The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius

EPITAPH:

BEING PART OF AN INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED BY A GENTLEMAN TO THE MEMORY OF HIS LADY

Farewell, my best beloved! whose heavenly mindGenius with virtue, strength with softness, joined;Devotion, undebased by pride or art,With meek simplicity, and joy of heart;Though sprightly, gentle; though polite, sincere;And only of thyself a judge severe;Unblamed, unequalled, in each sphere of life,The tenderest Daughter, Sister, Parent, Wife.In thee their patroness the afflicted lost;Thy friends, their pattern, ornament, and boast;And I – but, ah! can words my loss declare,Or paint the extremes of transport and despair?O Thou, beyond what verse or speech can tell,My guide, my friend, my best-beloved, farewell!

ODE ON LORD HAY’S BIRTH-DAY

13TH MAY, 1767A muse, unskilled in venal praise,Unstained with flattery’s art;Who loves simplicity of laysBreathed ardent from the heart;While gratitude and joy inspire,Resumes the long-unpractised lyre,To hail, O Hay, thy natal Morn;No gaudy wreath of flowers she weaves,But twines with oak the laurel leaves,Thy cradle to adorn.For, not on beds of gaudy flowersThine ancestors reclined,Where sloth dissolves, and spleen devours,All energy of mind;To hurl the dart, to ride the car,To stem the deluges of war,And snatch from Fate a sinking land;Trample the invader’s lofty crest,And from his grasp the dagger wrest,And desolating brand:’Twas this that raised the illustrious line,To match the first in fame;A thousand years have seen it shineWith unabated flame:Have seen thy mighty sires appearForemost in Glory’s high career,The pride and pattern of the brave.Yet, pure from lust of blood their fire,And from Ambition’s wild desire,They triumphed but to save.The Muse with joy attends their wayThe vales of peace along;There, to its Lord the village gayRenews the grateful song.Yon castle’s glittering towers containNo pit of woe, nor clanking chain,Nor to the suppliant’s wail resound:The open doors the needy bless.The unfriended hail their calm recess,And gladness smiles around.There, to the sympathetic heartLife’s best delights belong,To mitigate the mourner’s smart,To guard the weak from wrong.Ye sons of luxury, be wise;Know, happiness for ever fliesThe cold and solitary breast;Then let the social instinct glow,And learn to feel another’s woe,And in his joy be blessed.O yet, ere Pleasure plant her snareFor unsuspecting youth;Ere Flattery her song prepareTo check the voice of Truth;O may his country’s guardian powerAttend the slumbering Infant’s bower,And bright, inspiring dreams impart;To rouse the hereditary fire,To kindle each sublime desire,Exalt, and warm the heart.Swift to reward a parent’s fears,A parent’s hopes to crown,Roll on in peace, ye blooming years,That rear him to renown;When, in his finished form and face,Admiring multitudes shall traceEach patrimonial charm combined;The courteous yet majestic mien,The liberal smile, the look serene,The great and gentle mind.Yet, though thou draw a nation’s eyes,And win a nation’s love,Let not thy towering mind despiseThe village and the grove.No slander there shall wound thy fame,No ruffian take his deadly aim,No rival weave the secret snare:For Innocence, with angel smile,Simplicity, that knows not guile,And Love and Peace are there.When winds the mountain oak assail,And lay its glories waste,Content may slumber in the vale,Unconscious of the blast.Through scenes of tumult while we roam,The heart, alas! is ne’er at home;It hopes in time to roam no more:The mariner, not vainly brave,Combats the storm, and rides the wave,To rest, at last, on shore.Ye proud, ye selfish, ye severe,How vain your mask of state!The good alone have joy sincere,The good alone are great:Great, when, amid the vale of peace,They bid the plaint of sorrow cease,And hear the voice of artless praise;As, when along the trophied plain,Sublime they lead the victor train,While shouting nations gaze.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY CHARLOTTE GORDON, DRESSED IN A TARTAN SCOTCH BONNET, WITH FEATHERS, &c

Why, Lady, wilt thou bind thy lovely brow,With the dread semblance of that warlike helm,That nodding plume, and wreath of various glow,That graced the chiefs of Scotia’s antient realm?Thou knowest that virtue is of power the source,And all her magic to thy eyes is given;We own their empire, while we feel their force,Beaming with the benignity of heaven.The plumy helmet, and the martial mien,Might dignify Minerva’s awful charms;But more resistless far the Idalian queen —Smiles, graces, gentleness, her only arms.

