This writer was born at Burton-on-Trent, in 1705. He was educated at Westminster and Cambridge, and studied law at Lincoln's Inn. He was a man of fortune, and sat in two parliaments for Wenlock, in Shropshire. He died in 1760. His imitations of authors are clever and amusing, and seem to have got their hint from 'The Splendid Shilling,' and to have given it to the 'Rejected Addresses.'
——Prorumpit ad aethera nubemTurbine, fumantem piceo. VIRG.
O thou, matured by glad Hesperian suns,Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid truth,That looks the very soul; whence pouring thoughtSwarms all the mind; absorpt is yellow care,And at each puff imagination burns:Flash on thy bard, and with exalting firesTouch the mysterious lip that chants thy praiseIn strains to mortal sons of earth unknown.Behold an engine, wrought from tawny minesOf ductile clay, with plastic virtue formed,And glazed magnific o'er, I grasp, I fill.From Paetotheke with pungent powers perfumed,Itself one tortoise all, where shines imbibedEach parent ray; then rudely rammed, illumeWith the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet,Marked with Gibsonian lore; forth issue cloudsThought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around,And many-mining fires; I all the while,Lolling at ease, inhale the breezy balm.But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join,In genial strife and orthodoxal ale,Stream life and joy into the Muse's bowl.Oh, be thou still my great inspirer, thouMy Muse; oh, fan me with thy zephyrs boon,While I, in clouded tabernacle shrined,Burst forth all oracle and mystic song.
—Solis ad ortusVanescit fumus. LUCAN.
Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispenseTo Templars modesty, to parsons sense:So raptured priests, at famed Dodona's shrine,Drank inspiration from the steam divine.Poison that cures, a vapour that affordsContent, more solid than the smile of lords:Rest to the weary, to the hungry food,The last kind refuge of the wise and good.Inspired by thee, dull cits adjust the scaleOf Europe's peace, when other statesmen fail.By thee protected, and thy sister, beer,Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.Nor less the critic owns thy genial aid,While supperless he plies the piddling trade.What though to love and soft delights a foe,By ladies hated, hated by the beau,Yet social freedom, long to courts unknown,Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own.Come to thy poet, come with healing wings,And let me taste thee unexcised by kings.
Ex fumo dare lucem.—HOR.
Boy! bring an ounce of Freeman's best,And bid the vicar be my guest:Let all be placed in manner due,A pot wherein to spit or spew,And London Journal, and Free-Briton,Of use to light a pipe or * *
* * * * *
This village, unmolested yetBy troopers, shall be my retreat:Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray;Who cannot write or vote for * * *Far from the vermin of the town,Here let me rather live, my own,Doze o'er a pipe, whose vapour blandIn sweet oblivion lulls the land;Of all which at Vienna passes,As ignorant as * * Brass is:And scorning rascals to caress,Extol the days of good Queen Bess,When first tobacco blessed our isle,Then think of other queens—and smile.
Come, jovial pipe, and bring alongMidnight revelry and song;The merry catch, the madrigal,That echoes sweet in City Hall;The parson's pun, the smutty taleOf country justice o'er his ale.I ask not what the French are doing,Or Spain, to compass Britain's ruin:Britons, if undone, can goWhere tobacco loves to grow.
Oldys was born in 1696, and died in 1761. He was a very diligent collector of antiquarian materials, and the author of a Life of Raleigh. He was intimate with Captain Grose, Burns' friend, who used to rally him on his inordinate thirst for ale, although, if we believe Burns, it was paralleled by Grose's liking for port. The following Anacreontic is characteristic:—
Busy, curious, thirsty fly,Drink with me, and drink as I;Freely welcome to my cup,Couldst thou sip and sip it up.Make the most of life you may—Life is short, and wears away.
Both alike are, mine and thine,Hastening quick to their decline:Thine's a summer, mine no more,Though repeated to threescore;Threescore summers, when they're gone,Will appear as short as one.
Robert Lloyd was born in London in 1733. He was the son of one of the under-masters of Westminster School. He went to Cambridge, where he became distinguished for his talents and notorious for his dissipation. He became an usher under his father, but soon tired of the drudgery, and commenced professional author. He published a poem called 'The Actor,' which attracted attention, and was the precursor of 'The Rosciad.' He wrote for periodicals, produced some theatrical pieces of no great merit, and edited theSt James' Magazine. This failed, and Lloyd, involved in pecuniary distresses, was cast into the Fleet. Here he was deserted by all his boon companions except Churchill, to whose sister he was attached, and who allowed him a guinea a-week and a servant, besides promoting a subscription for his benefit. When the news of Churchill's death arrived, Lloyd was seated at dinner; he became instantly sick, cried out 'Poor Charles! I shall follow him soon,' and died in a few weeks. Churchill's sister, a woman of excellent abilities, waited on Lloyd during his illness, and died soon after him of a broken heart. This was in 1764.
Lloyd was a minor Churchill. He had not his brawny force, but he had more than his liveliness of wit, and was a much better-conditioned man, and more temperate in his satire. Cowper knew, loved, admired, and in some of his verses imitated, Robert Lloyd.
The harlot Muse, so passing gay,Bewitches only to betray.Though for a while with easy airShe smooths the rugged brow of care,And laps the mind in flowery dreams,With Fancy's transitory gleams;Fond of the nothings she bestows,We wake at last to real woes.Through every age, in every place,Consider well the poet's case;By turns protected and caressed,Defamed, dependent, and distressed.The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;Too proud to stoop for servile ends,To lacquey rogues or flatter friends;With prodigality to give,Too careless of the means to live;The bubble fame intent to gain,And yet too lazy to maintain;He quits the world he never prized,Pitied by few, by more despised,And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes,Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.
O glorious trade! for wit's a trade,Where men are ruined more than made!Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay,The shabby Otway, Dryden gray,Those tuneful servants of the Nine,(Not that I blend their names with mine,)Repeat their lives, their works, their fame.And teach the world some useful shame.
Of Carey, the author of the popular song, 'Sally in our Alley,' we know only that he was a professional musician, composing the air as well as the words of 'Sally,' and that in 1763 he died by his own hands.
