ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

But groups of villagers (each joy forgot)
Shall form a sad assembly round the cot.
Sweet bard, farewell!-and farewell, Auburn's bliss,
The bashful lover, and the yielded kiss :
The evening warble Philomela made,

The echoing forest, and the whispering shade,
The winding brook, the bleat of brute content,
And the blithe voice that "whistled as it went:'
These shall no longer charm the ploughman's care,
But sighs shall fill the pauses of despair.

'GOLDSMITH, adieu; the "book-learn'd priest" for
thee

Shall now in vain possess his festive glee,
The oft-heard jest in vain he shall reveal,
For now, alas! the jest he cannot feel.
But ruddy damsels o'er thy tomb shail bend,
And conscious weep for their and virtue's triend;
The milkmaid shall reject the shepherd's song,
And cease to carol as she toils along :

All Auburn shall bewail the fatal day,

When from her fields their pride was snatch'd away,
And even the matron of the cressy lake,

In piteous plight, her palsied head shall shake,
While all adown the furrows of her face

Slow shall the lingering tears each other trace.
And, oh, my child! severer woes remain

To all the houseless and unshelter'd train!
Thy fate shall sadden many an humble guest,
And heap fresh anguish on the beggar's breast;
For dear wert thou to all the sons of pain,
To all that wander, sorrow, or complain:
Dear to the learned, to the simple dear,
For daily blessings mark'd thy virtuous year;
The rich received a moral from thy head,
And from thy heart the stranger found a bed:
Distress came always smiling from thy door;
For God had made thee agent to the poor,
Had form'd thy feelings on the noblest plan,
To grace at once the poet and the man.'

EXTRACT FROM A MONODY.

DARK as the night, which now in dunnest robe
Ascends her zenith o'er the silent globe,
Sad Melancholy wakes, a while to tread,
With solemn step, the mansions of the dead:
Led by her hand, o'er this yet recent shrine
I sorrowing bend; and here essay to twine
The tributary wreath of laureat bloom,

With artless hands, to deck a poet's tomb,-
The tomb where Goldsmith sleeps. Fond hopes,

adieu !

No more your airy dreams shall mock my view;
Here will I learn ambition to control,

And each aspiring passion of the soul:

E'en now, methinks, his well-known voice I hear,
When late he meditated flight from care,
When, as imagination fondly hied

To scenes of sweet retirement, thus he cried

Ye splendid fabrics, palaces, and towers,
Where dissipation leads the giddy hours,
Where pomp, disease, and knavery reside,
And folly bends the knee to wealthy pride;
Where luxury's purveyors learn to rise,
And worth, to want a prey, unfriended dies;
Where warbling eunuchs glitter in brocade,
And hapless poets toil for scanty bread:
Farewell to other scenes I turn my eyes,
Embosom'd in the vale where Auburn lies-
Deserted Auburn, those now ruin'd glades,
Forlorn, yet ever dear and honour'd shades:
There, though the hamlet boasts no smiling train,
Nor sportful pastime circling on the plain,
No needy villains prow! around for prey,
No slanderers, no sycophants betray;
No gaudy foplings scornfully deride

The swain, whose humble pipe is all his pride,—
There will I fly to seek that soft repose,

Which solitude contemplative bestows.

Yet, oh, fond hope! perchance there still remains
One lingering friend behind, to bless the plains,
Some hermit of the dale, enshrined in ease,
Long lost companion of my youthful days;
With whose sweet converse in his social bower,
I oft may chide away some vacant hour;
To whose pure sympathy I may impart
Each latent grief that labours at my heart,
Whate'er I felt, and what I saw, relate,
The shoals of luxury, the wrecks of state,-
Those busy scenes, where science wakes in vain,
In which I shared, ah! ne'er to share again.
But whence that pang? does nature now rebel?
Why falters out my tongue the word fareweli?
Ye friends! who long have witness'd to my toil,
And seen me ploughing in a thankless soil,
Whose partial tenderness hush'd every pain,
Whose approbation made my bosom vain,-
'Tis you to whom my soul divided hies
With fond regret, and half unwilling flies;
Sighs forth her parting wishes to the wind,
And lingering leaves her better half behind.
Can I forget the intercourse I shared,