THE HERMIT

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,And nought but the nightingale’s song in the grove:’Twas then, by the cave of the mountain afar,A Hermit his song of the night thus began;No more with himself, or with nature, at war,He thought as a sage, while he felt as a man:“Ah! why thus abandoned to darkness and woe?“Why thus, lonely Philomel, flows thy sad strain?“For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,“And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain.“Yet, if pity inspire thee, ah! cease not thy lay,“Mourn, sweetest complainer! man calls thee to mourn:“O sooth him, whose pleasures like thine pass away —“Full quickly they pass – but they never return.“Now gliding remote on the verge of the sky,“The moon, half-extinguished, her crescent displays:“But lately I marked, when majestic on high,“She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.“Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue“The path that conducts thee to splendour again:“But man’s faded glory no change shall renew —“Ah fool! to exult in a glory so vain!“Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:“I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;“For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,“Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.“Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;“Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save. —“But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn?“O, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?”’Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,That leads, to bewilder, and dazzles, to blind;My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.“O pity, great Father of light,” then I cried,“Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Thee!“Lo! humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:“From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free.”And darkness and doubt are now flying away:No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,And Nature all glowing in Eden’s first bloom!On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb!

ODE TO PEACE

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1756I. 1Peace, heaven-descended maid! whose powerful voiceFrom antient darkness called the morn;And hushed of jarring elements the noise,When Chaos, from his old dominion torn,With all his bellowing throng,Far, far was hurled the void abyss along;And all the bright angelic choir,Striking, through all their ranks, the eternal lyre,Poured, in loud symphony, the impetuous strain;And every fiery orb and planet sung,And wide, through Night’s dark solitary reign,Rebounding long and deep, the lays triumphant rung!I. 2Oh, whither art thou fled, Saturnian Age!Roll round again, majestic years!To break the sceptre of tyrannic Rage;From Woe’s wan cheek to wipe the bitter tears;Ye years, again roll round!Hark! from afar what desolating sound,While echoes load the sighing gales,With dire presage the throbbing heart assails!Murder, deep-roused, with all the whirlwind’s haste,And roar of tempest, from her cavern springs,Her tangled serpents girds around her waist,Smiles ghastly fierce, and shakes her gore-distilling wings.I. 3The shouts, redoubling, riseIn thunder to the skies;The nymphs, disordered, dart along,Sweet powers of solitude and song,Stunned with the horrors of discordant sound;And all is listening, trembling round.Torrents, far heard amid the waste of night,That oft have led the wanderer right,Are silent at the noise.The mighty Ocean’s more majestic voice,Drowned in superior din, is heard no more;The surge in silence seems to sweep the foamy shore.II. 1The bloody banner, streaming in the air,Seen on yon sky-mixt mountain’s brow,The mingling multitudes, the madding car,Driven in confusion to the plain below,War’s dreadful Lord proclaim.Bursts out, by frequent fits, the expansive flame;Snatched in tempestuous eddies, fliesThe surging smoke o’er all the darkened skies;The chearful face