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Far stretching, snatches from the dark abyss;
Or such as further in successive skies
To fancy shine alone, at his approach
Blazed into suns, the living centre each
Of an harmonious system: all combined,
And ruled unerring by that single power,
Which draws the stone projected to the ground.
O unprofuse magnificence divine!
O wisdom truly perfect! thus to call
From a few causes such a scheme of things,
Effects so various, beautiful, and great,
A universe complete! And O, beloved
Of Heaven! whose well purged penetrative eye
The mystic veil transpiercing, inly scann'd
The rising, moving, wide-establish'd frame.
He, first of men, with awful wing pursued
The Comet through the long eliptic curve,
As round innumerous worlds he wound his way;
Till, to the forehead of our evening sky
Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew,
And o'er the trembling nations shakes dismay.
The heavens are all his own; from the wild rule
Of whirling Vortices, and circling Spheres,
To their first great simplicity restored.
The schools astonish'd stood; but found it vain
To combat still with demonstration strong,
And, unawaken'd dream beneath the blaze
Of truth. At once their pleasing visions fled,
With the gay shadows of the morning mix'd,
When Newton rose, our philosophic sun!
The aerial flow of Sound was known to him,
From whence it first in wavy circles breaks,
'Till the touch'd organ takes the message in.
Nor could the darting beam of Speed immense
Escape his swift pursuit and measuring eye.
E'cn Light itself, which every thing displays,
Shone undiscover'd, till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the shining robe of day;
And, from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze,
Collecting every ray into his kind,
To the charm'd eye educed the gorgeous train
Of parent colours. First the flaming Red
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny Orange next;
And next delicious Yellow; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green.
Then the pure Blue, that swells autumnal skies,
Ethereal play'd; and then, of sadder hue,
Emerged the deepen'd Indico, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost.
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Dyed in the fainting violet away.
These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower,
Shine out distinct adown the watery bow;
While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends
Delightful melting on the fields beneath.
Myriads of mingling dyes from these result,
And myriads still remain; infinite source
Df beauty, ever blushing, ever new.
Did ever poet image ought so fair,
Dreaming in whispering groves, by the noarse brook!
Or prophet, to whose rapture heaven descends E'en now the setting sun and shifting clouds, Seen, Greenwich, from thy lovely heights, declare How just, how beauteous the refractive law.
The noiseless tide of Time, all bearing down
To vast eternity's unbounded sea,
Where the green islands of the happy shine,
He stemm'd alone; and to the source (involved
Deep in primeval gloom) ascending, raised
His lights at equal distances, to guide
Historian, wilder'd on his darksome way.
But who can number up his labours? who
His high discoveries sing? when but a few
Of the deep-studying race can stretch their minds
To what he knew: in fancy's lighter thought,
How shall the muse then grasp the mighty theme?
What wonder thence that his devotion swell'd
Responsive to his knowledge? For could he,
Whose piercing mental eye diffusive saw
The finish'd university of things,
In all its order, magnitude, and parts,
Forbear incessant to adore that power
Who fills, sustains, and actuates the whole?
Say, ye who best can tell, ye happy few,
Who saw him in the softest lights of life,
All unwithheld, indulging to his friends
The vast unborrow'd treasures of his mind,
Oh, speak the wondrous man! how mild, how
calm.
How greatly humble, how divinely goed
How firm established on eternal truth;
Fervent in doing well, with every nerve
Still pressing on, forgetful of the past,
And panting for perfection: far above
Those little cares, and visionary joys,
That so perplex the fond impassion'd heart
Of ever cheated, ever trusting man.
And you, ye hopeless gloomy-minded tribe,
You who, unconscious of those nobler flights
That reach impatient at immortal life,
Against the prime endearing privilege
Of Being dare contend,-say, can a soul
Of such extensive, deep, tremendous powers,
Enlarging still, be but a finer breath
Of spirits dancing through their tubes awhile,
And then for ever lost in vacant air?
But hark! methinks I hear a warning voice, Solemn as when some awful change is come, Sound through the world-"'Tis done!-The measure's full;
And I resign my charge.'-Ye mouldering stones.
