The light he saw in Albion's happy plains, The mountain Dryads seized with joy, The smiling infant to their charge consign'd; The Doric muse caress'd the favourite boy: The hermit Wisdom stored his opening mind. As rolling years matured his age, He flourish'd bold and sinewy as his sire; While the mild passions in his breast assuage The fiercer flames of his maternal fire. ANTISTROPHE. Accomplish'd thus, he wing'd his way, And warm with patriot thought the aspiring soul. On desert isles 'twas he that raised Those spires that gild the Adriatic wave, Fair Freedom's temple, where he mark'd her grave. He steel'd the blunt Batavian's arms To burst the Iberian's double chain; And cities rear'd, and planted farms, Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain. He, with the generous rustics, sate On Uri's rocks in close divan; And wing'd that arrow sure as fate, STROPHE. Arabia's scorching sands he cross'd, To Freedom's adamantine shrine; And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast! And taught amidst the dreary waste, My lips by him chastised to truth, Ne'er paid that homage which my heart denies. Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts, And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell. There, study shall with solitude recline, And toil and temperance sedately twine ANTISTROPHE. Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread, Where varnish'd vice and vanity combined 922.-ODE TO LEVEN-WATER. On Leven's banks, while free to rove, And tune the rural pipe to love, I envied not the happiest swain Pure stream! in whose transparent wave My youthful limbs I wont to lave; No torrents stain thy limpid source, Still on thy banks so gaily green, Smollett.-Born 1721, Died 1771. The sons against their fathers stood, The pious mother, doom'd to death, While the warm blood bedews my veins, 923. THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND. Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn The wretched owner sees afar What boots it, then, in every clime, The rural pipe and merry lay 924.-CHOICE OF A RURAL SITUATION That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine, Sated with exhalations rank and fell, It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass With sickly rest: and (though the lungs abhor To drink the dun fuliginous abyss) Did not the acid vigour of the mine, Roll'd from so many thundering chimneys, tame The putrid steams that overswarm the sky; This caustic venom would perhaps corrode Those tender cells that draw the vital air, In vain with all the unctuous rills bedew'd; Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawn In countless pores o'er all the pervious skin Imbibed, would poison the balsamic blood, And rouse the heart to every fever's rage. While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales; The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze That fans the ever-undulating sky; A kindly sky! whose fost'ring power regales Benign, where all her honest children thrive. We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice. (Richmond that sees a hundred villas rise For on a rustic throne of dewy turf, 925.-RECOMMENDATION OF A HIGH SITUATION ON THE SEA-COAST. Meantime, the moist malignity to shun Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry champaign Swells into cheerful hills: where marjoram And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air; And where the cynorrhodon with the rose Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires. O'erhung, defends you from the blust'ring north, And bleak affliction of the peevish east. when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm; Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks, And natural movements of th' harmonious frame. Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill, From vale to mountain, with incessant change Of purest element, refreshing still Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds John Armstrong.-Born 1709, Died 1779. 926.-ANGLING. But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale Of pastoral Stafford runs the brawling Trent; Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the stream On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air; Unknown in song, though not a purer stream, mantic groves, Rolls towards the western main. Hail, sacred flood! May still thy hospitable swains be blest Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys, In thy transparent eddies have I laved; Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks, The eager trout, and with the slender line And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool, swarms. Form'd on the Samian school, or those of Ind, There are who think these pastimes scarce humane ; Yet in my mind (and not relentless I) John Armstrong.-Born 1709, Died 1779. 927-PESTILENCE OF THE Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field; While, for which tyrant England should receive, Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd, Another plague of more gigantic arm And strew'd with sudden carcases the land. Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain, They toss'd from side to side. In vain the stream Ran full and clear, they burnt, and thirsted still. The restless arteries with rapid blood Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly The breath was fetch'd, and with huge labourings heaved. At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head, Harass'd with toil on toil, the sinking powers Lay prostrate and o'erthrown; a ponderous sleep Wrapt all the senses up: they slept and died. In some a gentle horror crept at first O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin Withheld their moisture, till by art provoked The sweats o'erflow'd, but in a clammy tide; Now free and copious, now restrain'd and slow; Of tinctures various, as the temperature Had mix'd the blood, and rank with fetid streams: As if the pent-up humours by delay Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign. Here lay their hopes (though little hope remain'd), With full effusion of perpetual sweats To drive the venom out. And here the fates Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain. For, who survived the sun's diurnal race, Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem'd; Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third. Of many thousands, few untainted 'scaped; Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land The infected city pour'd her hurrying swarms: Roused by the flames that fired her seats around, The infected country rush'd into the town. Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main, To seek protection in far distant skies; But none they found. It seem'd the general air, From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east, Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven Involved them still, and every breeze was bane: Where find relief? The salutary art Was mute, and, startled at the new disease, Heaven heard them not. Of every hope deprived, Fatigued with vain resources, and subdued With woes resistless, and enfeebling fear, Passive they sank beneath the weighty blow. Nothing but lamentable sounds were heard, Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death. Infectious horror ran from face to face, And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then To tend the sick, and in their turns to die. In heaps they fell; and oft the bed, they say, The sickening, dying, and the dead contain'd. John Armstrong.-Born 1709, Died 1779. 928.-CUMNOR HALL. The dews of summer night did fall, And many an oak that grew thereby. Now nought was heard beneath the skies (The sounds of busy life were still), Save an unhappy lady's sighs, That issued from that lonely pile. "Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love No more thou com'st, with lover's speed, I fear, stern Earl's the same to thee. Not so the usage I received When happy in my father's hall; No faithless husband then me grieved, No chilling fears did me appal. I rose up with the cheerful morn, No lark so blithe, no flower more gay; And, like the bird that haunts the thorn, So merrily sung the live-long day. If that my beauty is but small, Among court ladies all despised, Why didst thou rend it from that hall Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized? And when you first to me made suit, How fair I was, you oft would say! And, proud of conquest, pluck'd the fruit, Then left the blossom to decay. Yes! now neglected and despised, For know, when sickening grief doth prey, What floweret can endure the storm? Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds 'Mong rural beauties I was one; Among the fields wild flowers are fair; Makes thee forget thy humble spouse. Then, Leicester, why, again I plead (The injured surely may repine), Why didst thou wed a country maid, When some fair princess might be thine? Why didst thou praise my humble charms, Then leave me to mourn the live-long day? Nor think a countess can have woe. |