[From HONE'S "Year Book"]
The insect world, now sunbeams higher climb,Oft dream of Spring, and wake before their time:Bees stroke their little legs across their wings,And venture short flights where the snow-drop hingsIts silver bell, and winter aconiteIts buttercup-like flowers that shut at night,With green leaf furling round its cup of gold,Like tender maiden muffled from the cold:They sip and find their honey-dreams are vain,Then feebly hasten to their hives again.The butterflies, by eager hopes undone,Glad as a child come out to greet the sun,Beneath the shadows of a sunny showerAre lost, nor see to-morrow's April flower.
Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed,But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom:The bud hath burst to flower, and the flower been long destroyed,The root also is withered; I no more can look for bloom.So I have said my say, and I have had my day,And sorrow, like a young storm, creeps dark upon my brow;Hopes, like to summer clouds, have all blown far away,And the world's sunny side is turned over with me now,And I am left a lame bird upon a withered bough.
I look upon the past: 't is as black as winter days,But the worst is not yet over; there are blacker, days to come.O, I would I had but known of the wide world's many ways,But youth is ever blind, so I e'en must meet my doom.Joy once gave brightest forecasts of prospects that are past,But now, like a looking glass that's turned to the wall,Life is nothing but a blank, and the sunny shining pastIs overcast in glooms that my every hope enthrall,While troubles daily thicken in the wind ere they fall.
Life smiled upon me once, as the sun upon the rose;My heart, so free and open, guessed in every face a friend:Though the sweetest flower must fade, and the sweetest seasonclose,Yet I never gave it thought that my happiness would end,Till the warmest-seeming friends grew the coldest at the close,As the sun from lonely night hides its haughty shining face,Yet I could not think them gone, for they turned not open foes,While memory fondly mused, former favours to retrace,So I turned, but only found that my shadow kept its place.
And this is nought but common life, which everybody findsAs well as I, or more's the luck of those that better speed.I'll mete my lot to bear with the lot of kindred minds,And grudge not those who say they for sorrow have no need.Why should I, when I know that it will not aid a nay?For Summer is the season; even then the little flyFinds friends enow, indeed, both for leisure and for play;But on the winter window it must crawl alone to die:Such is life, and such am I—a wounded, stricken fly.
Bowing adorers of the gale,Ye cowslips delicately pale,Upraise your loaded stems;Unfold your cups in splendour; speak!Who decked you with that ruddy streakAnd gilt your golden gems?
Violets, sweet tenants of the shade,In purple's richest pride arrayed,Your errand here fulfil;Go, bid the artist's simple stainYour lustre imitate—in vain—And match your Maker's skill.
Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth,Embroiderers of the carpet earth,That stud the velvet sod,Open to Spring's refreshing air,In sweetest smiling bloom declareYour Maker and your God.
[This poem, like that entitled "The Vanities of Life," is an imitation. In his Diary, Clare says—
"Wednesday, July 27, 1825.
Received the 28th No. (June the 28th) of the 'Every-Day Book,' in which is inserted a poem of mine which I sent under the assumed name of James Gilderoy, from Sunfleet, as being the production of Andrew Marvell, and printed in the 'Miscellanies' of the Spalding Antiquaries (the members of the Spalding Club). I shall venture again under another name after a while."
Hone accepted the contribution without detecting the disguise, butClare's next venture of the same description, "A Farewell andDefiance to Love," which he says in his Diary, he "fathered on SirJohn Harrington," was unsuccessful.]
Why should man's high aspiring mindBurn in him with so proud a breath,When all his haughty views can findIn this world yields to Death?The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,The rich, the poor, and great, and small,Are each but worm's anatomiesTo strew his quiet hall.
Power may make many earthly gods,Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails,But Death's unwelcome, honest oddsKick o'er the unequal scales.The flatter'd great may clamours raiseOf power, and their own weakness hide,But Death shall find unlooked-for waysTo end the farce of pride.
An arrow hurtel'd e'er so high,With e'en a giant's sinewy strength,In Time's untraced eternityGoes but a pigmy length;Nay, whirring from the tortured string,With all its pomp of hurried flight,'T is by the skylark's little wingOutmeasured in its height.
Just so man's boasted strength and powerShall fade before Death's lightest stroke,Laid lower than the meanest flower,Whose pride o'er-top't the oak;And he who, like a blighting blast,Dispeopled worlds with war's alarmsShall be himself destroyed at lastBy poor despised worms.
Tyrants in vain their powers secure,And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown,For unawed Death at last is sureTo sap the Babels down.A stone thrown upward to the skyeWill quickly meet the ground agen;So men-gods of earth's vanityShall drop at last to men;
And Power and Pomp their all resign,Blood-purchased thrones and banquet halls.Fate waits to sack Ambition's shrineAs bare as prison walls,Where the poor suffering wretch bows downTo laws a lawless power hath passed;And pride, and power, and king, and clownShall be Death's slaves at last.
Time, the prime minister of Death!There's nought can bribe his honest will.He stops the richest tyrant's breathAnd lays his mischief still.Each wicked scheme for power all stops,With grandeurs false and mock display,As eve's shades from high mountain topsFade with the rest away.
Death levels all things in his march;Nought can resist his mighty strength;The palace proud, triumphal arch,Shall mete its shadow's length.The rich, the poor, one common bedShall find in the unhonoured grave,Where weeds shall grow alike o'er headOf tyrant and of slave.
Young Chloe looks sweet as the rose,And her love might be reckoned no less,But her bosom so freely bestowsThat all may a portion possess.Her smiles would be cheering to see,But so freely they're lavished abroadThat each silly swain, like to me,Can boast what the wanton bestowed.