1 Of all the girls that are so smart,There's none like pretty Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.There is no lady in the landIs half so sweet as Sally:She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
2 Her father he makes cabbage-nets,And through the streets does cry 'em;Her mother she sells laces long,To such as please to buy 'em:But sure such folks could ne'er begetSo sweet a girl as Sally!She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
3 When she is by, I leave my work,(I love her so sincerely,)My master comes like any Turk,And bangs me most severely:But, let him bang his belly full,I'll bear it all for Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
4 Of all the days that's in the week,I dearly love but one day;And that's the day that comes betwixtA Saturday and Monday;For then I'm dressed all in my best,To walk abroad with Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
5 My master carries me to church,And often am I blamed,Because I leave him in the lurch,As soon as text is named:I leave the church in sermon time,And slink away to Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
6 When Christmas comes about again,O then I shall have money;I'll hoard it up, and box it all,I'll give it to my honey:I would it were ten thousand pounds,I'd give it all to Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
7 My master, and the neighbours all,Make game of me and Sally;And, but for her, I'd better beA slave, and row a galley:But when my seven long years are out,O then I'll marry Sally,O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed,But not in our alley.
David Mallett was the son of a small innkeeper in Crieff, Perthshire, where he was born in the year 1700. Crieff, as many of our readers know, is situated on the western side of a hill, and commands a most varied and beautiful prospect, including Drummond Castle, with its solemn shadowy woods, and the Ochils, on the south,—Ochtertyre, one of the loveliest spots in Scotland, and the gorge of Glenturrett, on the north,—and the bold dark hills which surround the romantic village of Comrie, on the west. Crieff is now a place of considerable note, and forms a centre of summer attraction to multitudes; but at the commencement of the eighteenth century it must have been a miserable hamlet.Mallochwas originally the name of the poet, and the name is still common in that part of Perthshire. David attended the college of Aberdeen, and became, afterwards, an unsalaried tutor in the family of Mr Home of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. We find him next in the Duke of Montrose's family, with a salary of £30 per annum. In 1723, he accompanied his pupils to London, and changed his name to Mallett, as more euphonious. Next year, he produced his pretty ballad of 'William and Margaret,' and published it in Aaron Hill's 'Plain Dealer.' This served as an introduction to the literary society of the metropolis, including such names as Young and Pope. In 1733, he disgraced himself by a satire on the greatest man then living, the venerable Richard Bentley. Mallett was one of those mean creatures who always worship a rising, and turn their backs on a setting sun. By his very considerable talents, his management, and his address, he soon rose in the world. He was appointed under-secretary to the Prince of Wales, with a salary of £200 a-year. In conjunction with Thomson, to whom he was really kind, he wrote in 1740, 'The Masque of Alfred,' in honour of the birthday of the Princess Augusta. His first wife, of whom nothing is recorded, having died, he married the daughter of Lord Carlisle's steward, who brought him a fortune of £10,000. Both she and Mallett himself gave themselves out as Deists. This was partly owing to his intimacy with Bolingbroke, to gratify whom, he heaped abuse upon Pope in a preface to 'The Patriot-King,' and was rewarded by Bolingbroke leaving him the whole of his works and MSS. These he afterwards published, and exposed himself to the vengeful sarcasm of Johnson, who said that Bolingbroke was a scoundrel and a coward;—a scoundrel, to charge a blunderbuss against Christianity; and a coward, because he durst not fire it himself, but left a shilling to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger after his death. Mallett ranked himself among the calumniators and, as it proved, murderers of Admiral Byng. He wrote a Life of Lord Bacon, in which, it was said, he forgot that Bacon was a philosopher, and would probably, when he came to write the Life of Marlborough, forget that he was a general. This Life of Bacon is now utterly forgotten. We happened to read it in our early days, and thought it a very contemptible performance. The Duchess of Marlborough left £1000 in her will between Glover and Mallett to write a Life of her husband. Glover threw up his share of the work, and Mallett engaged to perform the whole, to which, besides, he was stimulated by a pension from the second Duke of Marlborough. He got the money, but when he died it was found that he had not written a line of the work. In his latter days he held the lucrative office of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London. He died on the 2lst April 1765.
Mallett is, on the whole, no credit to Scotland. He was a bad, mean, insincere, and unprincipled man, whose success was procured by despicable and dastardly arts. He had doubtless some genius, and his 'Birks of Invermay,' and 'William and Margaret,' shall preserve his name after his clumsy imitation of Thomson, called 'The Excursion,' and his long, rambling 'Amyntor and Theodora;' have been forgotten.
1 'Twas at the silent, solemn hourWhen night and morning meet;In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,And stood at William's feet.
2 Her face was like an April-morn,Clad in a wintry cloud;And clay-cold was her lily hand,That held her sable shroud.
3 So shall the fairest face appear,When youth and years are flown:Such is the robe that kings must wear,When death has reft their crown.
4 Her bloom was like the springing flower,That sips the silver dew;The rose was budded in her cheek,Just opening to the view.
5 But love had, like the canker-worm,Consumed her early prime:The rose grew pale, and left her cheek;She died before her time.
6 'Awake!' she cried, 'thy true love calls,Come from her midnight-grave;Now let thy pity hear the maid,Thy love refused to save.
7 'This is the dumb and dreary hour,When injured ghosts complain;When yawning graves give up their dead,To haunt the faithless swain.
8 'Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,Thy pledge and broken oath!And give me back my maiden-vow,And give me back my troth.
9 'Why did you promise love to me,And not that promise keep?Why did you swear my eyes were bright,Yet leave those eyes to weep?
10 'How could you say my face was fair,And yet that face forsake?How could you win my virgin-heart,Yet leave that heart to break?
11 'Why did you say my lip was sweet,And made the scarlet pale?And why did I, young witless maid!Believe the flattering tale?
12 'That face, alas! no more is fair,Those lips no longer red:Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,And every charm is fled.
13 'The hungry worm my sister is;This winding-sheet I wear:And cold and weary lasts our night,Till that last morn appear.
14 'But, hark! the cock has warned me hence;A long and late adieu!Come, see, false man, how low she lies,Who died for love of you.'
15 The lark sung loud; the morning smiled,With beams of rosy red:Pale William quaked in every limb,And raving left his bed.
16 He hied him to the fatal placeWhere Margaret's body lay;And stretched him on the green-grass turf,That wrapped her breathless clay.
