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Č£ar & moort (press šević 6
THOMSON'S SEASONS
AND
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
ZOGIE AOAZRZSON
- Tombon
H E N RY FROW DE
Oxford UNIVERSITY PREss WAREHOUSE
AMEN CoRNER, E.C.

Čfarembon (press śeries
ZHOMSOW ſº ~~~
THE SEASONS
AND
THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
EDITED
WITH BIOGRAPHICAL WOTICE, INTRODUCTIONS,
AWOTES, AAWD A GLOSSA R Y .
BY
J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A.
EDITOR OF ‘SELECTIONS FROM BURNs'
Öxforo
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
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[All rights reserved
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PRINTED AT THE cLAREND ON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
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PREFACE
THOMSON has special recommendations as a British classic
for the use of youth. Not only does he look upon Nature
with the eye of a poet—and there is hardly an aspect of
Nature that he has failed to note—but his descriptions possess
such a power of freshness and fidelity, conveyed for the
most part in language of astonishing felicity, that the heart
must be dull indeed which they cannot inspire with interest
and even rouse to enthusiasm. It is not too much to say
that a love for Thomson’s poetry in early life implies a
permanent delight in the phenomena of rural Nature and an
unfailing response to her restorative influences. It might be
added that Thomson furnishes in The Seasons the best
introduction to the study of Wordsworth's poetry, if indeed
the heart that has felt the charm of the earlier and more
ingenuous poet be not satisfied to rest content with his
teaching and to seek no farther. In The Castle of Indolence
the same love of Nature and rural life which animates The
Seasons is continually revealed in passages of exquisite
beauty, and in the second Canto there is, more particularly,
much sympathetic writing on the advantages of an open-air
life of active industry which is surely very capable of in-
spiring and directing the energies of healthy youth.
The text of The Seasons adopted in the present edition is ;
of course that of the year 1746, which was the last to receive
the author's personal revision. At the same time the earlier
*
V1 ARAEA'A CAE.
texts have been examined, and it is believed that all the
alterations of real interest, made in the first and Subsequent
texts before the completed poem at last settled into the shape
in which we now have it, have been carefully recorded in the
Notes—certainly to a much greater extent than will be found
in any previous edition. For The Castle of Indolence the
text of the second edition, published in octavo in 1748, the
last year of Thomson's life, has been faithfully followed in the
present edition.
Very special care has been taken in the preparation of the
Notes. They have been written independently of, and are
fuller and—it is hoped—not more diffuse than, those of any
previous edition. Amongst other purposes they aim at
making the author illustrate himself, by citing from his other
poems passages parallel to those which happen to be under
consideration. They are further intended to reveal the
nature and extent of his indebtedness to his predecessors and
contemporaries, and they at least indicate the manner, in
which he in his turn has influenced or suggested the poetical
thought and work of others.
In regard to The Castle of Indolence, it may fairly be
claimed that it is here for the first time fully annotated.
In writing the Biographical Notice I have had occasion to
correct many faults which, having found their way into the
early Lives of Thomson, have continued to infest his biography
ever since. In this part of my task, more especially in dealing
with the home life and youthful training of Thomson, I have
received valuable aid—most courteously and generously
given, and here gratefully acknowledged—from the Rev.
John Mair, D.D., minister of the parish of Southdean, Rox-
burghshire. *
J. LOGIE ROBERTSON.
LOCKHARTON TERRACE,
SLATEFoRD, N.B.
** 7th /uly, 1891.
SPRING
SUMMER
AUTUMN
WINTER
A HYMN
f
w
*
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE •
CHRONOLOGY TO ELUCIDATE THE LIFE OF THOMSON
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE SEASONs
TEXT OF THE SEASONS :—
PAGE
I–I8
I9-2I
23-3o
31–63
65–II4
II5-I52
I53–182
I83–186
CANTO I.
CANTO II.
TEXT OF THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE :—
NotES ON THE SEASONs:–
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SPRING
NOTES ON SPRING e gº *
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SUMMER
NOTES ON SUMMER . º e
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO AUTUMN
NOTES ON AUTUMN . * ſº
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO WINTER
NOTES ON WINTER . * sº
NOTES ON A. HyMN .
NOTES ON THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE :-
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
NOTES ON CANTO I.
NOTES ON CANTO II. •
GLOSSARY TO THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
187–212
2 I 3–24O
24. I-244
244–268
269-273
273–309
309-313
313–346
346–354
354-393
394–398
398-401
402-422
423-432
433–436
ERRATUMI.
Page 353, line I5, delete Addison,
Thomson's Seasons.
CORRIGENDA
Page I5, 1. I?, for Sir read Mr.
,, 31, 1. I4, for ravished read ravaged
61, 1. I I Io, for flames read aims
,, 98, l. I232, for and nature smiles revived read yet weeping
from distress
,, Ioſ, l. I 338, for fury read hurry
, IIQ, l. I64, for stated read sated
,, I24, 1. 338, for bank read banks
,, I29, 1. 525, for dull prefer grave
, I4I, l. 949, for known 7tead felt
,, 168, l. 569, for virtue read virtues
, I86, l. Io'ſ, for breathes read spreads
, 242, l. 5 from bottom, for Miller read Millar
,, .357, l. 6, for up read from 1730
,, .357, l. 7 from bottom, for (till 1738) read (1730–1738)
,, 358, l. 20, after earlier insert (1738)
,, 359, l. 9 from bottom, add (1730–1738)
]
. 5, for the original text read the first edition of The
Seasons, and indeed from 1724
, 361, 1. I2, for till after that of read from 1730 to 1738
, 361, l. 17, for the early text read the first edition of The
Seasons
,, 361, l. I 9, after earlier text insert (1730–1738)
,, 390, l. 3 from bottom, for I 726 read I730
, 361,
Thomsozz's Seasons
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.
IN July of the year 1692, Mr. Thomas Thomson, son of
a gardener in the employment of Mr. Edmonston of Ednam,
was appointed minister of the parish of Ednam, an outlying
district occupying the north-eastern corner of the pastoral County
of Roxburgh. The law of patronage was then in abeyance,
but the appointment was probably procured through the influence
of Mr. Edmonston. The minister-elect was somewhere about
twenty-five years of age. He seems to have entered upon the
duties of the ministry with a mind entirely devoted to piety and
the spiritual welfare of his people. His piety was not untinged
with the terror of superstition—a dark feature of the religious
feeling of his time; but in the execution of his sacred office he
was undaunted by the powers of evil, seen or unseen, and earned
a reputation for ‘diligence in pastoral duty.’ He was a man of
quiet life, little, if at all, known beyond the bounds of his presby-
tery, and finding sufficient society in his flock, his family, and
among a few of the local gentry. Long afterwards his illustrious
son wrote of him as “a good and tender-hearted parent.’ Fifteen
months after his settlement at Ednam, he married Beatrix, one
of the daughters of Mr. Alexander Trotter, proprietor of the
small estate of Widehope, or Wideopen, in the neighbouring
parish of Morebattle. From her the poet inherited his sociality,
his imagination, and his natural piety. To him, without any
poetical exaggeration, she was ‘the kindest, best of mothers.’
%; B
2 A/OGAEAAAZZ CAZ AVO ZYCAE.
*
The Thomson household was a large one, including nine children
in all, of whom four were born before the end of the century,
and while the father was still in his first charge as minister of
Ednam. Of these James was the fourth. Before him were
born—Andrew, in I695; Alexander, in 1697; and ISSobell, in
I699. The birth of the poet, which almost certainly occurred in
the manse of Ednam, is believed to have taken place on the 7th
—his baptism was on the 15th–of September, 1700. About the
time of his birth, his father's name for ‘piety and diligence in
pastoral duty” was so well established, that no fewer than three
parishes, Southdean, Castleton, and Morebattle, were coveting
the services of the minister of Ednam. Southdean, as repre-
sented by its Kirk-session and heritors, ‘ called ' him—to use
the Scots phrase of invitation to an ecclesiastical charge—on the
7th of August; the invitation was accepted, and on the 6th of
November, 17OO, just two months to a day after the poet’s birth,
the Rev. Thomas Thomson was admitted minister of Southdean,
a pastoral parish of more importance than Ednam, situated on
the lower slopes of the Cheviots, among the southern uplands of
Roxburgh. Thither the Thomson household was transferred ;
and here, from the time of his tenderest infancy to his sixteenth
year, the youth of the future poet was nursed, and educated, and
found a home. The interest which attaches to Ednam as the
birthplace of a great British poet, is thus of the slightest—is, in
fact, merely nominal. It is to Southdean the admirer of Thom-
son must go if he would make acquaintance with those natural
influences—commonly, but not quite correctly, described as ‘the
scenery’—which were the first to salute the senses, and awaken
the interest and imagination of the young poet. I am indebted
to the present incumbent of Southdean, the venerable and
learned Dr. John Mair, for the following graphic description of
the old manse, and the view from the manse door : ‘His father’s
straw-thatched manse, in rustic simplicity, and clinging with a
nestling Snugness to the base of Southdean Law, is placed at a
point in the vale where the eye can drink “the pure pleasures of
7 HOMSOAV'S SCATOOZ Z)A VS, 3
the rural life.” Around the garden, like a belt of quicksilver,
Sweeps the “sylvan Jed.” Looking out from that vale is seen in
the distance, but not so distant as not to be a part of it, the
clear-cut sky-line of Carter Fell, whose huge ridge rose as a
natural bulwark against English covetousness, and whose high
heathland slopes retain the eye of the spectator above surround-
ing objects, as the storm-drift careers along them, or as the
Sunbeam reddens their purple beauty.’ Much of the scenery ;
and poetical spirit of The Seasons were imported from Jed vale;
Wºźer is especially rich in recollections of Thomson's early
or parlour-window at Southdean that he heard the winds roar
and the big torrent burst, and saw the deep-fermenting tempest
brewed in the grim evening sky. The shepherd perishing in
the Snow-drift, the winter spate, the visit of the redbreast, are
evidently all transcripts from the poet's recollection of real
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life at Southdean. Here it was that once for all, in the words .
of Burns,—
‘grim Nature's visage hoar
Struck [his] young eye.”
When he was about twelve he began his attendance at a
Grammar School which was kept in St. Mary's Chapel in Jed-
burgh Abbey. The distance from his home was some eight miles,
down the Jed. Here he read Latin and Greek. He may not
have been what is known as a clever pupil, but there is clear
proof that he early felt the soft and reposeful charm of Virgil's
verse, and sought to reproduce it in metrical essays of his own
composition. There was residing at this time, as farmer at .
Earlshaugh, about four miles from Southdean, a Mr. Robert
Riccaltoun, who, being himself college-bred, and fresh from
academical studies, volunteered to assist and direct the reading
of the young scholar. Riccaltoun was a man of considerable
learning and originality of thought, and occasionally tried his
hand at versification. He was Thomson’s senior by nine years.
About a year after the Thomsons had left Southdean he became
#
l
B 2
4 , B/OGRAPHYCAL MOTYCAE.
;
a clergyman; and in 1725, when James Thomson had already
been six months in England, and was now at work upon his
poem of Wºnzer, Riccaltoun entered upon the duties of an
} ordained minister at Hobkirk, in the same district of Roxburgh in
!
which he had been a farmer. Years afterwards, when the fame
of the author of 7%e Seasons was fully established, he modestly
acknowledged that he had been among the first to discover the
poetical talent of Thomson, and that his influence in encouraging
and directing it had been considerable. His influence did not
cease with the exercises of the schoolboy; it accompanied
Thomson to England, and inspired the idea of The Seasons.
Thomson's own testimony is express on this point: ‘Nature
delights me in every form ; I am just now painting her in her
most lugubrious dress for my own amusement, describing Winter
as it presents itself. . . . Mr. Riccaltoun's poem on Winter,
which I still have, first put the design into my head—in it are
; some masterly strokes which awakened me.” (Zetter to Dr.
Cransſon, zwritten at Barnez, zzear London, Sežember 1725.)
Among others who looked favourably upon young Thomson's
essays in verse during his school days were Sir William Bennet
of Chesters, and Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto. It was probably
through his uncle and cousin, who were gardeners at Minto
House, about four miles due west from Jedburgh, that young
Thomson made the acquaintance of Sir Gilbert Elliot; but he
was a more frequent visitor at Chesters, a couple of miles down
the Teviot from Minto, where indeed he used to spend part of
his summer vacations, and write a good deal of juvenile poetry.
Bennet was of a liberal disposition and frank manners, wrote
verses himself, and courted the society of the wits and poets of
Edinburgh—Allan Ramsay among the rest. Here is part of a
juvenile poem descriptive of Sir William Bennet's house and
grounds, which will serve to show Thomson's poetical attainment
as a schoolboy:
‘What is the task that to the muse belongs?
What—but to deck in her harmonious songs
THOMSOAV 247° 7'AAA' UAVA WAER.S.ZZ"V. 5
The beauteous works of nature and of art,
Rural retreats that cheer the heavy heart.
Then Marléfield begin, my muse, and sing;
With Marléfield the hills and vales shall ring.
O what delight and pleasure 'tis to rove
Through all the walks and alleys of this grove,
Where spreading trees a checkered scene display,
Partly admitting and excluding day, . . .
Where little birds employ their narrow throats
To sing its praises in unlaboured notes.
To it adjoined a rising fabric stands,
Which with its state, our silent awe commands;
Its endless beauties mock the poet's pen,
So to the garden I’ll return again.
Pomona makes the trees with fruit abound,
And blushing Flora paints the enamelled ground.
Here lavish nature does her stores disclose,
Flowers of all hue, their queen the bashful rose.”
In these lines may be detected traces of the influence of Virgil
and Milton, and echoes of the fine old Scots ballad of Leader
Płaughs and Yarrow. Little of Thomson's juvenile poetry is in
existence, the youthful scribbler having included as part of the
festivities of each New Year's Day of his boyhood, regularly as
it came round, a holocaust of the verses he had produced during
the preceding twelve months. As a boy young Thomson seems to
have been natural, healthy, and happy; well and sympathetically
acquainted with the rustic life and rural scenery of the whole of his
native county; of active and enterprising habits ; and animated
by a quiet love of fun and good-humoured joking, similar to that
which marked the youth-time of Walter Scott. t
Towards the end of 1715 he was despatched to Edinburgh
University, the design of his parents being, as Johnson expresses
it, to breed him a minister. It was a sore trial to the boy to sur-
render the freedom of country life for the strict discipline and
confinement of college and town. It was at first, indeed, beyond
his endurance; and he returned to Southdean not many hours
6 AE/OGRAAAZZCAZ AWOZYCAE,
after the servant behind whom he had ridden into Edinburgh,
declaring that “he could study as well, or better, on the haughs
of Sudan’ (Southdean). His father did not see it in that light;
and he returned to college. Here he had not been many months
when the news reached him that his father was dead. This event
occurred on the 9th of February, 1716. The cause of death seems
to have been an apoplectic fit, which seized the minister of South-
dean as he was in the act of exorcising what was believed to be an
evil spirit, known in the parish as ‘the Woolie Ghost.” The tragic
event produced a great sensation in the neighbourhood, having
been, as was then common in such cases, attributed to super-
natural agency. It threw young Thomson into such a state of
terror, that for some years afterwards he had more than a child’s
dread of solitude and darkness. He lived to conquer the terror,
but the feeling of the supernatural remained in his mind to the
last, and finds expression in various passages of his poetry. Thus
in Summer, written in 1726, the lines occur—
“Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky,
A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk,
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-roused I feel
A sacred terror, a severe delight,
Creep through my mortal frame; and thus, methinks,
A voice, than human more, the abstracted ear
Of Fancy strikes: “Be not of us afraid,
Poor kindred man Thy fellow-creatures, we
From the same Parent-Power our beings drew,
The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.””
(11. 538–47.)
The home of the Thomsons was now transferred to Edinburgh,
and the mother made shift to support herself and her children,
and keep James at college, by mortgaging her interest in the little
property of Widehope, of which she was co-heiress, and by prac-
tising a strict economy. The struggles of the family to maintain
the gentility of their station are implied in the poem On the ZOeath
of his Moſher: -
7THOMSOAV A 7" 7"H/A2 OAVZVAEAS/7"Y. 7
“No more the widow's lonely state she feels,
The shock severe that modest want conceals,
The oppressor's scourge, the scorn of wealthy pride,
And poverty's unnumbered ills beside.”
Thomson was in attendance upon classes at the University
for eight or nine years in all, and though he did not distinguish
himself as a student—not being of a nature to absorb the
spirit of competition—he took congenially to philosophical specu-
lations on the phenomena of external nature and the human
mind. Natural philosophy was at this time the principal study
in the Faculty of Arts at Edinburgh, constituting along with
Ethics—with which it was taught conjointly—the subject of the
fourth or final year of the curriculum. Scottish latinity had
declined, and the study of English literature had not yet received
academical recognition. Edinburgh had caught the Baconian
and Newtonian impulse more fully than the English Universities,
and the study of mathematical science was beginning to be
actively pursued. There are numerous proofs in Thomson's
poetry of his interest in the general subject. See, for example,
his ‘inguiry into the rise of fountains and rivers’ in Az/fumzz
(Il. 735–834), and his proposed scheme of future poetical study
as sketched in the same poem (ll. I351–65). There is also a
significant reference bearing directly on the point in the first
letter of his published correspondence, of the IIth December,
1720 : ‘There are some come from London here lately that teach
natural philosophy by way of shows, by the beat of drum ; but
more of this, afterwards.” At the same time he was by private
study extending his acquaintance with literature—reading
Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope, and sharing in the interest, now
beginning to be felt beyond Edinburgh, in the writings of Allan
Ramsay. He still kept up his practice of versifying, and in
|
conjunction with Malloch, and probably Hamilton of Bangour,
was contributing a poem now and again to the collections of
verse which were beginning to mark the rise of periodical litera-
ture in Edinburgh. These verse exercises of Thomson while he
;
;
|
f
;
8 A/OGRAPH/CA/. AWOT/CAE.
was still a student include the lines On a Country Life, in heroic
couplets, in which some see the germ of The Seasons; a poem
On Aappiness, interesting as containing several ideas and images
which afterwards reappeared in the Castle of Zadolence; and
two shorter pieces, also in the heroic couplet, Morzºzºg ān Zhe
Country, and Om Beauty, the former of which betrays the
influence, while the latfer makes special mention, of Allan Ram-
say. From the Morning in the Country I extract the following
lines :
‘The herd his plaid around his shoulders throws,
Grasps his dear crook, calls on his dog, and goes
Around the fold: he walks with careful pace,
And fallen clods sets in their wonted place;
Then opes the door, unfolds his fleecy care,
And gladly sees them crop their morning fare;
Down upon easy moss his limbs he lays,
And sings some charming shepherdess's praise.”
Thomson became a student of divinity in 1719 or 1720, having
finished his Arts course—as was then the general custom—with-
out proceeding to graduation. He figures, it is true, as M.A.
on the title-page of the first edition of Wºnfer; but the mistake
was probably not his, and was Cancelled in the second and
subsequent editions. It is remarkable that, while in 1705 as
many as IOS students graduated M.A. at Edinburgh, the number
had fallen in 1749 to 3 | Sir Alexander Grant, in his history of
the University, explains that after 1708, when the Arts Faculty
was re-modelled on its present basis, it ceased to be the interest
of any Professor to promote graduation (except the Professor of
Natural Philosophy, who got fees for laureating his class); that
public laureation was abandoned; and that, in consequence, the
degree fell into disregard. Thomson's career as a student of
theology is marked in his continued poetical exercises by several
pieces of little merit, mainly a few hymns and paraphrases of
portions of Scripture, the most ambitious being a version in
heroic couplets of Psalm civ. The only interest of this version
ZAOMSOAV RAESOLVES TO LEAVE AEZ)/AWBOR GA. 9
is its diction, in which one finds such tumid phrases (e.g. “the
bleating kind,” “the feathered nation,’ ‘genial moisture,’ ‘vital
juice’ &c.) as were afterwards to offend the ear in The Seasons.
In 1724 Thomson arrived at the turning-point of his life. He
had prepared, as an exercise in connection with the class of
divinity of which he was a member, a lecture on Psalm crix,
which was severely criticised, if not condemned, by Professor
Hamilton for its floridity of style. If he meant to be of any
service in the ministry, he was told, he must learn to use a plainer
language. The censure which the Professor's criticism implied
determined Thomson to a step which he had probably been for
some time already meditating. He seems to have been feeling a
growing dislike to what he called ‘the thorny paths of systems
and school divinity;” and he was undoubtedly under the impulse .
of poetical ambition. Suddenly he resolved to try his fortune in |
London. What his plans were is not definitely known, and he
communicated them to few. He refers to them vaguely in letters
to confidential friends as ‘the business you know I design.”
Some have thought that he went up to London merely as a
literary adventurer; others that his intention was to join, and
seek preferment in, the Church of England. More probably his
expectation was to fill some minor post in the political service of
the Government, which would secure him an independency, and
afford him an opportunity of cultivating his poetical talents.
His resolution was at least a noble one : writing to one of his
many friends in Teviotdale—with which county he had kept up
a close and constant connection during the whole period of his
studentship—he declares, ‘I will do all that is in my power, act,
hope, and so either make something out, or be buried in
obscurity.’ He set about preparations for his departure,
collected recommendations and letters of introduction, and took
farewell of his friends. It is noteworthy that the indolence
which certainly overtook Thomson before he was middle-aged,
was no characteristic of his youth and early manhood. At .
time he was of active habits; an early riser, who had seen the
***
I O A ZOGRAAAZZ CA/C AWOZTMCAE.
dawns he was afterwards to describe so gloriously ; a keen and
accurate observer of the whole phenomena of nature within his
range ; no great lover of the town, and by no means averse to
solitude, yet fond of society, and with a strong relish for humour
and fun. He was healthy and strong ; of a fresh complexion,
and frank open countenance which made him friends wherever he
went ; above the middle height, and without that studious stoop
and slovenliness of dress which struck Shenstone some twenty
years later as indicative of vulgarity. The following extract from
one of his farewell letters will show better than description the
geniality and brave hopefulness of his nature in the spring of
1725: ‘My spirits have gotten such a serious turn by these re-
flections, that, although I be thinking on Misjohn, I declare
I shall hardly force a laugh before we part—for this I think will
be my last letter from Edinburgh (I expect to sail every day).
Well ! since I am speaking of that merry soul, I hope he is as
bright, as easy, as dégagé, as susceptible of an intense laugh
as he used to be. Tell him when you see him that I laugh
in imagination with him—ha! haſ ha / Mass John, how in
the name of wonder dragged you so much good humour
along with you through the thorny paths of systems and school
divinity ? . . . . . May wit, humour, and everlasting joy surround
you both !’
He embarked at Leith, and arrived in London before the end
of March, 1725. Here his first experience was the loss of his
letters of introduction, of which a pickpocket—with little ad-
vantage to himself—relieved him, as with bewildered looks he
journeyed along the crowded streets of the great capital. The
inconvenience was soon got over, and he presented himself to
the influential persons from whom he expected some aid in the
furtherance of the design which had brought him to England.
Among others he saw Duncan Forbes of Culloden, afterward
Lord President of the Court of Session ; Mr. Elliot, a member
of the Minto family; and relatives of Lady Grizel Baillie, a
friend of his mother, and not unknown to himself. The inter-
7TA/OMSOAV ZAV ZOAV/DOAV. II
views were disappointing, and almost made him confess regret
at the bold step he had taken in breaking away from Scotland
and the ministry of the Scottish Kirk. Here is part of his own
report of one of those interviews: ‘I went and delivered it
[letter of introduction to Mr. Elliot] ; he received me affably
enough, and promised me his assistance, though at the same
time he told me—what every one tells me—that it will be
prodigiously difficult to succeed in the business you know I
design. However, come what will come, I will make an effort
and leave the rest to providence. There is, I am persuaded, a
necessary fixed chain of things, and I hope my fortune, whatever
it be, shall be linked to diligence and honesty. If I should not
succeed, in your next advise me what I should do. Succeed or
not, I firmly resolve to pursue divinity as the only thing now
I am fit for. Now if I cannot accomplish the design on which
I came up, I think I had best make interest and pass my trials
here, so that if I be obliged soon to return to Scotland again, I
may not return no better than I came away. And, to be deeply
serious with you, the more I see of the vanity and wickedness
of the world, the more I am inclined to that sacred office. I was
going to bid you suppress that rising laugh, but I check myself
severely again for suffering such an unbecoming thought of you
to enter into my mind.” (Zeffer to Dr. Crazzston, Ancrazºn, in
A'oatburghshire, of date 3rd A/ri/, 1725.) Thomson waited on
in London for the promised assistance, which did not come,
and meanwhile fell, in with his former college companion David
Malloch, who had come up to London to act as tutor to the two
sons of the Duke of Montrose. Malloch proved a kind friend,
and Thomson was grateful. More than a year afterwards,
taking a retrospect of his experiences since his arrival in
England, Thomson wrote to Malloch, in friendly criticism of
some MS. verses of the latter, that ‘the comprehensive com-
pound-epithet A//-shunned was a beauty he had had too good
reason to relish.’ ‘Thank heaven,” he added, “there was one
exception —meaning that Malloch had stood by him when all
I 2 A/OGAEAAAZCA / WO 7T/CAE.
others neglected him. He had been only six weeks in London
when the sad news reached him that his mother was dead. It
was probably on receipt of the news that he penned the
affectionate lines On the Death of his Mother. They have the
ring of genuine sorrow. They suggest so irresistibly another
and more famous poem on a similar subject, that one is tempted
to think that Thomson's tribute was in the mind of Cowper
when he wrote those ineffably pathetic lines On the Receiff of
any Mother’s Picture. The loss of a home seems to have
determined Thomson to pursue his fortune in London. Partly
through the influence of Lady Grizel Baillie, and partly through
the services of Malloch, he received a tutorship in the family of
Lord Binning some time in July. The family were resident at
Barnet, about ten miles from London, and here Thomson
utilised his leisure by composing his poem of Winter. It was
here he first felt, as a personal thing, the pressure of poverty.
He was by no means, at any time of his life, in absolute want,
but he was improvident enough on several occasions to incur
debts which he could not always meet just when payment was
demanded. About this time the share of the little property at
Widehope which had belonged to his mother was realised, and
the balance that remained, after the claim of the mortgagee was
satisfied, was divided among the family. Thomson was now
dependent upon his own efforts for his maintenance. WZnter
was published in March, 1726, and may fairly be said to have
been . Successful from the first. Its publication brought him
many friends and patrons—among others the Countess of
Hertford, Mr. Bubb Dodington, Mrs. Stanley, and Dr. Thomas
Rundle, afterwards Bishop of Derry; besides the approval
and active services of such influential critics of the time as
Aaron Hill, the Rev. Joseph Spence, and the Rev. Robert
di Whatley. A second edition was in preparation within about a
# year, and before the end of 1728 the fifth edition was out.
Thomson took full advantage of the tide that was rising in his
favour. He gave up his tutorship at East Barnet; and, coming
º
ZAZOMSOAV’S AOZMS. I3
into London—where he was still obliged to devote part of his
time to teaching—he set about the composition of Szemzmer with
the utmost enthusiasm. By this time he had planned the series
of The Seasons, a work which he had not thought of when
writing Wºlfer, and was in haste to accomplish his task. He
was cheered with the friendship and encouragement of Malloch
and Hill. Hill was fond of flattery, and Thomson—submitting
his better judgment probably to the dictation of Malloch—did
not stint or spare. In any case, the young friendless Scotsman,
‘all-shunned' where he had looked for aid, and feeling with keen
delight the first sunshine of fame, was, as Johnson charitably
allows, naturally glad of Hill’s kindness, and may be excused
for some phrases of unusual warmth, the blame of which,
indeed, rests as much upon Hill as upon Thomson. Thomson
was to be far more famous, was to number among his friends
men of higher standing than Hill, and was to approve himself
in his relation to them, at all points a gentleman. Szemzzzzer,
preceded by a poem To the Memory of Sir Zsaac AVewton, was
published in 1727. In the same year he wrote Britannia, in the
interest of English commerce against the action of Spain, but
the poem was not published till early in 1729. Sffring, which
fully maintained the credit of the new poet, followed in 1728;
and in 1730 the publication of the collected Seasons, including
Azzúaſzzzz and the Hyman for the first time, brought the task
which he had set himself, and in which the interest of so many
admirers was enlisted, gloriously to a close. Meanwhile his
poetical energy was finding a new channel. From the first
week of his arrival in London he had been attracted to the
theatre, and his interest in the drama at last took the form of
a tragedy of his own composition, Sož/ionisóa, which was pro-
duced at Drury Lane in February, 1730. This was a department
of poetry in which Thomson was to work for some time
assiduously, but in which the peculiar nature of his genius
forbade him to excel. Voltaire's temperate opinion of Thomson's
eloquent but frigid tragedies is now—whatever temporary Suc-
I4. A ZOGAAA’H/CAZ AWOT/CE.
W
i
}
cess they achieved—generally endorsed, even by his most
enthusiastic admirers: ‘Mr. Thomson's tragedies seem to me
wisely intricated, and elegantly writ; they want perhaps some
fire, and it may be that his heroes are neither moving nor busy
enough.” % -
In 1730, through the friendship of Dr. Rundle, Thomson was
appointed tutor to Mr. Charles Richard Talbot, eldest son of the
Solicitor-General, and future Lord Chancellor, and travelled
with his pupil on the Continent for nearly two years. They
visited France and Italy, staying at Paris and at Rome for con-
siderable periods. During his absence Thomson kept up a
correspondence with Dodington, which shows that he enjoyed
a complete holiday from literary work of every kind, but that,
while apparently idle, he was receiving many new and important
impressions. He writes: “Travelling has long been my fondest
wish... The storing one's imagination with ideas of all-beautiful,
all-great, and all-perfect nature—these are the true materza
l foetica, the light and colours with which fancy kindles' up her
whole creation, paints a sentiment, and even embodies an ab-
stracted thought. I long to see the fields where Virgil gathered
his immortal honey, and tread the same ground where men
have thought and acted so greatly.” In the same letter occurs
the significant remark: “I resolve not to neglect the more
prosaic advantages [of travel], for it is no less my ambition to be
capable of serving my country in an active than in a Contem-
plative way.’ This remark should be read along with the
Dedication of Autumn (Il. 18–22). It seems to show that Thom-
son had still in his mind the original design for an independent
settlement in life which brought him up to London in 1725.
In a later letter to his big patron he makes a charming Con-
fession : ‘Now I mention poetry, should you inquire after my
muse, all that I can answer is, that I believe she did not Cross
the channel with me.” l
In the end of 1731 Thomson was back again in England, and
immediately set about the composition of an epic poem, in five
ZTA/OMSOAV A 7" R/CHMOAVZ). I5
parts, on the subject of Ziberty. The first part was published
in 1734; the next two parts in 1735; and in 1736 the con-
cluding parts made their appearance. It is usual to Condemn
this poem as blighted, and many critics have done so without
having read it—and without having confessed the neglect. It
is, notwithstanding, a great poem, full of learning, eloquence,
imagination, and occasionally rising to altitudes of rare poetical
vision; but the subject, and more especially the length at which
it is treated, was a mistake. Liberty is a lyrical theme; to ,
treat it didactically the proper form to use is prose. This, ;
however, may be said, that, given the subject and the method
of treatment, no poet of his century could have done better than
Thomson.
In September, 1733, while Thomson was busy with the first
part of Liberty, Charles Talbot the younger died, and a grace-
ful tribute to his memory was paid in the opening lines of
the poem. Two months later Sir Charles Talbot became Lord
Chancellor, and appointed Thomson to the office of Secretary of
Briefs in the Court of Chancery. This office he occupied till
the death of the Chancellor in the spring of I737, and might
still have held it but for his own neglect in making application :
the new Chancellor conferred it upon another. Meanwhile
Thomson had settled in a garden-house in Kew-foot Lane at
Richmond, where he spent the remainder of his life in com-
parative luxury, and a retirement that was far from unsocial.
Here he entertained Pope, Hammond, Collins, and Quin;
Lyttelton was no infrequent visitor; and he made many friends
in the neighbourhood. In the first flush of prosperity he did
not forget his Scottish friends and relatives. He invited one of
his brothers to stay with him, allowed his sisters a small annuity,
and by and by two of his kinsmen, gardeners by occupation,
were pensioners upon his bounty at Richmond. His brother,
after acting for some time as his amanuensis, fell into ill health,
and returned to Scotland, where he died. The news of his
death called forth the following reflections from Thomson, in a
I6 , AE/OGA2AAAEM/CA/. AWOZYCA. .
letter to his old Roxburgh friend Cranston : “The living are to
be lamented, not the dead. . . Death is a limit which human
passions ought not, but with great caution and reverence, to
pass. . . This I think we may be sure of, that a future state
must be better than this ; and so on through the never-ceasing
succession of future states—every one rising upon the last, an
everlasting new display of infinite goodness. But hereby hangs
a system, not calculated perhaps for the meridian in which you
live.” After the loss of the Secretaryship, Thomson was for a
little in Somewhat embarrassed circumstances, in the midst of
which he was arrested for a debt, which Quin the actor most
generously insisted on paying ; his fortunes, however, to use his
own phrase, blossomed again, and a pension of AIOO a year
from the Prince of Wales, to whom he had been introduced by
Lyttelton, secured him against want. He again turned his
attention to dramatic writing, and in April 1738, Agamemnozz
was brought out in the presence of a large and distinguished
house at Drury Lane. The same year he published a new
edition of Zhe Seasons. Next year he was ready with another
play, Edward' and Æ/eazzora, but the Lord Chamberlain sup-
pressed it on account of its political allusions. In 1740 he wrote
a Preface for Milton’s Areofagäfica; and, conjointly with Malloch,
# composed The Masque of Alfred—the gem of the produc-
ºf tion, the well-known national lyric “Rule, Britannia,' being his.
In 1743 he paid his first visit to his best friends, the Lytteltons, at
Hagley in Worcestershire; and in the following year, Lyttelton
being then a Lord of the Treasury, he was appointed to the
sinecure office of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands.
After paying a deputy to discharge the active duties of the post,
he found himself benefited to the extent of about £300 a year.
This year a new edition of The Seasoºs was published. About
this time Thomson, who all his life was very susceptible of the
charms of female beauty, had serious thoughts of marrying.
The object of his affections was a Miss Young, sister of the first
wife of his friend Robertson, a surgeon at Kew, and identified
THousov's DEATH, I 7
with the Amanda of his later poetry. “It was Mrs. Young,”
wrote John Ramsay of Ochtertyre (Scotland and Scotsmen in the
Fighteenth Century, edited by Alex. Allardyce), ‘a coarse, vulgar
woman, who constantly opposed the poet's pretensions to her
daughter; saying to her one day, “What would you marry
Thomson He will make ballads, and you will sing them l’’’
Thomson seems not to have been ignorant of the maternal dis-
like to his suit : ‘If I am so happy as to have your heart,” he
writes on one occasion to Miss Young, ‘I know you have spirit
to maintain your choice.’ The refusal of the lady—she after-
wards became the wife of Admiral Campbell—was the great
disappointment of Thomson’s life. His humour remained with
him to the last, but all his gaiety left him ; he slipt into pro- .
foundly indolent habits, became careless of his appearance
and of fortune, and seemed utterly indifferent to life.
In 1745 his best drama, Tancred and Sigismunda, was
enacted at Drury Lane, with Garrick as Tancred. Part of the
Summer or autumn of this and the next two years he spent at
Hagley. Lyttelton was affectionately concerned at his listless-
ness, and strove by various means to divert his attention and
rouse his energies. In 1746 the poet made way for his old
friend, and deputy, Paterson, in the office of Surveyor-General.
The same year was published the last edition of 7%e Seasons
that had the benefit of the author's revision. 1748 was marked
by three occurrences—the discontinuance of his pension, owing
to a quarrel between the Prince of Wales and Lyttelton ; the
appearance of The Castle of Indolence, which had been long
on the way; and his lamented death from a neglected cold,
on the 27th of August. About four months before his death we
find him expressing himself, in a letter to Paterson, in the
following melancholy Strain on the disappointments and vexa-
tions of life: ‘Let us have a little more patience, Paterson;
nay, let us be cheerful. At last all will be well, at least all will
be over; here, I mean—God forbid it should be so hereafter.
But, as sure as there is a God, that will not be so.” It is to be
- C
i
#
§
I8 AZOGRAAAZZCAZ MOTICE.
regretted that he did not carry out the intention, which he had
half formed the year before his death, of visiting Scotland,
The change would have done him good, and the visit might
have originated a personal regard for him among his country-
men, the only thing wanting to make his poetical reputation
almost as dear to the national memory as that of Burns
or of Scott.
CHRONOLOGY TO ELUCIDATE THE
LIFE OF THOMSON.
1692. In July, Mr. Thomas Thomson, son of a gardener in the employ-
ment of Mr. Edmonston of Ednam, is appointed—being then
about twenty-five years of age—minister of the parish of Ednam,
in the north-east of Roxburghshire.
1693. In October, marries Beatrix, one of the daughters of Mr. Alexander
Trotter of Widehope, in the parish of Morebattle, Roxburgh-
shire.
17oo. Their fourth child, who was also their third son, JAMES, born
(it is believed) on the 7th, baptized on the 15th September.
In the Mozember following, the Rev. Thomas Thomson
inducted into the parish of Southdean, in the south of
Roxburghshire, his son James being then just two months old.
[This year Dryden died.]
1712. Young Thomson in attendance at a Grammar School kept in the
aisle of Jedburgh Abbey, some eight miles or so distant
from his home at Southdean. His acquaintance with Mr. §
Robert Riccaltoun, farmer at Earlshaugh, begins about this!
time. First attempts at poetizing a year or two later. |
1715. Zowards the end of the year Thomson becomes a student at
Edinburgh University. Still writing verse—blank, and heroic
couplets, on the model of Dryden.
1716. Unexpected death of his father, on 9th February. Home transferred
to Edinburgh some time after. &
1720. Now a student of Divinity. Continues to write verse, chiefly on
rural subjects contributed to Zhe AEdinburgh Miscellamy. 3.
1724. Still at college. Adverse criticism, by the Professor of Divinity,
of one of his college exercises. The turning-point and middle
of his life. [This year Allan Ramsay published his Evergreen, §
and his 7 ea-Table Miscellany.] º:
C 2
2 O
CARONOLOGY 7"O VLI US7RA 7TE 7 HE
I 725.
1726.
I 727.
1728.
I 729.
I 73O.
I 73I.
I 733.
I 734.
I735.
1738.
An March Thomson embarks at Teith for London, not again to
see Scotland. In May, death of his mother. In July, tutor
to Lord Binning's son, at Barnet, near London. Composition
of Winter. [The Gentle Shepherd in complete form was
published this year.]
An March, publication of Winter. Thomson acting as tutor in an
academy in London. Acquaintance with Aaron Hill.
Poem To the Memory of Sir Zsaac Mewton. Summer published.
Wrote Britannia, A Poem. Relying on literature for his
support. - -
Publication of Spring. [Goldsmith born.] |
In January, Britannia published. A poem To the Memory of
Congreve also published, anonymously, but undoubtedly
Thomson’s.
In February, Sophonisba produced at Drury Lane. Publication
of The Seasons (including Autumn and Z'he Hymn for the first
time). Appointed travelling tutor to Charles Richard Talbot,
eldest son of the Solicitor-General, with whom he visits France
and Italy. * *
Correspondence with Dodington. Collecting material for his
projected poem on Liberty. Returns from the Continent at
the close of the year. [Birth of Cowper.]
In September, death of Mr. C. R. Talbot. In November, Thomson
appointed Secretary of Briefs in the Court of Chancery.
In December, publication of Ziberty, Part First.
Ziberty, Parts Second and Third. Death of a brother in
September.
. Liberty, Parts Fourth and Fifth. In May, Thomson settles in a
garden-house in Kew-foot Lane, Richmond. Sends assistance
to his sisters in Edinburgh.
*
. In June, poem to The Memory of Zord Chancellor Talbot. Loss
of Secretaryship. Acquaintance with George (afterwards Lord)
Lyttelton. Pension of £100 a year from the Prince of Wales,
about this time. [Shenstone’s The Schoolmistress appeared
this year; in its complete form in 1742.]
Agamemnon at Drury Lane, in April. A new edition of Zhe
Seasons published. -
I 739.
I74O.
I743.
I744.
I745.
I746.
I747.
I748.
I749.
I762.
I791.
3,
JAZE OA’ ZTHO//SOAV. - 2 I
Tragedy of Edward and Eleanora suppressed on account of its
political allusions. -
Preface to Milton’s Areopagitica. Conjointly with Malloch, Zhe
Masque of Alfred—performed Ist August, in Clifden gardens,
before the Prince of Wales—containing the lyric, ‘Rule,
Britannia,' by Thomson.
An August, visits the Lytteltons at Hagley, in Worcestershire.
Appointed to the sinecure office of Surveyor-General of the
Ileeward Islands, through Lyttelton’s influence. A new edition
of Z'he Seasons. [Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health
published in this year. Death of Pope.]
Zancred and Sigismuzzda at Drury Lane, with Garrick as Tancred.
TSpends part of the summer at Hagley.
Thomson makes way for his friend and deputy, Paterson, in the
office of Surveyor-General. Part of the autumn at Hagley.
Publication of the last of the author's editions of Zhe
|

f
Seasons.
Thomson at Hagley in the autumn. Visits Shenstone at the
Leasowes, probably not for the first time.
Pension of £Ioo discontinued, early £n this year. The Castle of f
Indolence, in May. Death, in his house at Richmond, on the
27th of August. Buried at Richmond. . [Collins's Ode on A.
Zhomson's Death.] - * * * ---.
Coriolanzas produced—the prologue by Lyttelton.
Monument in Westminster Abbey, between those of Shakespeare
and Rowe. -
In the autumn of this year Burns wrote his Address to the Shade
of Z'homson.
rº,
”, “ . ...,
}". ... "...vis & ! * *
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO
• THE SEASONS:
WHEN Thomson came up to London from Scotland in March
1725, he brought with him no MS. poetry of his own composi-
tion—at least none that was of sufficient value for publication.
All his published poems of any merit, including of course 7%.e.
Seasons, from beginning to end, were planned and produced in
England. What he did bring with him was a consciousness of
poetical power, a strong ambition to manifest it, and a predilec-
tion for some great and serious subject which should involve
a description of the works of nature. He had not been many
months in England when he found such a subject in Winter.
His management of this stormy theme was his warrant for the
opinion he had formed of his poetical genius, and justified the
ambition which had brought him to London. He encountered
Winter in the course of an exercise in blank verse, and—in the
words of Cowden Clarke—‘rose instantly as if on the wings of
the blast’ to his full altitude. It looked at first, indeed, as if the
subject was to have no better fate at his hands than its prede-
cessors", which had only served him for the exercise of rhyming.
In September, when he had already made some progress in the
work, he could still only speak of it as a study in blank verse,
which was amusing him, but which he might drop at any moment.
Erelong, as he was drawn into living touch with his subject, he
perceived its magnitude and capabilities; the memories of
Scottish winters rose up in dread magnificence before him ; he
* Such as the verses On a Country Zife, written before he was twenty,
and of no great interest in respect of matter or style. The subject, how-
ever, was significant.
24 GAEAVERAZ ZAVZ RO/DUCTIOAV
applied himself enthusiastically to his task, and, before his first
winter in England was well over, he had dashed off a succession
of descriptions and reflections which, when pieced together, made
up the poem of Włmżer. It is to be noted that the subject was
defined and clearly before him so early as September, 1725, and
that the title was no afterthought, and no suggestion of his friend
Malloch's. The very first draught of the poem opened with the
explicit boldness of the old epic style:
W “I sing of Winter and his gelid reign;
Nor let a rhyming insect of the Spring
Deem it a barren theme : to me 'tis full
Of manly charms, to me who court the shade,
Whom the gay Season suits not, and who shun
The glare of Summer. Welcome, kindred glooms
Drear, awful Wintry horrors, welcome all !’
Winter was published in March, 1726. It was so far imme-
diately successful, that a second edition was printed off by the end
of June. Zhe Seasons, which had not been contemplated in the
production of Wºnder, grew out of its success. In a significant
preface which was prefixed to the second edition of Włmżer, and
which may be regarded as Thomson's Defence of Poesy, he first
unfolded his scheme by announcing to the public his purpose of
describing the various appearances of nature in the other seasons
as well. When he made this announcement he had already
begun Summer, which he had selected as being the antithesis of
Winter, and by the month of August he was so far advanced as
to have three-fourths of it written. It was published in 1727.
Sãring followed in 1728; and in 1730 Autumn appeared in its
regular place in the first edition of The Seasons, where it formed,
with the final Hymn, the new feature of the completed and
collected work. ->
The Seasons, singly and collectively, passed through many
editions in their author's lifetime; and the changes he made in
the text, especially in the later editions, were very numerous.
Here he introduced, there he struck out ; this he condensed,
that he expanded ; he was never done substituting a new word or
phrase for an old one, and he carried his passion for correcting,
7 O “THE SEASON.S.’ 25
^ *
or rather for altering, so far as to shift whole passages from one
Season to another. In short, he practised upon the original text
all the methods of arithmetic—adding, subtracting, multiplying,
and distributing to an extent unknown in the practice of any
other author. Shortly before his death, he even delegated a
continuance of this kind of work to his literary executor, Lord
Lyttelton. These textual changes in The Seasons are compar-
atively few and slight down to the edition of 1738. Some idea
of the changes afterwards made in the text may be gathered
from an arithmetical comparison of the impression of that year
with the edition of 1746, the last to be issued in the author's
lifetime. In the earlier of these editions Søring consisted of
IO89 numbered lines; Summer, of I2O5; Autumn, of 1274 ;
WZºzzer, of 787; and 7%e Aymza, of 121–4476 verses in all. If
now we turn to the edition of 1746, we find the numbers to be
—for Sãring, 1176; for Summer, 1805; for Autumn, 1372;
for WZnáer, IO69; and for The Hymn, 1.18—5540 in all. The
numerical increase in the later edition is thus shown to be con-
siderably over a thousand lines. These thousand and odd lines
do not, of course, represent the total amount of new matter
incorporated with the earlier text, but the surplus of the new
matter over and above what was required to balance the matter
withdrawn. The withdrawn matter was not only of very con-
siderable amount, but was largely made up of innumerable
isolated words and phrases abstracted from every quarter of the
text. A variorum edition of 7%e Seasons would doubtless be
a boon to students of the art of Thomson, but it would demand
a Hercules to accomplish it. It would probably reveal that kind
of development of the poetic art in which refinement and repose
are gained, not without some expense of vigour and vitality.
There is sound criticism in the judgment of Johnson, who
thought that The Seasons were improved in general by the poet’s
alterations, but suspected that in the process they had lost part
of their original race or flavour. The suspicion was a shrewd
one. . The keenness, for example, of Thomson's colour-sense,
was a more pronounced feature of the original Seasons than of
the later editions. It was in deference to English taste that he
26 GAEAVERAZ / M777A2O/DOCTYOAV
t
economized his reds and yellows, and toned down those glowing
tints, a love for which he had inherited from the Scottish school
of poetry. His scotticisms too were expressive. But the loss
of raciness is chiefly seen in the substitution, for example, of so
Comparatively tame a line as—
‘Then scale the mountains to their woody tops,”
for
“Then snatch the mountains by their woody tops,’
in the description of the fox-hunt in the third Season ; or in the
exchange of ‘shook from the corn” for ‘scared from the corn” in
the hare-hunt; or by the clean withdrawal from Wºnder of
so characteristic a passage as the following :-
‘Tempted, vigorous, o'er the marble waste,
On sleds reclined, the furry Russian sits;
And, by his reindeer drawn, behind him throws
A shining kingdom in a winter’s day.”
In his choice of subject Thomson made a new departure in
English poetry of great historical importance. He introduced,
or more properly re-introduced into literature, from which they
had been banished for at least two generations, the wild pagan
graces and Savage grandeur of external nature. And this he did
with such imaginative pomp, such romantic charm, as to secure
X the permanence of a sympathetic study of nature, and the
vitality of naturalism in our literature to the present day. He
had even the honour of being followed by a school of French
writers: ‘Ce poème [Des Saisons] a €té imité chez nous par
Saint Lambert, et ne fut pas sans influence sur l'école descriptive
i de Delille.”—AVozzz'. Aiog. Gen. (1877). His choice of subject
# was deliberate, and made with full consciousness of the prevailing
1 taste, so successfully developed by Dryden and Pope, for artificial
poetry. With that taste he had little sympathy. In his preface
to the second edition of Wºzzfer he cries out for the restoration of
poetry to her ancient purity and truth : ‘Let her be inspired
| from heaven,” he exclaims ; ‘let her exchange her low, venal,
*> | trifling subjects for such as are fair, useful, and magnificent.’
He further characterizes the popular subjects as ‘the reigning
%
TO ‘THAE SAEASOAVS.’ * 27
\,
fopperies of a tasteless age”; and he goes on to declare that
‘nothing can have a better influence towards the revival of
poetry than the choosing of great and serious subjects, such as
at once amuse the fancy, enlighten the head, and warm the
heart.” “What,’ he asks, “are we commonly entertained with,
save forced unaffecting fancies, little glittering prettinesses,
mixed terms of wit and expression, which are as widely different
from native poetry as buffoonery is from the perfection of human
thinking P’ His practical suggestions for the much desiderated
restoration and revival of poetry are valuable for their signifi-
cance : ‘I know no subject more elevating, more amusing, more
ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical
reflection, and the moral sentiment, than the works of Nature. §
Where can we meet with such variety, such beauty, such
magnificence—all that enlarges and transports the soul ? What
more inspiring than a calm wide survey of them P In every
dress Nature is greatly charming, whether she puts on the crimson
robes of the morning, the strong effulgence of noon, the sober
suit of the evening, or the deep sables of blackness and tempest.
How gay looks the Spring ! how glorious the Summer how
pleasing the Autumn ! and how venerable the Winter | But
there is no thinking of these things without breaking out into
poetry.' Thomson's mind was directed to the study of º:
from the very first. Rural life and the varied scenery of the
open country as affected by the changing seasons, were the
themes even of his boyish verse. Nature was his first love, and
i
}
!
:
§
remained a passion with him to the end. It was a passion
entirely Scottish in its origin, born of the scenery of his native
Teviotdale, and fostered by the ballad poetry of the Border.
But the influence of Virgil's Georgics helped to confirm it; and;
it found encouragement in the poetry of Milton and the later;
Elizabethans, and even drew some sustenance from the arid
pastorals of Pope. If he did not invent, Thomson was the first
in England to invest with national interest that class of poetry
which Dryden, referring to Denham's Cooſer's Hill, regarded
as a variety of the epic, and for which Johnson proposed the
name , of local poetry. Local poems, that is, poems directly
i
i
}
&
§
}
!
#
#
|
X
28 GAEMERAZ ZAVTROZ) UCTION
devoted to the description of some particular region of country,
and better defined as topographical poems, had already, before
the publication of the first section of the Seasons, been written
and received with more or less favour in England. They were,
however, both few and comparatively short, and none of them
—not even the best known—can be said to have been really
popular. Of these, beginning with Coofer's Hill, published in
I642—‘the first of the new species of composition,” according to
Johnson—we have next, in 1645, following the order of publica-
tion, Z’A/Zegro and ZZ Penseroso, which may be regarded as an
idealized description, with sunlight and moonlight effects, of the
landscape around Horton; then Windsor Forest, published
in 1713; and then Garth's Claremont, published in 1715, said
to have been directly suggested by Denham's poem. Dyer’s
;
|
| Grongar Hi/Z appeared in 1726, the year of Thomson's Winter.
But Włmżer and the other Seasons are something more than
a series of topographical poems. They include an imaginative
Survey of almost every variety of landscape, under almost every
conceivable variety of weather, ranging all round the globe in
circles that widen gradually and grandly to the horizon of a
hemisphere, and again contract and close to the narrow dimen-
Sions of a Scottish dale. They are geographical rather than
topographical. Their range and scope are wide enough to
warrant the larger connotative term.
The blank verse of 7%e Seasons is Thomson's own. It is
distinct from Milton’s, with which it is most likely to be Com-
pared, yet there is now and again in its flowing and Sonorous
lines a suggestion of the statelier and more sustained music
of the great master. The highest praise of Thomson's style is
that it suits the general subject. He moves through a vast
variety of scenes with a lofty sedateness, a serene moral dignity,
which sometimes, but rarely, vergés on pomposity. With such
a style it is really remarkable how varied his verse can be, and
with what sedate ease he can make his transitions from homeli-
ness to sublimity, from humour to tenderness. He is never
at a loss for suggestive words, and is often indeed copious to
redundancy. This copiousness of language is the result of an
7"O “7 HE SEASOAVS.’ 29
A
enthusiastic love for his subject, and will be pardoned by those who
have caught from it the enthusiasm it conveys. Campbell finely
compares it to ‘the flowing vesture of the Druid.’ His diction
is not free from the conventional phrases which were the
ſº -
common stock-in-trade of the Augustan poets: upon these he is is .
s:
#:
constantly falling back when he is in a reflective, or speculative, i.
or preaching mood; but in his descriptions, especially when the ''
theme is more than usually familiar and congenial to him, he
readily finds a language which is at once natural and original,
and either picturesque or melodious, often both. Before the
publication of Wºnder the heroic couplet had for over half a
century been the fashionable verse, and had come to be regarded
as the indispensable vehicle of all serious poetry. It had been
brought to such a pitch of perfection by Pope, that at last the
younger poets, in despair at his excellence, ceased to practise it.
Of these Thomson was one, and indeed the chief. In his youth
he had exercised himself in the composition of the heroic
measure, but with extremely indifferent success. He had also
made a few trivial efforts in blank verse, with no better result.
He adopted blank verse in the composition of Winter as the
measure which best suited the nature of his subject, and which,
besides leaving his natural genius free from the restraints of
rhyme, protected him from comparison with Pope. It was with
just a touch of contempt in his tone that he took almost
complete farewell of the heroic couplet in 1725, and ventured
daringly upon a form of verse which had only once before been
used in a great way for other than dramatic purposes, and which
was probably beginning to be considered as sacred to the
epical genius of Milton : -
R
|
3.
&
“I sing of Winter and his gelid reign;
Nor let a rhyming insect of the Spring
Deem it a barren theme !’
Thomson was a great innovator : his introduction of blank
verse as a form of popular poetry in the year 1726 was no y
inconsiderable part of his innovations. Almost equally with his
choice of subject, his blank verse was a blow to the artificial
30 GENERAL INTRODUCzYow 70 : THE SEAsows’
school. He was speedily followed in his use of it by many
imitators, some of whom—notably Savage”, Somerville, and
Dyer, and such minor poets among his own Countrymen as
Malloch, Armstrong, and Michael Bruce—copied his style with
remarkable but mostly unmeritorious fidelity. His use of blank
verse for non-heroic natural Subjects was approved not only by
the popular voice, but by the influential practice of Cowper and
Wordsworth. One feature of the blank verse of 7%e Seasozzs
remains to be noted, its wonderful homogeneity. Thomson
seems to have attained his peculiar mastery of the measure at
a bound. A
* In Zhe Wanderer (1729), an anticipation of Goldsmith's ZYazeller.
7TA/AE SAEASOAVS.
SPR IN G.
COME, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come;
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veiled in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation joined
In soft assemblage, listen to my Song,
Which thy own Season paints, when Nature all
Is blooming and benevolent—like thee.
And see where surly Winter passes off
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shattered forest, and the ravished vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless, so that scarce
The bittern knows his time with bill ingulfed
To shake the sounding marsh, or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.
IO
I 5
2 O
25
32 THE SEASOAVS.
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous Sun,
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
The expansive atmosphere is Cramped with Cold,
But, full of life and vivifying soul,
Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin, 30
Fleecy, and white o'er all surrounding heaven. .
Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfined,
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.
Joyous the impatient husbandman perceives
Relenting nature, and his lusty steers º 35
Drives from their stalls to where the well-used plough
Lies in the furrow loosened from the frost.
There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark. 4o
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes the obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.
White through the neighbouring fields the Sower stalks,
With measured step, and liberal throws the grain 45
Into the faithful bosom of the ground.
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, Heaven, for now laborious man
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow;
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend ; 5o
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,
Into the perfect year. Nor, ye who live
In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,
Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear.
Such themes as these the rural Maro sung 55
To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined.
In ancient times the sacred plough employed
The kings and awful fathers of mankind;
And some, with whom compared your insect tribes 6o
Are but the beings of a summer’s day, -
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
SAER/AVG,
33
Of mighty war, then with victorious hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plough, and greatly independent lived.
Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough ;
And o'er your hills and long withdrawing vales
Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun,
Luxuriant and unbounded. As the sea,
Far through his azure turbulent domain,
Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores
Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports,
So with superior boon may your rich soil,
Exuberant, Nature’s better blessings pour
O'er every land, the naked nations clothe,
And be the exhaustless granary of a world !
Nor only through the lenient air this change
Delicious breathes: the penetrative sun,
His force deep-darting to the dark retreat
Of vegetation, sets the steaming power
At large, to wander o'er the vernant earth,
In various hues, but chiefly thee, gay green,
Thou smiling Nature’s universal robe,
United light and shade, where the sight dwells
With growing strength and ever-new delight.
From the moist meadow to the withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens to the cherished eye.
The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales;
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed
In all the colours of the flushing year
By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promised fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,
D
65
7o
75
8o
85
90
95
34 7/7Z SAEA, SOAVS.
Within its crimson folds. Now from the town I OO
Buried in Smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze
Of Sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk; IO5
Or taste the Smell of dairy; or ascend
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,
And see the country far diffused around
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms, where the raptured eye II C)
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies—
If, brushed from Russian wilds, a cutting gale
Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings
The clammy mildew ; or, dry-blowing, breathe II 5
Untimely frost, before whose baleful blast
The full-blown Spring through all her foliage shrinks,
Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.
For oft, engendered by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp I 2 O
Reen in the poisoned breeze; and wasteful eat
Through buds and bark into the blackened core
Their eager way. A feeble race, yet oft
The sacred sons of vengeance ; on whose course
Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year. I 25
To check this plague, the skilful farmer chaff
And blazing straw before his orchard burns,
Till, all involved in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls;
Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust I 30
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe;
Or, when the envenomed leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest ;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares. I 35
Be patient, Swains ; these cruel-seeming winds
SAERZAVG. 35
Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repressed
Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged with rain,
That, o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne
In endless train, would quench the summer blaze, I4O
And cheerless drown the crude unripened year.
The north-east spends his rage, and now shut up
Within his iron cave, the effusive south
Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. 145
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep
Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom, - I5o
Not such as wintry Storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life, but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm, that not a breath I55
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all, I6o
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring eye
The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off, 165
And wait the approaching sign to strike at once
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem impatient to demand
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise, I 7o
And looking lively gratitude. At last
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,
And, Softly shaking on the dimpled pool
t D 2
36 7A/AE SAEASOAVS.
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard
By such as wander through the forest walks
Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.
But who can hold the shade while heaven descends
In universal bounty, shedding herbs
And fruits and flowers on Nature's ample lap 2
Swift fancy fired anticipates their growth,
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds
Indulge their genial stores, and well-showered earth
Is deep enriched with vegetable life;
Till, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out effulgent from amid the flush
Of broken clouds gay-shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
The illumined mountain ; through the forest streams;
Shakes on the floods; and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er the interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,
Mixed in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence blending all the Sweetened zephyr springs.
Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense, and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the Sun, thy showery prism :
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclosed
I75
I 8o
185
I 9o
195
2 O'C,
2O5
*…
2 Io
SPRING.
37
From the white mingling maze. Not so the swain:
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend
Delightful o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amazed
Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,
A softened shade ; and saturated earth
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,
Raised through ten thousand different plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.
Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanist to number up their tribes,
Whether he steals along the lonely dale
In silent search ; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Bursts his blind way ; or climbs the mountain-rock,
Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow :
With such a liberal hand has Nature flung
Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.
But who their virtues can declare P who pierce
With vision pure into these secret stores
Of life, and health, and joyf the food of man
While yet he lived in innocence, and told
A length of golden years, unfleshed in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease, .
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.
The first fresh dawn then waked the gladdened race
Of uncorrupted man, nor blushed to see
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam ;
For their light slumbers gently fumed away,
And up they rose as vigorous as the Sun,
. Or to the culture of the willing glebe,
Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.
22 O
23O
235
24o
245
38 THAE SAEASOAVS.
Meantime the song went round; and dance and Sport,
Wisdom and friendly talk, successive stole
Their hours away; while in the rosy vale 25o
Love breathed his infant sighs, from anguish free,
And full replete with bliss, save the sweet pain,
That, inly thrilling, but exalts it more.
Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,
Was known among those happy Sons of heaven; 255
|For reason and benevolence were law.
Harmonious Nature too looked smiling on.
Clear shone the skies, cooled with eternal gales,
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun
Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds 26o
Dropped fatness down, as o'er the swelling mead
The herds and flocks commixing played secure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meekened, and he joined his sullen joy, 265
For music held the whole in perfect peace :
Soft sighed the flute; the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart ; the woodlands round
Applied their quire ; and winds and waters flowed
In consonance. Such were those prime of days. 27o
But now those white unblemished minutes, whence
The fabling poets took their golden age,
Are found no more amid these iron times,
These dregs of life . Now the distempered mind
Has lost that concord of harmonious powers, 275
Which forms the soul of happiness; and all \
Is off the poise within : the passions all
Have burst their bounds; and reason half extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, sees
The foul disorder. Senseless and deformed, 28o
Convulsive anger storms at large; or, pale
And silent, settles into fell revenge.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
SARZAVG. 39
Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full, 285
Weak and unmanly, loosens every power.
Even love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart ;
Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more
That noble wish, that never-cloyed desire, 29O
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
Hope sickens with extravagance; and grief,
Of life impatient, into madness swells,
Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours. 295
These, and a thousand mixed emotions more,
From ever-changing views of good and ill
Formed infinitely various, vex the mind
With endless storm ; whence, deeply rankling, grows
The partial thought, a listless unconcern 3oo
Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good,
Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles,
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence.
At last, extinct each social feeling, fell
And joyless inhumanity pervades 305
And petrifies the heart. Nature disturbed ^,
Is deemed vindictive to have changed her course.
Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came ;
When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arched
The Central waters round, impetuous rushed 3 Io
With universal burst into the gulf,
And o'er the high-piled hills of fractured earth
Wide dashed the waves in undulation vast,
Till from the centre to the streaming clouds
A-shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe. 3 I5
The Seasons since have with severer sway
Oppressed a broken world ; the Winter keen
Shook forth his waste of snows, and Summer shot
His pestilential heats. Great Spring before
Greened all the year; and fruits and blossoms blushed 320
In Social Sweetness on the self-same bough.
4o THE SAEA.S.O.M.S.
Pure was the temperate air ; an even calm
Perpetual reigned, save what the zephyrs bland
Breathed o'er the blue expanse; for then nor Storms
Were taught to blow nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound slept the waters ; no sulphureous glooms
Swelled in the sky, and sent the lightning forth ;
While sickly damps and cold autumnal fogs
Hung not, relaxing, on the springs of life.
But now, of turbid elements the sport,
From clear to cloudy tossed, from hot to cold,
And dry to moist, with inward-eating change,
Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought,
Their period finished ere 'tis well begun.
And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies ;
Though with the pure exhilarating soul ,
Of nutriment, and health, and vital powers,
Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious blest.
For, with hot ravin fired, ensanguined man
Is now become the lion of the plain,
And worse. The wolf, who from the nightly fold
Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her milk,
Nor wore her warming fleece; nor has the steer,
At whose strong chest the deadly tiger hangs,
E’er ploughed for him. They too are tempered high,
With hunger stung and wild necessity ;
Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.
But man, whom Nature formed of milder clay,
With every kind emotion in his heart,
And taught alone to weep—while from her lap
She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain
Or beams that gave them birth—shall he, fair form
Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on heaven,
E’er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd,
And dip his tongue in gore ? The beast of prey,
Blood-stained, deserves to bleed; but you, ye flocks,
What have ye done 2 ye peaceful people, what,
3.25
3
3
Q
3.35
355
SAR/WG.
4 I
To merit death P you, who have given us milk
In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat
Against the Winter's cold P And the plain ox,
That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
In what has he offended ? he, whose toil,
Patient and ever-ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest—shall he bleed,
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands
Even of the clowns he feeds F and that, perhaps,
To swell the riot of the autumnal feast
Won by his labour. Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly suggest; but ’tis enough
In this late age adventurous to have touched
Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.
High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous strain,
Whose wisest will has fixed us in a state
That must not yet to pure perfection rise :
Besides, who knows how, raised to higher life,
From stage to stage the vital scale ascends P
Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks,
Swelled with the vernal rains, is ebbed away,
And whitening down their mossy-tinctured stream
Descends the billowy foam—now is the time,
While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly,
The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring,
Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line,
And all thy slender watery stores prepare.
But let not on thy hook the tortured worm
Convulsive twist in agonizing folds;
Which, by rapacious hunger swallowed deep,
Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast
Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch,
Harsh , pain and horror to the tender hand.
When with his lively ray the potent sun
Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny race,
360
3
7
5
38o
42 THE SEASON.S.
Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair; 395
Chief should the western breezes curling play,
And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds.
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks;
The next, pursue their rocky-channelled maze 4oo
Down to the river, in whose ample wave
Their little naiads love to sport at large.
Just in the dubious point where with the pool
Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollowed bank 405
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly;
And, as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood 4 IO
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook,+
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some,
With various hand proportioned to their force. 4 I 5
If yet too young, and easily deceived,
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth and the short space
He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream 42O
The speckled infant throw. But should you lure
From his dark haunt beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees the monarch of the brook,
Behoves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly; 425
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.
At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death
With sullen plunge. At once he darts along, 43O
Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthened line:
SAERAAVG. 43
Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The caverned bank, his old secure abode ;
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand, 435
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
Gives way, you, now retiring, following now
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage;
Till, floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandoned, to the shore 440
You gaily drag your unresisting prize.
Thus pass the temperate hours; but when the sun
Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattering clouds,
Even shooting listless languor through the deeps,
Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd, 445
Where scattered wild the lily of the vale
Its balmy essence breathes, where cowslips hang
The dewy head, where purple violets lurk
With all the lowly children of the shade ;
Or lie reclined beneath yon spreading ash 45o
Hung o'er the steep, whence borne on liquid wing
The sounding culver shoots ; or where the hawk
High in the beetling cliff his eyry builds.
There let the classic page thy fancy lead
Through rural scenes, such as the Mantuan Swain 455
Paints in the matchless harmony of song ;
Or catch thyself the landscape, gliding swift
Athwart imagination’s vivid eye ;
Or, by the vocal woods and waters lulled,
And lost in lonely musing, in a dream 460
Confused of careless solitude, where mix
Ten thousand wandering images of things,
Soothe every gust of passion into peace—
All but the swellings of the softened heart,
That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind. 465
Behold, yon breathing prospect bids the muse
44 7 HE SEASOAVS. I
Throw all her beauty forth. But who can paint
Like Nature ? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers ?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, 47 O
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows P If fancy then,
Unequal, fails beneath the pleasing task,
Ah what shall language do P ah, where find words
Tinged with so many colours, and whose power, 475
To life approaching, may perfume my lays
With that fine oil, those aromatic gales,
That inexhaustive flow continual round P
Yet, though successless, will the toil delight. t
Come then, ye virgins and ye youths whose hearts 48o
Have felt the raptures of refining love
And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song !
Formed by the Graces, loveliness itself!
Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet,
Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul, 485
Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mixed,
, Shines lively fancy, and the feeling heart—
O come ! and while the rosy-footed May
Steals blushing on, together let us tread
The morning dews, and gather in their prime 490
Fresh-blooming flowers to grace thy braided hair,
And thy loved bosom that improves their sweets.
See where the winding vale its lavish stores,
Irriguous, spreads. See how the lily drinks
The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass 495
Of growth luxuriant ; or the humid bank,
In fair profusion, decks. Long let us walk
Where the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossomed beans. Arabia cannot boast
A fuller gale of joy than liberal thence , 5oo
Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished soul.
Nor is the mead unworthy of thy foot,
Full of fresh verdure, and unnumbered flowers,
SAER/AWG.
45
The negligence of Nature, wide and wild;
Where, undisguised by mimic Art, she spreads
Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.
Here their delicious task the fervent bees
In swarming millions tend ; around, athwart,
Through the soft air the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and with inserted tube
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul;
And oft with bolder wing they soaring dare
The purple heath, or where the wild-thyme grows,
And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.
At length the finished garden to the view
Its vistas opens, and its alleys green.
Snatched through the verdant maze, the hurried eye
Distracted wanders; now the bowery walk
Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day
Falls on the lengthened gloom, protracted sweeps ;
Now meets the bending sky; the river now,
Dimpling along, the breezy-ruffled lake,
The forest darkening round, the glittering spire,
The ethereal mountain, and the distant main.
But why so far excursive P when at hand,
Along these blushing borders bright with dew,
And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers,
Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace;
Throws out the Snowdrop and the crocus first,
The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue,
And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes,
The yellow wallflower, stained with iron brown,
And lavish stock that scents the garden round;
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
Anemones; auriculas, enriched
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves;
And full ranunculus of glowing red.
Then comes the tulip race, where beauty plays
Her idle freaks : from family diffused
To family, as flies the father-dust,
505
5 IO
5 I5
52O
53 o
5
3
5
54O
46 ^ | THE SEASON.S.
The varied colours run ; and, while they break
On the charmed eye, the exulting florist marks
With secret pride the wonders of his hand.
No gradual bloom is wanting, from the bud
First-born of Spring to Summer's musky tribes; 5.45
Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin white,
Low-bent, and blushing inward; nor jonquils,
Of potent fragrance; nor narcissus fair,
As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still ;
Nor broad carnations; nor gay-spotted pinks; 55o
Nor, showered from every bush, the damask-rose :
Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells,
With hues on hues expression cannot paint,
The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom
Hail, Source of Being Universal Soul 555
Of heaven and earth, Essential Presence, hail
To Thee I bend the knee; to Thee my thoughts
Continual climb; who, with a master-hand,
Hast the great whole into perfection touched.
By Thee the various vegetative tribes, 56o
Wrapt in a filmy net, and clad with leaves,
Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew.
By Thee disposed into congenial soils
Stands each attractive plant, and sucks and swells
The juicy tide—a twining mass of tubes. 565
At Thy command the vernal sun awakes
The torpid sap, detruded to the root
By wintry winds, that now in fluent dance
And lively fermentation, mounting, spreads
All this innumerous-coloured scene of things. - 57 o
As rising from the vegetable world
My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend,
My panting muse; and hark, how loud the woods
Invite you forth in all your gayest trim.
Lend me your song, ye nightingales; oh pour 575
SAER/AWG.
47
The mazy-running soul of melody
Into my varied verse; while I deduce,
From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings,
The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme
|Unknown to fame—the passion of the groves.
When first the soul of love is sent abroad
Warm through the vital air, and on the heart
Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin
In gallant thought to plume the painted wing ;
And try again the long-forgotten strain,
At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows
The soft infusion prevalent and wide,
Than, all alive, at once their joy o’erflows
In music unconfined. Up Springs the lark,
Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn :
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush
And woodlark, o'er the kind-contending throng
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day.
The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake;
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove;
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze
Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these,
Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade
Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone,
Aid the full concert; while the stockdove breathes
A melancholy murmur through the whole.
58o
585
590
595
6oo
605
6 Io
48 7TP/A2 SAEASOAVS,
'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love ;
That even to birds and beasts the tender arts 615
Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around,
With distant awe, in airy rings they rove, 62o
Endeavouring by a thousand tricks to catch
The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance
Of their regardless charmer. Should she seem,
Softening, the least approvance to bestow,
Their colours burnish, and, by hope inspired, 625
They brisk advance ; then, on a sudden struck,
Retire disordered ; then again approach ;
In fond rotation spread the spotted wing,
And shiver every feather with desire.
Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods 630
They haste away, all as their fancy leads,
Pleasure, or food, or Secret safety prompts;
That Nature’s great command may be obeyed,
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive
Indulged in vain. Some to the holly-hedge 635
Nestling repair, and to the thicket some ;
Some to the rude protection of the thorn
Commit their feeble offspring. The cleft tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,
Their food its insects, and its moss their nests. 64o
Others, apart, far in the grassy dale
Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave.
But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks,
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook, 645
Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long day,
When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots
Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream,
They frame the first foundation of their domes,
SAERYAVG.
49
Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,
And bound with clay together. Now ’tis nought
But restless hurry through the busy air,
Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps
The slimy pool, to build his hanging house
Intent. And often, from the careless back
Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills
Pluck hair and wool ; and oft, when unobserved,
Steal from the barn a straw; till soft and warm,
Clean and complete their habitation grows.
As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task
Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight,
Though the whole loosened Spring around her blows,
Her sympathizing lover takes his stand
High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings
The tedious time away; or else supplies
Her place a moment, while she sudden flits
To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time
With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young,
Warmed and expanded into perfect life,
Their brittle bondage break, and come to light,
A helpless family, demanding food
With constant clamour. O what passions then,
What melting sentiments of kindly care,
On the new parents seize Away they fly,
Affectionate, and undesiring bear
The most delicious morsel to their young ;
Which equally distributed, again
The search begins. Even so a gentle pair,
By fortune sunk, but formed of generous mould,
And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar breast,
In some lone cot amid the distant woods,
Sustained alone by providential Heaven,
Oft, as they weeping eye their infant train,
Check their own appetites and give them all.
Nor toil alone they scorn : exalting love,
E
65o
655
66o
665
67o
675
68o
685
5o - Z}/A2 SAEASOAV.S.
By the great Father of the Spring inspired,
Gives instant courage to the fearful race,
And to the simple art. With stealthy wing,
Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest, 690
Amid a neighbouring bush they silent drop,
And whirring thence, as if alarmed, deceive
The unfeeling school-boy. Hence, around the head
Of wandering swain, the white-winged plover wheels
Her sounding flight, and then directly on 695
In long excursion skims the level lawn
To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence,
O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste
The heath-hen flutters, pious fraud to lead
The hot pursuing spaniel far astray. 7 oo
Be not the muse ashamed, here to bemoan
Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man
Inhuman Čaught, and in the narrow cage
From liberty confined and boundless air.
Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull, 7 OS
Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost;
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes,
Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech.
Oh then, ye friends of love and love-taught song,
Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous act forbear ! 7 IO
If on your bosom innocence can win,
Music engage, or piety persuade.
But let not chief the nightingale lament
Her ruined care, too delicately framed
To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. 7 I 5
Oft when, returning with her loaded bill,
The astonished mother finds a vacant nest,
By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns
Robbed, to the ground the vain provision falls;
Her pinions ruffle, and, low-drooping, Scarce 720
Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade,-
Where, all abandoned to despair, she sings
Her sorrows through the night, and, on the bough
SARZAVG. 5 I
Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain 725
Of winding woe, till wide around the woods
Sigh to her song and with her wail resound.
But now the feathered youth their former bounds,
Ardent, disdain; and, weighing oft their wings,
Demand the free possession of the sky. 730
This one glad office more, and then dissolves
Parental love at once, now needless grown :
Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain.
'Tis on Some evening, sunny, grateful, mild,
When nought but balm is breathing through the woods, 735
With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes
Visit the spacious heavens, and look abroad
On nature's common, far as they can see
Or wing, their range and pasture. O'er the boughs
Dancing about, still at the giddy verge 74o
Their resolution fails; their pinions still,
In loose libration stretched, to trust the void
Trembling refuse ; till down before them fly
The parent-guides, and chide, exhort, command,
Or push them off. The surging air receives 745
The plumy burden ; and their self-taught wings
Winnow the waving element. On ground
Alighted, bolder up again they lead,
Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight;
Till, vanished every fear, and every power 75o
Roused into life and action, light in air
The acquitted parents see their soaring race,
And, once rejoicing, never know them more.
High from the summit of a craggy cliff -
Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns 755
On utmost Kilda’s shore, whose lonely race
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young,
Strong-pounced, and ardent with paternal fire.
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own, 76o
- E 2
52 7 H.A. SEASOAVS.
He drives them from his fort, the towering seat
For ages of his empire; which, in peace,
Unstained he holds, while many as league to sea
He wings his course, and preys in distant isles.
Should I my steps turn to the rural seat 765
Whose lofty elms and venerable oaks
Invite the rook, who high amid the boughs,
In early Spring, his airy city builds,
And ceaseless caws amusive ; there, well-pleased,
I might the various polity survey 77o
Of the mixed household kind. The careful hen
Calls all her chirping family around,
Fed and defended by the fearless cock;
Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks
Graceful, and Crows defiance. In the pond 775
The finely-checkered duck before her train
Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing Swan
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle, 78o
Protective of his young. The turkey nigh,
Loud-threatening, reddens ; while the peacock spreads
His every-coloured glory to the sun,
And Swims in radiant majesty along.
O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove 785
Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls
The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck.
While thus the gentle tenants of the shade
Indulge their purer loves, the rougher world
Of brutes, below, rush furious into flame 790
And fierce desire. Through all his lusty veins -
The bull, deep-scorched, the raging passion feels.
Of pasture sick, and negligent of food,
Scarce seen he wades among the yellow broom,
While o'er his ample sides the rambling sprays 795
Luxuriant shoot ; or through the mazy wood
Dejected wanders, nor the enticing bud
.S.A’RAAVG.
53
Crops, though it presses on his careless sense.
And oft, with jealous maddening fancy rapt,
He seeks the fight ; and, idly-butting, feigns
His rival gored in every knotty trunk.
Him should he meet, the bellowing war begins:
Their eyes flash fury; to the hollowed earth,
Whence the sand flies, they mutter bloody deeds,
And groaning deep the impetuous battle mix;
While the fair heifer, balmy-breathing near,
Stands kindling up their rage. The trembling steed,
With this hot impulse seized in every nerve,
Nor heeds the rein, nor hears the sounding thong ;
Blows are not felt ; but, tossing high his head,
And by the well-known joy to distant plains
Attracted strong, all wild he bursts away;
O'er rocks, and woods, and Craggy mountains flies;
And neighing, on the aérial summit takes
The exciting gale ; then, deep-descending, cleaves
The headlong torrents foaming down the hills,
Even where the madness of the straitened stream
Turns in black eddies round : such is the force
With which his frantic heart and sinews swell.
Nor undelighted by the boundless Spring
Are the broad monsters of the foaming deep :
From the deep ooze and gelid cavern roused,
They flounce and tumble in unwieldy joy.
Dire were the strain and dissonant, to sing
The cruel raptures of the Savage kind;
How, by this flame their native wrath Sublimed,
They roam, amid the fury of their heart,
The far-resounding waste in fiercer bands,
And growl their horrid loves. But this the theme
I sing, enraptured, to the British fair
Forbids; and leads me to the mountain-brow,
Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf,
Inhaling healthful the descending Sun.
Around him feeds his many-bleating flock,
8oo
8 Io
8I 5
82 o
825
83o
54 7THE SEASOAVS.
Of various cadence; and his sportive lambs, 835
This way and that convolved, in friskful glee
Their frolics play. And now the sprightly race
Invites them forth ; when swift, the signal given,
They start away, and sweep the massy mound
That runs around the hill—the rampart Qnce 84o
Of iron war, in ancient barbarous times,
When disunited Britain ever bled,
Lost in eternal broil; ere yet she grew
To this deep-laid indissoluble state,
Where wealth and commerce lift their golden heads, 845
And o'er our labours liberty and law
Impartial watch—the wonder of a world !
What is this mighty breath, ye curious, say,
That in a powerful language, felt not heard,
Instructs the fowls of heaven, and through their breast
These arts of love diffuses P What but God 85 I
Inspiring God who, boundless spirit all,
And unremitting energy, pervades,
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole.
He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone 855
Seems not to work; with such perfection framed
Is this complex stupendous scheme of things.
But, though concealed, to every purer eye
The informing Author in his works appears :
Chief, lovely Spring, in thee and thy soft scenes 86o
The smiling God is seen; while water, earth,
And air attest his bounty—which exalts
The brute creation to this finer thought,
And annual melts their undesigning hearts
Profusely thus in tenderness and joy. 865
Still let my song a nobler note assume,
And sing the infusive force of Spring on man ;
When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie
To raise his being, and serene his soul.
Can he forbear to join the general smile - 87o
SAR/AWG.
55
Of Nature ? Can fierce passions vex his breast,
While every gale is peace, and every grove
Is melody ? Hence from the bounteous walks
Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth,
Hard, and unfeeling of another’s woe, -
Or only lavish to yourselves ; away !
But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought,
Of all his works, creative Bounty burns
With warmest beam, and, on your open front
And liberal eye, sits, from his dark retreat
Inviting modest want. Nor till invoked
Can restless goodness wait : your active search
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored;
Like Silent-working heaven, surprising oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good.
For you the roving spirit of the wind
Blows Spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world;
And the sun sheds his kindest rays for you,
Ye flower of human race . In these green days
Reviving sickness lifts her languid head ;
Life flows afresh ; and young-eyed health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Pure serenity apace
Induces thought and contemplation still.
By swift degrees the love of nature works,
And warms the bosom ; till at last, sublimed
To rapture and enthusiastic heat,
We feel the present Deity, and taste
The joy of God to see a happy world.
These are the sacred feelings of thy heart,
Thy heart informed by reason’s purer ray,
O Lyttelton, the friendſ thy passions thus
And meditations vary, as at large,
Courting the muse, through Hagley-park you stray—
875
88o
885
890
895
9 Oo
905
56 THE SAEASOAVS.
Thy British Tempè . There along the dale
With woods o'er-hung, and shagged with mossy rocks, .
Whence on each hand the gushing waters play, 9 Io
And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall,
Or gleam in lengthened vista through the trees,
You silent steal ; or sit beneath the shade
Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts
Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand, 9 I5
And pensive listen to the various voice
Of rural peace—the herds, the flocks, the birds,
The hollow-whispering breeze, the plaint of rills
That, purling down amid the twisted roots
Which creep around, their dewy murmurs shake 92 O
On the soothed ear. From these abstracted oft
You wander through the philosophic world,
Where in bright train continual wonders rise
Or to the curious or the pious eye.
And oft, conducted by historic truth, * 9.25
You tread the long extent of backward time,
Planning with warm benevolence of mind
And honest zeal, unwarped by party-rage,
Britannia's weal,—how from the venal gulf
To raise her virtue, and her arts revive. . - 93C
Or, turning thence thy view, these graver thoughts
The muses charm, while with sure taste refined
You draw the inspiring breath of ancient song,
Till nobly rises emulous thy own.
Perhaps thy loved Lucinda shares thy walk, 935
With soul to thine attuned. Then Nature all
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love ;
And all the tumult of a guilty world,
Tossed by ungenerous passions, sinks away.
The tender heart is animated peace, 94o
And, as it pours its copious treasures forth
In varied converse, Softening every theme,
You frequent-pausing turn, and from her eyes,
Where meekened sense and amiable grace
SAA’ ZAVG.
57
And lively sweetness dwell, enraptured drink
That nameless spirit of ethereal joy,
Inimitable happiness which love
Alone bestows, and on a favoured few.
Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow
The bursting prospect spreads immense around ;
And, snatched o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn,
And verdant field, and darkening heath between,
And villages embosomed soft in trees,
And spiry towns by surging columns marked
Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams,
Wide-stretching from the hall, in whose kind haunt
The hospitable genius lingers still, -
To where the broken landscape, by degrees
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills
O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.
Flushed by the spirit of the genial year, "
Now from the virgin’s cheek a fresher bloom
Shoots less and less the live carnation round ;
Her lips blush deeper sweets; she breathes of youth ;
The shining moisture swells into her eyes
In brighter flow; her wishing bosom heaves
With palpitations wild; kind tumults seize
Her veins, and all her yielding soul is love.
From the keen gaze her lover turns away,
Full of the dear ecstatic power, and sick
With sighing languishment. Ah then, ye fair
Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts;
Dare not the infectious sigh, the pleading look
Downcast and low, in meek Submission dressed,
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation smooth,
Gain on your purposed will. Nor in the bower,
Where woodbines flaunt and roses shed a couch,
While evening draws her crimson curtains round,
Trust your soft minutes with betraying man.
945
95o
955
96o
965
97 o
975
98o
58 THE SEASOAVS.
And let the aspiring youth beware of love,
Of the smooth glance beware; for 'tis too late
When on his heart the torrent softness pours.
Then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame 985
Dissolves in air away; while the fond soul,
Wrapt in gay visions of unreal bliss,
Still paints the illusive form, the kindling grace,
The enticing Smile, the modest-seeming eye,
Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying heaven, 990
Lurk Searchless cunning, cruelty, and death :
And still, false-warbling in his cheated ear,
Her syren voice, enchanting, draws him on
To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.
