FROM THE REV. DR. STEVENS,
With the present of his published Poems.
To Thee, whose magic all the Graces own,
While Pity sighs her soul into thy lay,
Fair Votaress of the Lyre! to Thee unknown,
I tremble to address this weak essay.
To wring from even hostile breasts a tear,
To consecrate the deeds of British Fame,
To bid stern Valour mourn o'er Andrè's bier
And gild the path of Death with Glory's flame
Be thine; O justly Thou of every Muse
Belov'd! O bid immortal Truth again,
By Fancy deck'd in all her fairy hues,
Create new wonders from thy charmful pen!
For me, low sunk in Life's inglorious shade,
Some meaner theme befits, some woodland air;
But by thy Genius my pursuits betray'd,
I pant the spirit of thy song to share.
In some short pause of Pleasure or of Fame,
If Fame one moment can thy breast resign,
Enough for me if my ambitious aim
May wake thy feelings with a verse from mine. REPTON, FEB. 23, 1782.
To the Rev. Dr. William Bagshaw Stevens, of Repton, Derbyshire, on his Poem RETIREMENT*.
Ir yet, unbless'd by Learning's guardian aids, I rov'd the labyrinths of Aonian shades,
And in the gloomy and the silent hour
Wove the dun foliage of their cypress bower,
The ** oak-crown'd Chief, and laurell'd Warrior's tomb
Solemn to strew; and cropt their floral bloom
For a fair Votary's urn, my priz'd reward
Lives in the smile of Repton's classic Bard.
Yet not the letter'd smile's inspiring ray
When most its warmth shall gild my pensive lay,
Such intellectual luxury can impart,
pour such sweet sensations on my heart,
As when, ingenuous Lyrist, brightly shine
Thro' the clear medium of thy classic line,
On every hill and vale, and plain, and grove,
The Seraph Forms of BEAUTY, TRUTH, and LOVE.
Sing on, sweet Bard! for to thy happy lyre,
When beams the setting Sun with chasten'd fire,
And Evening clouds, half pierc'd with light, have
spread
Their floating purple round his golden head,
*This poem will be found in the present volume, p. 259.
** Alluding to the Author's ELEGY ON CAPT. Cook, and to her MONODIES on MAJOR ANDRE, and on LADY MILLER.
High o'er their edge, as soft they sail along,
Shall bend the Spirits of congenial Song;
THOMSON, great Nature's darling Spirit, bow
The leafy honours of his placid brow,
And lofty AKENSIDE shall hail the strains
That Beauty decks, and Energy sustains.
Sing on, sweet Bard, when SPRING's gay Warblers
To celebrate the jocund Year's increase,
And SUMMER must no more his thirst subdue
In the expanding rose-bud's lucid dew;
But, with their fading hues, and closing bells,
The pale, shrunk flowers shall strew the whiten'd dells,
And AUTUMN'S lingering steps, retreating, press
Their fallen petals down the lone recess,
Still may thy song, to every rising gale,
Sigh thro' the dim and melancholy Vale!
And when th' aerial Archer, as he flies,
Wings the red arrow thro' the gloomy skies,
And furious Trent, high o'er his banks shall pour
The turbid waters round thy favourite bower,
Ceaseless do THOU the rising strain prolong,
And hail stern WINTER with thy solemn song!
While for the Lyre, that erst to the soft days
Of bloomy SUMMER breath'd the lovely lays,
On thy nerv'd arm th' Eolian Shell be slung,
Full to the Tempest's angry wailings flung;
And he, whose strains, on cold Temora's hill,
Mourn'd o'er the eddies of the darken'd rill,
The fame resounding of the fallen brave,
O'er Erin's heath, and Ullin's stormy wave,
He, on his thin, grey mist descending slow,
Shrill as the frequent Blast is heard to blow,
'Mid the lone Rocks thy wandering steps shall find,
And lift thy Harp to WINTER's loudest wind.
O! when its tones fall murmuring on the Floods,
Deeply respondent to the groaning Woods,
Each lofty note, that hymns the rifled year,
With force impressive shall assail the ear,
As when thou call'st the shuddering Thought to mourn
O'er *Talents wither'd in th' untimely urn;
To grieve that Penury's resistless storm
Beat cold and deadly o'er the shrinking Form,
Where mighty Genius had those powers enshrin'd,
Whose reign is boundless o'er each feeling Mind;
To mourn that anguish durst the Heart invade
Beneath the regal Purple's aweful shade,
That steep'd in blood, at the Fanatic Frown
From Charles' pale brows shou'd fall the thorny
Crown;
That England's Virgin Majesty shou'd close
A long illustrious life in bitterest woes;
She, who in wisdom firm, as vast in power
On grateful Millions shed the prosperous hour.
O! how unlike those Councils dark, that hurl'd
The torch of Discord o'er the Western World!
Whatever ills may to the past succeed,
Tho' lust of War may doom a World to bleed,
And bleed in vain, yet may no public gloom,
Nor private sorrow, blight thy classic bloom!
And to the Sons of Genius, whose sad fate
Thy mournful lines with sacred force relate,
O! may thy fortunes no resemblance bear,
Yet may thy rising fame their deathless laurels share
* Referring to Dr. Stevens' beautiful descriptions, in his Poem RETIREMENT, of the hard fate of those great Poets SPENSER, MILTON, OTWAY, COLLINS, and CHATTERTON.
THE COMPLAINT OF CORSICA.
INDIGNANT Corsica, the World's disdain,
And hardly notic'd amid Europe's train,
Scorn'd early by a poet and a sage
Whose name immortaliz'd the injurious page
Harshly dictated by an exile's * rage ;-
She who in modern times long groan'd the Slave
Of Genoa, mistress of the ambient wave;
And from her hands, all impotent to hold,
Pass'd to a Monarch's, for the dross of gold ;-
Rous'd by a series of successive wrongs,
Thus claim'd the justice, that to States belongs;
And, at the foot of Jove's etherial throne,
Sued, not in vain, in this undaunted tone.
"Look'st thou not down with equal eyes on all, "Both Men and States; and see'st them rise and fall "Not by rude chance, nor left to Fortune's hand, "But by thy just and merciful command? "What then is Corsica, Immortal Jove, "That She partakes not thy paternal love? "Is there in all the dark decrees of fate "No glory destin'd for so mean a State? "Sprung from my loins, is never man design'd "To lord it universal o'er his kind?
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