Of Lyric Poetry.

son.

And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again :
At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd,
The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.
Chor. The prince, &c.

Now strike the golden lyre again;
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark; the horrid sound,

Has rais'd up his head,
As awake from the dead,
And amaz'd he stares around.
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
See the furies arise:

See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain,
And unbury'd remain,
Inglorious on the plain:
Give the vengeance due-
To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,

How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glitt'ring temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud with a furious joy;
And the king seiz'd a flambeau, with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way

To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, she fir'd another Troy.
Chor. And the king seiz'd, &c.

Timotheus, to his breathing flute,

And sounding lyre,

Whose palms, new-pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green above the rest;
Whether, adopted to some neighb'ring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,
Or in procession fix'd and regular,
Mov'd with the heav'n's majestic pace;
Or call'd to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
year is thine.

Since heaven's eternal

Hear then a mortal muse thy praise rehearse
In no ignoble verse;

But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of poesy were giv'n
To make thyself a welcome inmate there,
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heav'n.
II.

If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find

A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood,
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form'd at first with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!'
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore,
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,
Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.

III.

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,

}

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

He rais'd a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down.

Grand chor. At last, &c.

There is another poem by Dryden, on the death of Mrs Anne Killegrew, a young lady eminent for her * Dr John-skill in poetry and painting, which a great critic * has pronounced to be "undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language has ever produced." He owns, that as a whole it may perhaps be inferior to Alexander's Feast; but he affirms that the first stanza of it is superior to any single part of the other. This famous stanza, he says, flows with a torrent of enthusiasm: Fervet immensusque ruit. How far this criticism is just, the public must determine.

I.

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the bless'd;

4.

For sure the milder planets did combine
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
And e'en the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother angels at thy birth
Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high,
That all the people of the sky

Might know a poetess was born on earth.
And then, if ever, mortal ears

Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clust'ring swarm of bees
On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew,
'Twas that such vulgar miracles

}

Heav'n had not leisure to renew:
For all thy bless'd fraternity of love
Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy holy day above..
IV.

O gracious God! how far have we
Profan'd thy heav'nly gift of poesy?
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debas'd to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?.
O wretched me! why were we hurry'd down
This lubrique and adult'rate age,

(Nay

Of Lyric (Nay added fat pollutions of our own)
Poetry. T'increase the streaming ordures of the stage!
What can we say t'excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, Heaven, atone for all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd,
Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd ;

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
V.

Art she had none, yet wanted none;
For nature did that want supply :
So rich in treasure of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy :
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,

That it seem'd borrow'd where 'twas only born.
Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,

What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.
And to be read herself, she need not fear;
Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear,

Tho' Epictetus with his lamp were there.

Even love (for love sometimes her Muse express'd)
Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast,
Light as the vapours of a morning dream,

So cold herself, while she such warmth express'd,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

VI.

Born to the spacious empire of the Nine,

One would have thought she should have been content
To manage well that mighty government;
But what can young ambitious souls confine?
To the next realm she stretch'd her sway,
For Painture near adjoining lay,

A plenteous province and alluring prey.

A Chamber of Dependencies was fram'd. (As conquerors will never want pretence,

When arm'd, to justify th' offence)

And the whole fief, in right of poetry, she claim'd.
The country open lay without defence:
For poets frequent inroads there had made,

And perfectly could represent

The shape, the face, with ev'ry lineament,

}

And all the large domains which the dumb sister sway'd.
All bow'd beneath her government,
Receiv'd in triumph wheresoe'er she went.
Her pencil drew whate'er her soul design'd,

And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image in her mind.
The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks,
And fruitful plains and barren rocks,
Of shallow brooks that flow'd so clear,
The bottom did the top appear;
Of deeper, too, and ampler floods,
Which, as in mirrors, show'd the woods :
Of lofty trees, with sacred shades,
And perspectives of pleasant glades,
Where nymphs of brightest form appear,
And shaggy satyrs standing near,'
Which them at once admire and fear.
The ruins too of some majestic piece,
Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece,
Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie,
And, though defac'd, the wonder of the eye;
What nature, art, bold fiction, e'er durst frame,
Her forming hand gave feature to the name.
So strange a concourse ne'er was seen before,
But when the peopl'd ark the whole creation bore.

}

VII.

The scene then chang'd, with bold erected look Our martial king the sight with rev'rence struck : For not content t'express his outward part, Her hand call'd out the image of his heart: His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear, His high-designing thoughts were figur'd there, As when, by magic, ghosts are made appear. Our phoenix queen was pourtray'd too so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right: Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace, Were all observ'd, as well as heav'nly face. With such a peerless majesty she stands,

As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands; Before a train of heroines was seen,

In beauty foremost, as in rank, the queen.

Thus nothing to her genius was denied, But like a ball of fire the further thrown,

Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on ev'ry side. What next she had design'd, Heaven only knows : To such immod'rate growth her conquest rose, That fate alone its progress could oppose.

VIII.

Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much lamented virgin lies.
Nor wit nor piety could fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel Destiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
But like a harden'd felon, took a pride

To work more mischievously slow,
And plunder'd first, and then destroy'd.
O double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relick, and deface the shrine !
But thus Orinda died:

Heav'n, by the same disease, did both translate; As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate. IX.

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah generous youth! that wish forbear,
The winds too soon will waft thee here!
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come,
Alas, thou know't not, thou art wreck'd at home!
No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far,
Among the Pleiads a new kindled star,

. If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.

X.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When in the valley of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God shall close the book of fate;
And there the last assises keep

For those who wake and those who sleep:
When rattling bones together fly

From the four corners of the sky;
When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
B 2

}

The

Of Lyric The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
Poetry. And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover'd with the lightest ground;
And straight with in-born vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shalt
As harbinger of heav'n, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learnt below.

* whose.

That this is a fine ode, and not unworthy of the genius of Dryden, must be acknowledged; but that it is the noblest which the English language bas produced,

or that any part of it runs with the torrent of enthusiasm which characterizes Alexander's Feast, are positions which we feel not ourselves inclined to admit.

Had the critic by whom it is so highly praised, inspected it with the eye which scanned the odes of Gray, we cannot help thinking that he would have perceived some parts of it to be tediously minute in description, and others not very perspicuous at the first perusal. It may perhaps, upon the whole, rank as high as the following ode by Collins on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland; but to a higher place it has surely no claim.

I.

HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long
Have seen thee ling'ring with a fond delay,
Mid those soft friends, whose heart some future day,
Shali melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song,
Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth (G)

Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side; Together let us wish him lasting truth,

And joy untainted with his destin'd bride.
Go nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-liv'd bliss, forget my social name;
But think, far off, how, on the southern coast,
I met thy friendship with an equal flame!
Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, where * ev'ry vale
Shall prompt the poet, and his soug demand:
To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail;

Thou need'st but take thy pencil to thy hand,
And paint what all believe who own thy genial land.
II.

There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
'Tis tancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet;
Where still, 'tis said, the Fairy people meet,
Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill.
There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store,
To the swart tribes their creamy bowl allots;
By night they sip it round the cottage-door,
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes.

There, ev'ry herd, by sad experience, knows,
How, wing'd with Fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,

Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit beifers lie.
Such airy beings awe th' untutor'd swain:
Nor thou, tho' learn'd, his homelier thoughts neglect:
Let thy sweet Muse the rural faith sustain;
These are the themes of simple, sure effect,
That add new conquests to her boundless reign,
And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding
III.
[strain.

Ev'n yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear,

Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run, Taught by the father to his list'ning son, Strange lays, whose pow'r had charm'd a Spenser's ea At every pause, before thy mind possest,

Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,

ear.

With uncouth lyres in many-colour'd vest,
Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd :
Whether thou bidd'st the well-taught hind repeat
The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave,
When ev'ry shrieking maid her bosom beat,

Of Lyric Poetry.

And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave; Or whether sitting in the shepherd's shiel (H), Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms, When, at the bugle's call, with fire and steel, The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny * swarms, * bony. And hostile brothers met to prove each other's arms. IV.

'Tis thine to sing how framing hideous spells,

In Sky's lone isle the gifted wizzard-seer †,
Lodg'd in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear (1),
Or in the depths of Uist's dark forest dwells:
How they whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own visions oft astonish'd droop,

When, o'er the wat'ry strath, or quaggi moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied ‡ troop.
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
Their destin'd§ glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour sten,
And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.

For them the viewless forms of air obey;
Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair.
They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.
V.
To monarchs dear (K), some hundred miles astray,
Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!
The seer in Sky shriek'd as the blood did flow
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay!

As

(1) Waiting in wintery cave his wayward fits.

present

+ siter

+ embodied

fpiercing

They mourn'd in air, fell, fell rebellion, slain! And as of late they joy'd in Preston's fight,

Saw at sad Falkirk all their hopes near crown'd! They rav'd divining through their second-sight (M), Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown'd! Illustrious William (N)! Britain's guardian name! One William sav'd us from a tyrant's stroke; He, for a sceptre, gain'd heroic fame,

But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast broke, To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke!

VI.

These, too, thou'lt sing! for well thy magic muse
Can to the topmost heav'n of grandeur soar!
Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more!
Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne'er lose;
Let not dank Will (0) mislead you to the heath:
Dancing in mirky night, o'er fen and lake,

He glows, to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitch'd, low, marshy, willow brake!
What though far off, from some dark dell espied,
His glimm'ring mazes cheer th' excursive sight,
Yet tuin, ye wand'rers, turn your steps aside,

Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light; For watchful, lurking, 'mid th' unrustling reed, At those mirk hours the wily monster lies, And listens oft to hear the passing steed,

And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, Ifchance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise.

VII.

On him, enrag'd, the fiend, in angry mood,
Shall never look with pity's kind concern,
But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood
O'er its drown'd banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape,
To some dim bill that seems uprising near,
To his faint eye, the grim and grisly shape,
In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear.
Meantime the wat'ry surge shall round him rise,
Pour'd sudden forth from ev'ry swelling source!

What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?
His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly force,
And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse!
VIII.