Even present, in the very lap of love 995
Inglorious laid, while music flows around,
Perfumes, and oils, and wines, and wanton hours,
Amid the roses fierce repentance rears
Her Snaky Crest ; a quick-returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart, where honour still I ooo
And great design against the oppressive load
Of luxury by fits impatient heave.
But absent, what fantastic woes aroused
Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed,
Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life Ioos
Neglected fortune flies; and, sliding swift,
Prone into ruin fall his scorned affairs.
'Tis nought but gloom around. The darkened Sun
Loses his light. The rosy-bosomed Spring
To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch I O IO
Contracted bends into a dusky vault.
All nature fades extinct; and she alone
Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought,
Fills every sense, and pants in every vein. * -
Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends; IOI 5
And sad amid the social band he sits *
Lonely and inattentive. From the tongue
The unfinished period falls; while, borne away
SAER/AWG.
59
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bosom of his distant fair,
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fixed
In melancholy site, with head declined
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimmering shades and sympathetic glooms,
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream
Romantic hangs; there through the pensive dusk
Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost,
Indulging all to love; or on the bank
Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze
With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears.
Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day;
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the moon
Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy east,
Enlightened by degrees, and in her train
Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam,
With softened soul, and woos the bird of eve
To mingle woes with his ; or, while the world
And all the sons of care lie hushed in sleep,
Associates with the midnight shadows drear,
And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours -
His idly-tortured heart into the page
Meant for the moving messenger of love—
Where rapture burns on rapture, every line
With rising frenzy fired. But if on bed
Delirious flung, sleep from his pillow flies.
All night he tosses, nor the balmy power
In any posture finds; till the grey morn
Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch,
Exanimate by love; and then perhaps
Exhausted nature sinks a while to rest,
Still interrupted by distracted dreams,
That o'er the sick imagination rise,
And in black colours paint the mimic scene.
I O2 O
Io 25
Io 3o
: IO4O
IO45
I OSO
IC 55
6o * ZTA/A2 SAEASOAVS.
Oft with the enchantress of his soul he talks ;
Sometimes in crowds distressed ; or, if retired
To secret-winding flower-enwoven bowers
Far from the dull impertinence of man,
Just as he, Credulous, his endless cares 1 oéo
Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,
Snatched from her yielded hand, he knows not how,
Through forest huge, and long untravelled heaths
With desolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempest wrapt ; or shrinks aghast I of 5
Back from the bending precipice ; or wades
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach
The farther shore, where succourless and sad
She with extended arms his aid implores,
But strives in vain : borne by the outrageous flood Io'70
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelmed beneath the boiling eddy sinks.
These are the charming agonies of love,
Whose misery delights. But through the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse, Io'75
'Tis then delightful misery no more,
But, agony unmixed, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy, IoSo
Farewell ! Ye gleamings of departed peace,
Shine out your last ! The yellow-tingeing plague
Internal vision taints, and in a night
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.
Ah then, instead of love-enlivened cheeks, Io85
Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed,
Suffused and glaring with untender fire,
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek, -
Where the whole poisoned soul malignant sits Io9'O
And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
SPR/AVG. 6 I
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish, and consuming rage. Io95
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride, and resolution frail,
Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours
Afresh her beauties on his busy thought,
Her first endearments twining round the soul I IOO
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.
Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew,
Flames through the nerves, and boils along the veins;
While anxious doubt distracts the tortured heart,
For even the sad assurance of his fears - I IO 5
Were peace to what he feels. Thus the warm youth,
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds
Through flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life
Of fevered rapture or of cruel care,
His brightest. flames extinguished all, and all II IO
His lively moments running down to waste.
But happy they, the happiest of their kind
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws, I I I 5
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love ;
Where friendship full-exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem enlivened by desire I T 2 O
Ineffable, and sympathy of Soul ;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence,—for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss Secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent I 125
To bless himself, from Sordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, consume his nights and days;
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
62 7HA. SEASOAVS.
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel ; II 30
Let eastern tyrants from the light of heaven
Seclude their bosom slaves, meanly possessed
Of a mere lifeless violated form :
While those, whom love cements in holy faith
And equal transport, free as Nature live, II 35
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them, -
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all,
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;
Something than beauty dearer, should they look II 4 O
Or on the mind, or mind-illumined face—
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees II 45
The human blossom blows, and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care. II 50
Delightful taskſ to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast. II 55
Oh speak the joy ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often while you look around
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various Nature pressing on the heart ;
An elegant sufficiency, content, II 6o
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love,
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus, II 65
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
SAEAE ZAVG.
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild ;
*When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamoured more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.
I 17 o
I 75
END OF SPRING.
STU M M ER.
FROM brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth !
He comes, attended by the sultry hours
And ever-fanning breezes on his way ;
While from his ardent look the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face, and earth and skies
All-smiling to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence let me haste into the mid-wood shade
Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the gloom,
And on the dark green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Inspiration from thy hermit seat,
By mortal seldom found : may Fancy dare,
From thy fixed serious eye, and raptured glance
Shot on surrounding Heaven, to steal one look
Creative of the poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstasy of Soul |
And thou, my youthful muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite—
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart,
Genius and wisdom, the gay social sense
By decency chastised, goodness and wit
‘In Seldom-meeting harmony combined,
F
IO
I5
2O
25
66 7A/AE SAEA,SOAVS.
Unblemished honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and man—
O Dodington attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launched along
The illimitable void thus to remain—
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men
And all their laboured monuments away—
Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course;
To the kind-tempered change of night and day
And of the Seasons ever stealing round
Minutely faithful: such the all-perfect Hand
That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole.
When now no more the alternate Twins are fired,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east ;
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow,
And from before the lustre of her face
White break the clouds away. With quickened step
Brown night retires. Young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain’s misty top
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps awkward; while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes,
3o
4O
45
50
55
6o
SUMMAEA’. ‘’’
67
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells ;
And from the crowded fold in order drives
His flock to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song P :
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise 2
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life,
Total extinction of the enlightened soul .
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves, when every muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without
To bless the wildly-devious morning-walk?
But yonder comes the powerful king of day
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth and coloured air
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,
And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
65
7 o
75
8o
85
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light !
Of all material beings first and best ;
Efflux divine; nature's resplendent robe,
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom ' and thou, O Sun
Soul of surrounding worlds, in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker, may I sing of thee!
'Tis by thy secret strong attractive force,
90
95
, F 2
68 7'HA, SAEASOAVS.
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire, from the far bourn
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round I OO
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can Scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
Informer of the planetary train,
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs Ios
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not as now the green abodes of life—
How many forms of being wait on thee
Inhaling spirit, from the unfettered mind,
By thee sublimed, down to the daily race, I IO
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.
The vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of Seasons ! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic-road, II 5
In world-rejoicing state it moves sublime. *,
. Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up
A common hymn ; while round thy beaming car I 2 O
High-seen the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered hours,
The zephyrs floating loose, the timely rains,
Of bloom ethereal the light-footed dews,
And, softened into joy, the surly storms. I 25
These in successive turn with lavish hand
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,
From land to land is flushed the vernal year.
Nor to the surface of enlivened earth, I 3 O
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods—
Her liberal tresses—is thy force confined ;
But, to the bowelled cavern darting deep,
The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.
SO/////A2/8.
Effulgent hence the veiny marble shines;
Hence labour draws his tools; hence burnished war
Gleams on the day; the nobler works of peace
Hence bless mankind; and generous commerce binds
The round of nations in a golden chain.
The unfruitful rock itself, impregned by thee,
In dark retirement forms the lucid stone.
The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light compact! that, polished bright,
And all its native lustre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair one’s breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
At thee the ruby lights its deepening glow,
And with a waving radiance inward flames.
From thee the Sapphire, solid ether, takes
Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct,
The purple-streaming amethyst is thine.
With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns;
Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring
When first she gives it to the southern gale
Than the green emerald shows. But, all combined,
Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams;
Or, flying several from its surface, form
A trembling variance of revolving hues
As the site varies in the gazer's hand.
The very dead creation from thy touch
Assumes a mimic life. By thee refined,
In brighter mazes the relucent stream
Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt,
Projecting horror on the blackened flood,
Softens at thy return. The desert joys
Wildly through all his melancholy bounds.
Rude ruins glitter; and the briny deep,
Seen from some pointed promontory's top,
Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge
Restless reflects a floating gleam. But this,
And all the much-transported muse can sing,
I 4O
I 45
I 50
- I 6o.
I65
I 7o
7o 7TH/A2 SAEASOAVS.
Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use,
Unequal far, great delegated source
Of light, and life, and grace, and joy below !
How shall I then attempt to sing of Him, I75
Who, Light Himself, in uncreated light
Invested deep, dwells awfully retired
From mortal eye orangels' purer ken?
Whose single smile has, from the first of time,
Filled overflowing all those lamps of heaven, J 8o
That beam for ever through the boundless sky:
But, should He hide His face, the astonished sun,
And all the extinguished Stars, would loosening reel
Wide from their spheres, and chaos come again.
And yet was every faltering tongue of man, 185
Almighty Father silent in Thy praise,
Thy works themselves would raise a general voice;
Even in the depth of solitary woods,
By human foot untrod, proclaim Thy power;
And, to the quire celestial, Thee resound, I 9o
The eternal cause, support, and end of all !
To me be Nature’s volume broad-displayed ;
And to peruse its all-instructing page,
Or, haply catching inspiration thence,
Some easy passage raptured to translate, I95
My sole delight, —as through the falling glooms
Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn
On fancy's eagle-wing excursive soar.
Now flaming up the heavens, the potent sun
Melts into limpid air the high-raised clouds - 2 OC)
And morning fogs that hovered round the hills
In party-coloured bands, till wide unveiled
The face of Nature shines, from where earth seems,
Far-stretched around, to meet the bending sphere.
Half in a blush of clustering roses lost, 205
Dew-dropping Coolness. to the shade retires, -
There, on the verdant turf or flowery bed,
SUMMAEA’. . 71
By gelid founts and careless rills to muse;
While tyrant Heat, dispreading through the sky
With rapid sway, his burning influence darts - 2 Io
On man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream.
Who can unpitying see the flowery race,
Shed by the morn, their new-flushed bloom resign
Before the parching beam P. So fade the fair
When fevers revel through their azure veins. 2 I 5
But one, the lofty follower of the sun,
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night; and, when he warm returns,
Points her enamoured bosom to his ray.
Home from his morning task the swain retreats, 220.
His flock before him stepping to the fold;
While the full-uddered mother lows around
The cheerful cottage, then expecting food,
The food of innocence and health. The daw,
The rook, and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks 225
That the calm village in their verdant arms
Sheltering embrace, direct their lazy flight;
Where on the mingling boughs they sit embowered
All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise.
Faint underneath the household fowls convene ; 23o
And in a corner of the buzzing shade
The housedog, with the vacant greyhound, lies
Out-stretched and sleepy. In his slumbers one
Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults -
O'er hill and dale; till, wakened by the wasp, 235
They starting Snap. Nor shall the muse disdain
To let the little noisy summer-race
Live in her lay and flutter through her song ;
Not mean though simple,_to the sun allied,
From him they draw their animating fire. 24o
Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young
Come winged abroad; by the light air upborne,
Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink
And secret corner, where they slept away
72 THAE SAEA,SOAV.S.
The wintry storms, or rising from their tombs 245
To higher life, by myriads forth at once -
Swarming they pour, of all the varied hues
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.
, Ten thousand forms, ten thousand different tribes
People the blaze. To sunny waters some 25o
By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool
They sportive wheel, or sailing down the stream
Are Snatched immediate by the quick-eyed trout
Or darting salmon. Through the greenwood glade
Some love to stray,+there lodged, amused, and fed 255
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit every flower
And every latent herb ; for the sweet task
To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap
In what soft beds their young, yet undisclosed, 26o
Employs their tender care. Some to the house,
The fold, the dairy, hungry bend their flight,
Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese :
Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream
They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl, 265
With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.
But chief to heedless flies the window proves
A constant death ; where gloomily retired
The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce,
Mixture abhorred Amid a mangled heap 27,o
Of carcases in eager watch he sits,
O'erlooking all his waving snares around.
Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft
Passes : as oft the ruffian shows his front. .
The prey at last ensnared, he dreadful darts 27.5
With rapid glide along the leaning line,
And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs,
Strikes backward, grimly pleased : the fluttering wing
And shriller sound declare extreme distress,
And ask the helping hospitable hand. 28o
Resounds the living surface of the ground.
SUMMA2A’.
73
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum
To him who muses through the woods at noon;
Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclined
With half-shut eyes beneath the floating shade
Of willows grey, close-crowding o'er the brook.
Gradual from these what numerous kinds descend,
Evading even the microscopic eye
Full nature swarms with life; one wondrous mass
Of animals, or atoms organised,
Waiting the vital breath, when Parent-Heaven
Shall bid his spirit blow. The hoary fen
In putrid streams emits the living cloud
Of pestilence. Through subterranean cells,
Where searching Sunbeams scarce can find a way,
Earth animated heaves. The flowery leaf
Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure
Within its winding citadel the stone
Holds multitudes. But chief the forest-boughs,
That dance unnumbered to the playful breeze,
The downy orchard, and the melting pulp
Of mellow fruit the nameless nations feed
Of evanescent insects. Where the pool
Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible
Amid the floating verdure, millions stray.
Each liquid too, whether it pierces, soothes,
Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste,
With various forms abounds. Nor is the stream
Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air,
Though one transparent vacancy it seems,
Void of their unseen people. These, concealed
By the kind art of forming Heaven, escape
The grosser eye of man ; for, if the worlds
In worlds enclosed should on his senses burst,
From cates ambrosial and the nectared bowl
He would abhorrent turn, and in dead night,
When silence sleeps o'er all, be stunned with noise.
Let no presuming impious railer tax
2.85
3Oo
74 - 7 HE SAEASO/VS.
Creative Wisdom, as if aught was formed
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty Ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind P
As if, upon a full proportioned dome
On Swelling columns heaved—the pride of art,
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
And lives the man whose universal eye
Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things,
Marked their dependence so, and firm accord,
As with unfaltering accent to conclude
That this availeth nought P Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, lessening down
From infinite perfection to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss
From which astonished thought recoiling turns P
Till then, alone let zealous praise ascend ---
And hymns of holy wonder to that Power
Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds
As on our Smiling eyes his servant-sun.
Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways
Upward and downward thwarting and convolved,
The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-winged,
£ierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.
Even so luxurious men unheeding pass
An idle summer life in fortune's shine,
A season's glitter | Thus they flutter on
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice ;
Till, blown away by death, oblivion comes
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.
Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead,
The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil,
Healthful and strong ; full as the Summer rose
32 o
3.25
3.35
345
35o
SO/////ZAC. 75.
Blown by prevailing Suns, the ruddy maid, 355
Half naked, swelling on the sight, and all
Her kindling graces burning o'er her cheek.
Even stooping age is here ; and infant hands
Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load
O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll. 360
Wide flies the tedded grain; all in a row
Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field,
They spread their breathing harvest to the sun,
That throws refreshful round a rural smell ;
Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground, 365
And drive the dusky wave along the mead,
The russet haycock rises thick behind,
In order gay ; while, heard from dale to dale,
Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice
Of happy labour, love, and social glee. º 37 o
Or, rushing thence in one diffusive band,
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog
Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook
Forms a deep pool, this bank abrupt and high,
And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore. 375
Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil,
The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs,
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood
Commit their woolly sides; and oft the swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in. 38o
Emboldened then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast they plunge amid the flashing wave,
And panting labour to the farthest shore.
Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt 385
The trout is banished by the sordid stream,
Heavy and dripping to the breezy brow
Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild 390
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
76 7 HAE SAEASOAVS.
The country fill, and, tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last of snowy white, the gathered flocks t
Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed, 395
Head above head; and, ranged in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned, 4OO
Shines o'er the rest the pastoral queen, and rays
Her Smiles sweet-beaming on her shepherd-king ;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Meantime their joyous task goes on apace. 405
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side
To stamp his master's cipher ready stand;
Others the unwilling wether drag along ;
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy 4 IO
Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram.
Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft
By needy man, that all-depending lord,
How meek, how patient the mild creature lies
What softness in its melancholy face, 4 I 5
What dumb-complaining innocence appears
. Fear not, ye gentle tribes, ’tis not the knife
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved ;
No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,
'Who having now, to pay his annual care, 42 o
Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,
Will send you bounding to your hills again.
A simple scene ! Yet hence Britannia sees
Her solid grandeur rise : hence she commands
The exalted stores of every brighter clime, 425
The treasures of the sun without his rage :
Hence, fervent all with culture, toil, and arts,
Wide glows her land; her dreadful thunder hence
SUMMAEK2.
77
Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now, even now,
Impending hangs o'er Gallia’s humbled coast :
Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world.
'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
Can Sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all
From pole to pole is undistinguished blaze.
In vain the sight, dejected to the ground,
Stoops for relief; thence hot-ascending steams
And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root
Of vegetation parched, the cleaving fields
And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose,
Blast fancy's bloom, and wither even the soul.
Echo no more returns the cheerful sound
Of sharpening scythe ; the mower, sinking, heaps
O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed;
And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard
Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants.
The very streams look languid from afar ;
Or, through the unsheltered glade, impatient, seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove.
All-conquering heat oh intermit thy wrath,
And on my throbbing temples potent thus
Beam not so fierce. Incessant still you flow,
And still another fervent flood succeeds,
Poured on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,
And restless turn, and look around for night.
Night is far off; and hotter hours approach.
Thrice happy he, who on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crowned,
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines;
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought,
And fresh bedeved with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm, while all the world without,
Unsatisfied and sick, tosses in noon,_
43O
435
44 O
445
45O
455
460
78 7A7A, SAEASOAVS.
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man, 465
Who keeps his tempered mind serene and pure
And every passion aptly harmonized
Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed.
Welcome, ye shades : ye bowery thickets, hail
Ye lofty pines ye venerable oaks : 47 O
Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep !
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves as he floats along the herbaged brink. 475
Cool through the nerves your pleasing comfort glides;
The heart beats glad ; the fresh expanded eye
And ear resume their watch ; the sinews knit;
And life shoots swift through all the lightened limbs.
Around the adjoining brook that purls along 48o
The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffused into a limpid plain,
A various group the herds and flocks compose. 485
Rural Confusion | On the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand .*
Half in the flood, and often bending sip
The circling surface. In the middle droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front, 490
Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides
The troublous insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still. Amid his subjects safe
Slumbers the monarch-swain, his careless arm
Thrown round his head on downy moss sustained, 495
Here laid his scrip with wholesome viands filled,
And there his sceptre-crook and watchful dog.
Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight
Of angry gadflies fasten on the herd,
That startling scatters from the shallow brook 5oo
In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam,
SUMMER.
79
They scorn the keeper's voice, and scour the plain
Through all the bright severity of noon,
While from their labouring breasts a hollow moan
Proceeding runs low-bellowing round the hills.
Oft in this season too the horse provoked,
While his big sinews full of spirits swell,
Trembling with vigour, in the heat of blood
Springs the high fence; and, o'er the field effused,
Darts on the gloomy flood with stedfast eye
And heart estranged to fear : his nervous chest,
Luxuriant and erect, the seat of strength,
5o 5
Bears down the opposing stream; quenchless his thirst,
He takes the river at redoubled draughts ;
And with wide nostrils snorting skims the wave.
Still let me pierce into the midnight depth
Of yonder grove of wildest largest growth,
That, forming high in air a woodland quire,
Nods o'er the mount beneath. At every step
Solemn and slow the shadows blacker fall,
And all is awful listening gloom around.
These are the haunts of meditation, these
The scenes where ancient bards the inspiring breath
Ecstatic felt, and, from this world retired,
Conversed with angels and immortal forms
On gracious errands bent, to save the fall
Of virtue struggling on the brink of vice;
In waking whispers and repeated dreams
To hint pure thought and warn the favoured soul
For future trials fated to prepare;
To prompt the poet, who devoted gives
His muse to better themes; to soothe the pangs
Of dying worth, and from the patriot's breast
(Backward to mingle in detested war,
But foremost when engaged) to turn the death ;
And numberless such offices of love,
Daily and nightly, zealous to perform.
Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky
5 I 5
52 o
2
5
5
53 O
8o THE SEASON.S.
A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-roused I feel 54o
A sacred terror, a severe delight,
Creep through my mortal frame; and thus, methinks,
A voice, than human more, the abstracted ear
Of fancy strikes : ‘Be not of us afraid,
Poor kindred man! thy fellow-creatures we 5.45
From the same Parent-Power our beings drew ;
The same Our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.
Once some of us, like thee, through stormy life
Toiled tempest-beaten ere we could attain
This holy calm, this harmony of mind, 55o
Where purity and peace immingle charms.
Then fear not us; but with responsive song,
Amid these dim recesses, undisturbed
By noisy folly and discordant vice,
Of Nature sing with us, and Nature's God. 555
Here frequent, at the visionary hour
When musing midnight reigns or silent noon,
Angelic harps are in full concert heard,
And voices chanting from the wood-crowned hill,
The deepening dale, or inmost sylvan glade,- 56o
A privilege bestowed by us alone
On contemplation, or the hallowed ear
Of poet swelling to seraphic strain.”
And art thou, Stanley, of that sacred band P
Alas, for us too soon | Though raised above 565
The reach of human pain, above the flight
Of human joy, yet with a mingled ray
Of sadly pleased remembrance must thou feel
A mother's love, a mother’s tender woe,
Who seeks thee still in many a former scene, 57o
Seeks thy fair form, thy lovely beaming eyes,
Thy pleasing converse, by gay lively sense
Inspired, where moral wisdom mildly shone
Without the toil of art, and virtue glowed
In all her smiles without forbidding pride. 575
SUMMER. 8I
But, O thou best of parents, wipe thy tears;
Or rather to parental Nature pay
The tears of grateful joy, who for a while
Lent thee this younger self, this opening bloom
Of thy enlightened mind and gentle worth. 58o
Believe the muse, the wintry blast of death
Kills not the buds of virtue ; no, they spread
Beneath the heavenly beam of brighter suns
Through endless ages into higher powers.
Thus up the mount, in airy vision rapt, 585
I Stray, regardless whither, till the sound
Of a near fall of water every sense
Wakes from the charm of thought : swift-shrinking back,
I check my steps, and view the broken scene.
Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood 59 o
Rolls fair and placid; where, collected all,
In one impetuous torrent down the steep
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round.
At first an azure sheet it rushes broad ;
Then whitening by degrees as prone it falls, 595
And from the loud-resounding rocks below g
Dashed in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortured wave here find repose,
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks, 6oo
Now flashes o'er the scattered fragments, now
Aslant the hollowed channel rapid darts,
And, falling fast from gradual slope to slope
With wild infracted course and lessened roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals at last 605
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.
Invited from the cliff, to whose dark brow
He clings, the steep-ascending eagle soars
With upward pinions through the flood of day,
And, giving full his bosom to the blaze, 6 Io
Gains on the sun; while all the tuneful race,
Smote with afflictive noon, disordered droop
G
82 7THAE SAEA,SOAVS.
Deep in the thicket, or, from bower to bower
Responsive, force an interrupted strain.
The stockdove only through the forest coos, 615
Mournfully hoarse ; oft ceasing from his plaint
(Short interval of weary woe 1) again
The sad idea of his murdered mate,
Struck from his side by savage fowler's guile,
Across his fancy comes, and then resounds 62o
A louder song of sorrow through the grove.
Beside the dewy border let me sit,
All in the freshness of the humid air,
There, in that hollowed rock grotesque and wild,—
An ample chair, moss-lined and overhead, 625
By flowering umbrage shaded, where the bee
Strays diligent, and with the extracted balm
Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh.
Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade,
While Nature lies around deep lulled in noon, 63o
Now come, bold Fancy! spread a daring flight,
And view the wonders of the torrid zone—
Climes unrelenting ! with whose rage compared
Yon blaze is feeble and yon skies are cool.
See how at once the bright-effulgent sun, 635
Rising direct, swift chases from the sky
The short-lived twilight; and with ardent blaze
Looks gaily fierce through all the dazzling air.
He mounts his throne ; but kind before him sends,
Issuing from out the portals of the morn, 64o
The general breeze to mitigate his fire
And breathe refreshment on a fainting world.
Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crowned
And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling year,
Returning Suns and double seasons pass, L 645
Rocks rich in gems; and mountains big with mines,
That on the high equator ridgy rise,
Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays;
SUMMAER.
83
Majestic woods of every vigorous green,
Stage above stage high waving o'er the hills,
Or to the far horizon wide diffused,
A boundless deep immensity of shade.
Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown,
The noble sons of potent heat and floods
Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
Meridian gloom. Here in eternal prime
Unnumbered fruits, of keen delicious taste
And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs
And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales
Redoubled day; yet in their rugged coats
A friendly juice to cool its rage contain.
Bear me, Fomona, to thy citron groves,
To where the lemon and the piercing lime
With the deep orange glowing through the green
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined
Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes,
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
Deep in the night the massy locust sheds
Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the maze,
Embowering endless, of the Indian fig;
Or, thrown at gayer ease on some fair brow,
Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cooled,
Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave,
And high palmettos lift their graceful shade.
Oh, stretched amid these orchards of the sun,
Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl,
And from the palm to draw its freshening wine,
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice
Which Bacchus pours. Nor, on its slender twigs
Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorned ;
Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race
Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp.
Witness, thou best anana, thou the pride
65o
655
660
665
67 o
675
68o
685
G 2
84 7THA, SAEASOAVS.
Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er
The poets imaged in the golden age
Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat,
Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove 1
Erom these, the prospect varies. Plains immense 690
Lie stretched below, interminable meads
And vast savannahs, where the wandering eye,
Unfixed, is in a verdant ocean lost.
Another Flora there, of bolder hues
And richer sweets beyond our garden's pride, 695
Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand
Exuberant Spring ; for oft these valleys shift
Their green-embroidered robe to fiery brown,
And Swift to green again, as scorching Suns
Or streaming dews and torrent rains prevail. 7oo
Along these lonely regions where, retired -
From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells
In awful solitude, and nought is seen
But the wild herds that own no master’s stall,
Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas ; 7 o’s
On whose luxuriant herbage, half-concealed,
Like a fallen cedar, far diffused his train,
Cased in green scales, the crocodile extends. .
The flood disparts—behold ! in plaited mail
Behemoth rears his head. Glanced from his side, 7 Io
The darted steel in idle shivers flies. -
He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills,
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds
In widening circle round forget their food,
And at the harmless Stranger wondering gaze. 7 I 5
Peaceful beneath primeval trees that cast
Their ample shade o'er Niger's yellow stream,
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave,
Or 'mid the central depth of blackening woods
High-raised in solemn theatre around, 720
Leans the huge elephant, wisest of brutes
O truly wise ! with gentle might endowed,
.SUMMA2/8.
85
Though powerful not destructive. Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth,
And empires rise and fall,—regardless he
Of what the never-resting race of men
Project; thrice happy, could he 'scape their guile
Who mine from cruel avarice his steps;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state,
The pride of kings; or else his strength pervert,
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,
Astonished at the madness of mankind.
Wide o'er the winding umbrage of the floods,
Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar,
Thick-swarm the brighter birds; for Nature's hand,
That with a sportive vanity has decked
The plumy nations, there her gayest hues
Profusely pours. But if she bids them shine
Arrayed in all the beauteous beams of day,
Yet, frugal still, she humbles them in song.
Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent
Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast
A boundless radiance waving on the Sun,
While Philomel is ours, while in our shades
Through the soft silence of the listening night
The sober-Suited songstress trills her lay.
But come, my muse ! the desert-barrier burst,
A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky,
And, Swifter than the toiling caravan,
Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar, ardent climb
The Nubian mountains, and the secret bounds
Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce.
Thou art no ruffian who beneath the mask
Of social commerce com’st to rob their wealth;
No holy fury thou, blaspheming heaven,
With consecrated steel to stab their peace,
And through the land, yet red from civil wounds,
To spread the purple tyranny of Rome.
Thou, like the harmless bee, mayst freely range
725
735
740
745
750
755
86 ZTHZ SAEA,SOAVS.
From mead to mead bright with exalted flowers, 760
From jasmine grove to grove ; mayst wander gay
Through palmy shades and aromatic woods
That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills,
And up the more than Alpine mountains wave.
There, on the breezy summit spreading fair 765
For many a league, or on stupendous rocks
That from the sun-redoubling valley lift
Cool to the middle air their lawny tops,
Where palaces and fanes and villas rise,
And gardens smile around and cultured fields, 77o
And fountains gush, and careless herds and flocks
Securely stray, a world within itself
Disdaining all assault—there let me draw
, Ethereal soul ; there drink reviving gales
Profusely breathing from the spicy groves 775
And vales of fragrance ; there at distance hear
The roaring floods and cataracts that sweep
From disembowelled earth the virgin gold,
And o'er the varied landscape restless rove,
Fervent with life of evéry fairer kind. 78o
A land of wonders which the sun still eyes
With ray direct, as of the lovely realm
Enamoured, and delighting there to dwell.
How changed the scene ! In blazing height of noon,
The sun, oppressed, is plunged in thickest gloom. 785
Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round
Of struggling night and day malignant mixed;
For to the hot equator crowding fast,
Where highly rarefied the yielding air
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll, 790
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heaped,—
Or whirled tempestuous by the gusty wind,
Or silent borne along, heavy and slow,
With the big stores of steaming oceans charged.
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condensed 795
Around the cold aerial mountain's brow, º
;
SUMMER.
87
And by conflicting winds together dashed,
. The thunder holds his black tremendous throne.
From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage;
Till, in the furious elemental war
Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.
The treasures these, hid from the bounded search
Of ancient knowledge; whence with annual pomp,
Rich king of floods, o'erflows the swelling Nile.
From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm,
Pure-welling out, he through the lucid lake
Of fair Dambea rolls his infant stream.
There, by the Naiads nursed, he sports away
His playful youth amid the fragrant isles
That with unfading verdure smile around.
Ambitious thence the manly river breaks,
And gathering many a flood, and copious fed
With all the mellowed treasures of the sky,
Winds in progressive majesty along.
Through splendid kingdoms now devolves his maze;
Now wanders wild o'er solitary tracts
Of life-deserted sand; till, glad to quit
The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks
From thundering steep to steep he pours his urn,
And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave.
His brother Niger too, and all the floods
In which the full-formed maids of Afric lave
Their jetty limbs, and all that from the tract
Of woody mountains stretched through gorgeous Ind
Fall on Cormandel's coast or Malabar,
From Menam’s orient stream, that nightly shines
With insect-lamps, to where Aurora sheds
On Indus’ smiling banks the rosy shower—
All at this bounteous season ope their urns,
And pour untoiling harvest o'er the land.
Nor less thy world, Columbus, drinks refreshed
The lavish moisture of the melting year.
8oo
8o 5
8 Io
8 I 5
82 o
825
83o
88 7 H.A. SEASOAVS.
Wide o'er his isles the branching Oronoque
Rolls a brown deluge, and the native drives 835
To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees, -
At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.
Swelled by a thousand streams impetuous hurled
From all the roaring Andes, huge descends
The mighty Orellana. Scarce the Muse 84o
Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mass
Of rushing water; scarce she dares attempt
The sea-like Plata, to whose dread expanse,
Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course,
Our floods are rills. With unabated force 845
In silent dignity they sweep along,
And traverse realms unknown and blooming wilds
And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude,
Where the Sun Smiles and seasons teem in vain,
Unseen and unenjoyed. Forsaking these, 85o
O'er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow,
*And many a nation feed, and circle safe
In their soft bosom many a happy isle,
The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturbed
By Christian crimes and Europe’s cruel sons. 855
Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep,
Whose vanquished tide, recoiling from the shock,
Yields to the liquid weight of half the globe;
And ocean trembles for his green domain.
But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth, 86o
This gay profusion of luxurious bliss,
This pomp of Nature ? what their balmy meads,
Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain P
By vagrant birds dispersed, and wafting winds,
What their unplanted fruits P what the cool draughts, 865
The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health,
Their forests yield P their toiling insects what,
Their silky pride, and vegetable robes P
Ah what avail their fatal treasures, hid
Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth, 87 o
SUMMAEA’.
89
Golconda's gems, and sad Potosí's mines t
Where dwelt the gentlest children of the sun ?
What all that Afric's golden rivers roll,
Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores 2
Ill-fated race the softening arts of peace,
Whate'er the humanizing muses teach ;
The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast ;
Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whose silent powers
Command the world ; the light that leads to heaven ;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
And all-protecting freedom, which alone
Sustains the name and dignity of man—
These are not theirs. The parent-sun himself
Seems o'er this world of slaves to tyrannize;
And, with oppressive ray, the roseate bloom
Of beauty blasting, gives the gloomy hue
And feature gross ; or worse, to ruthless deeds,
Mad jealousy, blind rage, and fell revenge,
Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells not there ;
The soft regards, the tenderness of life,
The heart-shed tear, the ineffable delight
Of Sweet humanity—these court the beam
Of milder climes; in selfish fierce desire
And the wild fury of voluptuous sense
There lost. The very brute creation there
This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.
Lo the green serpent, from his dark abode,
Which even imagination fears to tread,
At noon forth-issuing, gathers up his train
In orbs immense, then, darting out anew,
Seeks the refreshing fount, by which diffused
87.5
88o
885
890
895
90o
He throws his folds ; and while, with threatening tongue
And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls
His flaming crest, all other thirst appalled
Or shivering flies, or checked at distance stands,
Nor dares approach. But still more direful he,
995
90. ZHAE SEASOAVS.
The small close-lurking minister of fate,
Whose high-concocted venom through the veins
A rapid lightning darts, arresting Swift 9 Io
The vital current. Formed to humble man,
This child of vengeful Nature | There, sublimed
To fearless lust of blood, the Savage race
Roam, licensed by the shading hour of guilt
And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut 9 I5
His sacred eye. The tiger darting fierce
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doomed ;
The lively-shining leopard, speckled o'er
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste ;
And, scorning all the taming arts of man, 92 o
The keen hyaena, fellest of the fell— *.
These, rushing from the inhospitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles
That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild,
Innumerous glare around their shaggy king, 925
Majestic stalking o'er the printed sand ;
And with imperious and repeated roars
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Crowd near the guardian swain ; the nobler herds,
Where round their lordly bull in rural ease 93o
They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. The awakened village starts ;
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the pirate's den &
Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang escaped, 935
The wretch half-wishes for his bonds again;
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds,
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile.
Unhappy he, who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone 940
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below,
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
SO/MM/AA’.
9 I
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds.
At evening to the setting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless, while the wonted roar is up
And hiss continual through the tedious night.
Yet here, even here, into these black abodes
Of monsters unappalled, from stooping Rome
And guilty Caesar Liberty retired, -
Her Cato following through Numidian wilds,
Disdainful of Campania’s gentle plains
And all the green delights Ausonia pours
When for them she must bend the servile knee,
And fawning take the splendid robber's boon.
Nor stop the terrors of these regions here.
Commissioned demons oft, angels of wrath,
Let loose the raging elements. Breathed hot
From all the boundless furnace of the sky
And the wide glittering waste of burning sand,
A suffocating wind the pilgrim Smites
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the desert, even the camel feels,
Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast.
Or, from the black-red ether bursting broad,
Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands,
Commoved around, in gathering eddies play ;
Nearer and nearer still they darkening come ;
Till, with the general all-involving storm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise;
And, by their noonday fount dejected thrown,
Or sunk at night in Sad disastrous sleep,
Beneath descending hills the Caravan
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets
The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave
Obeys the blast, the aërial tumult swells.
945
95o
955
96o
965
97 O
975
98o
92 7A/A2 ,S.A.A.SOAVS.
In the dread ocean, undulating wide
Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,
The circling Typhon, whirled from point to point,
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky, 985
And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens,
Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck
Compressed, the mighty tempest brooding dwells.
Of no regard save to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul the small prognostic hangs 990
Aloft, or on the promontory’s brow
Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale, the demon sends before
To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once
Precipitant descends a mingled mass 995
Of roaring winds and flame and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fixed the sailor stands.
Art is too slow ; by rapid fate oppressed,
His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the black abyss. I O OO
With such mad seas the daring Gama fought
For many a day and many a dreadful night
Incessant, labouring round the stormy Cape,
By bold ambition led and bolder thirst
Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerged I do 5
The rising world of trade : the genius, then,
Of navigation, that in hopeless sloth
Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep
For idle ages, starting, heard at last
The Lusitanian Prince,—who, heaven-inspired, I O HO
To love of useful glory roused mankind,
And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.
Increasing still the terrors of these storms,
His jaws horrific armed with threefold fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lured by the scent 1o 15
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,
Behold he rushing cuts the briny flood
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along,
SUMMAEA’.
93
And from the partners of that cruel trade
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons
Demands his share of prey, demands themselves.
The stormy fates descend : one death involves
I O2 O
Tyrants and slaves ; when straight, their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.
When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun,
And draws the copious steam from swampy fens
Where putrefaction into life ferments
And breathes destructive myriads, or from woods,
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,
In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dared to pierce—then wasteful forth
Walks the dire power of pestilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick nature blasting, and to heartless woe
And feeble desolation casting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of man;
Such as of late at Carthagena quenched
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw
The miserable scene; you pitying saw
To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm ;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye
No more with ardour bright; you heard the groans
Of agonizing ships from shore to shore ;
Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse, while, on each other fixed,
In sad presage the blank assistants seemed
Silent to ask whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclcment skies
Where frequent o'er the sickening city Plague,
The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,
Descends P From Ethiopia’s poisoned woods,
I O25
Io 3o
I O 35
IO4o
IO45
Io 50
I of 5
94 7THAE SAEASO/WS.
From stifled Cairo’s filth, and fetid fields
With locust-armies putrefying heaped,
This great destroyer sprung. Her awful rage
The brutes escape: man is her destined prey,
Intemperate man, and o'er his guilty domes Iočo
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death,
Uninterrupted by the living winds,
Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze, and stained
With many a mixture by the sun, suffused,
Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom then I of 5
Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand
Of feeble justice ineffectual drop
The sword and balance. Mute the voice of joy,
And hushed the clamour of the busy world.
Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad ; Io'70
Into the worst of deserts sudden turned
The cheerful haunt of men, unless, escaped
From the doomed house where matchless horror reigns,
Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch
With frenzy wild breaks loose, and, loud to heaven I of 5
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns
Inhuman and unwise. The sullen door,
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge
Fearing to turn, abhors society.
Dependants, friends, relations, love himself, Io8o
Savaged by woe, forget the tender tie,
The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care : the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air is full of fate; -
And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs Io85
They fall unblest, untended, and unmourned.
Thus o'er the prostrate city black despair
Extends her raven wing; while, to complete
The scene of desolation, stretched around
The grim guards stand, denying all retreat, Io9'o
And give the flying wretch a better death.
Much yet remains unsung, the rage intense
SUMMAZAC.
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Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields
Where drought and famine starve the blasted year;
Fired by the torch of noon to tenfold rage,
The infuriate hill that shoots the pillared flame;
And, roused within the subterranean world,
The expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes
Aspiring cities from their solid base,
And buries mountains in the flaming gulf.
But 'tis enough ; return, my vagrant muse,_
A nearer scene of horror calls thee home.
Behold, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove,
Unusual darkness broods, and growing gains
The full possession of the sky, surcharged
With wrathful vapour, from the secret beds
Where sleep the mineral generations drawn.
Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume
Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day,
With various-tinctured trains of latent flame,
Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud
A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,
Ferment; till, by the touch ethereal roused,
The dash of clouds, or irritating war
Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,
They furious spring. A boding silence reigns
Dread through the dun expanse, save the dull sound
That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And stirs the forest-leaf without a breath.
Prone to the lowest vale the aërial tribes
Descend; the tempest-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze
The cattle stand, and on the Scowling heavens
Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook—
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
'Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all,
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When to the startled eye the sudden glance
Appears far South eruptive through the cloud, II 30
And following slower in explosion vast
The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven,
The tempest growls; but, as it nearer comes
And rolls its awful burden on the wind, I I 35
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The noise astounds, till over head a sheet
Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts
And opens wider, shuts and opens still *
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze. II 4o
Follows the loosened aggravated roar,
Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal
Crushed horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.
Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail,
Or prone-descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds II 45
Pour a whole flood ; and yet, its flame unquenched,
The inconquerable lightning struggles through,
Ragged and fierce or in red whirling balls,
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage.
Black from the stroke, above, the Smouldering pine II 50
Stands a sad shattered trunk; and, stretched below,
A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie,
Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look
They wore alive, and ruminating still
In fancy’s eye, and there the frowning bull, II 55
And ox half-raised. Struck on the castled cliff,
The venerable tower and spiry fane
Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods
Start at the flash, and from their deep recess,
Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake. II 6o
Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud -
The repercussive roar; with mighty crush,
Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks
Of Penmanmaur heaped hideous to the sky,
Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowdon's peak, 1 165
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Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load.
Far seen the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze,
And Thule bellows through her utmost isles.
Guilt hears appalled, with deeply troubled thought.
And yet not always on the guilty head
Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon
And his Amelia were a matchless pair,
With equal virtue formed and equal grace—
The same, distinguished by their sex alone :
Hers the mild lustre of the blooming morn,
And his the radiance of the risen day.
They loved ; but such their guileless passion was
As in the dawn of time informed the heart
Of innocence and undissembling truth.
'Twas friendship heightened by the mutual wish,
The enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow
Beamed from the mutual eye. Devoting all
To love, each was to each a dearer self,
Supremely happy in the awakened power
Of giving joy. Alone amid the shades
Still in harmonious intercourse they lived
The rural day, and talked the flowing heart,
Or sighed and looked unutterable things.
So passed their life, a clear united stream,
By care unruffled; till, in evil hour,
The tempest caught them on the tender walk,
Heedless how far and where its mazes strayed,
While, with each other blest, creative love
Still bade eternal Eden smile around.
Presaging instant fate, her bosom heaved
Unwonted sighs, and stealing oft a look
Of the big gloom, on Celadon her eye
Fell tearful, wetting her disordered cheek.
In vain assuring love and conſidence
In Heaven repressed her fear; it grew, and shook
Her frame near dissolution. He perceived
The unequal conflict, and, as angels look
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On dying Saints, his eyes compassion shed,
With love illumined high. “Fear not,’ he said,
‘Sweet innocence 1 thou stranger to offence,
And inward storm . He who yon skies involves
In frowns of darkness ever smiles on thee
With kind regard. O'er thee the secret shaft,
That wastes at midnight or the undreaded hour
Of noon, flies harmless; and that very voice
Which thunders terror through the guilty heart,
With tongues of Seraphs whispers peace to thine.
'Tis safety to be near thee; sure, and thus
To clasp perfection From his void embrace
(Mysterious Heaven () that moment to the ground,
A blackened corse, was struck the beauteous maid.
But who can paint the lover, as he stood,
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
Speechless, and fixed in all the death of woe
So (faint resemblance) on the marble tomb
The well-dissembled mourner Stooping stands,
For ever silent and for ever sad.
As from the face of heaven the shattered clouds
Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky
Sublimer swells, and o'er the world expands
A purer azure. Nature from the storm
Shines out afresh ; and through the lightened air
A higher lustre and a clearer calm
Diffusive tremble; while, as if in sign
Of danger past, a glittering robe of joy,
Set off abundant by the yellow ray,
Invests the fields, and nature smiles revived.
'Tis beauty all, and grateful song around,
Joined to the low of kine and numerous bleat
Of flocks thick-nibbling through the clovered vale.
And shall the hymn be marred by thankless man,
Most-favoured, who with voice articulate
Should lead the chorus of this lower world 2
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Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand
That hushed the thunder, and serenes the sky,
Extinguished feel that spark the tempest waked,
That sense of powers exceeding far his own,
Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears 2
Cheered by the milder beam, the sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known pool whose crystal depth
A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands
Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound belów ;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek
Instant emerge ; and through the obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repelled,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour, leads, an easy winding path ;
While from his polished sides a dewy light
Effuses on the pleased spectators round.
This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer heats; **
Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood,
Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink.
Thus life redoubles; and is oft preserved
By the bold swimmer in the swift illapse
Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs
Knit into force ; and the same Roman arm
That rose victorious o'er the conquered earth
First learned while tender to subdue the wave.
Even from the body's purity the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.
Close in the covert of a hazel copse,
Where winded into pleasing solitudes
Runs out the rambling dale, young Damon sat,
Pensive, and pierced with love's delightful pangs.
There to the stream that down the distant rocks
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Hoarse-murmuring fell, and plaintive breeze that played. .
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I OO 7A/A2 SAEASOAVS.
Among the bending willows, falsely he
Of Musiqora's cruelty complained.
She felt his flame; but deep within her breast,
In bashful coyness or in maiden pride,
The soft return concealed,—save when it stole
In sidelong glances from her downcast eye,
Or from her swelling soul in stifled sighs.
Touched by the scene, no stranger to his vows,
He framed a melting lay to try her heart,
And, if an infant passion struggled there,
To call that passion forth. Thrice happy Swain
A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate
Of mighty monarchs, then decided thine.
For lo! conducted by the laughing loves,
This cool retreat his Musiqora sought.
Warm in her cheek the sultry season glowed:
And, robed in loose array, she came to bathe
Her fervent limbs in the refreshing stream.
What shall he do In sweet confusion lost,
And dubious flutterings, he awhile remained.
A pure ingenuous elegance of Soul,
A delicate refinement, known to few,
Perplexed his breast and urged him to retire :
But love forbade. Ye prudes in virtue, say,
Say, ye severest, what would you have done :
Meantime, this fairer nymph than ever blest
Arcadian stream, with timid eye around
The banks surveying, stripped her beauteous limbs
To taste the lucid coolness of the flood.
Ah ! then, not Paris on the piny top
Of Ida panted stronger, when aside
The rival goddesses the veil divine
Cast unconfined, and gave him all their charms,
Than, Damon, thou, as from the snowy leg
And slender foot the inverted silk she drew ;
As the soft touch dissolved the virgin zone,
And through the parting robe the alternate breast,
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SUMMAZR.
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With youth wild-throbbing, on thy lawless gaze
In full luxuriance rose. But, desperate youth !
How durst thou risk the soul-distracting view,
As from her naked limbs of glowing white,
Harmonious swelled by Nature’s finest hand,
In folds loose—floating fell the fainter lawn,
And fair-exposed she stood, shrunk from herself,
With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze
Alarmed, and starting like the fearful fawn P
Then to the flood she rushed; the parted flood
Its lovely guest with closing waves received;
And every beauty softening, every grace
Flushing anew a mellow lustre shed,
As shines the lily through the crystal mild;
Or as the rose amid the morning dew,
Fresh from Aurora’s hand, more sweetly glows.
While thus she wantoned, now beneath the wave
But ill-concealed, and now with streaming locks,
That half-embraced her in a humid veil,
Rising again, the latent Damon drew
Such maddening draughts of beauty to the soul,
As for awhile O'erwhelmed his raptured thought
With luxury too daring. Checked at last
By love's respectful modesty, he deemed
The theft profane, if aught profane to love
Can e'er be deemed, and struggling from the shade
With headlong fury fled; but first these lines,
Traced by his ready pencil, on the bank
With trembling hand he threw : “Bathe on, my fair,
Yet unbeheld—save by the Sacred eye
Of faithful love; I go to guard thy haunt,
To keep from thy recess each vagrant foot
And each licentious eye.” With wild surprise,
. As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,
A stupid moment motionless she stood:
So stands the statue that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
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The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
Recovering, swift she flew to find those robes I 350
Which blissful Eden knew not; and, arrayed
In careless haste, the alarming paper Snatched.
But, when her Damon's well-known hand she saw,
Her terrors vanished, and a softer train
Of mixed emotions, hard to be described, I 355
Her sudden bosom seized,—shame void of guilt,
The charming blush of innocence, esteem
And admiration of her lover's flame,
By modesty exalted ; even a sense
Of self-approving beauty stole across I 360
Her busy thought. At length a tender calm .
Hushed by degrees the tumult of her soul ;
And on the spreading beech, that o'er the stream
Incumbent hung, she with the sylvan pen
Of rural lovers this confession carved, 1365
Which soon her Damon kissed with weeping joy:
“Dear youth ! sole judge of what these verses mean,
By fortune too much favoured, but by love
Alas ! not favoured less, be still as now,
Discreet ; the time may come you need not fly.” I 37 o
The sun has lost his rage: his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth
And vital lustre, that with various ray
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven,
Incessant rolled into romantic shapes, I 375
The dream of waking fancy. Broad below,
Covered with ripening fruits, and swelling fast
Into the perfect year, the pregnant earth
And all her tribes rejoice. Now the soft hour
Of walking comes, for him who lonely loves I 38o
To seek the distant hills, and there converse
With Nature—there to harmonize his heart,
And in pathetic song to breathe around
The harmony to others. Social friends,
SUMAMAEA’.
Iog
Attuned to happy unison of soul,
To whose exalting eye a fairer world,
Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse,
Displays its charms, whose minds are richly fraught
With philosophic stores, superior light,
And in whose breast enthusiastic burns
Virtue the sons of interest deem romance,
Now called abroad enjoy the falling day;
Now to the verdant portico of woods,
To Nature's vast Lyceum, forth they walk,
By that kind School where no proud master reigns,
The full free converse of the friendly heart
Improving and improved. Now from the world,
Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal,
And pour their souls in transport, which the sire
Of love approving hears, and calls it good.
Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course P
The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we choose 2
All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind
Along the streams ? or walk the smiling mead P
Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild
Among the waving harvests P or ascend,
While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
Thy hill, delightful Shene P Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape, now the raptured eye,
Exulting Swift, to huge Augusta send,
Now to the sister-hills that skirt her plain,
To lofty Harrow now, and now to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.
In lovely contrast to this glorious view
Calmly magnificent, then will we turn
To where the silver Thames first rural grows.
There let the feasted eye unwearied stray;
Luxurious there rove through the pendent woods
That nodding hang o'er Harrington’s retreat;
And, Stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,
Beneath whose shades; in spotless peace retired,
w
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With her, the pleasing partner of his heart,
The worthy Queensberry yet laments his Gay,
And polished Cornbury woos the willing muse,
Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames
Fair-winding up to where the muses haunt
In Twickenham's bowers, and for their Pope implore
The healing god, to royal Hampton's pile,
To Clermont’s terraced height, and Esher's groves,
Where in the sweetest solitude, embraced
By the soft windings of the silent Mole,
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose.
Enchanting vale ! beyond whate'er the muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia Sung.
O vale of bliss J O softly swelling hills
On which the power of cultivation lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
Heavens ! what a goodly prospect spreads around,
Of hills and dales and woods and lawns and spires
And glittering towns and gilded streams, till all
The stretching landscape into Smoke decays
Happy Britannia where the Queen of Arts,
Inspiring vigour, LIBERTY, abroad
Walks unconfined even to thy farthest cots,
And scatters plenty with unsparing hand.
Rich is thy soil, and merciful thy clime;
Thy streams unfailing in the Summer's drought;
Unmatched thy guardian-oaks; thy valleys float
With golden waves; and on thy mountains flocks
Bleat numberless, while, roving round their sides,
Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves.
Beneath, thy meadows glow, and rise unquelled
Against the mower's scythe. On every hand
Thy villas shine. Thy country teems with wealth ;
And Property assures it to the Swain,
Pleased, and unwearied in his guarded toil.
Full are thy cities with the sons of art,
And trade and joy in every busy street
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Mingling are heard; even Drudgery himself,
As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews
The palace-stone, looks gay. Thy crowded ports,
Where rising masts an endless prospect yield,
With labour burn, and echo to the shouts
Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves
His last adieu, and, loosening every sheet,
Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.
: Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth,
By hardship sinewed, and by danger fired,
Scattering the nations where they go, and first
Or on the listed plain or stormy seas.
Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plans
Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside ;
In genius and substantial learning high ;
For every virtue, every worth, renowned ;
Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind;
Yet like the mustering thunder when provoked,
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource
Of those that under grim impression groan.
Thy sons of glory many Alfred thine,
In whom the splendour of heroic war
And more heroic peace, when governed well,
Combine; whose hallowed name the virtues saint,
And his own muses love; the best of kings.
With him thy Edwards and thy Henrys shine,
Names dear to fame; the first who deep impressed
On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms,
That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,
And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,
Who with a generous though mistaken zeal
Withstood a brutal tyrant’s useful rage;
Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor ;
A dauntless soul erect, who smiled on death.
Frugal and wise, a Walsingham is thine ;
A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep
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And bore thy name in thunder round the world.
Then flamed thy spirit high ; but who can speak
The numerous worthies of the maiden-reign P
In Raleigh mark their every glory mixed,
Raleigh, the scourge of Spain whose breast with all 15oo
The Sage, the patriot, and the hero burned.
Nor sunk his vigour when a coward reign
The warrior fettered, and at last resigned
To glut the vengeance of a vanquished foe.
Then, active still and unrestrained, his mind I 505
Explored the vast extent of ages past,
And with his prison-hours enriched the world;
Yet found no times in all the long research
So glorious or so base as those he proved,
In which he conquered, and in which he bled. I 5 Io
Nor can the muse the gallant Sidney pass,
The plume of war ! with early laurels crowned,
The lover's myrtle, and the poet’s bay.
A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land
Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul, I 5 I 5
Who stemmed the torrent of a downward age
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again
In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.
Bright at his call thy age of men effulged,—
Of men on whom late time a kindling eye I 52 o
Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they read.
Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew
The grave where Russell lies; whose tempered blood,
With calmest cheerfulness for thee resigned,
Stained the sad annals of a giddy reign I 525
Aiming at lawless power, though meanly sunk -
In loose inglorious luxury. With him
His friend, the British Cassius, fearless bled ;
Of high determined spirit, roughly brave,
By ancient learning to the enlightened love I 53 o
Of ancient freedom warmed. Fair thy renown
In awful sages and in noble bards,
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Soon as the light of dawning science spread
Her orient ray, and waked the muses’ song.
Thine is a Bacon, hapless in his choice, I 535
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,
And through the Smooth barbarity of courts
With firm but pliant virtue forward still
To urge his course. Him for the studious shade
Kind Nature formed, deep, comprehensive, clear, I 540
Exact, and elegant; in one rich Soul
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined.
The great deliverer he, who from the gloom
Of cloistered monks and jargon-teaching schools
Led forth the true philosophy, there long I 545
Held in the magic chain of words and forms
And definitions void : he led her forth,
Daughter of heaven, who slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things,
With radiant finger points to heaven again. - I 550
The generous Ashley thine, the friend of man,
Who scanned his nature with a brother's eye,
His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim,
To touch the finer movements of the mind,
And with the moral beauty charm the heart. I 555
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search
Amid the dark recesses of His works
The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke,
Who made the whole internal world his own P
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God I 56 o
To mortals lent to trace his boundless works
. From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart, I 565
Is not wild Shakespeare thine and Nature's boast
Is not each great, each amiable muse
Of classic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius universal as his theme,
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Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom I 57 o
Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven sublime.
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, fancy's pleasing son,
Who, like a copious river, poured his song
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground ; I 575
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,
Well moralized, shines through the Gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.
May my song soften, as thy daughters I, 1580
Britannia, hail ; for beauty is their own,
The feeling heart, simplicity of life,
And elegance, and taste; the faultless form,
Shaped by the hand of harmony ; the cheek,
Where the live crimson, through the native white I 585
Soft-shooting, o'er the face diffuses bloom
And every nameless grace ; the parted lip,
Like the red rosebud moist with morning dew,
Breathing delight; and, under flowing jet,
Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown, I 590
The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast; -
The look resistless, piercing to the soul,
And by the soul informed, when dressed in love
She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.
Island of bliss I amid the subject seas, I 595
That thunder round thy rocky coast, set up
At once the wonder, terror, and delight
Of distant nations, whose remotest shore
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm— -
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults 16oo
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.
O Thou by whose almighty nod the scale
Of empire rises or alternate falls,
Send forth the saving virtues round the land
In bright patrol,-white peace, and Social love ; I 605
The tender-looking charity, intent
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On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles;
Undaunted truth, and dignity of mind ;
Courage, composed and keen ; Sound temperance,
Healthful in heart and look; clear chastity,
With blushes reddening as she moves along,
Disordered at the deep regard she draws;
Rough industry; activity untired,
With copious life informed, and all awake ;
While in the radiant front superior shines
That first paternal virtue, public zeal,
That throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, ever musing on the common weal,
Still labours glorious with some great design.
Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees
Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds
Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train,
In all their pomp attend his setting throne.
Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now,
As if his weary chariot sought the bowers
Of Amphitrite and her tending nymphs,
(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb;
Now half immersed ; and now, a golden curve,
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.
For ever running an enchanted round,
Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void ;
As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain,
This moment hurrying wild the impassioned soul,
The next in nothing lost : 'tis so to him,
The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank.
A sight of horror to the cruel wretch
Who, all day long in sordid pleasure rolled,
Himself a useless load, has squandered vile
Upon his scoundrel train what might have cheered
A drooping family of modest worth.
But to the generous still-improving mind,
That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
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Diffusing kind beneficence around
Boastless, as now descends the silent dew,
To him the long review of ordered life I 645
Is inward rapture, only to be felt.
Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds,
All ether softening, sober evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air,
A thousand shadows at her beck. First this I65o
She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye.
Steals soft behind ; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood and stir the stream, I 655
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn,
While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care I 66 o
Of nature nought disdains; thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field the feathered seeds she wings.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies merry-hearted ; and by turns relieves I665
The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail,
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart,
Unknowing what the joy-mixed anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
Of cordial glances and obliging deeds. I 67 o
Onward they pass o'er many a panting height
And valley sunk and unfrequented, where
At fall of eve the fairy people throng,
In various game and revelry to pass -
The summer-night, as village-stories tell. I675
But far about they wander from the grave
Of him whom his ungentle fortune urged
Against his own sad breast to lift the hand
Of impious violence. The lonely tower
SO/////EA’. | II
Is also shunned, whose mournful chambers hold I68o
(So night-struck fancy dreams) the yelling ghost.
Among the Crooked lanes, on every hedge,
The glow-worm lights his lamp, and through the dark
Twinkles a moving gem. On Evening's heel
Night follows fast ; not in her winter robe 1685
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed
In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,
Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the straining eye,
While wavering woods and villages and streams I690
And rocks and mountain-tops, that long retained
The ascending gleam, are all one swimming Scene,
Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven
Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft
The silent hours of love, with purest ray 1695
Sweet Venus shines, and from her genial rise,
When daylight sickens, till it springs afresh,
Unrivalled reigns the fairest lamp of night.
As thus the effulgence tremulous I drink
With cherished gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot 17 oc
Across the sky, or horizontal dart
In wondrous shapes, by fearful murmuring Crowds
Portentous deemed. Amid the radiant orbs
That more than deck, that animate the sky,
The life-infusing suns of other worlds, 1705
Loſ from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course
The rushing comet to the sun descends;
And, as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens, 17 Io
The guilty nations tremble. But, above
Those superstitious horrors that enslave
The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, the enlightened few,
Whose godlike minds philosophy exalts, I 7 I 5
The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy
I F 2 7"HA SAEASOAVS.
Divinely great ; they in their power exult,
That wondrous force of thought which mounting spurns
This dusky spot and measures all the sky,
While from his far excursion through the wilds I 720
Of barren ether, faithful to his time,
They see the blazing wonder rise anew,
In Seeming terror clad, but kindly bent
To work the will of all-sustaining Love,
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake I 725
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs
Through which his long ellipsis winds, perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining suns,
To light up worlds, and feed the eternal fire.
With thee, serene Philosophy with thee I 73 o
And thy bright garland let me crown my song.
Effusive source of evidence and truth !
A lustre shedding o'er the ennobled mind
Stronger than summer noon, and pure as that *
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul I 735
New to the dawning of celestial day.
Hence through her nourished powers, enlarged by thee,
She springs aloft with elevated pride
Above the tangling mass of low desires
That bind the fluttering crowd, and, angel-winged, I 74o
The heights of science and of virtue gains
Where all is calm and clear, with nature round,
Or in the starry regions or the abyss,
To reason's and to fancy's eye displayed,—
The first up-tracing from the dreary void I 745
The chain of causes and effects to Him,
The world-producing Essence, who alone
Possesses being ; while the last receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold, # I 75o
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.
Tutored by thee, hence poetry exalts
SUMMER. II 3
Her voice to ages, and informs the page
With music, image, sentiment, and thought, I 755,
Never to die, the treasure of mankind,
Their highest honour, and their truest joy!
Without thee what were unenlightened man :
A Savage roaming through the woods and wilds
In quest of prey; and with the unfashioned fur 1760
Rough-clad ; devoid of every finer art
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care, C
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,
Nor guardian law were his ; nor various skill 1765
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic ; nor the heaven-conducted prow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line or dares the wintry pole,_
Mother severe of infinite delights I 770
Nothing save rapine, indolence, and guile,
And woes on woes, a still-revolving train,
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse ; but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy and peace I 775
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all
Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds
Ply the tough oar, philosophy directs
The ruling helm ; or, like the liberal breath
Of potent heaven, invisible, the sail - 178o
Swells out, and bears the inferior world along.
Nor to this evanescent speck of earth
Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high
Are her exalted range ; intent to gaze *
Creation through, and, from that full complex 1785
Of never-ending wonders, to conceive
Of the Sole Being right, who spoke the word,
And Nature moved complete. With inward view,
Thence on the ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye, and instant at her powerful glance I 79 o
I -
II 4 THE SEASON.S.–SUMMER.
The obedient phantoms vanish or appear,
Compound, divide, and into order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of fancy's fleeting train ;
To reason then, deducing truth from truth, I 795
And notion quite abstract; where first begins
The world of spirits, action all, and life
Unfettered and unmixed. But here the cloud
(So wills Eternal Providence) sits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state, I8oo
In wayward passions lost and vain pursuits,
This infancy of being, cannot prove
The final issue of the works of God,
By boundless love and perfect wisdom formed,
And ever rising with the rising mind. I8o 5
END OF SUMMER.
A UT U M N.
CROWNED with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on, the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared, the various-blossomed Spring
Put in white promise forth, and Summer suns
Concocted Strong rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
Onslow ! the muse, ambitious of thy name
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
Awhile engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow,
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue; she,
Though weak of power yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot’s with the poet's flame.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year, -
From heaven’s high cope the fierce effulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enlivened, wide invests
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II 6 - 7TA/AE SAEA,SOAVS.
The happy world. Attempered suns arise, -
Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid cloud
A pleasing calm ; while broad and brown below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep they stand ; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain.
A calm of plenty 1 till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy, mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily-chequered heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings, Industry ! rough power
Whom labour still attends and sweat and pain,
Yet the kind source of every gentle art
And all the soft civility of life,
Raiser of human kind, by Nature cast
Naked and helpless out amid the woods
And wilds to rude inclement elements,
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profusely poured around
Materials infinite, but idle all.
Still unexerted, in the unconscious breast
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still
Voracious swallowed what the liberal hand
Of bounty Scattered o'er the savage year;
And still the sad barbarian roving mixed
With beasts of prey, or for his acorn meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar. A shivering wretch
Aghast and comfortless when the bleak north,
With Winter charged, let the mixed tempest fly,
Hail, rain, and Snow, and bitter-breathing frost.
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled,
And the wild Season, Sordid, pined away;
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A U7'UMAV,
I 17
For home he had not : home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
But this the rugged Savage never felt,
Even desolate in crowds; and thus his days
Rolled heavy, dark, and unenjoyed along,
A waste of time ! till Industry approached
And roused him from his miserable sloth,
His faculties unfolded, pointed out
Where lavish Nature the directing hand
Of art demanded, showed him how to raise
His feeble force by the mechanic powers,
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth,
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire,
On what the torrent and the gathered blast;
Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe,
Taught him to chip the wood and hew the stone
Till by degrees the finished fabric rose;
Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur
And wrapt them in the woolly vestment warm,
Or bright in glossy silk and flowing lawn ;
With wholesome viands filled his table, poured
The generous glass around—inspired to wake
The life-refining soul of decent wit;
Nor stopped at barren bare necessity,
But, still advancing bolder, led him on
To pomp, to pleasure, elegance and grace ;
And, breathing high ambition through his soul,
Set science, wisdom, glory, in his view,
And bade him be the lord of all below.
Then gathering men their natural powers combined
And formed a public, to the general good
Submitting, aiming, and conducting all.
For this the patriot-council met, the full,
The free, and fairly represented whole;
For this they planned the holy guardian laws,
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II 8 7A7A2 SAEASOAVS.
Distinguished orders, animated arts,
And, with joint force oppression chaining, set
Imperial justice at the helm, yet still
To them accountable ; nor slavish dreamed . I O 5
That toiling millions must resign their weal
And all the honey of their search to such
As for themselves alone themselves have raised.
Hence every form of cultivated life,
In order set, protected, and inspired, I IO
Into perfection wrought. Uniting all,
Society grew numerous, high, polite,
And happy. Nurse of art, the city reared
In beauteous pride her tower-encircled head ;
And, stretching street on street, by thousands drew, II 5
From twining woody haunts, or the tough yew
To bows strong-straining, her aspiring Sons.
Then commerce brought into the public walk
The busy merchant; the big warehouse built ;
Raised the strong crane; choked up the loaded street 120
With foreign plenty; and thy stream, O Thames,
Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods !
Chose for his grand resort. On either hand,
Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts
Shot up their spires; the bellying sheet between I 25
Possessed the breezy void; the sooty hulk
Steered sluggish on ; the Splendid barge along
Rowed regular to harmony; around,
The boat light-skimming stretched its oary wings;
While deep the various voice of fervent toil I 30
From bank to bank increased,—whence, ribbed with oak
To bear the British thunder, black and bold
The roaring vessel rushed into the main.
Then too the pillared dome magnific heaved
Its ample roof, and luxury within I 35
Poured out her glittering stores: the canvas smooth,
With glowing life protuberant, to the view
Embodied rose ; the statue seemed to breathe
AUZOMA.
I IQ
And soften into flesh beneath the touch
Of forming art, imagination-flushed. w
All is the gift of Industry, whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life
Delightful. Pensive Winter, cheered by him,
Sits at the social fire, and happy hears
The excluded tempest idly rave along ;
His hardened fingers deck the gaudy Spring;
Without him Summer were an arid waste;
Nor to the Autumnal months could thus transmit
Those full, mature, immeasurable stores
That, waving round, recal my wandering song.
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky
And unperceived unfolds the spreading day,
Before the ripened field the reapers stand
In fair array, each by the lass he loves—
To bear the rougher part and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil. -
At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves:
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks,
And conscious, glancing oft on every side
His stated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen but fling
From the full sheaf with charitable stealth
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think
How good the God of harvest is to you,
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide-hover round you like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
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I65
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I 2 O 7THAE SAEASOAVS.
Of fortune ponder, how your sons may want I75
What now with hard reluctance faint ye give.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends :
And fortune Smiled deceitful on her birth ;
For, in her helpless years deprived of all,
Of every stay save innocence and heaven, I8o
She with her widowed mother—feeble, old,
And poor—lived in a cottage far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale,
By solitude and deep surrounding shades
But more by bashful modesty concealed. 185
Together thus they shunned the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy fashion and low-minded pride;
Almost on nature’s Common bounty fed ;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, I 9o
Content and careless of to-morrow’s fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose
When the dew wets its leaves, unstained and pure
As is the lily or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes, I 95
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers;
Or, when the mournful tale her mother told
Of what her faithless fortune promised once t
Thrilled in her thought, they, like the dewy star 2 OO
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair-proportioned on her polished limbs,
Veiled in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, 2O5
But is when unadorned adorned the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, 2 I O
A U7'UMAW.
I 2 I
A myrtle rises far from human eye
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild,
So flourished blooming and unseen by all
The Sweet Lavinia ; till, at length, compelled
By strong necessity’s Supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks she went
To glean Palemon's fields. •The pride of swains
Palemon was, the generous and the rich,
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, such as Arcadian Song
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times
When tyrant custom had not shackled man
But free to follow nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanced beside his reaper-train
To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye,
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze.
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty concealed.
That very moment love and chaste desire
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown ;
For still the world prevailed and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field ;
And thus in secret to his soul he sighed :
‘What pity that so delicate a form,
By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense
And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell,
Should be devoted to the rude embrace
Of some indecent clown She looks, methinks,
Of old Acasto's line ; and to my mind
Recals that patron of my happy life
From whom my liberal fortune took its rise,
Now to the dust gone down, his houses, lands,
And Once fair-spreading family dissolved.
'Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat,
2 I 5
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I 2.2 THE SAEASOAVS.
Urged by remembrance sad, and decent pride,
Far from those scenes which knew their better days,
His aged widow and his daughter live, 25o
Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.
Romantic wish, would this the daughter were !”
When, strict inquiring, from herself he found
She was the same, the daughter of his friend,
Of bountiful Acasto, who can speak 255
The mingled passions that surprised his heart
And through his nerves in shivering transport ran P
Then blazed his smothered flame, avowed and bold ;
And, as he viewed her ardent o'er and o'er,
Love, gratitude, and pity wept at once. 26o
Confused, and frightened at his sudden tears,
Her rising beauties flushed a higher bloom,
As thus Palemon, passionate and just,
Poured out the pious rapture of his soul:
‘And art thou then Acasto's dear remains f 265
She whom my restless gratitude has sought
So long in vain P O heavens ! the very same,
The softened image of my noble friend,
Alive his every look, his every feature
More elegantly touched. Sweeter than Spring ! 27,o
Thou sole-surviving blossom from the root
That nourished up my fortune, say, ah where,
In what sequestered desert, hast thou drawn
The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven,
Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair, 275
Thgugh poverty’s cold wind and crushing rain
Beat keen and heavy on thy tender years?
Oh I let me now into a richer soil
Transplant thee safe, where vernal suns and showers
Diffuse their warmest, largest influence ; 28o
And of my garden be the pride and joy!
It ill befits thee, oh it ill befits
Acasto's daughter, his whose open stores,
Though vast, were little to his ample heart,
A U7'OMAV.
1 2 3
The father of a country, thus to pick
The very refuse of those harvest-fields
Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy.
Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,
But ill applied to such a rugged task;
The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine,—
If to the various blessings which thy house
Has on me lavished thou wilt add that bliss,
That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee.’
Here ceased the youth; yet still his speaking eye
Expressed the sacred triumph of his soul,
With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love
Above the vulgar joy divinely raised.
Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm
Of goodness irresistible, and all
In sweet disorder lost, she blushed consent.
The news immediate to her mother brought,
While, pierced with anxious thought, she pined away
The lonely moments for Lavinia’s fate,
Amazed, and scarce believing what she heard,
Joy seized her withered veins, and one bright gleam
Of setting life shone on her evening-hours,
Not less enraptured than the happy pair;
Who flourished long in tender bliss, and reared
A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves,
And good, the grace of all the country round.
Defeating oft the labours of the year,
The sultry south collects a potent blast.
At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir
Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
Along the soft-inclining fields of corn ;
But, as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible,
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world,
Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours
285
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I 24 THE SAEASOAVS.
A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.
High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in
From the bare wild the dissipated storm,
And send it in a torrent down the vale.
Exposed and naked to its utmost rage,
Through all the sea of harvest rolling round
The billowy plain floats wide ; nor can evade,
Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force,—
Or whirled in air, or into vacant chaff
Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain,
Swept from the black horizon, broad descends
In one continuous flood. Still overhead
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens, till the fields around
Lie sunk and flatted in the sordid wave.
Sudden the ditches swell ; the meadows swim.
Red from the hills innumerable streams
Tumultuous roar, and high above its bank
The river lift, before whose rushing tide,
Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and Swains,
Roll mingled down, all that the winds had spared
In one wild moment ruined, the big hopes
And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
Fled to some eminence, the husbandman
Helpless beholds the miserable wreck
Driving along ; his drowning ox at once
Descending with his labours scattered round
He sees ; and instant o'er his shivering thought
Comes Winter unprovided, and a train
Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then,
Be mindful of the rough laborious hand
That sinks you soft in elegance and ease;
Be mindful of those limbs, in russet clad,
Whose toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride;
And oh be mindful of that sparing board
Which covers yours with luxury profuse,
Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice;
3.25
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355
A C/7 OA/AW.
I 25
Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains
And all-involving winds have swept away.
Here the rude clamour of the sportsman’s joy,
The gun fast-thundering and the winded horn,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game, L
How, in his mid-career, the spaniel, struck
Stiff by the tainted gale, with open nose
Outstretched and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and, watchful every way,
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat
Their idle wings, entangled more and more :
Nor on the surges of the boundless air,
Though borne triumphant, are they safe ; the gun,
Glanced just and sudden from the fowler's eye,
O'ertakes their sounding pinions, and again
Immediate brings them from the towering wing
Dead to the ground, or drives them wide-dispersed,
'Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song,
Then most delighted when she social sees
The whole mixed animal-creation round
Alive and happy. 'Tis not joy to her,
This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death,
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes impatient with the gleaming morn,
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunned the light
Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflamed, beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e'er roamed the waste,
360
365
38o
385
390
I 26 THE SEASONS.
For sport alone pursues the cruel chase,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days. 395
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want ;
But, lavish fed, in Nature's bounty rolled,
To joy at anguish and delight in blood
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew. 4OO
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare,
Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retired—the rushy fen, the ragged furze
Stretched o'er the stony heath, the stubble chapt,
The thistly lawn, the thick entangled broom, 405
Of the same friendly hue the withered fern,
The fallow ground laid open to the sun
Concoctive, and the nodding Sandy bank
Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook.
Vain is her best precaution, though she sits 4 Io
Concealed with folded ears, unsleeping eyes
By Nature raised to take the horizon in,
And head couched close betwixt her hairy feet,
In act to spring away. The scented dew
Betrays her early labyrinth ; and deep, 4. I 5
In scattered sullen openings, far behind,
With every breeze she hears the coming storm.
But, nearer and more frequent as it loads
The sighing gale, she springs amazed, and all
The Savage soul of game is up at once— 42 O
The pack full-opening various, the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills, the neighing steed
Wild for the chase, and the loud hunter’s shout, -
O'er a weak harmless flying creature, all
Mixed in mad tumult and discordant joy. 4.25
The stag too, singled from the herd, where long
He ranged the branching monarch of the shades,
Before the tempest drives. At first in speed
He, sprightly, puts his faith, and, roused by fear,
Gives all his swift ačrial soul to flight. 43 O
A U 7'UMAV.
127,
Against the breeze he darts, that way the more
To leave the lessening murderous cry behind.
Deception short though, fleeter than the winds
Blown o'er the keen-aired mountain by the north,
He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades,
And plunges deep into the wildest wood ;
. If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track
Hot-Steaming, up behind him come again
The inhuman rout, and from the shady depth
Expel him, circling through his every shift.
He sweeps the forest oft, and sobbing sees
The glades mild-opening to the golden day,
Where in kind contest with his butting friends
He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy.
Oft in the full-descending flood he tries
To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides ;
Oft seeks the herd : the watchful herd, alarmed,
With selfish care avoid a brother’s woe.
What shall he do? His once so vivid nerves,
So full of buoyant spirit, now no more
Inspire the course ; but fainting breathless toil,
Sick, seizes on his heart: he stands at bay,
And puts his last weak refuge in despair.
The big round tears run down his dappled face;
He groans in anguish ; while the growling pack,
Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest,
And mark his beauteous chequered sides with gore.
Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth
Whose fervent blood boils into violence
Must have the chase, behold ! despising flight,
The roused-up lion, resolute and slow,
Advancing full on the protended spear
And coward-band that circling wheel aloof.
Slunk from the cavern and the troubled wood,
See the grim wolf: on him his shaggy foe
Vindictive fix, and let the ruffian die;
Or, growling horrid, as the brindled boar
435
440
445
4.5o
45.5
460
465
I 28 THAE SAEASOAVS.
Grins fell destruction, to the monster's heart
Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm.
These Britain knows not. Give, ye Britons, then 47o
Your sportive fury, pitiless, to pour *
Loose on the nightly robber of the fold.
Him, from his Craggy winding haunts unearthed,
Let all the thunder of the chase pursue.
Throw the broad ditch behind you ; o'er the hedge 475
High bound resistless ; nor the deep morass
Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness
Pick your nice way; into the perilous flood
Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full ;
And, as you ride the torrent, to the banks 48o
Your triumph sound sonorous, running round
From rock to rock, in circling echoes tossed ;
Then Snatch the mountains by their woody tops;
Rush down the dangerous steep ; and o'er the lawn,
In fancy Swallowing up the space between, 485
Pour all your speed into the rapid game.
For happy he who tops the wheeling chase;
Has every maze evolved, and every guile
Disclosed ; who knows the merits of the pack;
Who saw the villain seized and dying hard, 490
Without complaint though by a hundred mouths
Relentless torn. Oh glorious he beyond
His daring peers, when the retreating horn
Calls, them to ghostly halls of grey renown
With woodland honours graced,—the fox's fur, 495
Depending decent from the roof, and, spread
Round the drear walls, with antic figures fierce,
The stag’s large front : he then is loudest heard,
When the night staggers with severer toils,
With feats Thessalian Centaurs never knew, 5oo
And their repeated wonders shake the dome.
But first the fuelled chimney blazes wide;
The tankards foam ; and the strong table groans
Beneath the smoking sirloin stretched immense
A U7'OMAV.
. I 29
From side to side, in which with desperate knife
They deep incision make, talking the while
Of England's glory ne'er to be defaced
While hence they borrow vigour, or, amain
Into the pasty plunged, at intervals—
If stomach keen can intervals allow—
Relating all the glories of the chase.
Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
Produce the mighty bowl ; the mighty bowl,
Swelled high with fiery juice, steams liberal round
A potent gale, delicious as the breath
Of Maia to the love-sick shepherdess,
On violets diffused, while soft she hears
Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms.
Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn
Mature and perfect from his dark retreat
Of thirty years; and now his honest front
Flames in the light refulgent, not afraid
Even with the vineyard’s best produce to vie.
To cheat the thirsty moments, Whist a while
Walks his dull round, beneath a cloud of smoke
Wreathed fragrant from the pipe; or the quick dice,
In thunder leaping from the box, awake
The sounding gammon ; while romp-loving miss
Is hauled about in gallantry robust.
At last, these puling idlenesses laid
Aside, frequent and full the dry divan
Close in firm circle, and set ardent in
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly
Nor sober shift is to the puking wretch
Indulged apart ; but earnest brimming bowls
Lave every soul, the table floating round,
And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,
Reels fast from theme to theme—from horses, hounds,
To church or mistress, politics or ghost—
i K. -
505
5 IO
5 I5
52O
525
53O ,
\
54 I
I3o 7 H.A. SAE A.S.O.W.S.
f
In endless mazes intricate, perplexed.
Meantime, with sudden interruption loud,
The impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart.
That moment touched is every kindred soul; 5.45
And, opening in a full-mouthed cry of joy,
The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go round,-
While, from their slumbers shook, the kennelled hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vexed the deep 55o
The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls,
So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolved. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim and blue the double tapers dance, 555
Like the sun wading through the misty sky.
Then, sliding soft, they drop. Confused above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table even itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene; and wide below 56o
Is heaped the social slaughter, where, astride,
The lubber power in filthy triumph sits
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drenched in potent sleep till morn.
Perhaps some doctor of tremendous paunch 565
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Outlives them all ; and from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport 57 O
Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy
E’er stain the bosom of the British fair.
Far be the spirit of the châse from them,
Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill—
To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed— 575
The cap, the whip, the masculine attire,
In which they roughen to the sense, and all
The winning softness of their sex is lost
A U 7"U/l/AV.
13 I
In them ’tis graceful to dissolve at woe;
With every motion, every word, to wave
Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush ;
And from the Smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
And by this silent adulation soft
To their protection more engaging man.
Oh may their eyes no miserable sight,
Save weeping lovers, see—a nobler game,
Through love's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled,
In Chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs
Float in the loose simplicity of dress;
And, fashioned all to harmony, alone
Know they to seize the captivated soul,
In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips;
To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step,
T)isclosing motion in its every charm,
To swim along and swell the mazy dance ;
To train the foliage o'er the Snowy lawn ;
To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page;
To lend new flavour to the fruitful year
And heighten Nature's dainties; in their race
To rear their graces into second life;
To give society its highest taste;
Well-ordered home, man's best delight, to make ;
And by submissive wisdom, modest skill,
With every gentle care-eluding art,
To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,
Even charm the pains to something more than joy,
And sweeten all the toils of human life :
This be the female dignity, and praise.
Ye Swains, now hasten to the hazel bank,
Where, down yon dale, the wildly-winding brook
Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array,
Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub,
Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song
58o
585
590
595
6oo
605
6To
FC 2
I32 ZAZ SAEA.S.O.W.S.
The woodlands raise; the clustering nuts for you 615
The lover finds amid the secret shade,
And, where they burnish on the topmost bough,
With active vigour crushes down the tree,
Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk,
A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown, 62o
As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair— -
Melinda, formed with every grace complete,
Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise,
And far transcending such a vulgar praise.
Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields, 625
In cheerful error let us tread the maze
Of Autumn unconfined, and taste revived
The breath of orchard big with bending fruit.
Obedient to the breeze and beating ray,
From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower 63o
Incessant melts away. The juicy pear
Lies in a soft profusion scattered round.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race,
By Nature's all-refining hand prepared,
Of tempered sun, and water, earth, and air, 635
In ever-changing composition mixed.
Such, falling frequent through the chiller night,
The fragrant stores, the wide-projected heaps
Of apples, which the lusty-handed year
Innumerous o'er the blushing orchard shakes. 64o
A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen,
Dwells in their gelid pores, and active points
The piercing cider for the thirsty tongue—
Thy native theme, and boon inspirer too, ..?
Phillips, Pomona’s bard . The second thou 645
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse,
With British freedom sing the British song,
How from Silurian vats high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods, some strong to cheer
The wintry revels of the labouring hind, 65o
And tasteful, some to cool the summer hours. º
A U7'UMAV I 33
In this glad season, while his sweetest beams ,
The sun sheds equal o'er the meekened day,
Oh lose me in the green delightful walks 3.
Of, Dodington, thy seat, serene and plain, 655
Where simple Nature reigns, and every view
Diffusive spreads the pure Dorsetian downs
In boundless prospect—yonder shagged with wood,
Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks.
Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome 66o
Far-splendid seizes on the ravished eye.
New beauties rise with each revolving day;
New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring finds
New plants to quicken, and new groves to green.
Full of thy genius all ! the muses’ seat, 665
Where, in the secret bower and winding walk,
For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay.
Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst
Of thy applause, I solitary court
The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book 67o
Of Nature ever open, aiming thence
Warm from the heart to learn the moral song.
Here, as I steal along the Sunny wall,
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep,
My pleasing theme Continual prompts my thought— 675
Presents the downy peach, the shining plum
With a fine bluish mist of animals
Clouded, the ruddy nectarine, and dark
Beneath his ample leaf the luscious fig.
The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots, 68o
Hangs out her clusters glowing to the south,
And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.
Turn we a moment fancy's rapid flight
To vigorous soils and climes of fair extent,
Where, by the potent sun elated high, 685
The vineyard swells refulgent on the day,
Spreads o'er the vale, or up the mountain climbs
I 34 THE SAEASOAVS.
Profuse, and drinks amid the sunny rocks,
From cliff to cliff increased, the heightened blaze.
Low bend the gravid boughs. The clusters clear, 690
Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame
Or shine transparent ; while perfection breathes
White o'er the turgent film the living dew.
As thus they brighten with exalted juice,
Touched into flavour by the mingling ray, 695
The rural youth and virgins o'er the field—
Each fond for each to cull the autumnal prime—
Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh.
Then comes the crushing swain : the country floats
And foams unbounded with the mashy flood, 7oo
That, by degrees fermented and refined,
Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy—
The claret Smooth, red as the lip we press
In sparkling fancy while we drain the bowl ;
The mellow-tasted burgundy; and, quick 7 O 5
As is the wit it gives, the gay champagne.
Now, by the cool declining year condensed,
Descend the copious exhalations, checked
As up the middle sky unseen they stole,
And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. 7 Io
No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,
Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides,
And high between contending kingdoms rears
The rocky long division, fills the view
With great variety; but, in a night 7 is
Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense
Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far,
The huge dusk gradual swallows up the plain.
