The grave or gay colloquial scene recruits
My spirits, spent in learning's long pursuits;
Whether some senior shrewd, or spendthrift heir,
Suitor or soldier, now unarmed, be there;
Or some coifed brooder o'er a ten years' cause
Thunder the Norman gibberish of the laws.
The lacquey there oft dupes the wary sire,
And artful speeds the enamoured son's desire:
There virgins oft, unconscious what they prove,
What love is know not, yet unknowing love.
Or if impassioned Tragedy wield high
The bloody sceptre, give her locks to fly
Wild as the winds, and roll her haggard eye
gaze, and grieve, still cherishing my grief;
At times, even bitter tears yield sweet relief:
As when, from bliss untasted torn away,
Some youth dies hapless on his bridal day,
Or when the ghost, sent back from shades below,
Fills the assassin's heart with vengeful woe,
When Troy or Argos the dire scene affords,
Or Creon's hall laments its guilty lords.
Nor always city-pent, or pent at home,
I dwell; but when spring calls me forth to roam,
Expatiate in our proud suburban shades
Of branching elm that never sun pervades.
Here many a virgin troop I may desery,
Like stars of mildest influence gliding by.
Oh forms divine! Oh looks that might inspire
Even Jove himself, grown old, with young desire.
Oft have I gazed on gem-surpassing eyes,
Out-sparkling every star that gilds the skies
Necks whiter than the ivory arm bestowed
By Jove on Pelops, or the milky road;
Bright locks, Love's golden snare! these falling low,
Those playing wanton o'er the graceful brow;
Cheeks too, more winning sweet than after shower
Adonis turned to Flora's favourite flower.
Yield, heroines, yield, and ye who shared the embrace
Of Jupiter in ancient times, give place;
Give place, ye turbaned fair of Persia's coast!
And ye, not less renowned, Assyria's boast!
Submit, ye nymphs of Greece! ye, once the bloom
Of Ilion! and all ye of haughty Rome,
Who swept, of old, her theatres with trains
Redundant, and still live in classic strains!
To British damsels beauty's palm is due :
Aliens to follow them is fame for you.
Oh city, founded by Dardanian hands,
Whose towering front the circling realms commands,
Too blest abode! no loveliness we see
In all the earth but it abounds in thee..
The virgin multitude that daily meets,
Radiant with gold and beauty, in thy streets,
Outnumbers all her train of starry fires,
With which Diana gilds thy lofty spires.
Fame says that, wafted hither by her doves,
With all her host of quiver-bearing Loves,
Venus, preferring Paphian scenes no more,
Has fixed her empire on thy nobler shore.
But, lest the sightless boy enforce my stay,
I leave these happy walls, while yet I may.
Immortal moly shall secure my heart
From all the sorcery of Circæan art,
And I will even repass Cam's reedy pools,
To face once more the warfare of the schools.
Meantime accept this trifle! rhymes, though few,
Yet such as prove thy friend's remembrance true.
ELEGY II.-ON THE DEATH OF THE UNIVERSITY BEADLE AT CAMBRIDGE.
THEE whose refulgent staff and summons clear
Minerva's flock long time was wont to obey,
Although thyself an herald, famous here,
The last of heralds, Death, has snatched away.
He calls on all alike, nor even deigns
To spare the office that himself sustains.
Thy locks were whiter than the plumes displayed
By Leda's paramour in ancient time,
But thou wast worthy ne'er to have decayed,
Or Æson-like to know a second prime,
Worthy for whom some goddess should have won
New life, oft kneeling to Apollo's son.
Commissioned to convene, with hasty call,
The gowned tribes, how graceful wouldst thou stand! So stood Cyllenius erst in Priam's hall,
Wing-footed messenger of Jove's command:
And so Eurybates, when he addressed
To Peleus' son Atrides' proud behest.
Dread queen of sepulchres! whose rigorous laws
And watchful eyes run through the realms below,
Oh oft too adverse to Minerva's cause,
Too often to the Muse not less a foe,
Choose meaner marks, and with more equal aim
Pierce useless drones, earth's burthen and its shame!
Flow therefore tears, for him, from every eye!
All ye disciples of the Muses, weep!
Assembling all, in robes of sable dye,
Around his bier, lament his endless sleep;
And let complaining elegy rehearse,
In every school, her sweetest saddest verse.
ELEGY III.-ON THE DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.
SILENT I sat, dejected, and alone,
Making, in thought, the public woes my own,
When first arose the image in my breast
Of England's suffering by that scourge, the Pest!
How Death, his funeral torch and scythe in hand,
Entering the lordliest mansions of the land,
Has laid the gem-illumined palace low,
And levelled tribes of nobles at a blow.
I next deplored the famed paternal pair,
Too soon to ashes turned, and empty air:
The heroes next, whom snatched into the skies
All Belgia saw, and followed with her sighs;
But thee far most I mourned, regretted most,
Winton's chief shepherd, and her worthiest boast!
Poured out in tears I thus complaining said :
"Death, next in power to him who rules the dead!
Is't not enough that all the woodlands yield
To thy fell force, and every verdant field;
That lilies, at one noisome blast of thine,
And even the Cyprian queen's own roses, pine;
That oaks themselves, although the running rill
Suckle their roots, must wither at thy will
That all the wingèd nations, even those
Whose heaven-directed flight the future shows,
And all the beasts, that in dark forests stray,
And all the herds of Proteus, are thy prey?