17 And thrice he called on Margaret's name.And thrice he wept full sore;Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,And word spake never more!
The smiling morn, the breathing spring,Invite the tunefu' birds to sing;And, while they warble from the spray,Love melts the universal lay.Let us, Amanda, timely wise,Like them, improve the hour that flies;And in soft raptures waste the day,Among the birks of Invermay.
For soon the winter of the year,And age, life's winter, will appear;At this thy living bloom will fade,As that will strip the verdant shade.Our taste of pleasure then is o'er,The feathered songsters are no more;And when they drop and we decay,Adieu the birks of Invermay!
Merrick was a clergyman, as well as a writer of verse. He was born in 1720, and became a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, where Lord North was one of his pupils. He took orders, but owing to incessant pains in the head, could not perform duty. He died in 1769. His works are a translation of Tryphiodorus, done at twenty, a version of the Psalms, a collection of Hymns, and a few miscellaneous pieces, one good specimen of which we subjoin.
Oft has it been my lot to markA proud, conceited, talking spark,With eyes that hardly served at mostTo guard their master 'gainst a post;Yet round the world the blade has been,To see whatever could be seen.Returning from his finished tour,Grown ten times perter than before;Whatever word you chance to drop,The travelled fool your mouth will stop:'Sir, if my judgment you'll allow—I've seen—and sure I ought to know.'—So begs you'd pay a due submission,And acquiesce in his decision.
Two travellers of such a cast,As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed,And on their way, in friendly chat,Now talked of this, and then of that;Discoursed a while, 'mongst other matter,Of the chameleon's form and nature.'A stranger animal,' cries one,'Sure never lived beneath the sun:A lizard's body lean and long,A fish's head, a serpent's tongue,Its foot with triple claw disjoined;And what a length of tail behind!How slow its pace! and then its hue—Who ever saw so fine a blue?'
'Hold there,' the other quick replies,''Tis green, I saw it with these eyes,As late with open mouth it lay,And warmed it in the sunny ray;Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed,And saw it eat the air for food.'
'I've seen it, sir, as well as you,And must again affirm it blue;At leisure I the beast surveyedExtended in the cooling shade.'
''Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure ye.''Green!' cries the other in a fury:'Why, sir, d' ye think I've lost my eyes?'''Twere no great loss,' the friend replies;'For if they always serve you thus,You'll find them but of little use.'
So high at last the contest rose,From words they almost came to blows:When luckily came by a third;To him the question they referred:And begged he'd tell them, if he knew,Whether the thing was green or blue.
'Sirs,' cries the umpire, 'cease your pother;The creature's neither one nor t' other.I caught the animal last night,And viewed it o'er by candle-light:I marked it well, 'twas black as jet—You stare—but sirs, I've got it yet,And can produce it.'—'Pray, sir, do;I'll lay my life the thing is blue.''And I'll be sworn, that when you've seenThe reptile, you'll pronounce him green.'
'Well, then, at once to ease the doubt,'Replies the man, 'I'll turn him out:And when before your eyes I've set him,If you don't find him black, I'll eat him.'
He said; and full before their sightProduced the beast, and lo!—'twas white.Both stared, the man looked wondrous wise—'My children,' the chameleon cries,(Then first the creature found a tongue,)'You all are right, and all are wrong:When next you talk of what you view,Think others see as well as you:Nor wonder if you find that nonePrefers your eyesight to his own.'
This writer possessed some true imagination, although his claim to immortality lies in the narrow compass of one poem—his 'Ode to Solitude.' Little is known of his personal history. He was born in 1721 —belonging to a gentleman's family in Cumberland. He studied medicine, and was for some time a surgeon connected with the army. When the peace came, he established himself in London as a medical practitioner. In 1755, he published his 'Solitude,' which found many admirers, including Dr Johnson, who pronounced its opening lines 'very noble.' He afterwards indited several other pieces, wrote a translation of Tibullus, and became one of the critical staff of theMonthly Review. He was unable, however, through all these labours to secure a competence, and, in 1759, he sought the West Indies. In St Christopher's he commenced practising as a physician, and married the Governor's daughter, who brought him a fortune. He wrote a poem entitled 'The Sugar-cane.' This was sent over to London in MS., and was read at Sir Joshua Reynold's table to a literary coterie, who, according to Boswell, all burst out into a laugh when, after much blank-verse pomp, the poet began a new paragraph thus—
'Now, Muse, let's sing ofrats!
And what increased the ridicule was, that one of the company, slily overlooking the reader, found that the word had been originally 'mice,' but had been changed to rats as more dignified.
Boswell goes on to record Johnson's opinion of Grainger. He said, 'He was an agreeable man, a man that would do any good that was in his power.' His translation of Tibullus was very well done, but 'The Sugar- cane, a Poem,' did not please him. 'What could he make of a Sugar-cane? one might as well write "The Parsley-bed, a Poem," or "The Cabbage Garden, a Poem."' Boswell—'You must thenpickleyour cabbage with thesal Atticum.' Johnson—'One could say a great deal about cabbage. The poem might begin with the advantages of civilised society over a rude state, exemplified by the Scotch, who had no cabbages till Oliver Cromwell's soldiers introduced them, and one might thus shew how arts are propagated by conquest, as they were by the Roman arms.' Cabbage, by the way, in a metaphorical sense, might furnish a very good subject for a literarysatire.
Grainger died of the fever of the country in 1767. Bishop Percy corroborates Johnson's character of him as a man. He says, 'He was not only a man of genius and learning, but had many excellent virtues, being one of the most generous, friendly, benevolent men I ever knew.'
Grainger in some points reminds us of Dyer. Dyer staked his reputation on 'The Fleece;' but it is his lesser poem, 'Grongar Hill,' which preserves his name; that fine effusion has survived the laboured work. And so Grainger's 'Solitude' has supplanted the stately 'Sugar-cane.' The scenery of the West Indies had to wait till its real poet appeared in the author of 'Paul and Virginia.' Grainger was hardly able to cope with the strange and gorgeous contrasts it presents of cliffs and crags, like those of Iceland, with vegetation rich as that of the fairest parts of India, and of splendid sunshine, with tempests of such tremendous fury that, but for their brief continuance, no property could be secure, and no life could be safe.