Vanish the woods. The dim-seen river seems
Sullen and slow to roll the misty wave. 720
Even in the height of noon oppressed, the Sun
Sheds weak and blunt his wide-refracted ray;
A U7'UMAV. 135
Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb,
He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth,
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life 725
Objects appear; and wildered o'er the waste
The shepherd stalks gigantic ; till at last,
Wreathed dun around, in deeper circles still
Successive closing, sits the general fog
Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick, 73 o
A formless grey confusion covers all :
As when of old (so sung the Hebrew bard)
Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged
Its infant way; nor order yet had drawn
His lovely train from out the dubious gloom. 735
These roving mists, that constant now begin
To Smoke along the hilly country, these,
With weighty rains and melted Alpine snows,
The mountain-cisterns fill,—those ample stores
Of water, scooped among the hollow rocks, 74o
..Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play,
And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw.
Some Sages say that, where the numerous wave
For ever lashes the resounding shore,
Sucked through the sandy stratum every way, 745
The waters with the sandy stratum rise;
Amid whose angles infinitely strained
They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind,
And clear and Sweeten as they soak along.
Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still, 750
Though oft amidst the irriguous vale it springs;
But to the mountain courted by the sand,
That leads it darkling on in faithful maze,
Far from the parent main it boils again
Fresh into day, and all the glittering hill 755
Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain
Amusive dream. Why should the waters love
To take so far a journey to the hills,
When the sweet valleys offer to their toil
I36 7'HAE SAEASOAVS.
Inviting quiet and a nearer bed 760
Or if, by blind ambition led astray, ſ
They must aspire, why should they sudden stop
Among the broken mountain's rushy dells,
And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert
The attractive sand that charmed their course so long 2
Besides, the hard agglomerating salts, 766
The spoil of ages, would impervious choke
Their secret channels, or by slow degrees
High as the hills protrude the swelling vales.
Old ocean too, sucked through the porous globe, 77 o
Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed,
And brought Deucalion's watery times again.
Say then where lurk the vast eternal springs
That, like creating Nature, lie concealed
From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores 775
Refresh the globe and all its joyous tribes 2.
O thou pervading genius, given to man,
To trace the secrets of the dark abyss,
Oh! lay the mountains bare, and wide display
Their hidden structure to the astonished view. 78o
Strip from the branching Alps their piny load;
The huge incumbrance of horrific woods
From Asian Taurus, -from Imaüs stretched
Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds;
Give opening Hemus to my searching eye, 785
And high Olympus pouring many a stream.
Oh! from the sounding Summits of the north,
The Dofrine Hills, through Scandinavia rolled
To farthest Lapland and the frozen main ;
From lofty Caucasus, far-seen by those 790
Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil;
From cold Riphean rocks, which the wild Russ
Believes the stony girdle of the world;
And all the dreadful mountains, wrapt in storm,
Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods— 795
Oh sweep the eternal Snows. Hung o'er the deep,
A UTUMW.
I37
That ever works beneath his sounding base,
Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign,
His subterranean wonders spread. Unveil
The miny caverns, blazing on the day,
Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs,
And of the bending Mountains of the Moon.
O'ertopping all these giant sons of earth,
Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line
Stretched to the stormy seas that thunder round
The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold.
Amazing scene ! behold, the glooms disclose
I see the rivers in their infant beds;
Deep, deep I hear them, labouring to get free.
I see the leaning strata, artful ranged,
The gaping fissures to receive the rains,
The melting Snows, and ever-dripping fogs.
Strowed bibulous above, I see the sands,
The pebbly gravel next, the layers then
Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths,
The guttered rocks and mazy-running clefts,
That, while the stealing moisture they transmit,
Retard its motion, and forbid its waste.
Beneath the incessant weeping of these drains,
I see the rocky siphons stretched immense,
The mighty reservoirs, of hardened chalk
Or stiff compacted clay capacious formed.
O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores,
The crystal treasures of the liquid world,
Through the stirred sands a bubbling passage burst,
And, welling out, around the middle steep,
Or from the bottoms of the bosomed hills,
In pure effusion flow. United thus
The exhaling sun, the vapour-burdened air,
The gelid mountains that, to rain condensed,
These vapours in continual current draw,
And send them o'er the fair-divided earth
In bounteous rivers to the deep again,
8oo
8o 5
8 Io
815
82 o
83o
I38 ZTAE/AE SAEA,SOAVS.
A social commerce hold, and firm support
The full-adjusted harmony of things. 835
When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,
Warned of approaching Winter, gathered play
The Swallow-people, and, tossed wide around,
O'er the calm sky in convolution swift
The feathered eddy floats, rejoicing once, 84o
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire,
In clusters clung, beneath the mouldering bank,
And where unpierced by frost the cavern sweats;
Or rather into warmer climes conveyed,
With other kindred birds of season : there 845
They twitter cheerful till the vernal months
Invite them welcome back. For, thronging, now
Innumerous wings are in commotion all.
Where the Rhine loses his majestic force
In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep 85o
By diligence amazing and the strong
Unconquerable hand of liberty,
The stork-assembly meets, for many a day
Consulting deep and various ere they take
Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky. 855
And now, their route designed, their leaders chose,
Their tribes adjusted, cleaned their vigorous wings,
And many a circle, many a short essay,
Wheeled round and round, in congregation full
The figured flight ascends, and, riding high 86o
The aërial billows, mixes with the clouds.
Or, where the Northern Ocean in vast whirls
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule, and the Atlantic Surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides— 865
Who can recount what transmigrations there
Are annual made P what nations come and go?
And how the living clouds on clouds arise 2
Infinite wings 1 till all the plume-dark air
A C/7'OA/AW.
i 39
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry.
Here the plain harmless native his small flock
And herd diminutive of many hues
Tends on the little island’s verdant swell,
The shepherd’s seagirt reign ; or, to the rocks
Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food ;
Or sweeps the fishy shore; or treasures up
The plumage, rising full, to form the bed
Of luxury. And here awhile the muse,
High-hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene,
Sees Caledonia in romantic view—
Her airy mountains, from the waving main
Invested with a keen diffusive sky
Breathing the Soul acute; her forests huge,
Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand
Planted of old ; her azure lakes between,
Poured out extensive, and of watery wealth
Full ; winding deep and green, her fertile vales,
With many a cool translucent brimming flood
Washed lovely, from the Tweed (pure parent stream
Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed,
With, sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook)
To where the north-inflated tempest foams
O'er Orca's or Berubium's highest peak—
Nurse of a people, in misfortune's school
Trained up to hardy deeds, soon visited
By learning, when before the Gothic rage
She took her western flight, a manly race,
Of unsubmitting spirit, wise and brave,
Who still through bleeding ages struggled hard
(As well unhappy Wallace can attest,
Great patriot hero ! ill-requited chiefſ)
To hold a generous undiminished state,
Too much in vain Hence, of unequal bounds
Impatient, and by tempting glory borne
O'er every land, for every land their life
Has flowed profuse, their piercing genius planned,
87o
88o
885
890
895
90o
9C 5
I 46 7"HA, SAEASOMS.
And swelled the pomp of peace their faithful toil:
As from their own clear north in radiant streams
Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal, morn.
Oh! is there not some patriot, in whose power 9 Io
That best, that godlike luxury is placed,
Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn,
Through late posterity ? Some, large of soul,
To cheer dejected industry to give :
A double harvest to the pining swain, 9I 5
And teach the labouring hand the sweets of toil 2
How by the finest art the native robe
To weave; how, white as hyperborean snow,
To form the lucid lawn ; with venturous oar
How to dash wide the billow, nor look on 92O
Shamefully passive while Batavian fleets
Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms
That heave our friths and crowd upon our shores;
How all-enlivening trade to rouse, and wing
The prosperous sail from every growing port 9.25
Uninjured round the sea-encircled globe ;
And thus, in Soul united as in name,
Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep P
Yes, there are such. And full on thee, Argyle,
Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast, 93O
From her first patriots and her heroes sprung,
Thy fond-imploring country turns her eye;
In thee with all a mother's triumph sees
Her every virtue, every grace combined,
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn, 935
Her pride of honour, and her courage tried,
Calm, and intrepid, in the very throat
Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field.
Nor less the palm of peace inwreathes thy brow;
For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue 94O
Persuasion flows, and wins the high debate ;
While, mixed in thee, combine the charm of youth,
The force of manhood, and the depth of age.
A C/7'OMAV. - I4 I
Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends,
As truth sincere, as weeping friendship kind, 945
Thee truly generous, and in silence great,
Thy country feels through her reviving arts,
Planned by thy wisdom, by thy soul informed ;
And seldom has she known a friend like thee.
But see, the fading many-coloured woods, 950
Shade deepening over shade, the Country round
Imbrown, Ha crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun,
Of every hue from wan declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse,
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks; 955
And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether, whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current: while, illumined wide, 960
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid veil his softened force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time
For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd, 965
And Soar above this little scene of things;
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet,
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,
And woo lone quiet in her silent walks.
Thus solitary and in pensive guise 97o
Oft let me wander o’er the russet, mead -
And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain to cheer the woodman’s toil.
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint
Far in faint warblings through the tawny copse; 975
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat whose artless strains so late
Swelled all the music of the swarming shades,
Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
I42 t ZTH/A2 SAEASOAVS.
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock,
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And nought save chattering discord in their note.
Oh! let not, aimed from some inhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy, and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes, a miserable prey,
In mingled murder fluttering on the ground.
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,
Oft startling such as studious walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air.
But, should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy ruin streams,
Till, choked and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest-walks at every rising gale
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields,
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. Even what remained
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around
A desolated prospect thrills the soul.
He comes he comes in every breeze the power
Of philosophic Melancholy comes
His near approach the Sudden-starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The softened feature, and the beating heart
Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang declare.
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes,
Inflames imagination, through the breast
Infuses every tenderness, and far
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Crowd fast into the mind’s creative eye.
98o
985
990
995
I OOO
Ioo 5
I O IO
IOI 5
A U7'UMAV. I43
As fast the correspondent passions rise,
As varied, and as high, devotion raised
To rapture and divine astonishment ;
The love of Nature unconfined, and chief I O2 O
Of human race ; the large ambitious wish
To make them blest; the sigh for suffering worth
Lost in obscurity ; the noble scorn
Of tyrant pride ; the fearless great resolve :
The wonder which the dying patriot draws, I O25
Inspiring glory through remotest time;
The awakened throb for virtue and for fame;
The sympathies of love and friendship dear,
With all the social offspring of the heart.
Oh! bear me then to vast embowering shades, IO3O
To twilight groves and visionary vales, -
To weeping grottos and prophetic glooms,
Where angel-forms athwart the solemn dusk
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep, along,
And voices more than human, through the void I O25
Deep-sounding, seize the enthusiastic ear.
Or is this gloom too much Then lead, ye powers
That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Preside, which shining through the cheerful land
In Countless numbers blest Britannia sees— IO4O
Oh! lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradise of Stowe.
Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia’s shore
, E'er saw such sylvan scenes, such various art
By genius fired, such ardent genius tamed IO45
By cool judicious art, that in the strife
All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, O Pitt, thy country’s early boast,
There let me sit beneath the sheltered slopes,
Or in that temple where in future times Io 5o
Thou well shalt merit a distinguished name,
And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
I 44 THE SAEASOAVS.
While there with thee the enchanted round I walk,
The regulated wild, gay fancy then Io 55
Will tread in thought the groves of Attic land,
Will from thy standard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the purest truth
Of Nature, or, the unimpassioned shades
Forsaking, raise it to the human mind. I of o
Or if hereafter she with juster hand
Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou
To mark the varied movements of the heart,
What every decent character requires,
And every passion speaks. Oh through her strain Io95
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence, that moulds
The attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts,
Of honest zeal the indignant lightning throws,
And shakes corruption on her venal throne.
While thus we talk, and through Elysian vales Io'7 o
Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes—
What pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files
Of ordered trees shouldst here inglorious range,
Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,
And long embattled hosts when the proud foe, Io.75
The faithless, vain disturber of mankind,
Insulting Gaul, has roused the world to war;
When keen once more within their bounds to press
Those polished robbers, those ambitious slaves,
The British youth would hail thy wise command, Io8o
Thy tempered ardour, and thy veteran skill.
The western sun withdraws the shortened day;
And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress to the ground condensed
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze, 1085
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind, -
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon,
Full-orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds,
A U 7 OMAV.
I 45
Shows her broad visage in the Crimsoned east.
Turned to the sun direct, her spotted disk—
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries—
A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again
Void of its flame, and sheds a Softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to Stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides Sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and, streaming mild
O'er the skied mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance trembling round the world.
But when, half-blotted from the sky, her light
Fainting permits the starry fires to burn
With keener lustre through the depth of heaven,
Or near extinct her deadened orb appears,
And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white,
Oft in this season, silent from the north
A blaze of meteors shoots : ensweeping first
The lower skies, they all at once Converge
High to the crown of heaven, and, all at once
Relapsing quick, as quickly reascend,
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew,
All ether coursing in a maze of light.
From look to look, contagious through the crowd,
The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes
The appearance throws—armies in meet array,
Thronged with ačrial spears, and steeds of fire,
Till, the long lines of full-extended war
In bleeding fight commixed, the sanguine flood
Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven.
As thus they scan the visionary scene,
On all sides swells the superstitious din
Incontinent, and busy frenzy talks s
Of blood and battle; cities overturned,
And late at night in swallowing earthquake sunk,
L
Io9'O
Io95
I IOO
II os
I I Io
I I I 5
II 2 O
II 25 .
I46 7'HE SAEASOAVS.
Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame;
Of Sallow famine, inundation, storm ;
Of pestilence, and every great distress;
Empires subversed, when ruling fate has struck II 30
The unalterable hour : even Nature’s self
Is deemed to totter on the brink of time.
Not so the man of philosophic eye
And inspect sage; the waving brightness he
Curious surveys, inquisitive to know II 35
The causes and materials, yet unfixed,
Of this appearance beautiful and new.
Now black and deep the night begins to fall,
A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth. II 4o
Order confounded lies ; all beauty void;
Distinction lost; and gay variety
One universal blot : such the fair power
Of light to kindle and create the whole.
Drear is the state of the benighted wretch II 45
Who then bewildered wanders through the dark,
Full of pale fancies and chimeras huge,
Nor visited by one directive ray
From Cottage streaming or from airy hall.
Perhaps, impatient as he stumbles on, II 50
Struck from the root of slimy rushes, blue
The wild-fire scatters round, or gathered trails
A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss;
Whither decoyed by the fantastic blaze,
Now lost and now renewed, he sinks absorpt, II 55
Rider and horse, amid the miry gulf;
While still, from day to day, his pining wife
And plaintive children his return await,
In wild conjecture lost. At other times,
Sent by the better genius of the night, I 16o
Innoxious gleaming on the horse’s mane
The meteor sits, and shows the narrow path
A U7'ZZMAV,
I 47
That winding leads through pits of death, or else
Instructs him how to take the dangerous ford.
The lengthened night elapsed, the morning shines
Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright,
Unfolding fair the last autumnal day.
And now the mountain sun dispels the fog ;
The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam ;
And, hung on every spray, on every blade
Of grass, the myriad dewdrops twinkle round.
Ah! see where, robbed and murdered, in that pit
Lies the still-heaving hive, -at evening Snatched
Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,
And fixed o'er sulphur; while, not dreaming ill,
The happy people in their waxen cells
Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes
Of temperance for Winter poor, rejoiced
To mark, full-flowing round, their copious stores.
Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends;
And, used to milder scents, the tender race
By thousands tumble from their honeyed domes,
Convolved, and agonizing in the dust.
And was it then for this ye roamed the Spring,
Intent from flower to flower P for this ye toiled
Ceaseless the burning Summer-heats away P
For this in Autumn searched the blooming waste,
Nor lost one sunny gleam P for this sad fate 2
O man tyrannic lord how long, how long
Shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage
Awaiting renovation ? When obliged,
Must you destroy Of their ambrosial food
Can you not borrow, and in just return
Afford them shelter from the wintry winds ;
Or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own
Again regale them on some Smiling day 2
See where the stony bottom of their town
II 65
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II 75
II 8o
II 85
II 9o
II 95
L 2
I 48 7TH/A2 SAEA,SOAVS.
Looks desolate and wild, with here and there
A helpless number, who the ruined state
Survive, lamenting weak, cast out to death. I 2 CC)
Thus a proud city populous and rich,
Full of the works of peace and high in joy
At theatre or feast, or sunk in sleep
(As late, Palermo, was thy fate) is seized
By some dread earthquake, and convulsive hurled I 2 O 5
Sheer from the black foundation, stench-involved,
Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame. |
Hence every harsher sight ! for now the day,
O'er heaven and earth diffused, grows warm and high,
Infinite splendour ! wide investing all. I 2 I C
How still the breeze save what the filmy threads
Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain.
How clear the cloudless sky! how deeply tinged
With a peculiar blue ! the ethereal arch
How swelled immense ! amid whose azure throned I 2 R 5
The radiant sun how gay ! how calm below
The gilded earth ! the harvest-treasures all
Now gathered in beyond the rage of storms
Sure to the swain, the circling fence shut up,
And instant Winter's utmost rage defied; | 22 CŞ
While, loose to festive joy, the country round
Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth,
Shook to the wind their cares. The toil-strung youth,
By the quick sense of music taught alone,
Leaps wildly graceful in the lively dance. I 2.25
Her every charm abroad, the village toast,
Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich,
Darts not unmeaning looks; and, where her eye
Points an approving smile, with double force
The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines. I 23 O
Age too shines out, and garrulous recounts
The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice; nor think
A {77'O//W. I 49
That with to-morrow’s sun their annual toil
Begins again the never-ceasing round.
Oh I knew he but his happiness, of men I 235
The happiest he who far from public rage,
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired,
Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life.
What though the dome be wanting, whose proud gate
Each morning vomits out the Sneaking crowd I 24O
Of flatterers false, and in their turn abused P
Vile intercourse ! What though the glittering robe,
Of every hue reflected light can give,
Or floating loose or stiff with mazy gold,
The pride and gaze of fools, oppress him not P 1 245
What though, from utmost land and sea purveyed,
For him each rarer tributary life
Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps
With luxury and death P What though his bowl
Flames not with costly juice; nor sunk in beds, I 25o
Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night,
Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state P
What though he knows not those fantastic joys
That still amuse the wanton, still deceive—
A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain— I 255
Their hollow moments undelighted all P
Sure peace is his ; a solid life, estranged
To disappointment and fallacious hope;
Rich in content, in Nature's bounty rich, -
In herbs and fruits; whatever greens the Spring I 260
When heaven descends in showers, or bends the bough
When Summer reddens and when Autumn beams,
Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies
Concealed, and fattens with the richest Sap—
These are not wanting; nor the milky drove, 1265
Luxuriant spread o'er all the lowing vale;
Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of streams
And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere
I 50 THE SEASOAVS.
Into the guiltless breast, beneath the shade,
Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay ; I 27 o
Nor aught besides of prospect, grove, or song,
Dim grottos, gleaming lakes, and fountain clear.
Here too dwells simple truth; plain innocence ;
Unsullied beauty ; sound unbroken youth,
Patient of labour, with a little pleased ; I275
Health ever blooming ; unambitious toil ;
Calm contemplation, and poetic ease.
Let others brave the flood in quest of gain,
And beat for joyless months the gloomy wave.
Let such as deem it glory to destroy I 28o
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek, -
Unpierced exulting in the widow's wail,
The virgin’s shriek, and infant’s trembling cry.
Let some, far distant from their native soil,
Urged or by want or hardened avarice, I 285
Find other lands beneath another sun.
Let this through cities work his eager way
By legal outrage and established guile,
The social sense extinct; and that ferment
Mad into tumult the seditious herd, I 290
Or melt them down to slavery. Let these
Insnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord and perplexing right,
An iron race and those, of fairer front
But equal inhumanity, in courts, I 295
Delusive pomp, and dark cabals delight,
Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile,
And tread the weary labyrinth of state ;
While he, from all the stormy passions free
That restless men involve, hears, and but hears, I 3 oo
At distance safe, the human tempest roar,
Wrapped close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,
The rage of nations, and the crush of states
Move not the man who, from the world escaped,
In still retreats and flowery solitudes I 305
A U7'UMAV. I5 I
%
To Nature’s voice attends from month to month
And day to day through the revolving year,
Admiring sees her in her every shape,
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart,
Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more. 13 Io
He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
Into his freshened soul; her genial hours
He full enjoys ; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain. I 3 IS
In Summer he, beneath the living shade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the muse, of these
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers Sung;
Or what she dictates writes; and, oft an eye I 32 O
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world
And tempts the sickled Swain into the field,
Seized by the general joy, his heart distends
With gentle throes, and, through the tepid gleams I 325
Deep musing, then he best exerts his song.
Even Winter wild to him is full of bliss.
The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste
Abrupt and deep, stretched o'er the buried earth,
Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies, I 330
Disclosed and kindled by refining frost,
Pour every lustre on the exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing,
O'er land and Sea imagination roams; t I 335
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels,
The modest eye whose beams on his alone I 34O
Ecstatic shine, the little strong embrace
Of prattling children twined around his neck
I'52 ZTAZAZ SAEASOAVS. — A O’7'OA/AW.
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song he sternly scorns; I 345
For happiness and true philosophy
Are, of the social still and smiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt
And guilty cities never knew, the life
Led by primeval ages uncorrupt, I 350
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man.
O Nature all-sufficient over all !
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works.
Snatch me to heaven, thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent I 355
Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,
Shew me; their motions, periods, and their laws
Give me to scan. Through the disclosing deep
Light my blind way,+the mineral strata there,
Thrust blooming thence the vegetable world, I 360
O'er that the rising system, more complex, -
Of animals, and, higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought
And where the mixing passions endless shift,
These ever open to my ravished eye— I 365
A search the flight of time can ne'er exhaust.
But if to that unequal, if the blood,
In Sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition, under closing shades
Inglorious lay me by the lowly brook, I 37 o
And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin,
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song;
And let me never, never stray from thee
ENT) OF AUTUMN.
º
W IN TER,
SEE, Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms
Congenial horrors, hail With frequent foot,
Pleased have I in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless solitude I lived
And Sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleased have I wandered through your rough domain;
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brewed
In the grim evening sky. Thus passed the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Looked out the joyous Spring—looked out and smiled.
To thee, the patron of this first essay,
The muse, O Wilmington renews her song. .
Since has she rounded the revolving year:
Skimmed the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted through the Summer blaze to rise ;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Rolled in the doubling storm, she tries to Soar,
To swell her note with all the rushing winds,
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods,--
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great.
Thrice happy, could she fill thy judging ear
| O
I 5
2 O
I 7A7A2 SAEASOAVS.
54 p.
With bold description and with manly thought !
Nor art thou skilled in awful schemes alone,
And how to make a mighty, people thrive;
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm unshaken uncorrupted Soul
Amid a sliding age, and burning Strong,
Not vainly blazing, for thy country’s weal,
A steady spirit, regularly free—
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call.
Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year—
Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the Sun
Scarce spreads o'er ether the dejected day.
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays in horizontal lines
Through the thick air, as, clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky,
And, soon-descending, to the long dark night,
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwished, while vital heat, ,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast,
Deep-tinged, and damp, and Congregated clouds
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls
A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Through Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrowed land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun-discoloured flocks,
3O
35
4O
45
5o
55
6o
W/AW 7TAZA’. . I55
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root. 65
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
- Sighs the sad genius of the Coming storm ;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs
And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave presageful send a hollow moan, 7o
Resounding long in listening fancy’s ear.
Then comes the father of the tempest forth,
Wrapt in black glooms. First, joyless rains obscure
Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul,
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods 75
That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain
Lies a brown deluge, as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still
Combine, and deepening into night shut up
The day’s fair face. The wanderers of heaven, 8o
Each to his home, retire, save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from the untasted fields return,
And ask with meaning low their wonted stalls, 85
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither the household feathery people crowd—
The crested cock with all his female train,
Pensive and dripping: while the cottage hind
Hangs o'er the enlivening blaze, and taleful there 90
Recounts his simple frolic; much he talks,
And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows
Without, and rattles on his humble roof.
Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled,
And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread, 95
At last the roused-up river pours along
Resistless, roaring ; dreadful down it comes
From the rude mountain and the mossy wild,
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far;
Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, I OO
Calm, sluggish, silent; till, again constrained,
I56 * 7A/AE SAEA,SOAVS.
Between two meeting hills it bursts away,
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream :
There gathering triple force, rapid and deep,
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thanders through.
Nature, great parent whose unceasing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majestic are thy works :
With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul,
That sees astonished, and astonished sings
Ye too, ye winds ! that now begin to blow
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you.
Where are your stores, ye powerful beings I say,
Where your ačrial magazines, reserved
To swell the brooding terrors of the storm P
In what far-distant region of the sky,
Hushed in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm ?
When from the pallid sky the sun descends,
With many a spot, that o'er his glaring Orb
Uncertain wanders, stained—red fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey ; while rising slow,
Blank in the leaden-coloured east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
_>Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shivering ray :
Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Snatched in short eddies, plays the withered leaf;
And on the flood the dancing feather floats.
With broadened nostrils to the sky upturned,
The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale.
Even, as the matron at her nightly task
With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread,
The wasted taper and the crackling flame
Foretell the blast. But chief the plumy race,
I O 5
I IO
II 5
I 2 O
I 25
I 35
W/AWTAEA’.
I57
*
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.
Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train
Of clamorous rooks thick-urge their weary flight,
And seek the closing shelter of the grove.
Assiduous in his bower the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep and screams along the land.
Loud shrieks the soaring hern ; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal pressed, with broken tide
And blind commotion heaves; while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,
And forest-rustling mountain, comes a voice
That solemn-sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air
Down in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends the ethereal force, and with strong gust
Turns from its bottom the discoloured deep.
Through the black night that sits immense around,
Lashed into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn.
Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swelled, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchored navies from their stations drive
Wild as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters : now the inflated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head;
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course,
And dart on distant coasts, if some sharp rock
Or shoal insidious break not their career, -
And in loose fragments fling them floating round.
I 4o
I 5o
T55
I 6o
I 65
I 7o
I58 7A/AE SAEASOAVS.
Nor less at land the loosened tempest reigns. I75
The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade.
Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast,
The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils,
And, often falling, climbs against the blast. 18o
Low waves the rooted forest, vexed, and sheds
What of its tarnished honours yet remain,_
Dashed down and scattered by the tearing wind’s
Assiduous fury its gigantic limbs.
Thus struggling through the dissipated grove, I 85
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And, on the cottage thatched or lordly roof
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome
For entrance eager howls the savage blast. I90
Then too, they say, through all the burdened air
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant sighs,
That, uttered by the demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.
Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds, commixed 195
With stars swift-gliding, sweep along the sky.
All nature reels : till Nature’s King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ; 2 OO
Then straight air, Sea, and earth are hushed at once. &
As yet ’tis midnight deep. The weary clouds,
Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom.
Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me associate with the serious night, 2O5
And contemplation, her sedate compeer; -
Let me shake off the intrusive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.
Where now, ye lying vanities of life
Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train 2 IO
Where are you now P and what is your amount P
W/AWZZA'. I 59
Vexation, disappointment, and remorse.
Sad, sickening thought ! and yet deluded man,
A Scene of crude disjointed visions past,
And broken slumbers, rises still resolved 2 I 5
With new-flushed hopes to run the giddy round.
Father of light and life I thou Good Supreme !
O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit ; and feed my soul 22 O
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure—
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss
The keener tempests come; and fuming dun
From all the livid east or piercing north
Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb 225
A vapoury deluge lies, to Snow Congealed.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;
And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.
Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,
At first thin-wavering; till at last the flakes 23 O
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
*Tis brightness all,—save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods 2.35
Bow their hoar heads ; and, ere the languid Sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth’s universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide º,
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox M - 24 O
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone, 245
160 ZTAZA, SAEASOAVS.
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is ;
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
^
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms—dark Snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men—the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind;
Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens
With food at will ; lodge them below the storm,
And watch them strict: for from the bellowing east,
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind’s wing
Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains
In one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks,
Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills,
The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward urged,
The valley to a shining mountain swells,
Tipt with a wreath high-curling in the sky.
As thus the Snows arise, and foul and fierce
All Winter drives along the darkened air,
In his own loose-revolving fields the Swain
Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain ;
Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid
26o
27,o
275
28o
WAAV7'AºA'.
I6 I
Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on
From hill to dale still more and more astray,
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
285
Stung with the thoughts of home. The thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. . How sinks his soul
What black despair, what horror fills his heart
When, for the dusky spot which fancy feigned
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and blest abode of man,—
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild !
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind
Of covered pits unfathomably deep,
A dire descent beyond the power of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smoothed up with snow; and—what is land unknown,
What water--of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man—
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him the officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing and the vestment warm ;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! .
Nor wife nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes, shuts up sense,
And, O'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
29C
3 O 5
M
3 I 5
I 62 7THA SAA,SOAVS.
Lays him along the snows a stiffened Corse, 32O
Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence, surround,-
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste, L 3.25
Ah little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel this very moment death,
And all the sad variety of pain :
How many sink in the devouring flood
Or more devouring flame; how many bleed 33 O
By shameful variance betwixt man and man ;
How many pine in want and dungeon-glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs; how many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread 3.35
Of misery; sore pierced by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty ; how many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse, 34 O
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life t
They furnish matter for the tragic muse;
Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell
With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined,
How many, racked with honest passions, droop 345
In deep retired distress; how many stand
Around the deathbed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man
Of these and all the thousand nameless ills
That one incessant struggle render life, 35O
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,_ -
Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think ;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate ; 355
WZVZTAEA’.
I63
The social tear would rise, the social sigh ;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work. -
And here can I forget the generous band,
Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail,
Unpitied and unheard where misery moans,
Where sickness pines, where thirst and hunger burn,
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice?
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glows
365
With open freedom, little tyrants raged,— ºxa.º.º. 3.
Snatched the lean morsel from the starving mouth,
Tore from cold wintry limbs the tattered weed,
Even robbed them of the last of comforts—sleep,
The free-born Briton to the dungeon chained,
Or, as the lust of cruelty preyailed,
At pleasure marked him with inglorious stripes;
And crushed out lives by secret barbarous ways
That for their country would have toiled or bled.
O great design l if executed well,
With patient care and wisdom-tempered zeal.
Ye sons of mercy J yet resume the search ;
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppression’s iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untouched remains; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot’s weeding hand required.
The toils of law (what dark insidious men
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth
And lengthen simple justice into trade)—
How glorious were the day that saw these broke,
And every man within the reach of right !
By wintry famine roused, from all the tract
Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps,
* -- M 2
370
38o
385
39 O
I64 THE SAEASOAVS.
2’
And wavy Apennines and Pyrenees
Branch out stupendous into distant lands—
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave,
Burning for blood, bony, and gaunt, and grim,
Assembling wolves in raging troops descend ; 395
And, pouring o'er the Country, bear along,
Keen as the north-wind sweeps the glossy snow.
All is their prize. They fasten on the steed,
Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the bull his awful front defend, 4OO
40r shake the murdering savages away.
Rapacious at the mother’s throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of man avails him nought.
Even beauty, force divine ! at whose bright glance 4O 5
The generous lion stands in softened gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguished prey.
But if, apprized of the severe attack,
The country be shut up—lured by the scent,
On churchyards drear (inhuman to relate 1) 4 Io
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which,
Mixed with foul shades and frighted ghosts, they howl.
Among those hilly regions, where embraced
In peaceful vales the happy Grisons dwell, 4 I 5
Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs,
Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll.
From steep to steep, loud-thundering, down they come,
A wintry waste in dire commotion all ;
And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains, 42 o
And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops,
Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelmed.
Now, all amid the rigours of the year, *
In the wild depth of Winter, while without 42
5
W/AWZTER. I 65
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat
Between the groaning forest and the shore
Beat by a boundless multitude of waves,
A rural, sheltered, solitary scene,
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join 43 O
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,
_*And hold high converse with the mighty dead,
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,
As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind
With arts and arms, and humanized a world. 435
Roused at the inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived volume; and deep-musing hail
The sacred shades, that slowly-rising pass
Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates,
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state, 44G
Against the rage of tyrants single stood,
Invincible, calm reason's holy law,
That voice of God within the attentive mind,
Obeying fearless or in life or death :
Great moral teacher wisest of mankind 445
Solon the next, who built his commonweal
On equity’s wide base, by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamped
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire
Whence, in the laurelled field of finer arts 45C
And of bold freedom, they unequalled shone
The pride of smiling Greece and human-kind.
Lycurgus then, who bowed beneath the force
Of strictest discipline, severely wise, S \, . A
All human passions. Following him, I see, ſo cº- 45.5
As at Thermopylae he glorious fell, r
The firm devoted chief, who proved by deeds
The hardest lesson which the other taught.
Then Aristides lifts his honest front,
Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice 460
Of freedom gave the noblest name of Just,
In pure majestic poverty revered;
I66 THE SAEASON.S.
* @
º
&
Who, even his glory to his country's weal
Submitting, swelled a haughty rival’s fame.
Reared by his care, of softer ray appears
Cimon sweet-souled,—whose genius, rising strong,
Shook off the load of young debauch ; abroad
The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend
Of every worth and every splendid art ;
Modest and simple in the pomp of wealth.
Then the last worthies of declining Greece,
Late-called to glory in unequal times,
Pensive appear. The fair Corinthian boast,
Timoleon, -tempered happy, mild and firm,
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.
And, equal to the best, the Theban pair,
Whose virtues, in heroic concord joined,
Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.
He too, with whom Athenian honour sunk,
And left a mass of sordid lees behind,
Phocion the Good, in public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm ;
But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,
Sweet peace and happy wisdom smoothed his brow,
Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.
And he, the last of old Lycurgus’ sons,
The generous victim to that vain attempt
To save a rotten state, Agis, who saw
Even Sparta’s self to servile avarice sunk.
The two Achaean heroes close the train, -
Aratus, who awhile relumed the soul
Of fondly lingering liberty in Greece ;
And he, her darling as her latest hope,
The gallant Philopoemen, who to arms
Turned the luxurious pomp he could not cure,
Or toiling in his farm a simple swain,
Or bold and skilful thundering in the field.
Of rougher front, a mighty people come !
A. race of heroes in those virtuous times
º 4 º'
* *
*
4- º
*
465
47 O
475
48o
485
490
495
W/AWZTAER,
167
{
Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame
Their dearest country they too fondly loved.
Her better founder first, the light of Rome,
Numa, who softened her rapacious sons.
Servius, -the king who laid the solid base
"On which o'er earth the vast republic spread.
Then the great consuls venerable rise,
The public father who the private quelled,
As on the dread tribunal sternly sad:
He whom his thankless country could not lose,
Camillus, only vengeful to her foes;
Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;
And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough ;
Thy willing victim, Carthage, bursting loose
From all that pleading Nature could oppose,
From a whole city's tears, by rigid faith
Imperious called, and honour’s dire command ;
Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave,
Who Soon the race of spotless glory ran,
; And warm in youth to the poetic shade
| With friendship and philosophy retired;
Tully, whose powerful eloquence awhile
Restrained the rapid fate of rushing Rome;
“ Unconquered Cato, virtuous in extreme ;
And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,
Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged,
- Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend.
Thousands besides the tribute of a verse
Demand ; but who can count the stars of heaven P
Who sing their influence on this lower world?
Behold who yonder comes in sober state,
Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal Sun—
'Tis Phoebus' self, or else the Mantuan swain
Great Homer too appears, of daring wing,
Parent of song ! and equal by his side
6- The British muse ; joined hand in hand they walk
~ Darkling full up the middle steep to fame.
* -- ~~~~~~~
Nor absent are those shades whose skilful touch
5oo
5O5
5 lo
5 I 5
52O
525
535
I 68 7 HAE SAEA.S.O.W.S.
***.*.*.*.***
Aº’s.
…~%
A. * Ah! why, dear youth, in all the blooming prime
Pathetic drew the impassioned heart, and charmed
Transported Athens with the moral scene ;
Nor those who tuneful waked the enchanting lyre.
First of your kind society divine !
Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,
And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours.
Silence, thou lonely power the door be thine ;
See on the hallowed hour that none intrude
Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deign
To bless my humble roof, with sense refined,
Learning digested well, exalted faith,
Unstudied wit, and humour ever gay.
! Or from the muses' hill will Pope descend,
To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile,
And with the social spirit warm the heart, -
For though not sweeter his own Homer sings
i Yet is his life the more endearing song.
Twhere art thou, Hammond? thou the darling pride,
The friend and lover of the tuneful throng !
Of vernal genius, where disclosing fast
Each active worth, each manly virtue lay,
Why wert thou ravished from our hope so soon :
What now avails that noble thirst of fame
Which stung thy fervent breast that treasured store
Of knowledge early gained 2 that eager zeal
To serve thy country, glowing in the band
Of youthful patriots who sustain her name P
What now, alas ! that life-diffusing charm
Of sprightly wit? that rapture for the muse,
That heart of friendship, and that soul of joy,
Which bade with softest light thy virtue smile
Ah only showed to check our fond pursuits,
And teach our humbled hopes that life is vain
--~~~ & *
“Tº Thus in some deep retirement would I pass
The winter-glooms with friends of pliant soul,
Or blithe or solemn as the theme inspired ;
54O
55o
560
565
57 O
WINTER. 169
With them would search if Nature's boundless frame 575
Was called late-rising from the void of night,
Or sprung eternal from the Eternal Mind,
Its life, its laws, its progress, and its end.
Hence larger prospects of the beauteous whole
Would gradual open on our opening minds, 580
And each diffusive harmony unite
In full perfection to the astonished eye.
Then would we try to scan the moral world,—
Which, though to us it seems embroiled, moves on
In higher order, fitted and impelled 585
By wisdom's finest hand, and issuing all
In general good. The sage historic muse
Should next conduct us through the deeps of time—
Show us how empire grew, declined, and fell
In Scattered States ; what makes the nations smile, 59 O
Improves their soil, and gives them double suns;
And why they pine beneath the brightest skies
In Nature’s richest lap. As thus we talked
Our hearts would burn within us—would inhale
That portion of divinity, that ray
" Of purest heaven, which lights the public soul
Of patriots and of heroes. But if doomed
In powerless humble fortune to repress
These ardent risings of the kindling soul,
5
9
5
... Then, even superior to ambition, we - 6oo
Would learn the private virtues—how to glide
Through shades and plains along the Smoothest stream
Of rural life; or, snatched away by hope
Through the dim spaces of futurity,
With earnest eye anticipate those Scenes 605
Of happiness and wonder, where the mind'
In endless growth and infinite ascent
Rises from state to state and world to world.
But, when with these the serious thought is foiled,
We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes 6 Io
Of frolic fancy, and incessant form
17o ZTAZAZ SAEA,SOAVS.
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train
Of fleet ideas never joined before,
Whence lively wit excites to gay surprise,
Or folly-painting humour, grave himself, 615
Calls laughter forth deep-shaking every nerve.
Meantime the village rouses up the fire ;
While, well attested and as well believed,
Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round,
Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all ; 62o
Or frequent in the sounding hall they wake
The rural gambol : rustic mirth goes round,-
The simple joke that takes the shepherd’s heart,
Easily pleased ; the long loud laugh sincere;
The kiss, snatched hasty from the sidelong maid 625
The leap, the slap, the haul ; and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance.
Thus jocund fleets with them the winter night.
~...~~3°-*-----~.
*----->
The city swarms intense. The public haunt, 63o
Full of each theme and warm with mixed discourse, *
Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow
Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy
To swift destruction. On the rankled soul
The gaming fury falls; and in one gulf 635
Of total ruin honour, virtue, peace,
Friends, families, and fortune headlong sink.
Up springs the dance along the lighted dome,
Mixed and evolved a thousand sprightly ways.
The glittering court effuses every pomp ; # 64o
The circle deepens; beamed from gaudy robes,
Tapers, and Sparkling gems, and radiant eyes,
A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves,
While, a gay insect in his summer shine, ſ\
The fop light-fluttering spreads his mealy wings. 645
Dread o'er the scene the ghost of Hamlet stalks;
JV/AV7TAZA’. 17 I
* . . .”s
of-s grº
* | ~f~ . sº
s
Othello rages; poor Monimia mourns;
º gº f : * Z. r . .
And Belvidera pours her soul in love : { Vºlºs U; W.- :
Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear
Steals o'er the cheek. Or else the comic muse 65o
Holds to the world a picture of itself,
And raises sly the fair impartial laugh.
Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the scenes
Of beauteous life, whate'er can deck mankind,
Or charm the heart, in generous Bevil showed. 655
3 * **, *~. *". #. t ..") **
f J. wº s3 ; cº, <! {… " .…} & &A.:
\ -
`" ſo thou whose wisdom, solid yet refined, - -"
Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill ſº
To touch the finer springs that move the world,
Joined to whate'er the Graces can bestow
And all Apollo's animating fire, 660
Give thee with pleasing dignity to shine
At once the guardian, ornament, and joy
Of polished life—permit the rural muse,
O Chesterfield, to grace with thee her song !
Ere to the shades again she humbly flies, 665
Indulge her fond ambition,-in thy train
(For every muse has in thy train a place)
To mark thy various full-accomplished mind ;
To mark that spirit, which with British scorn
Rejects the allurements of corrupted power; 67o
That elegant politeness, which excels
Even in the judgment of presumptuous France
The boasted manners of her shining court;
That wit, the vivid energy of sense,
The truth of nature, which with Attic point 675
And kind well-tempered satire, smoothly keen,
Steals through the Soul, and without pain corrects.
Or, rising thence with yet a brighter flame,
O let me hail thee on some glorious day
When to the listening senate ardent crowd 68o
Britannia’s sons to hear her pleaded cause.
Then dressed by thee, more amiably fair,
I 72 7A/A2 ,SA.A.SOAVS.
Truth the soft robe of mild persuasion wears;
Thou to assenting reason giv'st again
Her own enlightened thoughts; called from the heart, 685
The obedient passions on thy voice attend ; -
And even reluctant party feels awhile
Thy gracious power—as through the varied maze
Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong,
Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood. 690
… xxº~~3° k2 -
To thy loved haunt return, my happy muse;
For now, behold, the joyous winter-days
Frosty succeed, and through the blue serene, 1 |
For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies, |- yº
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air 695
Storing afresh with elemental life.
Close crowds the shining atmosphere, and binds
| Our strengthened bodies in its cold embrace
* Constringent ; feeds and animates our blood;
Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves 7oo
In swifter sallies darting to the brain,_
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
All Nature feels the renovating force
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye 705
In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year.
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy fire ; and luculent along 7 Io
The purer rivers flow. Their sullen deeps
Transparent open to the shepherd’s gaze,
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.
What art thou, frost P and whence are thy keen stores
Derived, thou secret all-invading power, - 7 I 5
Whom even the illusive fluid cannot fly P
Is not thy potent energy, unseen,
WYAV7'AºA’.
I73
Myriads of little salts, or hooked, or shaped
Like double wedges, and diffused immense
Through water, earth, and ether ? Hence at eve,
Steamed eager from the red horizon round,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffused,
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool"
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosened ice,
Let down the flood and half dissolved by day,
Rustles no more, but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone—
A crystal pavement by the breath of heaven
Cemented firm ; till, seized from shore to shore,
The whole imprisoned river growls below.
Loud rings the frozen earth and hard reflects
A double noise, while at his evening watch
The village dog deters the nightly thief,
The heifer lows, the distant waterfall
Swells in the breeze, and with the hasty tread
Of traveller the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely "keen and—all one cope
Of starry glitter—glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls
Through the still night incessant, heavy, strong,
And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on,
Till morn late rising o'er the drooping world
Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears
The various labour of the silent night—
Prone from the dripping eave and dumb cascade,
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar,
The pendent icicle ; the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues and fancied figures rise ;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill the frozen brook,
A livid tract cold-gleaming on the morn;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave;
72 o
73 o
74G
745
I 74 7TAZAZ SAEA...SOAVS.
And by the frost refined the whiter snow, 75
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd as he pensive seeks
His pining flock, or from the mountain top,
Pleased with the slippery surface, swift descends. .
On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains, 76o
While every work of man is laid at rest,
Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport
And revelry dissolved ; where mixing glad,
Happiest of all the train, the raptured boy
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine 765
Branched out in many a long canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care
Batavia rushes forth ; and, as they sweep
On sounding skates a thousand different ways
In circling poise swift as the winds along, 77o
The then gay land is maddened all to joy.
Nor less the northern courts wide o'er the snow
Pour a new pomp. Eager on rapid sleds
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to raise 775
The manly strife, with highly blooming charms
Flushed by the season, Scandinavia's dames
Or Russia's buxom daughters glow around.
Pure, quick, and sportful is the wholesome day;
But soon elapsed. The horizontal sun 78o
Broad o'er the south hangs at his utmost noon,
And ineffectual strikes the gelid cliff.
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains,
Nor feels the feeble touch. Perhaps the vale
Relents awhile to the reflected ray; 785
Or from the forest falls the clustered Snow—
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay-twinkle as they scatter. Thick around
Thunders the sport of those who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot, 790
Worse than the season, desolate the fields,
5
W/AVTER.
I75
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feathered game.
But what is this Our infant Winter sinks
Divested of his grandeur, should our eye
Astonished shoot into the frigid zone,—
Where for relentless months continual night
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There through the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barred by the hand of Nature from escape,
Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye but deserts lost in snow,
And heavy loaded groves, and solid floods
That stretch athwart the Solitary vast
Their icy horrors to the frozen main,
And cheerless towns far-distant—never blessed,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,
With news of human-kind. Yet there life glows ;
Yet cherished there beneath the shining waste
The furry nations harbour—tipped with jet,
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press;
Sables, of glossy black; and dark-embrowned,
Or beauteous freaked with many a mingled hue, }º
*—sº-º-º-º-º.
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts.
There, warm together pressed, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and, scarce his head
Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils,
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful flying race : with ponderous clubs,
As weak against the mountain-heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows,
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
There through the piny forest half-absorpt,
7.95
8oo
805
81 o
815
820
825
176 7TH/AE SAEASO/VS.
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn : -
Slow-paced, and sourer as the storms increase, 83o
He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift,
And with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want.
Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north
That see Bootes urge his tardy wain, 835
- *~~~~ - i 4.3
A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus pierced, fº, W &v.
Who little pleasure know and fear no pain,
Prolific swarm. They once relumed the flame
Of lost mankind in polished slavery sunk,
Drove martial horde on horde, with dreadful sweep 84o
Resistless rushing o'er the enfeebled south,
And gave the vanquished world another form.
Not such the sons of Lapland: wisely they
Despise the insensate barbarous trade of war;
They ask no more than simple Nature gives; 845
They love their mountains and enjoy their storms.
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time,
And, through the restless ever-tortured maze
Of pleasure or ambition, bid it rage. 85o
Their reindeer form their riches. These their tents,
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift 855
O'er hill and dale, heaped into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glazed.
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless Shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens, 86o
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play
With doubled lustre from the radiant waste,
Even in the depth of polar night they find
WAAV ZAZA'.
A wondrous day—enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs.
Wished Spring returns; and from the hazy south,
While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome Sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve ;
Till, seen at last for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round his spiral course he winds,
And, as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again and reascends the sky.
In that glad Season, from the lakes and floods
Where pure Niemi’s fairy mountains rise,
And fringed with roses Tenglio rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these at eve
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employed,
Their kind unblemished wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy race by poverty secured
From legal plunder and rapacious power;
In whom fell interest never yet has sown
The seeds of vice; whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious deed ; nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters woe.
Still pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself,
Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out,
The muse expands her solitary flight ;
And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene,
Beholds new seas beneath another sky.
Throned in his palace of cerulean ice,
Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court;
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever heard. .*
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath ;
Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost;
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows,
N - -
87 o
885
890
895
9oo
178 THE SAEA,SOAVS.
With which he now oppresses half the globe.
Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast,
She sweeps the howling margin of the main,_
Where undissolving from the first of time
Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky, 9 O 5
And icy mountains high on mountains piled
Seem to the shivering sailor from afar,
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge and horrid o'er the surge
Alps frown on Alps; or rushing hideous down, 9 Io
As if old chaos was again returned,
Wide rend the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can resist
The binding fury ; but, in all its rage
Of tempest taken by the boundless frost, 9I 5
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained,
And bid to roar no more, a bleak expanse
Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they, 92 O
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun ;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton’s fate,
As with first prow (what have not Britons dared P)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught, 930
And to the stony deep his idle ship -
Immediate sealed, he with his hapless Crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues, to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm. 935
Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing stream
Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men;
9
2
5
WZAV7'AºA'. * I '79
And, half enlivened by the distant sun
(That rears and ripens man as well as plants),
Here human nature wears its rudest form. 94O
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,
Here by dull fires and with unjoyous cheer
They waste the tedious gloom ; immersed in furs
Doze the gross race; nor sprightly jest, nor song,
Nor tenderness they know, nor aught of life * 94.5
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without ;
Till morn at length, her roses drooping all,
Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er the fields,
And calls the quivered savage to the chase.
What cannot active government perform, - 950
New-moulding man 2 Wide-stretching from these shores,
A people Savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire—one vast mind,
By Heaven inspired, from Gothic darkness called.
Immortal Peter, first of monarchs —he 955
His stubborn country tamed, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And, while the fierce barbarian he subdued,
To more exalted soul he raised the man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toiled 96o
Through long successive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done ! Behold the matchless prince
Who left his native throne, where reigned till then
A mighty shadow of unreal power; 965
Who greatly spurned the slothful pomp of courts;
And, roaming every land—in every port
(His sceptre laid aside) with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool—
Gathered the seeds of trade, of useful arts, 97 o
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.
Charged with the stores of Europe, home he goes:
Then cities rise amid the illumined waste ;
O'er joyless deserts smiles, the rural reign; - -
IN 2.
I8o : THAE SAEA,SOAVS.
tº jº.
"..
&
t
{
Far-distant flood to flood is social joined;
The astonished Euxine hears the Baltic roar;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foamed
With daring keel before ; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the north,
And awing there stern Othman’s shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and ignorance, and vice,
Of old dishonour proud : it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that roused the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade;
For what his wisdom planned and power enforced
More potent still his great example showed.
Muttering, the winds at eve with blunted point
Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.
Spotted, the mountains shine ; loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills,
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,
. A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once ;
And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas,
That wash the ungenial pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north ;
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave—
And hark ] the lengthening roar continuous runs
Athwart the rifted deep : at once it bursts,
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.
Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches charged,
That, tossed amid the floating fragments, moors
i Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure -
The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round,-
975
98o
985
99 o
995
IOOO
I oo 5
WZAVZTEA’. I 8 I
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness, I O I O
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renewed with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main P
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train in dreadful sport IOI 5
Tempest the loosened brine ; while through the gloom,
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famished monsters, there awaiting wrecks.
Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye, IO 2 O
Looks down, with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe
Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.
'Tis done ! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. Io 25
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies
How dumb the tuneful Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man
See here thy pictured life: pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, 1030
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,_
And pale concluding Winter comes at last
And shuts the scene. Ah whither now are fied
Those dreams of greatness, those unsolid hopes
Of happiness, those longings after fame, Io 35
Those restless cares, those busy bustling days,
Those gay-spent festive nights, those veering thoughts,
Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life P
All now are vanished 1 Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man, IO4 O
His guide to happiness on high.-And see
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth ! Awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life
I 82 ZTA/A2 SAEASO/VS. — W/AWZTAEA2.
... In every heightened form, from pain and death IO45
For ever free. The great eternal scheme
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refined clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise | ye blind presumptuous ! now, ſo 5c
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraigned : see now the cause
Why unassuming worth in secret lived,
And died neglected ; why the good man’s share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul; IO 55
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined
In starving solitude, while luxury
In palaces lay straining her low thought
To form unreal wants; why heaven-born truth
And moderation fair wore the red marks I oéo
Of superstition's scourge ; why licensed pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosomed foe,
Embittered all our bliss. Ye good distressed
Ye noble few who here unbending stand
Beneath life’s pressure, yet bear up awhile ; Ioč5
And, what your bounded view--which only saw
A little part—deemed evil, is no more :
The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
END OF WINTER.
24 Aſ YA/AW.
–4–4–
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou ! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round ! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear !—a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined,
Shade unperceived so softening into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wondering oft with brute unconscious gaze
Man marks Thee not, marks not the mighty hand
I O
I 5
2O
25
I84 A H. VMAW,
That ever-busy wheels the silent spheres,
Works in the secret deep, shoots steaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring,
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day,
Feeds every creature, hurls the tempest forth,
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend join, every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join, and ardent raise
One general song. To Him, ye vocal gales, .
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes;
Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills,
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound His stupendous praise whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him ;
Breathe your still song into the reaper’s heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
|Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike
Amid the spangled sky the silver lyre.
Great source of day, best image here below
3
5
45
5o
55
6o
65
A H. VMAW.
185
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,-
On Nature write with every beam. His praise,
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world ;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake : a boundless song
Burst from the groves ; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn ; in Swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft-breaking clear
At solemn pauses through the Swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or, if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove—
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting Seraph, and the poet’s lyre
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening east,
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat
Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song, where first the Sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
75
90
95
I OO
I 86 A. Aſ V//AW.
Flames on the Atlantic isles—’tis nought to me ;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full ;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression.—But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable !
Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
END OF HYMN.
I IO
II 5
THE CASTLE OF INDO/LEAVCE.
—6–0–s
CAN TO I.
The Castle highſ of Indolence,
And its false /uxury :
Where for a little time, alas !
We lived right follºy.
I.
O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard °sº
That like an emmet thou must ever moil
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date :
And, certés, there is for it reason great; 5
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy stars, and early drudge and Jate,
Withouten that would come an heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
II.
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, I O
With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground ;
And thºſe a season atween June and May, I 5
*-***-*-** **
Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne carèd ev’n for play.
I 88 THAE CASTZAZ OA' ZAVOOZAZAVCAE.
III.
Was nought around but images of rest:
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ; 2 O
And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest,
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime, unnumbered glittering streamlets, played,
And hurled everywhere their waters sheeſ; 25
That, as they bičkered through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
IV.
Joined to the prattle of the purling rills
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, 3o
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale ;
And now and then Sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stockdoves 'plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; -
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep : 35
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.
V.
Full in the passage of the vale, above,
A sable, silent, solemn forest stood ; {
Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move,
As Idlés fancied in her dreaming mood. 4O
And up the hills, on either side, a wood *
Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
And where this valley winded out, below,
-The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
CAAV7 O Z. 189
VI.
A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was : 4 Ö
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; &
And of gay Castles in the clouds that pass, *
Forever flushing round a summer sky :
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly 5o
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh;
But whate'er Smacked of 'noyance, or unrest,
Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest.
|
VII.
The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease, 55
Where INDOLENCE (for so the wizard hight) tº
Close hid his castle 'mid embowering trees,
That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
And made a kind of checkered day and night.
Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, 6o
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
Was placed ; and, to his lute, of cruel fate
And labour harsh complained, lamenting man’s estate.
VIII.
Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,
From all the roads of earth that pass there by : 65
For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill,
The freshness of this valley Smote their eye,
And drew them ever and anon more nigh,
Till clustering round th’ enchanter false they hung,
Ymolten with his syren melody; 7o
While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung,
And to the trembling chord these tempting verses sung :
I 90 7THE CAS 7/A2 OA' /AVDOZAZAVCAE.
IX.
‘Behold ye pilgrims of this earth, behold ! | (6 iº ^ly
See all but man with unearned pleasure gay.
See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, 75
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May.
What youthful bride can equal her array ? %
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie P
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray,
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 8o
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.
X.
‘Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,
The swarming songsters of the careless grove, -
Ten thousand throats that, from the flowering thorn,
Hymn their good God, and carol Sweet of love, 85
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove :
They neither plough, nor sow; ité, fit for flail,
E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove;
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, gº tº
Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale. 9o
XI.
“Outcast of nature, man the wretched thrall
Of bitter-dropping sweat, of sweltry pain,
Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall,
And of the vices, an inhuman train, i •
That all proceed from savage thirst of gain : . 95 .
For when hard-hearted Interest first began >
To poison earth, Astraea left the plain;
Guile, Violence, and Murder seized on man ; –
And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran.)
CAAVZTO Z.
I9 I
XII.
‘Come, ye, who still the cumbrous load of life
Push hard up hill; but, as the farthest steep
You trust to gain, and put an end to strife,
Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep,
And hurls your labours to the valley deep,
Forever vain : come, and withouten fee
I in oblivion will your sorrows steep,
Your cares, your toils; will steep you in a sea
Of full delight : O come, ye weary wights, to me!
XIII.
“With me, you need not rise at early dawn,
To pass the joyless day in various stounds;
Or, láuting low, on upstart fortune fawn,
Or through the city take your dirty rounds,
To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay,
Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds;
Or prowl in courts of law for human prey,
In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway.
XIV.
“No cocks, with me, to rustic labour call,
From village on to village sounding clear ;
TO tardy swain no shrill-voiced matrons Squall;
No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear;
No hammers thump; no horrid blacksmith Sear,
Ne noisy tradesman your sweet slumbers start
With sounds that are a misery to hear:
But all is calm as would delight the heart
Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art.
I O O
IO 5
I IC
I J 5
I 2 C,
I 25
I 92 THE CAS7/A2 OA' /AWDO/AAVCAE.
XV.
‘Here nought but candour reigns, indulgent ease,
Good-natured lounging, Sauntering up and down : *…
They who are pleased themselves must always please ; * * *
On others’ ways they never squint a frown, I 3o
Nor heed what haps in hamlet or in town.
Thus, from the source of tender indolence,
With milky blood the heart is overflown, r.-,
Is soothed and sweetened by the social sense ; L ** X
For interest, envy, pride, and strife are banished hence.
XVI.
‘What, what is virtue, but repose of mind 2 - I 36
A pure ethereal calm that knows no storm,
Above the reach of wild ambition’s wind,
Above those passions that this world deform,
And torture man, a protid malignant worm ... I 4o
But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, [.. '"
And gently stir the heart, thereby to form
A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray
Across th’ enlivened skies, and make them still more gay.
XVII.
“The best of men have ever loved repose : . 145
They hate to mingle in the filthy fray, -
Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows,
Imbittered more from peevish day to day. w
Even those whom fame has lent her fairest ray,
The most renowned of worthy wights of yore, I5O
From a base world at last have stolen away :
So Scipio, to the soft Cumaean shore 4
Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before.
CAAV7 O /.
193
XVIII.
“But if a little exercise you choose,
Some zest for ease, ’tis not forbidden here.
Amid the groves you may indulge the muse,
Or tend the blooms, and deck the vernal year;
Or Softly stealing, with your watery gear,
Along the brooks, the crimson-spotted fry W
You may delude: the whilst, amused, you hear
Now the hoarse stream, and now the zephyr's sigh,
Attuned to the birds, and woodland melody. -
|
|
t
e
#
^
XIX.
“O grievous folly! to heap up estate,
Losing the days you see beneath the sun ; )
When, Sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate, - !\!
And gives th’ untasted portion you have won
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone,
To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign,
There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun :
But sure it is of vanities most vain,
To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain.”
{
YX.
He ceased. But still their trembling ears retained
The deep vibrations of his 'witching song;
That, by a kind of magic power, constrained
To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng.
Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipt along
In silent ease : as when, beneath the beam
Of Summer moons, the distant woods among,
Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam,
The Soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream.
O
!
f
!
w
* *
** i Maº
I 65
17o
* sº
\ , , AA
% t * *
t ' … I (r^^
I 75
I8o
194 THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE,
By the smooth demon so it ordered was,
And here his baneful bounty first began ;
Though some there were who would not further pass,
...”
*—-*--- ; f -
And his alluring baits suspected han: q) . . . . b
The wise distrust the too fair-spoken man. . | tº 185
Yet through the gate they cast a wishful eye :
Not to move on, perdie, is all they can ; \
For do their very best they cannot fly,
But often each way look, and often Sorely sigh.
XXII.
When this the watchful wicked wizard saw, ** 190
With sudden spring he leaped upon them straight;
And, soon as touched by his unhallowed paw,
They found themselves within the cursed gate;
Full hard to be repassed, like that of fate. -
Not stronger were of old the giant crew, I95
Who sought to pull high Jove from regal state ;
Though feeble wretch he seemed, of sallow hue:
Certes, who bides his grasp will that encounter rue.
XXIII.
For, whomsoe'er the villain takes in hand,
Their joints unknit, their sinews melt apace; - 20o
As lithe they grow as any willow-wand,
And of their vanished force remains no trace.
:k %
:
:
:
:
:
>k.
CANTo J. Y95
XXIV.
Waked by the crowd, slow from his bench arose
A Comely full-spread porter, swoln with sleep :
His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breathed repose; 2 Io
And in Sweet torpor he was plungèd deep,
Ne could himself from ceaseless yawning keep ;
While o'er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran, -
Through which his half-waked soul would faintly peep.
Then, taking his black staff, he called his man, 2 I 5
And roused himself as much as rouse himself he can.
XXV,
The lad leapt lightly at his master's call.
He was, to weet, a little roguish page,
Save sleep and play who minded nought at all,
Like most the untaught striplings of his age. 22 O
This boy he kept each band to disengage,
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit,
But ill becoming his grave personage,
And which his portly paunch would not permit.
So this same limber page to all performed it. 225
XXVI.
Meantime the master-porter wide displayed
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns,
Wherewith he those who entered in arrayed, tº 2^
Loose as the breeze that plays along the downs, | 8 it.
And waves the summer woods when evening frowns. 23o
O fair undress, best dress it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace. This done, right fain,
Sir Porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again. T
O 2
196 THE CASZZAE OF INDOZEAVCE.
XXVII.
Thus easy-robed, they to the fountain sped - 235
That in the middle of the court up-threw
A stream, high spouting from its liquid bed,
And falling back again in drizzly dew :
There each deep draughts, as deep he thirsted, drew.
It was a fountain of népênthe rare; 24O
Whence, as Dân Homer sings, huge pleasaunce grew,
And sweet oblivion of vile earthly care, H |
Fair gladsome waking thoughts, and joyous dreams more fair.
XXVIII,
This rite performed, all inly pleased and still,
Withouten trump, was proclamation made : . 245
‘Ye sons of Indolence, do what you will,
And wander where you list, through hall or glade :
Be no man's pleasure for another's stayed;
Let each as likes him best his hours employ,
And cursed be he who minds his neighbour's trade 1 250
Here dwells kind ease, and unreproving joy:
He little merits bliss who others can annoy.’
XXIX.
Straight of these endless numbers, swarming round,
As thick as idle motes in Sunny ray, -
Not one eftsäons in view was to be found, 25
But every man strolled off his own glad way.
Wide o'er this ample court’s blank area,
With all the lodges that thereto pertained,
No living creature could be seen to stray;
While solitude and perfect silence reigned : 26o
5
So that to think you dreamt, you almost was constrained. !
CAAV7'O V.
197
XXX.
As when a shepherd of the Hebrid Isles,
Placed far amid the melancholy main,
(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles,
Or that aerial beings sometimes deign
To stand, embodied, to our senses plain)
Sees on the naked hill, or valley low,
The whilst in ocean Phoebus dips his wain,
A vast assembly moving to and fro;
Then all at Once in air dissolves the wondrous show.
XXXI.
Ye gods of quiet, and of sleep profound, cº'
****
Whose soft dominion o'er this castle sways,
And all the widely silent places round,-
Forgive me, if my trembling pen displays
What never yet was sung in mortal lays. .
But how shall I attempt such arduous string 2
I, who have spent my nights and nightly days,
\ In this soul-deadening place loose-loitering :
Ah how shall I for this uprear my moulted wing 2
XXXII.
Come on, my muse, nor stoop to low despair,
Tho #6f Jove, touched by celestial fire
Thou yet shalt sing of war, and actions fair,
Which the bold sons of Britain will inspire;
Of ancient bards thou yet shalt sweep the lyre; 2.
Thou yet shalt tread in tragic pall the stage, * *
Paint love's enchanting woes, the hero's ire, …
> The Sage's calm, the patriot's noble rage, - . . . .
; º;
r
Dashing corruption down through every worthless age.
. c. *
&x.
^
265
27,o
28o
-- - 3.
& E. '
* - .*
, Y v \,. --
& “
285
I98 7 H.A. CAS 7/A2 OF WAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
XXXIII.
The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell,
Ne cursèd knocker plied by villain's hand, 29O
Self-opened into halls, where, who can tell
What elegance and grandeur wide expand
The pride of Turkey and of Persia land P
Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread,
And couches, stretch around in Seemly band, 295
And endless pillows rise to prop the head,
So that each spacious room was one full-swelling bed.
XXXIV.
And everywhere huge covered tables stood,
With wines high-flavoured and rich viands crowned ;
Whatever sprightly juice or tasteful food 3oo
On the green bosom of this earth are found,
And all old ocean genders in his round :
Some hand unseen these silently displayed,
Even undemanded by a sign or sound;
You need but wish, and, instantly obeyed, 305
Fair-ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses played.
J&XXV.
Here freedom reigned, without the least alloy;
Nor gossip's tale, nor ancient maiden's gall,
Nor saintly spleen durst murmur at our joy,
And with envenomed tongue our pleasures pall. 3 Io
For why? There was but one great rule for all;
To wit, that each should work his own desire,
And eat, drink, study, sleep, as it may fall,
OF melt the time in love, or wake the lyre,
And carol what, unbid, the muses might inspire. 3I 5
CANTO Z. I99
XXXVI.
The rooms with costly tapestry were hung,
Where was inwoven many a gentle tale,
Such as of old the rural poets sung
Or of Arcadian or Sicilian vale :
Reclining lovers, in the lonely dale, 32O
A Poured forth at large the sweetly tortured heart;
; Or, looking tender passion, swelled the gale,
And taught charmed echo to resound their smart ;
While flocks, woods, streams around, repose and peace
impart.
}
}
XXXVII.
Those pleased the most, where, by a cunning hand, 325
Dépéiñten was the patriarchal age;
What time Dan Abraham left the Chaldee land, .
And pastured on from verdant stage to stage, 2 ſº
Where fields and fountains fresh could best engage.
Toil was not then. Of nothing took they heed, 33 O
But with wild beasts the silvan war to wage,
And o'er vast plains their herds and flocks to feed :
Blessed sons of nature they ! true golden age indeed
------
*
XXXVIII.
." |Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls,
'Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise, 335
Or Autumn's varied shades imbrown the walls:
Now the black tempest strikes the astonished eyes;
Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies;
The trembling sun now plays o'er ocean blue, -
And now rude mountains frown amid the skies; 34o
Whate'er Lorrain light-touched with softening hue, º 'º "
Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew. º
w
: ; , ;", i < . . .
*
2O6 THA. C.A.STZAZ OA; MAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
XXXIX.
Each sound, too, here to languishment inclined,
Lulled the weak bosom, and induced ease.
Aerial music in the warbling wind,
At distance rising oft, by small degrees,
Nearer and nearer came, till o'er the trees
It hung, and breathed such soul-dissolving airs,
As did, alas ! with soft perdition please:
Entangled deep in its enchanting snares,
The listening heart forgot all duties and all cares.
XL.
A certain music, never known before,
- Here soothed the pensive, melancholy mind;
Full easily obtained. Behoves no more,
But sidelong, to the gently waving wind,
To lay the well-tuned instrument reclined ;
From which, the airy flying fingers light,
Beyond each mortal touch the most refined, .
(º The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight: sº
* Whence, with just cause, The Hazž of Æoſus it hight.
XLI.
Ah me ! what hand can touch the string so fine *
NA. - Who up the lofty diapason roll
Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine,
Then let them down again into the soul ?
Now rising love they fanned; now pleasing dole
They breathed, in tender musings, thro’ the heart ;
And now a graver sacred strain they stole,
As when seraphic hands an hymn impart :
Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art.
345
3
5
5
\,
**
360
CAAV7 O Z.
2 O I
XLII.
Such the gay splendour, the luxurious state,
Of Caliphs old, who on the Tygris' shore,
In mighty Bagdat, populous and great,
Held their bright court, where was of ladies store;
And verse, love, music still the garland woré :
When sleep was coy, the bard, in waiting there,
Cheered the lone midnight with the muse's lore;
Composing music bade his dreams be fair,
And music lent new gladness to the morning air.
YLIII.
Near the pavilions where we slept, still ran
Soft-tinkling streams, and dashing waters fell,
And sobbing breezes sighed, and oft began
(So worked the wizard) wintry storms to swell,
As heaven and earth they would together meil:
At doors and windows, threatening, seemed to call
The demons of the tempest, growling fell;
Yet the least entrance found they none at all ;
*...* XLIV.
And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams,
O'er which were shadowy cast Elysian gleams,
That played, in waving lights, from place to place,
And shed a roseate Smile on nature’s face.
Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array, <!--
So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space;
Ne could it e'er such melting forms display,
As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay.
Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy hall.
Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace; ſº . . .
* ...
$ 2
\, , ;
l
2O2 THE CASTLAE OF ZAVZ)OZAZAVCE.
XLV.
No, fair illusions ! artful phantoms, no!
My muse will not attempt your fairy-land :
She has no colours that like you can glow ;
To catch your vivid Scenes too gross her hand.
But sure it is, was ne'er a subtler band
Than these same guileful angel-seeming sprights,
Who thus in dreams voluptuous, soft, and bland,
Poured all th’ Arabian heaven upon our nights,
4Oo
And blessed them oft besides with more refined delights. 405
XLVI.
They were, in sooth, a most enchanting train,
Even feigning virtue; skilful to unite
With evil good, and strew with pleasure pain.
But for those fiends, whom blood and broils delight,
Who hurl the wretch, as if to hell outright,
Down, down black gulfs, where sullen waters sleep,
Or hold him clambering all the fearful night
On beetling cliffs, or pent in ruins deep, —
4 Io
They, till due time should serve, were bid far hence to keep.
XLVII.
Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear,
From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom'
Angels of fancy and of love, be near,
And o'er the wilds of sleep diffuse a bloom ;
Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome,
And let them. virtue with a look impart
But chief, a while, oh lend us from the tomb
Those long lost friends for whom in love we smart,
And fill with pious awe and joy-mixed woe the heart
4I 5
42 O
CAAV7'O V. 2O3
XLVIII.
Or are you sportive 2–bid the morn of youth
Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days 4.25
Of innocence, simplicity, and truth,
To cares estranged, and manhood’s thorny ways
What transport to retrace our boyish plays,
Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied,— t
The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze 43O
Of the wild brooks —But, fondly wandering wide,
My muse, resume the task that yet doth thee abide.
XLIX.
One great amusement of our household was—
In a huge crystal magic globe to spy, -
Still as you turned it, all things that do pass 435
Upon this ant-hill earth ; where constantly
Of idly busy men the restless fry ºf , ºº
Run bustling to and fro with foolish haste
In search of pleasures vain, that from them fly,
Or which, obtained, the caitiffs dare not taste : 44o
When nothing is enjoyed, can there be greater waste :
L.
Of Vanity the MŽrror this was called.
Here you, a muckworm of the town might see
At his dull desk, amid his, ledgers stalled, -
Eat up with Čárking caré and penurie, 445
Most like to carcase parched on gallow-tree.
“A penny savéd is a penny got -
Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepeth he, .*, *
Ne of its rigour will he bate a jot, iłł's ºl …~~"
Till it has quenched his fire, and banished his pot. 450
&r
2O4. 7TH/AE CAS 7/A, OF ZAV/DOZAZAVCAE.
g-iº
* , ... 37
LI. ... ºº
f.”.”
Straight from the filth of this low grub, behold,
Comes fluttering forth a gaudy spendthrift heir,
All glossy gay, enamelled all with gold,
~ The silly tenant of the summer air
In folly lost, of nothing takes he care ; 455
Pimps, lawyers, stewards, harlots, flatterers vile, -
And thieving tradesmen him among them share : , , , ºf
º, , , , , ; *
y ... : : ***
His father's ghost from limbó lake, the while, a º
Sees this, which more damnation does upon him pile. / .”
LII.
This globe pourtrayed the race of learned men, 460
wºrºwn-ºf-tºw
Still at their books, and turning o'er the page
Backwards and forwards : oft they snatch the pen
As if inspired and in a Thespian rage,
Then write and blot as would your ruth engage.
Why, authors, all this scrawl and scribbling sore ? 465
To lose the present, gain the future age,
Praised to be when you can hear no more,
And much enriched with fame when useless worldly store.
LIII.
Then would a splendid city rise to view,
With Carts, and cars, and coaches roaring all : 470
Wide-poured abroad behold the prowling crew
See how they dash along from wall to wall !
At every door hark how they thundering call!
Good lord what can this giddy rout excite
Why, -each on each to prey by guile or gall, 475
With flattery these, with slander those to blight,
And make new tiresome parties for the coming night.
CAAV7'O Z. 205
... LIV.
The puzzling sons of party next appeared,
In dark cabals and nightly juntos met;
And now they whispered close, now shrugging reared 48o
The important shoulder; then, as if to get
New light, their twinkling eyes were inward set. .
No sooner Lucifer recalls affairs, A º f : . . . . . . . .
Than forth they various rush in mighty fret;
When lo l pushed up to power, and crowned their cares, 485
In Comes another set, and kicketh them down stairs.
LV.
But what most showed the vanity of life,
Was to behold the nations all on fire,
In cruel broils engaged, and deadly strife : *
Most Christian kings, inflamed by black desire, 490
With honourable ruffians in their hire,
Cause war to rage, and blood around to pour.
Of this sad work when each begins to tire, |
They sit them down just where they were before, vº
Till for new scenes of woe peace shall their force restore. 495
LVI.
To number up the thousands dwelling here,
An useless were, and eke an endless task, - U.2%
From kings, and those who at the helm appear,
To gipsies brown in summer-glades who bask.
Yea, many a man, perdie, I could unmask, ~} 5oo
Whose desk and table make a solemn show,
With tape-tied trash, and suits of fools that ask
For place or pension, laid in decent row ;
But these I passen by, with nameless numbers moe.
206 7 HAE CAS 7/A2 OA' ZAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
I,VII.
Of all the gentle tenants of the place, 505
There was a man of special grave remark:
A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face,
Pensive, not sad ; in thought involved, not dark.
As soot this man could sing as morning lark, sº ºf .
And teach the noblest morals of the heart; 5 IO
But these his talents were yburied stark; -
Of the fine stores he nothing would impart,
Which or boon nature gave, or nature-painting art.
LVIII.
To noontide shades incontinent he ran,
Where purls, the brook with sleep-inviting sound ; 515
Or, when Dää’ Sol to slope his wheels began, N.J.,
Amid the broom he basked him on the ground,
Where the wild thyme and camomil are found :
There would he linger, till the latest ray
Of light sat quivering on the wellin's bound; 52 o
Then homeward through the twilight shadows stray,
Sauntering and slow. So had he passèd many a day.
JLIX.
Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they past;
For oft the heavenly fire, that lay concealed
Emongst the sleeping embers, mounted fast, 525
nd all its native light anew revealed. -
Oft as he traversed the cerulean field, ׺
And marked the clouds that drove before the wind,
Ten thousand glorious systems would he build,
Ten thousand great ideas filled his mind; 53o
But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.
CAAV7"O Z. 207.
f LX.
With him was sometimes joined, in silent walk,
(Profoundly silent, for they never spoke)
One shyer still, who quite detested talk: *
Oft, stung by spleen, at once away he broke 535
To groves of pine and broad o'ershadowing oak ;
There, inly thrilled, he wandered all, alone,
And on himself his pensive fury wroke,
Ne ever uttered word, save when first shone
The glittering star of eve—“Thank heaven the day is done.’
LXI. , , , , , , , ºf
R_*~ $2 h
|Jovº ( Q.” – * *
Here lurked a wretch, who had not crept abroad 54 I
For forty years, ne face of mortal seen,_
In chamber brooding like a loathly toad ;
— And Sure his linen was not very clean.
Through Secret loophole, that had practised been 545
Near to his bed, his dinner vile he took;
Unkempt, and rough, of squalid face and mien,
Our castle's shame! whence, from his filthy nook,
We drove the villain out for fitter läir to look.
LXII.
One day there chanced into these halls to rove 559
A joyous youth, who took you at first sight; ºst- geº-
Him the wild wave of pleasure hither drove, g
Before the sprightly tempest tossing light :
Certes, he was a most engaging wight, -
Of Social glee, and wit humane though keen, 555
Turning the night to day and day to night: $
For him the merry bells had rung, I ween,
If, in this nook of quiet, bells had ever been.
2 o'S THE CASTLE OF ZAVDOZAZAVCE.
LXIII.
But not even pleasure to excess is good:
What most elates, then sinks the soul as low ; 56o
When springtide joy pours in with copious flood,
The higher still the exulting billows flow,
The farther back again they flagging go,
And leave us groveling on the dreary shore:
| Taught by this son of joy, we found it so ; 565
Who, whilst he staid, kept in a gay uproar
Our maddened castle all, the abode of sleep no more.
I, XIV. d
:----
Sprung from the meads, o'er which he sweeps along,
Cheered by the breathing bloom and vital sky, 57 o
Tunes up amid these airy halls his song,
Soothing at first the gay reposing throng ;
And oft he sips their bowl; or, nearly drowned,
He, thence recovering, drives their beds among,
... And scares their tender sleep, with trump profound ; 575
Then out again he flies, to wing his mazy round.
LXV.
Another guest there was, of sense refined,
Who felt each worth, for every worth he had ;
Serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind,
` As little touched as any man's with bad. 58o
Him through their inmost walks the Muses lad,
To him the sacred love of nature lent ;
And sometimes would he make our valley glad.
Whenas we found he would not here be pent,
- To him the better sort this friendly message sent: 585
CAM 7TO Z. 209
LXVI.
‘Come, dwell with us ! true son of virtue, come !
But if, alas ! we cannot thee persuade
To lie content beneath our peaceful dome,
Ne ever more to quit our quiet glade;
Yet when at last thy toils, but ill apaid, 59 o
Shall dead thy fire, and damp its heavenly spark,
Thou wilt be glad to seek the rural shade,
There to indulge the muse, and nature mark: \ R #.étrº
We then a lodge for thee will rear in Hagley Park. fºº" a.k."
s:- * Wº
…“ . . .” LXVII.
Here hiom igged th’ Esopus of the age ; * . . . . . 595
But, called by fame, in soul yprickèd deep,
A noble pride restored him to the stage,
And roused him like a giant from his sleep.
Even from his slumbers we advantage reap :
With double force the astonished scene he wakes, 6oo
Yet quits not nature’s bounds. He knows to keep
Each due decorum : now the heart he shakes,
And now with well-urged sense the enlightened judgment takes.
£
2-3 || {{*.*. ,4,& “-
LXVIII. 2.É.-6 v' .*.
A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems;
Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain, ! 605
On virtue still, and nature's pleasing themes, 4. *
Poured forth his unpremeditated strain, r ! |
The world forsaking with a calm disdain: l 4 20.
Here laughed he careless in his easy seat; Up.”
Here quaffed, encircled with the joyous train; 6 Io
Oft moralizing sage; his ditty sweet -
He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.
P *...* *-*-- *
2 IO 7A/AE CAS 7T/A2 OF /AWDO/AAVCAE.
LXIX.
Full oft' by holy feet our ground was trod;
Of clerks good plenty here you mote espy.
A little, round, fat, oily man of God,
Was one I chiefly marked among the fry:
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye,
And shone all glittering with ungodly dew,
If a tight damsel chanced to trippen by:
Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew,
And straight would recollect his piety anew.
LXX.
Nor be forgot a tribe, who minded nought
(Old inmates, of the place) but state-affairs:
And on their brow sat every nation’s cares.
The world by them is parcelled out in shares,
When in the Hall of Smoke they congress hold,
And the sage berry sun-burnt Mocha bears
Has cleared their inward eye : then, smoke-enrolled,
Their oracles break forth, mysterious as of old.
LXXI.
Here languid Beauty kept her pale-faced court:
From every quarter hither made resort;
Where, from gross mortal care and business free,
They lay, poured out in ease and luxury.
Or should they a vain shew of work assume,
Alas and well-a-day ! what can it be? s-ºl.
To knot, to twist, to range the vernal bloom; J’º S
But far is cast the distaff, spinning-wheel, and loom.
62o
630
CAAW 7 O Y. . 2 I H
LXXII.
- /
Their only labour was to kill the time; 64o
And labour dire it is, and weary woe.
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme:
Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go,
Or saunter forth, with tottering step and slow :
This soon too rude an exercise they find ; 645
Straight on the couch their limbs again they throw,
Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined, ~,
And court the vapoury god soft-breathing in the wind. . . .
__*”
gº?'
.#
*
LXXIII.
Now must I mark the villany we found,
But ahl too late, as shall eftsoons be shewn. 650
A place here was, deep, dreary, under ground ;
Where still our inmates, when unpleasing grown,
Diseased, and loathsome, privily were thrown.
Far from the light of heaven, they languished there,
Unpitied uttering many a bitter groan ; 65
For of these wretches taken was no care :
Fierce fiends and hags of hell their only nurses were.
5
LXXIV. jº Avº" fºr
Alas the change from scenes of joy and rest J.
To this dark den, where sickness tossed alway.
Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep opprest, 66c)
Stretched on his back a mighty lubbard lay,
Heaving his sides, and Snorèd night and day:
To stir him from his traunce it was not eath,
And his half-opened eyne he shut straightway :
He led, I wot, the softest way to death, 665
And taught withouten pain and strife to yield the breath. ,
P 2
49
2 I 2 ZTAZAZ. C.A.S. 77A2 OA' ZAVOO/CAEAVCAE.
I, XXV.
Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound,
Soft-swoln and pale, here lay the Hydropsy :
Unwieldy manſ with belly monstrous round,
For ever fed with watery supply;
For still he drank, and yet he still was dry.
And moping here did Hypochondria sit,
Mother of spleen, in robes of various dye,
Who vexed was full oft with ugly fit;
67 o
And some her frantic deemed, and some her deemed a wit.
T, XXVI.
A lady proud she was, of ancient blood,
Yet oft her fear her pride made crouchen low :
She felt, or fancied in her fluttering mood,
All the diseases which the spittles know,
And sought all physic which the shops bestow,
And still new leeches and new drugs would try,
Her humour ever wavering to and fro:
For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes cry,
Then sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not why.
;
TXXVII.
Fast by her side a listless maiden pined,
With aching head, and squeamish heart-burnings;
Pale, bloated, cold, she seemed to hate mankind,
Yet loved in secret all forbidden things.
And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings;
The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cocks,
A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings ;
Whilst Apoplexy crammed Intemperance knocks
Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox.
*
676
68o
685
690
CAAV7"O YZ.
2 I 3
CAN TO II.
The Knight of Art and Industry,
And his achiezements fair;
Zhat, by this Castle's overthrow,
Secured, and crowned were.
I.
ESCAPED the castle of the sire of sin,
Ah where shall I so sweet a dwelling find?
For all around without, and all within,
Nothing save what delightful was and kind,
Of goodness savouring and a tender mind,
E’er rose to view. But now another strain,
Of doleful note, alas ! remains behind :
I now must sing of pleasure turned to pain,
And of the false enchanter INDOLENCE complain.
II.
Is there no patron to protect the Muse,
And fence for her Parnassus' barren soil
To every labour its reward accrues,
And they are sure of bread who swink and moil;
But a fell tribe the Aonian hive despoil,
As ruthless wasps oft rob the painful bee:
Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil,
Ne for the Muses other meed decree,
They praised are alone, and starve right merrily.
| O
I 5
2 I 4. THA. CAS 7/A2 OA' ZAV/DO/A2AVCAE.
III.
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny :
You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns by living stream at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave :
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
IV.
Come then, my Muse, and raise a bolder song;
Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth,
Dragging the lazy languid line along,
Fond to begin, but still to finish loth,
Thy half-writ scrolls all eaten by the moth:
Arise, and sing that generous imp of fame,
Who, with the sons of softness nobly wroth,
To sweep away this human lumber came,
Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumbering flame.
W.
In Fairyland there lived a knight of old,
Of feature stern, Selvaggio well yoleped,
A rough unpolished man, robust and bold,
But wondrous poor: he neither sowed nor reaped,
Ne stores in summer for cold winter heaped;
In hunting all his days away he wore ;
Now scorched by June, now in November steeped,
Now pinched by biting January sore,
He still in woods pursued the libbard and the boar.
2 O
25
3O
4O
.45
CAAV7"O ZZ. 2 I 5
WI.
As he one morning, long before the dawn,
Pricked through the forest to dislodge his prey,
Deep in the winding bosom of a lawn,
With wood wild fringed, he marked a taper's ray,
That from the beating rain and wintry fray 5.o
Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy :
There, up to earn the needments of the day,
He found dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy;
And she became his wife, the mother of his boy.