Ah envious! armed with powers so unconfined!
Why stain thy hands with blood of human-kind?
Why take delight, with darts that never roam,
To chase a heaven-born spirit from her home?
While thus I mourned, the star of evening stood,
Now newly risen above the western flood,
And Phoebus from his morning goal again
Had reached the gulfs of the Iberian main.
I wished repose, and, on my couch reclined,
Took early rest, to night and sleep resigned:
When-Oh for words to paint what I beheld!
I seemed to wander in a spacious field,
Where all the champaign glowed with purple light
Like that of sunrise on the mountain height.
Flowers over all the field, of every hue
That ever Iris wore, luxuriant grew :
Nor Chloris, with whom amorous Zephyrs play,
E'er dressed Alcinous' garden half so gay.
A silver current, like the Tagus, rolled
O'er golden sands, but sands of purer gold;
With dewy airs Favonius fanned the flowers,
With airs awakened under rosy bowers;
Such, poets feign, irradiate all o'er
The sun's abode on India's utmost shore.
While I that splendour and the mingled shade
Of fruitful vines, with wonder fixt surveyed,
At once, with looks that beamed celestial grace,
The seer of Winton stood before my face;
His snowy vesture's hem, descending low,
His golden sandals swept, and pure as snow
New-fallen shone the mitre on his brow.
Where'er he trod a tremulous sweet sound
Of gladness shook the flowery scene around:
Attendant angels clap their starry wings;
The trumpet shakes the sky, all ether rings;
Each chants his welcome, folds him to his breast;
And thus a sweeter voice than all the rest :
Ascend, my son! thy Father's kingdom share!
My son henceforth be freed from every care!"
So spake the voice, and at its tender close
With psaltry's sound the angelic band arose ;
Then night retired, and, chased by dawning day,
The visionary bliss pass'd all away.
I mourned my banished sleep, with fond concern ;-
Frequent to me may dreams like this return!
ELEGY IV.-TO HIS TUTOR, THOMAS YOUNG, CHAPLAIN TO THE ENGLISH
FACTORY AT HAMBURGH.
HENCE, my epistle-skim the deep-fly o'er
Yon smooth expanse to the Teutonic shore!
Haste-lest a friend should grieve for thy delay!
And the gods grant that nothing thwart thy way!
I will myself invoke the king who binds,
In his Sicanian echoing vault, the winds,
With Doris and her nymphs, and all the throng
Of azure gods, to speed thee safe along.
But rather to ensure thy happier haste,
Ascend Medea's chariot, if thou mayst ;
Or that whence young Triptolemus of yore
Descended, welcome on the Scythian shore.
The sands that line the German coast descried,
To opulent Hamburga turn aside!
So called, if legendary fame be true,
From Hama, whom a club-armed Cimbrian slew.
There lives, deep-learn'd and primitively just,
A faithful steward of his Christian trust,
My friend and favourite inmate of my heart,
That now is forced to want its better part.
What mountains now, and seas alas how wide,
From me this other, dearer self divide!
Dear as the sage renowned for moral truth
To the prime spirit of the Attic youth;
Dear as the Stagyrite to Ammon's son,
His pupil, who disdained the world he won;
Nor so did Chiron or so Phoenix shine
In young Achilles' eyes as he in mine.
First led by him through sweet Aonian shade,
Each sacred haunt of Pindus I surveyed;
And, favoured by the Muse whom I implored,
Thrice on my lip the hallowed stream I poured.
But thrice the sun's resplendent chariot, rolled
To Aries, has new-tinged his fleece with gold,
And Chloris twice has dressed the meadows gay,
And twice has summer parched their bloom away,
Since last delighted on his looks I hung,
Or my ear drank the music of his tongue.
Fly, therefore, and surpass the tempest's speed;
Aware thyself that there is urgent need!
Him, entering, thou shalt haply seated see
Beside his spouse, his infants on his knee;
Or turning, page by page, with studious look,
Some bulky father, or God's holy book;
Or ministering (which is his weightiest care)
To Christ's assembled flock their heavenly fare.
Give him, whatever his employment be,
Such gratulation as he claims from me;
And, with a down-cast eye and carriage meek
Addressing him, forget not thus to speak.
"If, compassed round with arms, thou canst attend
To verse, verse greets thee from a distant friend.
Long due, and late, I left the English shore;
But make me welcome for that cause the more!
Such from Ulysses, his chaste wife to cheer,
The slow epistle came, though late, sincere.
But wherefore this? why palliate I the deed
For which the culprit's self could hardly plead?
Self-charged, and self-condemned, his proper part
He feels neglected, with an aching heart.
But thou forgive ! delinquents who confess,
And pray forgiveness, merit anger less;
From timid foes the lion turns away,
Nor yawns upon or rends a crouching prey;
Even pike-wielding Thracians learn to spare,
Won by soft influence of a suppliant prayer;
And Heaven's dread thunderbolt arrested stands
By a cheap victim and uplifted hands.
Long had he wished to write, but was withheld,
And writes at last, by love alone compelled;
For Fame, too often true when she alarms,
Reports thy neighbouring fields a scene for arms
Thy city against fierce besiegers barred,
And all the Saxon chiefs for fight prepared.
Enyo wastes thy country wide around,
And saturates with blood the tainted ground;
Mars rests contented in his Thrace no more,
But goads his steeds to fields of German gore;
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