Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

WHE

HITCHIN CONVENT.

A TALE.

HERE Hitch's gentle current glides,
An ancient convent stands,
Sacred to prayer and holy rites
Ordain'd by pious hands.

Here monks of saintly Benedict
Their nightly vigils kept,
And lofty anthems shook the choir
At hours when mortals slept.

But Harry's wide reforming hand

That sacred order wounded;

He spoke-from forth their hallow'd walls
The friars fled confounded.

Then wicked laymen ent'ring in,
Those cloisters fair prophan'd;
Now riot loud usurps the seat
Where bright devotion reign'd.

Ev'n to the chapel's sacred roof,
Its echoing vaults along,

Resounds the flute, and sprightly dance,
And hymencal song.

Yet fame reports, that monkish shades
At midnight never fail

To haunt the mansions once their own,
And tread its cloisters pale.

One night, more prying than the rest,
It chanc'd a friar came,

And enter'd where on beds of down

Repos'd each gentle dame.
Here, softening midnight's raven gloom,
Lay Re, blushing maid;
There, wrapt in folds of cypress lawn,
Her virtuous aunt was laid.

He stopp'd, he gaz'd, to wild conceits
His roving fancy run,

He took the aunt for prioress,
e for a nun,

And R

It hap'd that R's capuchin,
Across the couch display'd,
To deem her sister of the veil,]
The holy sire betray'd.

Accosting then the youthful fair,

His raptur'd accents broke;
Amazement chill'd the waking nymph;
She trembled as he spoke.

"Hail halcyon days! Hail holy nun!
This wondrous change explain:
Again religion lights her lamp,
Reviews these walls again.

"For ever blest the power that checkt
Reformists' wild disorders,

Restor'd again the church's lands.
Reviv'd our sacred orders.

"To monks indeed, from Edward's days,
Belong'd this chaste foundation;

Yet sister nuns may answer too

The founder's good donation.

"Ah! well thy virgin vows are heard:

For man were never given

Those charms, reserv'd to nobler ends,

Thou spotless spouse of Heaven!

"Yet speak what cause from morning mass Thy ling'ring steps delays:

Haste to the deep-mouth'd organ's peal
To join thy vocal praise.
"Awake thy abbess sisters all;

At Mary's holy shrine,
With bended knees and suppliant eyes
Approach, thou nun divine!"
"No Nun am I," recov'ring cried

The nymph; "No nun, I say,
Nor nun will be, unless this fright
Should turn my locks to grey.
""Tis true, at church I seldom fail
When aunt or uncle leads;
Yet never rise by four o'clock
To tell my morning beads.
"No mortal lover yet, I vow,
My virgin heart has fixt,
But yet I bear the creatures talk
Without a grate betwixt.

"To Heav'n my eyes are often cast
(From Heav'n their light began)

Yet deign sometimes to view on Earth
It's image stampt on man,

Ah me! I fear in borrow'd shape
Thou com'st, a base deceiver;
erhaps the devil, to tempt the faith
Of orthodox believer.

For once my hand, at masquerade,
A reverend friar prest;
His form as thine, but holier sounds
The ravish'd saint addrest.

"He told me vows no more were made

To senseless stone and wood, But adoration paid alone

To saints of flesh and blood,

"That rosy cheeks, and radiant eyes,
And tresses like the morn,

Were given to bless the present age,
And light the age unborn:

"That maids, by whose obdurate pride The hapless lover fell,

Were doom'd to never-dying toils
Of leading apes in Hell.

"Respect the first command,' (he cried,) 'It's sacred laws fulfil,

And well observe the precept given

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

When fancy's glance the fairy phantom meets, Nymph of the shade, or Naiad of the flood. So blooms Celena, daughter of the skies,

Queen of the joys romantic rapture dreanis, Her cheeks are summer's damask rose, her eyes Steal their quick lustre from the morning's beams.

Her airy neck the shining tresses shade;
In every wanton curl a Cupid dwells:
To these, distrusting in the Graces' aid,
She joins the mighty charms of magic spells.
Man, hapless man, in vain destruction flies,
With wily arts th' enchantress nymph pursues;
To varying forms, as varying lovers rise,

Shifts the bright Iris of a thousand hues.
Behold th' austere divine, opprest by years,
Colies, and bulk, and tithes engend❜red care;
The sound of woman grates his aching ears,
Of other woman than a scripture fair.
Sudden she comes a Deborah bright in arms,
Or wears the pastoral Rachel's ancient mien;
And now, as glow gay-flushing eastern charms,

He sighs like David's son for Sheba's queen.