VII.
Amid the greenwood shade this boy was bred, 55
And grew at last a knight of muchel fame,
Of active mind and vigorous lustyhed,
THE KNIGHT OF ARTS AND INDUSTRY by name.
Earth was his bed, the boughs his roof did frame ;
He knew no beverage but the flowing stream ; 6c
His tasteful well earned food the sylvan game,
Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem :
The same to him glad summer or the winter breme.
VIII.
So passed his youthly morning, void of care,
Wild as the colts that through the commons run : 65
For him no tender parents troubled were ;
He of the forest seemed to be the son,
And certes had been utterly undone
But that Minerva pity of him took,
With all the gods that love the rural wonne, 7o
That teach to tame the soil and rule the crook;
Ne did the sacred Nine disdain a gentle look.
216 THE CASTLE OF INDOZENCE.
IX.
Of fertile genius him they nurtured well
In every science and in every art
By which mankind the thoughtless brutes excel, 75
That can or use, or joy, or grace impart,
Disclosing all the powers of head and heart.
Ne were the goodly exercises spared
That brace the nerves or make the limbs alert,
And mix elastic force with firmness hard : 8o
Was never knight on ground mote be with him compared.
X.
Sometimes with early morn he mounted gay
The hunter-steed, exulting o'er the dale,
And drew the roseate breath of orient day;
Sometimes, retiring to the secret vale, 85
Yolad in steel, and bright with burnished mail,
He strained the bow, or tossed the sounding spear,
Or darting on the goal outstript the gale,
Or wheeled the chariot in its mid career,
Or strenuous wrestled hard with many a tough compeer. 9o
XI.
At other times he pried through nature’s store,
Whate’er she in the ethereal round contains,
Whate'er she hides beneath her verdant floor—
The vegetable and the mineral reigns ;
Or else he scanned the globe—those small domains 95
Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,
Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains;
But more he searched the mind, and roused from sleep
Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap.
CAAVZTO ZZ. - 217
YII.
Nor would he scorn to stoop from high pursuits I OO
Of heavenly truth, and practise what she taught.
Vain is the tree of knowledge without fruits.
Sometimes in hand the spade or plough he caught,
Forth calling all with which boon earth is fraught ;
Sometimes he plied the strong mechanic tool, IO 5
Or reared the fabric from the finest draught ;
And oft he put himself to Neptune’s school,
Fighting with winds and waves on the vexed ocean pool.
XIII.
To solace then these rougher toils he tried
To touch the kindling canvas into life ; I IO
With nature his creating pencil vied,—
With nature joyous at the mimic strife :
Or to such shapes as graced Pygmalion's wife
He hewed the marble ; or with varied fire
He roused the trumpet and the martial fife, II 5
Or bade the lute sweet tenderness inspire,
Or verses framed that well might wake Apollo's lyre.
JKIV.
Accomplished thus he from the woods issued,
Full of great aims and bent on bold emprise ;
The work which long he in his breast had brewed I 2 O
Now to perform he ardent did devise,
To wit, a barbarous world to civilize.
Earth was till then a boundless forest wild—
Nought to be seen but Savage wood and skies;
No cities nourished arts, no culture smiled, I 2
No government, no laws, no gentle manners mild.
5
218 7THAE CAS 7/A5 OA' ZAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
XV.
A rugged wight, the worst of brutes, was man ;
On his own wretched kind he ruthless preyed :
The strongest still the weakest over-ran ;
In every country mighty robbers swayed, I 3 O
And guile and ruffian force were all their trade.
Life was not life, but rapine, want, and woe:
Which this brave knight, in noble anger, made
To Swear he would the rascal rout o'erthrow ;
For, by the powers divine, it should no more be so I I 35
XVI.
It would exceed the purport of my song
To say how this best sun, from orient climes,
Came beaming life and beauty all along,
Before him chasing indolence and crimes.
Still as he passed, the nations he sublimes, I 40
And calls forth arts and virtue with his ray :
Then Egypt, Greece, and Rome their golden times
Successive had ; but now in ruins grey
They lie, to slavish sloth and tyranny a prey.
XVII.
To crown his toils, Sir INDUSTRY then spread I 45
The swelling sail, and made for Britain's Coast.
A silvan life till then the natives led,
In the brown shades and green-wood forest lost,
All careless rambling where it liked them most :
Their wealth the wild deer bouncing through the glade, I 50
They lodged at large, and lived at nature's cost,
Save spear and bow, withouten other aid ;
Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast dismayed.
CAAV7 O //. 2 I 9
XVIII.
He liked the soil, he liked the clement skies,
He liked the verdant hills and flowery plains : I 55
“Be this my great, my chosen isle ! (he cries)
This—whilst my labours liberty sustains—
This queen of Ocean all assault disdains.”
Nor liked he less the genius of the land,
To freedom apt and persevering pains, I6o
Mild to obey, and generous to command,
Tempered by forming Heaven with kindest firmest hand.
XIX.
Here by degrees his master-work arose,
Whatever arts and industry can frame,
Whatever finished agriculture knows, 165
Fair Queen of Arts from heaven itself who came,
When Eden flourished in unspotted fame;
And still with her sweet innocence we find,
And tender peace, and joys without a name,
That, while they rapture, tranquillize the mind; 17o
Nature and art at once, delight and use combined.
XX.
Then towns he quickened by mechanic arts,
And bade the fervent city glow with toil;
Bade social commerce raise renownèd marts,
Join land to land, and marry soil to soil, I75
Unite the poles, and without bloody spoil
Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stores ;
Or, should despotic rage the world embroil,
Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores,
While o'er the encircling deep Britannia’s thunder roars. 18o
22O 7A/AE CAS 77A2 OA' ZAVZ)O/CAEAVCAE.
XXI.
The drooping muses then he westward called,
From the famed city by Propontis sea,
What time the Turk th’ enfeebled Grecian thralled ;
Thence from their cloistered walks he set them free,
And brought them to another Castalie, - I 85
Where Isis many a famous nursling breeds,
Or where old Cam soft-paces o'er the lea
In pensive mood, and tunes his doric reeds,
The whilst his flocks at large the lonely shepherd feeds.
XXII.
Yet the fine arts were what he finished least. I9
For why? They are the quintessence of all,
The growth of labouring time, and slow increased ;
Unless, as seldom chances, it should fall
That mighty patrons the coy sisters call
Up to the sunshine of uncumbered ease, I95
Where no rude care the mounting thought may thrall,
And where they nothing have to do but please—
Ah, gracious God thou know'st they ask no other fees.
XXIII.
But now alas ! we live too late in time :
Our patrons now even grudge that little claim, 2 OO
Except to such as sleek the Soothing rhyme;
And yet, forsooth, they wear Maecenas' name,
Poor sons of puft-up vanity, not fame.
Unbroken spirits, cheer | still, still remains
The eternal patron, Liberty ; whose flame, 2O5
While she protects, inspires the noblest strains.
The best and Sweetest far, are toil-created gains.
CAAV7'O //. 22 I
XXIV.
Whenas the knight had framed in Britain-land
A matchless form of glorious government,
In which the sovereign laws alone command, 2 I O
Laws stablished by the public free consent,
Whose majesty is to the sceptre lent,
When this great plan, with each dependent art,
Was settled firm, and to his heart’s content,
Then sought he from the toilsome scene to part, 2 I 5
And let life's vacant eve breathe quiet through the heart.
XXV.
For this he chose a farm in Deva's vale,
Where his long alleys peeped upon the main.
In this calm seat he drew the healthful gale,
Commixed the chief, the patriot, and the swain, 220
The happy monarch of his silvan train
Here, sided by the guardians of the fold,
He walked his rounds, and cheered his blest domain;
His days, the days of unstained nature, rolled,
Replete with peace and joy, like patriarch's of old. 225
XXVI.
Witness, ye lowing herds, who lent him milk;
Witness, ye flocks, whose woolly vestments far
Exceed soft India’s cotton, or her silk ;
Witness, with Autumn charged, the nodding car,
That homeward came beneath sweet evening's star, 230
Or of September moons the radiance mild.
O hide thy head, abominable war !
Of crimes and ruffian idleness the child !
From Heaven this life ysprung, from hell thy glories wild
2 22 THAE CASTZAZ OF MAWZOO/CAAVCAE.
- XXVII.
5
Nor from his deep retirement banished was 23
The amusing cares of rural industry.
Still, as with grateful change the seasons pass,
New scenes arise, new landskips strike the eye,
And all the enlivened country beautify :
Gay plains extend where marshes slept before ; 24O
O'er recent meads the exulting streamlets fly;
Dark frowning heaths grow bright with Ceres' store,
And woods imbrown the steep, or wave along the shore.
XXVIII.
As nearer to his farm you made approach,
He polished nature with a finer hand: 2.45
Yet on her beauties durst not art encroach ;
'Tis art’s alone these beauties to expand.
In graceful dance immingled, o'er the land,
Pan, Pales, Flora, and Pomona played :
Even here, sometimes, the rude wild common fand 25O
A happy place; where, free and unafraid,
Amid the flowering brakes each coyer creature strayed.
XXIX.
But in prime vigour what can last for aye
That soul-enfeebling wizard, INDOLENCE,
I whilom sung, wrought in his works decay:
Spread far and wide was his cursed influence;
Of public virtue much he dulled the sense,
Even much of private; eat our spirit out,
And fed our rank luxurious vices: whence
The land was overlaid with many a lout ; 26o
Not, as old fame reports, wise generous, bold, and stout.
2
5
5
CAAV7'O /Z. .2
2
3
XXX.
A rage of pleasure maddened every breast;
Down to the lowest lees the ferment ran :
To his licentious wish each must be blest,
With joy be fevered,—snatch it as he can. 265
Thus vice the standard reared ; her arrier-ban
Corruption called, and loud she gave the word.
‘Mind, mind yourselves why should the vulgar man,
The lacquey, be more virtuous than his lord P
Enjoy this span of life ’tis all the gods afford.” r 27 o
xxxi.
The tidings reached to where in quiet hall
The good old knight enjoyed well earned repose:
‘Come, come, Sir Knight! thy children on thee Call ;
Come, save us yet, ere ruin round us close ! m
The demon INDOLENCE thy toils o'erthrows.” 275
On this the noble colour stained his cheeks,
Indignant glowing through the whitening snows
Of venerable eld; his eye full-speaks
His ardent Soul, and from his couch at once he breaks.
XXXII.
‘I will (he cried), so help me God destroy t 28o
That villain Archimage.”—His page then strait
He to him called,—a fiery-footed boy
Benempt Dispatch. “My steed be at the gate;
My bard attend ; quick, bring the net of fate.’
This net was twisted by the sisters three; 285
Which, when once cast o'er hardened wretch, too late
Repentance comes: replevy cannot be
From the strong iron grasp of vengeful destiny.
2 24 7TAZAZ CAS 7TLA, OF ZAVZ) O/CAEAVCAE.
2
XXXIII.
He came, the bard, a little Druid wight
Of withered aspect; but his eye was keen, 29 O
With sweetness mixed. In russet brown bedight,
As is his sister of the copses green,
He crept along, unpromising of mien.
Gross he who judges so. His soul was fair,
Bright as the children of yon azure sheen. 295
True comeliness, which nothing can impair,
Dwells in the mind ; all else is vanity and glare.
XXXIV.
‘Come ! (quoth the Knight) a voice has reached mine ear,
The demon INDOLENCE threats overthrow *
To all that to mankind is good and dear : 3oo
Come, Philomelus ! let us instant go, -
O'erturn his bowers, and lay his castle low.
Those men, those wretched men, who will be slaves,
Must drink a bitter wrathful cup of woe ;
But some there be, thy song, as from their graves, 305
Shall raise. Thrice happy he who without rigour saves 1’
XXXV.
Issuing forth, the Knight bestrode his steed
Or ardent bay, and on whose front a star 4
Shone blazing bright;-sprung from the generous breed
That whirl of active day the rapid car, 3 Io
He pranced along, disdaining gate or bar.
Meantime, the bard on milk-white palfrey rode,-
An honest Sober beast, that did not mar
His meditations, but full softly trode.
And much they moralized as thus yfere they yode. 3 I 5.
CAAVZ O ZZ. * 225
XXXVI.
They talked of virtue, and of human bliss.
What else so fit for man to settle well ?
And still their long researches met in this,
This truth of truths, which nothing can refel : \
“From virtue's fount the purest joys outwell, 32 o
Sweet rills of thought that cheer the conscious soul;
While vice pours forth the troubled streams of hell,
The which, howe'er disguised, at last with dole
Will through the tortured breast their fiery torrent roll.”
XXXVII.
At length it dawned, that fatal valley gay, - 3.25
O'er which high wood-crowned hills their summits rear.'
On the cool height awhile our palmers stay,
And spite even of themselves their senses cheer;
Then to the wizard’s wonne their steps they steer.
Like a green isle it broad beneath them spread, 33 o
With gardens round, and wandering currents clear,
And tufted groves to shade the meadow-bed,
Sweet airs and song ; and without hurry all seemed glad.
XXXVIII.
‘As God shall judge me, Knight! we must forgive
(The half-enraptured Philomelus cried)
The frail good man deluded here to live,
And in these groves his musing fancy hide.
Ah, nought is pure It cannot be denied
That virtue still some tincture has of vice,
And vice of virtue. What should then betide, 34o
but that our charity be not too nice 2
Come, let us those we can to real bliss entice.”
Q
3
3
5
226 7 HAE CASZZZ OA' ZAVZ)OZAZAVCAE.
.x XXIX.
‘Ay, sicker (quoth the Knight), all flesh is frail,
To pleasant sin and joyous dalliance bent;
But let not brutish vice of this avail, 345
And think to 'scape deservèd punishment.
Justice were cruel weakly to relent;
From mercy’s self she got her sacred glaive :
Grace be to those who can and will repent ;
But penance long and dreary to the slave, 35o
Who must in floods of fire his gross foul spirit lave.”
XL.
Thus holding high discourse, they came to where
The cursèd carle was at his wonted trade,-
Still tempting heedless men into his snare
In witching wise, as I before have said. 355
But when he saw, in goodly geer arrayed,
The grave majestic Knight approaching nigh,
And by his side the bard so sage and staid,
His countenance fell; yet oft his anxious eye
Marked them, like wily fox who roosted cock doth spy. 360
XLI.
Nathless with feigned respect he bade give back
The rabble rout, and welcomed them full kind.
Struck with the noble twain, they were not slack
His orders to obey, and fall behind.
Then he resumed his song ; and unconfined 365
Poured all his music, ran through all his strings : f
With magic dust their eyne he tries to blind,
And virtue's tender airs o'er weakness flings.
What pity base his song who so divinely sings |
CAAV7'O /Z. * r * 227
XLII.
Elate in thought, he counted them his own, 37o
They listened so intent with fixed delight :
But they instead, as if transmewed to stone,
Marvelled he could with such sweet art unite
The lights and shades of manners, wrong and right.
Meantime the silly crowd the charm devour, 375
Wide pressing to the gate. Swift on the Knight
He darted fierce to drag him to his bower,
Who backening shunned his touch, for well he knew its power.
XLIII.
As in thronged amphitheatre of old
The wary retiarius trapped his foe, 38o
Even so the Knight, returning on him bold,
At once involved him in the net of woe,
Whereof I mention made not long ago.
Enraged at first, he scorned so weak a jail,
And leaped, and flew, and flounced to and fro; 385
But when he found that nothing could avail
He sat him felly down, and gnawed his bitter nail.
XLIV.
Alarmed, the inferior demons of the place
Raised rueful shrieks and hideous yells around;
Black ruptured clouds deformed the welkin's face, 390
And from beneath was heard a wailing Sound, -
As of infernal sprights in cavern bound ;
A Solemn sadness every creature strook,
And lightnings flashed, and horror rocked the ground:
Huge crowds on crowds outpoured, with blemished look, 395
As if on Time's last verge this frame of things had shook.
Q 2
228 7"HAE CAST/CAE OF ZAVZ) O/CAEAVCAE.
XLV.
Soon as the short-lived tempest was yspent—
Steamed from the jaws of vexed Avernus’ hole—
And hushed the hubbub of the rabblement,
Sir INDUSTRY, the first calm moment stole: 4OO
‘There must (he cried) amid so vast a shoal • 3
Be Some who are not tainted at the heart,
Not poisoned quite by this same villain's bowl :
Come then, my bard, thy heavenly fire impart;
Touch soul with soul, till forth the latent spirit start.” 4O 5
XLVI.
The bard obeyed; and taking from his side,
Where it in seemly sort depending hung,
His British harp, its speaking strings he tried,
The which with skilful touch he deftly strung,
Till tinkling in clear symphony they rung. 4 IO
Then, as he felt the Muses come along,
Light o'er the chords his raptured hand he flung,
And played a prelude to his rising song: -
The whilst, like midnight mute, ten thousands round him
throng. - -
XLVII.
Thus ardent burst his strain : ‘Ye hapless race, 4I 5
Dire labouring here to smother reason's ray,
That lights our Maker's image in our face,
And gives us wide o'er earth unquestioned sway,+
What is the adored Supreme Perfection, say ?
What but eternal never-resting soul, 42O
Almighty power, and all-directing day,
By 'whom each atom stirs, the planets roll,
Who fills, surrounds, informs, and agitates the whole P
CAAV7'O //,
229
XLVIII.
* Come, to the beaming God your hearts unfold !
Draw from its fountain life 'Tis thence alone
We can excel. . Up from unfeeling mould
To seraphs burning round the Almighty's throne,
Life rising still on life in higher tone
Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss.
In universal nature this clear shown
Not needeth proof: to prove it were, I wis,
To prove the beauteous world excels the brute abyss.
XLIX.
‘Is not the field with lively culture green
A sight more joyous than the dead morass 2
Do not the skies with active ether clean,
And fanned by sprightly zephyrs, far surpass
The foul November fogs and slumbrous mass
With which sad nature veils her drooping face
Does not the mountain stream, as clear as glass,
Gay-dancing on, the putrid pool disgrace P
The same in all holds true, but chief in human race.
L.
“It was not by vile loitering in ease
That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art ;
That soft yet ardent Athens learned to please,
To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart,
In all Supreme ! complete in every part |
It was not thence majestic Rome arose,
And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart :
For sluggard’s brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose.
4.
3
C)
4.
3
5
23o 7A7A2 CASZZAZ OA' Z.VZ)OZAZAVCAE.
LI.
“Had unambitious mortals minded ‘nought
But in loose joy their time to wear away,
Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought,
Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay,
Rude nature’s state had been our state to-day; . 455
No cities e'er their towery fronts had raised,
No arts had made us opulent and gay,
With brother brutes the human race had grazed,
None e'er had soared to fame, none honoured been, none
praised.
LII.
“Great Homer's song had never fired the breast 46o
To thirst of glory and heroic deeds;
Sweet Maro's muse, sunk in inglorious rest,
Had silent slept amid the Mincian reeds;
The wits of modern time had told their beads,
The monkish legends been their only strains; 465
Our Milton's Eden had lain wrapt in weeds,
Our Shakespeare strolled and laughed with Warwick Swains,
Ne had my master Spenser charmed his Mulla's plains.
T.III.
“Dumb too had been the sage historic muse,
And perished all the sons of ancient fame ; 47.o
Those starry lights of virtue, that diffuse
Through the dark depth of time their vivid flame,
Had all been lost with such as have no name.
Who then had scorned his ease for others’ good P
Who then had toiled rapacious men to tame 2 475
Who in the public breach devoted stood,
And for his country’s cause been prodigal of blood?
CAAV7'O ZZ. 23 I
LIV.
“But should to fame your hearts impervious be,
If right I read, you pleasure all require:
Then hear how best may be obtained this fee, 48o
How best enjoyed this nature's wide desire.
Toil and be glad let Industry inspire
Into your quickened limbs her buoyant breath !
Who does not act is dead; absorpt entire
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath : - 485
O leaden-hearted men, to be in love with death !
LV.
“Better the toiling swain, oh happier far !
Perhaps the happiest of the sons of men
Who vigorous plies the plough, the team, or car,
Who houghs the field, or ditches in the glen, 490
Delves in his garden, or secures his pen :
The tooth of avarice poisons not his peace;
He tosses not in sloth’s abhorrèd den;
From vanity he has a full release;
And, rich in nature's wealth, he thinks not of increase. 495
I,VI.
* Good Lord how keen are his sensations all!
His bread is sweeter than the glutton's cates;
The wines of France upon the palate pall
Compared with what his simple soul elates,
The native cup whose flavour thirst creates; 5oo
At one deep draught of sleep he takes the night ;
And for that heart-felt joy which nothing mates,
Of the pure nuptial bed the chaste delight,
The losel is to him a miserable wight.
232 7 HAE CASZZZ OF ANDOZAA/CAE.
LVII.
“But what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, 505
When sickening health and spirits go amiss P
How tasteless then whatever can be given
Health is the vital principle of bliss,
And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch who slugs his life away, 5 IO
Soon swallowed in disease's sad abyss ;
While he whom' toil has braced, or manly play,
Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.
LVIII.
‘O who can speak the vigorous joys of health !
Unclogged the body, unobscured the mind;
The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth
The temperate evening falls serene and kind.
In health the wiser brutes true gladness find.
See how the younglings frisk along the meads,
As May comes on and wakes the balmy wind; 52O
Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds :
Yet what save high-strung health this dancing pleasaunce
breeds P
5
I
LIX.
“But here instead is fostered every ill
Which or distempered minds or bodies know.
Come then, my kindred spirits do not spill 525
Your talents here. This place is but a show,
Whose charms delude you to the den of woe.
Come, follow me ! I will direct you right
Where pleasure's roses void of serpents grow,
Sincere as sweet ; come, follow this good Knight, 53O
And you will bless the day that brought him to your sight.
5
CAA/7'O / I.
2
3
3
IX.
“Some he will lead to courts, and some to camps;
To Senates some, and public sage debates,
Where, by the solemn gleam of midnight lamps,
The world is poised, and managed mighty states;
To high discovery some, that new creates
The face of earth ; some to the thriving mart ;
Some to the rural reign, and softer fates;
To the Sweet muses some, who raise the heart :
All glory shall be yours, all nature, and all art.
LXI.
“There are, I see, who listen to my lay,
Who wretched sigh for virtue, but despair.
“All may be done (methinks I hear them say),
Even death despised by generous actions fair;
All, but for those who to these bowers repair,
Their every power dissolved in luxury,
To quit of torpid sluggishness the lair,
And from the powerful arms of sloth get free—
'Tis rising from the dead Alas it cannot be ”
LXII.
‘Would you then learn to dissipate the band
Of these huge threatening difficulties dire
That in the weak man’s way like lions stand,
His soul appal, and damp his rising fire P
Resolve resolve . . and to be men aspire . .
Exert that noblest privilege, alone
Here to mankind indulged ; control desire;
Let godlike reason from her sovereign throne
Speak the commanding word I will / and it is done,
540
545
55o
234 THE CASTLE OF ZAVDOZAZAVCAE.
I, XIII.
* Heavens ! can you then thus waste in shameful wise
Your few important days of trial here 2 56o
Heirs of eternity, yborn to rise
Through endless states of being, still more near
To bliss approaching and perfection clear,
Can you renounce a fortune so sublime,
Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer, 565
And roll, with vilest brutes, through mud and slime P
No 1 no l—Your heaven-touched hearts disdain the piteous
crime !’
LXIV.
‘Enough enough ' ' they cried. Straight from the crowd
The better sort on wings of transport fly,
As, when amid the lifeless summits proud 57o
Of Alpine cliffs, where to the gelid sky
Snows piled on snows in wintry torpor lie,
The rays divine of vernal Phoebus play,
The awakened heaps, in streamlets from on high,
Roused into action, lively leap away, 575
Glad warbling through the vales, in their new being gay.
LXV.
Not less the life, the vivid joy serene,
That lighted up these new-created men
Than that which wings the exulting spirit clean
When, just delivered from this fleshly den, 58o
It soaring seeks its native skies agen : |
How light its essence how unclogged its powers,
Beyond the blazon of my mortal pen
Even so we glad forsook these sinful bowers;
Even such enraptured life, such energy was ours. 585
CAAWTO /I. 235
LXVI.
But far the greater part, with rage inflamed, .
Dire muttered curses, and blasphemed high Jove.
‘Ye sons of hate 1 (they bitterly exclaimed)
What brought you to this seat of peace and love?
While with kind nature here amid the grove 590
We passed the harmless Sabbath of our time,
What to disturb it could, fell men emove
Your barbarous hearts P Is happiness a crime
Then do the fiends of hell rule in yon Heaven sublime.”
LXVII.
‘Ye impious wretches, (quoth the Knight in wrath) 595
Your happiness behold !” Then straight a wand
He waved, an anti-magic power that hath
Truth from illusive falsehood to command.
Sudden the landskip sinks on every hand ;
The pure quick streams are marshy puddles found ; 6oo
On baleful heaths the groves all blackened stand ;
And o'er the weedy foul abhorred ground,
Snakes, adders, toads, each loathly creature crawls around.
TXVIII.
And here and there, on trees by lightning scathed,
Unhappy wights who loathèd life yhung ; 605
Or in fresh gore and recent murder bathed
They weltering lay ; or else, infuriate flung
Into the gloomy flood, while ravens sung
The funeral dirge, they down the torrent rolled :
These, by distempered blood to madness stung, 6 Io
Had doomed themselves; whence oft, when night con-
trolled .
The world, returning hither their sad spirits howled.
236 THE CASTLE OF 7AVZ)OZAZAWCAE.
LXIX.
Meantime a moving scene was open laid.
That lazar-house I whilom in my lay
Depeinten have its horrors deep displayed, 615
And gave unnumbered wretches to the day,
Who tossing there in squalid misery lay.
Soon as of sacred light the unwonted smile
Poured on these living catacombs its ray,
Through the drear caverns stretching many a mile, 620
The sick upraised their heads, and dropped their woes awhile.
LXX.
‘O Heaven l (they cried) and do we once more see
Yon blessèd sun, and this green earth so fair P
Are we from noisome damps of pest-house free ?
And drink our souls the sweet ethereal air P 625
O thou or Knight or God who holdest there
That fiend, oh keep him in eternal chains !
But what for us, the children of despair,
Brought to the brink of hell, what hope remains P
Repentance does itself but aggravate our pains.’ 630
LXXI.
The gentle Knight, who saw their rueful case,
Let fall adown his silver beard some tears.
“Certes (quoth he) it is not even in grace
To undo the past, and eke your broken years :
Nathless to nobler worlds repentance rears 635
With humble hope her eye; to her is given
A power the truly contrite heart that cheers;
She quells the brand by which the rocks are riven ;
She more than merely softens—she rejoices Heaven. .
CAAWZ'O ZZ. . 237
LXXII.
‘Then patient bear the sufferings you have earned, 64o
And by these sufferings purify the mind ;
Let wisdom be by past misconduct learned :
Or pious die, with penitence resigned ;
And to a life more happy and refined
Doubt not you shall new creatures yet arise. 645
Till then, you may expect in me to find
One who will wipe your sorrow from your eyes,
One who will soothe your pangs, and wing you to the skies.’
LXXIII.
They silent heard, and poured their thanks in tears.
‘For you (resumed the Knight with sterner tone) 65o
Whose hard dry hearts th’ obdurate demon sears,
That villain's gifts will cost you many a groan ;
In dolorous mansion long you must bemoan
His fatal charms, and weep your stains away;
Till, soft and pure as infant goodness grown, 655
You feel a perfect change : then, who can say - -
What grace may yet shine forth in Heaven's eternal day
I, XXIV,
This said, his powerful wand he waved anew :
Instant a glorious angel-train descends,
The charities, to wit, of rosy hue : * 660
Sweet love their looks a gentle radiance lends, $
And with Seraphic flame compassion blends.
At once delighted to their charge they fly:
When lo! a goodly hospital ascends, t
In which they bade each human aid be nigh, 665
That could the sick-bed smooth of that unhappy fry.
238 7A/AE CAS 77A2 OF JAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
.T.YXV.
It was a worthy edifying sight,
And gives to human kind peculiar grace,
To see kind hands attending day and night
With tender ministry from place to place. 67o
Some prop the head; some from the pallid face
Wipe off the faint cold dews weak nature sheds;
Some reach the healing draught : the whilst, to chase
The fear supreme, around their softened beds,
Some holy man by prayer all opening Heaven dispreds. 675
LXXVI.
Attended by a glad acclaiming train
Of those he rescued had from gaping hell,
Then turned the Knight; and, to his hall again
Soft-pacing, Sought of peace the mossy cell,
Yet down his cheeks the gems of pity fell 68o
To see the helpless wretches that remained,
There left through delves and deserts dire to yell;
Amazed, their looks with pale dismay were stained,
And, spreading wide their hands, they meek repentance
feigned.
LXXVII.
But ah their scorned day of grace was past: 685
For (horrible to tell !) a desert wild * *
Before them stretched, bare, comfortless, and vast,
With gibbets, bones, and carcases defiled.
There nor trim field nor lively culture smiled;
Nor waving shade was seen, nor fountain fair; 690
But sands abrupt on sands lay loosely piled,
Through which they floundering toiled with painful care,
Whilst Phoebus smote them sore, and fired the cloudless
allſ.
CAAVTO //, 239
LXXVIII.
Then, varying to a joyless land of bogs,
The saddened country a gray waste appeared, 695
Where nought but putrid streams and noisome fogs
For ever hung on drizzly Auster's beard ;
Or else the ground, by piercing Caurus Seared,
Was jagged with frost or heaped with glazed snow :
Through these extremes a ceaseless round they steered, 7oo
By cruel fiends still hurried to and fro,
Gaunt beggary and scorn, with many hell-hounds moe.
LXXIX.
The first was with base dunghill rags yolad,
Tainting the gale, in which they fluttered light ;
Of morbid hue his features, sunk and sad; 7 o’s
His hollow eyne shook forth a sickly light;
And o'er his lank jawbone, in piteous plight,
His black rough beard was matted rank and vile ;
Direful to see a heart-appalling sight !
Meantime foul scurf and blotches him defile ; 7 Io
And dogs, where'er he went, still barked all the while.
LXXX.
The other was a fell despightful fiend:
Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below ;
By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancour keened;
Of man, alike if good or bad, the foe : 7I 5
With nose upturned, he always made a show
As if he smelt some nauseous scent ; his eye
Was cold and keen, like blast from boreal snow ;
And taunts he casten forth most bitterly.
Such were the twain that off drove this ungodly, fry. 72 o
240 THE CASZZZ OF ZAVDOZAEAVCE.
LXXXI.
Even so through Brentford town, a town of mud,
A herd of bristly swine is pricked along ;
The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud,
Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous song ;
And oft they plunge themselves the mire among : 725
But aye the ruthless driver goads them on,
And aye of barking dogs the bitter throng
Makes them renew their unmelodious moan,
Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone.
END OF THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
AVO 7TAZ S.
SPRING.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Placed in its natural order in the collected seasons, Spring came third
in the order of composition. It was published in 1728, with a dedi-
cation in prose to the Countess of Hertford, whom Thomson describes
as a lady of ‘fine imagination' and having “intimate acquaintance
with rural nature.’ He adds the interesting information that the poem
grew up under her encouragement, and had therefore a natural claim to
her patronage. Johnson offers a peculiar view of the nature of this
encouragement: it was this lady’s practice, he says, “to invite every
Summer some poet into the country, to hear her verses and assist her
studies. This honour was one summer conferred on Thomson, who took
more delight in carousing with Lord Hertford and his friends than
assisting her ladyship's poetical operations, and therefore never received
another summons.” The scene of those carousals was Marlborough
Castle, in Wiltshire, where, probably in 1727, notwithstanding the
alleged dissipations, time was found to write the larger portion, if not the
whole, of Spring. ‘Here Mr. Thomson composed one of his Seasons’ is
the testimony of Stephen Duck, the Wiltshire thresher-poet, a contem-
porary of Thomson, and only some five years his junior. Lady Hertford's
manner of life at Marlborough may be inferred from the following
verses of her own composition —
“We sometimes ride, and sometimes walk,
We play at chess, or laugh, or talk;
Sometimes beside the Crystal stream
We meditate some serious theme ;
Or in the grot beside the spring
We hear the feathered warblers sing.
R r
242 7TH/AE SAEASOM.S.— SAR/AWG.
Shakspeare perhaps an hour diverts,
Or Scott directs to mend our hearts,
With Clarke God's attributes explore
And taught by him admire them more.
Gay's pastorals sometimes delight us,
Or Tasso's grisly spectres fright us;
Sometimes we trace Armida’s bowers
And view Rinaldo chained with flowers.
Often from thoughts sublime as these
I sink at once—and make a cheese ;
Or see my various poultry fed
And treat my swans with scraps of bread.”
Sometimes upon the smooth canal they go boating till sundown ;
* Then tolls the bell, and all unite
In prayer that God would bless the night.”
From this—
‘To cards we go till ten has struck,
And then, however bad our luck,
Our stomachs ne'er refuse to eat
Eggs, cream, fresh-butter, or calves'-feet,
And cooling fruit, or Savoury greens,
'Sparagus, peas, or kidney beans.
Our Supper past, an hour we sit
And talk of history, Spain, or wit.'
One may imagine Thomson joining occasionally in some part of all this.
The prose dedication of Spring was not repeated. In the second
edition appeared the greater compliment of those half-dozen lines at the
commencement of the poem which rendered it unnecessary. Lady Hert-
ford, if she did not again invite Thomson to her country seat, did not
cease to admire and praise his genius. Twenty years after the publica-
tion of Spring she promised to a correspondent ‘much entertainment
in Mr. Thomson's Castle of Indolence,’ and recommended ‘the many
pretty paintings in it."
The publisher of Spring was one Andrew Miller, who did business at
the sign of Buchanan's Head, and who seems to have favoured, or been
favoured by, Scottish authors. He paid Thomson fifty guineas for
copyright. It was not till 1731 that he brought out the second edition,
but in the interval, more particularly in 1730, the first edition of the
AVZ RO/DO/C 7 OA' V AVO 7"Z. 243
collected Seasons had appeared. Spring, The Dunciad, and The
Beggars' Opera were the chief London publications of 1728.
In Spring, Thomson's imagination does not carry him beyond the
British Isles. He found at home all that was needful for a poetical
representation of that delightful season. Nowhere, indeed, is nature
lovelier in springtime. “My genius spreads her wing,’ sang Goldsmith,
in 1764, in the character of the Traveller—
‘And flies where Britain courts the western spring,
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide :
There all around the gentlest breezes play,
There gentle music melts on every spray;-
Creation’s mildest charms are there combined.”
And the wish of Browning among Italian scenery was “O to be in
England now that April's there !’ \
Spring was augmented in the later editions by about one-tenth. The
lines on angling are a charming addition. It is a question, however,
whether the description of Hagley Park and its people greatly improves
the poem. It is only right to say that the Lytteltons deserved the
tribute of that description.
The Argument of the poem, as given in the edition of 1738, offers the
following summary:—
‘The subject proposed. Inscribed to Lady Hertford. This Season
is described as it affects the various parts of nature, ascending from the
lower to the higher, and mixed with digressions arising from the subject.
Its influence on inanimate matter, on vegetables, on brute animals, and
last on man ; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular
passion of love, opposed to that of a purer and more reasonable kind.”
The finest descriptive passages in Spring include a series of views—
not all original—that almost exhaust the poetical aspects of bird-life.
Of these the fullest and most striking are the bird concert, bird court-
ship, teaching the young birds to fly, the mother bird's return to her
harried nest, and the St. Kilda eagle. Of equal power and fidelity to
nature are the glimpses of the Swan on the river, the dove, and the
parading peacock. One misses, however, the return of the swallows—
a theme on which Thomson, should have had something good to say.
The capture of the big trout and the bull in the broom are drawn with
as firm and faithful a touch as Thomson has anywhere shown, even in
R 2
244 THAE SAEASOAVS. — SA’A’ZZVG.
Winter; while the description of the deluge, compressed into eight
wonderful lines, ending in a climax that awes the imagination, reveals
the advance which the poet had made in imaginative force since the
publication of Winter. There is a tendency to indulge the preaching
vein in the panegyric on nuptial love; but the most prolix part of the
poem is the description of the woes of the lover, especially the jealous
lover. The idea of love enters the poet's mind when he is about half
through the poem, and a description of the effects of that passion on
bird, beast, and man follows and continues to the end. Before
Tennyson, Thomson knew that
“In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.’
The poem opens with a rapid but graphic account of the transition
from Winter to Spring, none of the essential phenomena that mark the
change being omitted. We are introduced to a scene of snow-clad hills,
livid torrents, and cloud-laden skies, and before the poem closes we find
ourselves on the threshold of Summer. The work of the farm occupies
but a small portion of the poem. It is not merely, nor even mainly,
cultivated nature as transformed by the advancing season that forms
the subject of the poem. The range is wider; it is rather over nature
unmodified by the arts and influence of man. The presence of man
is lost in the all-pervading presence of nature. The poet never once
follows Spring into village street or town. Even within the flower-
garden he looks beyond, as if impatient of its confining wall, to the
ethereal mountain or the distant main. The freshness and freedom of
the air of the open wilderness are everywhere about him. It is the
musical expression of these qualities, so admirably caught from the poem,
that recommends Haydn's setting of Spring to every admirer of
Thomson.
Lines I-4. This invocation is simply the poet's way of announcing his
choice of subject. Instead of Saying, in a prosaic way, that he means to
describe the mild winds and refreshing rains, the song-birds and flowers,
and other features of the Spring season, he imagines a goddess de-
scending from heaven in response to his call, garlanded with roses and
surrounded with music. The image of the goddess is purposely obscured
with the cloud and the veil, to harmonize with the shy graces of early
Spring-time. For the same reason there is a blending of figure and
feeling in the first line, which, though evasively bewildering to one's
AWOTES, I-22. 245
imagination, admirably suggests a sense of the presence of Spring.
Thomson attempted to alter these lines, but never succeeded to his
Satisfaction.
3, 4. Zeiled in a shower Of shadowing roses. Cp. Milton's descrip-
tion of Eve in the garden of Eden—
‘Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood
Half-spied, so thick the roses bushing round
About her glowed.”—Par. Zost, Bk. IX. 11. 425–7.
5. O Aerºford, &c. Frances Thynne, granddaughter of Viscount
Weymouth, and wife of the Earl of Hertford, afterwards Duke of
Somerset. She was a lady of considerable literary taste and many.
acquirements. Her knowledge of history is said to have been par-
ticularly extensive. She was fond of the society of poets", and made
some figure herself as a verse-writer. A specimen of her talent has
already been given in the Introductory Note to this poem. To her, in
I750, Shenstone inscribed his ode on Rural Elegance. Watts also
inscribed his Miscellanies to her. She is described by Horace Walpole
as affable, yet dignified, affectionately devoted to her husband in his long
illness, and careful in training her children in virtue and religion. John-
son speaks rather contemptuously of her “poetical operations.” Walpole,
without characterizing her verses, gives her credit for having as much
taste for the writings of others, as modesty about her own.” Thomson
alludes to her fitness for “shining in courts’—a fitness which Queen
Caroline rewarded by making her one of the ladies of the bed-chamber.
She died in 1754, four years after the death of her husband.
21, 22. Scarce Z he Özážerzz Azzozy's his time. The time here referred to
is the breeding season. The bittern, or more correctly the bitour or
bittor (from the French butor), is a genus, or sub-genus, of the heron
family of wading birds. It is somewhat less than the heron, and differs
from it in building its nest on the ground. It haunts marshy places on
upland moors, lies close by day, and wakens up towards evening to fill
the air with that peculiar booming cry from which its name seems to be
derived. In some localities in England it is familiarly called, from the
same peculiarity, the mire-drum, the bull-of-the-bog, &c. Owing to the
modern system of drainage it is not now so common in our country as
it was in the time of Thomson. The breeding season of this bird is in
February or March. It used to be believed that its peculiar cry was
produced by the bird inserting its four-inch long bill into a reed, or into
the marsh ; but it is now known that its cries are uttered in the air,
often while the bird is making its lofty spiral ascent. The bittern is of
1. It was by her intercession with the Queen that a pardon was procured in 1727
for the unfortunate Savage, who had killed a man in a tavern brawl.
246 7 'A' A' SAEASOAVS. — SAERYAVG.
a dull yellow colour irregularly marked with black, has a long bare
neck, and when wounded is dangerous to approach, as it fights
desperately and strikes at the eye of its assailant. ---
23, 24. from the shore The ſlowers. Crested lapwings, or peewits, are
meant. They are a genus of the plover family of wading birds, and
well-known in Britain wherever there are moors or marshy tracts. They
live in flocks, in the Winter season, chiefly at the seaside : in the early
Spring they fly inland to upland moors and waste lands, where they pair,
and build their nests on the ground. Their artifices to prevent people
from discovering their eggs are described in lines 693–7 infra. Plovers
are named from the circumstance of their being especially restless, and
therefore most seen, in rainy weather (Lat. Zſuzza/is, rainy). In Germany
the plover is the rain-piper (AEegenpfeiffer). It is worth noting that
Goldsmith also brings the bittern and the lapwing together in poetry,
but with a purpose different from that of Thomson: the later poet's
object is to accentuate the desolation of the deserted village—
“Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.’
Tennyson makes—
‘The tufted plover pipe along the fallow ſea.”
26, 27. At last from Aries rolls the bounteous suzz, And the bright Bull
receives him. In plain English—poetry, or pedantry, apart—it is now
about the end of April. The sun enters the sign (not now the constella-
tion) of Aries at the vernal equinox. The precession of the equinoxes
has quite disarranged the Zodiac. Thomson rather affects the old-
fashioned poetical way of marking the advance of the year. So in
Winter, lines 42, 43— *
‘To Capricorn the Centaur-Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains th’ inverted year.”
These references to the position of the sun in the Zodiac, as indicative of
the time of the year, are as old in our literature as the age of Chaucer,
the author of the Astrolabe. To take a familiar example—
‘the yonge Sonne
IHath in the Ram his halfe cours i-ronne.’
Arologue to Zales, ll. 7, 8.
This was a mere display of learning, but Chaucer had the humanity to
surround it with natural images suggestive of the progress of the season
which everybody could understand. It was rather late in the day for
Thomson seriously to adopt the old method of marking time. The
lines are sonorous enough, but they are nothing more.
|
*
MOZAZS, 23–54. 247
34–36. Joyous, the impatient husbandman, &c. Compare and
COntrast— -
“Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus aut arator igni.’
Hor. Car. I. 4.
The ox in this country, even in Scotland, is now all but superseded as
a beast of burden and of draught by the horse. Dunbar has a kindly
notice of the plough-ox in the Thistle and the Rose—
‘And lat no bowgle, with his busteous hornis,
The meik pluch ox oppress, for all his pryd,
Bot in the yok go peciable him besyd.’ ll. IIo–II2.
The bowgle is the bugle, or wild ox. Milton’s notice in Comus of ‘the
laboured ox’ returning in loose traces from the furrow, will occur to
every One. So late as the time of Burns, who lived two generations.
after Thomson, the Ox was still in common use on Scottish farms as a
beast of draught. The ploughman-poet sings in The Lea-rig of ‘owsen
frae the furrow'd field’ returning ‘dowf an’ weary,” but he writes also of
small horses, or ‘pownies,' reeking before the plough or harrows. In
the end of last century an ox and a horse were often to be seen on low-
land farms dragging the same plough. Thomson’s knowledge of the
work of the farm, it may be noted here, was altogether drawn from the
Scottish lowlands.
40. the simple song. Of the ploughman. It is still happily his
practice to sing at the plough. For the song of Thomson’s ‘husband-
man' One may reasonably consult such a collection of old songs,
Scottish and English, as Allan Ramsay brought together in his Tea-
Table Miscellany in 1724.
42. The master. The ploughman proper. The attendance of a boy
Or young man as gad'sman, or goadsman, to walk at the head or side of
the oxen and keep them going with his goad, appears to be implied.
remozes the obstructing clay. From the mould-board. This is
done with the pattle or plough-spade. It is the mould-board that
throws the furrow, and it is essential to good ploughing that this should
be done cleanly.
43. Winds the whole work. Plans the method and order of the cul-
tivation of the field; or directs the progress of the whole work, first
feering, and then gathering the furrows into ridges. Or cleaving, a
process the reverse of gathering, may be adopted. The modern method
of laying out a field with the plough is casting. Cp. ‘ to wind a watch,”
i.e. to set a-going and keep in continual motion.
52–54. Aor ye who live in luxury, &c. Cp. the lines of Gray in the
well-known Elegy (published I75I)—
* Let not ambition mock their useful toil,’ &c.
248 7TH AE SAEASOAVS. — SAR/AVG.
55. the rural Maro. Virgil, the author of the Georgics. The first
of the four Georgics treats of agriculture. The whole work, undertaken
at the instance of Maecenas, occupied the poet seven years—from his
34th to his 41st year; it was mostly written at Naples and is the best
specimen of his verse. His descriptions of life and work at the farm
are singularly vivid, and are beautifully illustrated with many poetical
episodes. He was born, 70 B.C., on his father's farm or estate near
Mantua ; lived mainly a country life, uninfluenced by personal ex-
perience of Rome, till he was thirty; and died 19 B.C., and was buried
near his beloved Naples. The AEneid is, of course, regarded as his
greatest poem.
Traces of Thomson's study of the first two Georgics may be found in
the foregoing passage commencing ‘Forth fly the tepid airs’ (l. 32)—
more especially in those parts of it which suggest the feeling of Spring
in the air, and express sympathy with the hopes and fears of the
farmer.
59. awful fathers of mankind. Such as Cincinnatus—“awful from
the plough” (see Winter, 1.512); and Philopoemen ‘ toiling in his farm
a simple swain' or “thundering in the field’ of battle (Winter, 1. 494).
60. your insect tribes. Thomson is not often so severe. He is of
course addressing those who live in luxury and ease ’ and think agri-
culture, and external nature generally, unworthy of their attention or
of poetical treatment. (See ll. 52–54 suffra.)
65. and greatly independent lized. So in the early editions; ex-
panded and weakened in the later thus— g
- ‘ and greatly independent scorned
A/7 the zyżſe stores corruption cazz àeszow.”
66. Zenerate the plough. In the original version, ‘ caultivate the
plough.”
69–75. The commerce, agriculture, and manufactures of Britain are
briefly noticed in these lines, and the wish is expressed that greater
national interest were directed to the production of corn and wool.
The use of the comparatives, ‘superior' and ‘better,’ shows that Thom-
son believed in the establishment of the British power upon rural
industry at home rather than upon trade and traffic abroad. In various
parts of Liberty, a noble and eloquent historical poem strangely
neglected ever since Johnson condemned without having read it, the
same preference for an agricultural to a commercial basis as the first
foundation of national strength and welfare is expressed or implied.
Britannia is thus described—
-* * Great nurse of fruits, of flocks, of commerce, she
Great nurse of men ’—Part V. ll. 81–2.
AVOTES, 55-II.3. 249
In the same Part occurs the following passage—
“She, whitening o'er her downs, diffusive pours
Unnumber'd flocks; she weaves the fleecy robe
That wraps the nations; she to lusty droves
The richest pasture spreads; and, hers, deep wave
Autumnal seas of pleasing plenty round,’ &c.
ll. 38–42, et segg.
8o. the steaming Power. The sap which had retreated to the roots,
‘the dark retreat of vegetation.” It is now “set at large,’ and ‘wanders’
again through stems and stalks all over the spring landscape, giving
their ‘various hues’ to the purpling buds and green unfolding leaves of
trees and bushes, ‘its vivid verdure” to ‘the wither'd hill,’ its white
blossoms to the hawthorn, &c.—all as described in the succeeding
lines. See also ll. 566–570 infra.
84. United light and shade. Neither so brilliant as to dazzle, nor
yet sombre, but an intermediate cheerful tint that soothes and strengthens
the eye.
86, 87. “The hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces.” (Swinburne.)
89. But the whitening of the hawthorn comes considerably later than
the budding of trees—even of the ash.
Ioo–Icé. Thomson mentions the town in Spring only to leave it.
Compare with this passage Milton's fine simile—
* As one who, long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Rorth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight—
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy,’ &c.—AEar. Zost, Bk. IX. 11. 445–45I.
Io?. Some eminence, Azgusta, in thy plains. Richmond Hill will
answer, and is probably intended. Thomson went to live at Richmond
in I736. The surname of Azagazsáa was first given to London in the
time of Constantine the Great, in the early part of the fourth century.
It was then a large and important town, no longer confined to the South
bank of the Thames, but extending along the north bank as well, and on
the latter side defended by a wall.
III, II2. hid beneath Zhe fair frofusion yellow Autumn spies. Anti-
cipates a good crop of fruit from the abundance of blossom. Note th
colouring, from 1. Io9 to the reference to “yellow autumn.’ *
II.3. Af, brushed from Russian wilds, &c. The east winds which
visit us in Spring are part of the polar current which then descends
upon Europe through Russia. The clause expresses the condition
250 7A/A2 SAEASOAVS. — SA’ſº ZAVG.
upon which the poet's expectation of a “yellow Autumn” will be
realized.
II 5. 7%e clamzmy mildew. Mildew, as it is commonly understood, is
not ‘clammy,’ and does not appear, upon plants till the end of summer.
The literal meaning of the word is ‘honey, dew,’—not ‘meal-dew' ; and
the vegetable disease known by this name, which chiefly appears in
Spring, is probably what Thomson here refers to. The word comes
from the Anglo-Saxon meſe or mail, allied to the Latin mel, honey; and
dedw, dew. Honey-dew is a sugary exudation of certain plants and
trees caused, it is supposed, either by the punctures of such insects as the
aphides, or by the rupture of the vegetable tissues from some such
cause as dry weather. The exudation coats the leaves or stalks with a
clammy film, which, if not washed off by a squirt, produces fungi, or at
least catches whatever the air brings to it, and thus clogs the pores of
the plant, and injures its growth. Some, however, believe that honey-
dew is an exudation of the aphides themselves. Thomson here attri-
butes it to a ‘humid,' or—as he first put it—a ‘foggy’ east wind. To
a dry east wind, or north wind, he attributes the blight of leaf and
blossom in springtime through the instrumentality of aphides (l. I 19
et segg.).
I2O. 272sect armies war?. Advance with a wavering motion. Cp.
Milton’s ‘cloud of locusts warping on the eastern wind ' (Par. Zost,
Bk. I. I. 341). Shakespeare, in As You Like It, uses the word causa-
tively—‘Though thou [the winter wind] the waters warp.’
I25. Corrosive famine. An insatiable hunger. Famine is not used
here in its ordinary sense of scarcity of food.
I27. before his orchard. An orchard is no uncommon appendage of
an English farm, but Qn Scottish farms it is far from common.
I3o, I 3 I. Scatters o'er the blooms 7%e puzzgent dust of Żeffer. In
the early editions Thomson had instead—‘ onions, steaming hot, beneath
his trees exposes.’ -
I35. Here in the early editions followed a passage of thirty-three
lines, afterwards transferred with a few alterations to Summer, ll. 289–
3I?.
14I. drown the crude zezzrºßened year. See, for a description of a
wet summer, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. i. 11. 89–II.4—
* Therefore the winds . . . .
. . . . have Sucked up from the sea
Contagious fogs,’ &c.
151, 152. zwäntry storms . . . Oppressing life. Cp. Winter—
- * Thus Winter falls
A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world.”—ll. 57, 58.
*.
AWOTES, II 5–227. 25 I
156. the closing woods. The innumerable leaves of the forest,
no longer stirred by the wind, fall into their natural places, and
remaining motionless, give the idea of a closed tent or curtained
tabernacle.
I57. many-twinkling leazes. Gray, in The Progress of Poesy, has the
same expression, but applied to dancers—“glance their many-twinkling
feet' (1.35).
168. forests seem, impatient, to demand. In the early editions
‘ expansive” had the place of ‘impatient.’ The change is no improve-
ment. t
176. This line at first stood ‘’Tis scarce to patter heard, the stealing
shower,’—a common Scottish inversion.
182. This line explains the bold metaphor of the three preceding
lines.
186. Indulge their genial stores. Here ‘indulge” means “freely
bestow,” or “set no check or restraint upon.”
191, 192. Strikes the illumined mountains. Cp. Tennyson's—
‘wildly dash’d on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world.”—/n Memoriam, XV.
I95. Increased; i. e. with rain.
207. Here, awful Mewton. Shortly after Newton's death, at the
age of 84, in March 1727, Thomson wrote and published his poem,
To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton. The following passage from that
poem describes Newton's discovery of the composition of the white or
colourless ray— -
* Even light itself, which every thing displays,
Shone undiscovered till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the shining robe of day,
And from the whitening undistinguished blaze,
Collecting every ray into his kind,
To the charmed eye educed the gorgeous train
Of parent colours. First the flaming Red,’ &c.
11. Io2, et segg.
An enumeration of the seven primitive rays follows.
218–220. to give to ſight, &c. There is some obscurity of meaning here.
By the ‘balmy treasures’ are probably meant both the bloom and the
fragrance, which were produced by the refreshing rain of the previous
day. The lines ran originally—
‘to give again,
Transmuted soon by nature's chemistry
The blooming blessings of the former day.”
227. Construe—‘what dull and incurious people account as weeds.”
252 THE SAEA,SOAVS. — SAEA’/AVG.
244. their light slumbers gently fumed away. Cp. Milton—
‘Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern, clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam waked, so 'customed ; for his sleep
Was aery light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan
Lightly dispersed,’ &c.—AEar. Zost, Bk. V. ll. I-7.
270. Such were those prime of days. Thomson's description of the
age of primeval innocence may have been partly suggested by a passage
in Virgil's first Georgic, commencing (l. 125) “Ante Jovem nulli subi-
gebant arva coloni’; but it bears a closer and fuller resemblance to
Ovid's beautiful lines on the golden age in the first book of the Meta-
morphoses. Part of Dryden's translation of those lines may be given—
‘The golden age was first, when men, yet new
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew. . . .
The mountain-trees in distant prospect please,
Ere yet the pine descended to the seas;
And happy mortals, unconcerned for more,
Confined their wishes to their native shore. . .
Nor swords were forged ; but void of care and crime,
The soft creation slept away their time. . .
Content with food, which nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed. . . .
The flowers unsown in fields and meadows reigned,
And western winds immortal spring maintained. . .
From veins of valleys, milk and nectar broke,
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.”
Long though Thomson's account of the Age of primeval innocence
is, it was yet longer in the early editions by some twenty-eight lines.
In the edition of 1738 these lines still found a place; and, though it
was a proof of the growing refinement of his taste to withdraw them at
last, they are so characteristic, in a certain wild and even grotesque
luxuriance of imagination, that they may be reproduced here—
* This to the poets' gave the Golden Age,
When, as they sung in elevated phrase,
The sailor-pine had not the nations yet
In commerce mixed; for every country teemed
With everything. Spontaneous harvest waved
Still in a sea of yellow plenty round.
1 Virgil and Ovid.
AVOTES, 244-305. - 253
The forest was the vineyard, where, untaught
To climb, unpruned and wild, the juicy grape
--, |Burst into floods of wine. The knotted oak
Shook from his boughs the long transparent streams
Of honey, creeping through the matted grass.
Th’ uncultivated thorn a ruddy shower
Of fruitage shed on such as sat below
In blooming ease, and from brown labour free—
Save what the copious gathering grateful gave.
The rivers foamed with nectar; or diffuse,
Silent and soft the milky maze devolved.
Nor had the spongy full-expanded fleece
Yet drunk the Tyrian dye : the stately ram
Shone through the mead in native purple clad
Or milder saffron; and the dancing lamb
The vivid crimson to the sun disclosed.
Nothing had power to hurt : the savage soul,
Yet untransfused into the tiger's heart,
Burned not his bowels, nor his gamesome paw
Drove on the fleecy partners of his play; -
While from the flowery brake the serpent rolled
His fairer spires, and played his pointless tongue.”
Some of this is grotesque enough to be ridiculous, but there is also
much of that raciness which Johnson missed in the later editions.
, The warmth and variety of colouring should be noted.
27I, 272. Zwhence the ſabling poets took Zheir goldenz age. Contrast
Cowper— *.
‘Would I had fallen upon those happier days
That poets celebrate, those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings . . .
Vain wish those days were never : airy dreams
Sat for the picture."—The 7asſé, Bk. IV.
279. or else approzing. This can hardly be said of reason.
3O4, 305. extinct each social feeling, fell Azad joyless inhumanity, &c.
‘—social love is of quite another nature [from self-love]; the just and
free exercise of which, in a particular manner, renders one amiable and
divine. The accomplished man I admire, the honest man I trust; but
it is only the truly generous man I entirely love. Humanity is the very
Smile and consummation of virtue; it is the image of that fair perfection
in the Supreme Being, which while he was infinitely happy in himself,
moved him to create a world of beings to make them so.” Zečer to
Aarozz F/7//, April, 18, 1726. t
%
254 7://Z SAEASOAVS.—SPR/AWG.
313, 314. Cp. the lines in Burns's Brigs of Ayr—which revealed
to Carlyle ‘a world of rain and ruin”: -
- “Then down ye’ll hurl . . . . . .
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies.’
The criticism will apply more fitly to the lines of Thomson.
316, 317. These lines originally stood—
‘The Seasons since, as hoar tradition tells,
Have kept their constant chase,’ &c.
This explanation of the phenomenon of the Seasons, as due to the deluge,
has no scientific value: it is purely fanciful. *
319, 32d. fruits and blossoms blushed . . . on the selfsame bough. So
Milton— - -
‘trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at Once of golden hue.”
Aar. Zost, Bk. IV. ll. I.47, 8.
334. Originally—‘The fleeting shadow of a Winter's sun.’
341. Azzd worse. In respect that he acts in a manner contrary to his
better knowledge and better nature. He is therefore more cruel; and is
ungrateful in addition.
350–352. Cp. Milton's Comus—
‘ did Nature pour her bounties forth
With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,
Covering the earth with, odours, fruits, and flocks.’
+ ll. 710–13.
361, 362. čhe plain ox . . . that gazáleless animal. “The meik pluch
ox.’—Dunbar.
367. The clowns he feeds. I.e., with the harvest with which he toiled
to clothe the land, by preparing the furrows for the seed, and by harrowing
and otherwise dressing the ground after sowing was over.
368. the riot of the Autumnal feast. Such as the Lady describes in
Comus—
* Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,’ &c.
ll. I 71–6.
372. Zhe zazembers of the Samian Sage. The doctrine of º: tranS-
migration of Souls was taught by Pythagoras, and as a consequence
abstention from animal food was required. The supposed transmigration
was both into human bodies and the bodies of brutes. Pythagoras himself
MOZAZS, 313-377. 255
professed to recollect having passed through former stages of existence.
It is also said that he pretended to recognise in the cries of a dog that
was being beaten the voice of a friend whose soul he believed to be
imprisoned in the body of that animal. Pythagoras was born about
570 B.C. in the isle of Samos; travelled a great deal in the East in Search
of knowledge; made important discoveries in geometry, music, and
astronomy; settled at Crotona in Italy, where, besides founding a
philosophical sect, he organised a political order, which, at first suc-
cessful, was afterwards suppressed; and died, it is generally supposed,
at Metapontum, 504 B.C. (See Liberty, Part III.1. 32.)
Thomson's line of argument, commencing at line 27 I, and running
not always clearly through the hundred following lines, seems to be
that the wickedness of mankind, after the age of primeval innocence
was past, was punished by the Flood, which brought about a great
climatic change still visible in the succession of the Seasons. ‘Great
Spring before greened all the year.’ This climatic change acting upon
vitiated human nature—which had become ‘fired with hot ravin' and
‘ensanguined ’—has enfeebled the health of mankind, and greatly
shortened the term of human life. And yet there is a remedy for the
imperfections of ill-health and shortness of life, in a return to vegetable
diet—
‘the food of man
While yet he lived in -innocence, and told
A length of golden years, unfleshed in blood.’
It is, however, now too late in the history of the world to propose
a universal return to vegetable food. The attempt of Pythagoras more
than two thousand years ago did not succeed; there is less likelihood of
success now. (See Par. Zost, Bk. IV. 11. 331, et segg.)
373. Azgh Heaven forbids. Here Thomson throws up the argument:
it is the will of Heaven, for wise ends, that we remain in our present
state of imperfection.
376, 377. Besides, he seems to add, the slaughter of the lower animals
may mean their admission into a higher life There seems to be here
a theory of evolution of a peculiar kind—the evolution of the indestructible
spirit or principle of life in every animate individual into a higher state
of existence.—These lines were added in the later editions. A passage
in his Liberty, Part III, well illustrates Thomson's adaptation of the
Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis— \
He even into his tender system took
Whatever shares the brotherhood of life:
He taught that life's indissoluble flame
From brute to man, and man to brute again,
A
256 , 7'HAE, SAEASOAVS. —SA’R/AWG.
For ever shifting, runs th’ eternal round;
Thence tried against the blood polluted meal,
And limbs yet quivering with some kindred soul
To turn the human heart. Delightful truth,
Aſad he beheld the Zizing chainz ascend,
Azad not a circling form, but raising whole /’—ll. 61–70.
With this compare Blake's theory as set forth in Night, one of the Songs
of Innocence (published 1789).
378–465. These exquisite lines, descriptive of an angling excursion,
were a happy afterthought. They were not yet ready for the edition of
1738. The scene is apparently the poet’s native Teviotdale, and the
brooks and streams of the description, their undulating currents and
dusky pools, still entice the angler to the moors and glens of the Cheviots.
The whole passage is clearly a recollection of a day's fishing on the Upper
Jed, or some one or other of its tributaries, which the poet enjoyed, let
us say, when he was free from college in the long vacation in the early
part of his student life. He has returned from his first experience of
a town life with a new zest for the beauty and abandon of country
life; and he carries with him, in addition to the ‘fine tapering rod?
and ‘the slender watery stores,’ a pocket-copy of Virgil. The book
may be unsportsmanlike, but it is rather for companionship than
Serious study. And, indeed, the whole excursion is planned rather as
a device for Surprising nature than a serious attempt to secure a big
basket.
387. “Around the steel no tortured worm shall twine.”
Gay's Æural Sports, Canto I. (published 1713).
391. the weak helpless uncomplaining wretch. The trout. Fishing
with worm is discredited on two grounds—it is cruelty to both worm and
fish. Fly-fishing is preferred: the fly is not swallowed, but fastensin the
trout's mouth in some cartilage which is almost, or altogether, insensible
to pain. It was chiefly for upholding the use of live-bait that Byron
characterized Izaak Walton as cruel, and angling as a solitary vice (vide
Don Juan, Canto XIII. st. cvi). ‘They may talk,” says Lord Byron,
“about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of
fish ; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single
bite is to him worth more than all the scenery around.’ Thomson
at least was no such angler. Neither indeed was Walton insensible to
the scenery of the riverside. But there was a great advance in the
humanity of Thomson upon that of Walton. Not only does Thomson
deprecate the use of live-bait", but he “softly disengages” the young
1 When he was a minor he had perhaps no such scruples. See his poem, in heroic
couplets, On a Country Life, first published in The Edinburgh Miscellany of 1720.
MOZAS, 378–423. 257
trout from his hook and returns them to the water. To circumvent the
‘ monarch of the brook,” however, is in his opinion fair sport. It is
noticeable that this is the only form of sport he favours which can be
said to expose him to a charge of cruelty. He approves of fox-hunting,
and the destruction of beasts of prey generally; but his sympathies are
with the flying hare (see Autumn, 11. 401–425), and the murdered deer
(Autumn, 11. 426-457). His tenderness, indeed, to the peaceful lower
creation is a principal feature of his character and his poetry. An
advance upon his tenderness is, however, very perceptible in the teaching
of Burns and Wordsworth. The latter has taught us
“Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels,” .
Aſart-Zeap Well, Pt. II;
while the former can find it in his heart to say of the fox—
‘The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoil’d, ---
My heart forgets, -
While pitiless the tempest wild
Sore on you beats.”—A Winter AVåght.
420, 421. Some annotators see in these lines an acquaintance on the
part of Thomson with the long Latin poem (in ten books, afterwards
enlarged to sixteen) of The Country Farm, written by the Jesuit Vanière
(Jacobá Vazzieri; & Societafe /esz Praedium A^zesłºczema). The first
edition of this elaborate work was published at Toulouse in 1706, and
a copy may have found its way into Thomson’s possession. This
is indeed more likely than that any portion of it inspired a single idea
or suggested a single expression in Thomson's description of angling.
Natural benevolence, and not Vanière, taught Thomson to return the
little fish to the water: besides, Vanière's action is prompted by a
different motive from that which actuates Thomson ; his motive is
prudence, Thomson's pity. Vanière writes:—
‘AWe ſereaf gems tota, vagae miserere juventae
Pisciculumque vadis haerentem tolle; futurae
Spem soãolis, vivumque novae demitte paludi.’
Thomson has no such ulterior end in view. But— -
“Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space
He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckled infant throw.’
423. ZVie monarch of the Örook ; or rather of the pool—‘ his old secure
abode” (1.433). Such a trout is called in Scotland ‘a linn-lier.” Vanière's
trout, like the more interesting linn-lier, also occupies “uninhabited
S
258 7THAE SAEASOAVS.—,SPR/AWG.
waters,’ and “ lacubus dominatur avitis.’ The similarity between
Vanière's description and that of Thomson is of the slightest, and the
points at which they make their nearest approach to each other are such
as Thomson could discover for himself, and indeed could hardly avoid
in a detailed account of angling. It is more likely that Thomson was
indebted to Gay's Æzeral Sports, Canto I.
434. ſounces round the pool. In his minor poem. On a Country Life
(1720) we find in a description of the capture of a pike—
‘And, being struck, in vain he flies at last;
He rages, storms, and flounces through the stream.”
444. And, in angler's phrase, the trout are no longer ‘taking.’
452. Sounding culver. A. S. cuffre, a pigeon. The rock-pigeon, the
original of all varieties of the domestic dove, is probably meant. When
startled into flight, the pigeon makes a noisy flapping, or clapping, with
its wings, but when fairly launched in the air it can glide noiselessly
along on “liquid wing.’
454. £he classic page. Such as Virgil's. Even Walton made
provision of ‘a book' as he ‘loitered long days by Shawford brook,
and “angled on.’ Thomson's admiration of Virgil is repeated in
Winter (11. 530–532).
457, 458. catch thyself the landscape, &c. I.e. laying aside the book,
conjure up in your own imagination, the ‘rural scenes’ through which
‘the classic page’ has just been “leading your fancy.’ ‘The land-
scape’ is clearly not the scene around him. Thomson seems here to
distinguish for a moment between fancy and imagination, allotting to
the latter faculty a more sustained creative power, and a larger and
freer range.
459–465. These lines describe a further stage in the indulgence of the
imaginative mood, the condition, namely, of reverie. The mind escapes
into a solitude filled with a succession of tranquillizing images, where it
is free from the cares and passions of waking life, and enjoys the con-
sciousness of being—or rather of beginning to be—at peace with the
whole world.
466,467. At these lines the poet takes leave of the angler, and enters
upon a new subject—a description of the beauty and fragrance of Spring .
vegetation. The loveliness of the living and fragrant landscape, he says
in effect, demands description, but will tax the highest descriptive talent
to do it justice. Yet (1.479) he will try. --
470, 47.I. with that matchless skill . . . as appears. ‘That’ and ‘as'
are not true correlatives. But the appearance of ‘as’ is explained by
restoring a line which the poet struck out of the later editions. The
passage ran originally— *
AWOZTES, 434–497. 259
“Or can he [Imagination] mix them with that matchless skill,
And lay them on so delicately fine,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows 7'
The construction, though the line be restored, is loose and even
Slovenly, and the grammar faulty.
482–487. These lines appear in no edition till after I 738. Amanda
was a Miss Young, one of the daughters of Captain Gilbert Young, a
gentleman belonging to Dumfriesshire. Thomson made her acquaint-
ance, probably at Richmond, about the year 1740, through her brother-
in-law, James Robertson, who was then surgeon to the Household at
Rew, and with whom Thomson had been in friendly relation so early
I726. Thomson was deeply in love with her. No fewer than seven of
his minor poems are addressed to her, and all of them display the
sincerity of his passion. A letter of his, directed to Miss Young from
Hagley, of date August 29th, 1743, has also been published : it is
interesting in many ways: in the course of it he says—‘You mix with
all my thoughts, even the most studious, and, instead of disturbing,
as give them greater harmony and spirit. . . . . You so fill my mind with
all ideas of beauty, so satisfy my soul with the purest and most sincere
delight, I should feel the want of little else.” Amanda has been
described by Robertson as ‘a fine, sensible woman’; by Ramsay of
Ochtertyre as ‘not a striking beauty, but gentle-mannered and elegant-
minded, worthy the love of a man of taste and virtue.’ ‘Thomson,’
says Robertson, was never wealthy enough to marry’; and, says
Ramsay (Scotland and Scotsmen in the Éghteenth Century, from the
Ochtertyre MSS.), “it was Mrs. Young, a coarse, vulgar woman, who
constantly opposed the poet's pretensions to her daughter, saying to
her one day, “What! would you marry Thomson? He will make
ballads, and you will sing them ’’’ Amanda afterwards became the
wife of Admiral Campbell.
484, 485. Come with those downcast eyes sedate ... 7%ose looks demºre.
p * Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure, . . . . .
With even step and musing gait, . .
• e e thine eyes. .
With a sad leaden downward cast.’
Il Penseroso, 11. 31–43.
497. In fair profusion decks. In the early editions, ‘profusely
climbs, followed by the following passage— :
“Turgent in every pore
The gummy moisture shines, new lustre lends,
S 2
26o ZTH AE SAEASOAV.S. — S/2A2/AWG.
And feeds the Spirit that diffusive round
Refreshes all the dale.”
499. Arabia cannot boast. Cp. Milton—
‘Sabèan odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest.”—Par. Zost, Bk. IV. ll. I62, 163.
501. Areathes through the sense. Enters the nostrils. g
505. undisguised by mimic art. Growing wild—having their form
unaltered by domestication. Contrast, for example, the wild daisy with
the garden daisy.
512, 513. they soaring dare 7%e Žužle heath. This is a flight out of
Spring into Autumn.
516. its alleys green. “I know each lane and every alley green.’—
Comeats, l. 3 II.
517-524. The scene is perhaps laid in Wiltshire (see Introductory
Note to Spring). It is characteristic of Thomson's love of uncultivated
nature and a wide landscape, that he is no sooner in the flower-garden
than his eyes are beyond its enclosing walls, sweeping the distant horizon.
Contrast Cowper's love of nature—not less genuine, but quieter and
more fastidious. To him a garden was “a blest seclusion,’ and when he
walked abroad it was to see ‘nature in her cultivated trim.” (See The
Task, Bk. III.) His description of an English landscape may be
profitably compared with Thomson's :—
‘Far beyond, and overthwart the stream,
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
T)isplaying on its varied side the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear,
Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote.’
Zhe Zask, Bk. I. Il. 169–176.
529. Here begins a poetical catalogue of garden flowers. It is worth
noting that Thomson was early familiar with gardens and gardening
work. IIis paternal grandfather, at least one uncle—also on the father's
side—and some of his cousins, all followed the occupation of a gardener.
It was one of those cousins that latterly kept the poet's own garden at
Richmond in proper trim.—Crocus, Gr. ºpóſcos, from its saffron colour.
Violet, dimin. of Fr. Ziole, ‘a gilliflower’—according to Cotgrave, Gr. ov,
a violet. Polyanthus, Gr. troAV-, many, and āv60s, flower. Anemone,
lit. wind-flower, from Gr. divepos, wind. Auricula, lit. the lobe of the ear,
used to name the ‘bear's ear flower, a double dimin., from Lat. auris, the
ear. Ranunculus, lit. a little frog, a double dimin., from Lat. razza, a frog.
AWOZZS, 499–612. 26 I
tulip, originally from Pers. or Hind. du/band, a turban, through Turk.
£2t/bend, and last from Fr. tulipſe or ful?ftanz, a tulip, a turban-like flower
(early forms of turban in English are turbant (Par. Regained), tulibant,
and tulipant). Hyacinth, Gr. Šárciv6os (according to Prof. Skeat, not
our hyacinth, but) an iris, larkspur. Jonquil, from Fr. jonquille, named
from its rushlike leaves (Lat. funcats, a rush). Narcissus, Gr. väpicuogos,
a flower so called from its narcotic property (Gr. vapicáa, I grow numb).
Carnation, named from its flesh colour, Lat. carn-stem of caro, flesh.
Pink, named from the peaked edges of the petals.
540. the father-dust. The fertilising pollen.
541. while they break. ‘Break' is printed in the early editions in
Small capitals, as if it were a technical term of gardening. It means
‘blossom ' or ‘ burst into colour.” Cp. daybreak.’
549. the fabled foºzzafaāzz. For the story of Narcissus, who, falling in
love with his own shadow in the water, pined and died on the fountain-
brink, see Ovid’s Metam. Bk. III.
‘As his own bright image he surveyed
He fell in love with the fantastic shade ;
And o'er the fair resemblance hung unmoved,
Nor knew, fond youth ! it was himself he loved.
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn, . .
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn ;
When, looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk with yellow blossoms crown'd.’
Addison’s translation.
555–570. It has been remarked that, while Cowper's gloomy views
of religion drove him for relief and solace to the study of nature,
Thomson's love of nature inspired him with a cheerful religious
Sentiment and a robust belief in the bounty and benevolence of deity.
Here he traces the beauty of vegetable nature to the benevolence of God.
In the remaining part of the poem he traces the joy of animal life to the
Sal (16 SOLIICe.
566–570. These lines furnish an explanatory commentary on lines
78–82 sºpra.
578. A rom the first note the hoſlow cuckoo sings. In the well-known
and much-admired Ode to the Cuckoo by Michael Bruce (born 1746)
the cuckoo is correctly described as ‘attendant on the spring.’
585. &he long-forgotten strain. Referring to the silence of the birds
during winter. -
6oo. listening Philomela. The nightingale (literally the night-
singer) is mostly silent by day.
w
262 7HAE SAEA..SOAVS.—SA’R/AWG.
609-612. The ſay, the rook, the daw, &c. Cp. Cowper—
- “Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The livelong night; nor these alone . . . .
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.’
Zhe 7asſé, Bk. I. ll. 197–203.
The jay is named from its showy plumage (Fr. gai, gay). It dwells in
woods, and seldom flies into the open country. Indeed it is rarely seen,
though its note—which, when the bird is alarmed, is extremely harsh—
is often enough heard. It is a smaller bird and more predatory than
the magpie, and has a much shorter tail, broadening at the tip. By the
jay, however, Thomson probably means the magpie, which is much
commoner in Scotland, and often called the jay-pyot (pied). See
Summer, ll. 224, 225.-The daw, or jackdaw, is named from its cry :
it is a lively and noisy bird, almost impudently familiar. It haunts
steeples, ruined castles, and such inaccessible places.—The stockdove
is the ringdove, or cushat.
624. affrozaſzce. Approval.
627. After this line in the earlier editions—
‘And, throwing out the last efforts of love.’
652. In the earlier editions—
“But hurry, hurry through the busy air.’
694. The white-winged plover. See note, line 24 supra.
699. £ious frazed 1 A deceit prompted by their love for their young.
Cp. fººts Aeneas.
701, 702. the muse . . . Her Örothers of the grove. See Castle of
Indolence, Canto II. St. Xxxiii:
Philomelus—“in russet brown bedight
As is his sister of the copses green.’
7Io. this barðarous act forbear. Cp. Shenstone—
‘I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say ’twas a barbarous deed.’
Aastoral Åa//ad, Pt. II. (date 1743).
714. Her ruined care. Her young, stolen from the nest. The
objects of her defeated care. r
719. The pause after the word ‘robbed' is peculiarly effective. The
strain suddenly modulates into the minor key. This is a favourite
pause of Tennyson's. The picture of Philomela mourning in the
MOTES, 62.4–806. 263
k
poplar shade for the loss of her young is copied from Virgil's Fourth
Georgic.
724. Sole-sitting. Originally “sad-sitting.’ Wordsworth's use of this
compound is well-known—
‘Lady of the mere,
Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.”
Aoems on the Maming of Places, IV.
at every dying fall. Cp. Shakespeare—
* That strain again it had a dying fall.”
Zºvelfth AWight, Act I. sc. i. 1. 4.
729. weighing . . . their wings. In the sense of balancing themselves.
738. AWature's common. The air. Cp. Burns—
* Commoners of air
We wander out, we know not where.”
A/istle to ZDazie.
739. Wing. Fly. Construe—“Nature's common, the air, their
range and pasture as far as they can see or fly.”
752. The acquitted parents. In the first text ‘the exonered parents’—
a Scotticism for “exonerated.’
754–764. These lines graphically describe a striking scene. In the
original version (scarcely less vigorous, but cancelled, probably because
of the somewhat ridiculous image of the last line) the passage stood :—
* High from the summit of a craggy cliff
Hung o'er the green sea, greedging at its base,
The royal eagle draws his young, resolved
To try them at the Sun. Strong-pounced, and bright
As burnished day, they up the blue sky wind,
Leaving dull sight below, and with fixed gaze
Drink in their native noon : the father-king
Claps his glad pinions, and approves the birth.”
The colouring of the first draught should be noted.
765–787. Probably—at least in part—a recollection of Marlborough
in Wiltshire. (See Lady Hertford's verses in the Introduction to
Spring, suffra.)
766–769. Whose lofty elms . . . /nzite the rook who . . . ceaseless caws.
* The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree.’
- Tennyson.
779. with oary feet. The expression is Milton's : Par. Lost. Bk. VII.
1. 440.
806. balmy breathing near. ‘ Redolent in view,’ in the early
editions. Much of this description is copied from the Third Georgic,
from 1. 215 onwards.
264 THE SEASON.S.–SPRING.
815. exciting gale. In the first version, “informing gale.’ ‘Notas
auras’ in the Third Georgic, 1. 251.
818, 819. Such is the force, &c. Cp. the courser of Adonis in Shake-
speare; and Virgil’s description in the Third Georgic, 11. 250–254.
825. Following this line, appeared in the earlier editions—
‘How the red lioness, her whelps forgot
Amid the thoughtless fury of her heart;
The lank rapacious wolf, the unshapely bear;
The spotted tiger, fellest of the fell;
And all the terrors of the Libyan swain,
By this new flame their native warmth sublimed,
Roam the resounding waste in fiercer bands.’
830. £he British fair. ‘ British ’ and ‘Britons’ seem to have been
commoner expressions in the last century for the United Kingdom and
its inhabitants than they are now. Cp. Rule, Britannia—‘Britons never
will be slaves.” In Goldsmith’s Traveller it is Britons that are ‘the
lords of human kind.” “English' and ‘Englishmen have almost super-
seded the words.
832. The same scene is described in similar language in Liberty,
1. 320 of Part III.
852–854. Öouzzdless spirit all, &c. Cp. Pope—
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul.”
Æssay on Man, Ep. I. 11. 267, 268. (Published 1732–4.)
860. Instead of this line the earlier editions had—
“His grandeur in the heavens: the sun and moon,
Whether that fires the day or, falling, this
Pours out a lucid softness o'er the night,
Are but a beam from him. The glittering stars,
By the deep ear of meditation heard,
Still in their midnight watches sing of him.
He nods a calm. The tempest blows his wrath,
Roots up the forest, and o'erturns the main.
The thunder is his voice; and the red flash
His speedy sword of justice. At his touch
The mountains flame. He shakes the Solid earth,
And rocks the nations. Nor in these, alone,—
In every common instance God is seen;
And to the man who casts his mental eye
Abroad, unnoticed wonders rise. But chief
In thee, boon Spring, and in thy softer scenes.’
Then followed l. 861 of the present text.
,’
MOTES, 815–902. - 265
864, undesigning hearts. I.e. actuated by instinct. -
874. Zozºying Spring. A repetition of the idea contained in ‘boun-
teous in 1. 873.
875–88o. See note to 11. 3O4, 305, supra.
890. these green days. Of Spring.
892. yozºng-eyed. This beautiful compound is Shakespeare’s—‘the
young-eyed cherubins’ (Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. i.).
90I.. the present /Jeity. The phrase occurs in Dryden’s Alexander’s
Feast—‘A present deity they shout around.’
902. A noble image, seldom absent from the religious thought of
Thomson. After this line in the earlier text came a passage which
anticipates something of the teaching, and even reminds one of the
style of Wordsworth :— -
‘'Tis harmony, that world-attuning power,
By which all beings are adjusted, each
To all around, impelling and impelled
In endless circulation, that inspires
This universal smile. Zhus the glad skies,
The zwide-rejoicing earth, the woods, the streams,
With every life they hold, down to the ſlower
7%ał Żaints the lowly za/e, or insect-wing
Waved o'er the shepherd's slumber, touch the mind
To mature tuned, with a light-flying hand
Jºzzyższöle ; quick-urging through the nerves
The glittering spirits in a flood of day.'
These are lines of the utmost significance to the student of Wordsworth
considered in historical relation to his predecessors. They were
followed by the passage commencing at 1.963 of the present text, to
which they were joined by the word ‘’Hence’— Hence from the
virgin's cheek,’ &c. The intervening lines (from 903–962) were
inserted after the year 1738, and constitute a compliment to Lord
Lyttelton, no small part of which is the description of his lordship's
Worcestershire seat. Indeed it was not till the autumn of 1743 that
Thomson saw Hagley Park. He was then engaged in the preparation
of a corrected and enlarged edition of The Seasons, and the invita-
tions to Hagley Park came at a time singularly favourable to the
poetical fame of the place and its inhabitants. The poet's letter of
acceptance is of date July 14, 1743, and part of it is in the following
terms : — -
‘Hagley is the place in England I most desire to see; I imagine it to
be greatly delightful in itself, and I know it to be so to the highest
degree by the company it is animated with. Some reasons prevent me
266 7TA/A2 . .SA.A.S.O.W.S. —SA’RZAVG.
waiting upon you immediately, but, if you will be so good as to let me
know how long you design to stay in the country, nothing shall hinder
me from passing three weeks or a month with you before you leave it.
As this will fall in autumn I shall like it the better, for I think that
season of the year the most pleasing and the most poetical. The spirits
are not then dissipated with the gaiety of spring, and the glaring light of
summer, but composed into a serious and tempered joy. The year is
perfect. In the meantime I will go on with correcting The Seasons,
and hope to carry down [from London] more than one of them with me.
The Muses whom you obligingly say I shall bring along with me, I
shall find with you—the muses of the great simple country, not the
little fine-lady muses of Richmond Hill. I have lived so long in the
noise (or at least its distant din) of the town, that I begin to forget what
retirement is.” -
905. O Zyttelton, the friend / Here ‘the ' is a superlative. Cp. simi-
lar use of 2//e in Latin. Burns has “O Henderson, the man, the
brother l’ -
George, eldest son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton of Hagley Park, in
Worcestershire, was born in 1709, and, after studying at Eton and
Oxford, and travelling in France and Italy, entered political life as a Tory
in 1730. He had already made some name as an author. His poem
of Blenheim Palace was published when he was only nineteen. He
afterwards published The Progress of Love, 1732; Letters from a
Persian in England, 1735; The Conversion of St. Paul, written in 1746,
to confirm the wavering Christianity of Thomson; Dialogues of the
Dead, 1760–1765; and a History of King Henry II, 1767. He also
wrote a Monody on the death of his wife, who died at the age of twenty-
eight some five years after marriage; and the Prologue to Thomson's
posthumous tragedy, Coriolanus. The Monody is written with much
tenderness; and the Prologue—when spoken by Quin—brought tears to
the eyes of a large audience. Of his friendship for Thomson and other
men of letters he gave many convincing proofs. To him both Thomson
and Fielding indeed owed the ease and independence of the latter part
of their lives. In politics he was a vigorous opponent of Walpole.
When Walpole was at last ousted from office, Lyttelton, who had
previously been principal Secretary to Frederic, Prince of Wales, was,
in 1744, made one of the lords of the Treasury. In 1755 he was Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and was raised to the peerage on a change of
administration in 1757. He died in I773.
907, 908. Hagley Park . . . thy British Tempe. Lyttelton had himself
compared the park surrounding Blenheim, in his poem on that historic
house, to the vale of Tempe. Tempe was the name of a singularly
AWOTES, 905–962. 267
beautiful valley in the north of Thessaly between Olympus and Ossa.
