Long bound by cold Dejection's numbing chain,
As in a torpid trance, that deem'd it vain
To struggle; nor my eye-lids to the sun
Uplifted but I heard thy cheering voice!
I shook my deadly slumber off;-I gaz'd
Delighted round-awak'd, inspir'd, amaz'd,
I mark'd another world, and in my choice
Lov'lier, and deck'd with light!-On fairy ground
Methought I buoyant trod, and heard the sound
As of enchanting melodies, that stole,
Stole gently, and intranc'd my captive soul.
Then all was life and hope! 'Twas thy first ray,
Sweet Fancy, on the heart as when the day
Of spring, along the melancholy tract
Of wintry Lapland, dawns; the cataract,
From ice dissolving on the silent side
Of some white precipice, with paly gleam
Descends, while the cold hills a slanting beam
Faint tinges: till, ascending in his pride,
The great Sun from the red horizon looks,
And wakes the tuneless birds, the stagnant brooks,
And sleeping lakes! So on my mind's cold night
The ray of Fancy shone, and gave delight
And hope, past utterance...
O WARTON! bid my silent heart rejoice,
And wak'd to love of Nature: every breeze,
On Itchin's brink, was melody: the trees
Wav'd in fresh beauty; and the wind and rain,
That shook the battlements of Wykeham's fane,
Not less delighted, when with random pace
I trod the cloister'd aisles: and, witness thou,
Catharine, upon whose foss-encircled brow
We met the morning, how I lov❜d to trace
The prospect spread around-the rills below, That shone irriguous in the fuming plain;
The river's bend, where the dark barge went slow,
And the pale light on yonder time-worn fane t.
So pass'd my days with new delight-meantime,
To Learning's tender eye thou dist unfold
The classic page, and what high bards of old,
With solemn notes, and minstrelsy sublime,
Have chaunted, we together heard; and thou,
WARTON! Wouldst bid me listen, till a tear
Sprung to mine eye: Now the bold song we hear
Of Greece's sightless master-bard *: the breast
Beats high, with stern PELIDES to the plain
We rush; or o'er the corpse of HECTOR slain
Hang pitying-and lo! where pale, opprest
With age and grief, sad PRIAM comes; with beard
All white, he bows, kissing the hands besmear'd
With his last hope's best blood!
Now from the mountain sounds; the sylvan muse,
Reclin'd by the clear stream of Arethuse,
Wakes the Sicilian pipe;-the sunny mead
Swarms with the bees, whose drowsy lullaby
Soothes the reclining ox with half-clos'd eye;
While in soft cadence to the madrigal,
From rock to rock the whispering waters fall!
But who is he §, that, by yon wretched cave,
Bids heav'n and earth bear witness to his woe?
And hark! how hollowly the ocean-wave
Echoes his plaint, and murmurs deep below!-
"Haste-let the tall ship stem the tossing tide,
That he may leave his cave, and hear no more
The Lemnian surges unrejoicing roar
And be Great Fate thro' the dark world thy guide,"
Sad PHILOCTETES!"....
So Instruction bland, With young-eyed Sympathy, went hand in hand O'er classick fields; and let my heart confess
Its holier joy, when I essay'd to climb
The lonely heights, where SHAKSPEARE sat sublime,
Lord of the mighty spell: around him press
Spirits and fairy-forms:-He, ruling wide
His visionary world, bids terror fill
The shiv'ring breast, or softer pity thrill
E'en to the inmost heart: within me died
All thoughts of this low earth, and higher pow'rs Seem'd in my soul to stir-till, strain'd too long, The senses sunk :
Then, OSSIAN, thy wild song Haply beguil'd th' unheeded midnight hours,
And, like the blast that swept Berrathron's tow'rs,
Came pleasant and yet mournful' to my soul!
"See! o'er th' autumnal heath the grey mists roll!-
Hark! to the dim ghosts' faint and feeble
As on the cloudy tempest they pass by!--
§ Philoctetes, see Sophocles. -Youthful impressions on first reading it.
Saw ye huge LAGO's spectre-shape advance,
Through which the stars look pale!"....
