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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





[Footnote 1: 'Or little,' &c.: from Gray's Elegy.]







THE HARES.

A FABLE.


Yes, yes, I grant the sons of Earth
Are doom'd to trouble from their birth.
We all of sorrow have our share;
But say, is yours without compare?
Look round the world; perhaps you'll find
Each individual of our kind
Press'd with an equal load of ill,
Equal at least: look further still,
And own your lamentable case
Is little short of happiness. 10
In yonder hut that stands alone
Attend to Famine's feeble moan;
Or view the couch where Sickness lies,
Mark his pale cheek, and languid eyes;
His frame by strong convulsion torn,
His struggling sighs, and looks forlorn.
Or see, transfixt with keener pangs,
Where o'er his hoard the miser hangs;
Whistles the wind; he starts, he stares,
Nor Slumber's balmy blessing shares; 20
Despair, Remorse, and Terror roll
Their tempests on his harass'd soul.
But here perhaps it may avail
To enforce our reasoning with a tale.
Mild was the morn, the sky serene,
The jolly hunting band convene,
The beagle's breast with ardour burns,
The bounding steed the champaign spurns,
And Fancy oft the game descries
Through the hound's nose and huntsman's eyes, 30
Just then a council of the hares
Had met on national affairs.
The chiefs were set; while o'er their head
The furze its frizzled covering spread.
Long lists of grievances were heard,
And general discontent appear'd.
"Our harmless race shall every savage
Both quadruped and biped ravage?
Shall horses, hounds, and hunters still
Unite their wits to work us ill? 40
The youth, his parent's sole delight,
Whose tooth the dewy lawns invite,
Whose pulse in every vein beats strong,
Whose limbs leap light the vales along,
May yet ere noontide meet his death,
And lie dismember'd on the heath.
For youth, alas! nor cautious age,
Nor strength, nor speed eludes their rage.
In every field we meet the foe,
Each gale comes fraught with sounds of woe; 50
The morning but awakes our fears,
The evening sees us bathed in tears.
But must we ever idly grieve,
Nor strive our fortunes to relieve?
Small is each individual's force;
To stratagem be our recourse;
And then, from all our tribes combined,
The murderer to his cost may find
No foes are weak whom Justice arms,
Whom Concord leads, and Hatred warms. 60
Be roused; or liberty acquire,
Or in the great attempt expire."
He said no more, for in his breast
Conflicting thoughts the voice suppress'd:
The fire of vengeance seem'd to stream
From his swoln eyeball's yellow gleam.
And now the tumults of the war,
Mingling confusedly from afar,
Swell in the wind. Now louder cries
Distinct of hounds and men arise. 70
Forth from the brake, with beating heart,
The assembled hares tumultuous start,
And, every straining nerve on wing,
Away precipitately spring.
The hunting band, a signal given,
Thick thundering o'er the plain are driven;
O'er cliff abrupt, and shrubby mound,
And river broad, impetuous bound;
Now plunge amid the forest shades,
Glance through the openings of the glades; 80
Now o'er the level valley sweep,
Now with short step strain up the steep;
While backward from the hunter's eyes
The landscape like a torrent flies.
At last an ancient wood they gain'd,
By pruner's axe yet unprofaned.
High o'er the rest, by nature rear'd,
The oak's majestic boughs appear'd;
Beneath, a copse of various hue
In barbarous luxuriance grew. 90
No knife had curb'd the rambling sprays,
No hand had wove the implicit maze.
The flowering thorn, self-taught to wind,
The hazel's stubborn stem entwined,
And bramble twigs were wreathed around,
And rough furze crept along the ground.
Here sheltering from the sons of murther,
The hares their tired limbs drag no further.
But, lo! the western wind ere long
Was loud, and roar'd the woods among; 100
From rustling leaves and crashing boughs
The sound of woe and war arose.
The hares distracted scour the grove,
As terror and amazement drove;
But danger, wheresoe'er they fled,
Still seem'd impending o'er their head.
Now crowded in a grotto's gloom,
All hope extinct, they wait their doom.
Dire was the silence, till, at length,
Even from despair deriving strength, 110
With bloody eye and furious look,
A daring youth arose and spoke:
"O wretched race, the scorn of Fate,
Whom ills of every sort await!
O cursed with keenest sense to feel
The sharpest sting of every ill!
Say ye, who, fraught with mighty scheme,
Of liberty and vengeance dream,
What now remains? To what recess