Xenophon's is one of many famous descriptions of its pastoral beauty
and fertility.—Thomson has described Hagley Park in prose : “After a
disagreeable stage-coach journey . . . . I am come to the most agree-
able place and company in the world. The park, where we pass a great
part of our time, is thoroughly delightful, quite enchanting. It consists
of several little hills, finely tufted with wood, and rising softly one above
another, from which are seen a great variety of at once beautiful and
grand extensive prospects; but I am most charmed with its sweet
embowered retirements, and particularly with a winding dale that runs
through the middle of it. This dale is overhung with deep woods, and
enlivened by a stream that, now gushing from mossy rocks, now falling
in cascades, and now spreading into a calm length of water, forms the
most natural and pleasing scene imaginable. At the source of this water,
composed of some pretty rills, that purl from beneath the roots of oaks,
there is as fine a retired seat as lover's heart could wish. . . . . Nor is
the society here inferior to the scene. . . . This is the truly happy life,
the union of retirement and choice society. It gives an idea of that
which the patriarchal or golden age is supposed to have been, when
every family was a little state of itself, governed by the mild laws of
reason, benevolence and love.” (See Spring, 1. 256).--From a Zetter to
Z/?ss Yozºzºg (Amanda), dated Aug. 29, 1743.
925. conducted by historic truth. Both Thomson and Lyttelton were
great readers of history. Witness Liberty, which may fairly be called a
historical poem; witness also the hundred lines of Winter commencing
1. 43 I. Lyttelton’s Dialogues and Reign of Henry II give proof of his
researches in history. f
930. Lyttelton's political honesty cannot be impeached. He was a
virtuous politician—a phenomenon rare in his day.
935. Zzzcázzda. See note to 1. 904 seafºra. Mrs. Lyttelton's maiden
name was Lucy Fortescue, of Filleigh in Devonshire. A large number
of Lord Lyttelton's poetical compositions consist of Verses to Lucy.
His Monody in nineteen irregular stanzas, written to soothe his grief for
her loss, is probably his best as it is his tenderest composition. The
first line of her epitaph at Hagley describes her as– Made to engage
all hearts and charm all eyes.”
949–961. See note to 11. 517–524 suffra.
953. embosomed soft in trees. Cp. Milton, describing Windsor:—
‘Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees.”—Z’Allegro.
960. Hereford is the march county between Worcester and Wales.
962. Having described ‘the sacred feelings of the heart" (l. 903), the
268 7THAE SAEASOAVS. — SPR/AWG.
poet now proceeds to describe “the infusive force of Spring' (1.867) on
the animal nature of man. -
993, 994. The Sirens of classical story are here referred to. They had
the power of charming by their songs all that listened to them. Their
charms were fatal. The mermaid, or lorelei, is the modern form of
the siren.
IoII. Öends into a dusky zazelt. Cp. Shakespeare:—‘This brave
o'erhanging firmament . . . why, it appears no other thing to me than
a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.”—Hamlet, Act II. Sc. ii.
IoI6, IoI 7. Sad amid the social band . . . imatterzäze. Cp. Burns —
‘Yestreen when to the stentit string
The dance gaed thro’ the lightit ha',
To thee my fancy took its wing—
I sat but neither heard nor saw."—Mary Morison.
IoI7, IoI8. From the tongue 7% unfinished period falls. Cp. Horace:–
‘Cur facunda parum decoro w
- Inter verba cadit lingua silentio !’—Car, IV. i.
Io94. the chambers of the ſleecy east. Blake (b. 1757, d. 1827) has—
‘The chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody has ceast.’
In Winter, 1. 15, Thomson speaks of ‘the lucid chambers of the South.’
Io96. Zeads on the gentle hours. An echo of Milton—
* The hours in dance
Led on the eternal spring.’ x
Aar. Zost, Bk. IV. 11. 267, 268.
Iočo-fo/2. Cp. Horace:—
* Nocturnis ego somniis
Jam captam teneo, jam volucrem Sequor
Te per gramina Martii
Campi, te per aquas, dura, volubiles.’
- Car. I, i. 11. 37–40.
Ioé9. In the early text—‘Wild as a Bacchanal she spreads her arms.’
IOS2. the yellozty-fingeång plague. Jealousy.
III.3. gentler stars. A happier fortune.
I 115. Zie of human laws. The marriage laws of the country.
III6. Unnatural oft. The reference is to the ‘tie' of the preceding
line. The poet alludes to “marriages of convenience,’ made for the sake
of wealth, or rank. -
II 2.2. Prezenting. Anticipating: the word is taken in its literal
- meaning. -
AVOTES, 993—II 2.2. 269
SUMMER.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Encouraged by the success of Winter, which, published in March,
1726, was in its second edition by the middle of June following,
Thomson enthusiastically set about the composition of Summer, and
had indeed made a good start with his new subject when the proofs of
the second editián of Winter were passing through his hands. The
second of the Seasons seems to have been entirely written in London,
and to have been the work of the summer and autumn months of 1726.
The poet was then maintaining himself by teaching in the Academy
of a Mr. Watts, in Little Tower Street. Writing to Aaron Hill, from
Oldman's Coffee House, on the 24th of May, ‘I go,” he says, “on
Saturday next, to reside at Mr. Watts' Academy in Little Tower Street,
in quality of tutor to a young gentleman there.’ And on the 20th of
October following he begs Hill, “if your business will allow me one line,’
to direct the one line to him “at the Academy in Little Tower Street.’
During the composition of Summer he was gradually losing that feeling
of loneliness which threatened to chill his youthful ambition in England
before Winter brought friends around him, and to which he refers with
some bitterness in a letter, written I Ith August, I 726, to his countryman
and fellow-adventurer in England, David Malloch. ‘Let me, however,
he says, in criticism of some verses of Malloch's, ‘mention that compre-
hensive compound epithet, all-shunned, as a beauty I have had too good
reason to relish. Thank Heaven there was one exception ” (meaning
Malloch). His principal literary friends and correspondents of the year
1726 were Malloch and Hill. Part of his correspondence with them has
happily been preserved, and from it we have interesting glimpses of the
progress of the poem. “Shall I languish out a whole summer in the
same city with you,” he asks Hill, in a letter of IIth June, ‘and not
once be re-inspired with your company. Such a happiness would much
brighten my description of that Season—from which, to fill out this
letter, I venture to transcribe the following lines.” (The lines referred to
are from 506 to 515.) Two days thereafter he writes to Malloch, with
whom in the early part of his career he was in the habit of exchanging
verses—“If my beginning of Summer please you, I am sure it is good. I
§
27,o 7THAE SAFA.SOAVS.— SOW////E/e.
have writ more, which I’ll send you in due time.” He had, it would
appear, already drawn out the plan of his poem, according to which it
was his design to describe the various phenomena of Summer as these
follow each other in the order of nature within the limits of one typical
day. By the 2nd of August he is able to inform Malloch ‘ that he has
now raised the sun to nine or ten o'clock, touched lightly on the drooping
of flowers in the forenoon heat, given a group of natural images, made
an incursion into the insect kingdom, and rounded off that part of his
subject with some suitable reflections.” On the I’Ith of August he again
communicates with Malloch, who had apparently suggested to him a
change of plan—probably because he found Thomson's plan for
Summer resemble too closely his own plan for a poem on a similar
subject upon which he was then engaged. The letter is pretty long, and
of particular interest in several ways: it contains some simple but
extremely generous criticism of Malloch's submitted verses, and the
following remonstrance—‘Why did you not object against my method
with regard to Summer when I first gave you an account of it ! I told
you then expressly that I resolved to contract the Season into a day: the
uniform appearances of nature in Summer easily allow of it. But, not
to dispute which of the schemes is most preferable, I am so far advanced,
having writ three parts of four, that I cannot without the most painful
labour alter mine. Let me tell you besides that we entirely agree from
the noonday retreat to the evening. I have already written of shade and
gloom, and woodland spirits, &c. exactly as you hint, more than a
week ago. . . I design towards the end of my poem to take One short
glance of cornfields ripe for the sickle as the limit of my performance.’
Later in the year, probably in October—though the date is not given—
he sends to Malloch another parcel of Summer verses, accompanied by a
letter from which we learn that the parcel contains the panegyric on
England and the English (commencing at line I442), and that ‘what re-
mains of my poem is a description of thunder and the evening. Thunder
I have writ, and am just now agreeably engaged with the evening.’
The poem upon which Malloch was at work in the country—at
Twyford, on the Hampshire Downs, a seat of the Duke of Montrose, in
whose family he was tutor—while Thomson was busy in London with
Summer, was afterwards published with the title (which a later and
more important poet has appropriated) of The Excursion. It is in
blank verse, consists of two cantos, and runs altogether to somewhere
#
AVO 7'ES-MAV7'RO/DUCTORY. 271
about one thousand lines. The second canto is astronomical. The
first, so far as it goes, though it comprises a period of two days, reads like
a dwarfed and fainter version of Summer. It describes the face of nature
under the various lights of dawn, sunrise, noon, evening, and night. It
includes a general prospect of the globe, more particularly a geographical
survey of the deserts of Tartary and the midlands, or rather Mediterranean
shores, of Europe; and ends with a display of earthquake and volcanic
fireworks. While writing their poems the young Scotsmen kept up
an active correspondence of mutual criticism and encouragement.
Summer was published by John Millan, a bookseller at Charing Cross,
some time in the first half of 1727. In the same year Thomson wrote
Verses to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, published in June; and
Britannia, which, however, was not published till January, I 729. A
third edition of Summer, “with additions *,’ was issued in I730, the price
Is. 6d. a copy: the poem then comprised 1205 lines; and this was still
the extent of the poem in the edition of The Seasons issued in 1738. In
the final edition published in the author's lifetime—that of 1746—the
poem was enlarged to 1805 lines. The principal additions to the text
of 1738 were the passage racily descriptive of the washing and shearing
of sheep ; the lines in memory of Miss Stanley; much of that long
digression in which the poet expatiates on the phenomena of tropical
summer; and the view of the Thames Valley. From its first appearance
in 1727 to the publication of the settled text in 1746 the poem underwent
at the hand of its author so many alterations that at last it looked almost
like a new production. The minuter verbal changes were innumerable,
ideas were expanded, transpositions made, new matter thrown in, old
matter struck out, and, if greater clearness of expression was secured by
these processes, it was sometimes at the expense of force and picturesque-
ness of effect. The whole poem, in short, was stirred about, without
any very sensible gain of coherence among its parts. g *
Thomson’s original intention was to dedicate Summer to Lord Binning,
who had engaged him in the summer of 1725 as a tutor to his son; but
his lordship generously waived the honour, advising the author to
bestow it upon some one who could better advance his interests; and the
poet accordingly fixed upon the Right Honourable Mr. Dodington, then
a lord of the Treasury, himself a dabbler in verse, and known to be
ambitious of enacting the part of a Maecenas. To Dodington, who has
1 One of the additions was the haymaking scene, ll, 352–370.
272 7TH/AE SAEASOAVS. — SUMMAEA’.
appropriately been called the last of the Patrons, the poem was in-
Scribed at first in a prose address, which was, in the third and subsequent
editions, displaced by the tributary lines incorporated with the text near
the commencement of the poem. The prose dedication is chiefly
remarkable for the warmth and frankness of its professions. There is
good reason to doubt their sincerity, and in truth Dodington little
deserved them. “What reader,’ says the extravagant poet, ‘need be told
of those great abilities in the management of public affairs, and those
amiable accomplishments in private life, which you so eminently possess 2
The general voice is loud in the praise of so many virtues, though
posterity alone will do them justice. But may you, sir, live long
to illustrate your own fame by your own actions, and by them be trans-
mitted to future times as the British Maecenas ; Your example has
recommended poetry, with the greatest grace, to the admiration of those
who are engaged in the highest and most active scenes of life; and this,
though confessedly the least considerable of those exalted qualities that
dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to me, whose only
hope of being introduced to your regard is through the recommendation
of an art in which you are a master. But I forget what I have been
declaring above, and must therefore turn my eyes to the following sheets.
I am not ignorant, that, when offered to your perusal, they are put into the
hands of One of the finest, and consequently the most indulgent judges of
this age ; but, as there is no mediocrity in poetry, so there should be no
limits to its ambition. I venture directly on the trial of my fame. If
what I here present you has any merit to gain your approbation, I am
not afraid of its success; and if it fails of your notice, I give it up to its
just fate.’ l
The Argument of the enlarged poem as given in the edition of 1746
is as follows:—‘The subject proposed. Invocation. Address to Mr.
Dodington. An introductory reflection on the motion of the heavenly
bodies—whence the succession of the seasons. As the face of Nature in
this season is almost uniform, the progress of the poem is a descrip-
tion of a summer's day. The dawn. Sun rising. Hymn to the sun.
Forenoon. Summer insects described. Haymaking. Sheep-shearing.
Noon-day. A woodland retreat. Group of herds and flocks. A solemn
grove—how it affects a contemplative mind. A cataract, and rude
scene. View of summer in the Torrid Zone. Storm of thunder and
lightning. A tale. The storm over. A serene afternoon. Bathing.
AWOTES, I, 2. 273
The hour of walking. Transition to the prospect of a rich well-
cultivated country; which introduces a panegyric on Great Britain.
Sunset. Evening. Night. Summer meteors. A comet. The whole
concluding with the praise of Philosophy.’
The most poetical passages of Summer are the descriptions of dawn
and sunrise ; the dogs wakened by the wasp; the field of hay-makers;
noontide; the horse stung by the gadfly ; the sheep-shearing scene; the
solitary bather; and the transition from evening to the darkness of
summer night. The long digression to the imagined fervours and
phenomena of tropical summer contains many magnificent lines, but one
is glad when it is ended, and the poet returns from his wide geographical
wanderings in torrid tracts to the June aspects and associations of tem- . .
perate climes. The tale of young Celadon and his Amelia is somewhat
conventionally treated, but is effective in its way, and marked by a
restraint of pathos almost classical. The episode of Damon and Musidora,
which has been generally regarded as a characteristic example of
Thomson's bad taste in the treatment of the passion of love, is presented
with much of the warmth of colouring and breadth of handling which we
find in pagan poetry and the works of the old masters. It has been
much altered from the original draught: Damon, as he appears in the
early editions, professes insensibility to female charms, and, instead of
Musidora alone, three nymphs of different types of loveliness are
represented as bathing in the pool. -
Thomson’s Summer, Gay's Fables, Malloch's Ballad of William and
Margaret, and Spence’s Essay on the Odyssey were the chief publications
in London of the year 1727. It was in his Essay on the Odyssey that
Spence made favourable allusion to the new poet, the author of Winter,
published just the year before.
Lines I, 2. The first edition opened less melodiously, and less pic-
turesquely:
“From southern climes, where unremitting day
Burns overhead, illustrious Summer comes.’
1 In Millar's edition of the Seasons, published in 1738, W. Kent's illustration of
Summer represents Time sitting aloft with his chin in his hand and his Scythe across
his knee, looking at the arrival of Summer in his place in the Zodiac. Bełow are
Jozer nymphs bathing in a pool, or reclining on its brink, while a Swain, with his hand
on a cumbrous quarto, ventures to take a half-length look from behind a small tree.
T
274 THE SAEASON.S.—SOMMER.
3. and felt through Nature's depth. The words disturb the figure, by
submitting a feeling for a person. Cp. the first line of Spring.
12. haunted stream. Haunted by nymphs or naiads, or by fairies,
or by legendary associations. Cp. Horace's fabulosus Hydaspes. Cp.
also Milton’s lines—
(a) “Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream';
Z’Allegro, 11. I29, 130;
and, in regard to the general meaning of ll. 9–13– -
(b) “When the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring
To archèd walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heavéd stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert, by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye.”
A/ Penseroso, ll. I31–14.I.
I4. the glories of the circling year ; i.e. the grandest phenomena of
the whole year, viz. the glories of Summer.
I5. Come, Inspiration / ‘I thank you heartily for your hint about
personizing of Inspiration; it strikes me.’—/etter to Malloch, IIth Aug.,
I 726.
15, 16. from thy hermit seat, By mortal seldom found. Inspiration
here means the muse of poetry. Burns has—
‘The muse nae poet ever fand her
Till by himsel’ he learnt to wander .
Adown some trotting burn’s meander
And no' think lang’ (i. e. not become weary).
I7, 18. raptured glance Shot on surrounding heaven. Cp. Shake-
speare— - 4.
‘The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.’
- Midsummer AVåght's ZXream, Act V. sc. i.
21–31. First appeared in the second edition, taking the place of the
prose dedication.
2I. my youthful muse's early friend. When Thomson wrote these
words it was hardly possible for him to have known Dodington for more
AWOZES, 3–2 r. 275
than a year. The whole passage which they introduce, down to 1. 31, is
charged with the grossest flattery. If the lines were meant ironically they
would fit perfectly. Dodington throughout the whole of his career—
however, Thomson may have been anticipating it in 1726–7—had neither
the ‘genius and wisdom,’ nor ‘the gay social sense chastised by decency,’
nor the ‘unblemished honour,” nor the ‘active zeal for Britain's glory,
liberty, and man,’ with which, in addition to ‘all the human graces,’ the
poet accredits him. Thomson was either desperately determined on a
patron, or, which is more likely, singularly charitable in his estimate of
character.—George Bubb, who afterwards (in his 29th year) took the
surname of Dodington, and ultimately (in his 70th) became Lord Mel-
combe, was born in the year 1691. He was the son of Jeremias Bubb
who has been variously designated an apothecary and an Irish adventurer;
was educated at Oxford, and, through the influence of his mother's
family, began his political life in 1715 as the representative of the
borough of Winchelsea. In 1720, by the death of his maternal uncle, he
fell heir to the fine estate of Eastbury, in Dorsetshire. It was on this
occasion that he changed his name. He was member for Bridgewater
from 1722 to 1754. In 1724 he became a lord of the Treasury, and was
holding the office when Thomson first knew him, in I726 or I 727, and
dedicated to him his poem of Summer on its publication in the latter of
these years. In politics he was a place-hunter, shifting from side to
side with undisguised meanness. As he commanded five or six votes in
the House of Commons he could generally make interest for himself with
parties by the offer of his influence. His worthiest action as a politician
was his defence of the unfortunate Admiral Byng. In 1761, under Lord
Bute's administration, he received at last the title for which he had so
long shuffled and shifted. He died the year after. He was a good
scholar, had a reputation for wit, wrote passable verses, and posed as a
patron of letters. He has been called the last of ‘the patrons.’ Young,
Thomson, Fielding, Glover, and Lyttelton all made court to him. He
was vain, pompous, affected, and unscrupulous; fond of surrounding
himself with showy splendour, and of arraying his large person in
embroidery and brocade; coarse in the execution of his rehearsed jokes,
and in the display of his premeditated wit; and by no means restrained,
even in the society of ladies, by any very refined sense of decency. His
Tiary gives a full disclosure of his vanity and selfishness. Two years
after his death, Foote figured him in the burlesque drama, The Patron,
as Sir Thomas Lofty.
After the dedication of Summer to Dodington, Thomson was an
occasional guest at Eastbury, and, as his correspondence reveals, was
apparently for Some years on intimate terms with his patron, and highly
T 2
276 THAE SAEA.S.O.W.S. —SO/////EA’.
satisfied with the intimacy. His published letters to Dodington were
written in 1730 and 1731, during his visit to the Continent. He says in one
of them : “Should you inquire after my muse, all that I can answer is,
that I believe she did not cross the channel with me. I know not
whether your gardener at Eastbury has heard anything of her among the
woods there; she has not thought fit to visit me while I have been in
this once poetic land [Italy], nor do I feel the least presage that she will.’
(Dated “Nov. 28th, 1731.’) Thomson spent part of the autumn of
I735 at Eastbury, and was still on the most friendly footing with his
patron of the year I 727.
32–42. There is probably a reference here to the two texts of
Scripture: (1) “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to
divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days and years’ (Gen. i. I4); and (2) “While the earth
remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and Summer
and winter, and day and night shall not cease' (Gen. viii. 22).
43, 44. the alternate 7 wins are fired. . . Cancer reddens. Thomson's
plan for Summer is thus stated in a letter to Malloch : ‘I resolve(d)
to contract the season into a day: the uniform appearances of nature in
summer easily allow of it.” (Aug. IIth, 1726.) The typical day is a
day in Midsummer. The sun is at the northern tropic (of Cancer) on the
22nd of June. (See Notes, Spring, ll. 26, 27.) “Alternate’ is for ‘both,’
‘the one and the other’; it is, of course, redundant, the idea of ‘two '
being in the word “twins.” The sun is in the sign Gemini from 21st May
till the solstice.
46. observant. The idea here is that of a sentinel set to watch and
give warning. Cp.—but note also the difference—
‘Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.”—Comus, 1]. I 38–142.
48. dappled. Prof. Skeat gives the following interesting note on
this word: ‘Dapple, a spot on an animal (Scand.). Icel. depºll, a spot,
dot.... The original sense is “a little pool,” from Norweg. daº, a pool.
Allied to our “dub,” and to “deep” and “ dip.”’ In the first edition
‘streaky’ was used.
52–56. The landscape here depicted in the twilight of a calm summer
morning is the creation of genuine art, utterly faithful in its copy of the
natural scene. Cp. the lines of the Marquis of Montrose—
‘The misty mount, the Smoking lake,
The rock’s resounding echo,
AVOTES, 32–96. 277
The whistling winds, the woods that shake
Shall all with me sing hey-ho,’ &c.
. Azz Facceſ/enzá AWezºy Ballad, Pt. II. st. I 2.
57, 58. the fearful hare Zimps awkward. This also is part of a
summer morning scene. The Scottish word “hirple’ well expresses the
awkward limping here noted. See Burns—
‘The rising sun ower Galston muir
Wi’ glorious light was glintin',
The hare was hirplin’ down the fur,
The laverocks—they were chantin’.”
Aſoly Fair.
65, 66. from the crowded fold in order drives His flock. The touch
of minute fidelity in the phrase ‘in order’ is apt to be overlooked.
Cowper gives the same idea—an idea that suggests the repose of
pastoral life—due prominence: -
“The sheepfold here
Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.
...And first, progressive as a stream they seek
The middle field; but, scattered by degrees
Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.”
Zhe 7ask, Bk. I. 11. 282–6.
67–80. Thomson's knowledge of the beauties and benefits of early
rising had little influence on his practice, at least after he left Scotland.
His favourite ‘hour’ for “meditation' and ‘song' was the midnight and
not the morning hour. (Contrast this passage with ll. 20.4–6 of
Winter.) ...--
72. losing half; i.e. twelve of the four-and-twenty hours of each day !
A liberal proportion.
81–96. This description of sunrise may be compared with Malloch's :
the quotation will serve as a specimen of Malloch's style:
“But see, the flushed horizon flames intense
With vivid red, in rich profusion streamed
O'er heaven’s pure arch. At once the clouds assume
Their gayest liveries; these with silvery beams
Fringed lovely, splendid those with liquid gold :
And speak their sovereign's state. He comes, behold :
Fountain of light and colour, warmth and life
The king of glory ! Round his head divine,
Diffusive showers of radiance circling flow,
As o'er the Indian wave up-rising fair
He looks abroad on nature, and invests,
Where'er his universal eye surveys,
278 THAE SAEASOAVS.—SUMMAEAE.
Her ample bosom, earth, air, sea and sky,
In one bright robe, with heavenly tinctures gay.’
- 7%e AExcursion, Canto I.
These lines are cold and commonplace beside Thomson's, which yet they
resemble in certain phrases and tricks of style. Very much the same
features of sunrise are noted, but Malloch's representation wants the breadth
and colouring of Thomson's. It should be remembered that Thomson
was at work upon Summer while Malloch was busy with The Excursion,
and that they submitted their verses in MS. to each other from time
to time in the course of composition, for mutual encouragement and
criticism.
82. Aejoicing in the east. A recollection of the nineteenth Psalm:
“In them [the heavens] hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as
a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man
to run a race.” (Verses 4, 5.) * -, --
88, the shining day. ‘Full lowns the shynand day.”—Bardyżnute.
This (supposed) * fragment of an old heroic ballad’ was published in
1724 in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, where Thomson may have seen
it. His romantic views of nature are certainly those of the old Scots
ballads. • - -
89, 9o. wandering streams High-gleaming from afar. The scene is
apparently Cheviot side. i 3. ,
9I. Of all material beings first and best. Light, however, is not a
material substance, but a mode of motion. In Thomson's day it was
regarded as matter by “natural philosophers’ who, because of its extreme
rarity, ranked it as one of the ‘imponderables. Cp. Milton—
* Hail, holy Light ! oſſspring of heaven firstborn.”
Aar. Zost, Bk. III. . .
94. Unessential gloom. Hiding the existence of objects within it.
97–Io9. Z is by thy secret strong attractive force, &c. The attraction
of gravitation, the discovery of Newton, by which the solar system
exists. See for a glowing poetical eulogium of Sir Isaac Newton the
Verses which Thomson inscribed to his memory (published in June,
I727). Natural Philosophy was a favourite study of Thomson's.
He had contracted a liking for it at Edinburgh University, and it
remained to the end of his life a subject of great interest to him. In the
verses to the memory of Newton, he asks, apostrophising ‘the Sons
of Light’— - -
‘Have ye not listened while he bound the Suns
And Planets to their spheres? ---
e *
. . Our solar round
AWOZ’ES, 82—I 15. , - 279
First gazing through, he, by the blended power
Of grazyżation and projection, saw
The whole in silent harmony revolve. .
The heavens are all his own ; from the wild rule
Of whirling zortices and circling spheres
To their first great simplicity restored.’ *. -
Ioo. 24tmost Saturn. This planet was thought to be the outermost
member of the solar system in Thomson’s day. Since then two additional
planets of greater distance from the Sun have been discovered—Uranus in
1781, and Neptune in 1846. Neptune takes more than five times the
number of years required by Saturn to complete one revolution round
the Sun. w
IoI. Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, and the smallest, the
Planetoids excepted. It is seldom distinctly visible to the unaided eye,
partly because of its small size, and partly from the circumstance—to
which Thomson here refers—that it is never above the horizon more than
two hours after sunset or the same time before sunrise. (For a detailed
poetical description of the planets as popularly known in Thomson's
time, see Malloch's Excursion, Canto II.) •
IoA. Informer of the planetary train. The sun. ‘Inform ' is used
in its poetical sense of ‘animate.” The idea is repeated in the next line
— quickening,’ i.e. ‘animating.” Cp. ‘the quick and the dead.’ See
also 1. Io9, ‘inhaling spirit.” -
Ioé. brute . . . mass. Dead matter.
Io'7. the green abodes of life. The idea is fanciful. Saturn, at least,
was believed in Thomson’s day to be incapable of supporting life, as we
understand it, through excessive cold : Malloch describes it as– t
“An endless desert, where extreme of cold
Eternal sits, as in his native seat,
On wintry hills of never-thawing ice.” -
- Axcursion, Canto II.
Io9, IIo. from the zerºſettered mind! . . . down to the daily race. From
angelic beings, or even archangels, to ephemeral insects.
II2–135. These lines are a splendid improvement upon the first text.
Thomson’s imagination rises here with commanding force and ease “to
the highth of his great argument.’
II 3. Parent of Seasons. See 1. 2–4 child of the sun.” The ante-
cedent of ‘who’ is ‘the vegetable world’ in the preceding line.
II4. Why throne. The orb or sphere of the sun–as distinct from the
personified Power of Influence which lodges in it. -
II5. the bright ecliptic road. The sun's apparent path round the
28o 7 H.A. SAEASOAVS.—,SO/////ZA’.
earth; more correctly, the great circle which the earth’s centre describes
among the fixed stars in its yearly revolution round the sun. It is the
middle line of the zodiacal belt, bright with constellations. ‘Ecliptic,”
because it is the line in which eclipses occur. Gr. Éicxettrelv, to leave out.
I 17, 118. nations circled gay with . . . . tribes of foodful earth. The
various human communities surrounded with their farms and cultivated
fields.
II 9, 120. This is not idolatry of the sun; but a poetical way of
expressing the hope of having fine weather to ripen the crops, or thank-
fulness for having had it. Harvest-home is thus, in Milton's words,
a ‘praising of bounteous Pan.’
I2 I-I23. The imagery is classical. Cp., e.g., Horace—
‘Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus . . . . -
Junctaeque Nymphis Gratiae decentes,’ &c.—Car. i. 4.
I 2.2. rosy-fingered A/ours. Said of the morning by Homer—
“The Lady of the Light, the rosy-fingered Morn.’
Chapman's Translation.
124. light-footed Dews. Referring to the silence with which dew is
formed. ‘Of bloom ethereal' is apparently ‘of pearly, or crystalline,
lustre.’ Malloch has ‘the silver-footed dews' in The Hermit, Canto I.
I26-129. The same idea of bounty is expressed in similar words in
Spring, ll. I80–184.
I33–159. To attribute to the influence of the sun the formation of
the various. minerals, notably of the precious stones, is purely fanciful.
George Stephenson, indeed, called coal ‘bottled sunshine,’ but Thomson
makes no explicit reference to coal. (See Par. Lost. III. 608–612.)
I36–139. Iron in its various forms—tools, weapons of war, parts of
the structure of buildings, bridges, ships, &c.—is here chiefly alluded to.
Metal in the form of money, as wages, the price of commodities, &c. is
probably included. -
I40. impregned by thee. Milton has the word—
‘As Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds
That shed May flowers.”—Par. Zosz, Bk. IV. 11. 499–50 I,
I42. Diamond. Another form of ‘adamant.” Gr. a, priv., Sapadelv,
to tame. From its hardness.
I43. collected light, compact. Solidified light. See below, l. I49,
where sapphire is called ‘solid ether.” For the idea, cp. Malloch—
‘The sparkling gem g e * &
From thy unfailing source of splendour draw(s).’ m
. Axcursion, II.
MOTES, II 7–212. 28 I
'. I45, 146. Dares, as it sparkles, &c. See Winter—“sparkling gems
and radiant eyes’—1. 642.
147, reeby. From its red colour. Lat. ruber, red.
I49. sapphire. Persian, saffär.
150. tinct. Older form of ‘tint.” Spenser uses ‘tinct 'as a participle
= ‘tinged.” Lat. tinctus, dyed. ‘Taint’ and ‘stain’ are cognates.
151. amethyst. Gr. d, priv., and peóðelv, to be drunken. As an
amulet this stone was supposed to prevent intoxication.
I52. topaz. Gr. Tóttaſos ; from its brightness. Allied probably to
the Sanskrit tap, to shine; whence taper.’
I54. gives it. Presents or exposes it. The meaning is—‘ in the first
freshness of the spring season.’ ---
155. emerald. Old Fr. esmeraude; Gr. opápay80s, emerald. ‘Your
hint of the Sapphire, emerald, ruby strike my imagination . . . . and
shall not be neglected.”—Zetter to Malloch, 2 Aug. 1726.
I56. thick. In numerous flashes. Opal. Gr. ÖtráXXtos, opal.
I59. As the site zaries. As you keep turning it in your hand.
I61. Assumes a mimic life. Inanimate nature—the stream, the pre-
cipice, the desert, ruins, and the deep—seem to grow animate, and to
feel the joy of life.
I62, 163. In Örighter mazes . . . A lays. In some of the earlier editions
(that of 1738 for example)—‘In brisker measures . . . frisks.”
165, 166. The desert joys Wildly through all his melancholy bounds.
This description of the effect of sunshine upon the desert is a magni-
ficent stroke of the imagination.
176. Zāghā Hāmself, in uncreated light ... dwells. Cp. Milton—
‘God is Light,
And never but in unapproachéd light
Dwelt from eternity—dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate ’
Aar. Zost, III. 3–6.
184. spheres. Meaning ‘orbits.”
I85–190. Cp. Milton—
“Nor think, though men were none,
That heaven would want spectators, God want praise.
AEar. Zost, IV. 675–676.
195. to translate. To describe in verse.
206. coolness to the shade retires. ‘A calm retreat, where breathing
Coolness has her seat.”—Malloch.
2Io. darts. ‘Rains’ in the first edition. *
212. Who can zempitying see the ſlowery race, &c. There is a touch
here of the tenderness of Burns for the daisy.
282. THAE SAEASOAVS.—SOAZMAEAE.
216. the lofty follower of the sun. The sunflower. Dr. A. T.
Thomson has a note on the poetical fiction of the succeeding lines:—
‘The plant neither turns its flower to the sun, nor can it close its petals
in the manner described. . . . If we examine a bed of sunflowers, at
any period of the day we shall find them looking in every direction.’
220. the szwain retreats. The shepherd (of 1.63) returns. It is noon.
Burns has the same use of “retreats’— - -
* The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh.”
Cotter’s Saturday AWight.
223. cottage then expecting food. Milk for the cottage household.
224, 225. &he daw, the rook, and magpie. See note, Spring, 1.609.
228–236. The whole scene here depicted, one of idyllic truth and
beauty, finely suggests the lazy noontide of a long summer day. The
position of the village is charmingly imagined.
232. Zacant greyhound. In the first text ‘employless.’ .
237. moisy summer-race. Suggested by the wasp. Flies and ephe-
IIlêIſa.
238. Zive in her lay. They live also in the lay of Gray—
‘Hark! how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows
The insect youth are on the wing
Eager to º e º e º
- . float amid the liquid noon.’—Ode on Sºring.
The different kinds referred to include in Thomson's description the
dragon-fly, may-fly, day-fly, house-fly, &c.
269. Spider. Shortened from ‘spinther,’ to ‘spither,’ and then “spider.’
From ‘spin.” ,” -
27o. mixture abhorred / The mixture of cunning and ferocity.
276. with rapid glide. The noun “glide’ is now seldom used.
289–317. This passage, slightly altered, was transferred from Spring
to its present place as a part of Summer.
293. the Zizing cloud. A fanciful idea : it is not now believed that
pestilence arises from living insects, which exist in the ‘reek of rotten
fens.’ i -
305. floating zerdure. The green scum.
318–34I. A specimen of Thomson’s “preaching’ style—in which
he seldom indulges. It reads like a page from Young.
343. corazolzed. A favourite word of Thomson's. See Spring,
1. 839.
348. A season's glitter / Following this, in the first edition, came—
“In soft-circling robes,
Which the hard hand of industry has wrought,
AVOTES, 2 16-389. - 283
The human insects glow ; by Hunger fed,
And cheered by toiling Thirst, they roll about,’ &c.
—meaning that they are maintained by the toil of starving workers. Cp.
Goldsmith— ~,
‘The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth.”
- - Meserted Village.
See also Burns— -
‘The simple rustic hind
Whose toil upholds the glittering show.”—A Winter AWight.
350, 35I. Oblęzyżon. . . . . strikes them from the book of life; i. e. from
the memory of men.
352–432. These descriptions, of haymaking and of sheep-shearing, are
in Thomson's happiest style. They did not appear in the first edition
of Summer. They were as felicitous afterthoughts as the angling scene
in Spring. The former appeared before, the latter after, the edition
of I738.
355. Blowzz by Žrezailing suns. The participle is here used in a
peculiar way. We say ‘Roses blow,” but never ‘the sun blows roses.’—
‘Maid' in this line, along with ‘youth two lines above, stands in
apposition to ‘village,’ i.e. ‘the village community,” of 1. 352.
36I. Žhe Zedded grain. “Grain has here the peculiar meaning of
‘seeded grass.’ To ‘ted is to spread mown grass, to turn and toss it
for drying. From Icelandic teja, to spread manure; taj, manure.
In Lowland Scottish to taith.” e
363. Öreathing harześć. The hay-crop, exhaling its fragrant moisture
in process of drying.
365. the green-appearing ground. After the hay is made it is raked
into heaps, and by means of cords or light sledges drawn into still
larger heaps, and hay-ricking, or the piling of the hay into haycocks,
or hay-colls, commences.
367. thick. Numerous—its common meaning with Thomson.
369. The cause is surely here put for the effect. It may mean dis-
turbing or enlivening the air.
382. This line beautifully realizes the scene—quick exertion of their
legs and slow progress of their ‘woolly sides’ through the deep water.
386. Sordid stream. Muddied water of the deep pool, whither the
trout used to come to play—hence, in preceding line, ‘lively haunt.”
Sordid is, of course, used in its primitive sense. Not only is much of
Thomson's diction Latin, but he employs the Latin words in their original
meaning. 4.
389. Swelling treasures. Their wool, * swelling’ as it dries in the sun.
284 THAE SAEA.S.O.M.S. —SO//ſ/MZR.
390. around the hills. The scene is in Teviotdale, most pastoral of
Scottish counties.
395. Wattled žem. Enclosure made of hurdles. Milton has ‘hurdled
cotes.” From A.-S. watel, a hurdle, something woven of pliant twigs and
rods. Allied to Lat. zyż2/7s, flexible.
398. Women make up the packs of wool.
407. zagrant. So named in anticipation of his wandering propensity.
Hence the need of the ‘cipher.’
4Io, 411. the sturdy boy holds by the twisted horns, &c. A much
admired picture.
4I 5. What softness in its melancholy face. Blake too has noted the
“soft face of the sheep.
420. to pay his annual care. His rent for his farm.
423, 424. A simple scene / yet hence Britan?zia sees Her solid grandeur
7°ise. Cp. Burns—
“From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs.”
Cotter's Saturday Night.
Wool had long been the staple article of trade in England. One
hundred years ago the native-grown wool supplied almost all that was
needed for the home manufacture of woollen cloth. The Woolsack, the
seat of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords since the reign of
Elizabeth, is a memorial of the times when wool was the chief source of
the national wealth.-See Spring. 1. 75.
428,429. her dreadful thunder hence Rides o'er the waves. Her
men-of-war. Cp. Campbell—
“With thunder from her native oak
She quells the floods bclow.’
Ye Mariners of England.
429. 7zozy, ez'm now. Written after 1738; probably the war of
Great Britain against France in connection with the Austrian succession
is referred to. It began in I74I.
431. (Aritannia) rules the circling deep. About the time he wrote
this line he composed (1740)—for the Masque of Alfred—the famous
national song, ‘Britannia, rule the waves | On internal evidence the
song is Thomson's. Malloch, in an edition of his works published in
1759, retained, in his “enlargement’ of Alfred in that edition, a song
‘part” of which, he allows, was written by Thomson. This could only
have been the song of “Rule, Britannia.’ The other part was written
(in 1751) by Lord Bolingbroke—as a footnote informs us.
435. a dazzling deluge. Of hot sunshine. •
443. the cheerful sound. In all editions, down to 1738, ‘the sandy
Sound? (of sharpening Scythe).
MOTES, 390-563. 285
447. After this line came, in the first edition—
‘The desert singes; and the stubborn rock,
Split to the centre, sweats at every pore.”
In a later edition, and retained in I738, ‘singes” was altered to ‘reddens.’
Ultimately the two lines were struck out.
460, 461. beneath the whole collected shade . . . Or in the gelid caverns.
t ‘ O qui me gelidis in vallibus Haemi *
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra !’
Virgil, Georgic II. 487,488.
471. Ashes ... resounding o'er the steep. Through which the wind
is blowing.
475. Zazes. This pause is not uncommon in Thomson's blank
verse ; e. g.
Of him the shepherd in the peaceful dale
Chants.-Britannia, ll. I 36, 137. t
Tennyson uses it with fine effect. r
481–484. This variety of the brook's course has been inimitably
described by Burns in Halloween—
- ‘Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays
As through the glen it wimpl’t ;
Whyles round a rocky Scaur it strays,
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl’t ;
Whyles glittered to the nightly rays
Wi’ bickerin’ dancin’ dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes
- Below the spreading hazel.’
493–497. A very similar scene has been charmingly rendered (partly
in prose) by Heine in The Tour in the Harz (1824). The metrical part
begins—
* König ist der Hirtenknabe.”
The features of the scene and situation are in both poets the same—
down to the wallet of bread and cheese. For 1. 497 the later editions
read—
‘There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.'
506–515. This passage was composed so early as the beginning of
June, I'726. On the IIth of that month Thomson transcribed it in a
letter to Aaron Hill.
516–563. This passage of forty-eight lines, almost as they stand, was
ready before the IIth August, I 726. In a letter of that date to Malloch,
Thomson thus refers to them : ‘I have already written of shade and
gloom, and woodland spirits, &c., exactly as you hint more than a week
ago.”
286. THE SAEASOAVS.—SOMMER.
518. forming . . . a woodland 7zeźre. Quire, for choir, here signifies
the place frequented by song-birds, not the song-birds themselves. So
Shakespeare—
‘Yellow leaves, or none or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.’
», Sonnet lxxiii.
526, 52.7. to save the fall of Virtue, &c. Cp. Milton's Comus—
* If virtue feeble were -
Heaven itself would stoop to her.”—ll. Io22, Io23.
528, 529. In waking whispers and repeated dreams To hint pure
thought. Cp. Milton– - *
‘A thousand liveried angels lackey her [the soul],
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,’ &c.
- - Comus, ll. 45.5–8.
531. Zo prompt the poet. The same idea occurs in Burns's Vision,
where it is the leading feature of Duan Second — . .
“Some fire the soldier on to dare,
Some rouse the patriot up to bare
Corruption’s heart;
Some teach the bard, a darling care,
The tuneful art.
Of these am I—Coila my name,’ &c.
552–563. This passage will bear comparison with the exquisite
harmony and solemn imagery of Milton's well-known lines—
* Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep ;
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other's note,
Singing their great Creator Oft in bands
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonic number joined, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven.’
- Par. Zost, Bk. IV. 11. 677–688.
564. And art thou, Stanley, of that sacred band Ž On this line
MOTES, 518–616. 287
Thomson has the following footnote:– A young lady well known to
the author, who died at the age of eighteen, in the year 1738.”—Her
epitaph, in Holyrood Church, Southampton, informs the reader that
Elizabeth Stanley, daughter of George and Sarah Stanley, joined to the
greatest beauty, modesty, and gentleness of female nature ‘all the forti-
tude, elevation, and vigour of mind that ever exalted the most heroical
man.’ The epitaph includes twenty-four lines of verse written by
Thomson, and terminating thus—
‘Yes, we must follow soon, will glad obey;
When a few suns have rolled their cares away,
Tired with vain life, will close the willing eye :
'Tis the great birthright of mankind to die
Blest be the bark that waſts 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.”
The mother of Miss Stanley was an early friend of Thomson. She was
the daughter of Sir Hans Sloane, who, in the year (1727) of the pub-
lication of Summer, succeeded Sir Isaac Newton in the presidentship of
the Royal Society, and who is now chiefly known for his noble bequest
of books and MSS. which proved the nucleus of the British Museum.—
This address to the shade of Miss Stanley was not ready for the edition
of I738. r
582. Aills not the buds of zirtue. “In Eden every bud is blown.”
—David Gray.
592–606. The original lines, nine in number, of which these fifteen
are an expansion, described the waterfall with more force and felicity of
language, if with less fluency—
“In one big glut, as sinks the shelving ground,
The impetuous torrent, tumbling down the steep,
Thunders, and shakes the astonished country round.
Now a blue watery sheet; anon, dispersed,
A hoary mist; then, gathered in again,
A darted stream aslant the hollow rock,
This way and that tormented, dashing thick
From steep to steep, with wild infracted course,
And restless roaring to the humble vale.” -
606. Five lines, afterwards dropped, introduced in the first edition the
passage beginning here.
616. Mournfully hoarse. Thomson imports the grief into the note of
the stock-dove. It sounds equally mournful when the bird is well
pleased.
288 THE SEASOAVS.–SUMMER.
628. Woodbine. Honeysuckle, and so in the original. The work-
ing bee is neuter, or undeveloped female. The only male bees are the
drones.
629–II oz. These lines, 474 in number, are a, far digression from the
subject proper—which is the description of a typical summer day, such
as we have in Britain. The poet visits in imagination the various
countries of historical or geographical note in the torrid zone—Negro-
land, Bengal, Mexico, the Sahara, Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Southern
India, Siam, Brazil, Peru, Morocco, Arabia, the Cape, &c., the favourite
region being Africa. Their flora and fauna, physical features, peculia-
rities of climate, &c., are dwelt upon in considerable detail. At last the
vagrant muse (l. IIoI) is happily recalled to England. In this long
digression there are many magnificent lines, but Thomson's descriptive
power is freshest when it is employed on scenes of which he has
direct experience. Perhaps the most effective touch is at ll. 977–9;
where, after describing the destruction of a caravan in the desert by the
deadly simoom, he suddenly transports us to either extremity of the
caravan route, to the towns most interested in the fate of the overdue
CalT3.V2.Il- $
“In Cairo's crowded streets
The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.”
It may be noted here that the alterations in the first and subsequent
texts, before the poem at last settled into the shape in which we now
have it—the expansions, additions, distributions, subtractions, and
substitutions—are much too numerous to be indicated, and it would
serve no very useful purpose to indicate them all. These alterations
upon the original text increase from 1. 629 onward : those of them which
are thought to be of real interest will be noted.
636,637. Åising direct, . . . chases . . . The short-lived twilight. Cp.
Coleridge's description— -
* At one stride comes the dark.”—Ancient Mariner.
64I. Žhe general breeze. Thomson has a footnote on this expression –
“Which blows constantly between the tropics from the east, or the
collateral points, the north-east and south-east : caused by the pressure
of the rarefied air on that before it, according to the diurnal motion of
, the sun from east to west.”
645. double seasons. Thomson has the following note:- In all
climates between the tropics, the sun, as he passes and repasses in his
annual motion, is twice a year vertical, which produces this effect.”
652. boundless . . . immensity of shade. Cp. Cowper's ‘boundless
contiguity of shade’ (Zhe Task, Bk. II. l. 2).
NOTES, 628–678. 289
663. Aomona. The Roman goddess of fruit-trees. From Žomzemz,
fruit.—Citrom, a species of fruit-tree in India and other warm countries,
belonging to the genus citrus, to which also belong the orange, lime,
lemon, &c. The rind of the citron is more valuable than the pulp,
having a delicious flavour and fragrance. A cooling beverage is made
from it. . . .
664. £he lemozz and the Žiercáng Zimze. From the Persian /ă/224, a
lemon, or lime, or citron. A cooling beverage is made from these fruits,
which is administered in febrile complaints, and is an agreeable drink in
hot weather. The lime is much smaller than the lemon, and extremely
acid. Both are natives of India and the East. The Crusaders are said
to have brought the lemon into Europe.
665, orange. Persian mairanj: the initial letter was lost in Italian ;
in French orange, as if from or, gold—from the colour; but in Spanish
the initial is preserved, maranja, an orange.
667. tamarized. Literally, the Indian palm. From the Arabic, tamar,
a ripe date, and A/2nd, India. It is a leguminous spreading tree 30 or
40 feet high; the pods are brown, full of seeds, and about six inches long:
The pulp in which the seeds lie is of a reddish black, sweet and acidul-
ous. A sherbet is made from it, and is used in inflammatory and
feverish disorders. -
669. the massy loczasz. The reference must, from the use of “massy,’
be to the West Indian locust-tree, which grows to a gigantic height.
All trees of the locust order are leguminous.
671. the Indiazz ſig. The banyan-tree, remarkable for its rooting
branches, which become stems, capable of supporting a vast extent of
shade. Hundreds of stems are not uncommon, and there are cases where
thousands have been counted up-bearing the branches of a single tree. .
674. the zerdam? cedar. The cedar is an evergreen, with a dark
shadow. Gr. Icéðpos; perhaps allied to Heb. kadar, to be dark.
675. palmettos lift their graceful shade. The palmetto is the dwarf
or cabbage palm, a native of North America, found farther north than
any other species of palm. It rises about 40 or 50 feet, and is
crowned with a tuft of large palmated leaves, from one foot to five feet
in length and having a long foot-stalk.
677, 678. cocoa's milky bowl. The juice of the nut was variously known
as milk and wine. Cp. Goldsmith’s ‘palmy wine,’ Cocoa is derived
by Professor Skeat from Spanish coco, a bugbear, an ugly mask to
frighten children; hence applied to the cocoa-nut on account of the
monkey-like face at the base of the nut. The original sense of coco was
skull, head; allied to Fr. coque, shell, from Lat. concha, a marine shell,
AEreshening for “refreshing.’ - -
U
290 THE SEASOAS.—SOMMA.R.
679. bounteous. Not ‘plentiful,” but ‘bliss-bestowing.” Fr. bonté,
Lat. bomitas, goodness.
68o. Bacchzes. The Greek and Roman noisy or riotous god of wine.
681. the full pomegranate; i.e. filled with juice. Literally, the
grained or seeded apple, or fruit; from Lat. pomum, fruit, apple, and
granatum, seeded—grazzam, a grain. , Thomson’s description of its
‘slender twigs’ is accurate; one writer states that ‘in cultivation it is a
low tree with twiggy branches.’ -
682,.683. creeping through the woods, the gelid race Ofberries. Thomson
has apparently come home for an instant, and appears to refer to the
wild strawberry—the only ‘creeping' berry that is ripe in summer. He
seems to forget—he would not ignore—the cultivated strawberry, of
which Dr. Boteler (as quoted by Izaak Walton) said, ‘Doubtless God
could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.” -
685. Zhou best amazza. The pine-apple, most delicious of all fruits.
It is indigenous to tropical America. It had been introduced into the
gardens of the wealthy in England only some forty or fifty years when
Thomson thus sang its praises. The Dutch brought it to Europe.
688, 689. The sensuous nature of Thomson is well revealed in these
lines. *
692. Sazazzma. A prairie, or meadow-plain; Spanish sabana, a
sheet for a bed; from Gr. oré8avov, a linen cloth.
696, 697. showers .... Zxuberant Spring. Less figuratively ‘scatters
a luxuriant verdure.”
7oo.'streaming dews. If this means—as, taken with ‘torrent rains,”
it seems to mean—‘dews falling copiously,” it is incorrect, since dew
does not fall. It may, however, mean “drops of dew already formed
running together in streams.’ -
705. fattezzing seas. Fertilising waters. The Amazon is meant.
707. his train. The tail of the crocodile.
7Io. By ‘behemoth,” Thomson signifies the hippopotamus. See
Job, chap. xl. v.v. I5–24, for a description which suggested that of the
text. -- -
717. AVºger’s . . . stream. The explorer of the Niger, Mungo Park,
Thomson's countryman, was not yet born when Thomson wrote this
line.
718, the Ganges . . . . sacred wazºe. The river, from its source in
‘the cow's mouth to its union with the bay, is regarded by the natives
of Bengal, and indeed of India, with a feeling of reverence. They make
pilgrimages from far and near to worship the river, and bathe in its holy
WaterS.
724. Alluding to the great age the elephant sometimes attains.
AWOTAES, 679–774. . 29 I.
728. mine . . . . . . his steps. The wild elephant is sometimes taken
in the way these words suggest. Holes are dug in the track the animal
is known to frequent; they are lightly covered over with a roof of
sticks or boards concealed under a natural appearance of turf, and the
elephant tumbling into one of these pits is soon a captive.
729. his towery grandeur. Cp. Milton's reference to elephants
‘endorsed with towers of archers’ in Par. Áegained, Bk. III. 11. 329,
33O.
742. Montezuma's realm. Mexico, conquered by Cortes early in the
sixteenth century. A peculiar art of the ancient kingdom of Mexico was
the weaving of feathers into a kind of costly cloth. The art perished
with the unhappy natives. See Milton—
“In spirit perhaps he also saw
Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume,
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
Of Atabalipa.”—Par. Zost, Bk. XI. 11.406–409.
744. A hºlome!. The nightingale.
746. sober-suited. “In russet brown bedight.”—Castle of Ziedolence,
Canto II. st. xxxiii. -
750. Zale of Sennar. This region, situated in the south of Nubia,
extends on both sides of the Bahr-el-Azrek (Blue Nile).
751, 752. the secret bounds Of jealous Abyssänia boldly pierce. When
these words were penned, the future explorer of Abyssinia, James Bruce,
was still a young boy in his home in Stirlingshire, or at School at .
Harrow. It was the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, who, in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, introduced Popery into Abyssinia.
But Christianity had been introduced as early as the fourth century.—
‘Jealous,” as having guarded for centuries the supposed source of the
Nile. But see Par. Lost, IV. 280–284; and Rasselas, chap. i.
753, 758. A reflection on the Portuguese traders and the Jesuit mis-
sionaries. -
759. like the harmless bee. Cowper employs the same simile:—
‘He travels and expatiates, as the bee
From flower to flower, so he from land to land,’ &c.
7%e Zasſé, Bk. IV. 11. Io'7, Io8.
764. more Zhaºz Alpine mozzetains. ‘Abyssinia, says Prof. Hughes,
‘consists of an alternation of plateaus and high mountain-chains .
the external features of the country are those of an Alpine region.’
767, sun-redoubling zalley. A valley that by the reflection of the
sun's rays from its sides doubles the heat of the sun. An awkward com-
pound. :
773, 774, draw Żthereal soul; i.e. inhale pure life-giving air.
D 2
292 ZTHAE SAEASOAVS. —SO/////AA’.
778. “The rivers bring down some grains of gold, which gives room
to suspect the mountains are full of it.”—M. Legrand. g
795. 24pper seas. Rain-clouds—‘the big stores of steaming oceans’
in 1. 794. Cp. the Scriptural phrase—‘the waters above the firmament.’
8or, 802. the whole precipitated mass, &c. See Winter, 11. I54, 155,
for almost the same language:— -
‘Hurls the whole precipitated air
Down in a torrent.”
806. From his two springs. It is hardly necessary to point out that
the problem of the source of the Nile was still far from solution in the
time of Thomson, though here he seems to regard it as at last definitely
settled. Gojama : a district south of Lake Dembea in Abyssinia, lying
between the parallels Io' and 11° N. Lat.
806, 807. From his two springs . . . . . . A 'ure-welling out. In 1735—
some time before these words were written—Johnson had published in ,
London his translation from the French of ‘A Voyage to Abyssinia, by
Father Jerome Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, with a Continuation by Mr.
(sic) Legrand,’ which Thomson seems to have read. In the “Continua-
tion’ we find: ‘Father Peter Pays [Paez], a Portuguese Jesuit, was the
first European who had a sight of the two springs which give rise to
this celebrated stream. As I was looking round about me,’ he says,
‘with great attention, I discovered two round springs, one of which
might be about 2 feet in diameter. The sight filled me with a pleasure
which I know not how to express, when I considered that it was what
Cyrus, Cambyses, Alexander, and Julius Caesar had so ardently and so
much in vain desired to behold.” This discovery was in ‘Goiama,’ and
the date was 21st April, 1613. It is now 1891, and there is still some
doubt whether the head of the Nile be yet discovered.
808. fair ZXamóea. The lake is about 60 miles long, and has a mean.
breadth of about 25 miles. It occupies the hollow of a very fertile
plateau some 6ooo feet above sea-level. Its beauty is much enhanced
by several islands. The Blue Nile passes through the south end of it.
820, 821. he pours his urn, &c. A skilfully managed cadence. Refer-
ence is made to the cataracts of the Nile, and the annual inundation of
Egypt. *
822. AVäger. It was not till 1796 that anything definite was known
of this river. Park explored it. <d
826. ‘Falling’ on the Coromandel coast are the Mahanadi, the God-
averi, the Krishna, and the Cauveri, and numerous other rivers of less
size. On the western, or Malabar coast of southern India, there are
no rivers of note; unless the Nerbudda and the Tapti are meant.
827. Menam's orient stream. Orient, as being still farther east than
NOTES, 778–855. 293
the rivers of Hindostan. Thomson gives the following note: ‘The
river that runs through Siam ; on whose banks a vast multitude of
those insects called fire-flies make a beautiful appearance in the night.”
829. Indus’ smiling banks, &c. This description hardly answers the
modern idea of the Indus. In the lower half of its long course it flows
through a narrow and arid basin, with a decreasing volume of waters.
But Thomson probably refers to the valley of Cashmere, “with its roses
the brightest that earth ever gave ' (Moore.) .
831. Zozer untoiling harześć. A rich deposit of mud from which,
with little labour on the part of the agriculturist, abundant crops of
millet, rice, &c. are produced.
832. čhy world, Columbus. America, discovered on the I2th October;
1492. Christopher Columbus, the greatest of navigators, was born in
Genoa, some say in 1436, others in 1446. He was in the service of
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain when he made the discovery. His
expectation was to find a new route to India by sailing westward. The
islands of the new world upon which he was blown were the Bahamas,
which he believed to be—and named—the western isles of the Indies.
He died in great poverty at Valladolid, in May, I596, to the eternal
disgrace of the ungrateful king Ferdinand. The continent was named
by the Germans after Amerigo Vespucci whose account of the new
world was the first to be published and become popular. Vespucci was
a native of Florence, born there in 1451. He first visited the new
world seven years after its discovery. It is right to say that his name was
given to the new continent without his wish, and even to his surprise.
834. ZThe Orinoco. In the wet season, as described by Dr. A. Russel
Wallace, its waters unite with those of the Amazon, and the inhabitants
of the submerged areas, where the basins unite, are forced to betake
themselves for safety to the upper branches of the flood-invaded forests.
840. The mighty Orellana. The Amazon. Properly named from
its first navigator Francisco de Orellana, who taking part in the great
expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro, deserted his leader, and descended
to the ocean in a brigantine. The Amazon is the largest of rivers, and
occupies an area as large as Europe.
843. Sea-like Plata. It is a broad fresh-water estuary, rather than a
river, formed by the union of the Parana and the Uruguay. - 3
854. blameless Pan. Simple shepherd-life. Pan was the Greek god
of flocks and shepherds.
855. Christian crimes. Persecuting proselytism is not necessarily
referred to. The satire lies in the contrast which the profession of
Christian principles so often presents to the conduct of the individua
who professes them. -
2.94 TAZA, SAEASOAVS. —SO////Z/º.
859. ‘So great is the volume of water which it [the Amazon] brings
down, that its freshness is perceptible at a distance of more than 500
miles from the coast’ (Prof. W. Hughes). “The immense and turbid
flood which the Rio de la Plata pours into the Atlantic is perceptible at
a distance of more than a hundred miles to seaward, and forms a
powerful current amidst the waters of the ocean.”—Ibid.
863. Ceres void of pain. Crops got without the trouble of cultivating
the fields.
869. fatal treasures. As being the object of covetousness, and the
occasion of strife and bloodshed. -
870. [hid Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth. Hidden deep
underground as if to prevent strife about their possession. Cp.
Milton—
“By him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother earth
For treasures better hid.”—Par. Zost, Bk. I. 11. 684–688.
871. Golconda. Potosí. The former is a few miles from Hyderabad
in the Nizam's dominions, and is proverbially famous for diamonds.
They are not, however, got from mines at Golconda, but are brought thither
to be cut and polished.—Potosi, in Bolivia, is the richest mining centre
for silver in South America. There are thousands of mines in the top of
the silver mountain, and hundreds of millions of pounds sterling have
been taken out of them.
872, the gentlest children of the sun. The native Peruvians, a
peaceful. and inoffensive race of people, who fell an easy prey to the
Spaniards under the Pizarros. They worshipped the sun, and called
themselves his children.
890-893. Cp. Goldsmith—
“All the gentler morals, such as play
Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way,
These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.’—7%e 7%razeller.
898–938. This passage, before its expansion in the later editions, con-
sisted of only some twenty lines in the first edition. It began—
‘Here the green serpent gathers up his train
In orbs immense, then darting out anew
Progressive rattles through the withered brake,’ &c.
905. all other thirst, i. e. thirsty animals.
908. small close-lurking minister of fate. The cerastes or horned
viper is probably meant. It is exceedingly venomous. -
AWOTAES, 859–956. is 295
916. Éger darting fierce. ‘Tiger’ is derived from Old Persian fighri,
an arrow. The river Tigris, from the same root, is named from its
swiftness. -
921. hyaena. From Gr, iſalva, literally a ‘sow-like ’ animal.
923. Mauritazzia. The old name for the extreme north-west of Africa,
corresponding with the modern Morocco and Algiers. From Mauri,
the Moors. It is to Mauretania that Horace refers as ‘Jubae tellus . . . .
leonum arida nutrix' (Car. I. 22).
923, 924. the tzºſted isles . . . . amid the Zibyan wild. Oases adorned
with clumps of palm. Libya, a district of north Africa, west of Egypt.
(See Liberty, 11. 247–25I.)
925–938. This passage stood in the first text—
“In dire divan around their shaggy king
Majestic stalking o'er the burning sand
With planted step; while an obsequious crowd
Of grinning forms at humble distance wait.
These altogether joined from darksome caves,
Where o'er gnawed bones they slumbered out the day,
By Supreme hunger Smit, and thirst intense,
At once their mingling voices raise to heaven ;
And, with imperious and repeated roars
Demanding food, the wilderness resounds
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile.”
939. the first of joys, i. e. the best. - - -
939–949. Cp. Cowper's description of a similar situation, in Verses
supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk—
‘I am out of humanity's reach,’ &c.
949. the womated roar is up. A recollection of Comus, l. 549—
‘The wonted roar was up amidst the woods.’
952. Stoo/2ng Æome, i. e. declining. The expression is repeated in
Liberty, at 1. 460 of Part III—where will be found a graphic sketch of
the causes that led to the decline of the Republic, and the course of that
decline. - :
954. Cato ... through AWumidiazz wilds. Numidia lay between Maure-
tania and Carthage. It was at Utica in Numidia, about twenty-seven
Roman miles north-west of Carthage, that Cato the younger fell by his
own hand, B. C. 46, at the age of forty-nine, rather than submit to
Caesar. The contest between Caesar and the Pompeian party, to which
Cato belonged, and the resultant tragedy of the death of Cato, are the
subject of Addison's stately drama.
955, 956. Campania, a fertile, salubrious, and lovely district of Italy,
lying along the Mediterranean immediately to the south-east of Latium ;
296 7 HAE SAEASOAVS.–SO/MMAEA’.
once a favourite summer retreat. The first inhabitants were variously
called Ausones and Osci. But Ausonia was often applied to the whole
of Italy. -
959–1051. This long passage of nearly Ioo lines on different subjects
was interjected after 1738. It has no place in the edition of that year—
though a line here and there may be found, but in a different connection,
in the first edition of 1727.
964. A suffocating wind. The simoom. --
977–979. “A beautiful instance of the modifying and investive power
of imagination may be seen . . . . in Thomson's description of the streets
of Cairo, expecting the arrival of the caravan which had perished in
the storm.”—Wordsworth (quoted in Prof. Knight's Life of Wordsworth,
vol. ii, Appendix, p. 324). -
984. 73%hom ; l. 986. AEcnephia. “Names of particular storms or
hurricanes, known only between the tropics.”—AVote by Zhomson. Pliny
mentions éleveqtas, a storm that breaks out of a cloud; Gr. Éic, out, and
vépos, cloud. On ‘the old word typhon (not uncommon in old authors)”
Prof. Skeat has a curious note. He derives it, of course, from ‘Twºpóv,
better Tvødøs, a whirlwind,' and remarks on the ‘close accidental
coincidence” (of typhon and typhoonz) in sense and form as being very
remarkable.” Zyphoon he describes as modern,--a Chinese word,
meaning ‘a great wind '; from ta, great, and ſang or fung, wind.
* 7%foom would be better.”
987. cloudy speck. “Called by Sailors the ox-eye, being in appearance
at first no bigger.’—AVote by Zhomson. Cp. ‘a little cloud out of the sea,
like a man's hand” (I Kings xviii. 44).
998. Art is too slow. Seamanship; or the furling of the sails.
Iooſ. the daring Gama. ‘Vasco da Gama, the first who sailed round
Africa by the Cape of Good Hope- to the East Indies.”—Thomsozz's
AVote.—Dom Vasco da Gama was of a good Portuguese family. With a
small fleet of four vessels, manned by 160 men, he set sail from Lisbon
in July, I497, reached Table Bay (owing to stormy weather) so late as
November, encountered terrific tempests in doubling the southern
extremity of Africa, and at last—after quelling a mutiny among his
terrified crew, and enduring unspeakable hardships—safely crossed
the Indian Ocean to Calicut in India, where he arrived on the 20th May,
1498. He lived to enjoy the fame of this great feat twenty-seven years.
Courage and constancy were his most conspicuous moral qualities. He
is one of the heroes of The Lusiad; and indeed the most striking part of
the great epic of Camoens (b. 1524, d. I579) is the passage descriptive of
the giant Adamastor appearing to Gama as the Demon of the Storm, in
the vain hope of turning him from his enterprise of doubling the Cape.
AWOTES, 959–I of 7. º 297
to Io. 7%e Zzzsitanian Prince. “Don Henry, third son to John the
First, King of Portugal. His strong genius to the discovery of new
countries was the chief source of all the modern improvements in
navigation.”—Note by Thomson. This prince is known as Enrique the
Navigator. The good results of his encouragement to navigation and
colonisation appeared chiefly in the reigns of Joam II, and Manoel. It
was in Manoel's reign that da Gama discovered the new sea-route to the
East Indies. - - -
IoI5. shark. Perhaps from Lat. carcharus, a species of dog-fish ; Gr.
icăpxapos, rough, hard. ‘To shirk’s to act as a shark, to prowl about
in a slinking manner.
IoI6. Steaming crozwds. The unhappy victims of the inhuman traffic
in slaves, called ‘ that cruel trade a few lines below.
Io26. Guinea. On the West Coast of Africa. A brave sailor, Sir
John Hawkins, has the unenviable distinction of having commenced the
deportation of negroes from Guinea to supply labour for the plantations
of our American colonies.
Io23–Io25. A revolting scene, described in words too realistic. Heine
has treated the same theme, suo more, in The Slave Ship.
Io28. Cp. “ looks out the joyous spring” (Winter, 1. I6).
Io.40, IoA.I. Carthagena. Verºzone. Under Walpole's administration,
but against his judgment, an expedition was sent against the Spanish
possessions in South America. Admiral Vernon was in command. He
captured Portobello in I739, but was baffled in his attack upon
Carthagena by the disease of his men. Those unhealthy shores of South
America had already proved fatal to Admiral Hosier, whose misfortunes
-as told in Glover's Ballad of Hosier's Ghost (written on receipt of
the news of the capture of Portobello by Vernon) touched the public
heart into a long-withheld sympathy. Thomson, in Britannia (11. 34–40),
had attempted anonymously to excite this sympathy in 1727. -
Io.49, Ioão. on each other fixed . . . the blank assistants. There is
careless; composition here, and some obscurity of meaning besides.
Probably ‘the blank assistants' signifies the survivors who assisted in
burying the bodies of their dead comrades; and ‘on each other fixed’
seems to mean “with eyes fixed on each other.’’
Ioã4. Aemesis. The goddess of vengeance. As a common noun,
the Greek vépeaus signifies distribution, allotment, and hence retribution;
from vépleuv, to distribute. . .
Io;7. locust-armies putrefying. “These are the causes supposed to
be the first origin of the Plague, in Dr. Mead's eloquent book on that
subject.”—AVote by Zhomson, The ‘book’ when first published, in 1720,
was a mere pamphlet, - --
298 THE SEASON.S.—SUMMER.
Io'70. uncouth zerdure. Unaccustomed, strange. From A.-Sax. ºn-,
not ; człłh, known. -
Io'78. its cautious hinge, &c. See Defoe's History of the Great
Plague.
Io'70–Io88. Instead of these lines, the original text (down to 1738)
had the following:—
‘And ranged at open noon by beasts of prey
And birds of bloody beak. The sullen doer
No visit knows, nor hears the wailing voice
Of fervent want. Even soul-attracted friends
And relatives, endeared for many a year,
Savaged by war, forget the social tie,
The close engagement of the kindred heart,
And, sick, in solitude successive die *
Untended and unmourned. While, to complete,’ &c.
Io90, Io91. The grim guards . . . . a better death. The reference
is to the cordon sanitaire.—Better to be struck or shot down than to
die of the plague. - - }
Io92–1 Io2. The first draught of these lines formed part of a long
passage, which, in the earlier editions, began at 1. I62o of the settled
text.
Io96. the pillared flame. But the fact is that flames do not shoot
from volcanoes. The reflection of the red molten lava on the clouds of
steam thrown up during an eruption produces the illusion.
IIo2. Here ends the long digression to tropical scenes and torrid
summers. In the next line the poet is back in England.
IIoš–III6. A poetical, not a scientific, exposition of the cause or
conditions of a storm of thunder and lightning. But Franklin’s discovery
of the nature of lightning was not made till after Thomson's death,
namely, in 1752. It was then demonstrated that lightning and electri-
city are identical.-It may be noted that Malloch's explanation of the
phenomenon of a thunderstorm is the same as Thomson’s : he too
speaks of
‘Sulphureous steam and nitrous, late exhaled
From mine or unctuous soil,’ &c.—The AExcursion, Canto I.
II.4.1—I 143. The very sound of these lines suggests what they describe.
II49. Here in the earlier editions was introduced a description of a
shepherd killed by lightning:—
“[It] strikes the shepherd as he shuddering sits
Presaging ruin 'mid the rocky clift.
His inmost marrow feels the gliding flame;
He dies; and, like a statue grimed with age,
AWOZZS, Io'70–1209. 2.99
His live dejected posture still remains,
His russet singed, and rent his hanging hat ;
While, whining at his feet, his half-stunned dog,
Importunately kind and fearful pats
On his insensate master for relief.”
A striking picture, but in bad taste. It was withdrawn—chiefly perhaps
because the theme was handled in the story of Celadon and Amelia
(see below, ll. I2I4–I222).
II.5I, II 52. Fuller and more effective in the first text:—
- “A leaning shattered trunk stands scathed to heaven
The talk of future ages.”
There is tragedy here.
II 53. harmless look. Said of naiads by Shakespeare (The Zempest, the
masque Scene).
II56-II68. This wild passage, somewhat bombastic, was substi-
tuted for the following less furious but more forcible lines of the first
edition :-
{ * A little further burns
The guiltless cottage; and the haughty dome
Stoops to the base. In one immediate flash
The forest falls; or, flaming out, displays
The savage haunts, unpierced by day before.
Scarred is the mountain's brow ; and from the cliff
Tumbles the Smitten rock. The desert shakes,
And gleams, and grumbles through his deepest dens.”
II68. Thule. The Orkney and Shetland Islands. The area of the
thunderstorm is thus Wales and all Scotland.
II 7o. 7zoá always on the guilty head. The vulgar creed even yet
needs this correction.
II 71–1222. The episode of Celadon and Amelia, gracefully and
affectingly described, and giving relief to the main subject, as figures
relieve a landscape, was possibly suggested by Pope's letter to Lady
Mary Montagu, containing the tragic story of two lovers killed by
lightning. The letter is of date Sept. 1st, 1717. Part of Pope's cor-
respondence was published so early as 1726; the ‘authorised’ edition
came out in I737.
II 74. Cp. Milton’s description of Adam and Eve in Par. Lost, Bk. IV.
ll. 296,299.
1178. informed. Finer in the original edition—‘ alarmed.’ See
Spring, 11. 250–254.
1208, 1209. the secret shaft That wastes at midnight. ‘The terror by
night,’ ‘the arrow that flieth by day.”—Psalm xci. 5. -
3oo THE SEASON.S.—SUMMER.
1215, 1216. In the first edition—
º “In a heap
Of pallid ashes fell the beauteous maid.’
1257–1268. This passage followed the episode of Damon and Musi-
dora in the edition of 1738; and the passage beginning at 1. I269
of the settled text was joined to that ending at 1. I256 by the words—
‘’Twas then beneath a secret waving shade’;
replaced, to suit the connection, by— <
‘Close in the covert of a hazel copse.' -
1269–1370. The story of Damon and Musidora first appeared in
the edition of 1730, and was retained in the edition of 1738; but the first
version has been so altered as to form in the final text an episode almost
entirely different. In the first version Damon is represented as professing
insensibility to the influence of female beauty. His profession is put to
the test, by his chance discovery of three nymphs bathing. They are
Sacharissa, Amoret, and Musidora. The beauty of Musidora makes im-
pression upon his obdurate heart: smitten by her charms, he falls deeply
in love with her. Both versions have been objected to on the score of
taste, more especially Musidora's frank avowal of her affection for Damon.
The first version was doubtless suggested by the well-known Decision of
Paris in classical story, perhaps also by a passage (ll. I2–20 of Act I.
sc. 2) in Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd.
1271. After this line in the first draught came the following passage:–
‘Thoughtful and fixed in philosophic muse,_
Damon, who still amid the Savage woods
And lonely lawns the force of beauty scorned,
Firm, and to false philosophy devote.
The brook ran babbling by, and, sighing weak,
The breeze among the bending willows played,
When Saccharissa to the cool retreat
With Amoret and Musiqora stole.’ -
Then followed— ‘Warm in their cheek’ &c., at l. 1290. After 1. I292.
came the description of the three nymphs, in which Saccharissa is
likened to Juno, Musidora to Minerva, and Amoret to Venus, extend-
ing to 1. I 3O3. Line I 3O4 began, “Nor Paris panted stronger,’ &c., and
the text ran on, with some necessary changes, very much as we have
it to 1. I332. -
1275, 1276. falsely he Of Musidora's cruelty. As Roger complained of
Jenny's cruelty in Allan Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd (Act I. sc. 1)—a
pastoral comedy (published in 1725) which Thomson must have known.
1347. the statue that enchants the world. The Venus de Medici, in
the Imperial Gallery at Florence. . - - - - º
AWOZ’ES, 12.15–1408. 3or
... I 371–1437. All this was written after 1738, probably in 1744. (See
a reference to time at 11. I427–1428.)
I373–1376. Described with a more exalted figure, and richer melody
of expression, in the Castle of Indolence:—
‘Gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer sky.’
3 * -- Canto I, St. vi, Il. 3, 4.
I383. fathetic—for ‘sympathetic.” --
I287. the zulgar never had a glimpse. The love of natural scenery, of
the beauty of this fair world, was a passion with Thomson. It is a feel-
ing not so generally diffused as one is apt to imagine. Cowper, indeed,
in the penultimate passage of The Winter Evening, declares that—
‘The love of Nature's works
Is an ingredient in the compound man,
Infused at the creation of the kind,”
and that none are ‘without some relish,’—that all retain, even in the
depth of cities, an ‘inborn inextinguishable thirst of rural scenes.’ He
allows, however, that the feeling requires to be educated, and that “minds
that have been formed and tutored discern and taste the beauty of
Nature “with a relish more exact.” Thomson's highest honour is that he
has taught ‘the vulgar’ to see both beauty and a spirit of divine benevo-
lence in the arrangement of their dwelling-place, the earth. He has not
only opened our eyes to the beauty of our natural surroundings, but set
the soul of man in a freer filial relation to its Maker. . The gifts
of Nature express the fatherhood of God: this is his religious creed,
and this is what he means by following Nature up to Nature's God. -
I391. Supply ‘which, as a connective, after ‘Virtue.’
I393. Zorčico of zwoods. Reference is here made to the place, the
Painted Porch (>Tod IIoticſAm), or Colonnade, in ancient Athens where
Zeno—some three centuries before the Christian era—taught his peculiar
philosophy (Stoicism). - -
. I 394. AWazure's zasz Zyceum. A Gymnasium outside the walls of
ancient Athens, and just above the Ilissus, where Aristotle (b. 384 B.C.)
walked and taught his disciples (the Peripatetics), bore the name of
the Lyceum (tò Aſcetov) from its neighbourhood to the Temple of
Apollo Lyceus—“Apollo the Light-Giver.’ (For a poetical descrip-
tion of the Schools of ancient Athens, see Paradise Regained, Book IV,
ll. 240–253. Note that Milton places the Lyceum within the city walls.).
I4OI. Amazzda. Miss Young. See note, Spring, 1. 482. - i.
I403. All is the same with thee. Any path will be delightful in your
company. . . .
... 1408. Thy hill, deſightful Sheme, “Shene”: the old name of Rich-
3O2 THE SAEASOAVS.—SUMMER.
/
mond, signifying in Saxon, shining or splendour.”—Wole by 7%omson.
Thomson, when he was in easy enough circumstances to own a country.
residence,—some time in I736,-fixed upon Richmond, and settled in a
meat garden-house in Kew-foot-lane, which looked down on the Thames,
and gave a wide view of landscape besides. Amanda's sister, Mrs.
Robertson, was a near neighbour of the poet at Richmond.
I4Io. heage Augusta. London. See note, Spring, 1. Io?.
I4II. sister-hills. Highgate and Hampstead.
1412. Harrow-on-the-Hill, twelve miles north-west from London.
When Thomson wrote ‘lofty Harrow' (1744?) he had not seen a
Scottish hill for about twenty years. Harrow stands on a small
eminence. -
1413. Windsor is about twenty-three miles up the river from London.
It has been a royal residence since the time of the Conqueror. The
Castle stands on a plateau of natural chalk.
1419. Harrington's retreat. Petersham, which gives the title of
Viscount to the Earls of Harrington.
1420. Ham's embowering walés. A seat of the Earls of Dysart.
Ham House, near Twickenham, was built for Henry, Prince of Wales,
son of James I. It is almost gloomy with elms.
1423. John Gay; born 1688, died 1732. Author of The Shepherd's
Week (in six Pastorals, or Days), Trivia, The Beggar's Opera, the
ballad of Black-eyed Susan, and Fables. Gay had an easy, graceful,
witty style, and a genuine lyrical vein. For the last four or five years of
his life he was an inmate in the house of his patrons and friends, the
Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, and at Ham. -
1424. polished Cornbury. Son of the Earl of Clarendon, and the
author of some dramas written with more refinement of taste and style
than vigour of imagination. - -
1426, 1427. the muses haunt In 77vickenham's bowers. Pope, with
whom Thomson was on friendly and intimate terms—indeed Thomson.
was of such a nature as to have no enemies—lived, as everybody knows,
at Twickenham, his residence from 1718 till his death, twenty-six years
after. See Winter, l. 550, for another friendly reference to Pope :
‘Twickenham' is there described as ‘the Muses' hill.’ It is unnecessary
to say that Pope was the greatest English poet of his time—none of his
contemporaries denied it. When Thomson made this complimentary
and ‘right friendly' allusion to Pope, the latter was “in his last sickness';
he died in May, I744. -
1428. The healing god. AEsculapius was the god of the medical art;
Hygiea, the goddess of health. Health, of course, is meant. -"
zoyal Hampton’s file. The village of Hampton is some twelve miles
AVOTES, I4 Io-I579. 303
from London, on the Middlesex side of the Thames. The Palace was
built by Wolsey for himself. Henry VIII seized it; and it was, from
time to time after that, a royal residence till the reign of William III.
That king added to the building; and laid out the gardens (some 45
acres in area) in terraces, flower plots, and arcades, according to the
Dutch taste in such matters. They are still very much as he left them.
I429. Clermont's terraced height, and Æsher’s grozes. Claremont is
a country-seat at Esher in Surrey, about fourteen or fifteen miles
south-west from London ; around it winds ‘the silent Mole' on its
way to the Thames. It was the residence of the Rt. Hon. Henry Pelham,
who was First Lord of the Treasury from 1721 to 1743. Garth has a
poem on Clairmont. -
I434. Achaïa. Aſesºeria. The former, ‘the coast-land ’ (on the north
side) of the Peloponnesus, was a narrow strip of country lying to the
north of Arcadia, and sloping from the mountains to the sea. Thomson
probably means any beautiful and secluded part of Greece. Hesperia,
literally, ‘the western land,’ the Greek name for Italy; it was the
Roman name for Spain. Thomson probably refers to the gardens that
were watched by the Hesperides.
I435, 1436. Zale of bliss . . . On which the Žower of cultivation lies.
Cp. Wordsworth's well-known description of “Yarrow vale’:—
‘And Yarrow winding through the pomp
Of cultivated nature.”
I442, I443. the Queen of Arts . . . Ziberty. This view of Liberty is
dwelt upon and amplified at great length in the Poem on Liberty, Part V,
l. 374 to the end. “Liberty abroad walks” is an awkward inversion.
I449. with golden wazºes. Yellow corn-fields are meant.
I470. the listed plain. The battle-field enclosed for combats. From
* lists,’ ground ‘roped in ’ (licia, barriers; /icium, a girdle) for tourna-
ments, } -
I471–1478. Cp. Goldsmith's tribute of praise to the manhood of
England in The Traveller, commencing—
“Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state.’
I479–1579. This long passage of IoI lines, containing a list of
England’s worthies, was a gradual growth in the successive editions. The
first edition (of 1727) included only More, Bacon, Barrow, Tillotson,
Boyle, Locke, Newton, Shakespeare, and Milton. In the edition of 1738
we find the list enlarged with the additional names of Walsingham,
Drake, Raleigh, Hampden, Philip Sidney, Russell, and Ashley (Lord
Shaftesbury); while the names of Tillotson and Barrow are with-
drawn. After 1738 were added Alfred, ‘thy Edwards and thy Henrys,’
Algernon Sidney (‘the British Cassius'), Spenser, and Chaucer. It is
304 THE SAEASOAVS.—S&WMMAEA’.
noticeable that neither patriot nor poet of Scotland has the justice
of a place on the roll. It is entirely English, although Thomson, by a
figure, is supposed to be reading the roll to Britannia. The omission
of Scottish names is the more remarkable as, when he sent a copy in
MS. of the first draught of his panegyric to his countryman Malloch in the
autumn of I726, he took occasion to say in an accompanying letter, ‘The
English people are not a little vain of themselves and their country.
Britannia too includes our native country Scotland.’ Yet he did not admit
a single Scottish name. It was both tardy and meagre justice to Scotland
to allow her in Autumn (ll, 893–948), a ‘bead-roll' of fame for herself
—of only three names, Wallace ; John, Duke of Argyle; and Duncan
Forbes, of Culloden. (But see note on 11. 877–948 of Autumn.)
1479. Affred, surnamed the Great ; born 849, died 901. He cleared
his country of the Danes; built the first English navy; made wise laws
for the administration of justice—establishing, it is said, trial by jury; and,
besides encouraging husbandry, and the peaceful arts of life, translated
useful Latin books into Anglo-Saxon for the good of his subjects,
and practised original authorship as well, for the same noble purpose.
1484. Not all the Edwards, and not all the Henrys. Among the
non-heroic Edwards and Henrys, who yet were “dear to fame,” should
be remembered the sixth Edward ; and the sixth Henry, the founder of
Eton College—whom “grateful science still adores.” Of the warlike
Edwards, Edward III was the conqueror of France; of the warlike
Henrys, Henry V. -- . --
I486, the terror of thy arms. At Cressy, in 1346; and at Agincourt,
in F415. - -
I488. Sir Thomas More; born 1480, martyred 1535. He was Lord
Chancellor, after Wolsey, in 1529. The ‘brutal tyrant’ was, of course,
Henry VIII, whose divorce of Queen Catharine More refused to sanction. .
1490, useful rage. The useful result of Henry's passion was the
rupture with Rome, and the downfall of Popery in the State.
1491, 1492. For Cato, see note supra, l. 954. Aristides, surnamed ‘the
just,’ the most upright and public-spirited of all the sons of ancient
Athens. He fought at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. Utterly
unselfish he died in poverty, B. c. 468. Cincinnatus, a hero of the times
of the old Roman Republic. He lived on his farm, which he tilled with
his own hand. When the State was in danger he was named Dictator
(B. c. 458); accepted the office; saved the Republic; and, after a brief
tenure of the Dictatorship, of sixteen days, quietly returned to his farm,
and resumed his former mode of life. -
1494. Walsingham. Born 1536; Secretary of State to Elizabeth.
His ‘wisdom' was diplomatic duplicity. • * -
AVOTES, 1479–1558. . . 305
1495. Sir Francis Drake; circumnavigated the globe, 1577–9 ; was
vice-admiral, under Lord Howard, when the Armada was defeated ;
died in his ship during an expedition to the West Indies against the
Spaniards, 1595. One of the boldest and bravest of ‘the Sea Dogs’ of
T)evonshire.
I498. Elizabeth's.
1499. Raleigh. Also of Devonshire; born in 1552, the junior of
Drake by some thirteen years. Worthy of all that is said of him in the
text.
1502. ‘The coward reign” was that of James I; the ‘vanquished foe'
(l. I504) was Spain. It was to ingratiate himself with the Spanish
Court that James I commissioned the execution of Raleigh.
1507. The reference is to The History of the World, which Raleigh
composed during his long captivity in the Tower.
I509, I5Io. Elizabeth's and James’s respectively.
I5II. Sir Philip Sidney; born 1554, died of a wound received at
Zutphen in 1586; brave and chivalrous, and universally beloved and
admired. He wrote poems in praise of ‘Stella, Arcadia, and A De-
fence of Poesie.
I514. John Hampden ; the first to resist the iniquitous tax of Ship-
money; fought in the civil war against Charles I; and died of a wound
received in the skirmish of Chalgrove Field, 1643.
I522, 1523. Jeff me strew the graze Where A'zassel /zes. An echo of
Milton's line—
“To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.’ -
Zycidas, 1. ISI.
This is Lord William Russell: born 1639; accused of taking a share in
the plot to assassinate Charles II at the Rye House; executed 1683.
Cp. Campbell’s lines:—
‘Yours are Hampden’s, Russell’s glory,
Sidney's matchless shade is yours.”
