead. Oh catch the awful notes, and lift them loud; Proclaim the theme, by sage, by fool rever'd: Hear it, ye young, ye vain, ye great, ye proud! 'Tis Nature speaks, and Nature will be heard. Yes, ye shall hear, and tremble as ye hear, While, high with health, your hearts uxulting leap; Ev'n in the midst of Pleasure's mad career, The mental monitor shall wake and weep. What brighter planet on your births arose : Ye sip the nectar of each varying bloom: That led her hence, though soon, by steps so slow: Long at her couch Death took his patient stand, And menac'd oft, and oft withheld the blow: To give reflection time, with lenient art, Each fond delusion from her soul to steal; Teach her from folly peaceably to part, And wean her from a world she lov'd so well. Say, are ye sure his mercy shall extend To you so long a span? Alas, ye sigh: Make then, while yet ye may, your God, your friend, And learn with equal ease to sleep or die! Nor think the Muse, whose sober voice ye hear, Contracts with bigot frown her sullen brow; Casts round Religion's orb the mists of fear, Or shades with horrors, what with smiles should glow. No; she would warm you with seraphic fire, Not sink and slumber in your cells of clay. (If life be all,) why desolation lower, With famish'd frown, on this affrighted ball, That thou may'st flame the meteor of an hour? Go wiser ye, that flutter life away, Crown with the mantling juice the goblet high; Weave the light dance, with festive freedom gay, Yet know, vain sceptics, know, th' Almighty mind, And live your moment, since the next ye die. Who breath'd on man a portion of his fire, Nor shall the pile of hope, his mercy rear'd, EPITAPH ON MRS. MASON. IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL. TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which Heav'n so lately gave · To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form; she bow'd to taste the wave, And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine : Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love And bids "the pure in heart behold their God." WILLIAM COWPER. scale of poetic excellence, sufficiently established his claim to originality. Its topics are, “Table Talk," Error," "Truth," " Expostulation," "Hope," "Charity," "Conversation," and "Retirement," all treated upon religious principles, and not without a considerable tinge of that rigor and austerity which belonged to his system. These pieces are written in rhymed heroics, which he commonly manages with little grace, or attention to melody. The style, though often prosaic, is never flat or insipid; and sometimes the true poet breaks through, in a vein of lively description or bold figure. WILLIAM COWPER, a poet of distinguished and Olney in Buckinghamshire, which was thenceforth original genius, was born in 1731, at Great Berk- the principal place of Cowper's residence. At hampstead in Hertfordshire. His father, the rector Olney he contracted a close friendship with the of the parish, was John Cowper, D. D., nephew of Rev. Mr. Newton, then minister there, and since Lord Chancellor Cowper. The subject of this me- rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, whose relimorial was educated at Westminster school, where gious opinions were in unison with his own. To & he acquired the classical knowledge and correctness collection of hymns published by him, Cowper conof taste for which it is celebrated, but without any tributed a considerable number of his own composi. portion of the confident and undaunted spirit which tion. He first became known to the public as a is supposed to be one of the most valuable acquisi-poet by a volume printed in 1782, the contents of tions derived from the great schools, to those who which, if they did not at once place him high in the are to push their way in the world. On the contrary, it appears from his poem entitled "Tirocinium," that the impressions made upon his mind from what he witnessed in this place, were such as gave him a permanent dislike to the system of public education. Soon after his leaving Westminster, he was articled to a solicitor in London for three years; but so far from studying the law, he spent the greatest part of his time with a relation, where he and the future Lord Chancellor (Lord Thurlow) spent their time, according to his own expression, "in giggling, and making giggle." At the expiration of his time with the solicitor, he took chambers in the If this volume excited but little of the public atTemple, but his time was still little employed on tention, his next volume, published in 1785, introthe law, and was rather engaged in classical pur-duced his name to all the lovers of poetry, and gave suits, in which Coleman, Bonnel Thornton, and him at least an equality of reputation with any of Lloyd, seem to have been his principal associates. his contemporaries. It consists of a poem in six Cowper's spirits were naturally weak; and when books, entitled "The Task," alluding to the injunchis friends had procured him a nomination to the tion of a lady, to write a piece in blank verse, for offices of reading-clerk and clerk of the Private the subject of which she gave him The Sofa. It sets Committees in the House of Lords, he shrunk with out, indeed, with some sportive discussion of this such terror from the idea of making his appearance topic; but soon falls into a serious strain of rural before the most august assembly in the nation, that description, intermixed with moral sentiments and after a violent struggle with himself, he resigned his portraitures, which is preserved through the six intended employment, and with it all his prospects books, freely ranging from thought to thought with in life. In fact, he became completely deranged; no perceptible method. But as the whole poem will and in this situation was placed, in December, 1763, here be found, it is unnecessary to enter into particuabout the 32d year of his age, with Dr. Cotton, an lars. Another piece, entitled "Tirocinium, or a Reamiable and worthy physician at St. Alban's. This view of Schools," a work replete with striking obagitation of his mind is placed by some who have servation, is added to the preceding; and several mentioned it to the account of a deep consideration other pieces gleaned from his various writings will of his state in a religious view, in which the terrors be found in the collection. of eternal judgment so much overpowered his For the purpose of losing in employment the disfaculties, that he remained seven months in mo- tressing ideas which were ever apt to recur, he next mentary expectation of being plunged into final undertook the real task of translating into blank misery. Mr. Johnson, however, a near relation, has verse the whole of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. This taken pains to prove to demonstration, that these work has much merit of execution, and is certainly views of his condition were so far from producing a far more exact representation of the ancient poet such an effect, that they ought to be regarded as his than Pope's ornamental version; but where simplisole consolation. It appears, however, that his mind city of matter in the original is not relieved by the had acquired such an indelible tinge of melancholy, force of sonorous diction, the poverty of English that his whole successive life was passed with little blank verse has scarcely been able to prevent it from more than intervals of comfort between long parox-sinking into mere prose. Various other translations ysms of settled despondency. denoted his necessity of seeking employment; but After a residence of a year and a half with Dr. nothing was capable of durably relieving his mind Cotton, he spent part of his time at the house of from the horrible impressions it had undergone. He his relation, Earl Cowper, and part at Huntingdon, passed some of his latter years under the affectionwith his intimate friend, the Rev. Mr. Unwin. The ate care of a relation at East Dereham, in Norfolk, death of the latter caused his widow to remove to where he died on April 25th, 1800. Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines, She teem'd and heav'd with an infernal birth, And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies, Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass, O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats, O charming Paradise of short-liv'd sweets! The self-same gale, that wafts the fragrance round Ten thousand swains the wasted scene deplore, Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honor draws, Fast by the stream, that bounds your just domain The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad, Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees, What are ye, monarchs, laurel'd heroes, say, O place me in some Heav'n-protected isle, No crested warrior dips his plume in blood; Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE That humor interpos'd too often makes; OUT OF NORFOLK, THE GIFT OF MY COUSIN ANN BODHAM. O THAT those lips had language! Life has pass'd O welcome guest, though unexpected here! But gladly, as the precept were her own: My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, All this still legible in mem'ry's page, I prick'd them into paper with a pin, Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast * Garth. |