Her looks and her kisses so freeAre for all, like the rain and the sky;As the blossom love is to the bee,Each swain is as welcome as I.And though I my folly can see,Yet still must I love and adore,Though I know the love whispered to meHas been told to so many before.
'T is sad that a bosom so fair,And soft lips so seemingly sweet,Should study false ways, to ensnare,And breathe in their kisses deceit.But beauty's no guide to the best:The rose, that out-blushes the morn,While it tempts the glad eye to its breast,Will pierce the fond hand with a thorn.
Yet still must I love, silly swain!And put up with all her deceit,And try to be jealous, in vain,For I cannot help thinking her sweet.I see other swains in her bower,And I sigh, and excuse what I see,While I say to myself, "Is the flowerAny worse when it's kissed by the bee?"
'T is pleasant to bear recollections in mindOf joys that time hurries away—To look back on smiles that have passed like the wind,And compare them with frowns of to-day.'T was the constant delight of Old Robin, forsooth,On the past with clear vision to dwell—To recount the fond loves and the raptures of youth,And tales of lost pleasures to tell.
"'T is now many years," like a child, he would say,"Since I joined in the sports of the green—Since I tied up the flowers for the garland of May,And danced with the holiday queen.My memory looks backward in sorrowful pride,And I think, till my eyes dim with tears,Of the past, where my happiness withered and died,And the present dull, desolate years.
I love to be counting, while sitting alone,With many a heart-aching sigh,How many a season has rapidly flown,And springs, with their summers, gone by,Since Susan the pride of the village was deemed,To whom youth's affections I gave;Whom I led to the church, and beloved and esteemed,And followed in grief to the grave.
Life's changes for many hours musings supply;Both the past and the present appear;I mark how the years that remain hurry by,And feel that my last must be near.The youths that with me to man's summer did bloomHave dwindled away to old men,And maidens, like flowers of the Spring, have made roomFor many new blossoms since then.
I have lived to see all but life's sorrows pass by,Leaving changes, and pains, and decay,Where nought is the same but the wide-spreading sky,And the sun that awakens the day.The green, where I tended my sheep when a boy,Has yielded its pride to the plough;And the shades where my infancy revelled in joyThe axe has left desolate now.
Yet a bush lingers still, that will urge me to stop—(What heart can such fancies withstand?)Where Susan once saw a bird's nest on the top,And I reached her the eggs with my hand:And so long since the day I remember so well,It has stretched to a sizable tree,And the birds yearly come in its branches to dwell,As far from a giant as me.
On a favourite spot, by the side of a brook,When Susan was just in her pride,A ripe bunch of nuts from her apron she took,To plant as she sat by my side.They have grown up with years, and on many a boughCluster nuts like their parents agen,Where shepherds no doubt have oft sought them ere now,To please other Susans since then.
The joys that I knew when my youth was in prime,Like a dream that's half ended, are o'er;And the faces I knew in that changeable timeAre met with the living no more.I have lived to see friends that I loved pass awayWith the pleasures their company gave:I have lived to see love, with my Susan, decay,And the grass growing green on her grave."
Sweet, uncultivated blossom,Reared in Spring's refreshing dews,Dear to every gazer's bosom,Fair to every eye that views;—Opening bud, whose youth can charm us,Thine be many a happy hour:Spreading rose, whose beauties warm us—Flourish long, my lovely flower.
Though pride look disdainful on thee,Scorning scenes so mean as thine,Although fortune frown upon thee,Lovely blossom, ne'er repine:Health unbought is ever with thee,Which their wealth can never gain;Innocence doth garments give thee,Such as fashion apes in vain.
When fit time and reason grant theeLeave to quit the parent tree,May some happy hand transplant theeTo a station suiting thee.On some lover's faithful bosomMay'st thou then thy sweets resign;And may each unfolding blossomOpen charms as sweet as thine.
Till that time may joys unceasingThy bard's every wish fulfil.When that's come may joys increasingMake thee blest and happier still.Flourish fair, thou flower of Jessies,Pride of each admiring swain—Envy of despairing lasses—Queen of Walkherd's lovely plain.
[From "The Champion"]
Emblazoned Vapour! Half-eternal Shade!That gathers strength from ruin and decay;—Emperor of empires! (for the world hath madeNo substance that dare take thy shade away;)Thy banners nought but victories display:In undisturbed success thou'rt grown sublime:Kings are thy subjects, and their sceptres layRound thy proud footstool: tyranny and crimeThy serving vassals are. Then hail, victorious Time!
The elements that wreck the marble domeProud with the polish of the artisan—Bolts that crash shivering through the humble home,Traced with the insignificance of man—Are architects of thine, and proudly planRich monuments to show thy growing prime:Earthquakes that rend the rocks with dreadful span,Lightnings that write in characters sublime,Inscribe their labours all unto the praise of Time.
Thy palaces are kingdoms lost to power;The ruins of ten thousand thrones thy throne;Thy crown and sceptre the dismantled tower,A place of kings, yet left to be unknown,Now with triumphing ivy overgrown—Ivy oft plucked on Victory's brow to shine—That fades in crowns of kings, preferring stone;It only prospers where they most decline,To flourish o'er their fate, and live alone in thine.
Thy dwellings are in ruins made sublime.Impartial Monitor, no dream of fear,No dread of treason for a royal crime,Deters thee from thy purpose: everywhereThy power is shown: thou art arch-emperor here:Thou soil'st the very crowns with stains and rust;On royal robes thy havoc doth appear;The little moth, to thy proud summons just,Dares scarlet pomp to scorn, and eats it into dust.
