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The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer

R >> Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.] >> The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer





27

"Late as I roam'd, intent on Nature's charms,
I reach'd at eve this wilderness profound;
And, leaning where yon oak expands her arms,
Heard these rude cliffs thine awful voice rebound
(For in thy speech I recognise the sound).
You mourn'd for ruin'd man, and virtue lost,
And seem'd to feel of keen remorse the wound,
Pondering on former days, by guilt engross'd,
Or in the giddy storm of dissipation toss'd.


28

"But say, in courtly life can craft be learn'd,
Where knowledge opens and exalts the soul?
Where Fortune lavishes her gifts unearn'd,
Can selfishness the liberal heart control?
Is glory there achieved by arts as foul
As those that felons, fiends, and furies plan?
Spiders ensnare, snakes poison, tigers prowl:
Love is the godlike attribute of man.
O teach a simple youth this mystery to scan.


29

"Or else the lamentable strain disclaim,
And give me back the calm, contented mind.
Which, late exulting, view'd in Nature's frame
Goodness untainted, wisdom unconfined,
Grace, grandeur, and utility combined.
Restore those tranquil days that saw me still
Well pleased with all, but most with humankind;
When Fancy roam'd through Nature's works at will,
Uncheck'd by cold distrust, and uninform'd by ill."


30

"Wouldst thou," the Sage replied, "in peace return
To the gay dreams of fond romantic youth,
Leave me to hide, in this remote sojourn,
From every gentle ear the dreadful truth:
For if any desultory strain with ruth
And indignation make thine eyes o'erflow,
Alas! what comfort could thy anguish soothe,
Shouldst thou the extent of human folly know?
Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge leads to woe.


31

"But let untender thoughts afar be driven;
Nor venture to arraign the dread decree.
For know, to man, as candidate for heaven,
The voice of the Eternal said, Be free:
And this divine prerogative to thee
Does virtue, happiness, and heaven convey;
For virtue is the child of liberty,
And happiness of virtue; nor can they
Be free to keep the path, who are not free to stray.


32

"Yet leave me not. I would allay that grief,
Which else might thy young virtue overpower;
And in thy converse I shall find relief,
When the dark shades of melancholy lower;
For solitude has many a dreary hour,
Even when exempt from grief, remorse, and pain:
Come often then; for haply, in my bower,
Amusement, knowledge, wisdom thou mayst gain:
If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain."


33

And now, at length, to Edwin's ardent gaze
The Muse of history unrolls her page.
But few, alas! the scenes her art displays,
To charm his fancy, or his heart engage.
Here chiefs their thirst of power in blood assuage,
And straight their flames with tenfold fierceness burn
Here smiling Virtue prompts the patriot's rage,
But, lo! ere long, is left alone to mourn,
And languish in the dust, and clasp the abandon'd urn.


34

"Ambition's slippery verge shall mortals tread,
Where ruin's gulf, unfathom'd, yawns beneath?
Shall life, shall liberty be lost," he said,
"For the vain toys that Pomp and Power bequeath?
The car of victory, the plume, the wreath
Defend not from the bolt of fate the brave:
No note the clarion of Renown can breathe,
To alarm the long night of the lonely grave,
Or check the headlong haste of time's o'erwhelming wave.


35

"Ah, what avails it to have traced the springs,
That whirl of empire the stupendous wheel?
Ah, what have I to do with conquering kings,
Hands drench'd in blood, and breasts begirt with steel?
To those, whom Nature taught to think and feel,
Heroes, alas! are things of small concern;
Could History man's secret heart reveal,
And what imports a heaven-born mind to learn,
Her transcripts to explore what bosom would not yearn?


36

"This praise, O Cheronean sage [3] is thine!
(Why should this praise to thee alone belong?)
All else from Nature's moral path decline,
Lured by the toys that captivate the throng;
To herd in cabinets and camps, among
Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride;
Or chant of heraldry the drowsy song,
How tyrant blood o'er many a region wide,
Rolls to a thousand thrones its execrable tide.


37

"Oh, who of man the story will unfold,
Ere victory and empire wrought annoy,
In that Elysian age misnamed of gold),
The age of love, and innocence and joy,
When all were great and free! man's sole employ
To deck the bosom of his parent earth;
Or toward his bower the murmuring stream decoy,
To aid the floweret's long-expected birth,
And lull the bed of peace, and crown the board of mirth?


