Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet, the avalanche, unheard,1
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-rise, O ever rise,
Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell you rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
Ir aught of oaten stop,3 or pastoral song,
May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,
Like thy own brawling springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales,
O nymph reserved! while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed;
Unheard-from its great height.
2 Sir Egerton Brydges says of this ode:- "such a scene of enchanting repose was never exhibited by Claude, or any other among the happiest of painters. It is vain to attempt to analyse the charm of this ode; it is so subtle, that it escapes analysis. Its harmony is so perfect, that it requires no rhyme. The objects are so happily chosen, and the simple epithets convey ideas and feelings so congenial to each other, as to throw the reader into the very mood over which the personified being so beautifully designed presides. No other poem on the same subject has the same magic."
3 Oaten stop-The ancient shepherd's pipe was sometimes made of oat-straw. Brede (or braid) ethereal wove. The clouds woven into a sort of airy fringe, hang like a curtain over the sea-the sun's "wavy bed;" an exquisite conception.
Now air is hushed,1 save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,
Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!
For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,
And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.
Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.
Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from3 the mountain's side,
Views wilds and swelling floods,
And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.
Now air, &c.-i. e. and now while, &c., teach me, maid composed, &c. 2 For, &c.-i. e. let me aid by some "softened strain" to celebrate thy loved return, for inasmuch as-other votaries of thine-the hours, elves, &c.—are now preparing to greet thee too.
3 That, from, &c.-" In what short and simple terms does he (Collins) open a wide and majestic landscape to the mind, such as we might view from Benlomond or Snowdon, when he speaks of the hut that, from, &c."-Campbell.
While Spring1 shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing2 tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes;
So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favourite name!
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMSON.3
WHILE Virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Æolian strains between ;
While Summer, with a matron grace,
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade;
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed;
While Spring, &c.-It has been remarked that to these three last verses Burns was indebted for the leading idea contained in the next poem. He had been reading Collins at the time he wrote it.
2 Breathing-i. e. breathing perfume; in allusion perhaps to the fragrance exhaled in the evening from trees, shrubs, and flowers, (the "tresses,") after a shower.
3 These lines were written on occasion of the crowning of the bust of Thomson, at Ednam, Roxburghshire, the place of his birth. The rivers named in the poem are in the same district.
4 Eolian strains-strains like those of the Æolian harp.
While maniac Winter rages o'er
The hills whence classic1 Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows;
So long, sweet Poet of the year,
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that THOMSON was her Son.
ISAAC ASHFord, the ENGLISH PEASANT.2
To pomp and pageantry in nought allied,
A noble peasant, Isaac Ashford died.
Noble he was, contemning all things mean;
His truth unquestioned and his soul serene :
Of no man's presence Isaac felt afraid,
At no man's question Isaac looked dismayed:
Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace;
Truth, simple truth, was written in his face:
Yet while the serious thought his soul approved,
Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved :
To bliss domestic he his heart resigned,
And, with the firmest, had the fondest, mind!
Were others joyful, he looked smiling on,
And gave allowance, where he needed none;
Good he refused with future ill to buy,
Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh:
A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
No envy stung, no jealousy distrest;
Yet was he far from stoic pride removed
He felt humanely, and he warmly loved:
I marked his action when his infant died,
And his old neighbour for offence was tried;
The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek,
Spoke pity, plainer than the tongue can speak.
Classic-because the Yarrow has been much celebrated in poetry.
2 The power of Crabbe's delineations of character depends much on accumulation. The respective traits are often tame and uninteresting, while their combined effect is bold and striking. The passage here given will illustrate this remark.
If pride were his, 'twas not their vulgar pride,
Who, in their base contempt, the great deride;
Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed;
Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
None his superior, and his equals few;
But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace:
A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained,
In sturdy boys to virtuous labours trained;
Pride in the power that guards his country's coast,
And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride in a life that slander's tongue defied,
In fact, a noble passion, misnamed pride.
In times severe, when many a sturdy swain
Felt it his pride, his comfort, to complain;
Isaac their wants would soothe, his own would hide,
And feel in that his comfort and his pride.
I feel his absence in the hours of prayer,
And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there;
I see no more those white locks, thinly spread
Round the bald polish of that honoured head:
No more that awful glance on playful wight,
Compelled to kneel and tremble at the sight,
To fold his fingers, all in dread the while,
Till"Mister Ashford" softened to a smile;
No more that meek and suppliant look in prayer,
Nor the pure faith, to give it force, are there;
But he is blest, and I lament no more,
A wise good man, contented to be poor.
THE RIVAL STATESMEN.
To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The vernal sun new life bestows
E'en on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly, may he shine
Where glory weeps o'er Fox's shrine;
|