Old shadows of magnificence, where now—Where now and what your grandeur? Come and seeBusts broken and thrown down, with wreathless brow,Walls stained with colours, not of paint, but thee.Moss, lichens, ferns, and lonely elder tree;That upon ruins gladly climb to bloom,And add a beauty where't is vain to be,Like to the soft moonlight in a prison's gloom,Or lovely maid in youth death-smitten for the tomb.
Pride may build palaces and splendid halls;Power may display its victories and be brave;The eye finds weakest spots in strongest walls,And meets no strength that can out-wear the grave.Nature, thy handmaid and imperial slave,The pomp of splendour's finery never heeds:Kings reign and die: pride may no respite crave;Nature in barrenness ne'er mourns thy deeds:Graves, poor and rich alike, she overruns with weeds.
In thy proud eye, imperial Arbiter,An insect small to prize appeareth man;His pomp and honours have o'er thee no spell,To win thy purpose from the little spanAllotted unto life in Nature's plan;Trifles to him thy favour can engage;High he looks up, and soon his race is run;While the small daisy upon Nature's page,On which he sets his foot, gains endless heritage.
Look at the farces played in every ageBy puny empires, vaunting vain display,And blush to read the historian's fulsome page,Where kings are worshipped like to gods in clay.Their pride the earth disdained and swept away,By thee, a shadow, worsted of their all—Legions of soldiers, battle's dread array—Kings' speeches—golden bribes—nought saved their fall;All 'neath thy feet are laid, thy robe their funeral pall.
How feeble and how vain, compared to thine,The glittering pageantry of earthly kings,Though in their little light they would outshineThy splendid sun: yet soon thy vengeance flingsIts gloom around their crowns, poor puny things.What then remains of all that great hath been?A tattered state, that as a mockery clingsTo greatness, and concludes the idle scene—In life how mighty thought, and found in death how mean.
Thus Athens lingers on, a nest of slaves,And Babylon's an almost doubted name:Thou with thy finger writ'st upon their graves,On one obscurity, the other shame.The richest greatness or the proudest fameThy sport concludeth as a farce at last:They were and would be, but are not the same:Tyrants, that made all subject where they passed,Become a common jest for laughter at the last.
Here where I stand thy voice breathes from the groundA buried tale of sixteen hundred years,And many a Roman fragment, littered round,In each new-rooted mole-hill reappears.Ah! what is fame, that honour so reveres?And what is Victory's laurel-crowned eventWhen thy unmasked intolerance interferes?A Caesar's deeds are left to banishment,Indebted e'en to moles to show us where he went.
A mighty poet them, and every lineThy grand conception traces is sublime:No language doth thy god-like works confine;Thy voice is earth's grand polyglot, O Time!Known of all tongues, and read in every clime,Changes of language make no change in thee:Thy works have worsted centuries of their prime,Yet new editions every day we see—Ruin thy moral theme, its end eternity.
A satirist, too, thy pen is deadly keen;Thou turnest things that once did wonder claimTo jests ridiculous and memories mean;—The Egyptian pyramids, without a name,Stand monuments to chaos, not to fame—Stone jests of kings which thou in sport did'st save,As towering satires of pride's living shame—Beacons to prove thy overbearing waveWill make all fame at last become its owner's grave.
Mighty survivors! Thou shalt see the hourWhen all the grandeur that the earth contains—Its pomp, its splendour, and its hollow power—Shall waste like water from its weakened veins,And not a shadow or a myth remain—When names and fames of which the earth is full,And books, with all their knowledge urged in vain—When dead and living shall be void and null,And Nature's pillow be at last a human skull.
E'en temples raised to worship and to prayer,Sacred from ruin in all eyes but thine,Are laid as level, and are left as bare,As spots with no pretensions to resign;Nor lives one relic that was deemed divine.By thee, great sacrilegious Shade, all, allAre swept away, and common weeds enshrineThat place of tombs and memories prodigal—Itself a tomb at last, the record of its fall.
All then shall mingle fellowship with one,And earth be strewn with wrecks of human things,When tombs are broken up and memory's goneOf proud aspiring mortals, crowned as kings,Mere insects, sporting upon waxen wingsThat melt at thy all-mastering energy;And, when there's nought to govern, thy fame springsTo new existence, conquered, yet to beAn uncrowned partner still of dread eternity.
'T is done, o'erpowering Vision! And no moreMy simple numbers chronicle thy fame;'T is gone: the spirit of my voice is o'er,Adventuring praises to thy mighty name.To thee an atom am I, and in shameI shrink from these aspirings to my doom;For all the world contains to praise or blameIs but a garden hastening out of bloomTo fill up Nature's wreck-mere rubbish for the tomb.
Imperial Moralist! Thy every page,Like grand prophetic visions, doth instalTruth for all creeds. The savage, saint, and sageIn unison may answer to thy call.Thy voice as universal, speaks to all;It tells us what all were and are to be;That evil deeds will evil hearts enthral,And God the just maintain the grand decree,That whoso righteous lives shall win eternity.
"From his honoured Friend, William Davenant."
[This poem appeared in the "Sheffield Iris" of May the 16th, 1826, with this introductory note:—
"The following stanzas are supposed to have been addressed to Milton by his friend and contemporary, Sir William Davenant. We cannot vouch for their authenticity, but for their excellency we can. They have been communicated to us by the late editor of the 'Iris,' who received them from Mr. John Clare, the ingenious poet of Northamptonshire."]
Poet of mighty power, I fainWould court the muse that honoured thee,And, like Elisha's spirit, gainA part of thy intensity;And share the mantle which she flungAround thee, when thy lyre was strung.
Though faction's scorn at first did shun,With coldness, thy inspired song,Though clouds of malice pass'd thy sun,They could not hide it long;Its brightness soon exhaled awayDark night, and gained eternal day.