Men of Ængland.
I528. Éhe British Cassius. Algernon Sidney.
I535. Bacon ; born 1561, died 1627; Lord Chancellor in 1618;
author of the Novum Organum. Compared in this eulogium to Plato,
Aristotle, and Cicero, for his speculative ability, powers of close, clear,
and Sustained reasoning, and lucid and eloquent style.
I55I. Antony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury; born 1671,
died I713; the friend of Pope; author of Characteristics.
I556. Robert Boyle; son of the Earl of Cork; born 1626; wrote on
natural philosophy, and helped to form the Royal Society.
I558. John Locke; born 1632, died 1704; wrote Essay on the
X
306 7TH/A2 SAEA,SOAVS. —SUMMER.
Human Understanding; the founder of the English School of Philo-
sophy.
1560. Sir Isaac Newton; born 1642, died 1728; discovered the law
of gravitation. See Note on Spring, line 207.
1566. wild Shakespeare. Cp. Milton's lines:—
‘Sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child, }
Warble(s) his native wood-notes wild.”
Z’Allegro, ll. I 33, I34.
I568. in thy Milton met. Cp. the lines of Dryden:-
‘Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn ;
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd,
The next in majesty, in both the last;
The force of nature could no further go,-
To make the third she joined the former two.’
I569. 2,7272/ersal as his theme. Paradise Lost is a misnomer; the
scope of the poem is by no means confined to the Garden of Eden,
or even the Earth, or even the Universe ; but includes the Eternal
Heavens or Empyrean, Chaos, and Hell—in short, all Space. Gray, in
the Progress of Poesy, describes Milton as ‘passing the flaming bounds
of space and time.”
I573. Sffenser, fancy's pleasing son. The author of the Faery
Queene is sometimes called ‘the poet of the poets,’—with great
apparent truth.
1577. Chaucer; died in 14oo; said to be Spenser’s ‘ancient master’
in the line above, because of such chivalrous and romantic tales in the
famous Canterbury collection as the Knight's, the Squire’s, &c. Chaucer
is the prince of story-tellers; and the most agreeable and effective,
because the least obtrusive, of moralists. His satire, at the severest, is
the satire of simple exposure. Notice that Thomson speaks disparagingly
of his ‘language’: it was reserved to a later age to discover the melody
and inimitable felicity of Chaucer’s diction. ‘Manners-painting’ is an
unhappy compound, which Burns adopted in his Vision—‘I taught thy
manners-painting strains.”
1588. rose-bud moist zeith morning dew.
‘Her lips like roses wat wi' dew.”—Burns.
1592–1594. What Byron has called ‘the mind, the music of the face.”
1595–1601. This apostrophe is followed by no direct statement; it is
entirely exclamatory. Cp. the opening stanza of Gray's Ode on Eton
College. Compare this description of Great Britain with Gaunt's im-
passioned outburst in the Second Act of King Richard II, beginning:—
* This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,’ &c.;
AVOTES, 1560–1619. 3O7
and concluding:—
‘England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune . to g © g
That England, that was wont to conquer others '
1602–1613. With a similar prayer Burns concludes the Cottar's Satur-
day Night:—
‘Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content
And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile !
Then—howe'er crowns and coronets be rent—
A virtuous populace may rise the while
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.
O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide
That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart . . . .
Oh never, never Scotia’s realm desert,
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard
. In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ' '
1616. That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal. See Liberty, Part V:-
“By those three virtues be the frame sustained
Of British Freedom :—INDEPENDENT LIFE ;
INTEGRITY IN OFFICE.; and, o'er all
Supreme, A PASSION FOR THE COMMONWEAL.’—ll. I2O-I23.
And again at 1. 222 :—
“Be not the noblest passion past unsung
T).EVOTION TO THE PUBLIC.’
I619. After this line; in the edition of I738, came a series of passages,
amounting in all to 85 lines, which have been partly dropped, and partly
transferred to an earlier part of the poem, and there, with many changes
and additions, incorporated with it. The dropped passages include a
description of a tropical forest on fire, with some telling lines:—
‘Touched by the torch of noon, the gummy bark,
Smouldering, begins to roll the dusky wreath';
and, notably, a realistic account of an unknown African city supposed
to have been overwhelmed by a sand-storm —
“Hence late exposed (if distant fame say true)
A smothered city from the sandy wave
Emergent rose,’ &c.
The incorporated parts include glimpses of the ‘rolling Niger,’ the ‘huge
leaning elephant,’ ‘spicy Abyssinian vales,’ &c.
X 2
308 7A/A2 SAEASOAVS.—SO/////E/e.
1626. Amphitrite. In Homer, Amphitrite is merely another name for
the Sea. She was, with the later poets, the Goddess of the Sea, the wife
of Poseidon (Neptune), originally a Nereid.
I630–1646. The long summer day is now ended; and the poet appro-
priately enough, but rather abruptly, indulges in some reflections on the
different feelings which a sense of the passage of time excites in different
breasts. Mankind are divided into three classes—the dreaming or
inactive, the selfish, and the benevolently active.
I654. the face of things. The expression recurs in Thomson. See
Winter, line 57. It occurs in Milton, where he speaks of the moon
‘with pleasing light shadowy' setting off ‘the face of things.”—Par.
Lost, Bk. V. ll. 42, 43.
I657. &he gazai/ clamozers for his running mate. Clearly Thomson
means the corn-crake, or land-rail. The bird is named from its cry—
both quail (from quack) and crake, or rail. The crake is seldom seen on
the wing, but runs with great rapidity. Cp. Burns's line—
“Mourn, clamorous craik, at close o' day !’
A legy on Capt. Matthew Henderson.
The description of Summer gloaming ended here in the edition of I738.
The next six lines are an unhappy addition : the poet has already
described ‘the face of things’ as ‘closed by the deepening darkness;
now he introduces—what must have been invisible—‘ the whitening
shower’ of thistle-down.
1660. Amusive. The word recurs in The Seasons. It means ‘in a
way that amuses the observer.’
I662. Her lowest sons. The birds—such as linnets.
1664, I665. Cp. Burns:—
‘The shepherd steeks his faulding slap
And o'er the moorlands whistles shrill.’
Meenzie’s ee.
I660. Unknowing what the joy-mix: anguish means. See Spring 1.25I.
I681. A passage beginning here in the first edition was transferred to
Autumn, 11. II.5I–II64. -
I683. Zhe glow-worm. Rare in the south of Scotland, but common
in Some parts of England. The female insect emits the stronger light.
I686. Søgaaze. Darkest. From Styx, the principal river in the
infernal world.
1692. one swimming scene. What "Gray, in the Elegy, calls ‘the
glimmering landscape.”
1698. After this line (but at an interval) came, in the first edition,
a passage on the Aurora Borealis".
1. It was reconstructed and transferred to Autumn, ll. Iro8–1137.
A C/7'UMAV.- ZAV7'RO/DUCTORY AWO ZTE. 309
1702–1729. Added after I 738. #
1730. Ahilosophy. Natural philosophy, or Science, is meant.
1735. soothe the parted soul. Cp: Addison's Vision of Mirza—
* Heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men
upon their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of the
last agonies.’ -
1758. Cp. the Bard's appeal in The Castle of Indolence, Canto II,
St. RI :—
51 – Had unambitious mortals minded nought .
Rude nature’s state had been our state to-day,’ &c.
Cp. also the earlier stanzas of the same canto:—
*Earth was till then a boundless forest wild;
Naught to be seen but savage wood, and skies,’ &c.
St. I4.
1789. This is mental Philosophy, or Psychology. The ‘ideal kingdom’
is the world of mind, or ideas.
AUTUMN.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Autumn was the last of The Seasons in the order of composition,--
following Spring at an interval of two years. The Hymn was written .
at the same time, and the completion of the series was made the occasion
of a collected edition. The first edition of The Seasons accordingly made
its appearance in London in I730, in a handsome quarto, for which most
of the leading men of the day were subscribers. Dodington, to whom
Summer had been dedicated, subscribed for twenty copies. It was a
famous year for Thomson. He was at the height of his fame, and at
a time of life when he could most keenly enjoy the pleasure of being
popular. The same year Sophonisba was produced at Drury Lane; and,
though rather patronised than popular at the theatre, it ran to a fourth
edition at the printer's before the close of the year. Summer too, as a
separate poem, entered its third edition; and a second edition of Autumn,
a slim octavo of 62 pp., published at one shilling", made its appearance
1. With an engraving, ‘representing [one of] the marble statues in the garden of
Versailles,’ Is. 6d.
}
3 Io ZAZA, SAEASOAVS.—A (77°C/A/AW.
\,
before the year was out. The publisher was “J. Millan, bookseller,
near Whitehall.” a
Part of Autumn, if not the whole of it, seems to have been written at
Dodington's country seat at Eastbury, among the downs of Dorsetshire.
Thomson was there in the autumn of 1729. Writing to his friend
Malloch from Eastbury, on the 20th September, he says ; ‘I wish for a
walk with you upon the Serene downs to talk of a thousand things . . .
I have been in dead solitude here for some days by past. Mr. Dſoding-
ton] went to London to wait upon the king; now he’s returned. Poor
Stubbs [a poetaster and clergyman] kept me alive: he toils here in two
parishes for £40 a year !' The solitude he speaks of was not unem-
ployed. If he was not actually writing the poem, his mind at least was
full of the subject. The poem itself will witness:—
i “I court
The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book
Of nature ever open. e e e
And as I steal along the Sunny wal
Where Autumn basks with fruit empurpled deep
My vacant theme still urges in my thought,’ &c.
ll. 668–674.
Autumn, unlike the other Seasons, was published without a prose
dedication. It was, however, inscribed in fourteen lines of verse incor-
porated with the poem (ll, 9–22) to ‘the Rt. Hon. Arthur Onslow, Esq.,
Speaker of the House of Commons.’ It was to the same gentleman that
Young, some twelve years later, dedicated the first book of his Night
Thoughts. (See Note, 1. 9, 2nfra.)
Like that of the other Seasons, the text of Autumn underwent numerous
alterations in the later editions. To it were transferred several passages
which had originally appeared in more or less different form in Summer.
These were the eulogium on the ‘Caledonian Sons’ of Britannia, begin-
ning at 1.876; the description of the Northern Lights and of the effect
of the phenomenon upon Superstitious minds, beginning at 1. IIo8; and
the picture of the horseman perishing in the morass to which in the
darkness of night he has been allured by the will-o'-the wisp (11. II 50–
1164). Several verbal changes were made at the suggestion of Pope,
and an occasional line or two of his composition received into the
text. And three important additions of original matter were made to
the poem subsequently to the edition of I738,-viz. the introduction of
AAV7'RO/DC7C 7'OR Y AWO ZZ. 3II
the ‘doctor of tremendous paunch’ into the symposium of foxhunters,
the vision of the infant rivers in their subterranean beds, and the compli-
ment to Pitt and Cobham at Stowe. Altogether, the poem was enlarged
from I275 lines in I73o, the year of its publication, to I372 lines in the
edition of I 746—the last to receive the benefit of the author's revision.
The Argument, as amended for the later editions, is as follows:—
“The subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect of
the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praise of Industry, raised by
that view. Reaping. A Tale relative to it. A harvest storm. Shoot-
ing and hunting—their barbarity. A ludicrous account of fox-hunting.
A view of an orchard. Wall-fruit. A vineyard. A description of fogs,
frequent in the latter part of Autumn : whence a digression, inquiring
into the rise of fountains and rivers. Birds of the Season considered,
that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that
cover the northern and western isles of Scotland. Hence a view of that
country. A prospect of the discoloured fading woods. After a gentle
dusky day, moonlight. Autumnal meteors. Morning *; to which
succeeds a calm pure Sunshiny day, such as usually shuts up the Season.
The harvest being gathered in, the country dissolved in joy. The
whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical country life.’
Perhaps the best, or at least the best known, passages of Autumn are
the beautiful pastoral story of Lavinia—which possibly owes part of its
popularity to its suggestion of the Bible romance of Ruth ; and the
richly humorous account of the festivities of foxhunting. But there is
pathos as well as humour in the poem, and the “poverty’ of ‘the triumph
o'er the timid hare’ is very touchingly accentuated. Numerous lovely
glimpses of autumnal nature are scattered through the poem. Chief
among these are the prospect of the harvest fields, near the commence-
ment; the orchard, at line 624; the moonlighted world, at line Io96;
and the last fine day of the season, at line I2O7. The grandest effort of
the poet’s imagination in the whole poem is his vision of the “rivers
in their infant beds'—a description which was not ready for the edition
of I738. The vision carries him, in one of those wide geographical
ranges which he so much enjoyed, right round the globe.
Autumn, in its place in the collected Seasons, was by far the most
1 A revelation of the morning—strangely omitted from the Argument—is the de-
struction of the bees overnight, by the fumes of sulphur, for the purpose of securing
their honey. * = - - - 4
3 I 2 ZTA/AE SAEA..SOAVS. — A U 7"O/AV.
important publication of its year. Indeed there was no other literary
work of any particular note, in either prose or verse, published in London
in 1730. -
The poem of Autumn reveals to close observation a remarkable
struggle going on in the mind of Thomson between Nature and Art.
These terms, it is true, stand very much in need of definition, but the
distinction of the one from the other is made sufficiently apparent by the
contrast which the author of the Seasons offers to Pope. Autumn, the
last of the Seasons in the order of composition, shows traces of the
influence of the Artificial School, of which Pope was acknowledged
president, upon the genius of Thomson. The Scottish poet had now
been domiciled in England for five years, had lived all that time in
a literary atmosphere, and latterly had been admitted to the society and
friendship of Pope. When he came a stranger to London in I725 the
Artificial School was paramount; his first poem, Winter, was written
before he really felt the influence of that School,-and exhibited, on
that very account, an independency of thought and style, which vital
contact with the influences of the Artificial School afterwards undoubt-
edly modified. The proof is in the Castle of Indolence. It was impos-
sible that Thomson should give up his passion for Nature; but it was
very possible, and a very certainty, that his relations to Nature as a
poet should admit of modification. There was much room for amend-
ment on his part in minor matters of expression : even his feelings might
profitably be tamed a little. He had strength enough and to spare,
but he lacked repose, and he was deficient in taste. In 1730, when
Autumn appeared, he had already begun to think that Nature, whom
he loved so well, might be more capable of a higher, i.e. a more refined,
love if she submitted to a little cultivation and trimming at the hands
of Art. And so, half convinced of this idea, he wrote:–
“All is the gift of Industry . . . .
His hardened fingers deck the gaudy Spring.’
ll. I41, 146.
There is a significant contrast between this and his unsuspicious faith in
the loveliness of uncultivated Nature—Nature ‘magnificently rude’—as
implied in the earlier poem of Winter. Again, at line IoS9 he speaks
of “forsaking the unimpassioned shades of nature,” and ‘drawing the
tragic scene.” The influence of the maxim of Pope and his followers is
visible in the expression : ‘the proper study of mankind is man’ seems
2.
&
\
AVOTES, I–4. * 3 I3
to be here the avowed belief of Thomson. To all appearance the
struggle for the mastery which was going on in his mind between
Nature and Art, received a temporary check, in which, by the time
the end of the poem was reached, the advantage lay with Nature:–
“Oh Nature all-sufficient over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works
From thee begin,
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song;
And let me never mezer stray from thee!’
I–3. The emblem of Autumn with which the poem commences, while
generally representative of the season, is wanting in both point and
consistency. The expression ‘nodding o'er the yellow plain disturbs
the figure, by presenting a view of ripe corn-fields, waving in the wind,
where a continuation of the portrait of personified Autumn was expected.
With the portrait itself the imagination has a difficulty in disposing of
the extremely awkward crown of the sickle and the wheaten sheaf.
Such a crown is, besides, suggestive rather of the completed than of the
commencing harvest. That the latter idea is mainly intended is to be
inferred from the scene of ‘the nodding yellow plain,” and the advancing
figure of Autumn ‘ coming, jovial on.’ Spenser's conception of Autumn
is at Once more distinct and more appropriate to the first appearance of
the harvest season:—
“Upon his head a wreath, that was enrold,
With ears of corn of every sort, he bore;
And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.’
The Aaery Queene, Bk. VII, Canto VII, St. xxx.
The sickle is no longer in actual use among the insignia of Autumn :
the reaping machine has almost universally displaced it in our country.
3. ſovial. The word expresses the merriment of the old harvest field.
3, 4, the ZXaric reed once more, Wel/?leased, Z čuzze. In plain prose—
“I proceed for the fourth time to write a poem on the congenial subject
of nature and country life.” Though the season of Autumn is generally
regarded as coming third in the order of nature, yet the poem of Autumn
came last in the Order of composition.—The Doric dialect was one of the
three great branches of the ancient Greek tongue, and was characterised
by broad and rough sounds, from which Æolic and Ionic (including
Attic) were comparatively free. It was the speech of a pastoral or
314 7'HAE SAEASOAVS. — A CV 7'OA/AW.
rustic people, originally inhabiting the mountains of Thessaly.—The
reed, of course, is the shepherd's pipe. *
4–8. Winter is here regarded as leading the procession of the Seasons,
and as being, with Spring and Summer, mainly a period of preparation
for Autumn—the consummation or crown of the year. ‘Thou crownest
the year with thy goodness . . . the valleys are covered over with corn.”
Psalm lxv. -
5. Mºrous. ‘Laden with fertilizing salts.” Not merely, nor mainly,
“keen, piercing, and pulverising.” Thomson refers, more poetically than
scientifically, to some imaginary ingredient which the frost imparts to the
soil. See his reference to this active ingredient in operation upon the air,
in Winter, ll. 693-696 —
“Through the blue serene,
For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies,
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air
* Storing afresh with elemental life.’
He describes it in operation upon the soil in the same poem :—
‘The frost-concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year’;
and at 11. 7I4–720, ventures upon a description of its substance :—
‘Is not thy potent energy, unseen,
Myriads of little salts, or hooked, or shaped
Like double wedges, and diffused immense
Through water, earth, and ether ?’
5, 6. [Whate'er] the zarious-blossomed Spring Put in white promise
forth. See Spring for the anticipation of this idea —
‘One white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.’
ll. IIo–II.3.
7. Concocted strong. ‘Were secretly maturing with their heat.”
8. Swell my glorious theme. In plain prose—“The results of this
course of preparation afford me a magnificent subject.’ The season of
Autumn was Thomson's (as it was also Burns's) favourite time for
poetical composition :-
‘When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world
And tempts the sickled swain into the field,
* * through the tepid gleams
Deep musing, then he best exerts his song.’
Autumn, ll. I 322–1326. -
AWOZ’ES, 4–15. - * 315
See also a letter by Thomson to Lyttelton : ‘I think that season of the
year [Autumn] the most pleasing and the most poetical. The spirits
are not then dissipated with the gaiety of Spring and the glaring light
of Summer, but composed into a serious and tempered joy. The year is
perfect.” (IAth July, I?43.) In the Hymn on the Seasons he refers to
“ inspiring Autumn' (1.96).
9. Onslozv. Autumn was the only poem of the series which had no
prose dedication. It was inscribed, in the fourteen lines of verse com-
mencing at 1. 9, to the Rt. Hon. Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House
of Commons. This gentleman, born in 1691, represented the burgh of
Guildford, in Surrey, from 1719 to 1726. In the latter year he became
member for the county, and honourably maintained this connection with
Surrey throughout the reign of the second George. In 1727 he was chosen
Speaker of the House of Commons by a large majority of votes, and con-
tinued to fill the Chair and guide the debates of Parliament, with dignity
and impartiality, for the long period of thirty-four years. Thomson's
compliment is by no means overcharged. Onslow's integrity was almost
proverbial. Being significantly reminded on one occasion that it was
Walpole's influence that placed him in the Chair of the House, he replied
that, “although he considered himself under obligations to Sir Robert
Walpole, yet he had always a certain feeling about him, when he
occupied the Speaker's Chair, that prevented him from being of any
party whatever.” He retired in 1761, at the age of 70, on a well-earned
pension of £3000 a year (which his son also was allowed to enjoy after
him), and was followed into his retirement with the good wishes of both
political parties. He died in 1768. In literary history he is known to
have been a man of considerable learning, and the patron of Richardson
and Young, and several others of less note than these.
Zhe mazese. The poet—meaning, of course, himself, the writer of
the poem. For this use of ‘Muse’ see Milton's Lycidas:—
“So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And, as he passes, turn, -
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.”—ll. I9–22.
II. Žhe public zoice. Parliament.
I4. Søread on thy front. ‘Can be seen in your very countenance.”
I5. Aistening senates. Cp. Gray's Elegy:-
‘The applause of listening Senates to command . . .
Their lot forbade.” -
Thomson repeats the phrase in Winter—in a passage added, after 1738,
in compliment to Lord Chesterfield:—
‘O let me hail thee on some glorious day
316 THAE SAEASOAVS. — A UTUMAW.
When to the listening senate ardent crowd
Britannia's sons to hear her pleaded cause.’—ll. 679–681.
I6. the maze of eloquence. Not eloquence that bewilders the reason,
but that astonishes or fills the mind with delight and wonder. The
same phrase also occurs in the compliment to Lord Chesterfield in
Winter, 11. 688, 689. -
18. fants for public zirtue. “Eagerly longs to be of service to the
state.’ ‘For ' is here equivalent to ‘for the performance of some
action of.” In his Britannia, published in 1729, he had already shown
that he panted ‘for public virtue.”
22. mix the Zatriot's with the poet's flame. Nobly done, ten years
later, in ‘Britannia, rule the Waves'—next to ‘God save the Queen’
the most popular of our great national songs. See Summer, Note,
1. 431.
23, 24. the bright Virgize . . . Azad Zăbra. The sun enters the sign
of Virgo in the Zodiac on 21st August, and that of Libra (the Balance)
on 21st September. The latter date is the time of the autumnal equinox;
the year is then said to be ‘weighed in equal scales.’ See Spring, Note,
ll. 26, 27.
25. effulgence. This noun is in the nominative case absolute.
26–28. a serezzer blue . . . . . . happy world. This is, indeed, an
autumn sky. But the whole passage (ll. 23–42) is charged with the
spirit of autumn, tranquil or ‘tossing in a flood of corn.' It is difficult
to say whether art or imagination most predominates in the description;
not one essential feature of the autumnal world is omitted, and the
phrases are most felicitous. Thomson is here in his most characteristic
style. -
35. Zoise. Old Fr. Zeiser, to weigh, Lat. Zensum. The Old French
form occurs in Langland's Vision of Piers Ploughman :-
‘The pound that heo peysede a quatrun more peisede
Then myn auncel [scales] dude when I weyede treuthe.’
Passus Quintus.
azzd gizes the breeze to blow. Burns has-
‘And wings the blast to blaw.”
40. For ‘heart-expanding” Pope is said to have proposed the far less
suggestive ‘heart-delighting.’
42. Unbounded, tossing in a flood of corne. A felicitous line, which
Thomson had the courage to prefer to Pope's proposed emendation—
‘O'er waving golden fields of ripened corn.’
43–150. This long passage of over one hundred lines, descriptive of
the origin, development, and benefits of the industrial arts, may be
regarded as an anticipation of much of the second canto of The Castle
AWOZ’ÉS, 16–118. 3I 7.
of Indolence. Cp. especially stanzas xvii, xix, xx, and, of the Bard's
‘strain,’ stanzas li and lx. -
54. corruption. Vice which breaks and weakens the energies, by
making self the sole object of its activity.
76. to raise [His feeble force]. “To augment his own natural bodily
strength by the use of those appliances known as “the mechanical
powers.” ”
78. the zaulted earth. Probably ‘the vaults, or natural cellars of the
earth,’ mines. It may mean ‘the bulging crust of the globe'—as it
used to be called by physiographers.
79, 8o. The references here are to the smelting of iron, and the
driving of mills by water- and wind-power.
86. ſlowing law”. The manufactures from cotton have superseded
to a very large extent the linen manufacture of Thomson's day. -
88. Zhe generous glass. The reference is not to the abundance of
the wine, or the liberality with which it was poured, nor to its race, but
to its liberalizing effect upon the heart and, probably, also the mind.
Cp. Judges ix. I 3–4 wine, which cheereth God and man.” It is to this
effect that Burns refers in the lines so often quoted to his reproach:-
‘Freedom and whisky gang thegither—
* Tak aff your dram.’
97. a £2&b/2c. A community, or commonwealth, living under repre-
sentative government.
Io9. off/ression. For a description of the evils of oppression see
Liberty, Pt. I, ll. I23–315. -
IoG. tožling millions. An oft-quoted phrase in our own day. The
imagery is from the hive and the industry of bees.
Io'7, IoS. From these lines one may infer Thomson's views on
political questions. See, for a full statement of his political views, the
concluding portion of the Fourth Part of Liberty. -
II4. her tower-encircled head. This was Pope's suggestion. Cp.
Castle of Indolence, Canto II, st. li:— -
“No cities e'er their towery fronts had raised.’—1. 6.
II6. Związing woody hazmás. “Constructing wattled huts.” -
II8. Here followed in the text of 1738, and earlier texts, these six
lines :— *
‘’Twas nought but labour, the whole dusky group
Of clustering houses and of mingling men,
Restless design, and execution strong.
In every street the sounding hammer plied
His massy task; while the corrosive steel
In flying touches formed the fine machine.’
3.18 7A7A, SAEASOAV.S. —-A OZTOMAW.
122. gentle, deep, majestic, Áing of floods. Cp. the beautiful description
of the Thames by Denham in his Cooper's Hill:— -
‘Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.”
I25. the bellying sheet. The sail. In nautical language the sheet is
a rope—fastened to the corner of a sail.
I30–3. The reference is to ship-building yards, and the launching of
a man-of-war. ‘Those who have ever witnessed the spectacle of the
launching of a ship-of-the-line,’ says the poet Campbell in his Specimens
of the British Poets, “will perhaps forgive me for adding this to the
examples of the sublime objects of artificial life. Of that spectacle I
can never forget the impression, and of having witnessed it reflected
from the faces of ten thousand spectators. They seem yet before me.
I sympathise with their deep and silent expectation, and with their
final burst of enthusiasm. It was not a vulgar joy but an affecting
national solemnity. When the vast bulwark sprang from her cradle,
the calm water on which she majestically swung round, gave the
imagination a contrast of the stormy element in which she was soon to
ride. All the days of battle and nights of danger which she had to
encounter, all the ends of the earth which she had to visit, and all that
she had to do and to suffer for her country, rose in awful presentiment
before the mind; and when the heart gave her a benediction, it was like
One pronounced on a living being.’
134. By ‘the pillared dome' is meant an Art Gallery.
I36, 137. the canvas smooth, With glowing life protuberant. The objects
depicted seeming to start, or stand out, from the flat canvas, as if they
were real. In The Castle of Indolence, Part II, stanza xiii, Thomson
has—‘touch the kindling canvas into life.” Cp. Goldsmith’s Traveller:—
“The canvas glowed, beyond ev'n nature warm.’
138. the statue seemed to breathe. Cp. Pope's descriptions of ‘living
sculpture’ in The Temple of Fame:— |
* The youths hang o'er their chariots, as they run,
The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone.’—ll. 218, 219.
And—
‘Gathering his flowing robe, he seemed to stand
In act to speak.”—ll. 240, 24.I.
14o. art, imagination-ſlushed. That is, ‘the artist, inspired with
some noble conception.’
141-143. In his praise of Industry Thomson seems here to forget his
earlier love of uncultivated Nature. In 1. 146 he is especially severe
in characterizing Spring as ‘gaudy,’ and as requiring the ‘hardened
fingers’ of the gardening art to ‘deck’ her and make her presentable.
*
NOTES, I22-156. 3.19
Had his love of the rude magnificence of Nature given place to a love
for Nature tamed by cultivation and trimmed by Art? And was this
the result of his five years’ residence in England surrounded by the
influence of the artificial school? That his taste was being modified by
that school is clearly exemplified by the style and form of The Castle of
Indolence. In Winter he is rough, fresh and original,—a poet of
nature's making; in the Castle of Indolence he is smooth, harmonious,
reposeful—still a true poet in feeling and perception, but disciplined by
art into more elaborate form and a more studied style of expression.
There is homage to Pope in The Castle of Indolence, none in Winter.
The history of Thomson's art was from blank verse to a most elaborate
rhymed measure; for rhyme he had at first little but contempt—those
who practised it were “rhyming insects.” Contrast with his case that
of Milton, the development of whose art of expression was from rhyme
to the grander harmonies of blank verse, and to whom latterly rhyme was
a mere ‘jingling sound,’ ‘a troublesome bondage,’ ‘the invention of a bar-
barous age,’ ‘to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight.”
149, 15o. Zhose . . . stores 7%at, wazing round, recal/ me. The
corn-fields, from which he broke away (l. 42) to sing the praise of
Industry and settled life.
152. 2mperceived. Because the light spreads so gradually.
I54–156. each by the lass he lozes, &c. The traditional customs of the
old harvest-field, handed down from immemorial autumns, have only
recently disappeared before the general introduction of the mechanical
reaper. They were, of course, still prevalent on Scottish farms in the
time of Burns. The latter poet, in an autobiographical letter to T)r.
Moore (father of the hero of Corunna) of date August 2nd, I 787,
describes an episode in the history of his own life, which charmingly
illustrates the practice of the old harvest-field here referred to : “You
know,” writes Burns, “our country custom of coupling a man and woman
together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn,
my partner was a bewitching creature a year younger than myself. . . .
She was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. . . . I did not know myself why I
liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening
from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings
thrill like an AEolian harp, and particularly why my pulse beat such a
furious razetazzzz when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick
out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles.’ See also Burns's poetical
version of the incident—
‘I mind it weel in early date,
When I was beardless, young, and blate [bashful],
32O 7"HE SAEASOAVS.–. A U7'UMAW.
f
When first amang the yellow corn
A man I reckoned was,
And wi' the lave ", ilk” merry morn,
Could rank my rigº and lass.’
Zo the Guidwife of Wauchoże.
I58–16o. #e rural talà &c. Aſly harmless, to deceive the fediozus
time. As Burns has it, in the poem referred to above:-
‘Wi’ claivers and haivers [scandal and nonsense]
Wearing the day awa’.”
Cp, the old Scots lament, The Flowers of the Forest:-
- “In hairst at the shearin’
Nae youngsters are jeerin’.”
162. builds up the shocks. Arranges, or sets up the sheaves into
‘stooks”—as they are called in Scotland. ‘Shock,” is from ‘Shake,” a
pile of sheaves tossed together. “Sheaf’ from ‘shove,’ a quantity of
corn-stalks pushed, or put together, in one bundle.
166. Spike after spike. Spica (Lat.), an ear of corn.
I67, 168. The instructions of Boaz to his reapers. See Book of
Ruth.
I76. Gleaning, with many another custom of the old harvest-field, has
all but disappeared.
I77–31O. This is the story of Ruth and Boaz.
181–188. In the 1738 and previous editions, this passage stood thus:–
“She, with her widowed mother, feeble, old,
And poor, lived in a cottage lost far up
Amid the windings of a woody vale,
Safe from the cruel blasting arts of man.’
The present text is Pope's, with the exception of the last line. Pope
had proposed for it— *
“From the base pride of an indignant world,’
which Thomson rejected for his own.
I92, 193. the morning rose When the dew wets its leaves. The same
image occurs in Summer, 1. 1588–º the red rosebud moist with morn-
ing dew.’ See Note.
203, 204. their best attire, Beyond the £omeſ of dress. These words
were not inserted till after 1738.
207-216. This passage is all but wholly Pope's undoubted improve-
ment upon the original, which stood so late as 1738 as follows : —
‘Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self
Recluse among the woods, if city dames
1 /aze, others, the rest. * iſº, each. 8 ridge of corn.
AWOTES, I 58–338. 321
Will deign their faith. And thus she went, compelled
By strong necessity, with as serene
And pleased a look as patience can put on.’
215. strong necessity's supreme commazed. Cp. Burns—
‘Ye ken, ye ken
That strong Necessity Supreme is
’Mang sons o' men.” -
220. such as Arcadian song, &c. “Arcadian’ is here equivalent to
‘pastoral.” Such ‘songs” as are found among the idyls of Theocritus
are referred to—notably, perhaps, the idyl descriptive of the visit of .
Hercules to the farms of Augeas in Elis.
229. He saw her charming. A peculiar idiom ; meaning, of course,
‘that she was charming.’
233. and its dread Zazagh. Sc. “would be incurred,” should ‘his heart
own a gleaner in the field. The construction is unfinished.
238, 239. where ezzlizezzing sense Azad more, &c. Altered from—
‘And harmonious shaped,
Where sense sincere and goodness seem to dwell.'
267. O heavens ! Originally “O yes |
273. sequestered. Originally ‘unsmiling.’
282. Zi ill befts thee, o/, / it ill befts. Perilously like—
‘O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O !”
288. Zittance. Originally (according to Ducange) a dole of the value
of a ‘picta,' a small coin of the Counts of Poitiers—in Latin, ‘Pictava.’
290–293. These lines were substituted after I 738 for—
“With harvest shining all these fields are thine,
And, if my wishes may presume so far,
Their master too—who then, indeed, were blest
To make the daughter of Acasto so.”
3oo. she blushed consent. Cp. Burns's ballad of Bonnie Jean—
“At length she blushed a sweet consent, $
And love was aye atween them twa.”
3OI. 7zezws. Nom. case absolute.
3II. I.e. by spoiling the harvest.
315. soft-inclining fields. The corn bending gently to the breeze.
322. eddy in. The verb is here used transitively : ‘the mountains
draw in eddies towards them the wildly-raging storm.’
327, 328. Z'he b2//ozwy Żlazza ſłoats zwide, &c. In the first text “boils.”
Cornfields swaying in the wind. They cannot evade the storm by
yielding to it—being either whirled into the air, or threshed out by the
storm where they stand.
330–338. This graphic description of the devastating power of what is
Y f
322 THE SAEASON.S. — A U7'UMAW.
known in Scotland as ‘the Lammas Flood,” might almost pass for a
paraphrase of these lines of Virgil :—
‘Saepe etiam immensum caelo venit agnmen aquarum,
Et foedam glomerant tempestatem imbribus atris
Collectae ex alto nubes; ruit arduus aether,
Et pluvia ingenti sata laeta boumque labores
Diluit ; implentur fossae et cava flumina crescunt
Cum Sonitu."—Georgic I, 11. 322–327.
333. 7%e mºnºgling tempest weazes its gloom. In the first text
“glomerating.” Cp. Winter—
‘The weary clouds
Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom.’—il. 202, 203.
335. Szczzá and flatted. Beaten down by wind and rain ; “laid,” as it
is called in Scotland; “ lodged.”
337, 338. Aed from the hills . . . streams Tumultuous roar. Cp.
Burns—
‘Tumbling brown the burn comes down
And roars from bank to brae.’
340. Aerds, flocks, and harzesłs, &c. In short, what Thomson calls
‘the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread’ in Winter, 1.95.
347. with his labours. The ruined crops.
350. This appeal, on the tenant farmer's behalf, is to the ‘laird,' or
landowner, to forego, in the circumstances, or at least to make reduction
of, the year's rent. (See Somerville's The Chace, Bk. II, ll, 51–64.)
360. &he sportsman’s joy. Cp. Burns—
‘The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry,
The fluttering gory pinion.’
Azgust Song to Peggy.
361. the winded horn. “Winded ?– “blown'; from “wind,” Lat.
zenizes; no connection with ‘wind,’ ‘to turn round or twist,’ though
“wound' is sometimes used—oddly enough—for past tense and past
participle.
362. the rural game. Field sports. The subject had been treated by
Gay in his Rural Sports (two Cantos, written in rhyming pentameter
couplets), published in 1713. Somerville also wrote on this theme—
The Chace (in four books of blank verse), published in I735; and
Field Sports, published in 1742. -
363. the spaniel. Named from Spain, from which country it was
brought to England. The variety of ‘hound’ here referred to is,
of course, the pointer, or setter. When he scents the game he stops
so suddenly, and remains so immovable, that even the forefoot, already
raised, continues suspended in the air.
MOTES, 333–400. 323.
364, 365, with often nose . . . draws full. Here ‘draws’ signifies, of
course, “inhales.’
366, 367. the late??f frey . . . the circling cozey. Sc. partridges. The
word “covey' is the old French covee, a brood of partridges, from cover
(couzer in modern French) to sit, or hatch. Cp. Lat. catbare, to lie, or
sit down.
370. This method of taking partridges, or quails, is now generally
abandoned by sportsmen, though still practised by poachers. It will be
remembered that Will Wimble's ingenious accomplishments included an
improvement of the quail-pipe, by means of which quails were lured
more effectually into the nets. (See Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley
papers in The Spectator.) See also Gay's Fables:—
* The ranging dog the stubble tries,
And searches every breeze that flies;
The scent grows warm : with cautious fear
He creeps, and points the covey near.
The men, in silence, far behind,
Conscious of game, the net unbind.” A
Z%e Setting-dog and the Partridge.
372-378. Compare with this description of the shooting of partridges,
Pope's lines on the pheasant, in Windsor Forest:— *
‘See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Short is his joy: he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah what avail his glossy varying dyes,’ &c.
ll. III–II8 (published 1713).
379. Zhese are not sztójects for the peaceful mease. Thomson’s
sympathy, like that of Cowper, Burns, and Wordsworth, is with
the hunted creature. (See Spring, Note, l. 391, where his tenderness
for the harmless brute creation is noted as a leading feature of both his
character and his poetry.) -
385, 386. Zhis rage of pleasure, &c. Construe—‘ this rage of pleasure
which awakes the restless youth, impatient, with the gleaming morn.”
The love of sport makes him an early riser.
390–400. Cp. Burns's Lines on Scaring some Water-fowl in Loch
Turit:-
f ‘The eagle, from the cliffy brow,
Marking you his prey below,
In his breast no pity dwells,
Strong necessity compels.’
Y 2
324. THZ SAEASOAVS.— A CV 7'OMAV.
But man, to whom alone is given
A ray direct from pitying heaven,
Glories in his heart humane—
And creatures for his pleasure slain,’ &c.
395. the beamings of the gentle days. August and September.
402. Scared from the corza. Originally ‘shook from the corn.”
403. the rushy fenz. Where the hare sometimes makes her ‘seat” or
“form '; ‘in the moist marsh, 'mong beds of rushes hid,” says Somerville in
The Chace; also noted by Burns in his Lines on Seeing a Wounded
Hare Limp by Me:—
“Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed,
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.’
4O4. Stuðble chaft. The ends of the shorn, or cut, corn stalks. Akin
to Gr. Köntal, I cut.
406. Of the same friend/y Azte the withered fern. Cp. Somerville—
‘The withered grass that clings
Around her head, of the same russet hue,
Almost deceived my sight, had not her eyes
With life full-beaming her vain wiles betrayed.’
The Chace, Bk. II.
407. fallow ground ſaid offen. This kind of ploughing is called
‘stirring the land.’ ‘Fallow' is from A.-S. feaſu, pale red; Lat. pallidus.
Cp. ‘fallow deer.’
4I4. The scented dew. Beagles, or harriers (the name is derived from
“hare’), hunt the hare, relying on their scent; coursing is by grey-
hounds—formerly used to hunt the deer—and these rely on their
sight.
415, her early labyrinth. Cp. Somerville—
‘What artful labyrinths perplex their way !
Ah there she flies 1’
and
‘The puzzling pack unravel wile by wile,
Maze within maze.”—7%e Chace, Bk. II.
417–419. “As now in louder peals the loaded winds
Bring in the gathering storm, her fears prevail,
And o'er the plain, and o'er the mountain’s ridge
Away she flies.”—The Chace, Bk. II.
It is very evident that Somerville had made himself acquainted with
Thomson's lines on the hare hunt before he wrote his own account of
the sport, which occupies the first half of Book II of The Chace. He
AWOZ’ES, 395–444. 325
has copied Thomson's language, but not his denunciation and detesta-
tion of the ‘barbarous game.’ It is worthy of note that after relating
with the relish of a true sportsman the incidents of the chase from the
‘meet ' to the ‘death,” Somerville winds up, innocent of the faintest
trace of pathos, with the words—‘Thus the poor hare, a puny, dastard
animal but versed in subtle wiles, diverts the youthful train.” Thomson
furnishes the contrast. Cowper is no less, but rather more, explicit—
‘Detested sport |
That owes its pleasures to another's pain;
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued
With eloquence that agonies inspire,
Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs .
Vain tears, alas ! and sighs that never find
A corresponding tone in jovial souls
Well—one at least is safe. One sheltered hare
Has never heard the sanguinary yell
Of cruel man, exulting in her woes,’ &c.
7%e Zasó, Bk. III (The Garden).
426-457. Thomson's stag-hunt was evidently inspired by Denham's,
whose description will be found near the end of Cooper's Hill (pub-
lished in I642): there are not a few points of resemblance.
42.7. the branching monarch. The stag, or male of the red deer, is
distinguished (among other ways) from the buck, or male of the fallow
deer, by its round branching antlers: those of the buck are broad and
palmated. Neither the hind, nor the doe, has horns. The horns of the
stag continue to branch till the animal is about six years old, when it is
called a hart; the branches, or tines, may then number ten or twelve,
and, though there is seldom, if ever, an increase after that, they become
thicker, stronger, and more deeply furrowed with age.
439. The inhuman rout. Of men, horses, and hounds. Thomson's
sympathy with the stag is implied in the use of the adjective. Before
the staghound—a courageous and powerful animal, in scent almost the
match of the bloodhound, and nearly equal to the foxhound in fleetness
—deer long used to be hunted with greyhounds. We read of Queen
Elizabeth witnessing the sport of “sixteen bucks, all having fair law
(i.e. a fair start of so many yards), being pulled down with grey-
hounds.’
441–444. See Denham—
‘Thence to the coverts, and the conscious groves,
The scenes of his past triumphs, and his loves;
Sadly surveying, where he ranged alone
326 7A/A2 SAEASOAVS. — A CV ZTO/AV.
Prince of the soil, and all the herd his own ;
And, like a bold knight-errant, did proclaim
Combat to all, and bore away the dame ;
And taught the woods to echo to the stream
His dreadful challenge, and his clashing beam' (horn).
Cooper's Hill.
445, 446. So Denham— i
* Then to the stream, when neither friends, nor force,
Nor speed, nor art avail, he shapes his course;
Thinks not their rage so desp'rate as tessay
An element more merciless than they.
But fearless they pursue, nor can the flood
Quench their dire thirst : alas ! they thirst for blood.’
Cooper's Hill.
447, 448. So Denham—
‘Then tries his friends; among the baser herd,
Where he so lately was obeyed and feared,
His safety seeks: the herd, unkindly wise,
Or chases him from thence, or from him flies.’
Cooper's Hill.
451. fainting. “Wrenching’ in the original.
452. stands at bay. Literally, “at the baying of the hounds.” From
the French abois ; &re aux abois, to be at bay.
454. The big round tears run down his dappled face. Cp. Shake-
speare—
* A poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt
T)id come to languish ; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.”—As You Zike Zł, Act II, Sc. i.
458–463. See a detailed description of a lion-hunt in ‘the magnificent
manner of the Great Mogul and other Tartarian princes,’ in the Second
Look of Somerville’s Chace.
469. Wighterz. Glance like lightning.
470-490. Thomson's sympathy does not cover the fox. See Spring,
Note, 1. 39 I.
477, the shaking wilderness. The quagmire (from ‘quake'), or bog.
483. snatch the mountains by their woody tops. At first ‘Snatch the
mountains by their tops.’
AVOTES, 445–503. - 3.27.
485, swallowing up the space. ‘He seems in running to devour the
way.”—Shakespeare.
490, 491. He is still a villain, and vermin; and his uncomplaining
and heroic death wins from Thomson neither respect, admiration,
nor sympathy. To be ‘in at the death' is a great boast among fox-
hunters. -
494. ghostſy halls of grey renown. The very size of those halls in old
country mansion-houses makes them dim, and therefore ghostly-looking;
and their many ancient associations and traditions concur to produce the
same effect.
495. woodland honours. The trophies of the chase.
497, drear walls, with antic figures fierce. A line that impresses the
imagination. The dim and ghostly walls of 1. 494 have now the
additional horror of old paintings, representing truculent warriors and
hunters—ancient members of the family. ‘Antic’ is for ‘antique.”
499. Hard-drinking—harder than the exertion of the chase itself.
500. Not in the 1738, or any previous edition. The Centaurs, or
Bull-stickers, of ancient Thessaly, were savage monsters, half man and
half horse, whose time was spent in hunting and fighting. Perhaps
Thomson refers here to their battle with the Lapithae.
502–569. This scene could be ill spared from the poetical works of
Thomson. To the student of his poetry only it reveals him in a new
light as the possessor of a rich and genial vein of humour, which
deepens as the foxhunters proceed from dining to drinking. Thomson
himself has called the whole scene ‘a ludicrous account' ; and, while
the subject itself presents phases of a humorous nature, it must be
allowed that the humour lies chiefly in the style in which the subject is
handled. Some critics (such as Heron) have objected to the entire
passage as an unworthy production of a sedate and serious genius; but
it is as genuine as any other passage characteristic of his prevailing
mood—it is no less his than are the verses which display his views of
nature, his philosophy, his pathos—and, while it enriches the poem
with an unexpected variety of pleasantry, it enables us to form a fuller
and more perfect conception of the character of the author. Thomson's
hearty relish of fun and humour in his youth, and no inconsiderable
part of his correspondence, fragmentary though it be, are sufficient to
prepare one for some exhibition of humour in his poetry, and, if the
exhibition comes rather unexpectedly at last, it is only because he
has refused to indulge a vein which he undoubtedly possessed.
502. See Scott's Rob Roy, chap. v., last paragraph.
503. the strong table groans. Tables have usually groaned on festive
occasions, since this was written; especially those of Sir Walter Scott.
328 THE SAEASOAVS. — A C/7'OMAV.
504. sirloin stretched immense [from side to side]. This exaggeration,
with that of the groaning table, &c., is a feature of Thomson's humorous
style—if, indeed, exaggeration be not a necessary feature of all humorous
expression. Cp. Burns's Address to a Haggis —
‘The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill ;
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need.’
505, 506. with desperate knife, &c. Cp. Burns, as above—
“His knife see rustic Labour dight
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,’ &c.
51o. Zf stomach Aeen can interzals allow. A parodied echo of Milton.
It reads like a line from Phillips's Splendid Shilling.
513. Produce the mighty bowl. See Rob Roy, chap. vi.
516. Maia. The month of May—a Latinised form.
519. brown October. Ale, or strong beer, home-brewed (therefore
‘honest,’ 1. 521) in October. The great brewing seasons are twice a
year, in March and October. Thomson's own cellar at Richmond was
well stocked with both wines and ales—as may be learned from the
sale list of his effects. *
523. ‘To vie it with the vineyard's best produce’—in the 1738
edition.
524, 525. Here Thomson is probably expressing not his own, but
the foxhunter's view of whist: at all events, he had a kindly word for
the game in I738:-
‘Perhaps awhile amusive thoughtful whisk
Walks gentle round.”
528, 529. romp-loving miss, &c. See Winter, ll. 625–627.
531. the dry divan [close in firm circle]. Somerville (in The Chace,
Bk. II) has-
‘Now sit in close dºzazz
The mighty chiefs;”
using the word in its appropriate sense of ‘council.’ ‘T)ivan’ is
Persian, and has the various meanings of ‘council-chamber,’ ‘sofa,’
* tribunal.”
535. Andat/ged aftart. None were excused from deep-drinking. In
the first text ‘askew' held the place of “apart.’ See Scott's Rob Roy,
chap. vi, the scene where Francis Osbaldistone escapes from the potations
of the Hall.
549. A happy touch.
562. The lubber power. Drunkenness personified; a kind of English
Silenus, - *
AWOTES, 504-595. 329
565-569. These five lines, humorously satirical of the convivial
clergy of the day, were not added till after 1738. It may prove interesting
here to quote from Macaulay's History of England the account he gives
of the manners and mode of life practised by the English Country
Gentleman of I688 :—
“His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field-sports and
from an unrefined sensuality. . . . His oaths, coarse jests, and Scurrilous
terms of abuse, were uttered with the broadest accent of his province. . .
His table was loaded, with coarse plenty, and guests were cordially wel-
come to it; but as the habit of drinking to excess was general in the class
to which he belonged, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate
large assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the ordinary
beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days was indeed
enormous; for beer then was to the middle and lower classes, not only
all that beer now is, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are. . . .
The ladies of the house, whose business it had commonly been to cook
the repast, retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left the
gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The coarse jollity of the afternoon
was often prolonged till the revellers were laid under the table.’
570. by this fierce sport. In the first text, ‘by this red sport.’
57I. See Young's Love of Fame, Satire V, 11. II 3–II6.
579. This line was preceded in the earlier editions by the line—
“Made up of blushes, tenderness, and fears.”
590. Float Žn the loose sºm/licity of dress. Cp. Ben Jonson---
‘Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free ;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art:
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.”
The SZ/e72f Womazz.
The idea here expressed was caught up by Herrick:—
“A sweet disorder in the dress— ef
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction, . .
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat . . . .
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.’
595. Meaning probably—‘Disclosing a new charm in its every
motion,’ or ‘disclosing all the charms of motion.’ Dancing has been
called ‘the poetry of motion.’
33o 7///? SAEASOAVS. — A U 7'UMAV.
597. Zºo &rain the foliage o'er the snowy lawn. Cp. Cowper—
‘Here the needle plies its busy task;
The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower,
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,
Unfolds its bosom, buds, and leaves, and sprigs,’ &c.
The 7ask, Bk. IV. ll. I50–153.
598. turn the tuneful page. First editions give ‘instructive page.” So
Cowper, as above:-
‘The poet's or historian's page by one
Made vocal for the amusement of the rest.’
599, 6oo. 7'o lend new ſlavour to . . . Mature's dainties. Thomson
thus retains cookery in his list of a lady's accomplishments.
600–60I. 272 their race Zºo rear their graces, &c. To attend to the
training and education of their children.
608. Such is Thomson’s view of the woman’s true kingdom. Like
Milton's, it reveals no sympathy with what has come to be called
‘woman’s rights.”
612. Zºº close array. Not in flowing garments, but in what Words-
worth calls “woodland dress.’
614–617. Wordsworth has described the same scene in his fragment
on Nutting, but he discovered, what escaped the robuster paganism of
Thomson, ‘a spirit in the woods’:—
* Then up I rose
And dragged to earth both branch and bough with crash
And merciless ravage; and the shady nook
Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,
T]eformed and sullied, patiently gave up
Their quiet being . . . . . .
—I felt a sense of pain when I beheld
The silent trees and the intruding sky.
Then, dearest maiden, move along these shades
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.’
62o. an ardent brown. A shining or glossy brown
623. these neglecting. Unconscious, or at least not vain, of her personal
charms.
625. the busy joy-resounding fields. The harvest fields.
627, 628. taste . . . . Zhe breath of orchard. See Spring, 1. Io?—
‘taste the smell of dairy.”—“Orchard,” literally “wort-yard,” a “herb-
garden.’ *
633. the gezztle race. Of pears.
! 638-642. It is worth noting that the very sound of these lines is
*
AVOTES, 597–660. - 33 I
suggestive of the appearance, taste, and perfume of the fruit which they
describe. The same appropriateness of language is noticeable in the
description of ‘juicy pears lying in soft profusion' (ll, 630–632
stºra).
644,645. Thy native theme, ... Ahillips, Pomona's bard. John Phillips,
son of Archdeacon Phillips of Salop, and of Bampton, Oxfordshire,
was born on December 30, 1676. He was educated at Winchester,
and Christ Church, Oxford ; and wrote The Splendid Shilling (1703) a
burlesque imitation of the style of Milton ; Blenheim (1705); and (in
I706) a poem on Cider, in two books, of about 1500 lines in all,
composed in imitation of Virgil's Georgics, and remarkable as being a
pretty exhaustive and trustworthy treatise on apple-growing and cider-
making. He is said to have been a man of singular modesty and
amiability in private life. He died in 1708, in the 32nd year of his age.
His three principal poems are in blank verse—for which he is here
complimented by Thomson, as ‘nobly daring to sing in rhyme-unfettered %
verse' first after the example of Milton. The poem on Cider (Gr. officepa,
strong drink) opens thus:—
‘What soil the apple loves, what care is due
To orchats, timeliest when to press the fruits,
Thy gift, Pomona l in Miltonic verse,
Adventurous, I presume to sing, of verse
Nor skilled, nor studious; but my native soil
Invites me, and the theme, as yet unsung.’
And it concludes with the prophecy that “Silurian cider’
“Shall please all tastes and triumph o'er the vine.’
648. The Silures inhabited South Wales generally. The English
county (on the Welsh March) of Hereford is specially referred to. In
his poem Phillips gives the palm to Hereford over Devon for cider.
65I. to cool the summer hours—
“When dusty Summer bakes the crumbling clods
How pleasant is't beneath the twisted arch
Of a retreating bower in midday’s reign
To ply the Sweet carouse, . . . . . . .
Secured of feverish heats.”—Cider, Bk. II.
653. Sheds equal. The time of the autumnal equinox, the 22nd of
September, has now arrived.
654. Jose 7ze. Let me lose myself, let me wander. * >
655. Z20dington, thy seat. (See Summer, Note, 1. 21.) Eastbury, in
Dorsetshire, where Thomson was an occasional guest. See his
correspondence for the years I 731 and 1735.
660, thy lofty dome. Eastbury House was one of the many mansions
332 7HAE SEASON.S.—AUTUMW.
which John Vanbrugh (1666–1726), dramatist and architect, was.
commissioned to design after the erection, from plans which he
furnished, in 1702, of Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle, in
Yorkshire. Vanbrugh the architect is best known as the designer
of Blenheim House. His style, both in the construction of dramas and
of houses, may be characterised as solid and weighty. A modern critic
neatly says that “he was no poet, but a heavy observer.' . After
Dodington’s death no tenant could be found for Eastbury House, though
its owner offered a premium to any one who would occupy it. The
taste for ‘solid magnificence ' (see Thomson’s letter to Dodington of
date December 27, 1730), which, in architecture, both Dodington and
Thomson affected, had undergone a change.
665. “These numbers free, Pierian Eastbury | I owe to thee.’—Young,
in Love of Fame, Sat. v.
666. After this line in the earlier editions of Autumn came—
“They twine the bay for thee. Here oft alone,
Fired by the thirst of thy applause, I court,’ &c.
The compliment to Young was an afterthought, due probably to the
publication of Night Thoughts in 1742–1744.
667. Zirtuous Young. Before the appearance of Night Thoughts,
a poem in nine books of blank verse, written partly in emulation of
Thomson, Young, though he had produced much, had given the world
nothing that was really of superior and lasting merit. Thomson’s
opinion of him in 1726, when he was busy with The Universal Passion,
may be inferred from the following passage which occurs in a letter
to Malloch, of date August 2, 1726; the reference is to a poem which
Young afterwards omitted from his collected works in 174I : * I have
not seen these reflections on the Doctor's Installment, but hear they are
as wretched as their subject. The Doctor's very buckram has run
short on this occasion; his affected sublimity even fails him, and down
he comes with no small velocity.” Edward Young was born in I681,
did not publish till his thirty-second year, entered the Church when on
the borders of fifty, was over sixty when he began his one famous poem,
and died—a proud, gloomy, disappointed man—in 1765, aged eighty-
four years. Like many other authors of the day he paid court to ‘the
Patron’—Dodington. To him he inscribed the second satire of The
Love of Fame.
673–679. These lines present the author in a characteristic attitude of
Sensuous ease and lazy meditation. Apparently he composed part of
Autumn while luxuriating as Dodington's guest at Eastbury. (See
his letter to Dodington, dated from Rome, November 28, 1731, for a
reference to the gardens at Eastbury.) Peach : from old Fr. Aesche,
MoZES, 665–132. 333
Lat. £ersicum ; from being the fruit of a Persian tree. Plum : from
‘prune,” Lat. prunum, Gr. Tpotivov. “With a fine blueish mist of
animals clouded —omitted by Thomson from the last revision of the
text. AVectarine : so called from being as sweet as ‘nectar'; Gr.
véictap, the wine of the gods. Fig : Fr. figue, Lat. ſicus. Vine: Fr.
zºgne, Lat. zinea, a vineyard, then a vine; Gr. oivn, a vine—named from
its winding growth.
683–706. A short digression to the vineyards of France.
691, 692. Referring to the two varieties of black and white grapes.
693. The bloom.
697. to cull the autumnal prime. To gather the firstfruits, the first
ripe clusters. -
702. the raised nations. Excited, or invigorated. The former is a
common meaning of “raised' in Lowland Scotch.
703–706. Claret : Fr., from Lat. clarats, clear; a clarified wine.
The name was originally applied to a light-red wine; with us it is a
general name for the red wines of Bordeaux. Buzgundy: this wine
is from the vineyards of the Côte d’Or, between Chalons and Dijon.
Both the red and the white wines of Burgundy rank among the finest in
the world. Chambertin is one of the most famous of the red wines of
Burgundy. Champagne : named from the ancient province, which
means a ‘plain's; Lat. ca/us. Perhaps the best varieties are Sillery, a
white, and Verzenay, a red champagne.
708. Autumn is the ‘season of mists’ as well as of ‘mellow fruitful-
ness.”—Keats. &
713. Such as the Cheviots, in his daily view during boyhood. The
Cheviot shepherd appears at 1. 727 infra.
714. After the word ‘division' came in the 1738 edition—
* While aloft
His piny top is, lessening, lost in air :
No more his thousand prospects fill,’ &c.
723, 724. Whence glaring of . . . . He frights the nations. Cp.
Milton, Par. Lost, Bk. I. 11. 594-599, commencing, ‘AS when the Sun
new-risen.”
725. Öeyond the life. Larger than life ; magnified shadows. The
phenomenon here referred to is not uncommon in the Scottish high-
lands and uplands in misty weather. Among the Harz mountains of
Germany it is popularly known as the Spectre of the Brocken. It is the
magnified shadow of objects thrown by the light of sunrise or sunset
against a veil of mist.
732. the Aebrew bard. Moses, in the first chapter of Genesis.
Milton invokes the “Heavenly Muse'-
334 7A/F SAEASOAVS. — A U 7"UMAV.
‘That, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos.”—Paz. A.ost, Bk. I. 11. 6–Io.
733. Zāght, uncollected. ' That is ‘ungathered in the sun.” The sun
made its appearance in the heavens on the fourth day of Creation, while
light was created on the first. Chaos, ‘confusion,’ is opposed to ‘Order,’
cosmos, in the next line.
736–835. By far the larger portion of this long passage of a hun-
dred lines was written after 1738, for the purpose of negativing the
theory of the origin of rivers advanced in the earlier text. That theory
sought to explain the origin of rivers by postulating a system of attrac-
tion of oceanic waters upwards through the pores of the earth. It is
stated, as the accepted view of ‘some sages,’ in the present text, ll. 743–
756. Milton may be regarded as one of those ‘Sages,’ for it is by
porous attraction that he secures the irrigation of Paradise, having
previously placed that lovely garden on ‘the champaign head of a steep
wilderness.’ Southward, he tells us, through the low-lying district of
Eden (not the garden)—
‘Went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Passed underneath ingulfed ; for God had thrown
That mountain, as his garden mould, high raised
Upon the rapid cūrrent, which, through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Watered the garden.”—Par. Zost, Bk. IV. li. 223–230.
The correct theory of the origin of streams is briefly stated in the seven
lines with which the passage opens. . The fanciful theory, which just
reverses the natural arrangement, after being vividly stated as already
said (ll. 743–756), is then dismissed as a “vain amusive dream, and
shown to be absurd, impossible, ruinous in the most comprehensive sense,
and—unnecessary But if Thomson's scientific speculations and argu-
ments are amusing, his poetical view of the globe's great rivers ‘in their
infant beds' is a noble effort of the imagination, expressed with some-
thing of the sonorous and stately measure of Milton.
742. After this line, in the edition of I738, came the following
scepticism of the established theory:—
“But is this equal to the vast effect
Is thus the Volga filled ? the rapid Rhine?
The broad Euphrates ? all the unnumbered floods
AWOZ’ES, 733–784. •s 335
That large refresh the fair-divided earth,
And, in the rage of Summer, never cease
To send a thundering torrent to the main
What though the sun draws from the steaming deep .
More than the rivers pour ! How much again
O'er the vext surge, in bitter-driving showers,
Frequent returns, let the wet sailor say:
And on the thirsty down, far from the burst
Of springs, how much, to their reviving fields
And feeding flocks, let lonely shepherds sing.
But sure 'tis no weak variable cause
That keeps at once ten thousand thousand floods
Wide-wandering o'er the world, so fresh and clear,
For ever flowing and for ever full.
And thus some sages deep-exploring teach
That where the hoarse innumerable wave
Eternal lashes,’ &c.—(See text, 1. 744.)
756–835. These lines were incorporated with the text after 1738: in the
edition of that year appeared the following lines, which they displaced :-
* The vital stream
Hence, in its subterranean passage, gains
From the washed mineral that restoring power
And salutary virtue, which anew
Strings every nerve, calls up the kindling soul
Into the healthful cheek and joyous eye:
And whence the royal maid, Amelia, blooms
With new-flushed graces; yet reserved to bless
Beyond a crown some happy prince ; and shine
In all her mother’s matchless virtues drest
The Carolina of another land.”
772. Deucaſion's zwatery times. The Flood. According to the
classical legend of ancient Greece, Deucalion, and Pyrrha his wife,
were, on account of their piety, the only human beings saved when
Zeus destroyed the world with a nine days' flood. They escaped
drowning in a ship. Cp. the story of Noah and his ark.
777. The ‘pervading genius’ of this line is the imagination.
778. Cp. Gray (of Milton):—
* He that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy
Zhe secrets of the abyss to spy.”—Progress of Poesy, III. 2.
783, 784. Zmails . . . the roving Zartar's sullen bounds. A
recollection of Milton:—
336 THE SAEASOAV.S. — A U 7'OMAV.
‘As when a vulture on Imaus bred,
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,’ &c.
Aar. Zost, Bk. III. ll. 431, 432.
7aurus. A mountain range in Asia Minor. Zmazes. The Himá-
layas, between India and Tartary. Æemzus (l. 785), a range of hills
crossing Turkey in Europe eastward to the Black Sea : Haemus, Imaus,
and Himálaya are probably all from the same origin—Sanskrit hima ;
Gr. Xelpløv; Lat. Azemes, winter, the Snowy season.
790, 791. Cazacasus. A range of very high mountains stretching over
700 miles from the Black Sea eastwards to the Caspian. The Caspian is
an enormous salt-water lake in the south-west of Asia, about 900 miles
long, into which flow the Volga and the Araxes. The Euxine is the
Black Sea, called Euxine euphemistically by the ancient Greeks: eißelvos,
hospitable. a
792. A'iſheazz rocks. The rocks of the Ural mountains. Thomson's
own note is, ‘The Muscovites call the Riphaean mountains Weliki
Camenypoys, that is, the great stony girdle; because they suppose
them to encompass the whole earth.”
795. Sc. the Obi, Irtish, Yenisei, Lena, &c.
798. Atlas, profting heaven, as poets ſeigzz. The Greek myth is to the
effect that one of the Titans (who had made war against Zeus), Atlas by
name, was punished after defeat by being condemned to bear heaven on
his head and hands. Later legends make Atlas a man who was
transformed into a mountain. Homer refers to the Greek myth; Ovid
has described the transformation in the Fourth Book of the Meta-
morphoses.
8oſ. clozad-compelling. A Homeric epithet of Zeus.
802. Jebel-Kumra, or Mountains of the Moon, supposed in Thomson's
day to lie under the Equator across Central Africa. His note states that
they ‘surround almost all Monomotapa.”
841. to their wintry slumbers they retire. The idea that swallows,
like bats, become torpid in winter, is still pretty popular. Thomson,
though he presents the theory of hibernation, clearly prefers the true
theory of migration.
85o...?lazzºs, won from the raging deep [by di/?gence amazing].
Holland—“a new creation rescued from his [Ocean’s] reign' (Goldsmith).
The reference is, of course, to the dikes. Cp. The Traveller—
“Onwards, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.”
853. the stork-assembly. These birds, belonging to the family of
AWOTES, 790–877. s 337
herons and bitterns, though widely diffused over Europe, have always
been extremely rare in England—rare even before the drainage of the fen
regions. They are common in Holland, where great care is taken
to protect them. The people place boxes for their nests, and it is
reckoned a fortunate thing for the occupants of a house if the box which
they have placed on the roof is tenanted. They are of great service in
devouring reptiles, and in clearing the streets of offal, &c. Thomson
accurately describes their ‘consultations, preliminary exercises, and
arrangements previous to their departure for the winter. During
these ‘consultations’ they make a great noise by the clattering of
their long and strong mandibles.
86 I. The period closing here beautifully, rounds off the description
of their flight, conveying to the mind a sense of the aerial perspective in
which the ‘figured flight’ is vanishing. They migrate in August or
September.
864, 865. 7%zzle. The Orkney and Shetland islands. Aſebrides.
The Western Isles off the coast of Scotland. Aours in among the
stormy Hebrides. Cp. Thomson's description of the same scene in
his Britannia:—
* Loud the northern main
Howls through the fractured Caledonian isles.”—ll. 88, 89.
866. Éransmigrations. Of solan geese, and other sea-birds.
87I. Žlaziz harmless maſſize. The crofter of the Western Isles; an
accurate description.
872. herd diminutive of many hues. The Highland breed of cattle is
distinguished by their small size, long horns, shaggy appearance, and
variety of colour—black, red, umber, and yellowish-white.
874. The shepherd’s seagār; reign. The “shepherd of the Hebride
Isles’ is also introduced in The Castle of Indolence, Canto I, St. xxx.
875. clinging, gathers his ozarious food. The eggs (Lat. ozºa) of
sea-fowl, from their nests in the cliff crevices and shelves. In The Pirate,
Sir Walter Scott refers to ‘those midnight excursions upon the face
of the giddy cliffs [overhanging the roost of Sumburgh in the Shetland
islands] to secure the eggs or the young of the sea-fowl'—‘ desperate
sports,” he says, “to which the “dreadful trade of the samphire-
gatherer” is like a walk upon level ground.’ (See The Pirate, chap. ii,
and note.) - -
876. sweeps the fishy shore. With their nets; or, it may be, with
O3.TS.
877: The plumage ... to form the bed [of luxury]. Eider-down.
Even Ailsa rock, so far south as the Ayrshire coast, used to supply
quantities of these feathers. Writing to his uncle, who lived opposite
t Z
338 THE SAEASOAVS. — A U 7'UMAW.
Ailsa, Burns asks “if the fowling for this season [the date is 4th May,
1788] be commenced yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and
I hope you will bespeak them for me.’ º
878–949. This passage is devoted to an account of Scotland and its
people. It is an expansion of the following thirteen half-hearted lines
which originally appeared in Summer in connexion with the description
of England and the English (see Summer, ll. I442–1619):—
+ ‘And should I northward turn my filial eye
Beyond the Tweed, pure parent-stream, to where
The hyperborean ocean furious foams
O'er Orca or Berubium’s highest peak,
Rapt I might sing" thy Caledonian sons,
A gallant, warlike, unsubmitting race
Nor less in Learning versed, soon as he took
Before the Gothic rage his western flight;"
Wise in the council, at the banquet gay;
The pride of honour burning in their breasts,
And glory, not to their own realms confined,
But into foreign countries shooting far
As over Europe bursts the boreal morn.”
(See Summer, Note, ll. I479–1579.)
881, the zyazing main. In the earlier editions, ‘gelid main '—which,
though less picturesque, helps better to explain ‘the keen sky’ and ‘Soul
acute’ of the next two lines.
884. [forests huge, Zzzcult, robust, &c. Caledonia, “land of brown
heath and shaggy woods,’ included such well-known historical forests of
natural growth (“incult”) as Athole, Birnam, Braemar, Rothiemurchus,
Torwood, Cadzow, &c.
886. extezzsize. Such as Loch Lomond, covering an area of 45 square
miles. Watery wealth. Fish of various kinds.
887. her fertile zales. Such as the ‘carses’ of Stirling and Gowrie ;
Thut Thomson specially refers to the dales of the Lowlands—Tweeddale,
Clydesdale, Teviotdale, Nithsdale, &c.
890, 891. These lines do not appear in the edition of 1738. Ednam,
the birthplace of Thomson, in the north-east corner of Roxburghshire, is
only a few miles distant from the Tweed. A couple of months after his
1 One might ask, ‘And why not, then?' But Thomson was himself ashamed of
the meagre sketch, out of all due proportion to the long and noble panegyric of,
England and her worthies—and withdrew it altogether from its original place in the
poem of Summer. He made some amends in Autumn. Thomson’s patriotism is
not arraigned here, but his slackness in expressing it to an English auditory.
WOTES, 878–916. 339
birth, his father was ordained minister of Southdean on the Jed, and here
the boyhood and youth-time of Thomson were spent—in a pastoral
rather than “sylvan’ region, however. But the reference is probably to
the ancient forest of Jedwood, through which the Jed flows on its way
to Teviot, the chief tributary of Tweed. He early began to write verse,
his compositions being on homely country subjects—hence the reference
to his “ Doric reed.’
893. Orca. Orkney. Berztóżum. Duncansbay Head, in the north of
Caithness-shire, is the Berubium of Ptolemy.
895–897. Zisited By learning, &c. Rome was sacked by the bar-
barians in 410. The last occupant of the throne of the Caesars was
overthrown by Odoacer in 476. It was in 563 that Columba came to
Iona on his mission of Christianizing the Picts. Thomson's reference
may be to the appearance of the Culdees in Scotland, which, according to
tradition, was about the middle of the ninth century.
900. Wallace. Sir William Wallace, the hero of the Scottish wars
with Edward I of England in the end of the thirteenth, and beginning
of the fourteenth century. He was, after many brave but unsuccessful
efforts to secure the independence of his country, meanly betrayed into
the hands of King Edward, who barbarously ordered his execution in
London in 1305.
902. generous. Probably in the sense of ‘national,” or ‘worthy of
a noble race.” -
905. for every land. As mercenary soldiers in France, Germany, &c.
The ubiquity of the travelled Scot is proverbial.
909. The aurora borealis—no uncommon phenomenon of a Scottish
winter. r
9II, 912. Zuxury . . . Of Alessing thousands. Goldsmith speaks of
the “luxury of doing good,” in The Traveller, 1. 22.
9I4–916. to gize A dozable harzesz, &c. This had been done for
England by Walpole's policy of peace, about the time (1730) when this
poem was published. “His time of power,’ says Green in The History
of the English People, “was a time of great material prosperity. . . . The
rise of manufactures was accompanied by a sudden increase of commerce,
which was due mainly to a rapid development of our colonies. . . . With
peace and security, the value of land, and with it the rental of every
country gentleman, tripled; while the introduction of winter roots, of
artificial grasses, of the system of a rotation of crops, changed the
whole character of agriculture, and spread wealth through the farming.
classes.” (See the last thirty-four lines of Allan Ramsay’s Prospect of
Plenty.) Lord Townshend introduced the turnip in 1730. In 1732
drill husbandry was introduced.
Z 2
340 7TP/AE SAEASO/WS. — A O 7'OMAV.
919. Zºo form the lucid lawn. The linen manufacture is now an
important part of the industry of the people. The chief centres are at
T)undee and Dunfermline.
921–923. Batavian ſleets Defraud us of the . . . swarms, &c. The
herring fisheries of Scotland are now the most important of the fisheries
of Great Britain. But it is only comparatively recently that they have
been established and developed. Towards the close of the 17th century,
and for many years after, the herring harvests of the Scottish firths were
gathered by Dutch fishermen, whose fleets of boats were no unfamiliar
sight in the Forth and other estuaries". The unfortunate Darien
Company had the development of the sea-fisheries of Scotland as one of
their schemes. In 1720 a joint-stock company was formed to prosecute
the herring fishery in Scotland. It held out a Prospect of Plenty to the
country, and the Prospect was duly celebrated in a curious poem (1720)
by Allan Ramsay ; but the North Sea Scheme, like that of the more
famous South Sea, collapsed. The fostering care of some patriotic
statesman was still wanted in 1730, when Thomson put his question, and
asked the Duke of Argyle to answer it.
927. as 272 name. By the treaty of Union, of I707, the name of
Great Britain was applied to the United Kingdoms of England and
Scotland.
929. Argyle. John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. ‘This noble-
man,’ says Sir Walter Scott, “was very dear to his countrymen, who
were justly proud of his military and political talents, and grateful for
the ready zeal with which he asserted the rights of his native country.”
(See, for a fuller and very favourable estimate of his character, The
Heart of Midlothian, chap. xxxiv.) It was of him Pope wrote:–
‘Argyle, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field.’
He was born in 1678; served under Marlborough in Flanders, dis-
tinguishing himself at Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet, &c.; was
appointed Commander of the Forces in Scotland, where he quelled the
disturbances connected with the Rebellion of 1715; and was raised to
the English peerage in 1718, with the title of Duke of Greenwich. He
died in 1743. He is known in Scotland as ‘The good Duke of Argyle,'
—a designation which he merited from the kindliness of his disposition,
1 In 1689 Dutch vessels, “busses’ as they were called,—engaged in the herring
traffic, were mistaken for a French fleet in the Firth of Forth, and alarmed the
inhabitants of Edinburgh. Allan Ramsay, in 1721, wrote of the Dutch fishermen—
- ‘Lang have they plied that trade like busy bees
. And sucked the profit of the Pictland seas.’
-- On the Prospect of Plenty.
\
AWOTES, 919–970. 34. I
and his many private acts of beneficence. There can be no doubt that
Thomson's was the popular estimate of his character.
938. The village of Malplaquet in French Flanders, where Marl-
borough gained a great victory over Marshal Villars in 1709, lies on
one side of the open gap (Trouée) between the forests of Taisnière and
Lanière on the road to Mons. A great deal of the fighting was in
Taisnière forest. This battle was the bloodiest in the whole of Marl-
borough's wars.-Six lines, of no great merit, have been dropt here from
the edition of 1738. -
944. Forbes. Duncan Forbes, of Culloden, Lord President of the
Scottish Court of Session. Born in 1685, he was trained for the bar,
and rose to be Lord Advocate in 1725. Ten years later he was raised
to the Scottish bench, and in I 737 became Lord President. He died in
1747. He was one of the many personal friends of Thomson, who was
also on terms of great intimacy with his son. His rapid rise to place and
power was owing partly to his own talents and partly to his political
and family connection with the Duke of Argyle. He is remembered in
Scotland for his clemency and generosity (exhibited so particularly
as almost to compromise his loyalty) in behalf of the Jacobite rebels of
1715 and 1745. The later years of his life were largely devoted to
the improvement of Scottish methods of agriculture and the advancement
of Scottish trade. -
967. low-thoughted. Applied by Milton to ‘care,” in Comus, 1.6.
968. Soothe the throbbing passions into £eace. In Spring; 1. 463—
‘Soothe every gust of passion into peace.”
976–Ioos. The substance of these lines had already been beautifully
expressed by the poet in prose. Writing from Barnet, near London, in
September, 1725, Thomson, who was then just commencing his poem of
Winter, remarks in a letter to his friend and confidant, Dr. William
Cranstoun, of Ancrum—a village about three miles from Jedburgh—
‘Now I imagine you seized with a fine romantic kind of a melancholy
on the fading of the year ; now I figure you wandering, philosophical
and pensive, amidst the brown withered groves, while the leaves rustle
under your feet, the sun gives a farewell parting gleam, and the
birds—
- “Stir the faint note, and but attempt to sing.”
Then again, when the heavens wear a more gloomy aspect, the winds
whistle, and the waters spout, I see you in the well-known cleugh 1
beneath the Solemn arch of tall thick-embowering trees, listening to the
amusing lull of the many steep moss-grown cascades, while deep, divine
1 A glen, or chasm between two rocks.
342 7"HAE SAEASOAVS.– A U 7'OMAV.
Contemplation, the genius of the place, prompts each swelling awful
thought. I am sure you would not resign your place in that scene at an
easy rate. None ever enjoyed it to the height that you do ; and you are
worthy of it. There I walk in spirit, and disport in its beloved gloom.
This country I am in is not very entertaining ; no variety but that of
woods, and them we have in abundance. But where is the living stream,
the airy mountain, or the hanging rock ’’ &c.
983. aimed from some inhuman eye. Cp. Burns—
“Inhuman man curse on thy barbarous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye l’
7%e Wozzzzded Hare.
994. The peculiarly effective pause after ‘sob’ should be noted
here.
Ioos. philosophic Melancholy comes / Appropriately to the fading
year. Cp. Burns—
* Come, Autumn, Sae pensive, in yellow and gray,
And soothe me,’ &c.
Io20–Io22. A noble sentiment, characteristic of Thomson.
Io25. Zvozder. Admiration.
Iogo—Io96. The feeling for the supernatural (as expressed here, and
in Summer, at 1. 538, and elsewhere in his poetry) is a feature of
Thomson's genius—to which, surely, Collins must have been looking
when he figured Thomson as a Druid in the well-known Ode:
‘O vales and wild woods (shall he say),
In yonder grave your Druid lies 1’
Io97–Io81. These forty-five lines were not added till after 1738.
IoA2. Aaradžse of Stowe. “The seat of the Lord Viscount Cobham.”
(AVote by Zhomson.) It is not now the attractive place it was in
Thomson's time.
Io.48. Piłł. The eldér, Earl of Chatham. He was born in 1708, and
was therefore only twenty-two when Thomson published Autumn. The
compliment to him was added after he began to make a name for
himself as a statesman. It was not till I 735 that Pitt entered Parliament.
He took the side of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and offered a determined
resistance to Walpole. As Thomson died in 1748, he could only speak
of Pitt as ‘the early boast' of his country. f
Ioão. that temple. The Temple of Virtue in Stowe Gardens. So
at the Leasowes Shenstone had Damon's Bower, and there he wrote,
‘towards the close of the year 1748, to his friend ‘William Lyttleton,
Esq.’—
Q. ‘Yes, there, my friend forlorn and sad,
I grave your Thomson's name;
MOZA.S, 983–1098. 343
And there, his lyre, which Fate forbade
To sound your growing fame.’
IOG2. draw the tragic scene [with juster hand]. Thomson's first
tragedy, Sophonisba, was produced at Drury Lane in Feb. I 729–30.
It was rather a failure on the stage, though it passed through four
editions in I730. Agamemnon appeared in I738, Edward and Eleanora.
in I739; then came Tancred and Sigismunda (1745), and the post-
humous Coriolanus.
Io?2. Cobham. The proprietor of Stowe, Sir Richard Temple,
afterwards Lord Cobham. He it was that laid out the walks and
gardens, planted the groves, and erected the statues and temples at
Stowe, a ‘chief out of war,’ to use Pope's phrase.
Io'ſ 2, Io; 3. Zhy zerdazzt files Of ordered frees shoulds? ... range. The
arrangement greatly affected about the beginning and middle of last
century was in the figure of the quadrum, or the quincunx, that is by
fours, or perfect squares; or by fives, like the spots on the side of a
die : . . In the Second Georgic Virgil describes the former arrange-
Iment :—
• - * Nec Secius omnis in unguem.
Arboribus positis secto via limite quadret:
Ut Saepe ingenti bello cum longa cohortes
Explicuit legio, et campo Stetit agnmen aperto,
Directaeque acies,’ &c.—ll. 277–28I.
Pope, in his Satires and Epistles of Horace Imitated, refers to the
quincunx:— t -
“My retreat the best companions grace,
Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place;
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul;
And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines
Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines.’
Bk. II, Sat. I, 11. I25–13c.
Io93. optic ſube describes. Cp. Par. Lost, Bk. I, 11. 288, 29O. !
Io96. through the passing cloud she seems to stoop. “Seems to descend,”
that is, “nearer to the earth.’ Milton also notices the illusion—
“Oft, as if her head she bow’d,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.’
- AZ Aenseroso, Il. 71, 72.
See also Comus, 1.333.
Io98, the pale deluge. Cp. ‘ the dazzling deluge' of Sunshine in
Summer, 1. 435. Blake, in his lines to The Evening Star, has—‘Wash
the dusk with silver.’
344 ZTA/AE SAEASOAVS. — A CWTOW///V.
IIoI, IIo2. The effect of full moon is finely caught in these lines.
IIoô, I 1 oz. near extinct her deadened orb aftears, And scarce appears.
This is the phenomenon, referred to in ‘the grand old ballad of Sir
Patrick Spens,’ of ‘the new moon with the old moon in her arms.’
IIo9–III.4. This is a description of the Aurora, or Northern Lights,
not of a meteoric shower. Cp. Burns, in his fragmentary Vision at
Lincluden (1794):—
* The cauld blae north was streaming forth
Her lights wi' hissing eerie din;
Athwart the lift they start and shift
Like Fortune's favours, tint as win.”
III 5–1137. The first draught of this passage appeared in the first
edition of Summer (1727). (See Summer, Note, l. 1698.)
III.8. Thronged with ačrial spears, &c. It recalls Milton's awful
line—
“With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.’
{ Aar. Zost, Bk. XII, l. 644.
II 22, II 23. Cp. Chaucer's The Squieres Tale, 11. 204–261. Also
Milton's Par. Lost, Bk. I, ll. 598, 599.
II32. That is, that the last day has arrived.
II 34. £zzspect sage. Wise insight.
T 136. yet unſived. That is, “till now unexplained, and unsettled.’
This is very much the condition of affairs yet. That the phenomenon
of the Aurora is due to electricity is generally believed, but how is still
an open question. -
II41–II.44. The same idea has already been brought forward in thi
poem, 11. 730–735.
1148, II 49. See Comus, ll. 337-34o, for ‘the taper of some clay
habitation,’ &c.
II5I-II64. This passage, in a somewhat different form, appeared
originally in the first edition of Summer (1727). (See Summer, Note,
1. I68I.)
II 57–II59. Compare with this the more pathetic picture of the shep-
herd’s wife and children, in Winter, ll. 3 IO-317. -
II83. Conzolved. A favourite word of Thomson. See Spring, 1.836.
The smoking of bees in order to secure their honey is now rarely
practised. It is both more humane and more profitable to abstract
honeycomb from the hive without destroying the bees.
II.87. the blooming waste. The heather (in bloom in August and Sep-,
témber), from which a richer honey is made than from garden flowers;
1190, 1191. Mature groan . . . . awaiting renovation. See St. Paul's
Epistle to the Romans for this reference, chap. viii, Ig–23. -
MOTES, IIoI–I339. 345
1204. Palermo. The capital city and chief seaport of Sicily.
I2II, I212. Construe “Save what brushes the filmy thread of eva-
porated dew from the plain.” Thomson's closeness and delicacy of
observation is revealed in these lines: they refer to a phenomenon
of tranquil autumnal morning which few have observed. As ‘the
filmy thread of dew,’ which has got somehow into the air, falls on one’s
face, one is apt to imagine that it is about to rain ; but the sky all round
is a sunny blue; neither is there wind to blow the dew from the hanging
COTIl-62TS.
I 214, 1215. The high and wide skies of Autumn, on days of “utter
peace,’ are like the creation of a new heaven.
I 219. The corn-yard, or stack-y rd, securely enclosed.
I 22 I. The festival of harvest-home :—
* Merriment
Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds
When, for their . . . . granges full
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan.’
Comats, ll. I 72–176.
I222. ‘The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.”—Goldsmith’s
AJeserted Village.
1236. The happies; he who far from public rage, &c. Cp. Horace—
‘Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis
Solutus Omni fenore,’ &c.—AEffodon Carm. I, 2.
I263, I264. See supra, ll. 4, 5.
I267. the chide of streams. A beautiful expression. Shakespeare has
it, ‘Never did I hear such gallant chiding’ (Midsummer Night's Dream,
Act IV, Sc. i.), where it is said by Hippolyt in her eulogium of the
Spartan breed of hounds.
I273–1277. Cp. Cowper's Task, Bk. IV, the concluding passage—
“Hail therefore,’ &c. .
I 287, 1288. This is very severe, for Thomson, on lawyers. See also
ll. I291–1294 infra.
I3O4. who, from the world escaped. Like Cowper, in his Olney
retreat. * -
I317. /rigid Tempe. See Spring, Note, 1. 908.
1318. Hemus. See supra, Note, 1. 784.
I326. £hen [in Autumn] he best exerts his song. See supra, Note, 1.670.
I339. His own affection for his sisters would serve to illustrate the
line. * s -
346 THAE SAEASOAVS. — W/AWTAER.
I34I, I.342. Afte little strong embrace Of Żraft/img childrenz favčmed |
arozzed his neck. Thomson must have had a child’s arm round his
neck, to describe “the little strong embrace' so accurately.