of heaven no more is seen;The bloom of morning fades to deadly pale;The bat flies transient o’er the dusky green,And Night’s foul birds along the sullen twilight sail.II. 2Involved in fire-streaked gloom, the car comes on.The rushing steeds grim Terror guides.His forehead writhed to a relentless frown,Aloft the angry Power of Battles rides.Grasped in his mighty hand,A mace, tremendous, desolates the land;The tower rolls headlong down the steep,The mountain shrinks before its wasteful sweep.Chill horror the dissolving limbs invades,Smit by the blasting lightning of his eyes;A deeper gloom invests the howling shades;Stripped is the shattered grove, and every verdure dies.II. 3How startled Phrenzy stares,Bristling her ragged hairs!Revenge the gory fragment gnaws;See, with her griping vulture clawsImprinted deep, she rends the mangled wound!Hate whirls her torch sulphureous round.The shrieks of agony, and clang of arms,Re-echo to the hoarse alarms,Her trump terrific blows.Disparting from behind, the clouds disclose,Of kingly gesture, a gigantic form,That with his scourge sublime rules the careering storm.III. 1Ambition, outside fair! within as foulAs fiends of fiercest heart below,Who ride the hurricanes of fire, that rollTheir thundering vortex o’er the realms of woe,Yon naked waste survey;Where late was heard the flute’s mellifluous lay;Where late the rosy-bosomed hours,In loose array, danced lightly o’er the flowers;Where late the shepherd told his tender tale;And, wakened by the murmuring breeze of morn,The voice of chearful Labour filled the dale;And dove-eyed Plenty smiled, and waved her liberal horn.III. 2Yon ruins, sable from the wasting flame,But mark the once resplendent dome;The frequent corse obstructs the sullen stream,And ghosts glare horrid from the sylvan gloom.How sadly silent all!Save where, outstretched beneath yon hanging wall,Pale Famine moans with feeble breath,And Anguish yells, and grinds his bloody teeth.Though vain the Muse, and every melting lay,To touch thy heart, unconscious of remorse!Know, monster, know, thy hour is on the way;I see, I see the years begin their mighty course.III. 3What scenes of glory riseBefore my dazzled eyes!Young zephyrs wave their wanton wings,And melody celestial rings.All blooming on the lawn the nymphs advance,And touch the lute, and range the dance:And the blithe shepherds, on the mountain’s side,Arrayed in all their rural pride,Exalt the festive note,Inviting Echo from her inmost grot —But ah! the landscape glows with fainter light;It darkens, swims, and flies for ever from my sight.IV. 1Illusions vain! Can sacred Peace resideWhere sordid gold the breast alarms,Where Cruelty inflames the eye of Pride,And Grandeur wantons in soft Pleasure’s arms?Ambition, these are thine!These from the soul erase the form divine;And quench the animating fire,That warms the bosom with sublime desire.Thence the relentless heart forgets to feel,And Hatred triumphs on the o’erwhelming brow,And midnight Rancour grasps the cruel steel;Blaze the blue flames of death, and sound the shrieks of woe.IV. 2From Albion fled, thy once beloved retreat,What regions brighten in thy smile,Creative Peace! and underneath thy feetSee sudden flowers adorn the rugged soil?In bleak Siberia blows,Waked by thy genial breath, the balmy rose?Waved over by thy magic wand,Does life inform fell Lybia’s burning sand?Or does some isle thy parting flight detain,Where roves the Indian through primæval shades;Haunts the pure pleasures of the sylvan reign,And, led by Reason’s light, the path of Nature treads?IV. 3On Cuba’s utmost steep,Far leaning o’er the deep,The Goddess’ pensive form was seen:Her robe, of Nature’s varied green,Waved on the gale; grief dimmed her radiant eyes,Her bosom heaved with boding sighs.She eyed the main; where, gaining on the view,Emerging from the ethereal blue,Midst the dread pomp of war,Blazed the Iberian streamer from afar:She saw; and, on refulgent pinions borne,Slow winged her way sublime, and mingled with the morn.

