ADDRESSED TO H. FUSELI, ESQ., R.A.
ON SEEING ENGRAVINGS FROM HIS DESIGNS.
MIGHTY magician! who on Torneo's brow,
When sullen tempests wrap the throne of night,
Art wont to sit and catch the gleam of light
That shoots athwart the gloom opaque below;
And listen to the distant death-shriek long
From lonely mariner foundering in the deep,
Which rises slowly up the rocky steep,
While the Weird Sisters weave the horrid song:
Or when along the liquid sky
Serenely chant the orbs on high,
Dost love to sit in musing trance,
And mark the northern meteor's dance,
(While far below the fitful oar
Flings its faint pauses on the steepy shore),
And list the music of the breeze,
That sweeps by fits the bending seas;
And often bears with sudden swell
The shipwreck'd sailor's funeral knell,
By the spirits sung, who keep
Their night-watch on the treacherous deep,
And guide the wakeful helmsman's eye
To Helice in northern sky;
And there upon the rock reclined
With mighty visions fill'st the mind,
Such as bound in magic spell
Him1 who grasp'd the gates of Hell,
And bursting Pluto's dark domain,
Held to the day the terrors of his reign.
Genius of horror and romantic awe,
Whose eye explores the secrets of the deep,
Whose power can bid the rebel fluids creep,
Can force the inmost soul to own its law!
Who shall now, sublimest spirit!
Who shall now thy wand inherit,
From him1 thy darling child who best
Thy shuddering images express'd?
Sullen of soul, and stern, and proud,
His gloomy spirit spurn'd the crowd,
And now he lays his aching head
In the dark mansion of the silent dead.
Mighty magician! long thy wand has lain
Buried beneath the unfathomable deep;
And oh! for ever must its efforts sleep,
May none the mystic sceptre e'er regain?
Oh, yes, 'tis his! Thy other son!
He throws thy dark-wrought tunic on,
Fuesslin waves thy wand,-again they rise,
Again thy wildering forms salute our ravish'd eyes. Him didst thou cradle on the dizzy steep,
Where round his head the vollied lightnings flung, 50
And the loud winds that round his pillow rung
Woo'd the stern infant to the arms of sleep.
Or on the highest top of Teneriffe
Seated the fearless boy, and bade him look
Where far below the weatherbeaten skiff
On the gulf-bottom of the ocean strook.
Thou mark'dst him drink with ruthless ear
The death-sob, and, disdaining rest,
Thou saw'st how danger fired his breast,
And in his young hand couch'd the visionary spear.
Then, Superstition, at thy call,
She bore the boy to Odin's Hall,
And set before his awe-struck sight
The savage feast and spectred fight;
And summon'd from his mountain tomb
The ghastly warrior-son of gloom,
His fabled Runic rhymes to sing,
While fierce Hresvelger flapp'd his wing;
Thou show'dst the trains the shepherd sees,
Laid on the stormy Hebrides,
Which on the mists of evening gleam,
Or crowd the foaming desert stream;
Lastly her storied hand she waves,
And lays him in Florentian caves;
There milder fables, lovelier themes,
Enwrap his soul in heavenly dreams,
There Pity's lute arrests his ear,
And draws the half-reluctant tear;
And now at noon of night he roves
Along the embowering moonlight groves,
And as from many a cavern'd dell
The hollow wind is heard to swell,
He thinks some troubled spirit sighs,
And as upon the turf he lies,
Where sleeps the silent beam of night,
He sees below the gliding sprite,
And hears in Fancy's organs sound
Aerial music warbling round.
Taste lastly comes and smoothes the whole,
And breathes her polish o'er his soul;
Glowing with wild, yet chasten'd heat,
The wondrous work is now complete.
The Poet dreams: the shadow flies,
And fainting fast its image dies.
But lo! the Painter's magic force
Arrests the phantom's fleeting course;
It lives-it lives-the canvas glows,
And tenfold vigour o'er it flows.
The Bard beholds the work achieved,
And as he sees the shadow rise
Sublime before his wondering eyes,
Starts at the image his own mind conceived.
TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, K.G.
RETIRED, remote from human noise,
An humble Poet dwelt serene ;
His lot was lowly, yet his joys
Were manifold, I ween.
He laid him by the brawling brook
At eventide to ruminate,
He watch'd the swallow skimming round,
And mused in reverie profound,
On wayward man's unhappy state,
And ponder'd much, and paused on deeds of ancient date.
'Oh, 'twas not always thus,' he cried,
"There was a time, when genius claim'd
Respect from even towering pride,
Nor hung her head ashamed:
But now to wealth alone we bow,
The titled and the rich alone
Are honour'd, while meek merit pines,
On penury's wretched couch reclines,
Unheeded in his dying moan,
As, overwhelm'd with want and woe, he sinks unknown.
'Yet was the Muse not always seen
In poverty's dejected mien,
Not always did repining rue,
And misery her steps pursue.
Time was, when nobles thought their titles graced
By the sweet honours of poetic bays,
When Sidney sung his melting song,
When Sheffield join'd the harmonious throng,
And Lyttelton attuned to love his lays.
Those days are gone-alas, for ever gone!
No more our nobles love to grace
Their brows with anadems, by genius won,
But arrogantly deem the Muse as base;
How differently thought the sires of this degenerate
Thus sang the minstrel ;-still at eve
The upland woody shades among
In broken measures did he grieve,
With solitary song.
And still his shame was aye the same,
Neglect had stung him to the core ;
And he with pensive joy did love
To seek the still congenial grove,
And muse on all his sorrows o'er,
And vow that he would join the abjured world no
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