I348–1351. See the Age of Innocence fully described in Spring, ll.
24I-270.
I353. the Amozwledge of thy works. He enumerates more particularly,
in the Succeeding lines, astronomy, geology, botany, natural history, and
psychology. His love of the study of natural science is abundantly
evident from his poetry. It was probably instilled into his mind at
Edinburgh University, where the Baconian and Newtonian impulse was
felt more powerfully in the first half of the 18th century than it seems
to have been felt at the English Universities. (See Sir A. Grant's Hist.
of Edinburgh University, vol. i, pp. 263 eſſ seqq.)
I 368. An allusion to his natural indolence. It was the alternative
that was in store for Thomson—not vast and varied scientific knowledge;
but a place ‘by the lowly brook’—‘in lowly dale fast by a river's side
—and a dream of a Castle of Indolence.
WINTER.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Winter, placed last—agreeably to the natural order—in the col-
lected Seasons, comes first in the order of composition, and perhaps of
merit and popularity as well. It was entirely written in England.
Thomson arrived in London in March, 1725. Disappointed in the
immediate object of his journey, whatever it was—probably a situation
in the service of the Government—he was forced by the slenderness of
his purse to accept the office of tutor to a small boy of five, and mean-
while prepare for a less precarious and more honourable means of
maintenance. Writing in July to an intimate friend in Scotland, he says
—‘I am pretty much at ease in the country, ten miles from London,
teaching Lord Binning's son' to read—a low task, you know, not so
suitable to my temper; but I must learn that necessary lesson of
suiting my mind and temper to my state. I hope I shall not pass my
time here without improvement—the great design of my coming hither
—and then, in due time, I resolve through God's assistance to consum-
mate my original study of divinity; for you know the business of a
1. Afterwards seventh Earl of Haddington.
AVZTA’O/DUCTOR Y AWOZTAE. 347
tutor is only precarious and for the present.” The place referred to in
this letter as ten miles from London was East Barnet; and here
Thomson continued (with an occasional flying visit to London) to
reside till the end of the year, by which time he seems to have finished
together the first draught, at least, if not the full composition, of
Winter, and his engagement as tutor in Lord Binning's family. He
cannot be said to have begun the poem till the end of Autumn, when
he was prompted to the work by the nature—one might say the
necessity—of his situation. The subject had been determined for him
by a variety of causes. He writes bravely enough on the manner in
which he found and first began to work at his subject, but his mind was
undoubtedly then disposed to a gloomier view of life than was habitual
to him, and to less cheerful subjects of contemplation than had engaged
his attention in the preceding Spring. He had not been in England
more than six weeks when he received the sad news of the death of his
mother, to whom he was tenderly attached; at Barnet he had run into
debt, and was feeling as a strange sensation the first pressure of poverty;
the ‘melancholy’ natural to his spirits ‘on the fading of the year,’ was
of a deeper shade in the October of 1725 than he had ever known it,
or perhaps was ever again to know; and the influence of a poem by
Robert Riccaltoun, every whit as lugubrious as The Grave of Blair, had
filled his imagination with a gloom only too congenial with his circum-
stances, and cherished rather than chidden away by the desponding
young poet. In the autumn of I725, in another letter to his intimate
friend (Dr. Cranstoun, of Ancrum) he writes: ‘I am just now painting
[Nature] in her most lugubrious dress for my own amusement, describing
Winter as it presents itself. . . . After this introduction I say—
“Nor can I, O departing Summer choose -
But consecrate one pitying line to you;
Sing your last tempered days, and sunny calms,
That cheer the spirits and serene the soul.”
Then terrible floods, and high winds, that usually happen about this
time of the year, and have already happened here (I wish you have not
felt them too dreadfully)—the first produced the enclosed lines; the last
are not completed. Mr. Riccaltoun's poem on Winter, which I still
have, first put the design into my head : in it are some masterly strokes
that awakened me. Being only a present amusement it is ten to one
1 * This country I am in is not very entertaining; no variety but that of woods.’
348 7A/AE SAEASON.S.— W/AWTAER.
but I drop it whenever another fancy comes across.” Riccaltoun's
poem, from this interesting connection, acquires an importance of some
historical value. It has been identified, on evidence that is almost
conclusive, with a set of some fifty-eight verses in the heroic couplet
‘by a Scotch clergyman,’ printed in 1726 in Savage's Miscellany, and
again, in 1740, in The Gentleman's Magazine for May, under the title
of ‘A Winter's Day.’ Thomson's copy of the poem was probably got
in MS. from the author's own hand; but it may have been a cutting
from an Edinburgh periodical of date anterior to I? 26. Riccaltoun was
a young farmer at Earlshaugh, some four miles from the manse of
Southdean, when Thomson was a schoolboy ; and, having a taste for
the classics, for he was college-bred, and taking a fancy to the minister's
son, he gave him help with his Latin lessons and exercises. He after-
wards became minister of the parish of Hobkirk, near Jedburgh. The
influence of the following quotations from Riccaltoun's verses will
readily be traced in Thomson's poem :— *
‘Now, gloomy soul, look out ! now comes thy turn
With thee, behold all ravaged Nature mourn;
Hail the dim empire of thy darling night
That spreads slow-shadowing o'er the vanquished light.
Look out with joy! The ruler of the day,
Faint as thy hopes, emits a glimmering ray;
Already exiled to the utmost sky,
Hither oblique he turns his clouded eye.
Lo, from the limits of the wintry pole
Mountainous clouds in rude confusion roll ;
In dismal pomp now hovering in their way,
To a sick twilight they reduce the day.”—ll. I-12.
* Let no intrusive joy my dead repose
Disturb ; º g e ge º g
In this moss-covered cavern hopeless laid
On the cold cliff I lean my aching head -
And, pleased with winter's waste, unpitying see
All Nature in an agony with me.
Rough rugged rocks, wet marshes, ruined tours,
Bare trees, brown brakes, bleak heaths, and rushy moors,
Dead floods, huge cataracts, to my pleased eyes
(Now I can smile !) in wild disorder rise;
ZAV7'RODUCTOK! Y AWOTE. 349
And now, their various dreadfulness combined,
Black melancholy comes to doze my mind.”—ll. 33–44.
* But hark a sudden howl invades my ear—
The phantoms of the dreadful hour are near;
Shadows from each dark cavern now combine,
And stalk around, and mix their yells with mine !’—11. 51–54.
Thomson's chief, if not his only, literary correspondent during the ,
composition of Winter was his former college companion at Edinburgh,
David Malloch (or Mallet as he strangely preferred to be called), who
in 1725, and for several years afterwards, was tutor to the two sons of
the Duke of Montrose ". Spence, in his Anecdotes, &c.,has preserved a
rumour that Thomson went down to live at Twyford, in Hants, a
country seat of the Duke of Montrose, on the invitation of Malloch, and
that while there he submitted to Malloch's judgment the MS. of Winter;
that the friends had some difficulty in finding a publisher for it; and that,
when it appeared at last, the Dedication was the composition of Malloch.
The publisher of Winter was John Millan, who gave the author
three guineas for it; and the poem was issued in folio in March, I726.
Presently it began to be talked about in the London coffee-houses as
a genuine poem on a new and original subject—the person who was first
to discover its merits being the Rev. Robert Whatley. Almost as soon
as Whatley, Aaron Hill” began to sound its praise; and there was
a recommendation of it by Spence in his Essay on Pope's Odyssey,
published in 1727. The rate of its success may be estimated from the
facts that the second edition was called for in the following June, and
that the fifth edition was out before the end of 1728. It brought
Thomson the friendship of among others—Lady Hertford, Mrs.
Stanley, Dr. Rundle, and Sir C. Talbot.
Malloch may have written the prose Dedication, which was addressed
to the Right Hon. Sir Spencer Compton, Speaker of the House of
Commons, but Thomson unfortunately homologated it in a paraphrase
of its extravagant statements to which he gave a permanent place in the
1 See a curious poem ‘To Mr. David Malloch on his Departure from Scotland, by
Allan Ramsay:—
‘The task assigned thee 's great and good
To cultivate two. Grahams,’ &c. &
* “You have given me fame,’ was the acknowledgment of Thomson in a letter to
Hill on May 24, 1726. -
* }
35o 7THAE SAEASOAVS. — W/AWTAEA’.
-gº
text of the poem. The prose Dedication was prefixed to the first five
editions of Winter : it ran as follows—
‘Sir, The Author of the following poem begs leave to inscribe this
his first performance to your name and patronage: unknown himself,
and only introduced by the Muse, he yet ventures to approach you with
a modest cheerfulness; for, whoever attempts to excel in any generotis
art, though he comes alone and unregarded by the world, may hope for
. . your notice and esteem. Happy if I can in any degree merit this good
fortune. As every ornament and grace of polite learning is yours, your
single approbation will be my fame.
‘I dare not indulge my heart by dwelling on your public character,
on that exalted honour and integrity which distinguish you in that
august assembly where you preside, that unshaken loyalty to your
sovereign, that disinterested concern for his people which shine out
united in all your behaviour and finish the patriot. I am conscious of
my want of strength and skill for so delicate an undertaking; and yet,
as the shepherd in his cottage may feel and acknowledge the influence
of the Sun, with as lively a gratitude as the great man in his palace,
even I may be allowed to publish my sense of those blessings which,
from so many powerful virtues, are derived to the nation they adorn.
‘I conclude with saying that your fine discernment and humanity
in your private capacity are so conspicuous that if this address is
not received with some indulgence, it will be a severe conviction
that what I have written has not the least share of merit. I am,’ &c.
This is fulsome. The fulsomeness, conscious or ignorant of its nature,
Thomson unhappily adopted ; but it is also stilted, insincere, and im-
pudent. The audacity of the concluding sentence was foreign to the
character of Thomson. -
The second, third, and fourth editions of Winter contained a preface
of Thomson's own composition, which one might describe as the
poet’s apology for poesy, or rather his vindication of poetry. It is
pervaded by a nobility of sentiment and an independence of tone, which
are in marked contrast to the effrontery and servility of Malloch's
Dedication. It begins—
‘I am neither ignorant, nor concerned, how much one may suffer, in
the opinion of several persons of great gravity and character, by the
study and pursuit of poetry. Although there may seem to be some
appearance of reason for the present contempt of it, as managed by the
ZAV7'RODUCTOR Y AWOTAE. 35I
most part of our modern writers, yet that any man should seriously
declare against that divine art is really amazing. It is declaring against
the most charming power of imagination, the most exalting force of
thought, the most affecting touch of sentiment; in a word, against
the very soul of all learning and politeness. It is affronting the
universal taste of mankind, and declaring against what has charmed the
listening world from Moses down to Milton. . . . It is even declaring
against the Sublimest passages of the inspired writings themselves, and
what seems to be the peculiar language of heaven.” Then follows some
well-directed satire, and the poet continues: ‘That there are frequent
and notorious abuses of Poetry is as true as that the best things are
most liable to that misfortune; but . . . let poetry once more be
restored to her ancient truth and purity; let her be inspired from
heaven, and, in return, her incense ascend thither; let her exchange her
low, venal, trifling subjects for such as are fair, useful, and magnificent
. . . and poets [shall] yet become the delight and wonder of mankind.
But this happy period is not to be expected till some long-wished,
illustrious man, of equal power and beneficence, rise on the wintry
world of letters—one of a genuine and unbounded greatness and
generosity of mankind, who, far above all the pomp and pride of
fortune, scorns the little addressful flatterer, discountenances all the
reigning fopperies of a tasteless age, and . . . stretching his views into
late futurity, has the true interest of virtue, learning and mankind
entirely at heart—a character so nobly desirable that, to an honest
heart it is almost incredible so few should have the ambition to deserve
it. Nothing can have a better influence towards the revival of poetry
than the choosing of great and serious subjects.” There are some more
satirical remarks on ‘the little glittering prettinesses’ of the fashionable
verse of the day, from which the poet turns with a noble scorn—“A
genius,” he says, “fired with the charms of truth and nature is tuned to a
Sublimer pitch, and scorns to associate with such subjects.” He goes on
to recommend to poets and readers of poetry a return to the study
of Nature, too long neglected; and exclaims, after a brief survey of the
grander phenomena of Nature, “But there is no thinking of these things
without breaking out into poetry.’ He next refers to the example of ‘the
best poets, both ancient and modern.” Whence did they derive their in-
spiration? ‘They have been passionately fond of retirement and solitude:
the wild romantic country was their delight.” There are two or three
352. 7A/AF SEASOAVS.— W/AWZTAEA’.
unavoidable compliments—to ‘Mr. Hill,’ ‘Mira,’ and ‘Mr. Malloch';
and the Preface concludes with the announcement that the reforms, in
poetical composition and in poetical taste, which he has just been
urging, he will endeavour himself to practise ‘in the other Seasons,’
which it is his ‘purpose’ to describe.
Winter, which is the shortest poem of the series of The Seasons, was
very considerably shorter still when it first appeared. So late as the
edition of 1738 it consisted of only 787 lines; it was finally enlarged to
Ioé9. The principal additions were a paraphrase (11. I26–145) of a
part of the First Georgic of Virgil; a description (11. 414–423) of
avalanches; an enlargement of the list of Greek and Roman Worthies;
the lament for Hammond (ll, 555–571); a eulogy of Chesterfield; an
extension of the view of life and Winter within the Arctic circle; and a
eulogistic outline of the career of the Czar Peter. Numerous verbal
alterations were made in the text after 1738, some of them at the
suggestion of Pope; and several lines were dropped. The geographical
range of the poem is only inferior to that of Summer. The best scenes
are Scottish. Holland, France, Italy, and Switzerland furnish impressive
Winter scenes; Siberia and Lapland are graphically presented ; and a
glimpse is given, in a flight beyond Iceland and Greenland, of the
white terrors at the Pole. The historical range is a remarkable,
and a not very harmonious feature of the poem. Long winter evenings
are, no doubt, conducive to retirement and study; and the history
of the world’s great leaders, in the spheres of thought and action,
may naturally enough form part of one's winter reading ; but the
subject, thanks very much to Pope, is treated at unconscionable length,
and receives a prominence relatively to the other parts of the poem
which is quite disproportionate, and (some may be pardoned for
thinking) of the nature of an excrescence.
Perhaps the most poetical passages are those that describe a wet day
at the farm ; a river in flood ; the visit of the redbreast; a shepherd
perishing in the snow-drift, with the pathetic picture of his wife and
children becoming concerned about his absence; “the goblin-story’
told by village fires; the still, freezing night; and the Siberian bear
‘with dangling ice all horrid.’ The clearness and completeness of
these descriptions strike the imagination at once, and the singular
appropriateness of the language imprints them on the memory.
... It is to be regretted that in his list of winter sports Thomson did
ZAV7'RO/DUCTOR V AVO 7A. 353
not include a description of the Scots game of curling, ‘the roaring
play” of Burns. j *
The argument as amended for the final text runs as follows:–“ The
subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilmington. First approach
of Winter. According to the natural course of the Season, various
storms described—rain, wind, snow. The driving of the Snows—a man
perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of
human life. The wolves descending from the Alps and Apennines. A
Winter evening described—as spent by philosophers; by the country
people; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the Polar
circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on
a future state.’
Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, Butler's Sermons, and Dyer’s Grongar
Hill, were, with Thomson's Winter, the principal London publications
of the year 1726. *ē, Defoe, Bentley, and Theobald also pub-
lished works in the same year. -
A curious story connected with the Dedication may be added. Lord
Wilmington, then Sir Spencer Compton, and Speaker of the Commons,
took no notice of the honour which had been done him till the first
edition was almost exhausted. The neglect displeased Thomson,
and roused the satire of Hill and Malloch against the indifference of
patrons. Hill's reproaches were communicated to the Speaker, and
were so far effective that the compliment of the Dedication was at last
acknowledged by a fee of twenty guineas. Thomson's account of his
interview with his patron, and the way in which it was more im-
mediately brought about, is contained in a letter to Hill:— ‘ On
Saturday morning [June 4, 1726] I was with Sir Spencer Compton. A
certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him concerning me; his
answer was that I had never come near him. Then the gentleman put
the question if he desired that I should wait on him ; he returned he
did. On this the gentleman gave me an introductory letter to him. He
received me in what they commonly call a civil manner, asked me some
commonplace questions, and made me a present of twenty guineas. I am
very ready to own that the present was larger than my performance ſhe
means, not the poem, but the Dedication as a piece of complimentary
composition—usually attributed to Malloch!] deserved ; and shall ascribe
it to his generosity rather than the merit of the Address.’ Meanwhile
both Hill and Malloch had written verses to the praise of Thomson and
A a.
j
l
}
354 THE SEASON.S.—WINTER.
the censure of the Speaker, which were intended to be prefixed to
the second edition of Winter then in the press. Thomson either did
not wish to lose the praise or did not wish to offend his friends by
withdrawing the verses, and they were accordingly printed with but
slight modification of the censure—certainly not enough “to clear Sir
Spencer.’ Thomson's correspondence shows very amusingly the
dilemma he was in.
1. The year has lost its autumnal look, and now assumes a wintry
aspect. More figuratively, the reign of autumn is over; it is now
Winter's turn to rule. ‘The varied year’ means ‘the year that has
varied, or changed its appearance,’ and not ‘ the year that is varied by
the succession of the seasons.” The idea contained in ‘ varied' is repeated .
at 1. 43 in the word ‘inverted.’ It simply means ‘altered,” or ‘so
altered as to exhibit a complete contrast.’
2. rising. Ascending from the horizon.
3. Vapours, and clouds, and storms. See ll. 54–56, infra.
6. Congezzial horrors. Some trace the congeniality, avowed here so
boldly, to the peculiar circumstances—of disappointment, loneliness,
bereavement, and even poverty—in which Thomson was placed when he
began the poem. They imagine him making choice of a subject of
‘glooms’ and ‘horrors’ much in the same mood as that which made
Burns exclaim—
‘Come, Winter, with thine angry howl,
And, raging, bend the naked tree;
Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,
When Nature all is sad like me!’—Meenzie’s ee.
They perhaps overlook the fact (stated in the immediately succeeding
lines) that Winter-time had always been a pleasure to him : it was
equally congenial to his cheerful, careless, robust boyhood. He could
say with Burns—
‘O Nature, a thy shows and forms
To feeling, pensive hearts ha'e charms;
Whether the summer kindly warms
Wi’ life and light,
Or winter howls in gusty storms
The long dark night.”
Apistle to William, Sámson.
Probably by ‘congenial’ Thomson simply means the horrors and
AWOTAES, 1–18. 355
glooms of the Cheviot winters, to which he had been accustomed from
his infancy; he had grown up amongst them.
7. my cheerful morn of life. From the third month to the sixteenth
year of his life, his home was the solitary manse of Southdean in
Roxburghshire, not more than five miles, as the crow flies, from Carter
Fell, one of the summits of the Cheviots. -
9. sung of Nature. Delighted in rural scenes. But there may be a
reference to his boyish exercises in verse, which were probably on
subjects connected for the most part with country life.
12–14. All this he could do at the door, or from the parlour window,
of his father's manse. The Jed sweeps round the manse garden, and is
a sufficiently ‘big torrent' when in flood.
14, the grim evening sky. ‘Red,” meaning ‘lurid,” in the early
editions, as late as that of I738.
I5. the lucid chambers of the south. A beautiful phrase, partly
scriptural. See the Book of Job: ‘[He is mighty in strength] which
maketh . . . the chambers of the south.” (chap. ix. 9). Cp. William
Blake's To the Muses :—
‘Whether on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceased,’ &c.
See Spring, 1. Io94.
17. first essay. The poem of Winter, though it comes last in the
collected Seasons, was the first written of the series. It was published
in 1726; Summer came next, in 1727; then Spring, in I728; and
Autumn, with the Hymn, last of all, published, in its due place in
the natural order, with the other Seasons, in I730.
18. Wilmington. Sir Spencer Compton, created Baron Wilmington in
January, 1728; Earl, in May, 1730. He was born probably in the year
I673; and began his long parliamentary career in 1698 as the Member
for Eye. A son of the Earl of Northampton, he belonged to a Tory
family, but joined the Whigs, and was rewarded with a long succession
of honourable appointments. The new Parliament of I715 elected him
their Speaker; he was then the representative for Sussex. In 1722
he was again chosen Speaker, and filled the chair till the dissolution of
Parliament in July, 1727. He held at the same time, the office of
Paymaster-General; and was made a Knight of the Bath in 1725. In
1727 he might have been Prime Minister instead of Walpole, but
confessed to the King ‘ his inability to undertake the duties of so
arduous a post.” He had made a similar confession when he filled the
office of Speaker, declaring that “he had neither memory to retain,
A a 2
356 7A/AE SAEASOAV.S. – WVAWZTER.
judgment to collect, nor skill to guide the debates of the Commons.”
Public opinion took him at his word: he was generally regarded as a
mere cipher, and treated as such by the caricaturists and satirical writers
of his time. Yet he was not without dignity, especially on State
occasions, and secured some respect by the solemnity of his manner and
the impressive tones of his voice. His talents, however, were but
mediocre, and he lacked both tact and decision. His peerage came to
him rather as a solatium for the premiership he could not fill, than as a
reward for his services. He died unmarried in 1743, and the title lapsed.
His estates went to his brother, the Earl of Northampton. Thomson's
eulogy of him (ll, 28–40) is a remarkable instance either of gross
flattery or of crass ignorance. *
7-enews her song. The expression means that Thomson repeats to
Lord Wilmington the dedication he had addressed to him when Sir
Spencer Compton four years previously. The dedication of the first
edition of Winter was in prose, and, according to Joseph Spence, was
written by Malloch. The passage, from 1. 17 to 1. 40, is the new
dedication, introduced into the text of Winter, in 1730, when the first
edition of the collected Seasons was published; the prose dedication,
which had appeared in the first five editions of Winter—all published
before the end of I728—was, of course, no longer necessary. (See
Introductory Note to Winter.)
I9. Since, i.e. since 1726. The date is now 1730. In the interval
he had completed The Seasons.
20. Skimmed the gay Spring. ‘The Muse,” or his own poetical
imagination, is here presented under the metaphor of a swallow.
2I. Attempted through the Summer blaze to rise. Summer is certainly
the most laboured of the series.
26. Well illustrated by the passage ending 1. Ioff, infra.
28, 29. Zhrice happy, could she fill thy judging ear, &c. ‘Happy, if
I can in any degree merit this good fortune [your notice and esteem).
As every ornament and grace of polite learning is yours, your single
approbation will be my fame.’—Prose Dedication (I/26). *
30. For this line the editions from 1730 to 1738 give the following
three :-
* For thee the graces smoothe; thy softer thoughts
The Muses tune ; nor art thou skilled alone
In awful schemes, the management of states.’
32–38. “I dare not indulge my heart, by dwelling on your public
character; on that exalted honour and integrity which distinguish you in
that august assembly where you preside; that unshaken loyalty to your
sovereign, that disinterested concern for his people, which shine out
AWOTAES, 18–65. 357
united in all your behaviour, and finish the patriot.”—Prose Dedication.
If Malloch wrote the prose dedication (it is little to his honour) Thomson
unfortunately appropriated its sentiments in this outrageous panegyric.
The verses are a scarcely disguised paraphrase of Malloch's Sycophantic .
Sentences.
41–44. In all editions up to 1738 these lines read—
“When Scorpio gives to Capricorn the sway,
And fierce Aquarius fouls the inverted year,
Retiring to the verge of heaven, the Sun,’ &c.;
in plain English, “In mid-winter, the sun,’ &c.
42. This method of marking time is a survival from the days of Chaucer.
(See the opening verses of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.)
Thomson is the latest poet of note in our literary history to maintain
the traditional method. The sun enters the zodiacal sign of the Archer
(Sagittarizes) on the 21st November, and quits it, to enter the sign of the
Horned Goat (Capricornus), on the shortest day, the 21st of December;
the next sign (Aquarius, the Water-carrier) is entered on the 21st January.
(See Spring, Note, 11. 26, 27.)
43. the inverted year. Cp. Cowper's Task (published 1785)— i.
“O winter ruler of the inverted year.”—Bk. IV. l. I 20, i.
Horace has the whole line in the first Book of his Satires (v. 36)— ”
* Quae [formica Zarzizz/a], simul inversum contristat Aquarius
annum,’ &c.
See Note, 1. I, supra. “To invert the year’ is explained in some verses
by Malloch, quoted by Thomson in a letter Sept. or Oct. 1726–6 to
bring wild Winter into Summer’s place.”
48. clothed in cloudy stormz. In 1738 and previous editions,—‘ at dull
distance seen.’
49, 50. Cp. Burns—
‘Phoebus gi'es a short-lived glower,
Far south the lift.”—A Winter AWight.
57. the face of things. A common expression with Thomson and his
imitators; Malloch, for example (referring to lightning),
‘Now the face of things
Disclosing; swallowed now in tenfold night.”
~. Zhe AExczersion, Bk. I.
64. Fresh from the plough. In the earlier editions (till 1738), ‘Red
from,’ &c. Land may either be ‘stirred by the plough in November,
or it may be ploughed to prepare a seed-bed for the winter wheat.
65. crop the wholesome roof. Turnips, thrown down on the new
ploughed land for sheep. But turnips did not become a common crop,
even on English farms, till the success of Lord Townshend's experi-
ments, in I73o, was seen. See Autumn, Note, ll. 913–915.
358 7HE SEASON.S.—WINTER.
66–71. These lines were probably written at Barnet, near London.
‘This country I am in is not very entertaining ; no variety but that of
woods, and them we have in abundance; but where is the living stream,
the airy mountain, or the hanging rock?'—Zeffer from 7% omesozz žo Z)7.
William Cranstoun, at Ancrum, near Jedburgh, September, 1725. It
is evident that when he wrote them his imagination was among Cheviot
scenery and the horrors of a Cheviot winter. ? -
7I. ‘That haunts the imagination.” Zisſeming seems to be re-
dundant.
73. Wraft in black glooms. Better in the earlier text (till 1738)—
‘Striding the gloomy blast,’ an image perhaps suggested by Shake-
speare— ... •
- ‘Pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast,’ &c.—Macbeth, Act I. Sc. vii.
Airst, joyless rains obscure. Here begins a description of a Winter
rain-storm and its effects; it continues to 1. IIo. A description of a
Winter wind-storm and its effects follows—to 1. 222 ; to be in turn
succeeded by a description of a snowstorm and its effects, ending at
1. 321. - -
74. with vapour foul. ‘Foul” replaces ‘vile’ in the earlier text.
As an adjective, it qualifies “vapour’—not ‘skies.’
85. with meaning ſow. ‘Lowing for the shelter of their stalls and
for the food there provided for them.” The form in the earlier text is
* lowe.’
86. Cp. Cowper's Task, Bk. V, 11. 27–30.
89–93. The scene here depicted is a cosy cottage interior, forming
with its group of rustics, talking and laughing beside a bright fire,
a complete contrast to the misery of the poultry and the cheerless
winter weather prevailing without. It is the condition of rustic life in
winter-time so beautifully suggested by Horace, Car. I. 4.—“jam
stabulis gaudet pecus et arator igni.” Only, the Scottish poet leaves
the cattle ‘asking for their stalls’ or ‘ruminating' under a shed in the
farmyard. Cp. for the hind's happy oblivion of the storm, Burns's
description of Tam O’Shanter in the alehouse at Ayr :—
‘Ae market-night
Tam had got planted unco right
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi’ reaming Swats, that drank divinely. . . .
The night drave on wi' sangs an’ clatter,
And aye the ale was growing better; . . .
The souter tauld his queerest stories,
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
NOTES, 66–125. 3. 359
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam didna mind the storm a whistle.”—ll. 37–52.
90. taleful there. Recounting by the fire such country stories and
gossip as the Scots poet, Fergusson (1750–1774), suggests in his
Farmer's Ingle.
94–105. This description—of a river in flood, or, as they say in
Scotland, “in spate ’—is characteristic of Thomson's style when he is
handling a congenial subject: it is bold, graphic, and instantly sugges-
tive of the whole scene. Cp. Burns's Brigs of Ayr :— -
“When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains
Wi’ deepening deluges o'erflow the plains;
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, . . .
Aroused by blustering winds and spotting thowes,
In mony a torrent down the Snaw-broo rowes;
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate,
Sweeps dams, an’ mills, an’ brigs, a’ to the gate,
And, from Glenbuck down to the Ratton-key,
Auld Ayr is just one lengthened tumbling Sea,’ &c.
11. 88–ſoo (Clarendon Press ed.)
94-96. Construe—“The roused-up river, swelled with many a torrent
and with the mixed ruin of its overspread banks, at last pours along
widely over its brim.' The mixed ruin of its banks : such as mills and
bridges and embankments (see Burns, as quoted above), &c. The river
here described is doubtless the Tweed, or one of its tributaries.
98. rude. “Chapt’ in the early editions.
Io9, IIo. Perhaps no poet had a keener or more appreciative sense
of the sublime in Nature than Thomson. His genius, says John
Wilson, “loves to paint on a great scale, and to dash objects off
sweepingly by bold strokes.’ He sets Nature rather ‘before your
imagination’ than before your eyes. He ‘paints woods—not trees;
paints in a few wondrous lines rivers from source to sea.”
113. powerful beings. ‘Subtile’ in the earlier text.
115. For this line the earlier text gives—
‘Against the day of tempest perilous.” .
118, 119. Added after 1738. The next line opened the passage, and
I’2.Il---
3. * Late in the louring sky red fiery streaks.’
125, a wan circle round her blunted horns. In the earlier text—
“her sullied orb.” The ring, or halo, is often a prognostic of stormy
weather. In Longfellow’s Wreck of the Hesperus—
360 TAZA, SAEASOAVS.— WZZVZTAA’.
* Up and spake an old sailor
Had sailed the Spanish main,
“I pray thee put into yonder port
For I fear a hurricane;
Last night the moon had a golden ring,
To-night no moon we see.”
126–145. The whole of this passage, except 1. I27 and l. 130 (where,
however, ‘fluttering straw' was used for ‘withered leaf”), was introduced
after the edition of I738. Much of it seems to be a recollection or a
copy of the First Georgic of Virgil : cp. for example, with Thomson's
text— te
(a) “Saepe etiam Stellas vento impendente videbis
Praecipites Caelo labi, noctisque per umbram
Flammarum longos a tergo albescere tractus:
Saepe levem paleam et frondes, volitare caducas,
-- Aut Summa nantes in aqua colludere plumas.”—ll. 365–369.
(b) ‘Aut bucula caelum
Suspiciens patulis captavit naribus auras.”—ll. 375, 376.
(c) “Cum medio celeres revolant ex aequore mergi (cormorants)
Clamoremdue ferunt ad litora.”—ll. 361, 362.
(d) * Notasque paludes
Deserit atque altam supra volat ardea (heron) nubem.”
ll. 363, 364.
(e) ‘E pastu decedens agnine magno
Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis.”—ll. 381, 382.
(f) ‘Ne nocturna quidem carpentes pensa puellae
Nescivere hiemem,’ &c.—ll. 390, 391.
I34, I35. Azezz. Demonstr. of ‘taper.” The housewife is spinning
from a distaff. The flaws, or little gusts of air, that precede a wind-
Storm, making straws and leaves ‘play' in ‘eddies,’ enter the spinster's
cottage, and make her candle gutter, or run, and the flame on her
hearth emit the crackling sound referred to. -
I4o. 6/acáezzing train. Burns has the same phrase in The Cotter's
Saturday Night:—
‘And blackening trains o' craws to their repose.”
I42. closing shelter. Enclosed, snug. -
I43. Ass?duous 272 his bower the zwańſing owl. ‘Assiduous,” literally
‘sitting at '; hence “ceaseless”—as in 1. I84, infra. Cp. Gray—
“From yonder ivy-mantled tower
! The moping owl does to the moon complain.”—Elegy.
AWOTAES, I26–194. 361
I44. cormoraná. Fr. cormozazz ; Lat. corzzus marizzus, the sea-crow,
—the # being excrescent. The Breton word for ‘sea-crow’ is morzram,
from mor, sea, and bran, crow. (Prof. Skeat.) In Lat., mergus is the
Séa-CIOW.
I53–155. In the original text—
* Then issues forth the storm with mad control,
And the thin fabric of the pillared air
O'erturns at once.”
I57. A daring hyberbole.
I58. Adopted at the suggestion of Pope, as a substitute for—
“Through the loud night that bids the waves arise.”
160–163. Originally—that is, in all editions till after that of 1738–
* Seems, as it sparkles, all around to burn.
Meantime, whole oceans, heaving to the clouds,
And in broad billows rolling gathered seas,
Surge Over Surge, burst in a general roar,’ &c.
I66. inſtated. In the early text ‘hilly’; while at 1. 169 “full-blown’
stood for ‘wintry.”
175. Instead of this opening the earlier text gives—
“Nor raging here alone unreined at sea,
To land the tempest bears; and o'er the cliff
Where screams the seamew, foaming unconfined,
Fierce swallows up the long-resounding shore.
The mountain growls; and all its sturdy sons,’ &c.
I78. The introduction of the lone wayfarer gives a distinctly human
interest to the description.
I82. honours. Foliage. “December . . . silvis honorem excutit.’—
Hor. Æð. XI, 5–6.
I91–194. A feeling for the supernatural, probably of Scottish growth,
was an essential feature of Thomson’s genius. See Autumn, Note,
ll. Io90–Io96; Summer, 11. 538–564; and elsewhere. Burns refers to the
abundance of tales and songs in rural Scotland ‘concerning devils,
ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-
candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips . . . and other
trumpery;’ and owned their effect upon his imagination to have been
so strong that, to the end of his life, in his nocturnal rambles, he found
himself keeping a sharp look-out in suspicious places.” (Letter to Dr.
Moore, Aug. 2, 1787.) What was true of Burns and his day, was
certainly not less true of Thomson and his. The expression of the
feeling here heightens the horror of the scene—a plain with its
awakened hamlets and country houses in the wild possession of the
midnight wind.
362 7"HZ SAEASOAVS. — W/AW 7"E.R.
198. Cp. Milton—
* How Oft amidst
Thick clouds and dark doth Heaven's all-ruling sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,
And with the majesty of darkness round
Covers his throne, from whence deep, thunders roar,
Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell
Aar. Zost, Bk. II. 11. 263–268.
199. “Who walketh upon the wings of the wind.”—Psalm civ. 3.
200. commands a ca/m. See Mark, iv. 39.
2O4. while the drowsy world Zies lost in sleef. Thomson’s favourite
time for reflection and the composition of poetry was at midnight.
208. meddling senses. Distracting the contemplative soul.
217–222. The cheerfully serious piety of Thomson, his strong sense
of the filial relation of man to the Great Father of us all, are well ex-
hibited in his Prayer. The Scottish Church lost a great man in Thomson.
Probably the gain was all the greater to English literature.
218. With Socrates, Thomson believed that a perfect knowledge of
virtue meant the practice of virtue. -
220, 221. See Matthew, iv. 4: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,’ &c.
22 I. conscious peace. Peace of conscience: an enlightened or rational
consciousness of peace of mind. w
228. And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Cp. Summer,
1. 979–
‘And Mecca saddens at the long delay.”
232. Originally—‘Sudden the fields,” which artistically suggests the
transformation to a white world. Unfortunately Thomson preferred in
the later editions to be instructive, and substituted “cherished, i. e.
‘protected ' by the snow.
235. Zozº, the woods, &c. Cp. Horace’s “Silvae laborantes.”—Car.
I. 9.
239, one wild... waste. A favourite form of phrase with Thomson.
Thus 1. 270, ºn/ra, “one wide waft '; Britannia, 1. 230, ‘one wide
flash ’; and elsewhere.
240–245. Cp. Pope—
‘Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain 2
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer.’
Assay on Man, III, 11. 37–40 (published 1732–4).
240. the labourer-ox. Milton has—‘the laboured ox,” coming with
loose traces from the ſurrow (Comus, l. 29I). See Spring, Note, l. 35.
AWOZZS, 198–26o. 363
241, 242. demand's 7%e fruit of all his foil. Has a rightful claim, in
the period of his enforced idleness, on part of the produce of his own
Spring and Autumn toil.
244. The winnowing store. The barn. After the sheaves were
threshed by the flail—an ordinary winter task in the old farm-towns, and
performed in the barn—next came the slow process of winnowing, which
was done by throwing up the grain by means of shovels or sieves, while
a current of air passing over the threshing-floor, between two opposite
doors, blew away the chaff. While these operations of threshing and
winnowing went on in winter time in the barn, the doorways were
besieged by fowls, pigeons, wild birds, &c., which picked up and fought
for the stray corn. Winnowing by shovel was displaced by winnowing
with fanners, the invention in 1737 of a farmer called Andrew Rodger,
who, curiously enough, belonged to Thomson's native county of Rox-
burgh. Even the fanners are now regarded as old-world implements.
(It is right to notice that Knight, in his Pict. Hist. of England, gives
the credit of the invention to the Dutch, and refers the introduction of
it into England to the year 1710.)
claim the little boon. Cp. Burns—
‘I doubtna, whyles, but thou may thieve 2
What then, poor beastie 2 thou maun live;
A daimen icker in a thrave"
’S a sma’ request.
I’ll get a blessing wit the lave
And never miss. ’t.”—7o a Field-Mouse.
245–256. The picture of the redbreast helping himself to the table | c.
crumbs is a charming vignette which, for clearness and accuracy of | § {{...,
drawing, Thomson has nowhere surpassed. The simplicity of the ſi
language admirably befits the subject. Note ‘askance’ and ‘slender.”
246. sacred to the household gods. Dear to domestic tradition; a
favourite or pet of the household. See the nursery ballad The Babes in
the Wood; also Webster’s Vittoria Corombona (The White Devil)—
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, -
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.”
257–26o. 7%e hare . . . . the gardezz seeks. So Burns—
‘And hunger'd maukin 's ta'en her way
To kailyards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Where she has been.’–7%e Visione, I, 11. 3–6.
1 A few stray ears from every other shock.
364 ZTAZA, SAEA,SO/W.S. — WZAVZTAEA’.
261-263. The bleating kind Æye the bleak heaven, &c. Cp. Scott—
“In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky.”
A/armion, Canto I. Introduction.
266. Baffle the raging year. To ‘baffle" is to ‘foil, with, in the
original, a sense of disgrace. ‘Baugh,’ a word still in use among the
Scottish peasantry, is cognate, and signifies “dull,” “deficient in smooth-
ness or briskness’; ice is said to become ‘baugh' when the frost gives
way,+the edge or sharpness is taken off.
267. food at will. So that they may have it when they wish.
267, 268. Zodge them below the stormz, And watch Zhem strict. Place
them where they will not be exposed to the winter wind, in the valley, or
on the lee-side of the hill; and take care that in the sheltered place they
do not suffer from the danger peculiar to such a shelter—the danger of
being Snowed up, or smothered with drifted snow.
27I. Zº one wide waft. A vast blanket of snow, thrown upon them,
and burying them under its thick and weighty folds.
273. whelms. Take in composition with o'er' in 1. 269; and con-
strue—“And the billowy tempest o'erwhelms the hapless flocks,’ &c.
But probably Thomson uses the word as equivalent to the Scottish term
‘whummles,' meaning ‘tumbles up or “overturns’: in this case the
construction is—“And the whirlwind's wing whelms (i.e. overturns) the
billowy tempest over the hapless flocks,’ &c. (See Prof. Skeat's interest-
ing note on “Whelm ’ in his Eng. Etym. Dict.) --
277. The full fury of the winter wind sweeps up the surface-snow in
blinding drift.
278. his own loose-rezolzing fields. Fields familiar to him, that now
seem to be moving as the whirlwind catches up the loose surface-snow
and blows it in drift around him.
279. Zäsastered. ‘Ill-starred,” “unfortunate,’ ‘overtaken with calamity.’
Cp, with ‘disaster,’ ‘consider,’ ‘influence,’ &c.—words of astrological
Origin.
other Ää//s-than those which the same landscape in summer
presents to his view ; snow-clad hills, and heaps of driven snow.
28o. foyless—as being “unknown,’ ‘strange' to him : he is be-
wildered.
285. ſouncing. An imitative word; allied to ‘flounder.”
286. Zhoughts of home. The anxiety of his wife and children,
concerned about his long delay: their destitution, if he should perish,
&c. - {
291. fºſted cottage. The reference is probably to the turf chimney-
top, or ridge, of his thatched cottage, just peering above the snow.
AVOTE, 261–358. 365
292. middle waste. A Latinism, meaning the middle of the waste.
299. beyond the power of frost. Into which, therefore, a fall would
mean death by drowning.
302. the still unfrozen spring. ‘Still’ here signifies “always': cp.
Shakespeare’s ‘still-vext-Bermoothès,’ in The Tempest. For ‘spring,'
the earlier text (as late as 1738) gives ‘eye’: the common country name
for such a spring in a marsh is still ‘well-ee, so named from its round
shape and its brightness.
307. &#erness of death. That is, as a personal suffering ; the phrase
is scriptural—‘surely (said Agag) the bitterness of death is past’ (I Sam.
xv. 32). - -
308. fender anguish. The absence of his wife, and children, and
“friends’ (Scots for “relatives”), as explained in 1. 31o. (Contrast
ll. 346–348, infra.)
31 I-315. This contrasting scene in the tragedy of the shepherd
perishing in the snowstorm is all the more effective that it is suddenly
introduced. There is pathos of a peculiarly tender kind in the picture
of the little children calling from the doorway into the darkness for their
father.
31 I. officious. In its literal sense of ‘dutiful.” Thomson has it
again in Lines to the Memory of Lord Talbot— the officious muse,”
1. 296. -
3II, 312. Cp. Gray's Elegy (published I75I)—
“No more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No-children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.’—ll. 21–24.
(Cp. also Goldsmith's description of the Swiss peasant’s home, in The
Traveller.)
313. Złłłle childrenz, žeeping out. Cp. a similar “situation' in Long-
fellow's Twilight:—
“In the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
, And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night,’ &c.—By the Seaside.
32 I. Stretched out. Pope's alteration for “unstretched.”
ôleaching. Becoming covered with the falling and drifting
SIl C W.
322–358. The transition here is natural, and the reflections are credit-
able to the heart of Thomson. It is ignorance of the sufferings of
their fellow-beings, and not heartlessness, that makes so many people
selfish.
/
366 " 7THE SAEASOAVS. — WYAV7'E/Q.
334, 335. &he cuft Of... . . grief. Matthew xxvi. 42.
339, 340. the fiercer fortures of the mind, &c. Cp. Gray's Ode on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College—
* These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind; . . .
Keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild.’
34I. Whence, i.e. by reason of which.
345. homest. Honourable. The ‘passions’ here alluded to are
antithetic to those enumerated in 1. 340, sºpra. * i.
347. A line followed here in the earlier editions, which Thomson
dropt after I 738:
“Like wailing pensive ghosts awaiting theirs.”
348. Zoined the Žarting anguish. Render more acute the agony of
dying. -
349, 350. the thousand nameless ills, &c. Cp. Shakespeare—
“The thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.”—Aſſamlet, Act. III, Sc. i.
354, 355. So Cowper, in The Task—
‘It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguished than ourselves; that thus
We may with patience bear our moderate ills,
And sympathise with others, suffering more.”
The Winter Ezeming.
357, 358. Construe—“And the social passions would work into clear
perfection, [a process of] gradual bliss, still refining.’ See Castle of
Indolence, II, st. 61. --
359. the generous band. ‘The generous few,' in the first editions.
| The reference is to the Jail Committee of 1729, appointed to inquire into
# the condition of the prisons. The state of the Fleet Prison, a receptacle
for debtors from the 12th century, and of the Marshalsea, was at this
time, and indeed all through the 18th century, notorious. They were
proved to have been the scene of great atrocities and brutalities. The
evils arose from the extortion of the keepers, and from the practice of the
Warden—as the head official of the Fleet was called—subletting the
prison. (See an account of the Fleet Prison in Dickens's The Pickwick
Papers. By Act 5 and 6 Vict. both the Fleet and the Marshalsea were
at last abolished.) The work of the Jail Committee may be said to
have been continued and extended by the philanthropical exertions of
John Howard (1726 –1790); and Mrs. Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney),
AWOTES, 334–388. i 367
‘the female Howard’ (1780–1845). (See Howard's An Account of the
Lazarettos, &c., published in 1789.) For a description of the state of
the prisons of England at the time when the Jail Committee of I729—1730
was appointed, Knight’s Pop. Hist., vol. vi., may be consulted.
367. Zittle tyrants. The jailors, who used instruments of torture upon
their unhappy victims. *
375. After this line, instead of the six lines in the final text, appeared
in the earlier editions, down to that of I738, the following passage:–
“Hail, patriot band who, scorning secret scorn,
When justice and when mercy led the way,
Tragged the detected monsters into light,
Wrenched from their hand oppression’s iron rod,
And bade the cruel feel the pains they gave.
Yet stop not here, let all the land rejoice
And make the blessing unconfined as great.
[Much still untouched remains; ’ &c.]
384. Z'he toils of law. Not the labours—but the net, or snare, of law.
See Autumn, ll. I29I–I294, where Thomson returns to his early attack
upon the abuse of law by pettifoggers—
* Let these
Ensnare the wretched in the toils of law,’ &c.
‘Toils,” Fr. toiles, Snares for wild beasts; in the singular, toile, cloth;
from Lat. fela (for tex/a) a web ; texo, I weave.
388. Here followed, so late as the edition of 1738, a series of twenty-
one lines, which in the later editions Thomson partly dropped, and
partly, with but slight verbal alterations, elsewhere incorporated with
the text of Winter. The series commenced— -
‘Yet more outrageous is the season still,
-- A deeper horror, in Siberian wilds.”
Then followed the three lines which will be found in the description of
‘the wild stupendous scene' at the pole, 11. 895–897, infra. Next came
the graphic picture of the bear ‘with dangling ice all horrid,’ to be found
at 11. 827-833, infra. And the remaining nine lines of the series ran
thus:–
* While tempted vigorous o'er the marble waste,
On sleds reclined, the furry Russian sits;
And, by his reindeer drawn, behind him throws
A shining kingdom in a winter's day.
Or from the cloudy Alps and Apennine,
Capt with gray mists and everlasting Snows;
Where Nature in stupendous ruin lies,
And from the leaning rock, on either side, . .
368 THAE SAEASOAVS. — W/AWZTER.
Gush out those streams that classic song renowns:
[Cruel as death,’ &c.]
389–413. This account of the ferocity of the wolf is scarcely
overcharged. The animal is still a common winter horror in various
parts of Europe. In severe winters it descends in hungry packs
from the forests of the Apennines, Alps, and Pyrenees, and is greatly
dreaded by the villagers and country people of the adjacent regions.
Many terrible stories have been told of the pursuit of travellers by wolves
in Russia, France, and Spain. It is only when severely pressed by
hunger that wolves dare to attack man—in general they are cowardly
and Sneaking; but their ravages among sheep, and even cattle of full
growth, and horses, are a serious yearly loss to those countries which
they infest. They used to be plentiful in the British Isles, and in Saxon
England January used to be known as the Wolf-month. When they
disappeared from England is not well known, but they continued to
plunder field and fold in Scotland down to the time of the Union of the
Crowns. Cameron of Lochiel is said to have slain the last Scottish wolf
in 168o.
405, 406. Zzen beauty, &c. A fanciful idea, common in one shape
or another in many mediaeval romances. Thus royalty, chastity, and
other eminent qualities besides beauty, were believed to be respected by
the lion. Cp. Shakespeare, I King Henry IV, Act II. Sc. iv.; Milton's
Comus, ll. 441–452; Spenser's Faery Queene, &c.
4O7. 24??distinguished. In no way favoured or respected over others.
4I3. Thus adding a new and real horror to churchyard superstitions.
The subject is, viewed from the standpoint of the superstitious
peasant. &
Mixed with foul shades. . -
“Those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres
Lingering and sitting.’—Comus, Il. 470-472.
4I4–423. This passage does not appear in the earlier editions. It
was introduced after the edition of 1738.
The most easterly of the Cantons of Switzerland bears the French
name of Grisons, and the Germán name of Graibundten—both given to
the district for the same reason, the circumstance of the inhabitants
wearing a dress of gray homespun. The bund, or states, into which the
inhabitants of the different valleys of this hilly region formed themselves
so early as the 14th century, were for mutual defence and protection,
from the exactions of the numerous resident nobility. The country
is an assemblage of hills and valleys of very various climate and fertility,
and lying in the basin of the head-waters of the Danube, the Rhine, and
MOTES, 389–437. 369
the Ticino. The famous long and lovely valley of the Engadine is in }
this canton. The people are largely engaged in pastoral and sylvan
industries—the chief exports being cattle, cheese, and timber. The
country has long been subject to the terror of avalanches—the devastating
descent of large masses of Snow from the mountain cliffs and slopes to
the zalleys. Just the year after Thomson's death, an event which
occurred in 1748, a village of Grisons, Rueras, in the Tarvich valley,
was enveloped and pushed from its place by an avalanche during the
night; so quietly was this done that the inhabitants continued to sleep,
and only wondered when they awoke why daylight was so long in
dawning. Unfortunately many of them perished before they were
dug out. te
424–616. This long passage is a remarkable feature of the poem. It
deals mainly with the manner and circumstances in which Thomson, if
he had been free to choose, would have preferred to spend the months
of winter. Nearly one half of it appeared for the first time subse-
quently to 1738.
431–433. Zhere studious let me sit, &c. Cp. Malloch—
“From thought to thought in vision led,
He holds high converse with the dead;
Sages or Poets. See, they rise
And shadowy skim before his eyes. . . ,
Lol Socrates, the seer of heaven
To whom its moral will was given.
Fathers and friends of humankind,
They formed the nation, or refined,
With all that mends the head and heart
Enlightening truth, adorning art.”—A Fragment.
It is impossible to say whether Malloch is the debtor or the creditor: the
pieces are undoubtedly related. There was a brisk commerce of literary
ideas, and a constant interchange of literary work between Thomson
and Malloch from 1725 to I? 27, and probably both before and after those
dates.
Cp. Southey, in his library :—
‘My days among the dead are past;
Around me. I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old.’
437. The long-ſized zo/ume. The reference is probably to Plutarch's
famous Parallel Lives, of forty-six Greeks and Romans arranged in pairs
for the purpose of comparison, each pair—the one a Greek, the other
a Roman—constituting a biblion. The work has been exceedingly
B b
370 7A/A. JAASOAVS.— W/AWZZA'.
popular in ancient, mediaeval, and modern times. Of the thirteen
Greeks in Thomson's list, from Socrates to Philopoemen, Plutarch
includes ten, viz. Solon, Lycurgus, Aristides, Cimon, Timoleon,
Pelopidas, Phocion, Agis, Aratus, and Philopoemen; and of the
eleven Romans in Thomson’s list, from Numa to Marcus Brutus,
Plutarch includes five, viz. Numa, Camillus, Tullius Cicero, Cato the
Younger, and Marcus Brutus.
438. Zhe sacred shades. The venerated spirits of great men, long
since dead, but famous to all future time.
439-528. This long passage of ninety lines is an expansion of the
Original text, which appeared in all the earlier editions down to and
including that of 1738, and consisted of only some twenty lines.
Those twenty lines named or referred to only nine of the distinguished
men of ancient Greece and Rome. The expansion-seems to have been
suggested, and, to the extent of nearly one-half, actually made by Pope.
The original text ran as follows:– -
* First Socrates,
Whose simple question to the folded heart
Stole unperceived, and from the maze of thought
Evolved the secret truth, a god-like man
Solon the next, who built his commonweal
On equity's wide base. Lycurgus then,
Severely good ; and him of rugged Rome,
Numa, who softened her rapacious sons;
Cimon, Sweet-souled; and Aristides, just ;
With that attempered hero, mild and firm,
Who wept the brother, while the tyrant bled;
Unconquered Cato, virtuous in extreme;
Scipio, the human warrior, gently brave,
Who soon the race of spotless glory ran,
And, warm in youth, to the poetic shade
With friendship and philosophy retired ;
And, equal to the best, the Theban twain
Who single raised their country into fame.
Thousands behind, the boast of Greece and Rome,
Whom virtue owns, the tribute of a verse
Demand;—but who can count the stars of heaven?”
439. Socrates. A great Athenian philosopher, born B.C. 469. It was
not till B.C. 406 that he filled any political office. In that year he was
a member of the Senate of the Five Hundred, and had the great moral
courage to refuse to put to the vote a question which he regarded as
unconstitutional: he refused also to obey the order of the Thirty
*
Mozºs, 438–450. w 37 I
Tyrants for the apprehension of Leon of Salamis. He incurred the
hatred of the Tyrants, who passed a law, levelled specially at him,
forbidding the teaching of oratory; and he incurred the enmity of the
democracy by his friendship for the haughty Alcibiades and the cynical
Critias. He was accused of introducing the worship of new divinities and
of corrupting young people by his novel doctrines, religious and political,
During his trial he behaved with a manly independence and superiority
of manner which irritated his judges; refused to say or do anything
that would conciliate them ; and accepted his sentence of death with
equanimity, and even cheerfulness. Thirty days after sentence he drank
the cup of hemlock juice, and died with composure, being then in his
70th year. His teaching was carried on wherever he could find a
listener—in the street, the workshop, or the field. His method was
peculiar : it was not the conveyance of ready-made knowledge by direct
instruction, but the development, by a series of questions, of the know-
ledge that was already in the mind of his disciple. His objects in
undertaking at his own hand the post of public teacher of the youth
and manhood of Athens were to awaken the sense of moral responsi-
bility, and to guide the impulse after self-knowledge. He directed his
own conduct by a divine voice, which, even from his childhood, he had
been always hearing : it put a restraint upon words he was about to
speak, upon actions he was about to perform. This warning voice is
commonly spoken of as the Daimon or guiding spirit of Socrates.
Thomson regards it as simply an enlightened and sensitive conscience.
With Socrates knowledge was virtue. (See Note, 11. 209-2I 6, szóra".)
446. Solozz. A famous lawgiver of Athens, one of the Seven Sages,
born about 638 B.C. When he was 44 years of age he was chosen
archon, and in virtue of his office was invested with Supreme power to
institute all necessary measures for the safety and prosperity of the
State. He remodelled the constitution, basing his laws, as Thomson
says, “on equity’s wide base.’ He secured by the promise of the
citizens a trial of at least ten years for his laws. He is said to have
spoken of his laws, as “by no means the best that could have been
framed, but as the best the Athenians would have received.” Among
his laws and institutions may be noted—a graduated income-tax, a
deliberative assembly of representative members, the liability of people
to support their aged parents if in their youth they had been taught
some trade or profession by the parents, &c. -
450. the laurelled field of finer arts. The sphere of poetry, painting,
sculpture, &c. in which the ancient Greeks excelled. The laurel, Sacred
to the Muses, was bestowed on those who excelled in the arts.
1. See Thomson's Liberty, Part II. li. 222-235.
B b 2
372 THAE. SAEASON.S.— W/AWTAER.
452. smiling Greece. Their approving and delighted countrymen.
453. Zyczz gets. From Athens Thomson now turns for a while to
Sparta. Lycurgus, who flourished about the middle of the eighth century
B.C., was the originator of the famous Spartan laws, the result of which
was to make Sparta a nation of soldiers. The city was a camp, every
man a soldier. The interest of the State was supreme, and the citizen
existed only for it. The education of the Spartan was undertaken by
the State: from his childhood each male was inured to a system of
severe discipline; there was no home life, the meals were common,
and life was spent in barracks; commerce was discouraged by the intro-
duction of iron money; agriculture was left to slaves or Helots, and
despised ; in short the Spartans were warriors, and nothing else.
These laws laid the foundation of the military supremacy of Sparta.
456. at Zhermopylae he glorious ſe/Z. This was Leonidas, king of
Sparta. He was captain of the three hundred who kept the passage at
Thermopylae against the host of Persian invaders. In the desperate
battle in front of the pass he was among the first to fall, B.C. 480. Ther-
mopylae (the Hot Gates—so named from the hot springs in the middle
of the pass) lay between Mount Oeta and the marshy edge of the Malic
Gulf, and was the only pass by which an enemy could penetrate into
Southern Greece from the north. The Western Gate was so narrow
that there was only room for a single chariot between the mountain and
the marsh. (See Liberty, II. l. I 79.)
459. Aráºzides. The poet now returns to Athens. Aristides, sur-
named The just, had for his rival the ‘haughty' Themistocles. He was
Ostracised about the year 482 B.C., but returned from his banishment to
apprise Themistocles of the position of the Persian fleet. The result
of his communication was the great naval victory for Greece of the
battle of Salamis, B.C. 480. After the battle Aristides was recalled, and
reinstated in popular favour. He continued to do noble service for
Athens till his death, probably in 468 B.C., but died so poor that the
property he left was insufficient to bury him.
466. Cimon. Son of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon. He was the
great Athenian ruler in the interval between the death of Aristides and
the rise of Pericles. It was at the time of the Persian invasion of
Greece (480 B.C.) that he first distinguished himself. After the victory
at Plataea he was brought forward by Aristides. He gained many
subsequent victories over the Persians. Wealthy with Persian spoil he
expended his riches freely for the gratification of the Athenians and the
security of Athens. He kept a free table, and threw open to all and
sundry his beautiful gardens and pleasure grounds. With part of the
Persian treasure he increased the fortification of the citadel, and laid the
AWOZES, 452–490. 373 *
foundation of the long walls from Athens to the Piraeus. He was of a
frank and affable disposition, and in early life too much inclined to
habits of conviviality. - - x * .
472. in unequal times. Either in times inferior in glory to those just
réferred to, or, more probably, in times unworthy of the great men now
to be named. - * -
474. 7?moleon. A native of Corinth. His brother Timophanes
having formed the design of making himself tyrant of their native city,
Timoleon, in his passion for the liberty of the State, slew him with his
own hand. He almost immediately thereafter conducted an expedition
to Sicily to repel the Carthaginians, and restore order in the island.
This was in 344 B.C. The history of his successes reads like a romance.
He died at Syracuse in 377 B.C., and was buried in the market-place at
the public expense.
476. the Zheffan Żair. Epaminondas, the hero of Leuctra and
Mantinea—two great victories over the Spartans, the last fatal to
himself (362 B.C.); and Pelopidas, his friend, who also aided in
raising Thebes over Sparta and Athens to the supremacy of Greece.
481. Ahocãon the Good. An Athenian general and statesman, born
about the year 402 B.C. When Demosthenes and others were urging
opposition to Philip of Macedon, Phocion counselled peace : his opposi-
tion to the war-party brought about his condemnation, and he drank
the hemlock, in 317 B.C., at the age of 85. He is to be commended
for his private qualities; his public virtue was at least above suspicion.
488. Agis. The fourth of the name, kings of Sparta. Agis IV
reigned from 244 to 240 B.C. He attempted a re-establishment of the
laws of Lycurgus, but was opposed by his colleague Leonidas (the
Second) and the wealthy citizens, thrown into prison, and afterwards put
to death. -
490. Z'he two Achaean heroes. Aratus and Philopoemen. They
were in succession the chiefs of the Achaian League—a confederation of
the states of Achaia, in the north of the Peloponnesus, which had for its
object the union of Greece. Aratus was more successful as a diplo-
matist than as a general. In a dissension, however, with Philip of
Macedon, who was bent on the conquest of Greece, he was put to
death by poison, 213 B.C. Philopoemen was appointed General of the
League in 208 B.C. He was a successful general, frequently defeating
the Spartans; but in 183 B.C., on an enterprise to punish the Messenians
for their revolt from the League, he was taken prisoner, and compelled
to drink poison. He is regarded as ‘the last of the Greeks.” In the
intervals of warfare, it is said, he withdrew to the cultivation of his farm,
498. Of rozgher ſºong. The Romans.
° 374 TAZAZ SAEASOAVS. — W/AWZTAEA’.
499. those virtuous times. Of the early kings, and of the early
republic. -
502. Romulus was the founder of Rome; Numa Pompilius, his
successor, gave the Romans their religion.
504. Servius, the king. Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome. He is
famous less for military achievement than for his foundation of all the
civil rights and institutions of ancient Rome.
507. The public father who the prizate quelled. Thomson's note
here is—‘Marcus Junius Brutus’; but this is clearly a mistake. Marcus
is referred to at 1. 524, infra. Lucius is meant. After the rape of
Lucretia, Lucius Junius Brutus roused the Romans against the Tar-
quins, and on their expulsion he became first consul of the Republic.
On his two sons joining in an attempt to restore the Tarquins he
ordered them to be put to death.
510. Camillus. Marcus Furius Camillus. After many military ex-
ploits to the glory of Rome, he was driven into banishment on a charge
of unfair division of the spoils of Veii; but when, in 390 B.C., the
Gauls took Rome and threatened its destruction, the Romans in the
Capitol made him Dictator in his absence, and sent for him as the
only possible saviour of the State. He accordingly returned ; and, with
a hastily gathered army, attacked and completely routed the Gauls.
The victory won for him the title of the Second Romulus. He was five
times Dictator, and continued fighting and defeating Volscians, Gauls,
and other enemies of Rome, till his 8oth year, when he died of the
plague, 365 B.C.
511. Fabricius. Like Cincinnatus, a favourite representative of the
integrity and simplicity of the heroic times of ancient Rome. Pyrrhus,
king of Epirus, was invading Italy, 280 B.C., and Fabricius was the
Roman legate appointed to treat with him. Pyrrhus, to win him to his
side, alternately offered money and intimidation, but in vain ; the
inflexible Roman was to be conquered neither by gold nor coercion.
He lived poor, on the produce of his hereditary farm ; and, after doing
noble service as general and legislator for his country, died poor—
leaving his dowerless daughters to the bounty of the Senate.
512. Cincizzmatus. This is Thomson’s favourite Roman hero: he
has several references to him. (See Spring, II, 58–65.) In Liberty,
Part III. 11. 143–147, he is alluded to as—
‘ready, a rough swain, to guide the plough;
Or else, the purple o'er his shoulder thrown
In long majestic flow, to rule the state
With wisdom's purest eye; or, clad in steel,
To drive the steady battle on the foe.’
MOZTAES, 498–521. º 375
He was twice called from his farm, which he cultivated with his own
hands, to assume the dictatorship in times of great emergency; in 458 .
B.C., and again, when he was 80, in 439. On the first occasion, he
Saved the Roman army, routed the enemy, and was back again at his
farm, within sixteen days. -
513. Thy willing victim, Carthage. Regulus. After winning many
victories over the Carthaginians in Africa, he sustained a terrible defeat
in a sanguinary battle in which 30,000 of his men were slain, and, being
taken prisoner, remained a captive in Carthage for five years. He was
then ordered to accompany an embassy which was sent to Rome with the
object of securing peace, or at least an exchange of noble prisoners.
He advised the Senate to enter into no negotiations, but to continue the
war against Carthage at all hazards. The Senate took his passionately
urged advice, and he prepared, as he had promised, to return to his
captivity. His friends and relatives in vain implored him to remain in
Rome. On his return to Carthage he was put to death with a refinement
of cruelty hardly credible. Thomson elsewhere repeats the story of his
heroic fulfilment of his promise:—
“Regulus the wavering Fathers 'firmed
By dreadful counsel, never given before;
For Roman honour sued, and his own doom.
Hence he sustained to dare a death prepared
By Punic rage. On earth his manly look
Relentless fixed, he from a last embrace,
By chains polluted, put his wife aside,
His little children climbing for a kiss;
Then dumb, through rows of weeping, wondering friends,
A new illustrious exile pressed along.' .
Aliberty, III. 11. I66–I75.
517. Scipio, the gentle chief. Not the great Scipio, but the adopted
son of his son. He is known as Scipio Africanus Minor. He served
with distinction in Spain, and on the outbreak of the third Punic war,
in 149 B.C., he went to Africa, and after the great glory of taking
Carthage, I46 B.C., reduced Africa to the condition of a Roman
province. The downfall of Carthage brought tears to his eyes. He
was well read in Grecian literature, and consorted with such writers as
Polybius the historian, Terentius the dramatist, Lucilius the poet, &c.
His friendship for Laelius is celebrated in Cicero's dialogue De
Amicitiã. --
52I. Zºe//y. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator and
statesman, and an illustrious writer on many subjects—literary, political,
and philosophical. His exposure and suppression of the dangerous
376 7AA SEASON.S. – WZVZER.
conspiracy of Catiline gained for him the title of ‘Father of his country.”
Born in 106 B.C., he was consul in 63 B.C., and nearly twenty-one years
later was killed by the soldiers of Antony. He was then within a few
weeks of completing his 64th year.
522. rushing Rome. Rapidly declining Rome. The power of Rome
was not declining, but great encroachment was being made on consti-
tutional liberty.
523. Unconquered Cato, zirtuous in extreme. The reference is
rather to Cato Uticensis than Cato Censor. Cato the younger was
born 95 B.C. He was conspicuous from early manhood for the stern-
ness of his character, and the purity of his morals. As a leader of the
aristocratic party he opposed Julius Caesar and Pompey. Africa
submitted to Caesar, except only Utica, in which Cato resolved to make
a stand ; but when he saw that the Romans in Utica were inclined to
submit he committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the
conqueror. (See Addison's Cato—“Caesar shall never say “I con-
quered Cato.”’—Act IV. sc. iv. Also Pope's Temple of Fame—
“Unconquered Cato shews the wound he tore.’—l. 176.) -
524. 2,72happy Brzºzas. Marcus Junius Brutus, a noble Roman who
joined the conspiracy of Cassius, and murdered his friend Julius Caesar
in the belief that Caesar’s death was necessary for the preservation of the
Republic. He was afterwards defeated by Antony and Octavius at
Philippi, 42 B.C., and perished on the battle-field by his own hand.
532. Phaedals. The sun-god Apollo, who was also the god of
poetry. -
the Mantuan szyazız. Virgil, born at Andes near Mantua on the
Mincius, 70 B.C. He is called a “swain' from the nature of his Georgics
and Eclogues, which are on rural subjects. His great poem, the AEneid,
is one of the world's three great epics, and gives in language of singular
lucidity and Sweetness a mythical account of the origin of the Roman
people. He died in the year 19 B.C.
533. Homer. The great Greek epic poet; author of the Iliad,
which describes the history of the siege of Troy; and the Odyssey,
which narrates the story of the return of Odysseus from the Trojan
Wà T.S.
534. Parent of song. In the Temple of Fame, Pope describes Homer
as the ‘Father of verse.’ -
535. The British mease. The great English epic poet was, of course,
John Milton, born 1608, died 1674. He wrote Paradise Lost, Paradise
Regained, Comus, Lycidas, Samson Agonistes, &c. In the next line
“darkling’—a phrase employed by Milton himself—literally, ‘in the
dark,” refers to the blindness which afflicted both Homer and Milton.
AWOTES, 522–546. - 377
Thomson (1. 534, supra) ranks Milton on an equality with Homer : it
was Milton's ambition to rank with him—‘blind Maeonides'—
* ‘equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with [him] in renown.”
- Aar. Zost, Bk. III. 11. 33, 34.
Dryden goes farther—
‘Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn :
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no farther go,
To make the third she joined the other two.’
For a fuller criticism of Milton’s genius by Thomson, see Summer,
11. I567–1571. See also Cowper's Table Talk, 11. 555–558.
536. full ºf the middle steep to fame. “Right up the hill to the
very top.” The completeness of the achievement is indicated by ‘full’;
the directness of the ascent—proof of strength and energy of genius—by
‘middle.’ ‘The middle steep” is, of course, a Latin idiom . So, 1. 292
suffra, “ the middle waste.”
537. Mor absent are those shades, &c. See 1. 438, suffra. The
reference here is to the three great Greek tragic poets, AEschylus (born
525 B.C.), Sophocles (born 495 B.C.), and Euripides (born 480 B.C.,
at Salamis and on the day of the battle).
537–540. In the earlier text the first and principal notice was given
to the lyrical poets (such as Pindar, Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon), and
the great tragic dramatists were disposed of in a single line—
“Nor absent are those tuneful shades, I ween,
Taught by the graces, whose enchanting touch
Shakes every passion from the various string ;
Nor those, who solemnise the moral scene.’
538. Pathetic drew the impassioned heart. The expression is capable
of two meanings; either—‘ delineated in drama the pathetic tragedy of
human suffering, or—“evoked by his dramas the profoundest feelings
(of pity or terror) of his audience.’ In 1. 537 the word ‘touch applies
equally to the pencil and the lyre, and in either application is quite in
accord with ‘drew’ of the following line.
541. First of your kind. First is here used in the sense of ‘best.’ In
this sense it is frequently used by Burns. -
546, 547. For these two lines the earlier text gave—
‘Save Lycidas, the friend, with sense refined.’
546. a few chosen friends. Thomson had many friends, and scarcely
an enemy—it would be hard to mention one. He was ‘that right
378 - THE SAEASOAVS. — W/W7"E.R.
friendly bard’ to all his brethren. To Lyttelton he was “one of the
best and most beloved of my friends.’ To Murdoch and Forbes he was
‘honest-hearted Thomson'—tried, amiable, open. The few chosen
friends’ who were in the habit of visiting Thomson when he wrote these
words at Richmond (where he settled in 1736) included Pope, Ham-
mond, Collins, Dr. Armstrong, his neighbours the Robertsons, Mallet,
occasionally Quin, and (as often as he thought he would be welcome)
Millar the publisher. Thomson never “chose’ his friends; they were
attracted to him, and though he had, in his heart, special favourites,
he was of too genial and of too indolent a disposition not to make all
welcome.
547. may hazmá/e zooſ. A neat garden-cottage in Kew-foot-lane,
Richmond, looking down upon the Thames and commanding a good
range of landscape. A cousin of his own kept his garden trim ; he was
fortunate in his housekeeper, a Mrs. Hobart ; his rooms were adorned
with a great many paintings and engravings—partly collected during
his tour in Italy; his bookshelves were filled with foreign and classical
books, and the works of standard English authors; and his cellar was
well-stocked with wines, and Edinburgh ale.
550. Pope was some twelve years the senicr of Thomson : he was a
frequent visitor at Richmond ; and at Twickenham there was a standing
rule for the servants that Mr. Pope was always at home to Mr.
Thomson. By the muses' hill (Parnassus) Thomson signifies the
labours of poetical composition. Thomson’s intimacy with Pope,
however, dates from a time before the residence at Richmond.
553, 554. A beautiful compliment. His own Homer: the Trans-
lation of the Iliad, published I715–1720 ; Translation of the Odyssey,
published 1723–1725.
555–57.I. This passage was added to the text after the death of
Hammond, in 1742. It is a very generous tribute to his memory,
prompted and inspired by a friendship that was undoubtedly genuine.
Hammond has been rather hardly dealt with by the critics: there is
no real reason to set aside the judgment of Thomson as here expressed
in his friend's favour. Thomson's anticipations of future greatness for
young Hammond were probably well founded: in any case, whatever
opinion one may hold of his love elegies, his character was of a kind to
win the respect and affection of Thomson. There were two Hammonds
known in a small way for their literary reputation; the one Anthony,
the other, his second son, James. It was James Hammond whom
Thomson knew. He was born in 1710; and, while still a youth, was
equerry to George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. He has
been judged entirely by his Love Elegies, which were written, on the
MOTES, 547–596. - 379
model of Tibullus, before he was twenty-two, and were never intended
for publication or print. They appeared after his death. They were
inspired by an infatuation for a certain Delia—a Miss Dashwood,
who rejected his addresses, and, it is said, drove him quite to the
verge of insanity by her insensibility to all his appeals. Cibber, in
his Lives, pronounces that he was a poet by love, not by nature ;
that he had warmth, but little poetry; that his verses “are more the
language of the heart than head.” In 1741 he became M.P. for Truro,
and died at Stowe in the following year. It will be observed that
Thomson's estimate of his character and abilities does not at all rest
on his Elegies: he does not even speak of him as a poet, but only as a
friend of poets, and a lover of poetry. $ -
573. Aliant soul. A paraphrase of the original text ‘ various turn ';
and still further to be explained by the succeeding line.
575-577. In the edition of 1738, and previous years—
“With them would search if this unbounded frame
Of Nature rose from unproductive night,
Or sprung eternal from the Eternal Cause.’
Cp. Milton's inquiry into the origin of Light— .*
“Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam
May I express thee unblamed !”—Par. Zost, Bk. III. Il. I–3.
581. Each part of creation, perfect in itself, would be seen to unite
with other parts into a larger unity, still more wonderfully perfect. The
word “diffusive,” literally “diffusing itself,’ may be taken more prosaically
as “diffused.’
584. to us it seems embroiled. Originally, ‘more seemingly perplexed.’
587. Åistoric muzzse. ‘Historic truth’ in the earlier editions. Clio
was the muse of history. z
590. Plenty. Cp. Gray: “To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land.’—
Alegy,
591. double suns. Poetical for ‘double crops.” Great attention was
beginning to be paid to improved methods of agriculture when Thomson
wrote thus. See Autumn, ll. 914—916, where the poet speaks hopefully
of ‘double harvest.” *
594. The words are from Scripture, Luke xxiv. 32, “Did not our
heart burn within us?” &c.
595, 596. That fortion of dēzīzāty, &c. A habitual idea with Thom-
son. See it repeated, and more fully unfolded in Autumn, 11. 910–913–
“Oh is there not some patriot, in whose power,
That best, that God-like luxury, is placed
Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn,’ &c.
386 7 HAE SEASON.S.— WZVTAER.
597–603. if doomed In powerless humble fortune, &c. Cp. Gray,
who had surely been reading these lines— -
‘Chill penury repressed their noble rage
And froze the genial current of the soul.”
This is just Thomson’s image, and it even recalls his words—‘repress
the ardent risings of the kindling soul.” Cp. further—
“Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.”—Elegy.
605. those scenes. Of immortal life and the future state beyond death
and the grave. * -
606–608. A favourite idea, and an essential part of Thomson's
religious hope. See Spring, 11. 374–377, and Note; Liberty, III.
ll. 68–70. -
610. Zlay the shapes. “Play off,” or ‘give play to.” This too was
part of the pastime of Cowper's Winter Evening— -
* Me oft has fancy ludicrous and wild
Soothed,’ &c.—ll. 285, 286.
And again—
* Discourse ensues & e tº *
Not such as with a frown forbids the play
Of fancy,’ &c.—ll. I 74–176.
6II. fro/7c fancy. Here ‘frolic is properly put to its original use as
an adjective. So Milton—
‘Ripe and frolic of his full-grown age.’—Comazes, 1.59.
6II–616. A happy discriminating description of wit and humour, as
these are commonly understood. A less happy description appeared in
the earlier editions, down to that of I738: –
‘And incessant form
Unnumbered pictures, fleeting o'er the brain,
Yet rapid still renewed, and poured immense
Into the mind unbounded without space:
The great, the new, the beautiful; or mixed
Burlesque and odd, the risible and gay;
Whence vivid wit, and humour, droll of face,
Call laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve.’
See Cowper's Table Talk, 11. 657, 658.
617–629. The scene shifts from the studious retirement of the scholar
to the winter evening amusements of common-country-folks. The scene
is Scottish.
617. the zillage rouses ºf the fire. The villagers make preparation
for a long and comfortable winter ‘fore-night.”
MOZAES, 597–646. º - 381
618. well attested and as well believed. The language is humorously
ironical.
619, 62o. Cp. Fergusson—
“In rangles round, before the ingle's lowe,
Fra guid-dame's mouth auld warld tales they hear,
Of warlocks loupin’ round the wirrikow ;
Of ghaists that win in glen and kirk-yard drear;
Whilk touzles a their tap, and gars them shake wi' fear.”
A’armer's Zngle, St. vii (published 1773). .
621. the sounding hall. The roomy farmhouse kitchen. The hall’
is the public room. -
624. ‘The loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.”—Goldsmith's
Deserted Village.
625–629. Cp. Autumn, ---
‘Romp-loving miss
Is hauled about in gallantry robust.”—ll. 528, 529.
‘The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go round.’—1. 547.
627. Shook. Racy of rustic dancing. Burns has-
“I’ll laugh, an’ sing, an' shake my leg.’
Affist, to Zafraiß.
630-655. Winter evening in the city—the streets, the gaming-table,
the ball-room, the theatre, &c.
63o. swarmes intense. Is full of busy eager crowds.
Aztólic hazent. Such as coffee-room, club-room, &c.
633. Down the loose streaſe of . . . . ſoy. In pursuit of fashionable
immoral pleasures.
635. The gaming ſºy. A passion for gambling, or engaging in
games of hazard, for high stakes; a fashionable vice of last century.
(See Life of Fox the great statesman.)
640. effuses. In its etymological sense—‘pours forth,’ ‘displays,’
641, 642. čeamed from, &c. Expanded from the original text—
‘Rained from radiant eyes.”
Cp. Summer, 11. I45, 146. -
645. The fog light-ſºuttering, &c. Thomson used to call one of his
friends (Hammond) with good-humoured pleasantry ‘a burnished
butterfly.” Cp. Hamlet’s description of the court-flutterer Osric—
* Dost know this water-fly” (Act V. sc. ii.). -
646–655. It is only in Winter that Thomson refers to the theatre as
a place of amusement, Milton introduces it in both L’Allegro (l. 131)
and Il Penseroso (l. 97)—but in the former, it is the Comic, in the
latter the Tragic, drama that furnishes the entertainment. Thomson
gives the preference to Tragedy, as better Suited for the season—“a sad
382 THE SAEASON.S.— WZAWTAER.
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,”
tale’s best for winter,’ says Shakespeare; but he provides Comedy too
as a winter evening entertainment.
647. Monimia. The heroine of The Orphan (first produced in 1680),
a tragedy by Thomas Otway. *
648. Belvidera. The heroine of Otway's great tragedy Venice Pre-
served (1682).
653–655. These lines were added subsequently to 1738. ‘Bevil’ is
one of the characters in Sir Richard Steele's The Conscious Lovers
(produced in 1722, when the author was in his 52nd year: his first play,
Grief a la Mode, was acted in 1702). A distinction is here implied
between “low” and ‘genteel' comedy. -
When Thomson first came up to London, in March, I'725, he was at
once irresistibly attracted to the theatre. Apparently it was his first
experience of the acted drama. He writes accordingly with all the
freshness of inexperience, and with the delightful abandon of youth,
on the subject of his first acquaintance with a pleasure forbidden in
Scotland. The letter is to a young friend, a country doctor in Scot-
land :—
‘The play-house is indeed a very fine entertainment, though not to
the height I expected. A tragedy, I think, or a fine character in a
comedy gives greater pleasure read than acted ; but your fools and
persons of a very whimsical and humorous character are a delicious
morsel on the stage ; they indeed exercise my risible faculty, and
particularly your old friend Daniel, in Oroonoko [by Southerne, pro-
duced in 1696], diverted me infinitely: the grave-digger in Hamlet,
Beau Clincher and his brother in the Trip to the Jubilee, pleased me
extremely too. Mr. Booth has a very majestic appearance, a full,
harmonious voice, and vastly exceeds them all in acting tragedy. The
last Act in Cato he does to perfection, and you would think he expired
with the Oh 1 that ends it ! Mr. Wilks, I believe, has been a very fine
actor for the [part of] the fine gentleman and the young hero, but his
face now is wrinkled, his voice broken. . . . . . Mills and Johnstoun
are pretty good actors. Dicky Norris, that little comical toothless
devil, will turn his back and crack a very good jest yet: there are some
others of them [that are] execrable. Mrs. Oldfield [admired by Pope
for her rendering of Rowe's Jane Shore] has a smiling jolly face, acts
very well in comedy. . . . Mrs. Porter excels in tragedy, has a short
piercing voice, and enters most into her character; and if she did not
act well she could not be endured, being more disagreeable in her
appearance than any of them. Mrs. Booth acts some things very well,
and particularly Ophelia's madness in Hamlet inimitably; but then
she dances so deliciously, has such melting lascivious motions, air, and
AWOTES, 647–662. sº 383
postures . . . . indeed, the women are generally the handsomest in the
house, and better actors than the men—but perhaps their sex prejudices
me in their favour.
‘These are a few of the observations I have made hitherto at Drury
Lane Theatre, to which I have paid five visits, but I have not been at
the New House yet : my purse will not keep pace with my inclinations
in this matter. Oh if I had Mass John [said by Lord Buchan to have
been the Rev. Gabriel Wilson of Maxton, in the presbytery of Selkirk;
Some thirty years older than Thomson] here, to see some of their
‘top 'fools; he would shake the scenes with laughter.”—Letter to Dr.
Wm. Cranstoun, Ancrum, April 3, 1725.
656–690. This complimentary apostrophe to Lord Chesterfield, not
written till after 1738, is lugged into a place with which it has but a
slender connection. Such as it is, the connection—to be found in the
three preceding lines—was clearly manufactured for the compliment.
(See Note, ll. 653–655, suffra.) ‘Whate'er can deck mankind or charm
the heart’ is delicately, or rather flimsily, hinted as the enviable attribute
of Lord Chesterfield : Bevil suggests Chesterfield.
What is said here in praise of Lord Chesterfield must on the whole
be allowed to be his due. The points touched upon in this eulogy are
his elegance of manners, his intellectual accomplishments, his oratorical
abilities, his statesmanlike qualities, and his patronage of literature.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1694.
He was trained for a political career, and filled various important offices
of State; was in Succession Ambassador to Holland, Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland, and Secretary of State. In 1748 he retired from political life.
His death occurred in 1773. He is now chiefly remembered for the polish
of his manners, his collision with Dr. Johnson, and his Letters to his Son.
Johnson’s Letter to Chesterfield was written 7th Feb., 1755. The
Letters to his Son are written in good English and contain good sense.
Nothing, however, that Chesterfield did could please the great moralist:
‘they teach the manners of a dancing-master,’ said Johnson, certainly
savagely, and rather unjustly. Their morality, it must be allowed, is
often of a Machiavellian cast.
In his Love of Fame, Satire II, Young also pays a compliment to the
learning of Chesterfield :— -
“[He] titles knows, and indexes has seen,
But leaves to Chesterfield what lies between.”—ll. 91, 92.
66o. Apollo's . . . fire. Phoebus, the Sun-god, and the god of poetry
and beauty.
662. the guardian, ornament, &c. ‘ Et praesidium et dulce decus.’—
Horace, I. I. .
;
384 * THE SAEA,SOAVS.– W/AW 7"E.R.
675. Attic point. The keenness of Athenian wit.' Athens was in
Attica. -
691, 692. These lines were added to the later editions (after 1738) to
make the transition from Chesterfield to the subject proper easier and
less abrupt.
693. This line in the earlier editions began—“Clear frost succeeds.”
694. the ethereal zeitre. Frost, so called poetically from its pene-
trating nature. See Autumn, Note, 11. 4, 5. Cowper, in The Task,
Bk. III, refers to ‘the nitrous air of winter feeding a blue flame.’—
11. 32, 33. See also Savage's Wanderer, C. i., 1. 56.
707. The benefit of frost to the soil is that it disintegrates the clods,
and kills the germs of insect life destructive to vegetation. Cold is not
the positive substance which Thomson seems, at least poetically, to
consider it: it is the result of the absence of heat. ‘Vegetable soul.”
means ‘power to produce healthy vegetation.’
709, 71 o. There is a greater specific quantity of oxygen in the air in
rosty weather, and more oxygen is consequently burned : the result is a
brighter fire. ‘The lively cheek of ruddy fire' probably means that the
sides of the flame are brighter. In rural Scotland the jambs or sides of
the fire-place are sometimes called ‘the cheeks o' the fire.’ To sit at the
cheek o’ the fire is to sit by the hearth. Thomson, however, omits the
necessary the for this interpretation.
7Io. Zuculent. Lat. luczz/entus, bright or clear; from Zzzac, light.
716. the illusive ſluid. Quicksilver, the only metal that is fluid at
ordinary winter temperatures. It freezes at 39° below zero.
718, 719. The crystals of which Snow is composed are commonly in
the form of six-pointed stars. But of this form there are, and have been
figured, hundreds of varieties.
721. Steamed eager, &c. Sent forth as an invisible vapour of
freezingly cold air. ‘Steamed' qualifies “gale’ in I. 723.
722. suffused. This participle refers to the ‘horizon' (in 1. 721),
which at evening is of a deep red because of ‘the fierce rage of
winter.”
724. Areathes a 6/ue film, &c. Burns's description of the formation
of ‘infant ice’ on a stream is not less delicately true:–
* The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept gently crusting o'er the glittering stream.’
7%e Arégs of Ayr, Il. 39, 40 (Clarendon Press ed.).
Note the frequency of the letter r both here and in Thomson's descrip-
tion of the freezing ‘stream —not the pool.
725. bickering. The word is Celtic, and means ‘skirmishing’ in
ordinary English; primarily, according to Prof. Skeat, it means ‘to
\
*
AVOTES, 675–778. 385
keep pecking.’ Applied to a stream it suggests the rapid tremulous
movement of the current. Cp. Tennyson's Brook—
“[I] sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down a valley.’