To Change the China trader speeds his pace, Nor heeds the chilly North's unripening dames; 'Tis her's with twinkling eyes, and lengthen'd face,

And pigmy foot, to wake forgotten flames. She oft, in likeness of th' Egyptian Crone,

Too well inform'd, relates to wand'ring swains Their amorous plaints preferr'd to her alone: Her own relentless breast too well explains. See, at the manor's hospitable board

Enters a sire, by infant age rever'd; From shorten'd tube exhaling fumes afford The incense bland that clouds his forky beard. Conundrums quaint, and puns of jocnnd kind, With rural ditties, warm th' elated 'squire, Yet oft sensations quicken in his mind,

Other than ale and jocund puns inspire. The forms where bloated Dropsy holds her seat, He views, unconscious of magicians' guiles, Nor deems a jaundic'd visage lov'd retreat

Of graces, young desires, and dimpled smiles. Now o'er the portal of an antique hall

A Grecian form the raptur'd patriot awes, The hoary bust and brow severe recall

Lycurgus, founder of majestic laws.
Awhile entranc'd, he dreams of old renown,
And freedom's triumph in Platean fields,
Then turns-relaxing sees the furrow'd frown,
To melting airs the soften'd marble yields.

I see the lips as breathing life, he cries,
On icy cheeks carnation blooms display'd,
The pensive orbs are pleasure-beaming eyes
And Sparta's lawgiver a blushing maid.
There, at the curtains of the shudd'ring youth,
Stiff, melancholy, pale, a spectre stands,
Some love-lorn virgin's shade-O! injur'd truth,
Deserted phantom, and ye plighted hands,
He scarce had utter'd-from his frantic gaze
The vision fades-succeeds a flood of light.
O friendly shadows, veil him, as the blaze
Of beauty's sun emerging from the night.
Here end thy triumphs, nymph of potent charins,
The laurel'd bard is Heaven's immortal care;
Him nor illusion's spell nor philter harms,
Nor music floating on the magic air.
The myrtle wand this arm imperial bears,

Reluctant ghosts and stubborn elves obey:
Its virtuous touch the midnight fairy fears,
And shapes that wanton in Aurora's ray.

I ceas'd; the virgin came in native grace,
With native smiles that strengthen beauty's

O vain the confidence of mortal race! [chain:
My laurel'd head and myrtle wand are vain.
Again wild raptures, kindling passions rise,

As once in Andover's autumnal grove, When looks that spoke, and eloquence of sighs, Told the soft mandate of another's love.

TO AN ACCOMPLISHED LADY.

IN THE MANNER OF WALLER.

O NYMPH! than blest Pandora honour'd more, What gods to grace thee lavish all their store!

[blocks in formation]

READING JULIa with tears, DURING A HARD PROST

WHAT, though descending as the dews of morn,
On misery's sighs your tear of virtue waits;
Forget the fallen Julia! you were born

For heart-expanding joys and smiling fates.
To sooth with social pleasures human cares,

To call the Muse to Thames' frozen glades,
To wake the slumb'ring spring with vernal airs,
And plant an Eden in December's shades;
To deck, like Eve, with soft officious haste,
Your banquet, worthiest of her angel guest;
Amid the flowers that crown the fair repast

A flower yourself, the fairest of the feast.
There the great Giver for his bounties given
Your grateful consort blessing, blesses too
The sweet dispenser of the gifts of Heaven,

In wonder's silent prayer he blesses you: Your infants there reflecting round the board, Maternal graces while his eye approves; One tear to rapture give!-then sit ador'd The gentle mother of the smiles and loves.

'See Milton's Paradise Lost, Book v. from line 303.

TO LADY F,

ON HER MARRIAGE.

THOUGH to Hymen's gay season belong
Light airs, and the raptures of youth;
Yet listen to one sober song;

O listen, fair Stella, to truth.
Farewell to the triumphs of beauty,

To the soft serenade at your bower,
To the lover's idolatrous duty,

To his vigils in midnight's still hour.
To your frowns darting amorous anguish,
To your smiles chasing every care,
To the power of your eyes lively languish,
To each glance waking hope or despair.
Farewell to soft bards, that in Heaven

Dipt the pencil to picture your praise,
And blended the colours of even,

With morning's gay opening rays:
They no longer on Thames shall proclaim you
Nor to Bushy's soft echoes shall name you
A Naiad new sprung from the flood,

Bright Dian, the queen of the wood.
Farewell to love's various season,

Smiling days hung with tempests and night;
But welcome the reign of fair reason,

O! welcome securer delight.

O! welcome, in nature's own dress,
Purest pleasures of gentler kind;
O! welcome the power to bless,

To redeem fortune's wrongs on mankind.
Be a goddess indeed, while you borrow
From plenty's unlimited store,

To gild the wan aspect of sorrow,

To cheer the meek eyes of the poor.