Shall we our weary steps address, 120
Since Fate is evermore pursuing
All ways, and means to work our ruin?
Are we alone, of all beneath,
Condemn'd to misery worse than death?
Must we, with fruitless labour, strive
In misery worse than death to live?
No. Be the smaller ill our choice;
So dictates Nature's powerful voice.
Death's pang will in a moment cease;
And then, all hail, eternal peace!" 130
Thus while he spoke, his words impart
The dire resolve to every heart.
A distant lake in prospect lay,
That, glittering in the solar ray,
Gleam'd through the dusky trees, and shot
A trembling light along the grot.
Thither with one consent they bend,
Their sorrows with their lives to end;
While each, in thought, already hears
The water hissing in his ears. 140
Fast by the margin of the lake,
Conceal'd within a thorny brake,
A linnet sat, whose careless lay
Amused the solitary day.
Careless he sung, for on his breast
Sorrow no lasting trace impress'd;
When suddenly he heard a sound
Of swift feet traversing the ground.
Quick to the neighbouring tree he flies,
Thence trembling casts around his eyes; 150
No foe appear'd, his fears were vain;
Pleased he renews the sprightly strain.
The hares whose noise had caused his fright,
Saw with surprise the linnet's flight.
"Is there on earth a wretch," they said,
"Whom our approach can strike with dread?"
An instantaneous change of thought
To tumult every bosom wrought.
So fares the system-building sage,
Who, plodding on from youth to age, 160
At last on some foundation dream
Has rear'd aloft his goodly scheme,
And proved his predecessors fools,
And bound all nature by his rules;
So fares he in that dreadful hour,
When injured Truth exerts her power,
Some new phenomenon to raise,
Which, bursting on his frighted gaze,
From its proud summit to the ground
Proves the whole edifice unsound. 170
"Children," thus spoke a hare sedate,
Who oft had known the extremes of fate,
"In slight events the docile mind
May hints of good instruction find,
That our condition is the worst,
And we with such misfortunes curst,
As all comparison defy,
Was late the universal cry;
When, lo! an accident so slight
As yonder little linnet's flight, 180
Has made your stubborn hearts confess
(So your amazement bids me guess)
That all our load of woes and fears
Is but a part of what he bears.
Where can he rest secure from harms,
Whom even a helpless hare alarms?
Yet he repines not at his lot;
When past, the danger is forgot:
On yonder bough he trims his wings,
And with unusual rapture sings: 190
While we, less wretched, sink beneath
Our lighter ills, and rush to death.
No more of this unmeaning rage,
But hear, my friends, the words of age:
"When, by the winds of autumn driven,
The scatter'd clouds fly 'cross the heaven,
Oft have we, from some mountain's head,
Beheld the alternate light and shade
Sweep the long vale. Here, hovering, lowers
The shadowy cloud; there downward pours, 200
Streaming direct, a flood of day,
Which from the view flies swift away;
It flies, while other shades advance,
And other streaks of sunshine glance.
Thus chequer'd is the life below
With gleams of joy and clouds of woe.
Then hope not, while we journey on,
Still to be basking in the sun;
Nor fear, though now in shades ye mourn,
That sunshine will no more return. 210
If, by your terrors overcome,
Ye fly before the approaching gloom,
The rapid clouds your flight pursue,
And darkness still o'ercasts your view.
Who longs to reach the radiant plain
Must onward urge his course amain:
For doubly swift the shadow flies,
When 'gainst the gale the pilgrim plies.
At least be firm, and undismay'd
Maintain your ground! the fleeting shade 220
Ere long spontaneous glides away,
And gives you back the enlivening ray.
Lo, while I speak, our danger past!
No more the shrill horn's angry blast
Howls in our ear: the savage roar
Of war and murder is no more.
Then snatch the moment fate allows,
Nor think of past or future woes."
He spoke; and hope revives; the lake
That instant one and all forsake, 230
In sweet amusement to employ
The present sprightly hour of joy.
Now from the western mountain's brow,
Compass'd with clouds of various glow,
The sun a broader orb displays,
And shoots aslope his ruddy rays.
The lawn assumes a fresher green,
And dew-drops spangle all the scene.
The balmy zephyr breathes along,
The shepherd sings his tender song, 240
With all their lays the groves resound,
And falling waters murmur round:
Discord and care were put to flight,
And all was peace and calm delight.