Which bound the erring fancy, till dark night
Flew silent by, and at my window-grate
The morning bird sung loud-nor less delight
The spirit felt, when still and charm'd I sate
Great MILTON's solemn harmonies to hear,
That swell from the full chord, and strong and clear,
(Beyond the tuneless couplets' weak control)
Their long-commingling diapason roll,
Of pealing minstrelsy, was thy own lyre,
WARTON, unheard;-as Fancy pour'd the song,
The measur'd music flow'd along,
Till all the heart and all the sense
Felt her divinest influence,
In throbbing sympathy: Prepare the car *,
And whirl us, goddess, to the war,
Where crimson banners fire the skies,
Where the mingled shouts arise,
Where the steed, with fetlock red,
Tramples the dying and the dead;'
And amain, from side to side,
Death his pale horse is seen to ride!—
Or rather, sweet enthusiast, lead
Our footsteps to the cowslip mead,
Where (as the magic spell is wound)
Dying music floats around: --
Or seek we some grey ruin's shade,
And pity the cold beggar † laid
Beneath the ivy-rustling tow'r,
At the dreary midnight hour,
Scarce shelter'd from the drifting snow;
While her dark locks the bleak winds blow
O'er her sleeping infant's' cheek!
Then let the shrilling trumpet speak,
And pierce in louder tones the ear,
Till, while it peals, we seem to hear
The sounding march, as of the Theban's song;
And varied numbers, in their course,
With gath'ring fullness, and collected force,
Like the broad cataract, swell and sweep along!"
* See Warton's Ode to Fancy.
Alluding to some pathetic lines in Warton's Ode to Fancy.
See Warton's Ode on West's Translation of Pindar.
Struck by the sounds, what wonder that I laid,
As thou, O WARTON, didst the theme inspire,
My inexperienc'd hand upon the lyre,
And soon with transient touch faint music made,
As soon forgotten.....
By the wild streams of Elfin poesy,
Rapt in strange musings: but when life began
I never roam'd, a visionary man,
(For taught by thee, I learnt with sober eyes
To look on life's severe realities)
I never made (a dream-distemper'd thing)
Poor Fiction's realm, my world; but to cold truth
Subdu'd the vivid shapings of my youth;
Save when the drisly woods were murmuring,
Or some hard crosses had my spirit bow'd,
Then I have left, unseen, the careless crowd,
And sought the dark sea roaring, or the steep
That brav'd the storm; or in the forest deep,
As all its grey leaves rustled, wooed the tone
Of the lov'd lyre, that, in my spring-tide gone,
Wak'd me to transport:
Eighteen summers now
Have smil'd on Itchin's margin, since the time
When these delightful visions of our prime
Rose on my view in loveliness.~And thou,
Friend of my muse, in thy death-bed art cold,
Who, with the tenderest touches, didst unfold
The shrinking leaves of fancy, else unseen
And shelterless: therefore to thee are due
Whate'er their summer sweetness; and I strew,
Sadly, such flow'rets as on hillocks green,
Or mountain-slope, or hedge-row, yet my hand
May cull, (with many a recollection bland,
And mingled sorrow) WARTON, on THY TOMB,
TO WHOM, IF BLOOM THEY BOAST, THEY OWE THEIR BLOOM!
[From GRESWELL'S MEMOIRS of LITERARY CHARACTERS.]
N blushing beams of soften'd light
Aurora steals upon the sight:
With chaste effulgence dart from far
The splendors of her dewy car;
Cheer'd with the view, I bless the ray
That mildly speaks returning day.
Retire, ye gloomy shades, to spread
Your brooding horrors o'er the dead !—
Bane of my slumbers, spectres gaunt,
Forbear my frighted couch to haunt!
Phantoms of darkness, horrid dreams,-
Begone! for lo! fair Morning beams.
Emerging from the incumbent shade,
Her lustre cheers the brilliant mead :-
Haste, boy, the tuneful lyre,-I long
To meet the goddess with a song ;-
Haste, while the Muse exerts her powers,
And strew her smiling path with flowers.
The violet charg'd with early sweets,
Fair Morn! thy cheerful presence greets;
The crocus lifts her saffron head,
And bloomy shrubs their odours shed;
Ah! deign our incense to inhale
Borne on the gently-swelling gale.
When Morning's charms the song inspire,
Be mine to wake the warbling lyre;
Oh, waft, ye breezes, to her ear
The mingled strains of praise and prayer:
Bid her approve our faint essays,
And teach the offer'd gift to please.
For, ah! thy beauties to pourtray.
Fair mother of the infant day,-
What time in mildest splendors drest
Thy lucid form appears confest,-
Still must the admiring bard despair,-
O Nymph-superlatively fair!
Thy crimson cheeks a blush disclose
More vivid than the opening rose;
Thy softly-waving locks unfold
More lustre than the burnish'd gold;
The envious stars their lights resign,
And Luna's beam is lost in thine.
Mortals had lain, without thine aid,
Ingulph'd in night's perpetual shade:
The brightest colours but display
A lustre borrow'd from thy ray;
And every grace that art can boast,
Without thy genial help were lost.
Fast bound in Lethe's dull embrace,
'Tis thine the sluggard to release;
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