The critics' wrath did darkly frownUpon thy muse's mighty lay;But blasts that break the blossom downDo only stir the bay;And thine shall flourish, green and long,In the eternity of song.
Thy genius saw, in quiet mood,Gilt fashion's follies pass thee by,And, like the monarch of the wood,Tower'd o'er it to the sky;Where thou could'st sing of other spheres,And feel the fame of future years.
Though bitter sneers and stinging scornsDid throng the muse's dangerous way,Thy powers were past such little thorns,They gave thee no dismay;The scoffer's insult pass'd thee by.Thou smild'st and mad'st him no reply.
Envy will gnaw its heart awayTo see thy genius gather root;And as its flowers their sweets displayScorn's malice shall be mute;Hornets that summer warmed to fly,Shall at the death of summer die.
Though friendly praise hath but its hour,And little praise with thee hath been;The bay may lose its summer flower,But still its leaves are green;And thine, whose buds are on the shoot,Shall only fade to change to fruit.
Fame lives not in the breath of words,In public praises' hue and cry;The music of these summer birdsIs silent in a winter sky,When thine shall live and flourish on,O'er wrecks where crowds of fames are gone.
The ivy shuns the city wall,When busy-clamorous crowds intrude,And climbs the desolated hallIn silent solitude;The time-worn arch, the fallen dome,Are roots for its eternal home.
The bard his glory ne'er receivesWhere summer's common flowers are seen,But winter finds it when she leavesThe laurel only green;And time, from that eternal tree,Shall weave a wreath to honour thee.
Nought but thy ashes shall expire;Thy genius, at thy obsequies,Shall kindle up its living fireAnd light the muse's skies;Ay, it shall rise, and shine, and beA sun in song's posterity.
Sorrow came with downcast eyes,And stole the lyre of love away.VAN DYK.
[From ACKERMANN'S "Juvenile Forget-me-not"]
Some two or three weeks before Valentine's day,Sir Winter grew kind, and, minded to play,Shook hands with Miss Flora, and woo'd her to spareA few pretty snowdrops to stick in his hair,Intending for truth, as he said, to resignHis throne to Miss Spring and her priest Valentine;Which trifle he asked for before he set forth,To remind him of all when he got in the North;And this is the reason that snowdrops appear'Mid the cold of the Winter, so soon in the year.
Flora complied, and, the instant she heard,Flew away with the news to each bachelor bird,Who in raptures half moved on Love's errand to start,Their songs muttered over to get them by heart:Nay, the Mavis at once sung aloud in his glee,And looked for a spot where love's dwelling should be;And ever since then, both in garden and grove,The Mavis tunes first a short ditty to love,While all the young gentlemen birds that were nearFell to trimming their jackets anew for the year:One and all they determined to seek for a mate,And thought it a folly for seasons to wait,So even agreed, before Valentine's day,To join hearts in love; but the ladies said, Nay!Yet each one consented at once to resignHer heart unto Hymen on St. Valentine;While Winter, who only pretended to go,Lapt himself out of sight in some hillocks of snow,That behind all the rest 'neath the wood hedges laySo close that the sun could not drive them away:Yet the gentlemen birds on their love errands flew,Thinking all Flora told them was nothing but true,Till out Winter came, and his frowns in a triceTurned the lady birds' hearts all as hardened as ice.
In vain might the gentles in love sue and plead—They heard, but not once did they notice or heed:From Winter they crept, who, in tyranny proud,Yoked his horses of storms to his coach of a cloud;For on Valentine's morn he was raving so high,Lady Spring for the life of her durst not come nigh;While Flora's gay feet were so numbed with the snowThat she could not put on her best slippers to go.
Then the Spring she fell ill, and, her health to regain,On a sunbeam rode back to her South once again;And, as both were the bridesmaids, their teasing delayMade the lady birds put off their weddings till May.Some sighed their excuses, and feared to catch cold;And the Redcap, in mantle all bordered with gold,Sore feared that the weather would spoil her fine clothes,And nought but complaints through the forest arose.
So St. Valentine came on his journey aloneIn the coach of the Morn, for he'd none of his own,And put on his cassock and band, and went inTo the temple of Hymen, the rites to begin,Where the Mavis Thrush waited along with his bride,Nor in the whole place was a lady beside.The gentlemen they came alone to the saint,And instead of being married, each made a complaintOf Sir Winter, whose folly had caused the delay,And forced Love to put off the wedding till May;So the priest shook his head, and unrobed to be gone,As he had no day for his leisure but one.
And when the May came with Miss Flora and Spring,They had nought but old cares and new sorrows to sing;For some of the lady birds ceased to be kindTo their old loves, and changed for new-comers their mind;And some had resolved to keep single that year,Until St. Valentine with the next should appear.
The birds sung their sorrows the whole Summer long,And the Robin first mixed up his ills with his song:He sung of his griefs—how in love he'd been crossed,And gave up his heart as eternally lost;'T was burnt to a coal, as sly Cupid let fallA spark that scorched through both the feathers and all.To cure it Time tried, but ne'er found out the way,So the mark on his bosom he wears to this day:And when birds are all silent, and not a leaf seenOn the trees, but the ivy and holly so green,In frost and in snow little Robin will sing,To put off the sorrow that ruffles his wing.And that is the cause in our gardens we hearThe Robin's sweet note at the close of the year.
The Wagtail, too, mourned in his doublet of grey,As if powdered with rime on a dull winter's day;He twittered of love—how he courted a fair,Who altered her mind, and so made him despair.In a stone-pit he chose her a place for a nest,But she, like a wanton, but made it a jest.Though he dabbled in brooks to convince her how kindHe would feed her with worms which he laboured to find,Till he e'en got the ague, still nought could prevail,So ever since then he's been wagging his tail.
In the whitethorn the Linnet bides lonely to singHow his lady-love shunned his embraces in Spring,Though he found out a bush that the sun had half drestWith leaves quite sufficient to shelter their nest;And yet she forsook him, no more to be seen,So that is the reason he dresses in green.
Then aloud in his grief sings the gay speckled Thrush,That changes his music on every bush—"My love she has left me to sorrow and mourn,Yet I hope in my heart she'll repent and return;"So he tries at all notes her approval to meet,And that is the reason he singeth so sweet.
And as sweet sang the Bullfinch, although he confestThat the anguish he felt was more deep than the rest,And they all marvelled much how he'd spirits to sing,When to show them his anguish he held up his wing;From his throat to his tail not a feather was foundBut what had been stained red with blood from the wound.
And sad chirped the Sparrow of joys fled and gone,Of his love being lost he so doted upon;So he vowed constant silence for that very thing,And this is the reason why Sparrows don't sing.
Then next came the Rook and the sorrowful Crow,To tell birds the cause why in mourning they go,Ever since their old loves their embraces forsook;And all seemed to pity the Crow and the Rook.
The Jay he affected to hide his despair,And rather than mourn he had spirits to wearA coat of all colours, but in it some blueDenoted his passion; though crossed, 't was true;So now in lone woods he will hide him all day,And aloud he scolds all that intrude in his way.
The Magpie declared it should never be saidThat he mourned for a lover, though fifty had fled;Yet his heart all the while was so burnt and distrest,That it turned all the feathers coal-black on his breast.The birds they all marvelled, but still he denied,And wore a black cap his deep blushes to hide;So that is the reason himself and his kinWear hoods with the lappets quite under the chin.
Then last came the Owl, grieving loud as he flew,Saying how his false lover had bade him adieu;And though he knew not where to find her or follow,Yet round their old haunts he would still whoop and halloo,For no sleep could he get in his sorrowful plight.So that is the reason Owls halloo at night.
And here ends the song of each woe-stricken bird.Now was a more pitiful story e'er heard?The rest were all coupled, and happy, and theySung the old merry songs which they sing at this day:And good little boys, when this tale they read o'er,Will ne'er have the heart to hurt birds any more,And add to the griefs they already have sungBy robbing their nests of their eggs and their young;But feel for their sufferings, and pity their pain,Nor give them new cause of their lot to complain.
[After Sir John Harrington]
[From the "European Magazine" March, 1826]
Love and thy vain employs, awayFrom this too oft deluded breast!No longer will I court thy stay,To be my bosom's teasing guest.Thou treacherous medicine—reckon'd pure;Thou quackery of the harass'd heart,That kills what it pretends to cure,Life's mountebank thou art.
With nostrums vain of boasted powers,That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave;An asp hid in a group of flowers,That bites and stings when few perceive;Thou mock-peace to the troubled mind,Leading it more in sorrow's way,Freedom that leaves us more confined,I bid thee hence away.
Dost taunt, and deem thy power beyondThe resolution reason gave?Tut! Falsity hath snapt each bond,That kept me once thy quiet slave,And made thy snare a spider's thread,Which e'en my breath can break in twain;Nor will I be, like Sampson, ledTo trust thy wiles again.
Tempt me no more with rosy cheeks,Nor daze my reason with bright eyes;I'm wearied with thy wayward freaks,And sicken at such vanities:Be roses fine as e'er they will,They, with the meanest, fade and die,And eyes, tho' thick with darts to kill.Share all mortalities.
Heed the young bard, who madly sipsHis nectar-draughts from folly's flowers,Bright eyes, fair cheeks, and ruby lips,Till music melts to honey showers;Lure him to thrum thy empty lays,While flattery listens to the chimes,Till words themselves grow sick with praiseAnd stop for want of rhymes.
Let such be still thy paramours,And chaunt love's old and idle tune,Robbing the spring of all its flowers,And heaven of all her stars and moon,To gild with dazzling similesBlind folly's vain and empty lay:I'm sober'd from such phantasies,So get thee hence away.
Nor bid me sigh for mine own cost,Nor count its loss, for mine annoy,Nor say my stubbornness hath lostA paradise of dainty joy:I'll not believe thee, till I knowThat reason turns thy pampered ape,And acts thy harlequin, to showThat care's in every shape.
Heart-achings, sighs, and grief-wrung tears,Shame-blushes at betrayed distress,Dissembled smiles, and jealous fears,Are aught but real happiness:Then will I mourn what now I brave,And suffer Celia's quirks to be(Like a poor fate-bewilder'd slave,)The rulers of my destiny.
I'll weep and sigh when e'er she willsTo frown—and when she deigns to smileIt will be cure for all my ills,And, foolish still, I'll laugh the while;But till that comes, I'll bless the rulesExperience taught, and deem it wiseTo hold thee as the game of fools,And all thy tricks despise.
The gipsy's life is a merry life,And ranting boys we be;We pay to none or rent or tax,And live untith'd and free.None care for us, for none care we,And where we list we roam,And merry boys we gipsies be,Though the wild woods are our home.
And come what will brings no dismay;Our minds are ne'er perplext;For if to-day is a swaly day,We meet with luck the next.And thus we sing and kiss our mates,While our chorus still shall be,—Bad luck to tyrant magistrates,And the gipsies' camp still free.
To mend old pans and bottom chairsAround the towns we tramp,Then a day or two our purse repairs,And plenty fills our camp;And our song we sing, and our fiddles soundTheir catgut harmony,While echo fills the woods aroundWith gipsy liberty.