THE WOLF AND SHEPHERDS.

A FABLE.

(WRITTEN IN 1757, AND FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1766.)


Laws, as we read in ancient sages,
Have been like cobwebs in all ages:
Cobwebs for little flies are spread,
And laws for little folks are made;
But if an insect of renown,
Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,
Be caught in quest of sport or plunder,
The flimsy fetter flies in sunder.
Your simile perhaps may please one
With whom wit holds the place of reason: 10
But can you prove that this in fact is
Agreeable to life and practice?
Then hear, what in his simple way
Old Æsop told me t' other day.
In days of yore, but (which is very odd)
Our author mentions not the period,
We mortal men, less given to speeches,
Allow'd the beasts sometimes to teach us.
But now we all are prattlers grown,
And suffer no voice but our own; 20
With us no beast has leave to speak,
Although his honest heart should break.
'Tis true, your asses and your apes,
And other brutes in human shapes,
And that thing made of sound and show,
Which mortals have misnamed a beau,
(But in the language of the sky
Is call'd a two-legg'd butterfly),
Will make your very heartstrings ache
With loud and everlasting clack, 30
And beat your auditory drum,
Till you grow deaf, or they grow dumb.
But to our story we return:
'Twas early on a Summer morn,
A Wolf forsook the mountain den,
And issued hungry on the plain.
Full many a stream and lawn he past
And reach'd a winding vale at last;
Where from a hollow rock he spied
The shepherds drest in flowery pride. 40
Garlands were strew'd, and all was gay,
To celebrate a holiday.
The merry tabor's gamesome sound
Provoked the sprightly dance around.
Hard by a rural board was rear'd,
On which in fair array appear'd
The peach, the apple, and the raisin,
And all the fruitage of the season.
But, more distinguish'd than the rest,
Was seen a wether ready drest, 50
That smoking, recent from the flame,
Diffused a stomach-rousing steam.
Our Wolf could not endure the sight,
Courageous grew his appetite:
His entrails groan'd with tenfold pain,
He lick'd his lips, and lick'd again:
At last, with lightning in his eyes,
He bounces forth, and fiercely cries:
"Shepherds, I am not given to scolding,
But now my spleen I cannot hold in. 60
By Jove, such scandalous oppression
Would put an elephant in passion.
You, who your flocks (as you pretend)
By wholesome laws from harm defend,
Which make it death for any beast,
How much soe'er by hunger press'd,
To seize a sheep by force or stealth,
For sheep have right to life and health;
Can you commit, uncheck'd by shame,
What in a beast so much you blame? 70
What is a law, if those who make it
Become the forwardest to break it?
The case is plain: you would reserve
All to yourselves, while others starve.
Such laws from base self-interest spring,
Not from the reason of the thing--"
He was proceeding, when a swain
Burst out,--"And dares a wolf arraign
His betters, and condemn their measures,
And contradict their wills and pleasures? 80
We have establish'd laws, 'tis true,
But laws are made for such as you.
Know, sirrah, in its very nature
A law can't reach the legislature.
For laws, without a sanction join'd,
As all men know, can never bind;
But sanctions reach not us the makers,
For who dares punish us, though breakers?
'Tis therefore plain, beyond denial,
That laws were ne'er design'd to tie all; 90
But those, whom sanctions reach alone:
We stand accountable to none.
Besides, 'tis evident, that, seeing
Laws from the great derive their being,
They as in duty bound should love
The great, in whom they live and move,
And humbly yield to their desires:
'Tis just what gratitude requires.
What suckling, dandled on the lap,
Would tear away its mother's pap? 100
But hold--Why deign I to dispute
With such a scoundrel of a brute?
Logic is lost upon a knave,
Let action prove the law our slave."
An angry nod his will declared
To his gruff yeoman of the guard;
The full-fed mongrels, train'd to ravage,
Fly to devour the shaggy savage.
The beast had now no time to lose
In chopping logic with his foes; 110
"This argument," quoth he, "has force,
And swiftness is my sole resource."
He said, and left the swains their prey,
And to the mountains scour'd away.