The commencement of the 'Ode to Solitude' is fine, but the closing part becomes tedious. In the middle of the poem there is a tumult of personifications, some of them felicitous and others forced.
'Sage Reflection, bent with years,'may pass, but'Conscious Virtue, void of fears,'is poor.'Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,'is a picture;'Retrospect that scans the mind,'is nothing;'Health that snuffs the morning air,'is a living image; but what sense is there in'Full-eyed Truth, with bosom bare?'and how poor his'Laughter in loud peals that breaks,'to Milton's'Laughter, holding both his sides!'The paragraph, however, commencing'With you roses brighter bloom,'and closing with'The bournless macrocosm's thine,'is very spirited, and, along with the opening lines, provesGrainger a poet.
O solitude, romantic maid!Whether by nodding towers you tread,Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,Or climb the Andes' clifted side,Or by the Nile's coy source abide,Or starting from your half-year's sleepFrom Hecla view the thawing deep,Or, at the purple dawn of day,Tadmor's marble wastes survey,You, recluse, again I woo,And again your steps pursue.
Plumed Conceit himself surveying,Folly with her shadow playing,Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence,Bloated empiric, puffed Pretence,Noise that through a trumpet speaks,Laughter in loud peals that breaks,Intrusion with a fopling's face,Ignorant of time and place,Sparks of fire Dissension blowing,Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing,Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer,Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer,Ambition's buskins, steeped in blood,Fly thy presence, Solitude.
Sage Reflection, bent with years,Conscious Virtue, void of fears,Muffled Silence, wood-nymph shy,Meditation's piercing eye,Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,Retrospect that scans the mind,Rapt, earth-gazing Reverie,Blushing, artless Modesty,Health that snuffs the morning air,Full-eyed Truth, with bosom bare,Inspiration, Nature's child,Seek the solitary wild.
You, with the tragic muse retired,The wise Euripides inspired,You taught the sadly-pleasing airThat Athens saved from ruins bare.You gave the Cean's tears to flow,And unlocked the springs of woe;You penned what exiled Naso thought,And poured the melancholy note.With Petrarch o'er Vaucluse you strayed,When death snatched his long-loved maid;You taught the rocks her loss to mourn,Ye strewed with flowers her virgin urn.And late in Hagley you were seen,With bloodshot eyes, and sombre mien,Hymen his yellow vestment tore,And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore.But chief your own the solemn layThat wept Narcissa young and gay,Darkness clapped her sable wing,While you touched the mournful string,Anguish left the pathless wild,Grim-faced Melancholy smiled,Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn,The starry host put back the dawn,Aside their harps even seraphs flungTo hear thy sweet Complaint, O Young!When all nature's hushed asleep,Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep,Soft you leave your caverned den,And wander o'er the works of men;But when Phosphor brings the dawnBy her dappled coursers drawn,Again you to the wild retreatAnd the early huntsman meet,Where as you pensive pace along,You catch the distant shepherd's song,Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,Or the rising primrose view.Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings,You mount, and nature with you sings.But when mid-day fervours glow,To upland airy shades you go,Where never sunburnt woodman came,Nor sportsman chased the timid game;And there beneath an oak reclined,With drowsy waterfalls behind,You sink to rest.Till the tuneful bird of nightFrom the neighbouring poplar's heightWake you with her solemn strain,And teach pleased Echo to complain.
With you roses brighter bloom,Sweeter every sweet perfume,Purer every fountain flows,Stronger every wilding grows.Let those toil for gold who please,Or for fame renounce their ease.What is fame? an empty bubble.Gold? a transient shining trouble.Let them for their country bleed,What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?Man's not worth a moment's pain,Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.Then let me, sequestered fair,To your sibyl grot repair;On yon hanging cliff it stands,Scooped by nature's salvage hands,Bosomed in the gloomy shadeOf cypress not with age decayed.Where the owl still-hooting sits,Where the bat incessant flits,There in loftier strains I'll singWhence the changing seasons spring,Tell how storms deform the skies,Whence the waves subside and rise,Trace the comet's blazing tail,Weigh the planets in a scale;Bend, great God, before thy shrine,The bournless macrocosm's thine.* * * * *
We refer our readers to Dr Mackelvie's well-known and very able Life of poor Bruce, for his full story, and for the evidence on which his claim to the 'Cuckoo' is rested. Apart from external evidence, we think that poem more characteristic of Bruce's genius than of Logan's, and have therefore ranked it under Bruce's name.
Bruce was born on the 27th of March 1746, at Kinnesswood, parish of Portmoak, county of Kinross. His father was a weaver, and Michael was the fifth of a family of eight children.
Poor as his parents were, they were intelligent, religious, and most conscientious in the discharge of their duties to their children. In the summer months Michael was sent out to herd cattle; and one loves to imagine the young poet wrapt in his plaid, under a whin-bush, while the storm was blowing,—or gazing at the rainbow from the summit of a fence,—or admiring at Lochleven and its old ruined castle,—or weaving around the form of some little maiden, herding in a neighbouring field —some 'Jeanie Morrison'—one of those webs of romantic early love which are beautiful and evanescent as the gossamer, but how exquisitely relished while they last! Say not, with one of his biographers, that his 'education was retarded by this employment;' he was receiving in these solitary fields a kind of education which no school and no college could furnish; nay, who knows but, as he saw the cuckoo winging her way from one deep woodland recess to another, or heard her dull, divine monotone coming from the heart of the forest, the germ of that exquisite strain, 'least in the kingdom' of the heaven of poetry in size, but immortal in its smallness, was sown in his mind? In winter he went to school, and profited there so much, that at fifteen (not a very early period, after all, for a Scotch student beginning his curriculum—in our day twelve was not an uncommon age) he was judged fit for going to college. And just in time a windfall came across the path of our poet, the mention of which may make many of our readers smile. This was a legacy which was left his father by a relative, amounting to 200 merks, or £11, 2s.6d. With this munificent sum in his pocket, Bruce was sent to study at Edinburgh College. Here he became distinguished by his attainments, and particularly his taste and poetic powers; and here, too, he became acquainted with John Logan, afterwards his biographer. After spending three sessions at college, supported by his parents and other friends, he returned to the country, and taught a school at Gairney Bridge (a place famous for the first meeting of the first presbytery of the Seceders) for £11 of salary. Thence he removed to Foresthill, near Alloa, where a damp school-room, poverty, and hard labour in teaching, united to injure his health and depress his spirits. At Foresthill he wrote his poem 'Lochleven,' which discovers no small descriptive power. Consumption began now to make its appearance, and he returned to the cottage of his parents, where he wrote his 'Elegy on Spring,' in which he refers with dignified pathos to his approaching dissolution. On the 5th of July 1767, this remarkable youth died, aged twenty-one years and three months. His Bible was found on his pillow, marked at the words, Jer. xxii. 10, 'Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.'