What friendship cherish'd, and what zeal endear'd?
Alas! remembrance still must turn to you,

And, to my latest hour, protract the long adieu.
Amid the woodlands, wheresoe'er I rove,

The plain, or ser ret covert of the grove,
Imagination shall supply her store

Of painful bliss, and what she can restore;
Shall strew each lonely path with flow'rets gay,
And wide as is her boundless empire stray;
On eagle pinions traverse earth and skies,
And bid the lost and distant objects rise.
Here, where encircled o'er the sloping land
Woods rise on woods, shall Aristotle stand;
Lyceum round the godlike man rejoice,

And bow with reverence to wisdom's voice.
There, spreading oaks shall arch the vaulted dome,
The champion, there, of liberty and Rome,

In Attic eloquence shall thunder laws,
And uncorrupted senates shout applause.
Not more ecstatic visions rapt the soul
Of Numa, when to midnight grots he stole,
And learnt his lore, from virtue's mouth refined,
To fetter vice, and harmonize mankind.

Now stretch'd at ease beside some fav'rite stream,
Of beauty and enchantment will I dream;
Elysium, seats of arts, and laurels won,
The Graces three, and Japhet's* fabled son;
Whilst Angelo shall wave the mystic rod,
And see a new creation wait his nod;

Prescribe his bounds to Time's remorseless power,
And to my arms my absent friends restore;
Place me amidst the group, each well-known face,
The sons of science, lords of human race;
And as oblivion sinks at his command,

Nature shall rise more finish'd from his hand.
Thus some magician, fraught with potent skill,
Transforms and moulds each varied mass at will;
Calls animated forms of wondrous birth,
Cadmean offspring, from the teeming earth,
Unceres the ponderous tombs, the realms of night,
And calls their cold inhabitants to light;

Or, as he traverses a dreary scene,

Bids every sweet of nature there convene,
Huge mountains skirted round with wavy woods,
The shrub-deck'd lawns, and silver-sprinkled floods,
Whilst flow'rets spring around the smiling land,
And follow on the traces of his wand.

Such prospects, lovely Auburn! then, be thine,
And what thou canst of bliss impart be mine;
Amid thy humble shades, in tranquil ease,
Grant nie to pass the remnant of my days.
Unfetter'd from the toil of wretched gain,
My raptured muse shall pour her noblest strain,
Within her native bowers the notes prolong,
And, grateful, meditate her latest song.
Thus, as adown the slope of life I bend,
And move, resign'd, to meet my latter end,

• Prometheus.

Each worldly wish, each worldly care repress'd,
A self-approving heart alone possess'd,

Content, to bounteous Heaven I'll leave the rest.'
Thus spoke the Bard: but not one friendly power
With nod assentive crown'd the parting hour;
No eastern meteor glared beneath the sky,
No dextral omen: Nature heaved a sigh
Prophetic of the dire impending blow,
The presage of her loss, and Britain's wo.
Already portion'd, unrelenting fate

Had made a pause upon the number'd date';
Behind stood Death, too horrible for sight,
In darkness clad, expectant, pruned for flight;
Pleased at the word, the shapeless monster sped,
On eager message to the humble shed,
Where, wrapt by soft poetic visions round,
Sweet slumbering, Fancy's darling son he found.
At his approach the silken pinion'd train,
Affrighted, mount aloft, and quit the brain,
Which late they fann'd. Now other scenes than dale
Of woody pride, succeed, or flowery vales :
As when a sudden tempest veils the sky,
Before serene, and streaming lightnings fly,
The prospect shifts, and pitchy volumes roll,
Along the drear expanse, from pole to pole;
Terrific horrors all the void invest,

Whilst the arch spectre issues forth confest.
The Bard beholds him beckon to the tomb
Of yawning night, eternity's dread womb;
In vain attempts to fly, th' impassive air
Retards his steps, and yields him to despair;
He feels a gripe that thrills through every vein,
And panting struggles in the fatal chain.
Here paused the fell destroyer to survey
The pride, the boast of man, his destined prey;
Prepared to strike, he poised aloft the dart,
And plunged the steel in Virtue's bleeding heart;
Abhorrent, back the springs of life rebound,
And leave on Nature's face a grisly wound,
A wound enroll'd among Britannia's woes,
That ages yet to follow cannot close.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »