Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 119

Now dropping particles of water fall; Now vapours riding on the north wind's wing, With transitory darkness shadows all.

13 Alas! how joyless the descriptive theme, When sorrow on the writer's quiet preys; And like a mouse in Ches.h.i.+re cheese supreme, Devours the substance of the lessening bays.

14 Come, February, lend thy darkest sky, There teach the wintered muse with clouds to soar: Come, February, lift the number high; Let the sharp strain like wind through alleys roar.

15 Ye channels, wandering through the s.p.a.cious street, In hollow murmurs roll the dirt along, With inundations wet the sabled feet, Whilst gouts, responsive, join the elegiac song.

16 Ye damsels fair, whose silver voices shrill Sound through meandering folds of Echo's horn; Let the sweet cry of liberty be still, No more let smoking cakes awake the morn.

17 O Winter! put away thy snowy pride; O Spring! neglect the cowslip and the bell; O Summer! throw thy pears and plums aside; O Autumn! bid the grape with poison swell.

18 The pensioned muse of Johnson is no more!

Drowned in a b.u.t.t of wine his genius lies.

Earth! Ocean! Heaven! the wondrous loss deplore, The dregs of nature with her glory dies.

19 What iron Stoic can suppress the tear!

What sour reviewer read with vacant eye!

What bard but decks his literary bier!-- Alas! I cannot sing--I howl--I cry!

LORD LYTTELTON.

Dr Johnson said once of Chesterfield, 'I thought him a lord among wits, but I find him to be only a wit among lords.' And so we may say of Lord Lyttelton, 'He is a poet among lords, if not a lord among poets.' He was the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley in Worcesters.h.i.+re, and was born in 1709. He went to Eton and Oxford, where he distinguished himself.

Having gone the usual grand tour, he entered Parliament, and became an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole. He was made secretary to the Prince of Wales, and was in this capacity useful to Mallett and Thomson. In 1741, he married Lucy Fortescue, of Devons.h.i.+re, who died five years afterwards.

Lyttelton grieved sincerely for her, and wrote his affecting 'Monody' on the subject. When his party triumphed, he was created a Lord of the Treasury, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, with a peerage. He employed much of his leisure in literary composition, writing a good little book on the Conversion of St Paul, a laboured History of Henry II., and some verses, including the stanza in the 'Castle of Indolence'

describing Thomson--

'A bard there dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,' &c.--

and a very spirited prologue to Thomson's 'Coriola.n.u.s,' which was written after that author's death, and says of him,

--'His chaste muse employed her heaven-taught lyre None but the n.o.blest pa.s.sions to inspire: Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, _One line which, dying he could wish to blot_.'

Lyttelton himself died August 22, 1773, aged sixty-four. His History is now little read. It took him, it is said, thirty years to write it, and he employed another man to point it--a fact recalling what is told of Macaulay, that he sent the first volume of his 'History of England' to Lord Jeffrey, who overlooked the punctuation and criticised the style.

Of a series of Dialogues issued by this writer, Dr Johnson remarked, with his usual pointed severity, 'Here is a man telling the world what the world had all his life been telling him.' His 'Monody' expresses real grief in an artificial style, but has some stanzas as natural in the expression as they are pathetic in the feeling.

FROM THE 'MONODY.'

At length escaped from every human eye, From every duty, every care, That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share, Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry; Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade, This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made, I now may give my burdened heart relief, And pour forth all my stores of grief; Of grief surpa.s.sing every other woe, Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love Can on the enn.o.bled mind bestow, Exceeds the vulgar joys that move Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

In vain I look around O'er all the well-known ground, My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry; Where oft we used to walk, Where oft in tender talk We saw the summer sun go down the sky; Nor by yon fountain's side, Nor where its waters glide Along the valley, can she now be found: In all the wide-stretched prospect's ample bound No more my mournful eye Can aught of her espy, But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns By your delighted mother's side: Who now your infant steps shall guide?

Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have formed your youth, And strewed with flowers the th.o.r.n.y ways of truth?

O loss beyond repair!

O wretched father! left alone, To weep their dire misfortune and thy own: How shall thy weakened mind, oppressed with woe, And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave, Perform the duties that you doubly owe!

Now she, alas! is gone, From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?

O best of wives! O dearer far to me Than when thy virgin charms Were yielded to my arms: How can my soul endure the loss of thee?

How in the world, to me a desert grown, Abandoned and alone, Without my sweet companion can I live?

Without thy lovely smile, The dear reward of every virtuous toil, What pleasures now can palled ambition give?

Even the delightful sense of well-earned praise, Unshared by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.

For my distracted mind What succour can I find?

On whom for consolation shall I call?

Support me, every friend; Your kind a.s.sistance lend, To bear the weight of this oppressive woe.

Alas! each friend of mine, My dear departed love, so much was thine, That none has any comfort to bestow.

My books, the best relief In every other grief, Are now with your idea saddened all: Each favourite author we together read My tortured memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead.

We were the happiest pair of human kind; The rolling year its varying course performed, And back returned again; Another and another smiling came, And saw our happiness unchanged remain: Still in her golden chain Harmonious concord did our wishes bind: Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.

O fatal, fatal stroke, That all this pleasing fabric love had raised Of rare felicity, On which even wanton vice with envy gazed, And every scheme of bliss our hearts had formed, With soothing hope, for many a future day, In one sad moment broke!-- Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay; Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign, Or against his supreme decree With impious grief complain; That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade, Was his most righteous will--and be that will obeyed.

JOHN CUNNINGHAM.

We know very little of the history of this pleasing poet. He was born in 1729, the son of a wine-cooper in Dublin. At the age of seventeen he wrote a farce; ent.i.tled 'Love in a Mist,' and shortly after came to Britain as an actor. He was for a long time a performer in Digges'

company in Edinburgh, and subsequently resided in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Here he seems to have fallen into distressed circ.u.mstances, and was supported by a benevolent printer, at whose house he died in 1773. His poetry is distinguished by a charming simplicity. This characterises 'Kate of Aberdeen,' given below, and also his 'Content: a Pastoral,' in which he says allegorically--

'Her air was so modest, her aspect so meek, So simple yet sweet were her charms!

I kissed the ripe roses that glowed on her cheek, And locked the dear maid in my arms.

'Now jocund together we tend a few sheep, And if, by yon prattler, the stream, Reclined on her bosom, I sink into sleep, Her image still softens my dream.'

MAY-EVE; OR, KATE OF ABERDEEN.

1 The silver moon's enamoured beam Steals softly through the night, To wanton with the winding stream, And kiss reflected light.

To beds of state go, balmy sleep, (Tis where you've seldom been,) May's vigil whilst the shepherds keep With Kate of Aberdeen.

2 Upon the green the virgins wait, In rosy chaplets gay, Till Morn unbar her golden gate, And give the promised May.

Methinks I hear the maids declare, The promised May, when seen, Not half so fragrant, half so fair, As Kate of Aberdeen.

3 Strike up the tabor's boldest notes, We'll rouse the nodding grove; The nested birds shall raise their throats, And hail the maid I love: And see--the matin lark mistakes, He quits the tufted green: Fond bird! 'tis not the morning breaks, 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen.

4 Now lightsome o'er the level mead, Where midnight fairies rove, Like them the jocund dance we'll lead, Or tune the reed to love: For see the rosy May draws nigh; She claims a virgin queen!