Lord Craig wrote some time afterwards an affecting paper in theMirror, recording the fate, and commending the genius of Bruce. John Logan, in 1770, published his poems. In the year 1807, the kind-hearted Principal Baird published an edition of the poems for the behoof of Bruce's mother, then an aged widow. And in 1837, Dr William Mackelvie, Balgedie, Kinross- shire, published what may be considered the standard Life of this poet, along with a complete edition of his Works.
It is impossible from so small a segment of a circle as Bruce's life describes, to infer with any certainty the whole. So far as we can judge from the fragments left, his power was rather in the beautiful, than in the sublime or in the strong. The lines on Spring, from the words 'Now spring returns' to the close, form a continuous stream of pensive loveliness. How sweetly he sings in the shadow of death! Nor let us too severely blame his allusion to the old Pagan mythology, in the words—
'I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe,I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore;'
remembering that he was still a mere student, and not recovered from that fine intoxication in which classical literature drenches a young imaginative soul, and that at last we find him 'resting in the hopes of an eternal day.' 'Lochleven' is the spent echo of the 'Seasons,' although, as we said before, its descriptions possess considerable merit. His 'Last Day' is more ambitious than successful. If we grant the 'Cuckoo' to be his, as we are inclined decidedly to do, it is a sure title to fame, being one of the sweetest little poems in any language. Shakspeare would have been proud of the verse—
'Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,Thy sky is ever clear;Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,No winter in thy year.'
Bruce has not, however, it has always appeared to us, caught so well as Wordsworth the differentia of the cuckoo,—its invisible, shadowy, shifting, supernatural character—heard, but seldom seen—its note so limited and almost unearthly:—
'O Cuckoo, shall I call thee bird,Or but awandering voice?'
How fine this conception of a separated voice—'The viewless spirit of alonelysound,' plaining in the woods as if seeking for some incarnation it cannot find, and saddening the spring groves by a note so contradictory to the genius of the season. In reference to the note of the cuckoo we find the following remarks among the fragments from the commonplace-book of Dr Thomas Brown, printed by Dr Welsh:—'The name of the cuckoo has generally been considered as a very pure instance of imitative harmony. But in giving that name, we have most unjustly defrauded the poor bird of a portion of its very small variety of sound. The second syllable is not a mere echo of the first; it is the sound reversed, like the reading of a sotadic line; and to preserve the strictness of the imitation we should give it the name of Ook-koo.'Thisis the prose of the cuckoo after its poetry.
1 Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!The messenger of spring!Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,And woods thy welcome sing.
2 Soon as the daisy decks the green,Thy certain voice we hear;Hast thou a star to guide thy path,Or mark the rolling year?
3 Delightful visitant! with theeI hail the time of flowers,And hear the sound of music sweet,From birds among the bowers.
4 The school-boy, wandering through the woodTo pull the primrose gay,Starts thy curious voice to hear,And imitates the lay.
5 What time the pea puts on the bloom,Thou fli'st thy vocal vale,An annual guest in other lands,Another spring to hail.
6 Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,Thy sky is ever clear;Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,No winter in thy year.
7 Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!We'd make with joyful wingOur annual visit o'er the globe,Attendants on the spring.
1 'Tis past: the North has spent his rage;Stern Winter now resigns the lengthening day;The stormy howlings of the winds assuage,And warm o'er ether western breezes play.
2 Of genial heat and cheerful light the source,From southern climes, beneath another sky,The sun, returning, wheels his golden course:Before his beams all noxious vapours fly.
3 Far to the North grim Winter draws his train,To his own clime, to Zembla's frozen shore;Where, throned on ice, he holds eternal reign,Where whirlwinds madden, and where tempests roar.
4 Loosed from the bonds of frost, the verdant groundAgain puts on her robe of cheerful green,Again puts forth her flowers, and all around,Smiling, the cheerful face of Spring is seen.
5 Behold! the trees new-deck their withered boughs;Their ample leaves, the hospitable plane,The taper elm, and lofty ash disclose;The blooming hawthorn variegates the scene.
6 The lily of the vale, of flowers the queen,Puts on the robe she neither sewed nor spun:The birds on ground, or on the branches green,Hop to and fro, and glitter in the sun.
7 Soon as o'er eastern hills the morning peers,From her low nest the tufted lark upsprings;And cheerful singing, up the air she steers;Still high she mounts, still loud and sweet she sings.
8 On the green furze, clothed o'er with golden bloomsThat fill the air with fragrance all around,The linnet sits, and tricks his glossy plumes,While o'er the wild his broken notes resound.
9 While the sun journeys down the western sky,Along the green sward, marked with Roman mound,Beneath the blithesome shepherd's watchful eye,The cheerful lambkins dance and frisk around.
10 Now is the time for those who wisdom love,Who love to walk in Virtue's flowery road,Along the lovely paths of Spring to rove,And follow Nature up to Nature's God.
11 Thus Zoroaster studied Nature's laws;Thus Socrates, the wisest of mankind;Thus heaven-taught Plato traced the Almighty cause,And left the wondering multitude behind.
12 Thus Ashley gathered academic bays;Thus gentle Thomson, as the seasons roll,Taught them to sing the great Creator's praise,And bear their poet's name from pole to pole.
13 Thus have I walked along the dewy lawn;My frequent foot the blooming wild hath worn:Before the lark I've sung the beauteous dawn,And gathered health from all the gales of morn.
14 And even when Winter chilled the aged year,I wandered lonely o'er the hoary plain:Though frosty Boreas warned me to forbear,Boreas, with all his tempests, warned in vain.