SONG;

IN IMITATION OF SHAKSPEARE'S "BLOW, BLOW, THOU WINTER WIND."


1

Blow, blow, thou vernal gale!
Thy balm will not avail
To ease my aching breast;
Though thou the billows smooth,
Thy murmurs cannot soothe
My weary soul to rest.


2

Flow, flow, thou tuneful stream!
Infuse the easy dream
Into the peaceful soul;
But thou canst not compose
The tumult of my woes,
Though soft thy waters roll.


3

Blush, blush, ye fairest flowers!
Beauties surpassing yours
My Rosalind adorn;
Nor is the Winter's blast,
That lays your glories waste,
So killing as her scorn.


4

Breathe, breathe, ye tender lays,
That linger down the maze
Of yonder winding grove;
O let your soft control
Bend her relenting soul
To pity and to love.


5

Fade, fade, ye flowerets fair!
Gales, fan no more the air!
Ye streams, forget to glide;
Be hush'd each vernal strain;
Since nought can soothe my pain,
Nor mitigate her pride.












TO LADY CHARLOTTE GORDON,

DRESSED IN A TARTAN SCOTCH BONNET, WITH PLUMES, ETC.


1

Why, lady, wilt them bind thy lovely brow
With the dread semblance of that warlike helm;
That nodding plume, and wreath of various glow,
That graced the chiefs of Scotia's ancient realm?


2

Thou know'st that Virtue is of power the source,
And all her magic to thy eyes is given;
We own their empire, while we feel their force,
Beaming with the benignity of heaven.


3

The plumy helmet and the martial mien
Might dignify Minerva's awful charms;
But more resistless far the Idalian queen--
Smiles, graces, gentleness, her only arms.










EPITAPH:

BEING PART OF AN INSCRIPTION DESIGNED FOR A MONUMENT
ERECTED BY A GENTLEMAN TO THE MEMORY OF HIS LADY.


Farewell, my best beloved! whose heavenly mind
Genius with virtue, strength with softness join'd;
Devotion, undebased by pride or art,
With meek simplicity, and joy of heart:
Though sprightly, gentle; though polite, sincere;
And only of thyself a judge severe:
Unblamed, unequall'd in each sphere of life,
The tenderest daughter, sister, parent, wife.
In thee, their patroness the afflicted lost;
Thy friends their pattern, ornament, and boast;
And I--but ah, can words my loss declare,
Or paint the extremes of transport and despair!
O thou, beyond what verse or speech can tell--
My guide, my friend, my best beloved, farewell!








EPITAPH

ON TWO YOUNG MEN OF THE NAME OF LEITCH, WHO WERE DROWNED IN CROSSING THE
RIVER SOUTHESK. 1757.