38

"Sweet were your shades, O ye primeval groves!
Whose boughs to man his food and shelter lent,
Pure in his pleasures, happy in his loves,
His eye still smiling, and his heart content.
Then, hand in hand, Health, Sport, and Labour went.
Nature supplied the wish she taught to crave.
None prowl'd for prey, none watch'd to circumvent;
To all an equal lot Heaven's bounty gave:
No vassal fear'd his lord, no tyrant fear'd his slave.


39

"But ah! the Historic Muse has never dared
To pierce those hallow'd bowers: 'tis Fancy's beam
Pour'd on the vision of the enraptured bard,
That paints the charms of that delicious theme.
Then hail, sweet Fancy's ray! and hail, the dream
That weans the weary soul from guilt and woe!
Careless what others of my choice may deem,
I long, where Love and Fancy lead, to go
And meditate on Heaven; enough of Earth I know."


40

"I cannot blame thy choice," the Sage replied,
"For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways.
And yet even there, if left without a guide,
The young adventurer unsafely plays.
Eyes dazzled long by fiction's gaudy rays,
In modest truth no light nor beauty find.
And who, my child, would trust the meteor blaze,
That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind,
More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shined?


41

"Fancy enervates, while it soothes the heart;
And while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight:
To joy each heightening charm it can impart,
But wraps the hour of woe in tenfold night.
And often, where no real ills affright,
Its visionary fiends, an endless train,
Assail with equal or superior might,
And through the throbbing heart, and dizzy brain,
And shivering nerves, shoot stings of more than mortal pain.


42

"And yet, alas! the real ills of life
Claim the full vigour of a mind prepared,
Prepared for patient, long, laborious strife,
Its guide experience, and truth its guard.
We fare on earth as other men have fared.
Were they successful? Let us not despair,
Was disappointment oft their sole reward?
Yet shall their tale instruct, if it declare
How they have borne the load ourselves are doom'd to bear.


43

"What charms the Historic Muse adorn, from spoils,
And blood, and tyrants, when she wings her flight,
To hail the patriot prince, whose pious toils,
Sacred to science, liberty, and right,
And peace, through every age divinely bright
Shall shine the boast and wonder of mankind!
Sees yonder sun, from his meridian height,
A lovelier scene than virtue thus enshrined
In power, and man with man for mutual aid combined?


44

"Hail, sacred Polity, by Freedom rear'd!
Hail, sacred Freedom, when by law restrain'd!
Without you, what were man? A grovelling herd,
In darkness, wretchedness, and want enchain'd.
Sublimed by you, the Greek and Roman reign'd
In arts unrivall'd! O, to latest days,
In Albion may your influence unprofaned
To godlike worth the generous bosom raise,
And prompt the sage's lore, and fire the poet's lays!


45

"But now let other themes our care engage.
For, lo, with modest yet majestic grace,
To curb Imagination's lawless rage,
And from within the cherish'd heart to brace,
Philosophy appears! The gloomy race
By Indolence and moping Fancy bred,
Fear, Discontent, Solicitude, give place;
And Hope and Courage brighten in their stead,
While on the kindling soul her vital beams are shed!


46

"Then waken from long lethargy to life [4]
The seeds of happiness, and powers of thought;
Then jarring appetites forego their strife,
A strife by ignorance to madness wrought.
Pleasure by savage man is dearly bought
With fell revenge; lust that defies control,
With gluttony and death. The mind untaught
Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl;
As Phoebus to the world, is science to the soul.


47

"And Reason now through number, time, and space,
Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye,
And learns, from facts compared, the laws to trace,
Whose long progression leads to Deity.
Can mortal strength presume to soar so high?
Can mortal sight, so oft bedimm'd with tears,
Such glory bear?--for, lo! the shadows fly
From Nature's face; confusion disappears,
And order charms the eye, and harmony the ears!


48

"In the deep windings of the grove, no more
The hag obscene and grisly phantom dwell;
Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar
Of winds, is heard the angry spirit's yell;
No wizard mutters the tremendous spell,
Nor sinks convulsive in prophetic swoon;
Nor bids the noise of drums and trumpets swell,
To ease of fancied pangs the labouring moon,
Or chase the shade that blots the blazing orb of noon.


49

"Many a long lingering year, in lonely isle,
Stunn'd with the eternal turbulence of waves,
Lo! with dim eyes, that never learn'd to smile,
And trembling hands, the famish'd native craves
Of Heaven his wretched fare; shivering in caves,
Or scorch'd on rocks, he pines from day to day;
But Science gives the word; and, lo! he braves
The surge and tempest, lighted by her ray,
And to a happier land wafts merrily away!