15 Then sleep my nights, and quiet blessed my days;I feared no loss, my mind was all my store;No anxious wishes e'er disturbed my ease;Heaven gave content and health—I asked no more.
16 Now Spring returns: but not to me returnsThe vernal joy my better years have known;Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,And all the joys of life with health are flown.
17 Starting and shivering in the inconstant wind,Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was,Beneath some blasted tree I lie reclined,And count the silent moments as they pass:
18 The winged moments, whose unstaying speedNo art can stop, or in their course arrest;Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead,And lay me down at peace with them at rest.
19 Oft morning-dreams presage approaching fate;And morning-dreams, as poets tell, are true.Led by pale ghosts, I enter Death's dark gate,And bid the realms of light and life adieu.
20 I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe;I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore,The sluggish streams that slowly creep below,Which mortals visit, and return no more.
21 Farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains!Enough for me the churchyard's lonely mound,Where Melancholy with still Silence reigns,And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground.
22 There let me wander at the shut of eve,When sleep sits dewy on the labourer's eyes:The world and all its busy follies leave,And talk of wisdom where my Daphnis lies.
23 There let me sleep forgotten in the clay,When death shall shut these weary, aching eyes;Rest in the hopes of an eternal day,Till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise.
We hear of 'Single-speech Hamilton.' We have now to say something of 'Single-poem Smart,' the author of one of the grandest bursts of devotional and poetical feeling in the English language—the 'Song to David.' This poor unfortunate was born at Shipbourne, Kent, in 1722. His father was steward to Lord Barnard, who, after his death, continued his patronage to the son, who was then eleven years of age. The Duchess of Cleveland, through Lord Barnard's influence, bestowed on Christopher an allowance of £40 a-year. With this he went to Pembroke Hall, Cam- bridge, in 1739; was in 1745 elected a Fellow of Pembroke, and in 1747 took his degree of M.A. At college, Smart began to display that reckless dissipation which led afterwards to such melancholy consequences. He studied hard, however, at intervals; wrote poetry both in Latin and English; produced a comedy called a 'Trip to Cambridge; or, The Grateful Fair,' which was acted in the hall of Pembroke College; and, in spite of his vices and follies, was popular on account of his agreeable manners and amiable dispositions. Having become acquainted with Newberry, the benevolent, red-nosed bookseller commemorated in 'The Vicar of Wakefield,'—for whom he wrote some trifles,—he married his step- daughter, Miss Carnan, in the year 1753. He now removed to London, and became an author to trade. He wrote a clever satire, entitled 'The Hilliad,' against Sir John Hill, who had attacked him in an underhand manner. He translated the fables of Phaedrus into verse,—Horace into prose ('Smart's Horace' used to be a great favourite, under the rose, with schoolboys); made an indifferent version of the Psalms and Paraphrases, and a good one, at a former period, of Pope's 'Ode on St Cecilia's Day,' with which that poet professed himself highly pleased. He was employed on a monthly publication calledThe Universal Visitor. We find Johnson giving the following account of this matter in Boswell's Life:—'Old Gardner, the bookseller, employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany calledThe Universal Visitor.' There was a formal written contract. They were bound to write nothing else,—they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of the sixpenny pamphlet, and the contract was for ninety-nine years. I wrote for some months inThe Universal Visitorfor poor Smart, while he was mad, not then knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing him good. I hoped his wits would soon return to him. Mine returned to me, and I wrote inThe Universal Visitorno longer.'
Smart at last was called to pay the penalty of his blended labour and dissipation. In 1763 he was shut up in a madhouse. His derangement had exhibited itself in a religious way: he insisted upon people kneeling down along with him in the street and praying. During his confinement, writing materials were denied him, and he used to write his poetical pieces with a key on the wainscot. Thus, 'scrabbling,' like his own hero, on the wall, he produced his immortal 'Song to David.' He became by and by sane; but, returning to his old habits, got into debt, and died in the King's Bench prison, after a short illness, in 1770.
The 'Song to David' has been well called one of the greatest curiosities of literature. It ranks in this point with the tragedies written by Lee, and the sermons and prayers uttered by Hall in a similar melancholy state of mind. In these cases, as well as in Smart's, the thin partition between genius and madness was broken down in thunder,—the thunder of a higher poetry than perhaps they were capable of even conceiving in their saner moments. Lee produced in that state—which was, indeed, nearly his normal one—some glorious extravagancies. Hall's sermons, monologised and overheard in the madhouse, are said to have transcended all that he preached in his healthier moods. And, assuredly, the other poems by Smart scarcely furnish a point of comparison with the towering and sustained loftiness of some parts of the 'Song to David.' Nor is it loftiness alone,—although the last three stanzas are absolute inspiration, and you see the waters of Castalia tossed by a heavenly wind to the very summit of Parnassus,—but there are innumerable exquisite beauties and subtleties, dropt as if by the hand of rich haste, in every corner of the poem. Witness his description of David's muse, as a
'Blest light, still gaining on the gloom,The morethan Michal of his bloom,TheAbishag of his age!
The account of David's object—
'To further knowledge, silence vice,And plant perpetual paradise,WhenGod had calmed the world.'
Of David's Sabbath—
''Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,And heavenly melancholy tuned,To bless and bear the rest.'
One of David's themes—
'The multitudinous abyss,Where secrecy remains in bliss,And wisdom hides her skill.'
And, not to multiply instances to repletion, this stanza about gems—
'Of gems—their virtue and their price,Which, hid in earth from man's device,Theirdarts of lustre sheath;The jasper of the master's stamp,The topaz blazing like a lamp,Among the mines beneath.'
Incoherence and extravagance we find here and there; but it is not the flutter of weakness, it is the fury of power: from the very stumble of the rushing steed, sparks are kindled. And, even as Baretti, when he read theRambler, in Italy, thought within himself, If such are the lighter productions of the English mind, what must be the grander and sterner efforts of its genius? and formed, consequently, a strong desire to visit that country; so might he have reasoned, If such poems as 'David' issue from England's very madhouses, what must be the writings of its saner and nobler poetic souls? and thus might he, from the parallax of a Smart, have been able to rise toward the ideal altitudes of a Shakspeare or a Milton. Indeed, there are portions of the 'Song to David,' which a Milton or a Shakspeare has never surpassed. The blaze of the meteor often eclipses the light of
'The loftiest star of unascended heaven,Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.'