For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him in vain, at to-fall of the day,

His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate!
Ab, ne'er shall he return! Alone, if night

Her travell'd limbs in broken slumbers steep!
With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite
Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:
Then he, perhaps, with moist and wat'ry hand,
Shall fondly seem to press her shudd'ring cheek,
And with his blue-swoln face before her stand,
And, shiv'ring cold, these piteous accents speak:
"Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue,

Of Lyric Poetry.

* hapless.

"At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; "Nor e'er of me one * helpless thought renew, "While I lie welt'ring on the ozier'd shore, "Drown'd by the kelpie's† wrath, nor e'er shall aid the water IX. [thee more!” i nd. + style.

Unbounded is thy range; with varied skıli‡
Thy muse may, like those feath'ry tribes which spring
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,

To

“Or on some bellying rock that shades the deep,

They view the lurid signs that cross the sky, Where in the west the brooding tempests lie; And hear their first, faint, rustling pennons sweep. Or in the arched cave, where deep and dark

The broad unbroken billows heave and swell, In horrid musings wrapt, they sit to mark

The lab'ting moon; or list the nightly yell Of that dread spirit, whose gigantic form

The seer's entranced eye can well survey, Through the dim air who guides the driving storm, And points the wretched bark its destin'd prey. Or him who hovers on his flagging wing,

O'er the dire whirlpool, that in ocean's waste, Draws instant down whate'er devoted thing

The falling breeze within its reach hath plac'dThe distant seaman hears, and flies with trembling haste.

Or if on land the fiend exerts his sway,

Silent he broods o'er quicksand, beg, or fen,

Far from the shelt'ring roof and haunts of men, When witched darkness shuts the eye of day,

And shrouds each star that wont to cheer the night g

Or if the drifted snow perplex the way,

With treach'rous gleam he lures the fated wight And leads him flound'ring on and' quite astray."

Of Lyric Poetry.

To that hear pile (P) which still its ruin shows:
In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found,

Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows,
And culls them, wond'ring, from the hallow'd ground!
Or, thither (a), where beneath the show'ry west,

The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid:
Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,

No slaves revere them, and no wars invade:
Yet frequent now, at midnight solemn hour,

The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs stalk with sov'reign pow'r
In pageant robes; and, wreath'd with sheeny gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.
X.

But, ob o'er all, forget not Kilda's race,

On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides,
Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides.
Go! just as they, their blameless manners trace!
Then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain,
Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
And all their prospect but the wintry main.

With sparing temp'rance at the needful time,
They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest,
Along th' Atlantic rock, undreading, climb,
*See Bird- And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest *.
catching,
Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live,
Pelicanus, Suffic'd, and happy with that frugal fare

P. 237. and

N° 3.

Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give.
Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare;
Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!
XI.

Nor need'st thou blush that such false themes engage
Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest;
For not alone they touch the village breast,
But fill'd in elder time th' historic page.

There, Shakespeare's self, with every garland crown'd, Flew to those fiery climes his fancy sheen (R),

In musing hour; his wayward sisters found, And with their terrors dress'd the magic scene. From them he sung, when, 'mid his bold design, Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast!

The shadowy kings of Banquo's fated line,
Thro' the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass'd.
Proceed! nor quit the tales, which, simply told,
Could once so well my answ'ring bosom pierce;
Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colours bold,
The native legends of thy land rehearse ;
To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy pow'rful verse.
XII.

In scenes like these, which, daring to depart
From sober truth, are still to nature true,
And call forth fresh delight to fancy's view,
Th' heroic muse employ'd her Tasso's art!

Of Lyric Poetry.

How have I trembl'd, when, at Tancred's stroke, Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd, When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, And the wild blast upheav'd the vanish'd sword! How have I sat, when pip'd the pensive wind, To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung! Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind, Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung! Hence, at each sound, imagination glows! Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here! (s) Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! Melting it flows, pure, murm'ring *, strong, and clear, And fills the impassion'd heart, and wins th' harmonious ous. XIII.

[ear.

* numer

+ spacious. Three ri

vers in

All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail!
Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan ‡ fill'd, or past'ral Tay ‡,
Or Don's romantic springs, at distance, hail !
The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread
Your lowly glens *, o'erhung with spreading broom; * valleys.
Or o'er your stretching heaths, by fancy led,

Scotland.

Or o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom! (T) Then will I dress once more the faded bow'r, Where Jonson (U) sat in Drummond's classic† shade; † social. Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flow'r,

And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid ‡! Meantime, ye pow'rs that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains (x), attend! Where'er HOME dwells §, on hill, or lowly moor,

To him I loose, your kind protection lend, And, touch'd with love like mine, preserve my absent friend!

Dr Johnson, in his life of Collins, informs us, that Dr Warton and his brother, who had seen this ode in the author's possession, thought it superior to his other works. The taste of the Wartons will hardly be questioned but we are not sure that the following Ode to the Passions has much less merit, though it be merit of a different kind, than the Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands:

WHEN Music, heav'nly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd.
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound:

And

(R) This line wanting in Dr Carlyle's edition.

(s) This line wanting in Dr Carlyle's edition. (T) This line wanting in Dr Carlyle's edition.

the widowed maid!

§ he dwell. I lose.