50

"And even where Nature loads the teeming plain
With the full pomp of vegetable store,
Her bounty, unimproved, is deadly bane:
Dark woods and rankling wilds, from shore to shore,
Stretch their enormous gloom; which to explore [5]
Even Fancy trembles, in her sprightliest mood:
For there each eyeball gleams with lust of gore,
Nestles each murderous and each monstrous brood,
Plague lurks in every shade, and steams from every flood.


51

"'Twas from Philosophy man learn'd to tame
The soil, by plenty to intemperance fed.
Lo! from the echoing axe and thundering flame,
Poison and plague and yelling rage are fled.
The waters, bursting from their slimy bed,
Bring health and melody to every vale:
And, from the breezy main, and mountain's head,
Ceres and Flora, to the sunny dale,
To fan their glowing charms, invite the fluttering gale.


52

"What dire necessities on every hand
Our art, our strength, our fortitude require!
Of foes intestine what a numerous band
Against this little throb of life conspire!
Yet Science can elude their fatal ire
A while, and turn aside Death's levell'd dart,
Soothe the sharp pang, allay the fever's fire,
And brace the nerves once more, and cheer the heart,
And yet a few soft nights and balmy days impart.


53

"Nor less to regulate man's moral frame
Science exerts her all-composing sway.
Flutters thy breast with fear, or pants for fame,
Or pines, to indolence and spleen a prey,
Or avarice, a fiend more fierce than they?
Flee to the shade of Academus' grove;
Where cares molest not, discord melts away
In harmony, and the pure passions prove
How sweet the words of Truth, breathed from the lips of Love.


54

"What cannot Art and Industry perform,
When Science plans the progress of their toil?
They smile at penury, disease, and storm;
And oceans from their mighty mounds recoil.
When tyrants scourge, or demagogues embroil
A land, or when the rabble's headlong rage
Order transforms to anarchy and spoil,
Deep-versed in man the philosophic sage
Prepares with lenient hand their frenzy to assuage.


55

"'Tis he alone, whose comprehensive mind,
From situation, temper, soil, and clime
Explored, a nation's various powers can bind,
And various orders in one Form sublime
Of policy, that 'midst the wrecks of time,
Secure shall lift its head on high, nor fear
The assault of foreign or domestic crime,
While public faith, and public love sincere,
And industry and law, maintain their sway severe."


56

Enraptured by the hermit's strain, the youth
Proceeds the path of Science to explore.
And now, expanded to the beams of truth,
New energies, and charms unknown before,
His mind discloses: Fancy now no more
Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies;
But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power,
Aloft from cause to cause exults to rise,
Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies.


57

Nor love of novelty alone inspires,
Their laws and nice dependencies to scan;
For, mindful of the aids that life requires,
And of the services man owes to man,
He meditates new arts on Nature's plan;
The cold desponding breast of sloth to warm,
The flame of industry and genius fan,
And emulation's noble rage alarm,
And the long hours of toil and solitude to charm.


58

But she, who set on fire his infant heart,
And all his dreams, and all his wanderings shared
And bless'd, the Muse, and her celestial art,
Still claim the enthusiast's fond and first regard.
From Nature's beauties, variously compared
And variously combined, he learns to frame
Those forms of bright perfection, [6] which the bard,
While boundless hopes and boundless views inflame,
Enamour'd, consecrates to never-dying fame.


59

Of late, with cumbersome, though pompous show,
Edwin would oft his flowery rhyme deface,
Through ardour to adorn; but Nature now
To his experienced eye a modest grace
Presents, where ornament the second place
Holds, to intrinsic worth and just design
Subservient still. Simplicity apace
Tempers his rage: he owns her charm divine,
And clears the ambiguous phrase, and lops the unwieldy line.


60

Fain would I sing (much yet unsung remains)
What sweet delirium o'er his bosom stole,
When the great shepherd of the Mantuan plains [7]
His deep majestic melody 'gan roll:
Fain would I sing what transport storm'd his soul,
How the red current throbb'd his veins along,
When, like Pelides, bold beyond control,
Without art graceful, without effort strong,
Homer raised high to heaven the loud, the impetuous song.


61

And how his lyre, though rude her first essays,
Now skill'd to soothe, to triumph, to complain,
Warbling at will through each harmonious maze,
Was taught to modulate the artful strain,
I fain would sing:--But ah! I strive in vain.
Sighs from a breaking heart my voice confound.
With trembling step, to join yon weeping train,
I haste, where gleams funereal glare around,
And, mix'd with shrieks of woe, the knells of death resound.