O thou! whose steps in sacred reverence tread
These lone dominions of the silent dead;
On this sad stone a pious look bestow,
Nor uninstructed read this tale of woe;
And while the sigh of sorrow heaves thy breast,
Let each rebellious murmur be suppress'd;
Heaven's hidden ways to trace, for us how vain!
Heaven's wise decrees, how impious to arraign!
Pure from the stains of a polluted age,
In early bloom of life they left the stage:
Not doom'd in lingering woe to waste their breath,
One moment snatch'd them from the power of Death:
They lived united, and united died;
Happy the friends whom Death cannot divide!











EPITAPH, INTENDED FOR HIMSELF.


1

Escaped the gloom of mortal life, a soul
Here leaves its mouldering tenement of clay,
Safe where no cares their whelming billows roll,
No doubts bewilder, and no hopes betray.


2

Like thee, I once have stemm'd the sea of life;
Like thee, have languish'd after empty joys;
Like thee, have labour'd in the stormy strife;
Been grieved for trifles, and amused with toys.


3

Yet, for a while, 'gainst Passion's threatful blast
Let steady Reason urge the struggling oar;
Shot through the dreary gloom, the morn at last
Gives to thy longing eye the blissful shore.


4

Forget my frailties, thou art also frail;
Forgive my lapses, for thyself mayst fall;
Nor read, unmoved, my artless tender tale,
I was a friend, O man! to thee, to all.



END OF BEATTIE'S POEMS.











POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BLAIR.




THE LIFE OF ROBERT BLAIR.


The paradox of Dr Johnson, in reference to sacred poetry, has long ago
fallen into disrepute. It seems singular indeed, how it ever obtained
credence, even although supported by one of the most powerful pens that
ever wrote in Britain, when we remember that, previous to that author's
day, the best poetry in the world 'had' been sacred. The Holy Scriptures
then existed, with that poetry which bursts out at their every pore,
besides being collected here and there into masses of rich song,
"pressed down, shaken together, and running over." Dante, too, had
written his great work, which, as if to mark it out for ever from things
unclean and common, he had called the "'Divina' Commedia," and which was
worthy of the name. Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata" had a religious
moral, as well as a title suggestive of religious ideas. Spenser's
"Faery Queen" was sacred, if not in all the parts, yet at least in the
pervading spirit of its poetry. Cowley's "Davideis," Herbert's "Temple,"
Milton's "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," and Young's "Night
Thoughts," existed then, were all admitted to be more or less
masterpieces, and were all sacred in their subjects and aims. Blair's
"Grave" too, had, ere Johnson's day, appeared, and furnished a good
example of a solemn and religious theme, treated with genuine poetic
power.

We need not say what a flood of sacred song has arisen since, and
drowned the dictum of the lexicographer in the waves. Nay, an opinion is
gaining ground, that all lofty poetry tends toward the sacred, and lies
under the shadow of the divine. Poetry is like fire, which, even when
employed in culinary or destructive purposes, points its column upwards,
and seems to transmit the flower and essence of its conquests to heaven.
All poetry that does not thus ascend is either morbid in spirit, or
secondary in merit.


We come now to the life of one of our best religious poets,--ROBERT
BLAIR--whose short poem "The Grave," is so admirable as to excite keen
regret that it is almost the only specimen extant of his gifted and
original mind.