1 O thou, that sitt'st upon a throne,With harp of high, majestic tone,To praise the King of kings:And voice of heaven, ascending, swell,Which, while its deeper notes excel,Clear as a clarion rings:
2 To bless each valley, grove, and coast,And charm the cherubs to the postOf gratitude in throngs;To keep the days on Zion's Mount,And send the year to his account,With dances and with songs:
3 O servant of God's holiest charge,The minister of praise at large,Which thou mayst now receive;From thy blest mansion hail and hear,From topmost eminence appearTo this the wreath I weave.
4 Great, valiant, pious, good, and clean,Sublime, contemplative, serene,Strong, constant, pleasant, wise!Bright effluence of exceeding grace;Best man! the swiftness and the race,The peril and the prize!
5 Great—from the lustre of his crown,From Samuel's horn, and God's renown,Which is the people's voice;For all the host, from rear to van,Applauded and embraced the man—The man of God's own choice.
6 Valiant—the word, and up he rose;The fight—he triumphed o'er the foesWhom God's just laws abhor;And, armed in gallant faith, he tookAgainst the boaster, from the brook,The weapons of the war.
7 Pious—magnificent and grand,'Twas he the famous temple planned,(The seraph in his soul:)Foremost to give the Lord his dues,Foremost to bless the welcome news,And foremost to condole.
8 Good—from Jehudah's genuine vein,From God's best nature, good in grain,His aspect and his heart:To pity, to forgive, to save,Witness En-gedi's conscious cave,And Shimei's blunted dart.
9 Clean—if perpetual prayer be pure,And love, which could itself inureTo fasting and to fear—Clean in his gestures, hands, and feet,To smite the lyre, the dance complete,To play the sword and spear.
10 Sublime—invention ever young,Of vast conception, towering tongue,To God the eternal theme;Notes from yon exaltations caught,Unrivalled royalty of thought,O'er meaner strains supreme.
11 Contemplative—on God to fixHis musings, and above the sixThe Sabbath-day he blessed;'Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,And heavenly melancholy tuned,To bless and bear the rest.
12 Serene—to sow the seeds of peace,Remembering when he watched the fleece,How sweetly Kidron purled—To further knowledge, silence vice,And plant perpetual paradise,When God had calmed the world.
13 Strong—in the Lord, who could defySatan, and all his powers that lieIn sempiternal night;And hell, and horror, and despairWere as the lion and the bearTo his undaunted might.
14 Constant—in love to God, the Truth,Age, manhood, infancy, and youth;To Jonathan his friendConstant, beyond the verge of death;And Ziba, and Mephibosheth,His endless fame attend.
15 Pleasant—and various as the year;Man, soul, and angel without peer,Priest, champion, sage, and boy;In armour or in ephod clad,His pomp, his piety was glad;Majestic was his joy.
16 Wise—in recovery from his fall,Whence rose his eminence o'er all,Of all the most reviled;The light of Israel in his ways,Wise are his precepts, prayer, and praise,And counsel to his child.
17 His muse, bright angel of his verse,Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce,For all the pangs that rage;Blest light, still gaining on the gloom,The more than Michal of his bloom,The Abishag of his age.
18 He sang of God—the mighty sourceOf all things—the stupendous forceOn which all strength depends;From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,All period, power, and enterpriseCommences, reigns, and ends.
19 Angels—their ministry and meed,Which to and fro with blessings speed,Or with their citterns wait;Where Michael, with his millions, bows,Where dwells the seraph and his spouse,The cherub and her mate.
20 Of man—the semblance and effectOf God and love—the saint electFor infinite applause—To rule the land, and briny broad,To be laborious in his laud,And heroes in his cause.
21 The world—the clustering spheres he made,The glorious light, the soothing shade,Dale, champaign, grove, and hill;The multitudinous abyss,Where secrecy remains in bliss,And wisdom hides her skill.
22 Trees, plants, and flowers—of virtuous root;Gem yielding blossom, yielding fruit,Choice gums and precious balm;Bless ye the nosegay in the vale,And with the sweetness of the galeEnrich the thankful psalm.
23 Of fowl—even every beak and wingWhich cheer the winter, hail the spring,That live in peace, or prey;They that make music, or that mock,The quail, the brave domestic cock,The raven, swan, and jay.
24 Of fishes—every size and shape,Which nature frames of light escape,Devouring man to shun:The shells are in the wealthy deep,The shoals upon the surface leap,And love the glancing sun.
25 Of beasts—the beaver plods his task;While the sleek tigers roll and bask,Nor yet the shades arouse;Her cave the mining coney scoops;Where o'er the mead the mountain stoops,The kids exult and browse.
26 Of gems—their virtue and their price,Which, hid in earth from man's device,Their darts of lustre sheath;The jasper of the master's stamp,The topaz blazing like a lamp,Among the mines beneath.
27 Blest was the tenderness he felt,When to his graceful harp he knelt,And did for audience call;When Satan with his hand he quelled,And in serene suspense he heldThe frantic throes of Saul.
28 His furious foes no more malignedAs he such melody divined,And sense and soul detained;Now striking strong, now soothing soft,He sent the godly sounds aloft,Or in delight refrained.
29 When up to heaven his thoughts he piled,From fervent lips fair Michal smiled,As blush to blush she stood;And chose herself the queen, and gaveHer utmost from her heart—'so brave,And plays his hymns so good.'
30 The pillars of the Lord are seven,Which stand from earth to topmost heaven;His wisdom drew the plan;His Word accomplished the design,From brightest gem to deepest mine,From Christ enthroned to man.
31 Alpha, the cause of causes, firstIn station, fountain, whence the burstOf light and blaze of day;Whence bold attempt, and brave advance,Have motion, life, and ordinance,And heaven itself its stay.
32 Gamma supports the glorious archOn which angelic legions march,And is with sapphires paved;Thence the fleet clouds are sent adrift,And thence the painted folds that liftThe crimson veil, are waved.
33 Eta with living sculpture breathes,With verdant carvings, flowery wreathesOf never-wasting bloom;In strong relief his goodly baseAll instruments of labour grace,The trowel, spade, and loom.