62

Adieu, ye lays that Fancy's flowers adorn,
The soft amusement of the vacant mind!
He sleeps in dust, and all the Muses mourn,
He, whom each virtue fired, each grace refined,
Friend, teacher, pattern, darling of mankind!
He sleeps in dust. [8] Ah, how shall I pursue
My theme? To heart-consuming grief resign'd,
Here on his recent grave I fix my view,
And pour my bitter tears. Ye flowery lays, adieu!


63

Art thou, my GREGORY, for ever fled?
And am I left to unavailing woe?
When fortune's storms assail this weary head,
Where cares long since have shed untimely snow,
Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go?
No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers:
Thy placid eyes with smiles no longer glow,
My hopes to cherish, and allay my fears.
'Tis meet that I should mourn: flow forth afresh, my tears.


[Footnote 1: See Plato's 'Timæus.']

[Footnote 2: 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.'
(Shakspeare.)]

[Footnote 3: 'Cheronean sage:' Plutarch.]

[Footnote 4: The influence of the philosophic spirit, in humanizing the
mind, and preparing it for intellectual exertion and delicate
pleasure;--in exploring, by the help of geometry, the system of the
universe;--in banishing superstition; in promoting navigation,
agriculture, medicine, and moral and political science.]

[Footnote 5: 'To explore:' this, from Thomson, who says in his
'Summer'--

'Which even imagination fears to tread.']


[Footnote 6: General ideas of excellence, the immediate archetypes of
sublime imitation, both in painting and in poetry. See Aristotle's
'Poetics,' and the 'Discourses' of Sir Joshua Reynolds.]

[Footnote 7: 'Great shepherd of the Mantuan plains:' Virgil.]

[Footnote 8: This excellent person died suddenly on the 10th of February
1773. The conclusion of the poem was written a few days after.]









MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.




ODE TO HOPE.


I. 1.

O thou, who gladd'st the pensive soul,
More than Aurora's smile the swain forlorn,
Left all night long to mourn
Where desolation frowns, and tempests howl,
And shrieks of woe, as intermits the storm,
Far o'er the monstrous wilderness resound,
And 'cross the gloom darts many a shapeless form,
And many a fire-eyed visage glares around!
O come, and be once more my guest:
Come, for thou oft thy suppliant's vow hast heard,
And oft with smiles indulgent cheer'd
And soothed him into rest.


I. 2.

Smit by thy rapture-beaming eye
Deep flashing through the midnight of their mind,
The sable bands combined,
Where Fear's black banner bloats the troubled sky,
Appall'd retire. Suspicion hides her head,
Nor dares the obliquely gleaming eyeball raise;
Despair, with gorgon-figured veil o'erspread,
Speeds to dark Phlegethon's detested maze.
Lo! startled at the heavenly ray,
With speed unwonted Indolence upsprings,
And, heaving, lifts her leaden wings,
And sullen glides away:


I. 3.

Ten thousand forms, by pining Fancy view'd,
Dissolve.--Above the sparkling flood,
When Phoebus rears his awful brow,
From lengthening lawn and valley low
The troops of fen-born mists retire.
Along the plain
The joyous swain
Eyes the gay villages again,
And gold-illumined spire;
While on the billowy ether borne
Floats the loose lay's jovial measure;
And light along the fairy Pleasure,
Her green robes glittering to the morn,
Wantons on silken wing. And goblins all
To the damp dungeon shrink, or hoary hall,
Or westward, with impetuous flight,
Shoot to the desert realms of their congenial night.

II. 1.

When first on childhood's eager gaze
Life's varied landscape, stretch'd immense around,
Starts out of night profound,
Thy voice incites to tempt the untrodden maze.
Fond he surveys thy mild maternal face,
His bashful eye still kindling as he views,
And, while thy lenient arm supports his pace,
With beating heart the upland path pursues:
The path that leads, where, hung sublime,
And seen afar, youth's gallant trophies, bright
In Fancy's rainbow ray, invite
His wingy nerves to climb.


II. 2.

Pursue thy pleasurable way,
Safe in the guidance of thy heavenly guard,
While melting airs are heard,
And soft-eyed cherub-forms around thee play:
Simplicity, in careless flowers array'd,
Prattling amusive in his accent meek;
And Modesty, half turning as afraid,
The smile just dimpling on his glowing cheek!
Content and Leisure, hand in hand
With Innocence and Peace, advance and sing;
And Mirth, in many a mazy ring,
Frisks o'er the flowery land.


II. 3.

Frail man, how various is thy lot below!
To-day though gales propitious blow,
And Peace soft gliding down the sky
Lead Love along and Harmony,
To-morrow the gay scene deforms!
Then all around
The Thunder's sound
Rolls rattling on through Heaven's profound,
And down rush all the storms.
Ye days that balmy influence shed,
When sweet childhood, ever sprightly,
In paths of pleasure sported lightly,
Whither, ah! whither are ye fled?
Ye cherub train, that brought him on his way,
O leave him not 'midst tumult and dismay;
For now youth's eminence he gains;
But what a weary length of lingering toil remains!

III. 1.

They shrink, they vanish into air,
Now slander taints with pestilence the gale;
And mingling cries assail,
The wail of Woe, and groan of grim Despair,
Lo! wizard Envy from his serpent eye
Darts quick destruction in each baleful glance;
Pride smiling stern, and yellow Jealousy,
Frowning Disdain, and haggard Hate advance.
Behold, amidst the dire array,
Pale wither'd Care his giant stature rears,
And, lo! his iron hand prepares
To grasp its feeble prey.

III. 2.

Who now will guard bewilder'd youth
Safe from the fierce assault of hostile rage?
Such war can Virtue wage,
Virtue, that bears the sacred shield of Truth?
Alas! full oft on Guilt's victorious car
The spoils of Virtue are in triumph borne;
While the fair captive, mark'd with many a scar,
In lone obscurity, oppress'd, forlorn,
Resigns to tears her angel form.
Ill-fated youth, then whither wilt thou fly?
No friend, no shelter now is nigh,
And onward rolls the storm.

III. 3.

But whence the sudden beam that shoots along?
Why shrink aghast the hostile throng?
Lo! from amidst affliction's night
Hope bursts all radiant on the sight:
Her words the troubled bosom soothe.
"Why thus dismay'd?
Though foes invade,
Hope ne'er is wanting to their aid
Who tread the path of truth.
'Tis I, who smoothe the rugged way,
I, who close the eyes of Sorrow,
And with glad visions of to-morrow
Repair the weary soul's decay.
When Death's cold touch thrills to the freezing heart,
Dreams of Heaven's opening glories I impart,
Till the freed spirit springs on high
In rapture too severe for weak mortality."








ODE TO PEACE.


I. 1.

Peace, heaven-descended maid! whose powerful voice
From ancient darkness call'd the morn,
Of jarring elements composed the noise;
When Chaos, from his old dominion torn,
With all his bellowing throng,
Far, far was hurl'd the void abyss along;
And all the bright angelic choir
To loftiest raptures tune the heavenly lyre,
Pour'd in loud symphony the impetuous strain;
And every fiery orb and planet sung,
And wide through night's dark desolate domain
Rebounding long and deep the lays triumphant rung.


I. 2.

Oh, whither art thou fled, Saturnian reign?
Roll round again, majestic Years!
To break fell Tyranny's corroding chain,
From Woe's wan cheek to wipe the bitter tears,
Ye Years, again roll round!
Hark, from afar what loud tumultuous sound,
While echoes sweep the winding vales,
Swells full along the plains, and loads the gales!
Murder deep-roused, with the wild whirlwind's haste
And roar of tempest, from her cavern springs;
Her tangled serpents girds around her waist,
Smiles ghastly stern, and shakes her gore-distilling wings.


I. 3.

Fierce up the yielding skies
The shouts redoubling rise:
Earth shudders at the dreadful sound,
And all is listening, trembling round.
Torrents, that from yon promontory's head
Dash'd furious down in desperate cascade,
Heard from afar amid the' lonely night,
That oft have led the wanderer right,
Are silent at the noise.
The mighty ocean's more majestic voice,
Drown'd in superior din, is heard no more;
The surge in silence sweeps along the foamy shore.


II. 1.

The bloody banner streaming in the air,
Seen on yon sky-mix'd mountain's brow,
The mingling multitudes, the madding car,
Pouring impetuous on the plain below,
War's dreadful lord proclaim.
Bursts out by frequent fits the expansive flame.
Whirl'd in tempestuous eddies flies
The surging smoke o'er all the darken'd skies.
The cheerful face of heaven no more is seen,
Fades the morn's vivid blush to deadly pale:
The bat flits transient o'er the dusky green,
Night's shrieking birds along the sullen twilight sail.


II. 2.

Involved in fire-streak'd gloom the car comes on.
The mangled steeds grim Terror guides.
His forehead writhed to a relentless frown,
Aloft the angry Power of Battles rides:
Grasp'd in his mighty hand
A mace tremendous desolates the land;
Thunders the turret down the steep,
The mountain shrinks before its wasteful sweep;
Chill horror the dissolving limbs invades,
Smit by the blasting lightning of his eyes;
A bloated paleness beauty's bloom o'erspreads,
Fades every flowery field, and every verdure dies.

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