The green grass is our softest bed,The sun our clock we call,The nightly sky hangs over head,Our curtains, house, and all.Tho' houseless while the wild winds blow,Our joys are uncontroll'd;We barefoot dance through Winter's snow,When others die with cold.
Our maidens they are fond and free,And lasting are their charms;Brown as the berry on the tree,No sun their beauty harms:Their beauties are no garden blooms,That fade before they flower;Unshelter'd where the tempest comes,They smile in sun and shower.
And they are wild as the woodland hare,That feeds on the evening lea;And what care we for ladies fair,Since ours are fond and free?False hearts hide in a lily skin,But ours are coarse and fond;No parson's fetters link us in,—Our love's a stronger bond.
Tho' wild woods are our house and home,'T is a home of liberty;Free as the Summer clouds we roam,And merry boys we be.We dance and sing the year along,And loud our fiddles play;And no day goes without its song,While every month is May.
The hare that haunts the fallow ground,And round the common feeds;The fox that tracks the woodland bounds,And in the thicket breeds;These are the neighbours where we dwell,And all the guests we see,That share and love the quiet wellOf gipsy liberty.
The elements are grown our friends,And leave our huts alone;The thunder-bolt, that shakes and rendsThe cotter's house of stone,Flies harmless by the blanket roof,Where the winds may burst and blow,For our camps, tho' thin, are tempest proof,We reck not rain and snow.
May the lot we've met our lives befall,And nothing worse attend;So here's success to gipsies all,And every gipsy's friend.And while the ass that bears our campCan find a common free,Around old England's heaths we'll trampIn gipsy liberty.
O it was a lorn and a dismal night,And the storm beat loud and high;Not a friendly light to guide me rightWas there shining in the sky,When a lonely hut my wanderings met,Lost in a foreign land,And I found the dearest friend as yetIn my lovely Peggy Band.
"O, father, here's a soldier lad,And weary he seems to be.""Then welcome in," the old man said,And she gave her seat to me.The fire she trimmed, and my clothes she driedWith her own sweet lily hand,And o'er the soldier's lot she sighed,While I blest my Peggy Band.
When I told the tale of my wandering years,And the nights unknown to sleep,She made excuse to hide her tears,And she stole away to weep.A pilgrim's blessing I seemed to share,As saints of the Holy Land,And I thought her a guardian angel there,Though he called her his Peggy Band.
The night it passed, and the hour to partWith the morning winged away,And I felt an anguish at my heartThat vainly bid to stay.I thanked the old man for all he did,And I took his daughter's hand,But my heart was full, and I could not bidFarewell to my Peggy Band.
A blessing on that friendly cot,Where the soldier found repose,And a blessing be her constant lotWho soothed the stranger's woes.I turned a last look at the door,As she held it in her hand,And my heart ached sore, as I crossed the moor,For to leave my Peggy Band.
Sweet brook! I've met thee many a summer's day,And ventured fearless in thy shallow flood,And rambled oft thy sweet unwearied way,'Neath willows cool that on thy margin stood,With crowds of partners in my artless play—Grasshopper, beetle, bee, and butterfly—That frisked about as though in merry moodTo see their old companion sporting by.Sweet brook! life's glories then were mine and thine;Shade clothed thy spring that now doth naked lie;On thy white glistening sand the sweet woodbineDarkened and dipt its flowers. I mark, and sigh,And muse o'er troubles since we met the last,Like two fond friends whose happiness is past.
My creed may be different from other creeds, but the difference is nothing when the end is the same. If I did not expect and hope for eternal happiness I should be ever miserable; and as every religion is a rule leading to good by its professor, the religions of all nations and creeds, where that end is the aim, ought rather to be respected than scoffed at. A final judgment of men by their deeds and actions in life is inevitable, and the only difference between an earthly assize and the eternal one is, that the final one needs no counsellors to paint the bad or good better or worse than they are. The Judge knows the hearts of all men, and the sentence may be expected to be just as well as final, whether it be for the worst or the best. This ought to teach us to pause and think, and try to lead our lives as well as we can.
"Rumour and the popular voiceSome look to more than truth, and so confirm Opinions."CARY'S Dante.
Popularity is a busy talker: she catches hold of topics and offers them to fame without giving herself time to reflect whether they are true or false, and fashion is her favourite disciple who sanctions and believes them as eagerly, and with the same faith, as a young lady in the last century read a new novel and a tavern-haunter in this reads the news. It is natural, with such foundations, to ask whether popularity is fame, for it often happens that very slender names come to be popular from many causes with which merit or genius has no sort of connection or kindred. It may be some oddity in the manner, or incident in the life, of the author that is whispered over before his book comes out. This often macadamizes the way to popularity, for gossip is a mighty spell in the literary world, and a concealment of the author's name often creates an anxiety in the public mind, for it leaves room for guesses and conjectures, and as some are very fond of appearing wise in such matters by saying they know from good authority that such a one is the author, it becomes the talk of the card party and tea-table, and he gains a superficial notoriety. Such was the case with the "Pursuits of Literature," a leaden-footed satire that had as much claim to merit as the statue of Pasquin in the Market-place of Rome, on which vulgar squibs were pasted. Everybody knew the author, and nobody knew him. The first names of the day were foisted into the concern, and when the secret was found out that it belonged to one of the lowest, the book sank to rise no more. Sometimes a pompous, pretending title hits the mark at once and wins a name. Who among the lower orders of youth is ignorant of the "Young Man's Best Companion" by Mr. Fisher, Accomptant, or the "Book of Wisdom" by Mr. Penning, Philomath? They are almost as common as bibles and prayer-books in a cottage library.
