My grief be doubled, from thy image free,
And mirth a torment, unchastised by thee!
Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown;
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallowed mold below;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held;
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs, graced with scars, and prodigal of blood;
Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men, by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints, who taught and led the way to heaven;
Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.
In what new region, to the just assigned,
What new employments please the unbodied mind?
A winged Virtue, through the ethereal sky,
From world to world unwearied does he fly?
Or curious trace the long laborious maze
Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze?
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled and the dragon fell;
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love, not ill-essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,—
A task well suited to thy gentle mind?
O, if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend!
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart;
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
That awful form which, so the heavens decree,
Must still be loved and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,
Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes.
If business calls, or crowded courts invite,
The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight; If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,
I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there;
If pensive to the rural shades I rove,
His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song: There patient showed us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor and a friend severe;
There taught us how to live, and (O, too high
The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die.
Thou Hill, whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears?
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.
From other hills, however fortune frowned,
Some refuge in the Muse's art I found;
Reluctant now I touch the trembling string,
Bereft of him who taught me how to sing;
And these sad accents, murmured o'er his urn,
Betray that absence they attempt to mourn.
O, must I then (now fresh my bosom bleeds,
And Craggs in death to Addison succeeds)
The verse, begun to one lost friend, prolong,
And weep a second in the unfinished song!
These works divine, which, on his death-bed laid, To thee, O Craggs! the expiring sage conveyed,
Great, but ill-omened, monument of fame,
Nor he survived to give, nor thou to claim.
Swift after him thy social spirit flies,
And close to his, how soon! thy coffin lies.
Blest pair! whose union future bards shall tell
In future tongues: each other's boast! farewell!
Farewell! whom, joined in fame, in friendship tried,
No chance could sever, nor the grave divide.
Thomas Tickell [1686–1740]
A BEING cleaves the moonlit air,
With eyes of dew and plumes of fire,
New-born, immortal, strong and fair;
Glance ere he goes.
His feet are shrouded like the dead,
But in his face a wild desire
Breaks like the dawn that flushes red,
And like a rose.
The stars shine out above his path,
And music wakes through all the skies;
What mortal such a triumph hath,
What earthly hands and heart are pure
As this man's, whose unshrinking eyes
Gaze onward through the deep obscure,
Nor quail to see?
Ah! this was he who drank the fount
Of wisdom set in speechless things,
Who, patient, watched the day-star mount,
While others slept.
Ah! this was he whose loving soul
Found heart-beats under trembling wings,
And heard divinest music roll
Where wild springs leapt.
For poor dumb lips had songs for him,
And children's dreamings ran in tune,
And strange old heroes, weird and dim,
Walked by his side.
shadows loved him well
And danced and flickered in the moon,
And left him wondrous tales to tell
Men far and wide.
And now no more he smiling walks
Through greenwood alleys full of sun,
And, as he wanders, turns and talks,
Though none be there;
The children watch in vain the place
Where they were wont, when day was done,
To see their poet's sweet worn face,
And faded hair.
Yet dream not such a spirit dies,
Though all its earthly shrine decay!
Transfigured under clearer skies,
The frail soul-covering, racked with pain,
And scored with vigil, fades away,
The soul set free and young again
Glides upward through.
Weep not; but watch the moonlit air!
Perchance a glory like a star
May leave what hangs about him there,
And flash on us! . . .
Behold! the void is full of light,
The beams pierce heaven from bar to bar,
And all the hollows of the night
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
I WAS thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.
How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep,
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
Ah! THEN-if mine had been the Painter's hand
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream,—
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile,
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine
Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;—
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine.
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,
Such Picture would I at that time have made;
And seen the soul of truth in every part,
A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.
So once it would have been,-'tis so no more;
I have submitted to a new control:
A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanized my soul.
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