THE TRIUMPH OF MELANCHOLY

Memory, be still! why throng upon the thoughtThese scenes so deeply stained with sorrow’s dye?Is there in all thy stores no cheerful draught,To brighten yet once more in Fancy’s eye?Yes – from afar a landscape seems to rise,Embellished by the lavish hand of spring;Thin gilded clouds float lightly through the skies,And laughing loves disport on fluttering wing.How blest the youth in yonder valley laid!What smiles in every conscious feature play!While, to the murmurs of the breezy glade,His merry pipe attunes the rural lay.Hail, Innocence! whose bosom all serene,Feels not, as yet, the internal tempest roll.Oh, ne’er may care distract thy placid mein!Ne’er may the shades of doubt o’erwhelm thy soul!Vain wish! for lo, in gay attire concealed,Yonder she comes! the heart-inflaming fiend!(Will no kind power the helpless stripling shield!)Swift to her destined prey see Passion bend!O smile accurst, to hide the worst designs!Now with blithe eye she wooes him to be blest;While round her arm, unseen, a serpent twines —And lo, she hurls it hissing at his breast!And, instant, lo, his dizzy eyeball swimsGhastly, and reddening darts a frantic glare;Pain, with strong grasp, distorts his writhing limbs,And Fear’s cold hand erects his frozen hair.Is this, O life, is this thy boasted prime!And does thy spring no happier prospect yield!Why should the sunbeam paint thy glittering clime,When the keen mildew desolates the field!How memory pains! Let some gay theme beguileThe musing mind, and sooth to soft delight.Ye images of woe, no more recoil!Be life’s past scenes wrapt in oblivious night.Now when fierce Winter, armed with wasteful power,Heaves the wild deep that thunders from afar;How sweet to sit in this sequestered bower,To hear, and but to hear, the mingling war!Ambition here displays no gilded toy,That tempts on desperate wing the soul to rise;Nor Pleasure’s paths to wilds of woe decoy,Nor Anguish lurks in Grandeur’s proud disguise.Oft has Contentment cheered this lone abode,With the mild languish of her smiling eye;Here Health in rosy bloom has often glowed,While loose-robed Quiet stood enamoured by.Even the storm lulls to more profound repose;The storm these humble walls assails in vain.The shrub is sheltered, when the whirlwind blows,While the oak’s mighty ruin strows the plain.Blow on, ye winds! Thine, Winter, be the skies;And toss the infuriate surge, and vales lay waste.Nature thy temporary rage defies;To her relief the gentler Seasons haste.Throned in her emerald car, see Spring appear!(As Fancy wills, the landscape starts to view.)Her emerald car the youthful Zephyrs bear,Fanning her bosom with their pinions blue.Around the jocund Hours are fluttering seen,And lo, her rod the rose-lip’d Power extends!And lo, the lawns are decked in living green,And Beauty’s bright-eyed train from Heaven descends!Haste, happy days, and make all Nature glad —But will all Nature joy at your return?O, can ye cheer pale Sickness’ gloomy bed,Or dry the tears that bathe the untimely urn?Will ye one transient ray of gladness dart,Where groans the dungeon to the captive’s wail?To ease tired Disappointment’s bleeding heart,Will all your stores of softening balm avail!When stern Oppression, in his harpy fangs,From Want’s weak grasp the last sad morsel bears,Can ye allay the dying parent’s pangs,Whose infant craves relief with fruitless tears?For ah! thy reign, Oppression, is not past.Who from the shivering limbs the vestment rends?Who lays the once rejoicing village waste,Bursting the ties of lovers and of friends!But hope not, Muse, vain-glorious as thou art,With the weak impulse of thy humble strain,Hope not to soften Pride’s obdurate heart,When Errol’s bright example shines in vain.Then cease the theme. Turn, Fancy, turn thine eye,Thy weeping eye, nor further urge thy flight.Thy haunts, alas! no gleams of joy supply,Or transient gleams, that flash and sink in night.Yet fain the mind its anguish would forego:Spread, then, Historic Muse, thy pictured scroll;Bid the great scenes in all their splendour glow,And rouse to thought sublime the exulting soul.What mingling pomps rush on the enraptured gaze!Lo, where the gallant navy rides the deep!Here, glittering towns their spiry turrets raise,There, bulwarks overhang the shaggy steep.Bristling with spears, and bright with burnished shields,The embattled legions stretch their long array;Discord’s red torch, as fierce she scours the fields,With bloody tincture stains the face of day.And now the hosts in silence wait the sign.Keen are their looks whom Liberty inspires!Quick as the goddess darts along the line,Each breast impatient burns with noble fires.Her form how