That build the towering pyramid, the proud
Triumphal arch, the monument effaced
By ruthless ruin, and whate'er supports
The worship'd name of hoar antiquity,
Down to the dust! what grandeur can ye boast
While Newton lifts his column to the skies,
Beyond the waste of time. Let no weak drop
Be shed for him. The virgin in her bloom
Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child,
These are the tombs that claim the tender tear,
And elegiac song. But Newton calls
For other notes of gratulation high,
Whether to social life he bent his thought,
And the right poise of mingling passions sought,
Gay converse bless'd; or in the thoughtful grove
Bid the heart open every source of love:
New varying lights still set before your eyes
The just, the good, the social, or the wise.
That now he wanders through those endless For such a death who can, who would refuse worlds,
He here so well descried, and wondering talks,
And hymns their author with his glad compeers.
O Britain's boast! whether with angels thou
Sittest in dread discourse, or fellow-bless'd,
Who joy to see the honour of their kind;
Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing,
Thy swift career is with the whirling orbs,
Comparing things with things, in rapture lost,
And grateful adoration, for that light
So plenteous ray'd into thy mind below,
From light himself; Oh, look with pity down
On humankind, a frail erroneous race!
Exalt the spirit of a downward world!
O'er thy dejected Country chief preside,
And be her Genius call'd! her studies raise,
Correct her manners, and inspire her youth.
For, though depraved and sunk, she brought thee
forth,
And glories in thy name; she points thee out
To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star:
While in expectance of the second life,
When time shall be no more, thy sacred dust
Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene.
ON THE DEATH OF MR. AIKMAN.*
Oн, could I draw, my friend, thy genuine mind,
Just as the living forms by thee design'd;
Of Raphael's figures none should fairer shine,
Nor Titian's colour longer last than mine.
A mind in wisdom old, in lenience young,
From fervent truth where every virtue sprung;
Where all was real, modest, plain, sincere;
Worth above show, and goodness unsevere:
View'd round and round, as lucid diamonds throw
Still as you turn them a revolving glow,
So did his mind reflect with secret ray,
In various virtues, Heaven's internal day;
Whether in high discourse it soar'd sublime
And sprung impatient o'er the bounds of Time,
Or wandering nature through with raptured eye,
Adored the hand that turn'd yon azure sky:
The friend a tear, a verse the mournful muse?
Yet pay we just acknowledgment to heaven,
Though snatch'd so soon, that Aikman e'er was
given.
A friend, when dead, is but removed from sight,
Hid in the lustre of eternal light:
Oft with the mind he wonted converse keeps
In the lone walk, or when the body sleeps
Lets in a wandering ray, and all elate
Wings and attracts her to another state;
And, when the parting storms of life are o'er,
May yet rejoin him in a happier shore.
As those we love decay, we die in part,
String after string is sever'd from the heart;
Till loosen'd life at last-but breathing clay,
Without one pang, is glad to fall away.
Unhappy he who latest feels the blow,
Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low,
Dragg'd lingering on from partial death to death;
And dying, all he can resign is breath.
EPITAPH ON MISS STANLEY,*
IN HOLYROOD CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON.
* Mr. Aikman was born in Scotland, and was designed for the profession of the law; but went to Italy, and returned a painter. He was patronized in Scotland by the Duke of Argyle, and afterwards met with encouragement to settle in London; but falling into a long and languishing disease, he She
died at his house in Leicester Fields, June 1731, aged 50. Boyse wrote a panegyric upon him, and Mallet an epitaph. bee Walpole's Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 14.
Without vanity or pedantry,
At the age of eighteen,
After a tedious, painful, desperate illness,
Which, with a Roman spirit,
And a Christian resignation,
endured so calmly, that she seemed insensibia
⚫ See an allusion to this Lady in "Summer," p. 18.
'To all pain and suffering, except that of her friends,
Gave up her innocent soul to her Creator,
And left to her mother, who erected this monument,
The memory of her virtues for her greatest support;
Virtues which, in her sex and station of life,
Were all that could be practised,
And more than will be believed,
Except by those who know what this inscription
relates.
HERE, Stanley, rest! escaped this mortal strife,
Above the joys, beyond the woes of life,
Fierce pangs no more thy lively beauties stain,
And sternly try thee with a year of pain;
No more sweet patience, feigning oft relief,
Lights thy sick eye, to cheat a parent's grief:
With tender art to save her anxious groan,
No more thy bosom presses down its own:
Now well earn'd peace is thine, and bliss sincere:
Ours be the lenient, not unpleasing tear!
O born to bloom then sink beneath the storm;
To show us virtue in her fairest form;
To show us artless reason's moral reign,
What boastful science arrogates in vain;
The obedient passions knowing each their part;
Calm light the head, and harmony the heart!
Yes, we must follow soon, will glad obey; When a few suns have roll'd their cares away, Tired with vain life, will close the willing eye: 'Tis the great birthright of mankind to die. Bless'd be the bark! that wafts us to the shore, Where death-divided friends shall part no more: To join thee there, here with thy dust repose, Is all the hope thy hapless mother knows
ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.
YE fabled Muses, I your aid disclaim,
Your airy raptures, and your fancied flame:
True genuine wo my throbbing breast inspires,
Love prompts my lays, and filial duty fires;
My soul springs instant at the warm design,
And the heart dictates every flowing line.
See! where the kindest, best of mothers lies,
And death has closed her ever watching eyes;
Has lodged at last in peace her weary breast,
And lull'd her many piercing cares to rest.
No more the orphan train around her stands,
While her fill heart upbraids her needy hands!
No more the widow's lonely fate she feels,
The shock severe that modest want conceals,
The oppressor's scourge, the scorn of wealthy
pride,
And poverty's unnumber'd ills beside.
For see! attended by the angelic throng,
And claims the well earn'd raptures of the sky:
Yet fond concern recalls the mother's eye,
She seeks the helpless orphans left behind;
So hardly left! so bitterly resign'd!
Still, still! is she my soul's diurnal theme,
The waking vision, and the wailing dream:
Amid the ruddy sun's enlivening blaze
O'er my dark eyes her dewy image plays,
And in the dread dominion of the night
Shines out again the sadly pleasing sight.
Triumphant virtue all around her darts,
And more than volumes every look imparts -
Looks, soft, yet awful; melting, yet serene;
Where both the mother and the saint are seen.
But ah! that night-that torturing night remains;
May darkness dye it with the deepest stains,
May joy on it forsake her rosy bowers,
And streaming sorrow blast its baleful hours,
When on the margin of the briny flood,
Chill'd with a sad presaging damp I stood,
Took the last look, ne'er to behold her more,
And mix'd our murmurs with the wavy roar;
Heard the last words fall from her pious tongue,
Then, wild into the bulging vessel flung,
Which soon, too soon, convey'd me from her sight
Dearer than life, and liberty, and light!
Why was I then, ye powers, reserved for this?
Nor sunk that moment in the vast abyss?
Devour'd at once by the relentless wave,
And whelm'd for ever in a watery grave?—
Down, ye wild wishes of unruly wo!—
I see her with immortal beauty glow;
The early wrinkle, care-contracted, gone,
Her tears all wiped, and all her sorrows flown;
The exalting voice of Heaven I hear her breathe,
To soothe her soul in agonies of death.
I see her through the mansions blest above,
And now she meets her dear expecting Love.
Heart-cheering sight! but yet, alas! o'erspread
By the dark gloom of Grief's uncheerful shade.
Come then, of reason the reflecting hour,
And let me trust the kind o'erruling Power,
Who from the right commands the shining day,
The poor man's portion, and the orphan's stay.
THE HAPPY MAN.
He's not the happy man, to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes:
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the
spring,
Through yonder worlds of light she glides along, Whose carved mountains bleat, and forests sing
For whom the cooling shade in summer twines, While his full cellars give their generous wines;
From whose wide fields unbounded autumn pours | Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say?
A golden tide into his swelling stores :
Is he unwise? or are ye less than they?
Whose winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales
Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails;
When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves;
While youth, and health, and vigour string his
E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined,
Can make the happy man, without the mind;
Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of reason with unerring gaze;
Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes,
His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise;
Where social love exerts her soft command,
And lays the passions with a tender hand,
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.
Nor canst thou, Dodington, this truth decline,
Thine is the fortune, and the mind is thine.
ON THE LATTER PART OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF
ST. MATTHEW.
WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
O, let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt His doctrine did impart,
And thus He raised from earth the drooping heart.
'Think not, when all, your scanty stores afford;
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While, on the roof, the howling tempest bears;
What further shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again!
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?
'Behold! and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air:
To them, nor stores, nor granaries belong,
Nought, but the woodland, and the pleasing song;
Yet, your kind heavenly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky,
To him they sing, when Spring renews the plain,
To him they cry in Winter's pinching reign;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain:
He hears the gay and the distressful call,
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
'Observe the rising lily's snowy grace,
Observe the various vegetable race;
They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow,
Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they
glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare!
What king so shining, or what queen so fair!
If ceaseless thus the fowls of Heaven he feeds,
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads:
ETHEREAL race, inhabitants of air,
Who hymn your God amid the secret grove; Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair,
And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.
Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid,
With what soft wo they thrill the lover's heart!
Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid,
Who died for love, those sweet complainings part.
But hark! that strain was of a graver tone,
On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws, Or he, the sacred Bard,* who sat alone
In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.
Such was the song whicn Zion's children sung, When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint;
And to such sadly solemn notes are strung
Angelic harps to sooth a dying saint.
Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,
Through Heaven's high dome their awful an-
them raise;
Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire
To swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise.
Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,
Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string, Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd, For, till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing.
HYMN ON SOLITUDE.
HAIL, mildly pleasing Solitude,
Companion of the wise and good;
But from whose holy piercing eye,
The herd of fools, and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whisper'd talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.
A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain.
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet passion in your face:
Then calm'd to friendship, you assume
The gentle looking Hertford's bloom,
As, with her Musidora, she
(Her Musidora fond of thee)
Amid the long-withdrawing vale,
Awakes the rival'd nightingale.
Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Just as the dew-bent rose is born; And while meridian fervors beat, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat; But chief, when evening scenes decay, And the faint landscape swims away, Thine is the doubtful soft decline, And that best hour of musing thine.
Descending angels bless thy train, The virtues of the sage and swain; Plain Innocence in white array'd Before thee lifts her fearless head; Religion's beams around thee shine, And cheer thy glooms with light divine: About thee sports sweet Liberty: And wrapt Urania sings to thee.
Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell! And in thy deep recesses dwell; Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill, When meditation has her fill, I just may cast my careless eyes, Where London's spiry turrets rise, Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain, Then shield me in the woods again.
TO SERAPHINA.
THE wanton's charms, however bright,
Are like the false illusive light,
Whose flattering unauspicious blaze
To precipices oft betrays:
But that sweet ray your beauties dart,
Which clears the mind, and cleans the heart,
Is like the sacred queen of night,
W no pours a lovely gentle light
Wide o'er the dark, by wanderers blest,
Conducting them to peace and rest.
A vicious love depraves the mind,
"Tis anguish, guilt, and folly join'1;
But Seraphina's eyes dispense
A mild and gracious influence;
Such as in visions angels shed
Around the heaven-illumined head
To love thee, Seraphina, sure
Is to be tender, happy, pure;
'Tis from low passions to escape, And woo bright virtue's fairest shape; 'Tis ecstasy with wisdom join'd, And heaven infused into the mind.
VERSES ADDRESSED TO AMANDA.® Ан, urged too late! from beauty's bondage free, Why did I trust my liberty with thee? And thou, why didst thou, with inhuman art, If not resolved to take, seduce my heart? Yes, yes, you said, for lovers' eyes speak true; You must have seen how fast my passion grew: And, when your glances chanced on me to shine How my fond soul ecstatic sprung to thine! But mark me, fair one-what I now declare Thy deep attention claims and serious care: It is no common passion fires my breast; I must be wretched, or I must be blest! My woes all other remedy deny; Or, pitying, give me hope, or bid me die!
WITH A COPY OF THE SEASONS."
ACCEPT, loved Nymph, this tribute due
To tender friendship, love, and you:†
But with it take what breathed the whole,
O take to thine the poet's soul.
If Fancy here her power displays,
And if a heart exalts these lays-
You, fairest, in that fancy shine,
And all that heart is fondly thine.
A NUPTIAL SONG. COME, gentle Venus! and assuage A warring world, a bleeding age. For nature lives beneath thy ray, The wintry tempests haste away, A lucid calm invests the sea, Thy native deep is full of thee: The flowering earth where'er you fly, Is all o'er spring, all sun the sky. A genial spirit warms the breeze; Unseen among the blooming trees, The feather'd lovers tune their throat, The desert growls a soften'd note,
Amanda, as is stated in the Memoir, was a Miss Young who married Vice Admiral Campbell.
↑ In another MS. the two first lines read:
Accept, dear Nymph! a tribute due
To sacred friendship and to you.
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