A guess is not hazarded in believing that popularity is not the omen of true fame. Sometimes the trifling and ridiculous grow into the most extensive popularity, such as the share of it which a man gained by wearing a high brimmed hat, and another that cut off the tails of his coat and thereby branded his name on the remnant; and though the spencers are out of fashion they have outlived many a poetical popularity. These are instances of the ridiculous. The trifling are full as extensive. Where is the poet who shares half the popularity of Warren, Turner, or Day and Martin, whose ebony fames are spread through every dirty little village in England? These instances of the trifling and ridiculous made as much noise and stir in their day as the best, and noise and bustle are the essence and soul of popularity.
The nearest akin to popularity is common fame. I mean names that are familiar among the common people. It is not a very envious species, for they seldom know how to value or appreciate what they are acquainted with. The name of Chatterton is familiar to their ears as an unfortunate poet, because they saw his history printed on pocket handkerchiefs; and the name of Shakespeare as a great play writer, because they have often seen him nominated as such on the bills of strolling players, who make shift with barns for theatres. But this sort of revelry makes a corresponding idea in their minds, for the paltry ballad mongers, whose productions supply hawkers with their wares, are poets with them, and they imagine one as great as the other, common minds making no distinction in these common fames. On the other hand there is something in it to wish for, because there are things as old as England that have outlived centuries of popularity, nay, left half its history in darkness, and they still live on, as common in every memory as the seasons, and as familiar to children even as the rain and Spring flowers. I allude to the old superstitious fragments of legends and stories in rhyme that are said to be Norman, or Saxon, or Danish. There are many desire this common fame, and it is mostly met in a manner least expected. While some affectations are striving for a lifetime to hit all tastes and always miss the mark by a wide throw, an unconscious poet of little name writes a trifle as he feels, without thinking of others, and he becomes a common name.
Unaffected simplicity is the everyday picture of Nature. Thus, little children's favourites of "Cock Robin," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "Babes in the Wood," have impressions at the core that grow up with manhood and are always dear. Poets anxious after common fame, as some of the "naturals" seem to be, imitate these things by affecting simplicity, and become unnatural. These things found fame where the greatest names are still oblivious. A literary man might enquire after the names of Spenser and Milton in vain in half the villages in England, even among what are called its gentry, but I believe it would be difficult to find a corner in any county where the others are not known, nor an old woman in any hamlet with whom they are not familiar.
In my days, some of the pieces of the modern poets have gained this common popularity, which must be distinguished from fame as it may only live for a season.
Wordsworth's beautiful, simple ballad of "We are seven" I have seen hawked about for a penny, and Tannahill's song of "Jessy" has met with more popularity among the common people than all other songs, English and Scottish, put together. Lord Byron's hasty fame may be deemed a contradiction to the above opinion that popularity is not true fame, though at its greatest extent it is but an exception, and scarcely that, for his great and hurried popularity, that almost trampled on its own heels in its haste, must drop into a less bustling degree, and become cool and quiet, like the preaching of Irving. Shakespeare was hardly noticed in his lifetime by popularity, but he is known now, and Byron is hardly the tenth part of a Shakespeare. Every storm must have its calm, and Byron took fame by storm. By a desperate daring he over-swept petty control like a rebellious flood, or a tempest worked up into madness by the quarrel of the elements, and he seemed to value that daring as the attainment of true fame. He looked upon Horace's "Art of Poetry" no doubt with esteem as a reader, but he cared no more for it in the profession of a poet than the weather does for an almanack. He looked upon critics as the countryman does on a magistrate. He beheld them as a race of petty tyrants that stood in the way of genius. They were in his eyes more of stumbling-blocks than guides, and he treated them accordingly. He let them know there was another road to Parnassus without taking theirs, and being obliged to do them homage. Not stooping to the impediments of their authorities, like the paths of a besieged city encumbered with sentinels, he made a road for himself, and, like Napoleon crossing the Alps, he let the world see that even in the eye of a mortal their greatest obstacles were looked on "as the dust in a balance." He gained the envied eminence of living popularity by making a breach where it was thought impregnable. Where others had laid siege for a lifetime, and lost their hopes and their labour at last, he gained the heights of popularity by a single stride, and looked down as a free-booter on the world below, scorning the applause his labours had gained him, and scarcely returning a compliment for the laurels which fashion so eagerly bound round his brows, while he saw the alarm of his leaden-footed enemies, and withered them to nothings with his sneer. He was an Oliver Cromwell with the critics. He broke up their long-standing Parliament and placed his own will in the Speaker's chair, and his will they humbly accepted. They submitted to one that scorned to be shackled, and champed the bit in his stead. They praised and respected him, nay, they worshipped him. He was all in all in their mouths and in their writings, but I suspect their hearts had as much love for him as the peasantry had for witches in the last century, who spoke well of them to their faces because they dared not do other-wise for fear of meeting an injury. Whether Byron hath won true fame or not I cannot say; my mind is too little to grasp that judgment. To say that he was the first of his age in his way is saying nothing, but we have sufficient illustration for the argument in saying that popularity is not the forerunner of fame's eternity. Among all the bustle of popularity there must be only a portion of it accepted as fame. Time will sift it of its drossy puffs and praises. He has been with others extolled as equal to Shakespeare, and I dare say the popular voice of "readers" thought him superior. But three centuries will wither every extravagance, and sober the picture of its glaring colours. He is no doubt one of the eternals, but he is one of those of the 19th century, and if all its elements be classed together in the next they would make but a poor substitute for a Shakespeare. Eternity will not rake the bottom of the sea of oblivion for puffs and praises, and all their attendant rubbish, the feelings that the fashion of the day created, and the flatteries uttered. Eternity will estimate things at their proper value, and no other. She will not even seek for the newspaper praise of Walter Scott. She will not look for Byron's immortality in the company of Warren's blacking, Prince's kalydor, and Atkinson's bear's grease. She looks for it in his own merit, and her impartial judgment will be his best reward.