The facts of his life are more than usually scanty, and our biography,
therefore, must be brief and meagre. Robert Blair was born in Edinburgh,
in 1699. It is curious, by the way, how few poets the Modern Athens has
produced. It has bred lawyers, statists, critics, savans, in plenty, but
reared but few men of transcendant genius, and, so far as we remember,
only five good poets,--Scott, Ferguson, Ramsay, Falconer, and
Blair,--whom the manufacturing town of Paisley nearly matches with its
Tannahill, Motherwell, Alexander and John Wilson. Blair was the eldest
son of the Rev. David Blair, who was a minister of the Old Church of
Edinburgh, and one of the chaplains to the King. His mother was Euphemia
Nisbet, daughter of Alexander Nisbet, Esq., of Carfin. His grandfather,
Robert Blair, of Irvine,--descended from the ancient family of Blair 'of
that ilk ('i.e.', of Blair), in Ayrshire,--distinguished himself, in the
troublous times of the Solemn League and Covenant, as a powerful
preacher, an able negociator, and a brave, determined man. The
celebrated Hugh Blair,--whose writings, once so popular, seem now nearly
forgotten,--was our poet's cousin, although younger by nineteen years.
Robert lost his father while yet a boy, but enjoyed the anxious care and
admirable training of an excellent mother. He studied first at the
University of Edinburgh, and afterwards in Holland. Of the particulars
of either part of his curriculum nothing is known. On his return from
abroad, he seems to have received license to preach, and to have hung
about Edinburgh for a few years, an unemployed probationer. This was of
less consequence, as he had some hereditary property. It gave him, too,
abundant leisure for study, and he employed it well--cultivating natural
history and the cognate sciences--publishing a few fugitive verses,
which made very little impression on the public--and drawing out the
first rude draught of the poem which was destined to make him
immortal,--"The Grave." In 1731, when he was in his thirty-second year,
he was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford, a parish in East
Lothian, where he continued to reside all the rest of his life.
Dissenter though the author of this biography be, he is free to confess,
that there is very much that is enviable in the position of a parish
minister, particularly in the country. Possessed of an easy competence,
and a manageable field of labour, surrounded by the simplicities of
rural manners, and the picturesque features of rural scenery,--lord of
his sphere of duty, and master of his time,--his life can be, and often
is, one of the most useful and happy, honourable in its toils, and
graceful in its relaxations, to be found on earth. Where could we expect
elegant studies to be prosecuted with more success, or whence could we
expect more works of sanctified learning and genius to issue, than in
and from the "manses" of Scotland, always so beautifully situated, now
on the brink of the mountain stream, singing its wild way through the
woods,--now in the centre of rich orchards and fertile fields,--now on
sunny braes, overlooking the whole parish, prostrate in its loveliness
at their feet,--and now surrounded and shadowed by broad old oaks and
tall black pine-trees? And so, accordingly, it has been, although not
perhaps to the extent we might have wished or expected. Philosophy of
the deepest order has been studied--inquiries the most profound and
extensive into natural science and history have been prosecuted; and
painting, music, and poetry, have found enthusiastic and gifted
votaries, who, at the same time, have not neglected their higher
vocation,--in the quiet manses of our country; and we rejoice to know
that this state of things continues, and is not confined to the
Established Church, but may be asserted with equal or greater force to
exist in others.

At Athelstaneford, Blair seems to have realised this ideal of a country
minister. He was attentive to his pastoral duties, and the correspondent
of Doddridge and the author of "The Grave," could not fail to be an
evangelical, a practical, and a powerful preacher. He at the same time
diligently prosecuted his favourite studies, which were botany, natural
history, and poetry. Possessing a considerable fortune, he lived on a
footing of equality and friendship with the gentry of the neighbourhood,
and others of similar rank in distant parts of Scotland. Sir Francis
Kinloch of Gilmerton and John Gallander of Craigforth are mentioned as
two of his intimates. We are tempted to figure the author of "The Grave"
as a morose and melancholy 'solitaire'--musing amid midnight
churchyards--stumbling over bones--and returning home to light his lamp,
inserted in a gaping skull, and to write out his gloomy cogitations.
This is very far from being his real character. He was more frequently
seen wandering amidst the flowery nooks of summer, with a microscope in
his hand; or, on his way home from his pastoral visitations, stopping to
analyse the fungi and the mosses which met him on his path; or musing
above the long liquid lapse of some wayside stream, down which were
floating the red leaves of autumn; or turning a telescope of his own
construction aloft to the gleaming host of heaven. In his mode of
spending his time, as well as in some of the stern features of his
genius, he resembled Crabbe, who, believing that every weed was a
flower, spent much of his time amidst the fields and on the sea-shores;
who extracted delight out of the meanest fungus, even as he extracted
poetry out of the humblest characters; and whose life, like Blair's, was
a harmless dream.

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