AN ENGLISH SONG WITHOUT SIBILANTS.
BY J. THELWALL, ESQ.
SET TO MUSIC BY DR. KEMP.
The Author does not mean to insinuate, by this specimen, the necessity or propriety of a total exclusion of sibilants from all compositions designed for music: but the frequency of their recurrence has long and justly been a reproach, not to our language but to our writers. The following specimen at least may show that it is not necessary to interrupt the melody of English song by an eternally recurring hiss. The s in the word rose, sounded, as it is written below, like z, is the only eveu half sibilant that occurs in the whole twenty lines.
No-not the eye of tender blue,
Tho' Mary 'twere the tint of thine,
Or breathing lip, of glowing hue,
Might bid the opening roze repine,
Had long enthrall'd my mind;
Nor tint with tint, alternate aiding,
That o'er the dimpled tablet flow,
The vermil to the lily fading,-
Nor ringlet, bright with orient glow,
In many a tendril twin'd.
The breathing tint, the beamy ray,
The linear harmony divine,
That o'er the form of beauty play,
Might warm a colder heart than mine,
But not for ever bind.
But when to radiant form and feature,
Internal worth and feeling join,
With temper mild and gay good nature,-
Around the willing heart they twine
The empire of the mind.
THE PORTRAITS.
A FRAGMENT.
ADDRESSED TO
THE Fair one had a heart to feel,
An eye, whose glisten could reveal
That pensive heart's emotion:
Gently, with half unquiet swell,
Her bosom heav'd-then silent fell,
As sinks the slumb'ring ocean.
Her features, lovely while they seem'd,
As ever Love's expression beam'd,
Yet look'd, and spoke, the lofty mind,
Whose high-ton'd feelings, pure as kind,
Were pictur'd in her face:
And while her form, of aspen moult,
Love's lightest, gentlest tremors told,
Still, to each motion of the Fair,
Soft delicacy's sweetest air
Gave dignity and grace.
And he, the youth-the friend-who lay,
Musing the idle hours away,
Reclin❜d beneath the antique tree*,
Contemplating the brook
Ah! restless too, and sad was he,
And pensive was his look.
Aspiring was his soul, yet meek;
Haughty, yet humble too;
His heart was flame, to passion weak,
But still sincere and true.
Alluding to a print of Shakspeare's "Melancholy Jaques," to which the person addressed had sportively compared the writer.
Gentle, yet daring; rash, yet mild;
Inform'd, yet simple as a child:
Like flinty rock to stern reproof,
(When surges beat, that, high aloof,
Looks proudly o'er the strand);
But to the tongue that fain would teach,
By mild persuasion's winning speech,
Soft as the yielding sand.
To woman's voice he still would melt,
To woman's charms he ever knelt,
With firm devotion bow'd;
And fervent was the love he felt:
A gentle flame within him dwelt,
Untold amidst the crowd.-
Lady! your confidence, I pray;
Know you these portraits?-Lady! say.
TO MISS G,
ON HER VISITING OXFORD.
BY THE LATE CHARLES WILLIAM RUSSELL, ESQ.
As when the moon her orb conceals,
The little stars with lustre shine;
But when her splendor she reveals,
They droop with envy and decline:
So, lovely maid, when you appear
In native charms, and beauty bright;
Though Oxford's nymphs with careless air
Affect to smile, they die with spite.
TO THE POET VALGIUS, ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON.
TRANSLATED BY MR. A. S. THELWALL.
NOT always from black clouds the rains descend
On the dank field; nor doth the angry storm
For ever vex the troubled Caspian sea;
Nor yet the cold Armenian shore, my friend,
Thro' every month doth stubborn ice deform,
And unthawed snow; nor Jove's high towering tree
For ever combat with the northern wind;
Nor widow'd ash aye strew its Gargan pride.Yet dost thou, Valgius, still deplore the fate Of thy lost Mystes; rest thy griefs ne'er find When Vesper rises, or the starry guide
Opes for the rapid sun, heaven's roseate gate.
The sage who liv'd three ages, did not mourn
His lost Antilochus thro' every year;
Nor were the Phrygian sisters, or their sire,
For ever for young Troilus forlorn ;
Their grief had end. Thou also dry the tear;
No more complain, but let us tune the lyre
And sing the trophies by Augustus won,
Who bids the cold Niphates own his might,
Who adds the swift Euphrates to his sway,
And bids his waves in gentler current run:
In narrower bounds the Alani, in affright,
Peaceful, bestride the steed, and shun the battle-day.
TRANSLATED BY MR. A. S. THELWALL.
ON no accustom'd and no feeble wing,
A biform'd Poet, will I mount the skies,
On this base earth no longer lingering;
Superior to all envy, lo! I rise,
And leave your far-fam'd city. Tho' I spring
From humble parents, since with favouring eyes
You view me, O'Mæcenas! I the shore
Of Styx escape, its bounding stream I spurn.
The skin grows rough upon my limbs, I soar
Blanch'd to a stately bird, and now discern
With plumage light my shoulders cover'd o'er,
My fingers into glossy feathers turn.
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