34 Next Theta stands to the supreme—Who formed in number, sign, and scheme,The illustrious lights that are;And one addressed his saffron robe,And one, clad in a silver globe,Held rule with every star.
35 Iota's tuned to choral hymnsOf those that fly, while he that swimsIn thankful safety lurks;And foot, and chapiter, and niche,The various histories enrichOf God's recorded works.
36 Sigma presents the social drovesWith him that solitary roves,And man of all the chief;Fair on whose face, and stately frame,Did God impress his hallowed name,For ocular belief.
37 Omega! greatest and the best,Stands sacred to the day of rest,For gratitude and thought;Which blessed the world upon his pole,And gave the universe his goal,And closed the infernal draught.
38 O David, scholar of the Lord!Such is thy science, whence reward,And infinite degree;O strength, O sweetness, lasting ripe!God's harp thy symbol, and thy typeThe lion and the bee!
39 There is but One who ne'er rebelled,But One by passion unimpelled,By pleasures unenticed;He from himself his semblance sent,Grand object of his own content,And saw the God in Christ.
40 Tell them, I Am, Jehovah saidTo Moses; while earth heard in dread,And, smitten to the heart,At once above, beneath, around,All nature, without voice or sound,Replied, O Lord, Thou Art.
41 Thou art—to give and to confirm,For each his talent and his term;All flesh thy bounties share:Thou shalt not call thy brother fool;The porches of the Christian schoolAre meekness, peace, and prayer.
42 Open and naked of offence,Man's made of mercy, soul, and sense:God armed the snail and wilk;Be good to him that pulls thy plough;Due food and care, due rest allowFor her that yields thee milk.
43 Rise up before the hoary head,And God's benign commandment dread,Which says thou shalt not die:'Not as I will, but as thou wilt,'Prayed He, whose conscience knew no guilt;With whose blessed pattern vie.
44 Use all thy passions!—love is thine,And joy and jealousy divine;Thine hope's eternal fort,And care thy leisure to disturb,With fear concupiscence to curb,And rapture to transport.
45 Act simply, as occasion asks;Put mellow wine in seasoned casks;Till not with ass and bull:Remember thy baptismal bond;Keep from commixtures foul and fond,Nor work thy flax with wool.
46 Distribute; pay the Lord his tithe,And make the widow's heart-strings blithe;Resort with those that weep:As you from all and each expect,For all and each thy love direct,And render as you reap.
47 The slander and its bearer spurn,And propagating praise sojournTo make thy welcome last;Turn from old Adam to the New:By hope futurity pursue:Look upwards to the past.
48 Control thine eye, salute success,Honour the wiser, happier bless,And for thy neighbour feel;Grutch not of mammon and his leaven,Work emulation up to heavenBy knowledge and by zeal.
49 O David, highest in the listOf worthies, on God's ways insist,The genuine word repeat!Vain are the documents of men,And vain the flourish of the penThat keeps the fool's conceit.
50 Praise above all—for praise prevails;Heap up the measure, load the scales,And good to goodness add:The generous soul her Saviour aids,But peevish obloquy degrades;The Lord is great and glad.
51 For Adoration all the ranksOf angels yield eternal thanks,And David in the midst;With God's good poor, which, last and leastIn man's esteem, thou to thy feast,O blessed bridegroom, bidst.
52 For Adoration seasons change,And order, truth, and beauty range,Adjust, attract, and fill:The grass the polyanthus checks;And polished porphyry reflects,By the descending rill.
53 Rich almonds colour to the primeFor Adoration; tendrils climb,And fruit-trees pledge their gems;And Ivis, with her gorgeous vest,Builds for her eggs her cunning nest,And bell-flowers bow their stems.
54 With vinous syrup cedars spout;From rocks pure honey gushing out,For Adoration springs:All scenes of painting crowd the mapOf nature; to the mermaid's papThe scaled infant clings.
55 The spotted ounce and playsome cubsRun rustling 'mongst the flowering shrubs,And lizards feed the moss;For Adoration beasts embark,While waves upholding halcyon's arkNo longer roar and toss.
56 While Israel sits beneath his fig,With coral root and amber sprigThe weaned adventurer sports;Where to the palm the jasmine cleaves,For Adoration 'mong the leavesThe gale his peace reports.
57 Increasing days their reign exalt,Nor in the pink and mottled vaultThe opposing spirits tilt;And by the coasting reader spied,The silverlings and crusions glideFor Adoration gilt.
58 For Adoration ripening canes,And cocoa's purest milk detainsThe western pilgrim's staff;Where rain in clasping boughs enclosed,And vines with oranges disposed,Embower the social laugh.
59 Now labour his reward receives,For Adoration counts his sheavesTo peace, her bounteous prince;The nect'rine his strong tint imbibes,And apples of ten thousand tribes,And quick peculiar quince.
60 The wealthy crops of whitening rice'Mongst thyine woods and groves of spice,For Adoration grow;And, marshalled in the fenced land,The peaches and pomegranates stand,Where wild carnations blow.
61 The laurels with the winter strive;The crocus burnishes aliveUpon the snow-clad earth:For Adoration myrtles stayTo keep the garden from dismay,And bless the sight from dearth.
62 The pheasant shows his pompous neck;And ermine, jealous of a speck,With fear eludes offence:The sable, with his glossy pride,For Adoration is descried,Where frosts the waves condense.
63 The cheerful holly, pensive yew,And holy thorn, their trim renew;The squirrel hoards his nuts:All creatures batten o'er their stores,And careful nature all her doorsFor Adoration shuts.
64 For Adoration, David's PsalmsLift up the heart to deeds of alms;And he, who kneels and chants,Prevails his passions to control,Finds meat and medicine to the soul,Which for translation pants.
65 For Adoration, beyond match,The scholar bullfinch aims to catchThe soft flute's ivory touch;And, careless, on the hazel sprayThe daring redbreast keeps at bayThe damsel's greedy clutch.
66 For Adoration, in the skies,The Lord's philosopher espiesThe dog, the ram, and rose;The planets' ring, Orion's sword;Nor is his greatness less adoredIn the vile worm that glows.
67 For Adoration, on the stringsThe western breezes work their wings,The captive ear to soothe—Hark! 'tis a voice—how still, and small—That makes the cataracts to fall,Or bids the sea be smooth!