When your virtues shall mix with the skies,
When your beauty, bright phenix, decays;
In your image new graces shall rise,

And enlighten posterity's days.
Future ages shall trace every air;

Every virtue deriv'd to your blood
Shall remember that Stella was fair,
Shall remember that Stella was good,

SONG.

No gandy Rubens ever dare

With flaunting genius, rosy loves,
To crowd the scene, in sunshine's glare,
Exposing her the Muse approves.
Let, chaste Poussin, thy shaded stream
Reflect her pensive, tender air;
Let evening veil with sober beam,

In bashful night the bashful fair.

VERSES

WRITTEN AFTER PASSING

THROUGH FINDON, SUSSEX, 1768. ADDRESSED 10 THE REV. MR. WOODDESON, OF KINGSTON UPON THAMES.

WOODDESON! these eyes have seen thy natal earth;

Thy Findon, sloping from the southern downs, Have blest the roof ennobled by thy birth,

And tufted valley, where no ocean frowns. Thou wert not born to plough the neighbouring main,

Or plant thy greatness near ambition's throne, Or count unnumber'd fleeces on thy plain: -The Muses lov'd and nurs'd thee for their own!

And twin'd thy temples here with wreaths of worth, [morn, And fenc'd thy childhood from the blights of And taught enchanting song, and sent thee forth To stretch the blessing to an age unborn: Best blessing!-what is pride's unwieldy state? What awkward wealth from Indian oceans given?

What monarchs nodding under empires' weight, if science smile not with a ray from Heaven? Witness yon ruins, Arundel's high tower,

And Bramber, now the bird of night's resort! Your proud possessors reign'd in barbarous

power;

The war their business, and the chase their sport;

Till there a minstrel, to the feast preferr'd, With Cambrian harp, in Gothic numbers charm'd,

Enlighten'd chiefs grew virtuous as they heard -The sun of science in its morning warm'd. How glorious, when it blaz'd in Milton's light, And Shakespear's flame, to full meridian day! Yet smile, fair beam! though sloping from that height,

Gild our mild evening with a setting ray.

TO A LADY.

THE simple swain, where Zembla's snows
Are bound in frozen chains,
Where scarce a smile the Sun bestows
To warm the sullen plains;

The author of these poems had been edueated under this gentleman, for whom he ever retained the most affectionate regard. Mr. Wooddeson was, in truth, one of those amiable beings whom none could know without loving.-To the abilities of an excellent scholar was united a mind so candid, so patient, so replete with universal benevolence, that it glowed in every action. His life was an honour to himself, to

religion, to human nature.-He preserved to his death such a simplicity of manners as is rarely to be met with. He judged of the world by the standard of his own virtuous heart; and few men who had seen such length of days ever left it so little acquainted with it.

Not once conceives that Sun to rise
With kinder, brighter ray,
Nor southern vales, Hesperian skies,
To bask in smiling day.

As weak my thoughts respecting thee:
Must thou, my better sun,
Because but smiling cold on me,
Be therefore warm to none?

STANZAS.

Where more is meant than meets the ear.
MILTON.

THE bird of midnight swell'd her throat,
The virgins listen'd round
To sorrow's deeply-warbled note,

To sweet but solemn sound:
When soon the lark ascending high,
In sun-beams idly play'd;
As soon to greet him, see, they fly-
One pensive virgin stay'd.

She stay'd to hear the mourner sing;
The rest, to nature true,
The flutter of the gayer wing
The vacant song pursue.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO OBJECTED TO SUP WITH A PARTY OF BOTH
SEXES THAT MET AT A COFFEE-HOUSE.

O FAR from Caroline, so soft a maid,
Be cruel coyness, pride, and cold disdain !
Who now of man, the monster man, afraid,
Flies the gay circle of the social train.
Away vain fears! away suspicious dreams,
From beauty, virtue, tenderness, and truth;
From eyes that dawn with wisdom's mildest
beams,

From harmless smiles that wait on gentle youth.
Far other years and other nymphs befit
The prudish form, and high forbidding brow:
With others dwell, or frowns or scornful wit,
With nymphs less innocent, less fair than thou:
With her, whose youth, of virtue's mild control
Impatient, rush'd on wanton wild desires;
Now prayer or scandal cheers the gloomy soul
That pines in secret with forbidden fires:
Or her that triumph'd in her lover's sighs,
As round their brows the willow garlands bend;
She now dejected, now deserted lies,
Without a lover, and without a friend!
Another fate is youthful virtue's share:
Come with the graces, gentle maid, along;
Come, fairest thou among the young and fair,
To lead the dance, or join the virgins' song,
To thousand vows, in amorous sighs addrest;
Come listen to the tale that youths complain,
Propitious listen to the raptur'd strain.
When chaste majestic passions swell the breast.
Too long exterior charms of radiant eyes,
And blushing cheeks, the captive sense control;
Thy forms, fair harmony, too long we prize,
Forget the fairer, more harmonious soul.