graceful! In her lofty mienThe smiles of love stern Wisdom’s frown controul;Her fearless eye, determined though serene,Speaks the great purpose, and the unconquered soul.Mark, where Ambition leads the adverse band,Each feature fierce and hagard, as with pain!With menace loud he cries, while from his handHe vainly strives to wipe the crimson stain.Lo, at his call, impetuous as the storms,Headlong to deeds of death the hosts are driven;Hatred, to madness wrought, each face deforms,Mounts the black whirlwind, and involves the heaven.Now, Virtue, now thy powerful succour lend,Shield them, for Liberty who dare to die —Ah, Liberty! will none thy cause befriend!Are those thy sons, thy generous sons, that fly!Not Virtue’s self, when Heaven its aid denies,Can brace the loosened nerves, or warm the heart;Not Virtue’s self can still the burst of sighs,When festers in the soul misfortune’s dart.See, where by terror and despair dismayed,The scattering legions pour along the plain!Ambition’s car, in bloody spoils arrayed,Hews its broad way, as Vengeance guides the rein.But who is He, that, by yon lonely brook,With woods o’erhung, and precipices rude,Lies all abandoned, yet, with dauntless look,Sees streaming from his breast the purple flood?Ah, Brutus! ever thine be Virtue’s tear!Lo, his dim eyes to Liberty he turns,As, scarce supported on her broken spear,O’er her expiring son the goddess mourns.Loose to the wind her azure mantle flies;From her dishevelled locks she rends the plume;No lustre lightens in her weeping eyes,And on her tear-stained cheek no roses bloom.Meanwhile the world, Ambition, owns thy sway;Fame’s loudest trumpet labours with thy name;For thee the Muse awakes her sweetest lay,And Flattery bids for thee her altars flame.Nor in life’s lofty bustling sphere alone,The sphere where monarchs and where heroes toil,Sink Virtue’s sons beneath Misfortune’s frown,While Guilt’s thrilled bosom leaps at Pleasure’s smile:Full oft, where Solitude and Silence dwell,Far, far remote, amid the lowly plain,Resounds the voice of Woe from Virtue’s cell:Such is man’s doom; and Pity weeps in vain.Still grief recoils – How vainly have I strove,Thy power, O Melancholy, to withstand!Tired I submit; but yet, O yet remove,Or ease the pressure of thy heavy hand.Yet, for a while, let the bewildered soulFind in society relief from woe;O yield, a while, to Friendship’s soft controul;Some respite, Friendship, wilt thou not bestow?Come then, Philander! whose exalted mindLooks down from far on all that charms the great;For thou canst bear, unshaken and resigned,The brightest smiles, the blackest frowns of Fate!Come thou, whose love unlimited, sincere,Nor faction cools, nor injury destroys;Who lend’st to Misery’s moan a pitying ear,And feel’st with ecstasy another’s joys:Who know’st man’s frailty, with a favouring eyeAnd melting heart, behold’st a brother’s fall;Who, unenslaved by Fashion’s narrow tye,With manly freedom follow’st Nature’s call.And bring thy Delia, sweetly-smiling fair,Whose spotless soul no rankling thoughts deform;Her gentle accents calm each throbbing care,And harmonize the thunder of the storm.Though blest with wisdom, and with wit refined,She courts no homage, nor desires to shine;In her each sentiment sublime is joinedTo female softness, and a form divine.Come, and disperse the involving shadows drear;Let chastened mirth the social hours employ.O catch the swift-winged moment while ’tis near —On swiftest wing the moment flies of joy.Even while the careless disencumbered soulSinks, all dissolving, into pleasure’s dream,Even then to time’s tremendous verge we roll,With headlong haste, along life’s surgey stream.Can gaiety the vanished years restore,Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed,Or soothe the sad INEVITABLE HOUR,Or cheer the dark, dark mansions of the dead?Still sounds the solemn knell, in Fancy’s ear,That called Eliza to the silent tomb;With her how jocund rolled the sprightly year!How shone the nymph in beauty’s brightest bloom!Ah! Beauty’s bloom avails not in the grave!Youth’s lofty mien, nor Age’s awful grace.Moulder alike unknown the prince and slave,Whelmed in the enormous wreck of human race.The thought-fixed portraiture, the breathing bust,The arch with proud memorials arrayed,The long-lived pyramid shall sink in dust,To dumb Oblivion’s ever desert shade.Fancy from joy still wanders far astray.Ah Melancholy, how I feel thy power!Long have I laboured to elude thy sway —But ’tis enough, for I resist no more.The traveller thus, that o’er the midnight waste,Through many a lonesome path is doomed to roam,Wildered and weary sits him down at last;For long the night, and distant far his home.FINIS