Wordsworth has had little share of popularity, though he bids fair to be as great in one species of poetry as Byron was in another, but to acknowledge such an opinion in the world's ear would only pucker the lips of fashion into a sneer against it. Yet his lack of living praise is no proof of his lack of genius. The trumpeting clamour of public praise is not to be relied on as the creditor of the future. The quiet progress of a name gaining ground by gentle degrees in the world's esteem is the best living shadow of fame to follow. The simplest trifle and the meanest thing in nature is the same now as it shall continue to be till the world's end.
Men trample grass and prize the flowers in May,But grass is green when flowers do fade away.
None need be surprised to see these two false prophets in partnership or conjunction for an essay, as they may be called brothers, for the one attests what it pleases and the other takes it for granted. Criticism is grown a sort of book milliner, who cuts a book to any pattern of abuse or praise, and Fashion readily wears the opinion. How many productions whose milk-and-water merits, or unintelligible stupidity, have been considered as novelties, have by that means gained the admiration of Criticism and the praise of Fashion, until a more absurd novelty pushed them from their preferments and caused them to be as suddenly forgotten! The vulgar, tasteless jargon of "Dr. Syntax," with all the above-mentioned excellencies to excite public notice from the butterflies of fashion, soon found what it sought, though some of the plates or illustrations possess the disadvantageous merit of being good. Yet the letter-press doubly made up for all, for it was prose trebly prosified into wire-drawn doggrel, and consequently met with a publicity and sale unprecedented. Edition multiplied on edition, till it was found needless to number the title page, and it was only necessary to say "A New Edition;" while the poems of Wordsworth scarcely found admirers enough to ensure a second edition. What will the admirers of poetry in the next age think of the taste of this, which has been called "the Golden Age of criticism, poetry, taste, and genius"?
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Fashion is like a new book "elegantly bound and lettered." It cannot endure dust and cobwebs; but true criticism is like a newly-planted laurel: it thrives with age and gathers strength from antiquity, till it becomes a spreading tree and shelters the objects of its praise under its shadow. Just Criticism is a stern but laudable prophet, and Time and Truth are the only disciples who can discern and appreciate his predictions.
Flowers must be sown and tended with care, like children, to grow up to maturity, but weeds grow of themselves and multiply without any attention, choking up those flowers that require it; and lies are propagated as easily as weeds, and choke up the blossoms of truth in the same manner. But the evils and misrepresentations of false criticism, though great and many, are not lasting.
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Upon its principles fashion and flattery have made many Shakespeares, and these false prophets have flourished and will flourish for a season, for truth, when she cannot be heard by the opposition of falsehood, remains silent and leaves time to decide the difference, who cometh quietly and impartially to her assistance, hurling without ceremony, century after century, usurper after usurper from the throne of the mighty, and erasing their names from his altar as suddenly and as perfectly as the sunbeam passes over and washes away the stains of a shadow on the wall. Fame hath weighed the false criticisms and pretensions of centuries already, and found nothing as yet but dust in the balance. Shadows of Shakespeare are cast away as profane idols, and reality hath fallen short of even a trinity. She acknowledges as sacred but one, and I fear that when she shall calculate the claims of ten centuries she will find the number of the mighty a unit. But why should fear be expressed for a repetition which we neither hope for nor need? We have but one sun in our firmament, and upwards of six thousand years have neither added to nor diminished its splendour, neither have vain desires been expressed for the existence of another. Needless wishes create painful expectations. When a man is warm and comfortable on a cold day he cannot wish for an excess that would burn him. Therefore we need neither hope for more Shakespeares nor regret that there is but one. When the Muses created him a poet they created him the sun of the firmament of genius, and time has proved, and will prove, that they glory in their creation, deeming it sufficient, without striving to find or create another, for nature knows the impossibility. There have been, both before and after, constellations of great and wonderful beauty, and many in this age will be found in the number who shine in their own light with becoming splendour, but whenever flattery or vanity places them near the great luminary their little lights lose their splendour and they vanish in his brightness as the stars are lost at noon.
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The falling stars leave a stream of splendour behind them for a moment; then utter darkness follows, and not a spark is left to show where they fell.
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It is said that Byron is not to have a monument in Westminster Abbey. To him it is no injury. Time is his monument, on whose scroll the name of Byron shall be legible when the walls and tombs of Westminster Abbey shall have mingled with the refuse of ruins, and the sun, as in scorn, be left free again to smile upon the earth so long darkened with the pompous shadows of bigotry and intolerance.
Respecting these compositions Clare says:—
"I commenced sometime ago with an intention of making a collection of Old Ballads, but when I had sought after them in places where I expected to find them, namely, the hayfield and the shepherd's hut on the pasture, I found that nearly all those old and beautiful recollections had vanished as so many old fashions, and those who knew fragments seemed ashamed to acknowledge it, as old people who sung old songs only sung to be laughed at; and those who were proud of their knowledge in such things knew nothing but the senseless balderdash that is bawled over and sung at country feasts, statutes and fairs, where the most senseless jargon passes for the greatest excellence, and rudest indecency for the finest wit. So the matter was thrown by, and forgotten, until last winter, when I used to spend the long evenings with my father and mother, and heard them by accident hum over scraps of the following old melodies, which I have collected and put into their present form."
Two of the collection are omitted from this volume: the well-known ballad of "Lord Randall," and a second the subject of which appeared to render its inclusion inexpedient.