Too long the lovers for an empty fair
At heedless ease inglorious arts advance;
Enough for them to deck the flowing hair,
Or flutter gaudy with the pride of France.
From worth with beauty nobler lessons taught,
Each youth that languishes, his flame shall prove
By generous action or heroic thought,
And merit fame by arts that merit love.

Shall once again the Grecian lyre be strung,
Restoring Hymen's mild Arcadian reign?
Shall patriot eloquence instruct. the tongue,
And spoils be gather'd from the martial plain?
O! far unlike to such celestial flame
The passion kindled from impure desires;
Fatal to friends, to fortune, and to fame,
The momentary flash in night expires.

Love's lambent fire that beams from virtue's rays,
Each sordid passion as it burns, refin'd,
Still bright and brighter with benignant blaze
Embraces friends, a country, humankind.

A DREAM.

WITH bridal cake beneath her head,
As Jenny prest her pillow,
She dreamt that lovers, thick as hops,
Hung pendent from the willow.

Around her spectres shook their chains,
And goblins kept their station;

They pull'd, they pinch'd her, till she swore
To spare the male creation.

Before her now the buck, the beau,

The squire, the captain trips;
The modest seiz'd her hand to kiss,
The forward seiz'd her lips.

For some she felt her bosom pant,
For some she felt it smart;

To all she gave enchanting smiles,
To one she gave her heart.

She dreamt (for magic charms prevail'd,
And fancy play'd her farce on)
That, soft reclin'd in elbow-chair,

She kist a sleeping parson.

She dreamt-but, O rash Muse! forbear,
Nor virgins dreams pursue;

Yet blest above the gods is he
Who proves such visions true.

THE MULBERRY TREE.
A TALE.

FOR London's rich city, two Staffordshire swains,
Hight Johnson, hight Garrick, forsaking their
plains,
[by his tomb
Reach'd Shakespeare's own Stratford, where flows
An Avon, as proudly as Tyber by Rome.
Now Garrick, (sweet imp too of Nature was he,)
Would climb and would eat from his mulberry-

tree;

Yet as Johnson, less frolic, was taller, was older, He reach'd the first boughs by the help of his shoulder; [weather, Where, shelter'd from famine, from bailiffs, and Baids, critics, and playerssat crowded together

Who devour'd in their reach, all the fruit they could meet,

top!

The good, bad, indifferent, the bitter and sweet: But Garrick climb'd high to a plentiful crop, Then, Heavens! what vagaries he play'd on the [tight, How, now on the loose twigs, and now on the He stood on his head, and then bolted upright! All features, all shapes, and all passions he tried; He danc'd, and he strutted, he laugh'd, and he cried, [side!

He presented his face, and he show'd his backThe noble, the vulgar, flock'd round him to see What feats he perform'd in the mulberry-tree: He repeated the pastime, then open'd to speak, But Johnson below mutter'd strophes of Greek, While Garrick proclaim'd—such a plant never

[blocks in formation]

Not the beeches of Mantua, where Tityrus was
Not all Vallombrosa produc'd such a shade,
That the myrtles of France, like the birch of
the schools,

Were fit only for rods to whip genius to rules; That to Stratford's old mulberry, fairest and best,

The cedars of Eden must bow their proud crest: Then the fruit-like the loaf in the Tub's pleasant tale. [aleThat was fish, flesh, and custard, good claret, and It compris'd every flavour, was all, and was each, Was grape, and was pine-apple, nectarine and

peach;

[told,

Nay, he swore, and his audience believ'd what he That under his touch it grew apples of goid.— Now he paus'd!-then recounted its virtues again[grain: 'Twas a wood for all use, bottom, top, bark, and It would saw into seats for an audience in full pits, Into benches for judges, episcopal pulpits; Into chairs for philosophers, thrones too for kings, Serve the highest of purposes, lowest of things; Make brooms to mount witches, make May-poles for May-days,

And boxes, and ink-stands, for wits and the la. dies.

His speech pleas'd the vulgar, it pleas'd their superiors, [riors By Johnson stopt short-who his mighty posteApplied to the trunk-like a Sampson, his haunches [and shook branches! Shook the roots, shook the summit, shook stem, All was tremour and shock!-now descended in showers [blighted flowers! Wither'd leaves, wither'd limbs, blighted fruits, The fragments drew critics, bards, players along, Who held by weak branches, and let go the strong; E'en Garrick had dropt with a bough that was

rotten,

But he leapt to a sound, and the slip was forgotten.

Now the plant's close recesses lay open to day, While Johnson exclaim'd, stalking stately away,

« ForrigeFortsæt »