Full in the midst, and o'er thy num'rous train There thron'd supreme in native state, Through silver clouds and azure skies; beams: While, near the secret moss-grown cave, Sweet Echo, rising from her rocky bed, Rise, hallow'd Milton! rise, and say, How, when "deprest by age, beset with wrongs;" Say, what could then one cheering hope diffuse ? Each scene, that Tyber's banks supplied; The tepid gales, through Tuscan glades that fly; 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, Unsullied honor decks thine open brow, As now o'er this lone beach I stray, Far from the busy throng. Thou heard'st him, goddess, strike the tender string, And led the war 'gainst thine, and Freedom's foes. Pointed with satire's keenest steel, In awful poverty his honest Muse Behold, like him, immortal maid, And fan them to that dazzling blaze of song, "Fond youth! to Marvell's patriot fame, Still strike thy blameless lyre : "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, Long must the warrior moulder in his shrood, Ere from her trump the heav'n-breath'd accena пи 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. 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 fled;) 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 notion, 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: Know, ye were form'd to range yon azure field, 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 you. Stem the rough surge, and brave the torrent's Is it for glory? that just Fate denies. 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, 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, (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 gs. And live your moment, since the next ye de While, high with health, your hearts uxulting leap; Yet know, vain sceptics, know, th' Almighty m Ev'n in the midst of Pleasure's mad career, For say, than ****'s propitious star, To give reflection time, with lenient art, 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 vice 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, Heirs as ye are of Heav'n's eternal day; Would bid you boldly to that Heav'n aspire, Not sink and slumber in your cells of clay. Who breath'd on man a portion of his fire. Bade his free soul, by earth nor time confin'd To Heav'n, to immortality aspire. Nor shall the pile of hope, his mercy rear'd, By vain philosophy be e'er destroy'd: Eternity, by all or wish'd or fear'd, Shall be by all or suffer'd or enjoy'd. ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ 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 ware 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 charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas ev'n to thee) yet the dread path once trod Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids "the pure in heart behold their God." WILLIAM COWPER, a poet of distinguished and Olney in Buckinghamshire, which was thenceforth 1 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 a 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 con- scale of poetic excellence, sufficiently established his trary, it appears from his poem entitled "Tirocini- claim to originality. Its topics are, "Table Talk," um," that the impressions made upon his mind from "Error," "Truth," " Expostulation," "Hope," "Charwhat he witnessed in this place, were such as gave ity," "Conversation," and "Retirement," all treated him a permanent dislike to the system of public upon religious principles, and not without a consideducation. Soon after his leaving Westminster, he erable tinge of that rigor and austerity which bewas articled to a solicitor in London for three years; longed to his system. These pieces are written in but so far from studying the law, he spent the great- rhymed heroics, which he commonly manages with est part of his time with a relation, where he and little grace, or attention to melody. The style, though the future Lord Chancellor (Lord Thurlow) spent often prosaic, is never flat or insipid; and sometimes : their time, according to his own expression, "in gig- the true poet breaks through, in a vein of lively degling, and making giggle." At the expiration of his scription or bold figure. 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 his friends had procured him a nomination to the offices of reading-clerk and clerk of the Private Committees in the House of Lords, he shrunk with such terror from the idea of making his appearance books, entitled "The Task," alluding to the injunetion of a lady, to write a piece in blank verse, for the subject of which she gave him The Sofa. It sets out, indeed, with some sportive discussion of this 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 more than intervals of comfort between long paroxysms of settled despondency. blank verse has scarcely been able to prevent it from sinking into mere prose. Various other translations denoted his necessity of seeking employment; but nothing was capable of durably relieving his mind After a residence of a year and a half with Dr. 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. BOADICEA: AN ODE. WHEN the British warrior-queen, Sage beneath the spreading oak All the terrors of our tongues. "Rome shall perish-write that word "Rome, for empire far renown'd, Tramples on a thousand states; Soon her pride shall kiss the groundHark! the Gaul is at her gates! "Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame. "Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command. "Regions Cæsar never knew Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they." Such the bard's prophetic words, She, with all a monarch's pride, "Ruffians, pitiless as proud, Shame and ruin wait for you." HEROISM. THERE was a time when Ætna's silent fire Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire; When, conscious of no danger from below, She tower'd a cloud-capt pyramid of snow. No thunders shook with deep intestine sound The blooming groves, that girdled her around. Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines, Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass, Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honor draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who strike the blow, then plead your own defa Glory your aim, but justice your pretence; Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires! Fast by the stream, that bounds your just domin And tells you where ye have a right to reign. A nation dwells, not envious of your throne. Studious of peace, their neighbors', and their own Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue Their only crime, vicinity to you! The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad, Through the ripe harvest lies their destin'd road: At every step beneath their feet they tread The life of multitudes, a nation's bread! Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress Before them, and behind a wilderness. Famine, and Pestilence, her first-born son, Attend to finish what the sword begun; And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn. And Folly pays, resound at your return. A calm succeeds-but Plenty, with her train Of heart-felt joys, succeeds not soon again, And years of pining indigence must show What scourges are the gods that rule below. Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees, (Such is his thirst of opulence and ease,) Plies all the sinews of industrious toil, Gleans up the refuse of the gen'ral spoil, Rebuilds the tow'rs, that smok'd upon the plain. And the Sun gilds the shining spires again. Increasing commerce and reviving art Renew the quarrel on the conqu'ror's part; And the sad lesson must be learn'd once more. That wealth within is ruin at the door. 2 What are ye, monarchs, laurel'd heroes, say, O place me in some Heav'n-protected isle, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'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. TO THAT those lips had language! Life has pass'd 1 But gladly, as the precept were her own: A momentary dream that thou art she. All this still legible in mem'ry's page, Could Time, his flight revers'd, restore the hours Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, But, though I less deplor'd thee, ne'er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, There sits quiescent on the floods, that show * Garth. |