727. Rustles. Cp. Burns, to whose ear the crisp sound of floating
ice colliding suggested ‘jingling'; but Thomson's ear was no less fine
than Burns's—
“When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An' float the jinglin’ icy boord,’ &c.
Address to the ZXeil, 11. 61, 62.
731. Z'he whole imprisoned river growls below. In the original text
‘ detruded ' took the place of ‘imprisoned,’ and better explained the
cause of the “growling.” As the frost strengthens, the water shrinks, and
there is a little free space between the ice and the water favourable to
the production of a hollow sound.
732, 733. Zozed rings . . . . A double noise. Sometimes described
in Scotland as ‘a hammer-clinking frost.” “A double noise ’ is
not a twofold or duplicate noise, but a noise increased to twice its
ordinary loudness. See 1. 591, suffra—‘double suns,” meaning ‘greatly
increased crops.’
738. full ethereal round. The entire dome of the heavens, clear of
cloud.
74o. all one cope. One vast undimmed canopy.
742. the rigid £72/7uence. The hardening or stiffening power of frost.
746–751. Cp. Cowper's Task, Bk. V. ll. IIo–12 I, for a similar effect
of frost.
752. Introduced in the earlier editions by a line afterwards dropped :—
‘The liquid kingdom all to solid turned.’
762–778. Instead of this excursion to Holland and Northern Europe
Thomson in the earlier text, down to I?38, gives a British scene of
sliders and skaters:–
“[Swains] Fond o'er the river rush, and shuddering view
The doubtful deeps below. Or where the lake
And long canal the cerule plain extend,
The city pours her thousands, swarming all,
From every quarter : and, with him who slides,
Or skating sweeps, Swift as the winds, along
In circling poise, or else disordered falls,
His feet illuded sprawling to the sky,
While the laugh rages round; from end to end,
Encreasing still, resounds the crowded scene.’ ^.
C C
386 7 HAE , SEASOAVS.— W/AWTER,
768. Batazyża. Holland, so called from the Batavi, the Roman name
for the inhabitants of the island of Batavia at the mouth of the Rhine.
771. The then gay land. The Dutch being commonly a dull nation.
772. the ºzorthern courts. Those of Scandinavia and Russia.
782. Cp. Cowper—
gº “His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale.”
The 7ask, Bk. V. ll. 6, 7.
789–793. Another of Thomson's many complaints against the practice
of sport. See 1. 257, and Note. (See Autumn, Note, 1. 401.)
794–798. These lines originally ran— t
“But what is this? these infant tempests, what?
The mockery of Winter, should our eye
Astonished shoot into the frigid zone;
Where more than half the joyless year is night,
And failing gradual life at last goes out.”
799. There, i. e. in the frigid zone, Siberia, to which political
and criminal offenders are banished by the Czar. There used to be
three grades of punishment—close confinement to the hard work of the
mines, compulsory work of a less laborious kind, and simple exile
with comparative freedom but under police surveillance. Thomson's
exile, in 1. 8or, apparently belongs to the class of the comparatively
free exile. The passage from 1. 799 to 1. 903 was added after 1738.
8o3. heavy loaded groves. A scarcely suitable description of pine-
forests standing white with snow.
and solid floods. Such rivers, frozen over for many months, as Obi,
Yenisei, Lena, &c.
805. frozen main. Arctic Ocean.
806. cheerless foºms. Such as Tobolsk, Yakutsk, Petropaulovsk, &c.
807, the carazan. Company of travelling traders. The goods are
transported for the most part on sledges.
808. rich Cathay. China. Commercial intercourse between Russia
and China, through Siberia, began by treaty in 1689, renewed in 1727.
Furs, cloth, and precious metals are bartered for tea. The gateway of
the traffic is Kiachta, a Siberian town on the Chinese frontier.
812. Fair ermines. ‘Ermine' is said to be a corruption of
“Armenian,’ from Armenia, in Asiatic Turkey. -
813, Saôles. From the Russian word sobole, the Sable. Black sable
furs were in greatest demand, and hence ‘sable' came to mean ‘black.’
814. freaked. A rare word, coined from ‘freckled,’ and allied to
‘flecked.” It means mottled, or spotted. Milton has—
‘The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet.”—Zycidas, I44.
&
AVOTES, 768–839. & 387:
818. the branching elk. The mature elk, or moose-deer, has antlers
of a very broad blade, with from nine to as many as fourteen snags (or
branches) on each horn. The weight of such antlers is great, and has
been known to amount to 60 lbs. The neck of the elk is short and
thick of necessity, to bear such a weight ; and the creature goes on its
knees to graze. It is about six feet high at the shoulder. Its timidity
and inoffensiveness are remarkable, for it is strong as well as large.
821. sounding bows. Reference is made to the twanging bowstring,
when the arrow is shot off.
826. The passage of ten lines ending here is almost a paraphrase of
Virgil's Third Georgic, 11. 369-375.
827–833. A characteristic bit of description in Thomson's best
style.
833. Hardens his heart, &c. The reference is to the bear's habit of
hibernation—sleeping through the winter without food.
835. Boötes (Gr. 80árms, the ox-driver). The constellation before the
Great Bear, also called the Waggon, and the Plough, was named
Boötes—which was fancied to represent and occupy the place of the
driver of the Waggon. Arctos, as the whole group of stars known
as the Great Bear, the Little Bear, and Boötes (Arcturus) is called,
moves in a small circle round the pole, and therefore seems to move
slowly—hence ‘tardy’ in the text.
836. Caurus. The north-west wind, which, being a stormy wind in
Italy, is here used to designate a stormy wind.
836–838. A boisterous race . . . Prolific swarm. Cp. Milton–
“A multitude like which the populous north
Poured never from her frozen loins to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.’
AEar. Zost, Bk. I, 11. 351–355.
Thomson pursues the subject in Liberty, Part III. 11. 512–543. There
he describes the home-land of the Goths and Scythians, their training and
early hardships, their incursions in the fifth and sixth centuries against
the declining and falling empire of Rome, their destruction of ancient
civilisation, and the long ‘night of time that parted worlds’—the Dark
Ages. He continues the subject in Part IV, and shows how at last a
revival of learning and arts dawned on the Dark Ages.—The idea of a
populous north was common from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
century. In Liberty, III. l. 529, Thomson repeats the idea of the text—
‘And there a race of men prolific swarms.’
839, lost mankind. Lost manhood.
C C 2
388. th THE SAEASOAVS.-W/WZZR.
"840. “The wandering Scythian clans.”—Note by Thomson.
841. enfeebled south. Italy, Spain, &c., enervated by luxurious
habits.
842. Established the feudal system.
843—886. The Lapps hardly deserve the praise here lavished upon
them.
857. marbled snow. ‘Glittering snow.’ Milton speaks of the
* marble air.’
860. Referring to the Northern Lights, or the Aurora Borealis.
862. radianſ waste. Either the starry expanse of sky; or, more
probably, the snow-covered stretch of country, which by reflecting the
light of the stars, may be said to double their lustre. -
867. dim Aurora. This is not the Aurora Borealis, but the glimmer
of the solar dawn. -
870. seen at last for . . . months. Owing to the inclination of the
earth's axis, the extreme north polar regions are turned away from the
sun during the months of winter, and are therefore then in ‘the depth
of polar night’ (1.863); while during the summer they are constantly
turned towards the Sun, and have then continual day. Those regions
are ‘the land of the midnight sun.’
875, 876. On these two lines, necessarily written after the publication
(in 1738) of a certain book to be referred to shortly, Thomson has
a couple of interesting notes: (a) “M. de Maupertuis, in his book on
The Figure of the Earth, after having described the beautiful lake and
mountain of Niémi, in Lapland, says: “From this height we had
occasion several times to see those vapours rise from the lake which the
people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the
guardian spirits of the mountains. We had been frightened with stories
of bears that haunted this place, but saw none. It seemed rather a
place of resort for fairies and genii than bears.””
(5) “The same author observes: “I was surprised to see upon the
banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are
in our gardens.””
Pierre-Louis-Mareau de Maupertuis was born in 1698 at St. Malo.
He abandoned the army, in which he held the rank of a captain of
dragoons, for the purpose of devoting himself to the study of mathematics
and astronomy. In 1723 he was admitted a member of the Royal
Academy at Paris, and four years later became a Fellow of the Royal
Society of London. He was commissioned by the Academy to proceed
to the valley of Tornea to measure an arc of the meridian in Lapland.
At the same time Commissioners were sent for a like purpose to Peru
in the Southern hemisphere. In December, 1736, Maupertuis and his
AVOTES, 840–925. - 389
party, which included the Swedish astronomer Celsius, began their survey
by measuring a base of 7407 toises [a toise, 6 pieds, being nearly 6.4
English feet] upon the frozen surface of Tornea. An account of this
geodesical survey was published by Maupertuis in 1738–La Figure de
la Terre, 8vo, Paris. -
The Lapland village of Tornea is situated at the mouth of the river
Tornea", at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia: the river in its lower
course is the boundary between Sweden and Russia. At Tornea the
midnight sun may be seen for almost a week at the time of the Summer
Solstice.
Maupertuis, it may be added, defended the Newtonian theory of the
earth's figure—that it is an oblate spheroid—against the theory of
Descartes. He was vain even for a Frenchman, and had himself
represented in the attitude of compressing the poles of the earth.
887. Tormea's lake. In the far north of Sweden, not far from the
Norwegian frontier, and within the Arctic circle. The river issues
from it. * -
888. Hecla ſlaming. The well-known volcano of Iceland.
891. Zhe muse . . . her solitary ſlight. The poet's imagination
among unpeopled Snow-covered tracts of country and frozen seas.
893. new seas beneath another sky. Thomson's note here is—“The
other hemisphere.’ He means the north polar regions of the Western or
New World hemisphere.
900, 901. These lines answer the question of ll. II3–II5, suffra.
go2., the Zartar's coast. Siberia ; Northern Asia.
912. In the earlier text down to the edition of 1738, this line read—
‘Shake the firm pole, and make an ocean boil’;
and was followed by the following six lines, dropped in the later
editions:—
“Whence heaped abrupt along the howling shore,
And into various shapes (as fancy leans)
Worked by the wave, the crystal pillars heave,
Swells the blue portico, the Gothic dome
Shoots fretted up, and birds and beasts and men
Rise into mimic life, and sink by turns.
The restless deep [itself can]not [resist],’ &c.
918, 20azy rocks. Waves frozen into rocks.
920–925. AZiserable they, Who . . . Zake their last look, &c. Cp.
Burns—
* Campbell's reference to Tornea is due to Thomson:-
‘Cold as the rocks on Torneo's hoary brow.’
Pleasures of Hope, ii, i. 8.
390 THE SAEASOAVS. — W/AWTER.
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‘Clarinda, mistress of my soul,
The measured time is run
The wretch beneath the dreary pole
So marks his latest sun.’–7 o Clarinda.
925. the Briton’s fate. The reference is to the expedition of Sir Hugh
Willoughby, an Englishman, sent forth at the instance of commercial
London in the year 1553, the last year of the reign of Edward VI,
to find, if possible, a new sea route of trade to India and Eastern Asia.
The route of traffic to India by the Cape, discovered by Vasco da Gama
in 1498, was in the possession of Spain, and there was a great desire on
the part of England to find and appropriate an independent route.
Willoughby departed on his mission with three ships, and tried the
North-East passage, round by the North Cape and the Northern shores
of Russia and Siberia. Shortly after rounding the North Cape one
of his ships was separated from the other two by a violent tempest, and
entering the White Sea, arrived at Archangel. The commander of this
vessel was Richard Chancéllor; the other two, under the leader of the
expedition, sailed as far as Nova Zembla, whence they were driven back
to the shores of Russian Lapland; and there the crews perished of cold.
; Their frozen bodies were subsequently found, much as Thomson has
described them, in the mouth of the Arzina, east of the North Cape.
Some other attempts to force the North-East passage were made ;
but at last it was abandoned. The glory of discovering the passage was
left to our own day: quite recently a Danish navigator, Nordenskjold,
still living (1891), Sailed completely round the Old World. The route,
however, like the more famous North-West passage, is of interest only to
geographers, of none to traders. .*
937. the last of mezz. The Samoyedes, inhabiting between Obi and
Yenisei.
940. wears its rudest form. In the earlier text—‘just begins to
dawn.” The Samoyedes are a wretched race of men, untouched even by
Russian civilisation.
944, 945. Cp. Goldsmith, of the Swiss—
“ Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame ; . . .
And love's and friendship’s finely-pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.”—7%e 7?azeller.
947, 948. In the earlier text (from 1726 to 1738) these lines ran—
* Till long-expected morning looks at length
Faint on their fields (where Winter reigns alone),” &c.
M07 ES, 925–973. 39 I
950-987. This passage was added subsequently to 1738. It consists
of a laudatory sketch—destitute of shading—of the life and character, and
political work of Peter the Great of Russia. His death, in I725, was
a subject of general talk in England when Thomson was writing his
Winter, but he deferred all reference to him in the earlier editions. The
introduction here of his reforms in Russia is to the discredit of the
Samoyedes, who are a “gross race,’ apparently incapable of “active
government.’ The connection in the poem between the passage on the
Samoyedes, and that on the Russians’ as civilised by the Czar Peter, is
the contrast which the present state of the one people presents to that of
the other.
952. A people savage. The Russians consist of several nationalities,
but the prevailing element is Slavonian.
954. from Gothic darkness. Peter was, of course, a Slavonian ;
* Gothic' is not used here in an ethnological sense, but as synonymous
with ‘barbaric.’
956–959. His stubborn country famed. He introduced improved methods
of engineering, drainage, agriculture; opened the Caspian Sea to Russian
commerce, established a navy on the Black and Baltic seas, and disciplined
his armies according to the military system of Western Europe by
persistent warfare with the Swedes. He organised schools ; invited
teachers of the arts from Austria, Italy, and Holland to Russia ;
commanded the young nobility of Russia to acquaint themselves by
travel with the civilisation of Western and Southern Europe; controlled
and developed the press; and caused translations of the most important
works of foreign authors to be made and published. When, in 1698, he
left England, whither he had been invited by William III, and where he
took practical lessons (at Deptford) in the art of ship-building, &c., he
carried with him to Russia, it is said, five hundred English artificers,
engineers, Surgeons, &c. to act as teachers of their respective arts and
crafts to his own subjects.
96.O. We shades, &c. See 1. 438, suffra. Lycurgus, Solon, Servius,
are here apostrophized.
967. roaming every land. He set out on his travels in 1697 (he was
then in his 25th year) and visited Prussia, Hanover, Holland, England,
and Austria.
r 27, every fort, e.g. Amsterdam, Saardam, Deptford, London,
&c. A prime object of his policy was the establishment and maintenance
of a Russian navy. To the art of ship-building he gave in his own
person practical attention—working as a common ship-carpenter both
at Saardam and at Deptford. º
973, cities rise amid the . . . waste. Notably, his new capital,
392 ZAZZ SAEASOAVS. —W/WZZA'.
.
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St. Petersburg, founded in May, 1703, on an appropriated portion of
Ingria, which was then a Swedish province. In a few years it was the
great commercial centre of the Baltic trade. -
- 975. flood to flood. By canals. Volga and Don were so joined. -
980. Alexander of the north. Charles XII, King of Sweden. The
Swedes were at first successful in their encounters with the Russians,
winning the great battle of Narva in 17oo, but were at last defeated with
overwhelming loss at Pultava, in 1709. -
981. Othman's shrinking sons. The Turks, or Osmanlis as they call
themselves. Peter's ambition was to possess the Black Sea. Achmet III,
the Sultan at this time (1710–1711), was dragged into war with the
Russians by Charles XII, who was then residing in exile at Bender.
988. Thomson returns to his subject proper. A temporary thaw and
its effects and dangers are described in the following lines.
988–990. These three lines stood originally, down to 1738–
* Muttering, the winds at eve with hoarser voice
Blow blustering from the south. The frost subdued
Gradual resolves into a trickling thaw.”
‘Muttering” and ‘blustering” well describe the sound of the strong
South wind, by which the snow is driven from the winter landscape, and
the country flooded with s/ush. -
resolves into a . . thaw. Cp. Shakespeare’s “melt, thaw, and
resolve itself into a dew' in Hamlet's well-known soliloquy.
99.I. Spotted, the mountains shine. With lingering patches of un-
thawed snow. Cp. Burns's—
“Aroused by blustering winds and spotting thowes.’
A rigs of Ayr.
993. Of bonds impatient. In the earlier text ‘Impatient for the
day.” In the same line, for ‘Sudden' the earlier text has “Broke.’
Ioo2. For ‘deep’ the original text gives ‘main —which, on the score
of cadence, is to be preferred.
Ioo4. the baré, with trembling wretches changed. In the earlier
editions—‘the bark, the wretch’s last resort.’
Ioos—IOO8. moors Beneath the shelter . . . While night, &c. Con-
structed on Miltonic lines:–
* Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wishëd morn delays.”
Aar. Zost, Bk. I. 11. 207, 208.
IoI 4. embrož/ the deep. Produce a scene of greater confusion.
‘Embroil’ is from Fr. Özoztá//er, to jumble or confuse. Cf. 1. 247,
324/7 a. - t -
MOZA.S, 975–Ioé9. 393
IoI4–IoI6. Zeziathan And his zenzwieldy fraziz . . . 7 empest the, &c.
This too is a distinct echo of a passage in Paradise Lost, Bk. VII.-
... ‘Part, huge of bulk,
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean. There leviathan, dº
Stretched like a promontory, sleeps or swims.”—ll. 4IO-4I4.
IoI6–1023. Campbell has caught up the situation, and elaborated it
in his Pleasures of Hope, in the well-known passage descriptive of the
hardships endured by ‘the hardy Byron’; see Part I, ll. Io2–I2O. See
also, of the same Part of the poem, Il. 61–66, ending— i
“And waft, across the waves’ tumultuous roar,
The wolf’s long howl from Oonalaska’s shore.’
Io24. '77's done / &c. The year is ended. In the earlier text the line
Tarł– ,
‘’Tis done ! Dread Winter has subdued the year.” s
Io25. the conquered year. ‘The desert plains,’ in the earlier
editions. -
Io.28–Io45. Cp. Book of Job, chap. xiv. I–I5. (The Paraphrase by
Michael Bruce is full of echoes from Thomson.)
Io28. In the earlier editions, down to that of I738—
“His solitary empire. Here, fond man l’
Io29. thy pictured life. A Latin idiom ; meaning ‘the picture, or
emblem of thy life.’
Io93-1041. This reads like a part of Young's Night Thoughts. The
reflections are in the same strain as those at 1. 209, suffra.
Ioã5. gal/ and bitterness. An adaptation of a Scriptural phrase, see .
Acts viii. 23. ‘ Gall’ is the Greek XoAñ, bile.
Io;8. Straining her. In the earlier text ‘prompting his.’
IoôI. why licensed pain, &c. The mystery of the existence of pain
is here referred to. Thomson's conclusion is Longfellow's—
‘It must be for some good
By us not understood.’–7 he Goldenz Zegeyed.
IOG5—IO67. Enlarged from the earlier text, which ran—
* Yet a little while,
And what you reckoned evil is no more.”
IO69. Thus to the cheerful nature of Thomson, Winter ends with a
promise of Spring.
394 - A Aſ WMAW.
A HYMN.
[The Hymn, which now consists of 118 lines, originally consisted of
I21 : every alteration made on the text of 1738 is noted below.]
I. Zhese. The seasons of the year.
2. Are àzeſ the zaried God. Are manifestations of the power, bounty,
beauty, benevolence, and other attributes, of the Deity. The idea is
pantheistic. The material world in its various and varying forms is
the expression of the divine mind appealing to the mind of man
through the bodily senses. Cp. Pope’s Essay on Man, Bk. I. 11.
267–274 (published two years subsequently to the Hymn), “All are
but parts,’ &c. {-
4. Zhy beauty walks, &c. In flowers and blossoms, universally
diffused. Cp. Longfellow's poem on Flowers:–
“In the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.
Bright and glorious is that revelation
Written all over this great world of ours.”
- Voices of the AWight.
6. the forest smiles. In the earlier editions, down to that of 1738, ‘the
forests live.”
9. refulgezzi. See Summer, 1. 2. In the earlier text the word used
was ‘severe”; and the metre was made up by beginning the next sen-
tence with the word ‘ Prone.’
II. dreadful. Substituted for “awful,” being more suggestive of the
sound of thunder.-
I4, 15. For these two lines the edition of 1738, and all previous
editions, give the following five lines—
‘A yellow-floating pomp, thy bounty shines
In Autumn unconfined. Thrown from thy lap
Profuse o'er Nature, falls the lucid shower
Of beamy fruits; and, in a radiant stream,
Into the stores of sterile winter pours.”
16. awful. Substituted for ‘dreadful.’ See Note, 1. II, supra.
These slight alterations show the fineness of Thomson's ear for verbal
melody. “Awful' is a better sequence to “Winter’ than ‘ dreadful.”
18. Majeszic darkness. Substituted for “Horrible blackness.’
I9. adore. Substituted for ‘be low.’ -
23–26. In the edition of I738, and previous editions—
MozAS, 1–67. 395
‘Yet so harmonious mixed, so fitly joined,
One following one in such enchanting sort,
Shade unperceived so softening into shade,
And all so forming such a perfect whole,” &c.
30. the silent spheres. The orbs of the stars. There is probably no
reference here to the Ptolemaic, or pre-Copernican system of the
starry universe, as set forth in Paradise Lost, and implied in many
previous poems.
3I. the secret deep. Not the sea, but the earth, where are the roots,
‘the dark retreat of vegetation.”—Spring, ll. 79, 80. -
steaming thence. Referring to the sap which in spring ascends
from the roots in stem and stalk. See Spring, Note, ll. 79, 80.
40. Ozze general song. Substituted for “An universal hymn.’
40–88. These lines include the Hymn proper. They are modelled
on the Psalm cylviii of David. Coleridge's Hymn before Sunrise in the
Vale of Chamouni (in Sibylline Leaves, published in 1817) is on the
model of both.
4I. 272 your freshness breathes. Substituted for ‘teaches you to
breathe.”
42–44. Such a passage as this, full of a fine feeling for the super-
natural, and eminently characteristic of the religious sentiment of
Thomson—which here and there anticipates the teaching of the great
high priest of Nature, William Wordsworth—helps to explain, or at
least to illustrate, the beautiful elegy which Collins wrote on the death
of Thomson—‘In yonder grave a Z)7-uža lies.’
44. the brown shade. Less felicitous than the original ‘the brown
Void.”
45. 70%ose bolder note. Cp. Psalm cylviii. 7, 8: ‘Praise the Lord from
the earth, . . . . . stormy wind fulfilling His word.”
54. Stºendous. Originally ‘tremendous.”
56. Soft roll. Originally ‘Roll up.’
57. exalts. Preferred to ‘elates.”
58. Öreath. In the 1738 edition, ‘hand.”
6o. Breathe your still song [ye harvests [] into the reaper's heart.
One of the most beautiful lines in Thomson's poetry—fraught with the
heart-felt tranquillity of a typical autumn evening.
61. In the early editions (down to and inclusive of the edition of
I738)—“Homeward rejoicing with the joyous moon.’
62–65. Cp. Addison’s well-known hymn—“The spacious firmament
on high.”
66, 67. Great source of day, best image here below, &c. Cp. Milton,
in the well-known Address to the Sun, Book IV, of Paradise Lost:—
396. . . A A/V///V. ,
‘Thou that . . . . -
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world.”—ll. 32–34.
67. fouring. In the earlier text, “darting.’
68. the zital ocean. The air enveloping the hemispheres.
7.I. soleman. Substituted for “dreadful in the earlier text.
75. For this line the earlier editions give— .
‘And yet again the golden age returns ';
and add— - ** -
* Wildest of creatures be not silent here,
But, hymning horrid, let the desert roar.’
Line 75 of the finally settled text contains references, implied or expressed,
to various Scriptural texts—to the second petition of the Lord's Prayer ;
to the doctrine of St. Paul, “The creature itself also shall be delivered
from . . bondage’ (Rom. viii. 21); and to the prophecy of Isaiah, “The
wolf and the lamb shall feed together . . . They shall not hurt nor
destroy in all my holy mountain ' (Isaiah lxv. 25).
76. boundless. “General’ in the earlier text.
79. sweet Philomela. The nightingale. Philomela was one of the
two daughters of King Pandion of Athens, and, being changed into a
nightingale, gave her name to that bird. (See the story of Tereus in
Ovid's Metam. Bk. VI.)
80. £each the night His praise. A condensation of the original
text—
* Through the midnight hour,
Trilling, prolong the wildly luscious note,
That night as well as day may vouch his praise.'
81. We chief. Mankind. +
82. tongue. ‘Mouth in the earlier editions.
84. Assembled mezz. “Concourse of men in the earlier editions.
84–86. to the deep organ join, &c. Cp. Milton's Il Penseroso-
‘Let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced quire below
In service high and anthems clear.”—ll. I61–163.
at solemn pauses. ‘At’ for ‘after.’
90. Originally ‘To find a fane,’ &c. See Note, Il. 42–44, suffra.
9I. Žhe Zirgin’s lay. Originally ‘the virgin’s chant.”
92. Z'he prompting Seraph. The muse of religious lyrical poetry.
Cp. Milton’s “Heavenly Muse, and ‘Spirit,” in the opening lines of his
great epic. -
94. the darling theme. Praise to God; ‘His praise ’ in 11. 48, 54,
69; 8o. -
MOZAS, 67–116. - 397
* Gentle Thomson, as the Seasons roll,
Taught them to sing their great Creator's praise
And bear their poet’s name from pole to pole'
Michael Bruce, Ælegy written in Søring (of I766).
Young Michael Bruce, a Scots poet of great promise, was one of the
most devoted of the followers of Thomson.
96. Kºussets the plain. Said, not of autumn but summer: referring
to the effect of summer drought upon the grass. See Castle of Indo-
lence, I. 1. I6. -
inspiring. In the original text ‘delicious.” The reference here is
to poetical inspiration. Thomson found the autumn season most
conducive to poetical thought and composition. Cp. Shenstone's Verses
to W. Lyttelton—
* Thomson, sweet descriptive bard,
Inspiring Autumn sung.’—ll. 29, 30.
Autumn gleams. In fields of yellow corn—the reflected light from
which is strong enough to illumine the evening.
97. blackenzizag. ‘ Reddening' in the earlier text.
Ioo—IO4. Cp. Horace—
“Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
Arbor aestiva recreatur aura,’ &c.—Car. I. 22.
IoI. distant. ‘Hostile ’ in the earlier text.
Ios—Io?. The same sentiment is more fully expressed in Paradise
Lost:—
‘Yet doubt not but in valley and in plain
God is, as here, and will be found alike
Present; and of his presence many a sign
Still following thee, still compassing thee round
With goodness and paternal love, his face
Express, and of his steps the track divine.’ *
Bk. XI. 11. 349-354.
Io'7–113. Substituted after 1738 for—
‘Rolls the same kindred seasons round the world,
In all apparent, wise and good in all;
Since he sustains and animates the whole,’ &c.
II.3, their sons. Their inhabitants.
I I4. educing. ‘Educes’ in the earlier editions. The line is Miltonic
in sentiment, Cp. Par. Lost, Bk. VII. 11. 615, 616:—
* His evil
Thou usest, and from thence creat'st more good.’
See Winter, 1. 1061, and Note.
II.5, II6. and better still, ſº infinite frogression. Thomson's theory
398 THE CASTLE OF ZAVADOZACA/CAE.
g
of spiritual evolution, often referred to in his poetry, was an essential
part of his religious belief.
* Heirs of eternity, y-born to rise
Through endless states of being, still more near
To bliss approaching, and perfection clear.’
Castle of Zndolence, II. St. lxi.
See also, and compare, Liberty, III. ll. 69, 70; Spring, ll. 375–377 ;
Winter, 11. 357, 358, &c. In a letter to Dr. Cranstoun, of date Oct. 20,
1735, Thomson writes: ‘This I think we may be sure of, that a future
state must be better than this; and so on through the never-ceasing suc-
cession of future states, every one rising upon the last, an everlasting new
display of infinite goodness.’ i
THE CASTLE OF INDOLEN CE. /
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The Castle of Indolence was published early in the summer of 1748,
the last year of Thomson's life: his death occurred on the 27th of
August, about four months after the publication of the poem. The
work was the slow and leisurely composition of nearly fifteen years.
Writing in the middle of April, 1748, to his friend, and successor in the
office of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, William Paterson,
then resident at Barbadoes, the poet announces ‘that after fourteen or
fifteen years the Castle of Indolence comes abroad in a fortnight.” He
goes on, ‘It will certainly travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an
apartment in it as a night-pensioner [see 1. 521, Canto I], which, you
may remember, I fitted up for you during our delightful party at North
Ham.” The composition of the Castle of Indolence thus covered more
than the entire period of Thomson's residence at Richmond, where he
lived in a garden-house in Kew-foot Lane, in comparative retirement
and moderately luxurious ease from 1736 to the day of his death. The
publisher was his old friend, “good-natured and obliging Millar,’ the
bookseller, who had taken a house at Richmond to be near Thomson.
The first edition was in quarto; the second, published in the same year,
in octavo. The text of the latter has been faithfully followed in the
present edition. -
The origin of the poem is of amusing interest. Thomson's indolent
habits, both of life and composition, were notorious —
AM77 ROZ) UC7'OR Y AWO 7/2. 399
* His ditty sweet
He loathed much to write, ne carèd to repeat; '
and they were often made the butt of the good-natured banter, and |
remonstrance, of his friends. He did not seek to deny the soft impeach-
ment; but he ventured to retaliate upon his friends that they were
equally inclined in their own way to ease and idleness, and took his
revenge by gently caricaturing in a few disconnected stanzas the peculiar
phases of their common failing. The poem grew out of those stanzas.
In its finished state it may be regarded as an apology and a warning. i
The apology, mostly playfully urged, is for his own indolence; the
warning is meant to discourage the indulgence of indolence in others.
The warning is eloquent, with outbursts of true poetry, but—as is
usually the fate of warnings—is likely to continue to be neglected for
the more engaging charms of the apology. And yet there is much
Sympathetic writing on the pleasures of an industrious life very
capable of inspiring and directing the energies of healthy youth.
The poem is allegorical, and was professedly written in imitation of
The Faerie Queene. The Advertisement prefixed to the poem runs as
follows:– This poem being writ in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete :
words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines which borders on
the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect. And
the style of that admirable poet, as well as the measure in which he
wrote, are, as it were, appropriated by custom to all allegorical poems
writ in our language; just as in French the style of Marot, who lived
under Francis the First, has been used in tales and familiar epistles by
the politest writers of the age of Louis the Fourteenth.” Notwithstanding
this explanation of his employment of the Spenserian stanza for The
Castle of Indolence, Thomson's avoidance of the measure which Pope
had so popularized and perfected is significant of the robustness of his
genius in refusing, even in respect of verse-form, to own allegiance to the
artificial school. Neither in The Seasons nor in The Castle of Indolence
did he adopt the heroic couplet. It may have been that the popular
taste was beginning to be cloyed with the monotonous sweetness and
smoothness of Pope's art, which seemed incapable of further development;
at all events the change of form accompanying the more important change
of theme in poetical literature which Thomson instituted, and in which
others followed his example, was relished from the very first. At the
same time it must be owned that Thomson’s ideas on the subject of
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verse-forms had been greatly modified by the influence of the artificial
school during the period of his residence in England. When he sat
down in 1725 to write his Winter it was with a contempt for rhyme
only less pronounced than that of Milton in the later period of his life.
He lived to entertain worthier ideas of form; and few will doubt that
his poetical genius was improved by the discipline of art, and that it
shines on the whole to better advantage in the elaborate setting of the
Spenserian stanza than in the rough though rich accumulations of The
Seasons. Thomson manages the SpenSerian stanza with an easy grace
of art which is not constantly reminding you of the artist. In his hands
the measure seems the natural expression of the sentiment., There is
probably as much redundancy of phraseology in The Castle of
Indolence as in The Seasons; but there is an absence of tumidity :
the diction is more natural in the sense that it is less conventional.
The archaic and rustic words with which the poem is sprinkled help
to withdraw the imagination of the reader out of the work-a-day present
into an ideal world of the romantic past; but, it must be said, they are
not always correctly, nor even systematically, employed. The poet
breaks away now and again for whole stanzas from the use of these old
forms; then, as if reminded of the omission, Suddenly scatters a
handful. The style shows more variety than The Seasons. Now it is
serious, grave, even solemn ; now it is cheerful, lively, and gay. It
borders frequently on burlesque, mostly of a genially brisk and airy
character; once or twice it drops into downright inanity (see 1. 383,
Canto II); there are, however, numerous descriptive passages of clear-
ringing and exalted melody sufficient in themselves to rank Thomson
as a genuine singer of commanding rank. It might be possible to trace
in the poetry of Keats and Shelley the influence of those passages.
The poem is less popular than The Seasons, but it is the most
exquisite of all Thomson's works. It consists of two Cantos: the first,
which might almost be entitled The Pleasures of Indolence, describes
the ‘fatal valley gay,’ the enchanting castle and its luxurious appoint-
ments, its wizard, and its willing inmates. The second follows the
career of a certain Knight of Arts and Industry, who, with his friend
the bard Philomelus, invades the valley, Snares the wizard, and offers
freedom to the captives—which they are all at first reluctant, and some
at last unable or unwilling, to accept. These irreclaimable victims of
Indolence are punished by being hunted through the world by Beggary
AVZ RO/DUCTORY AWO 7/5. 4OI
and Scorn. They are compared to a strayed herd of the swine of
Comus, driven by dogs and sticks through the miry thoroughfare of
a provincial town; and with the unsavoury simile the poem rather
abruptly ends.
The four medical stanzas at the end of the first canto were written by
Dr. Armstrong, author of The Art of Preserving Health; and the
description of the indolent bard “more fat thân bard beseems’ (Canto
I, st. lxviii) is the Hon. George, afterwards Lord, Lyttelton's portrait of
Thomson himself.
In May, 1802, Wordsworth wrote a set of eight Spenserian stanzas in
his pocket copy of The Castle of Indolence, which may briefly be
noticed here. They are written in a style that is in wonderful harmony
with that of Thomson, except that it is more diffuse. They offer two
additional portraits to the series of the Castle inmates, representing more
or less faithfully Wordsworth himself and his friend Coleridge. The
latter is thus presented :- - -
“With him there often walked in friendly guise,
Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree,
A noticeable man with large gray eyes,
And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly
As if a blooming face it ought to be :
Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,
Depressed by weight of musing phantasie;
Profound his forehead was, though not severe,
Yet some did think that he had little business here.”
And the two together are thus described in the last stanza :—
‘He would entice that other man to hear
His music, and to view his imagery:
And, sooth, these two did love each other dear
As far as love in such a place could be ;
There did they dwell, from earthly labour free,
As happy spirits as were ever seen :
If but a bird, to keep them company,
Or butterfly sate down they were, I ween,
As pleased as if the same had been a maiden queen.’
D d
4O2. TAZZ C.A.ST/CAE OA' ZAVNOOZAZAVCA.
CANTO I.
The short-lined quatrain of doggerel with which each of the two
Cantos is introduced, and which briefly indicates its contents, is in
imitation of ‘my master Spenser’ (Canto II, st. lii, l. 9). The first canto
of the first Book of The Faerie Queene, for example, has for
prelude— -
* The Patrone of true Holinesse
Foule Errour doth defeate :
Hypocrisie, him to entrappe,
Doth to his home entreate.’
The ‘alas !’ of the third line is in sorrow for the transitoriness of the
pleasures of indolence. It is well named a Castle, for, though the
description conveys rather the idea of a palace, the inmates were really
captives with small chance of regaining their freedom.
The first stanza points the moral of the Allegory. The story com-
mences at the Second stanza. -
I. here. Not in the Castle of Indolence, of course, but in this world.
2. Do not complain of this, i.e. of ‘living by toil”—“thy hard estate.’
3. emmeſ. Doublet, ‘ant’; from A.-S. amete, shortened in Middle
English into amte, whence ‘ant.” The ant has long been proverbial for
its industry. See Proverbs vi. 6. -
4. Sezzáezzce of azz azacierzá daze. Pronounced upon Adam on the
occasion of his expulsion from the Garden of Eden :-‘In the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground” (Gen.
iii. Ig).
7. czarse thy stars. Thy ill fortune—an expression that has survived
belief in the Superstition of astrology. Cp. “ disaster,’ ‘consider,’ ‘influ-
ence,’ &c.
8. a72 heazier baſe, i.e. heavier than toil. For ‘bale, see Glossary.
9. Illustrated at some length in the last five stanzas of this Canto.
Io, II. Cp. the opening lines of Keats's Hyperion. And see Faery
Queene, Bk. I, Canto I, st. xxxiv.
16. with summer half imbrowned. So in the Hymn on the
Seasons—
‘The summer ray
Russets the plain.”—ll. 95, 96.
I7. A listless climate. A warm enervating climate inducing list-
lessness. - *
22. From poppies breathed. Exhaled from poppies. The common
poppy (papaver somniferum) yields the well-known opium, a powerful
narcotic formed of the dried juice of its unripe capsules.
AVOTES, Z. I-43. 4O3
26. as they bickered. The original Celtic meaning of ‘bicker’ is ‘to
skirmish.’ It comes from ‘peak' or ‘peck, and signifies “to keep on
pecking'; applied to a stream it suggests the rapid tremulous movement
of the current. Thomson uses it in the last sense in Winter, 1. 725, in
speaking of the frost “arresting the bickering stream.’
27. a lulling murmur made. The sense here is aptly aided by the
sound, and the monotony is produced by the repetition of the liquid Z's
and m's. For the same effect of monotony produced by the same
cause of repetition, see 1. 45 ºzz/ra.
28–30. Cp. Spring, 11. I97–200–
‘Full swell the woods: their every music wakes,
Mixed in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales.’
31. zacant shepherds. Free from care. Cp. Goldsmith’s ‘loud laugh
that speaks the vacant mind.”—Deserted Village.
32. Philomel. Philomela, one of the two daughters of King Pandion
of Athens, having been transformed into a nightingale, her name is
poetically given to the bird. k
33. ‘plain. For ‘complain.” Referring to the low, soft, plaintive note
of the wood-pigeon.
35. a coil the grasshopper did Žeep. A sharp grating sound with
pleasant associations of sunshine and green fields, accentuating the
repose and stillness of rural life. “Coil,’ which means “noise’ or
‘ bustle, is Celtic—goi!, ragé, battle. The word recurs in Shakespeare
—in Hamlet’s soliloquy, “this mortal coil’; in Romeo and Juliet,
‘Here’s a coil,’ &c.
38 and 4I. See 1. II, suffra.
39. Shadowy forms were seem to move. See Autumn, 11. Io29–
I O2 2–
33 “Oh bear me then to vast embowering shades . . .
Where angel-forms athwart the solemn dusk
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep, along.’
42, 43. blackenzing pizzes, aye zvazyżng . . . Sezzt forth a sleepy horror.
The ‘horror’ was from the ‘blackening pines,’ the sleep was induced by
the monotony of the ‘waving.” Cp. Genesis xv. 12, “A deep sleep fell
upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.’ Cp.
also—
‘Through every joint a gentle horror creeps,
And round you the consenting audience sleeps.”
Thomson’s Soporific Doctor.
D d 2 -
404 THE CASTLE OF INDOZEWCE.
45. The distant undertone and monotone of the sea is finely brought
out in this alliterative line. See Note, 1. 27, suffra.
46–49. These are lines of singular beauty, descriptive of the pleasures
of day-dreaming.
55. The landskiff such. Such was the landscape.
6o. 22nceasing. Unfailing, constant.
61. The palm is the product of a summer climate. In poetry it may
grow in the same soil with the pine, as in Milton’s Eden', Shakespeare's
Arden, the forests of the Faery Queene, &c.
62. Was placed. Was seated; placed himself.
cruel fate. The “labour harsh’ in the next line.
65. that Žass there Öy.
* The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew there by.”—Julius Mickle.
Milton has “that passed that way’ (Par. Lost, Bk. IV, 1. I77) to express
the same idea.
66. chazzzzced to breathe. Happened to rest—take breath from toil.
Contrast this with its older meaning ‘to exert’ or ‘exercise’:—‘I am
not yet well breathed.”—As You Złęe Zá, Act I, sc. ii.
70. Syren melody. Thus described in Comus :-
- ‘I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three, . . .
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium : Scylla wept
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
But they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
* And in sweet madness robbed it of itself.”
According to Homer the Sirens (>elpfives) were sea-nymphs, who had the
power of luring to destruction, by the charm of their songs, all who
heard them. The island on which they lived was between Aeaea and
the rock of Scylla, near the south-west shore of Italy. Homer says
nothing about their number.
76. her wintry tomb. The chrysalis (aurelia), or gold-coloured
sheath of butterflies, &c.
77. What . . . bride can equal her array ? Cp. Thomson's Paraphrase
of the latter part of the sixth chapter of Matthew –
‘What regal vestments can with them compare 2
What king so shining, and what queen so fair?’
1 * Cedar and pine and fir and branching palm,
A sylvan Scene.”—Par. Lost, Bk. IV, 1. I39.
AVOTES, Z. 45–97. 4O 5
82–90. Cp. Thomson's Paraphrase of part of Matthew vi :—
* See the light tenants of the barren air
To them nor stores nor granaries belong,
Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song. . .
To Him they sing . tº e * tº sº
He hears e e & * e © &
And with inspiring bounty fills them all.”
83. careless groze. The grove where they have no cares. Cp. ‘listless
climate,’ 1. I7, supra.
84. the ſlowering thorn. So Burns, in Banks and Braes o' Bonnie
Doon :-
‘Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn.”
85, 86. So Chaucer in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales —
‘Smale fowles maken melodie, . . .
So priketh hem nature in here corages.”—ll. 9, II.
87, 88. They neither plough, nor sow, &c. Cp. Matthew vi. 26:
‘Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns.”
ſº for Žail. Ready for threshing: the reference is to the sheaves.
zzodding sheaves. Cp. Autumn, ll. I, 2–
‘Crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,’ &c.
drove. The tense here is present; an archaic-looking form for
‘drive.’
89, 9o, theirs each harvest, &c. Cp. Pope's Essay on Man—
‘Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.”
Epist. III, 11. 37, 38.
91, 92. the wretched thrall Of bitter-dropping sweat. The slave of
toil. ‘In the Sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’ (Gen. iii. 19).
93. cares that eat away the heart. Cp. Milton’s L’Allegro–
“Ever, against eating cares, #
Lap me in soft Lydian airs.”—ll. I 35, I 36.
95. Savage thirst of gain. Cp. Virgil’s ‘auri sacra fames.’
96. Zºeterest. Self-interest; selfishness.
97. 4 sºad left the plain. In the golden age this star-lovely divinity
lived on earth, and blessed mankind with her presence; but when the
golden age was over, she too, with other divinities that loved the
simplicity of primitive man, at last reluctantly withdrew, shocked at the
crimes and vices which were polluting the early world. She represented
Justice.
4O6 7A/A2 CAST/CAE OA' MAV/OOZAZAVCAE.
97–99. Cp. Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope—
“Murder bared her arm, and rampart War
Yoked the red dragons of her iron car,
[And] Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain,
Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again.”
99. for. Instead of.
Ioo. cumbrous load of life. Here compared to the stone which
Sisyphus was condemned to roll up hill in the infernal world, and which,
as soon as he had pushed it with great labour to the top, always rolled
down again.
Io9. Thomson's own habit latterly was to rise at noon.
IIo. To pass the joyless day. Cp. Burns—“And pass the heartless
day.”—Winter, a /227ge.
III. upstart fortune. Fortunate upstart.
II3–II6. Thomson seems to have cherished an ineradicable hatred
and contempt for pettifogging lawyers. Cp. Autumn, 1. I287–
* Let this through cities work his eager way
By legal outrage and established guile, . . .
- Let these
Ensnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord and perplexing right,
An iron race l’ g
Also Winter, 1. 384—
* The toils of law,-what dark insidious men
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth
And lengthen simple justice into trade—
How glorious were the day that saw these broke l’
II8. Mo cocks . . . to rustic labour call. Cp. Gray's Elegy—
* The cock’s shrill clarion g &
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.’
But see l. 690, infra,-‘ Gout here counts the crowing cocks.’
II8–124. Cp. Cowper's Task, Bk. I, l. 225– A
* Hidden as it is, and far remote
From Such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear
In village or in town, the bay of curs,
Incessant clinking hammers, grinding wheels,
And infants clamorous, whether pleased or pained—
Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine.’
126. Sybarite. A voluptuary. Literally, an inhabitant of Sybaris,
a Greek town in Lucania in southern Italy. The prosperity of the
town induced in the inhabitants an indolent and luxurious habit
of life,
AWOZ’ES, Z. 97–163. 4O7
133. With milky blood the heart is over flown. Cp. Shakespeare's
Macbeth—
‘It [thy nature] is too full o' the milk of human kindness.’
- Act I, Sc. v.
136. What, what is virtue # The repetition of ‘what’ more em-
phatically challenges any other answer to the question than that given
by the sophist.
I40. a proud malignant worm / The factitive object; supply
* making him.’
141. Aztá here, instead, soft gales of Żassion play. See 11. 50–52,
$24??a.
145. Zhe best of men. 149. Zzen those whom ſame, &c. Such as
Scipio Africanus the younger, cited by Thomson himself at 1. I52, 2nfra.
See Winter, ll. 517–52O, and Note:—
‘Scipio, the gentle chief, g • º •
[Who], warm in youth to the poetic shade
With friendship and Philosophy retired.’
The ‘friends’ and ‘philosophers,’ to whose society he is represented as
‘retiring from warfare and politics, included Polybius, Laelius (his
friendship with whom is the subject of Cicero's De Amicitia), Lucilius,
and Terentius. (See Liberty, Part V, ll. 419–42 I.)
I52. the soft Cumaeazz shore. The ancient town of Cumae stood on
the coast of Campania, a few miles to the west of Neapolis (Naples),
and not far from Cape Misenum. It was at Cajeta (Gaeta) on the
border of Campania, but in Latium, where Scipio found retirement.
Its bay is inferior only in beauty to that of Naples. Both Virgil and
Horace have celebrated it.
154. The ‘exercise’ congenial with an indolent life is here made to
include the composition of poetry, gardening, and angling. Compare
the pastimes of Cowper in his Olney retirement—which chiefly consisted
of gardening and ‘the poet’s toil.’
‘How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle ! & § g g § tº
Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen.’
Z%e Zasſé, Bk. III.
I 57. deck the zernal year. Have a fine display of flowers in Spring-
time. -
I58. zwith your watery gear. In Spring ‘thy slender watery stores,’
—flies, rod, line, &c. (See Spring, Il. 383–386.)
I 59. Crimson-spotted ſºy. “The speckled captives’ of Spring, 1. 421.
163. estate. Here it means ‘fortune’ or “possessions’; the original
408 TAZAZ. C.A.S. 7/A, OA' ZAVADO/CAEAVCAE.
meaning is ‘condition of life,’ and the word is used in this sense in 1, 2,
suffra.
I64. beneath the sun. ‘Under the sun’—a recurring phrase in
Ecclesiastes; see chap. viii. 15: ‘The days of his life which God giveth
him under the sun.’
165. comes blind unrelenting fate. Cp. Milton's Lycidas—
‘Comes the blind Fury with the abhorrèd shears
And slits the thin-spun life.’—ll. 75, 76. --~~~ *
I65–169. This passage seems to present various recollections of
Horace, e.g.— *
‘Linquenda tellus et domus
Absumet heres Caecuba dignior
Servata centum clavibus et mero
Tinget pavimentum superbo.’—Car. II. I.4.
‘Jam te premet nox fabulaeque Manes
Et domus exilis Plutonia.’—Car. I. 4.
I72, I73. He ceased. But still, &c. Cp. Milton's Par. Lost, Bk
VIII. 11. I–3:— - -
* The angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.’
177–180. This in itself is an exquisite simile, charming the imagina-
tion with both picture and melody; but it is, in respect of application,
hardly in harmony with a throng entering pell-mell and pouring in heaps
on heaps. True, Thomson describes this same throng as slipping along
at the same time in silent ease; but the mind refuses to blend two descrip-
tions that are so contradictory. See 1. 208, infra.
The simile suggests a scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The
‘gleam of 1. I79 is, of course, the reflected light of summer-moons.
The entrance of the fairy train into the natural world from their super-
natural home is finely suggested by the concluding line of the stanza.
I8I. Žhe smooth demozz. The wizard, Indolence. His character is
evidently modelled on that of Archimago in the Faery Queene, whose
tongue was ‘filed as smooth as glass,’ and who “ of pleasing wordes
had store’ (I. i. xxxv). See Canto II, l. 281, infra, for confirmation of
this idea.
195, 196. the giant crew, Who sought, &c. The Titans, or rather
the Gigantes, who are often confounded with the Titans.
209. A comely full-spread porter, swoln, &c. Cp, with Morpheus in
the Faery Queene, I. i. xl.-xliv,
215. black staff. His rod, or wand of office.
AWOTAES, Z. I64-249. 4O9
his man. His servant. Cp. Shakespeare's Tempest :-
* Caliban
Has a new master;-get a new man l’
221, 222. each band . . . . Garters and buckles. Of the inmates of
the Castle.
223. But ill. “But is here an adverb, with an intensive force on
* ill.”
225. performed it. The pronoun ‘it’ here represents the disengage-
ment of the bands, buckles, &c.
229, 230. The downs of Hants and Dorset were well-known to
Thomson. He was a frequent visitor at Eastbury House, and had
lived at Twiford. “When Evening frowns,’ i.e. “darkens.’
234. and turned to sleep again. So Morpheus in the Faery Queene
(I. i. xliv).
240, nepenthe. A drug which lulled sorrow, or freed from Sorrow.
From Gr. viſ-, negative, and Tév60s, grief.
* Not that Nepenthes . . . .
Is of such power to stir up joy.’—Comus, 11. 675, 677.
241–243. as Dazz Homer sºngs. For ‘Dan' see Glossary. Homer
refers to the pain-lulling property of a certain drug which when cast
into wine brought oblivion of every sorrow. In the Odyssey he traces
its origin to Egypt, “where earth, the grain-bestower, yields abundance of
herbs, many medicinal and many baneful,” and describes the use which
was made of it by ‘Helena, daughter of Zeus.” Milton also refers to this
passage in the Odyssey:-
‘Nepenthes, which the wife of Thone [Polydamna]
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena.’—Comus, 11. 675, 676.
242. oblivion of . . earthly care. Cp. “And all their friends and
native home forget.”—Comzes, 1.76.
244. This line consists of two absolute clauses.
247. through hal/ or glade. In the Castle, or in the Castle grounds.
‘Hall’ is usually associated with “bower’—both words signifying
rooms in a house, the “hall’ the public room, and “bower' a private
TOOIſl.
‘I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.’
Comizes, 11.43-45.
It is impossible that Thomson has mistaken the meaning of ‘bower’ by
offering ‘glade,’ with its woodland bowers, as a translation.
249. as likes him best. The verb is impersonal, and is followed by a
f
4 IO 7AE CASTLE OF INDOZAENCE.
dative. Literally, “As it is likest or most suitable for him.’ So, “if you
like,' is “if to you it be suitable or pleasing.’
25o. his neighbour's trade. His neighbour's affairs, whether of
business or pastime.
257. blank area. Empty by reason of their departure. The metaphor
is a white page, having nothing printed on it.
261. “So that one was almost constrained to think that one was
dreaming.” The ‘singular” use of ‘you’ is to be noticed here.
262. The beautiful simile beginning here is in the manner of Milton;
see e.g. Par. Lost, Bk. IV, ll. 159–165, and 11. I83–191; only it is
more loosely connected with the passage (in the preceding stanza) which
it is meant to illustrate, than are any of Milton's with their context.
Milton’s ‘as’ is usually followed, though at a long interval, by a corre-
lating ‘so which makes application of the simile to the scene or action
described. There is here no such final application of the simile; the
introductory ‘as is the sole connection, and it seems to introduce an
afterthought. The simile is intended, of course, to illustrate the
Suddenness and completeness of the change from ‘endless numbers
swarming round” to ‘solitude and perfect silence'; but the reader is
less concerned with the thing illustrated than with the illustration, and
his imagination is inclined rather to stay with the shepherd on that
sunset-illumined isle ‘placed far amid the melancholy main’ than to
return to the blank area of the Castle courtyard.
the Aebrid Zsles. The Western islands of Scotland, from Lewis to
Islay.
263. amzād the melancholy main. A musical and suggestive phrase.
Cp. Autumn, ll. 861–864:—
‘Where the Northern Ocean in vast whirls
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thulê, and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.’
264. Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles. Cp. Wordsworth’s
Excursion—
* By creative feeling overborne,
Or by predominance of thought oppressed.”—Bk. I.
268. A harbus diffs his wain. The sun sets. Cp. Milton's Comus—
‘The gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream.’—ll. 95–97.
27I. Here, after an apology to the very vice of Indolence which it is
the object of his poem to expose (see also l. 3 of the quatrain which
introduces this canto), Thomson commences a series of stanzas—ending
MOTES, Z. 250–290. 4 II
with stanza lv.—which might very well be entitled The Pleasures of
Indolence. But for his having himself been a votary of Indolence, he
thinks he could have done justice to the subject! It will hardly be
denied that the indolent habit of Thomson well qualified him both to
appreciate and to express, as he has done, the pleasures of an idle and
easy life.
275. “What never yet was heard in tale or song.”—Comus, 1. 44.
276, attempt such arduous string. ‘Essay a strain so difficult—a
subject so much beyond my power.” The metaphor is taken from the art
of the musician whose instrument is the harp. -
277. nightly days. Days turned into nights by sleeping or idling
through them. Thomson's normal hour of rising was noon.
279. 24/rear may moulted wing. Rouse my imagination which has not
been exercised for a long time. The image is a falcon confined to a
Iſle W.
281. imſ of /oze. For ‘imp,’ see Glossary, The nine Muses were
the daughters of Zeus, or Jupiter, and Mnemosyne, or Memory.
282, 283. Zhoze Veț sha/# sing, &c. And so he has, in Rule Bri-
tannia. Cp. Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis (1. I62)—
‘Ipse ego Dardanias Rutupina per aequora puppes
Dicam . . . .”
284. There is no reference here to any intended translation from
classical authors—for which, indeed, Thomson had not the necessary
scholarship; but to a revival of the old approved methods and themes
of poetry. -
285–288. Thomson's dramas were Sophonisba (1730), Agamemnon
(1738), Edward and Eleanora (1739), Tancred and Sigismunda (1745),
and Coriolanus (1749—the year after his death). The Masque of Alfred
(I?40) may be added, for the sake of the lyric, Rule Britannia—though
most of the piece was the composition of Malloch.
This stanza is interesting as containing a sketch of Thomson's literary
plans. See, for a reference to other plans of a like nature, the concluding
lines of his Autumn, and the Note. -
285. 272 tragic fall. Cp. the ‘inky cloak' in Hamlet. Lat. £al/a, a
mantle. ‘Thespis was succeeded [in representations of the tragic
drama] by Æschylus, who erected a permanent stage, and was the
inventor of the mask [personal, of the long flowing robe [falla], and
of the high-heeled shoe or buskin [cothurnus], which tragedians wore ;
whence these words are put for a tragic style or for tragedy itself.”—
Adam's Roman Antiquities.
289, 29O. no shrill . . . bell, AWe cursed Ánocker, Cp. Cowper's Task,
Bk. IV— tº
4 I 2 ZTA/E CA.S. 7T/A2 OF. ZAVDOZAZAVCAE.
“No powdered pert, proficient in the art
Of sounding an alarm assaults these doors
Till the street rings.”—ll. I45-I47.
292. expand. Used transitively here in the first edition.
293. The pride of Turkey, &c. Carpets, introduced into Europe
from the East, where the custom among Orientals of sitting cross-legged
on the floor suggested their invention.
297. each spacious room was one full-swelling bed. ‘The first canto,'
says Johnson, ‘opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination.’
Much of ‘the lazy luxury' is caught in this one line.
298–300. These lines remind one of the banquetting hall in the
‘stately palace’ of Comus—‘set out with all manner of deliciousness:
soft music, tables spread with all dainties.’
* See, here be all the pleasures
That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts,
And first behold this cordial julep here
That flames and dances in his crystal bounds
With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed.’
Comus, 11. 668–674.
Thomson's music is not provided till we come to 1. 343; and then he
devotes three stanzas to it.
300-302. Cp. Comus— \
‘Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth,
Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks,
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please and sate the curious taste § '—11. 7 Io-714.
3.03—306. . . You need but wish . . . A refinement of the well-
known device to be found in fairy and Oriental tales of purveying a
feast by the utterance of a few magical words. Even ‘signs’ are dis-
pensed with in The Castle of Indolence, as being too fatiguing. . . .
306. thick the glasses played. The light glanced on innumerable
glasses. ‘Thick’ almost always signifies numerous’ in The Seasons.
308. ancient maiden. The modern ‘old maid’—popularly supposed
to be the Source of all the scandal that disturbs a neighbourhood.
309. Saintly spleezz. The ill-nature, or spite, of clerical bigotry;
or, it might be, the interference of ‘the unco guid’—as they are called in
Scotland.
3 Io. Poisoning one’s pleasures, and making them ‘pall, by de-
nouncing them as sinful. “Pall’ here is used ‘ causatively.” The use of
“our’ is to be noted: Thomson frankly classes himself amongst the
votaries of Indolence. -
316. Tapestry—said to have been invented by the Saracens, and
AWOTES, Z. 292–333. 4 I3
early introduced into Europe as a decorative hanging for the walls of
rooms. The famous Bayeux tapestry contains embroidered representa-
tions of battle, and military movements, connected with the Norman
invasion and conquest of England. It belongs to the eleventh, at latest
the twelfth century, and is the oldest piece in existence. The Flemings
brought the highest decorative art to the weaving of tapestry. Even
Raphael furnished carefully prepared designs for the tapestry-weavers.
Historical and ideal sylvan and pastoral scenes were favourite subjects
of the tapestry designers. - -
317. inwozen many a gentle žale. The incidents of many a love
history, and pastoral romance, were represented. |
318, 319. £he rural Žoets [of old], &c. Theocritus, a native of
Syracuse, represented in his Idyls—which, for dramatic simplicity and
fidelity to nature have never been equalled—scenes in the ordinary life
of the people of Sicily. Virgil imitated him, but he wants the force
and naturalness of Theocritus. Cowper, in The Task, Bk. IV, refers to
‘ those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings.”
327. the Chaldee land. ‘Ur of the Chaldees,’ Gen. xi. 31. For
an account of Abram's wanderings see the immediately succeeding chap-
ters. What time, a Latinism, quo &empore, used also by Milton and
other poets.
328. The word ‘nomad’ (Gr. vopºds) exactly expresses the meaning
of this line—‘ roaming in search of pasture.” Cp.— -
“From plain to plain they led their flocks,
In search of clearer spring and fresher field.’
ſ Zööerºy, II, 11. 5, 6.
329. engage. ‘ Promise ’ (or ‘pledge’—the Original meaning, from
Fr. gage, Lat. zas, zadis); ‘where water and pasture were most pro-
mising.” The secondary meaning of ‘ engage ' is ‘ allure’ or ‘attract.”
333. true golden age. It is the indolence of the patriarchal age, its
large leisure, and immunity from the cares of city and political life, that
so charm Thomson, and that make the representations of that primitive
mode of life adorn the tapestried rooms of the Castle so appropriately.
As for ‘the golden times’ of the ancient poets (see a description of them
in Ovid’s Metam. lib. i.), in the words of Cowper—
“Those days were never; airy dreams
Sat for the picture; and the poet’s hand,
Imparting substance to an empty shade,
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.”—Zhe Task, Bk. IV.
It is to be noted that it is not the golden age, nor the patriarchal age,
which Thomson has described in Spring, Il. 241–270, but the age of
innocence—what he calls ‘those prime of days.”
f
y
*
f
4 I4 7"HAE CA.S. 77A2 OA' ZAV/DOZAZAVCA.
334, the fencil. The word is used here in the old sense—a small
hair-brush for painting with. Old Fr. ſincel, from Lat. fenecillus, a
brush, or small tail; from Žemis, a tail. “Sometimes’ in this line
signifies ‘in some of the rooms —the cool airy galleries.
336. Here autumn figures in a brown dress; but the colour is given
to summer (l. 16, suffra); and in an illustrated enumeration of the
seasons, in The Hymn, ll. 95, 96, Thomson describes “the summer ray
as russetting the plain.”
341, 342. Zorrazzº Zºghā-dozached . . . saz age A'osa . . /earned Poussiaz.
These descriptive epithets are all well-chosen. Claude Gelée, named
Lorraine from his birthplace, was born in 16oo, and studied, and finally
settled, at Rome. He died in 1682. ‘His tints have such an agreeable
sweetness and variety as to have been imperfectly imitated by the best
subsequent artists, and were never equalled.’ He studied Nature in the
open fields, “where he frequently continued from sunrise till the dusk of
the evening, sketching whatever he thought beautiful or striking.” One
critic describes his ‘skies’ as ‘warm, and full of lustre,’ with every
object ‘properly illumined ’—the ‘distances’ admirable, and in every
part ‘a delightful union and harmony.” Another writes—“No one could
paint with greater beauty, brilliancy and truth the effects of sunlight at
various hours of the day, of wind on foliage, the dewy moisture of
morning shadows, or the magical blending of faint and ever-fainter hues
in the far horizon of an Italian sky.’ In the National Gallery, London,
are excellent specimens of Claude's art, of which may be mentioned
‘Cephalus and Procris’ and ‘Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.’
Salvator Rosa was born in the vicinity of Naples in 1615. He settled
in Rome when he was twenty-three, and died there in 1673. His fame,
like that of Claude, rests on his landscapes. His subjects are ‘generally
representations of wild and savage scenes executed with a freedom and
decision remarkably appropriate.” Nicolas Poussin, the most popular
figure and landscape painter of his time, though a Frenchman—having
been born at Andelys in Normandy, in 1594—owed his education in art,
and the patronage he ultimately so abundantly received, to Italy. He
was thirty before he acquired the means of visiting Rome. Here he
settled; and died here in 1665. He was a most accomplished painter;
Sir Joshua Reynolds said of him that “no works of any modern have so
much the air of antique painting as those of Poussin.” His designs are
often pagan, not to say impure ; but his execution, says Hazlitt,
‘supplies the want of decorum.” Poussin the elder better deserves the
epithet “ learned' than his brother-in-law Gaspar Dughet, commonly
referred to as Poussin the younger.
Thomson had a refined taste in pictures, and during his Italian tour
NOTES, ſ. 334–38o. - 4 I 5
made a collection of antique drawings and engravings from the old
masters, which, to the number of Some eighty, were sold with his other
effects in the cottage at Kew-foot Lane, Richmond, in 1748, the year of
his death. The walls of his cottage were also adorned with numerous
pictures. º
356. the zwell-fumed instrument. An AEolian harp, thus described in
Chambers's Encyc. : ‘It is formed by stretching eight or ten strings of
catgut, all tuned in unison, over a wooden shell or box, made generally
in a form sloping like a desk. The sounds produced by the rising and
falling wind, in passing over the strings, are of a drowsy and lulling
character . . . . the most suitable kind of music for The Castle of Indo-
lence.” Thomson has an Ode on AEolus's Harp. See Collins's Ode on
the Death of Thomson—stanza second.
358. each mortal touch, &c. The fingers of the most accomplished
player.
359. 7%e god of winds. AEolus. See Virgil's Aeneid, Bk. I,
ll. 56–67, for a description of his cave-castle and his unruly subjects.
362. 2.; the lofty diapasozz. “Through all the notes of an octave.”
From Gk. Ötö tragóv (xopöðv), through all the chords.
364. Zhez leſſ them down again into the soul. Cp. Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night—‘That strain again it had a dying fall,’ &c. (Act I.
Sc. i.).
365. pleasing dole. ‘Sweet sorrow’—as Juliet says of lovers parting
(Act II. Sc. ii).
368. E.g. the hymn of the Angels on the night of the Nativity; or,
Psalm cºxxvii. (See Thomson's Ode on AEolus's Harp.)
369. Wild waröling. Cp. Milton’s L’Allegro–
“[If] sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.”—ll. 133, 134.
Burns, in The Cotter's Saturday Night, has-‘Dundee's wild-warbling
measures.’
371. Caliphs. Fr. caliſe, from Arab. Khalifa, successor (of the
prophet).
372. Baghdad; the scene of many of the stories of The Arabian
Nights’ Entertainments.
375. the Čard in waiting. Thomson has the following note : ‘The
Arabian Caliphs had poets among the officers of their court, whose
office it was to do what is here mentioned.’ See Moore's Oriental
Romance, Lalla Rookh—where ‘the young poet of Cashmere' ‘cheers
the [long journey] with the Muses' lore.”
379, 380, Cp. George Peele's King David and Fair Bethsabe—
416 ZAZZ CAS 77A2 OA' ZAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
“I’ll build a kingly bower
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams.
That shall . . . . . . . . . . . .
In oblique turnings wind the nimble waves
& And with their murmur Summon easeful sleep
A To lay his golden sceptre on her brows.’
See also Faerie Queene, I. i. xli.
385. demons of the tempest. See Winter, l. 193—‘the demon of the
night.” $
. Morpheus sent his kindest dreams. Morpheus was the son of
Sleep, and the god of Dreams—literally, “the shaper’ or ‘creator’ (of
dreams), from Gr. poppí, shape. We learn from the next stanza that
the dreams were sent by the hand of angel-forms. So Spenser—
“And forth he cald out of deepe darknes dredd
Tegions of Sprights . . . . . . . . .
Of those he chose out two tº tº
The one of them he gave a message to.
He, making speedy way through spersed ayre,
To Morpheus' house doth hastily repaire. .
The God obayde; and, calling forth straightway
A diverse Dreame out of his prison darke
T)elivered it to him . . . . . . . .
IHe, back returning by the Yvorie dore,
• Remounted up as light as chearefull Larke;
And on his litle winges the dreame he bore
In hast unto his Lord.”—I. i. xxxviii-xliv.
390. shadowy cast AEłysianz gleams. The Elysium here referred to is
that of Virgil, the residence of the shades of the Blessed in the lower
world,—‘ a pensive though a happy place.’ To the Elysium of Homer
heroes passed without dying : it was no part of the regions of the dead,
but situated on the west of the earth, near the ocean stream.
392. ‘The light that never was on sea or land’ (Wordsworth’s Elegiac
Stanzas on a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm).
393. Titian's Żencil. Vecelli Tiziano (better known as Titian) ranks
with Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michael Angelo, as one of the
great Italian masters of painting. He was born of a noble family at
Capo del Cadore, among the Friulian mountains in the Venetian
territory, in 1480. He was educated at Venice, where he had Giorgione,
famous as a colourist, for one of his instructors. Titian lived to a great
AWOZ’AS, Z. 385–447. 4 I 7
age—96, and produced upwards of six hundred works. The splendour of
his colouring, which is equally bold and true, is the great attribute of his
style. ‘The luxury of light did never so enrich a painter's canvas.’
The best specimen of his art in the National Gallery is his Bacchus and
Ariadne.
4O4. Aozèred all th’ Arabiazz heazerz. In visions of fair women (see
ll. 395, 396, supra)—houris, or nymphs of Paradise. ‘Arabian' =
‘ Mohammedan.”
409. those fiends. The bringers of horrible dreams, in contrast to
the “angel-seeming spirits’ of 1. 402. *.
413. beetling. Derived by Prof. Skeat from “bite’—a beetling cliff
resembling a projecting lower jaw. Cp. ‘beetle-browed.”
415. We guardiazz spirits. Guardian angels—as distinct from ‘the
angel-Seeming spirits’ of 1. 402 as from the ‘fiends’ of 1. 409. See a
description of the ministry of holy angels on earth in Spenser's Faerie
Queene, Book II, Canto vii, stanzas i and ii, “And is there care in
heaven 2 ” &c. -
419. See Winter, 1. 438, where begins a long enumeration of ‘the
sacred shades’ of ancient Greece and Rome. -
422. Zhose long losé friends. Such as his mother (see Thomson's
Lines on his Mother’s Death); Miss Stanley (see Summer, ll. 564–575,
and see also the Epitaph—especially the concluding lines, given in the
Note on Summer, 1. 564); Hammond (see Winter, 11. 555–571); and
Aikman the painter (see his Lines on the Death of Mr. Aikman,
beginning— -
* ‘As those we love decay, we die in part').
The memory of dear departed friends is here fittingly introduced as a
safeguard of virtue.
424. Or are you sportive 2–bid the morm of youth, &c. The
‘ guardian spirits’ of 1. 415 are addressed. The memories of childhood
and youth are summoned as a preservative against vice and vain
imaginations, which come to an indolent life.
428-431. Recollections of his native Teviotdale.
433–436. Cp. Cowper's Task, Bk. IV:—
‘’Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat
To peep at such a world; to see the stir }
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd,’ &c.—ll. 88–90.
437. idly bassy. Cp. Goldsmith's Traveller—
“Thus idly busy rolls their world away.”
44I. greater.waste. Sc. ‘of energy and time.”
447. In Scotland this proverb runs—‘A penny hained ’s a penny
gained.” - -
E e
'418 THE CAS 77A2 OF ZAVZ) OZAEAVCAE.
tº
45o. 7?!! it has quenched his fire, and banished his pot. Till he
becomes a confirmed miser, who at last denies himself both fire and
food. Thomson had not only a great detestation of the mere money-
grubbing spirit, but practised himself with his modest means a careless
liberality. He was indifferent about money all his life.
45I. Žhis low grub. The afore-mentioned “muckworm.’ The contrast
beginning here has been often pointed—not always for the purpose
of conveying the same moral. (See Il. 163–169 supra, and Note). g
455. Cp. the opening stanzas of Byron's Childe Harold.
456. Thomson is persistently severe upon lawyers. See 1. II6 supra,
and Note,
458, 459. Limbo, or limbus, the borders of hell. The imagery of
these lines is taken from the second scene of the Parable of the Rich
Man and Lazarus. “Him in the concluding line of course refers to the
‘father's ghost.”
463. 2n a 7%espiazz rage. The reference to ambitious authorship in
stanza lii. is not confined to dramatic writers: the words quoted here
probably signify ‘in a frenzy’ or ‘in a tragic rage.” Thespis was the
father of Greek tragedy, and the first to give it a strictly dramatic
character: before his time (he flourished 535 B.C.), there was no actor;
everything was undertaken by the chorus. •
466. “Losing the present in order to gain the future age.’
468. zwhen zeseless worldly store. ‘When fame is of no personal use
to you.’
472, 473. At every door, &c. Cp. Cowper's Task, Bk. IV, 11.
I44–147 :—
* No rattling wheels stop short before these gates,’ &c.
See also 1. 290 32%ra, and Note.
474–477. Calls, scandal, and invitations—the pastimes of the world
of fashion.
478. sons of party. Party politicians. The whole of the stanza
commencing here is a humorously ludicrous account of our English
mode of government by party. “We keep it going like an hour-glass;
when one side's quite run out we turn up the other and go on again '
(Jerrold). Cp. Cowper's account, under a more dignified figure than
Thomson’s, in The Task, Bk. IV, 11. 57–62,
483. Zucifer. Thomson himself is careful to state in a note that by
Lucifer he means ‘the morning star.'
487. Thomson passes from the pursuit of politics to the game of
war—‘ a game which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play
at.”—Cowper, The Task, Bk. V. w
498. Zhose who at the helm appear. Rulers, statesmen in office, &c.
AWOZ’’FS, Z. 450–55 I. 4 IQ
501. Cp. Chaucer's line—
‘And yit he seemede besier than he was.”—Prol., l. 322.
502. tape-fied trash, and suits of fools. Papers and documents, useless
but looking very important; and applications and supplications that will
never be granted.
506. a man of special graze remaré. The original of this character-
sketch was almost certainly William Paterson, Thomson's intimate
friend, occasionally his amanuensis, his deputy, and successor in 1746,
in the Surveyor-Generalship of the Leeward Islands, and the translator
of the historian Paterculus. Not much more is known about Paterson,
except that, as Murdoch says, “he courted the tragic muse, and had
taken for his subject the story of Arminius the German hero.' The
Censor refused it licence, because it was in the handwriting of Edward
and Eleanora ! There is a long and interesting letter from Thomson
(of date, middle of April, 1748, addressed to Paterson at Barbadoes)
which reveals the intimacy between the two friends. The letter is
sufficient to prove that Thomson could write beautiful prose; but it is
too long to quote at length. Part of it runs:– -
‘Now that I am prating of myself, know that after fourteen or
fifteen years The Castle of Indolence comes abroad in a fortnight. It
will certainly travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an apartment in it
as a night pensioner.” The description would suit Collins.
516. Dan Sol. The sun, the lord of day.
527. the cerulean field. The heavens— the azure deep of air’ of Gray
(Progress of Poesy); ‘the broad fields of the sky” of Milton (Comus,
1. 979).
534. One shyer still. The prototype of this character was John
Armstrong, son of a Roxburghshire minister, and M. D. (1732) of
Edinburgh University. He went up to London, and first attracted notice
by his verses. In 1744 appeared his Art of Preserving Health. He was
a skilful physician, but his shy, caustic, indolent manner kept him out of
a very lucrative practice. He died in 1779. Thomson was his senior
by some nine years. In the letter to Paterson, referred to above,
Thomson writes thus of Armstrong: ‘Though the doctor increases in
business he does not decrease in spleen; but there is a certain kind
of spleen that is both humane and agreeable, like Jacques in the play:
I sometimes, too, have a touch of it.”
54I. a zwretch, who had not creſt abroad (for forty years). The
‘wretch of this stanza is said to have been a ‘Henry Welby, Esquire,
an eccentric solitaire of the period.’ -
551. A joyous youth. The original of this character was John
Forbes, only son of Duncan Forbes of Culloden, President of the Court
E e 2
42O TA/A2 CAS 7"ZAZ OA' WAVZ) OZAZAVCAE.
of Session, Scotland. (See Autumn, Note, 1. 944.) Writing to a friend
(George Ross) in 1736, Nov. 6, “Remember me,’ says Thomson, “to all
friends, and above them all heartily to Mr. Forbes. Though my
affection to him is not fanned by letters, yet it is as high as when I was
his brother in the virtu, and played at chess with him in a post-chaise.”
Again, on Jan. I2, 1737, he writes to Ross— Forbes I hope is cheerful
and in good health. . . . Remember me kindly to him with all the zealous
truth of old friendship.’ But the description would suit Hammond. ,
See Winter, 11. 566-569.
558. See 1. 289, suffra.
568, a &zernished ſly. Thomson used good-humouredly to call
Hammond, whom Dr. Robertson of Richmond knew as “a very pleasant
man,’ ‘a burnished butterfly.’ Compare the simile, in its loose attach-
ment to stanza lxiii, with that of stanza xxx.
577. Azzother guest. George, Lord Lyttelton. See Spring, Note, 1.905.
594. Hagley Paré. The seat of Lord Lyttelton, in Worcestershire.
See Spring, Note, 1.907. The following stanza, which is supposed to
refer to the wife of the future Lord Lyttelton, is said to be by Thomson,
but it has nothing to recommend it as his, except the rhymes and the
compliment to the lady. It was never printed in Thomson's lifetime.
‘One nymph there was, methought, in bloom of May,
On whom the idle fiend glanced many a look
In hopes to lead her down the slippery way
To taste of pleasure's deep deceitful brook:
No virtues yet her gentle mind forsook,
No idle whims, no vapours filled her brain;
But prudence for her youthful guide she took,
And goodness, which no earthly vice could stain,
Dwelt in her mind: she was ne proud, I ween, or vain.”
595. th’ Esopus of the age. James Quin, the actor. He was of
Irish descent;, born in London in 1693, he began his career as a player
in Dublin at the age of twenty-one; proceeded to London, where he
made his mark, in 1716, in the character of Bajazet in Marlowe's
Tragedy of Tamerlane; and from 1735 to 1741 was regarded as the
first actor in England, delighting Drury Lane Theatre with his
.impersonations of Falstaff and Captain Macheath. On the appearance
of Garrick he gradually ceased to be the popular favourite. He died in
I766. Quin’s relations to Thomson were of the friendliest. About the
year I 737 Thomson was arrested for a debt of some £70 : Quin came to
his relief, and insisted on the astonished debtor's acceptance of £1 oo as
payment of the pleasure he had derived from Thomson's works. Quin
was a frequentvisitor at Thomson's cottage at Richmond, where, indeed,
AWOTAES, Z. 558–628. - 42 I
his convivial habits rather scandalized the neighbourhood. He was one
of the four intimate friends who attended the funeral of Thomson
in 1748. When Thomson’s posthumous play of Coriolanus was first
acted in 1749, Quin, dressed in a suit of mourning, spoke the Prologue
(which had been written by Lyttelton) with such genuine feeling and
eloquence that, at the line ‘Alas! I feel I am no actor here !” there
was scarcely a dry eye in the theatre. It may be added that Shenstone
thought Thomson’s ‘ manner of speaking not unlike Quin’s.’
The AEsopus, to whom Thomson compares Quin, was Clodius
AEsopus, the greatest Roman actor of tragedy, the friend and con-
temporary of Cicero, and of Roscius—the greatest Roman actor of
comedy. - g
6O4. This line, descriptive of his own disposition and habit of body, is
the only part of stanza lxviii which Thomson composed. The rest was
written by Lyttelton. Thomson’s figure in youth was handsome.
613, 614. A gentle satire on the indolent lives of the clergy.
615. oily man of God. The original of this character was Thomson's
old and intimate friend and countryman—afterwards his kindly bio-
grapher—the Rev. Patrick Murdoch. Murdoch was tutor to John
Forbes, ‘the joyous youth of 1. 551, and afterwards to the son of
Admiral James Vernon of Great Thurlow. By the latter he was
presented to the living of Stradishall in Suffolk in 1737–8. Writing
on the 12th Jan., 1738, Thomson refers to “Pettie's' settlement as
follows: “Pettie came here two or three days ago: I have not yet seen
the round “man of God” to be. He is to be parsonified a few days
hence. How a gown and cassock will become him and with what
a holy leer he will edify the devout females . There is no doubt of
his having a call, for he is immediately to enter upon a tolerable living
[{Ioo a year] | God grant him more, and as fat as himself It rejoices
me to see one worthy excellent man raised at least to an independency.’
Murdoch was afterwards promoted to the living of Kettlebaston,
and finally, in 1760, to the vicarage of Great Thurlow. It was here
he wrote his Memoir of Thomson. He died in 1774.
622. A variety of the genus, the village politician, has been immor-
talised by Wilkie. -
625. on their brow sat every nation's cares. The line comically
recalls the sublime description of Milton –
* Care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
Of dauntless courage.”—Par. Zost, Bk. I, 11. 601–603
627, 628. The references are to tobacco-smoking and coffee-drinking.
422 7A/AE CAS ZZAZ OA' AAVZ)OZAZAVCAE.
628. Sage berry. . . Mocha àears. Coffee-bean (Arab. &ztzen), not a berry.
Mocha is in Arabia. -
630. mysterious as of old. ‘Ambiguously expressed, so as to apply
equally well to contradictory results; * or ‘ expressed definitely enough,
but with an air of confidence in their infallibility that is, in the absence
of knowledge, rather “mysterious.””
632. Bezies of dainty dames. Cp. Milton, ‘A bevy of fair women,
richly gay’ (Par. Lost, Bk. XI, 1.582). For ‘bevies, see Glossary.
638. To knit, and make up bouquets; perhaps embroider.
640–648. See Young's Love of Fame, Sat. V- The languid lady
next appears,’ &c.
644. with foſtering step and slow. Goldsmith has “With fainting
steps and slow.”—Hermit.
648. &he zapoury god. Sleep, with its opiate fumes. See Il. 21, 22,
$24/hra.
657. As foretold at 1. 414, suffra. -
658–693. These thirty-six lines, forming the four concluding stanzas
of Canto I, and consisting of an enumeration of the diseases which are
fostered by an indolent life, were the composition of Thomson's friend,
Dr. Armstrong (see Note, 1. 534 supra). They afford a gloomy contrast
to the rest of the Canto—which, but for them, might almost be entitled,
The Pleasures of Indolence, over the motto “Polce far nieſzłe.’
Armstrong's stanzas remind one of the lazar-house in the eleventh book
of Paradise Lost, ll. 477-492.
660. Zethargy. From Gr. Améapyta, drowsiness; Añ0m, oblivion.
668. Hydropsy. Dropsy—in O. F. hydropisie; from Gr. §öop, water
672. Hypochondria. Melancholy. “Named from the spleen (which
was supposed to cause it) situate under the cartilage of the breast-bone:
Gr. Śró, under; and Xóvãpos, cartilage of the breast-bone’ (Prof.
Skeat). Cp. ‘hipped’= ‘melancholy.” Armstrong could well write
about the spleen, both as a physician, and a patient. (See Note, 1. 534.)
689. the Zerſian Fr. tertiane, a tertian ague—recurring every third
day; Lat. Zer, thrice.
690. Gout: Lat. gutta, a drop ; the disease having been Supposed to
be owing to defluxion of humours. See, for ‘crowing cocks,’ 1. IIS
supra.
692. Aftoplexy. From Gr. 376, off, and TAftoga', I strike.
AWOZ’ÉS, Z. 628–692—ZZ. I-24. 423
CANTO II. *
I. the sire of sin. Indolence. Cp. the homely motto of Dr. Isaac
Watts, ‘Satan finds,’ &c.
Io, the Muse. The poet is indirectly meant. Milton is more direct
—“So may some gentle muse,’ Lycidas, l. Ig. --
II. Parnassus. A double-headed mountain mass a few miles north
of Delphi in Greece, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and “an inspiring
source of poetry and song.” Divested of its mythological imagery the
question of this line is simply “Are there no means of securing for the
poor poet the profits arising from his poetry 3”
I4. a fell tribe. The middleman—in the poet's case the publisher.
the Aonian hive. Aonia was part of Boeotia in which stood Mount
Helicon, also sacred to the Muses. The Muses were sometimes called
‘Aonides.” In the metaphor the poet is the bee, poetry the honey, the
publisher the wasp.
16. that noblest toil. The making of poetry. Cowper, too, speaks of
‘the poet's toil’ in Bk. IV of The Task (I. 262). -
18. Starve right merrily. Poets have from time immemorial been
notorious for their poverty. For the manner (‘merrily’) in which they bear
their poverty, cp. Cowper's description of the English poor in Bk. IV
of The Task (467, 468): “this merry land, though lean and beggared.’
I9–27. This stanza contains the poet’s noble protest against the
belief that money can confer happiness. So Goldsmith, in the midst
of obscurity and poverty, could exclaim—
* Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine.”—Trazeller.
And so Burns—
‘What though, like commoners of air,
We wander out, we know not where,
But either house or hall ?
Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The Sweeping vales, an’ foaming floods,
Are free alike to all.
It’s no’ in titles nor in rank,
It’s no’ in wealth like Lon’on bank
To purchase peace and rest,’ &c.
- Afºstle to Dazie, 11. 43–59.
23, 24. £o ºrace the . . lawns by Zizing stream, aſ eve. Cp. Milton–
‘Such sights as youthful poets dream
On Summer eves by haunted stream.’
Z’Allegro, ll. I29, 130.
4.24 THAE CAS 7/A2 OF /AWDO/CAEAVCAE.
And Burns
f ‘The muse, nae poet ever fand her
Till by himsel’ he learnt to wander
Adoun some trotting burn’s meander.’
A pistle to William Simson, ll. 85–87.
25. finer fibres. Brains; poetical powers.
26. Azad / their toys to the great children leave. Burns has the same
sentiment—
‘The warly race may drudge an’ drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive :
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,
And I, with pleasure,
Shall let the busy grumbling hive
Bum owre their treasure.”
Apistle to W. Simson, ll. 91–96.
27. fancy. The poetical factilty.
28. a bolder song, i.e. than her praise of Indolence, in Canto I.
With the apostrophe to his Muse in this line, cp. that of 1. 280 in
Canto. I.
30. This alliterative line is a good instance of Pope's maxim—‘The
sound should be an echo of the sense.”
31. The poem itself, The Castle of Indolence, was good evidence of
the truth of this confession : it was some fourteen or more years on the
W2.V.
3. imp of fame. The Knight of Arts and Industry (see 1. 58
infra). f --
34. sons of softness. The votaries of Indolence.
36. the slumbering flame. Of industry or enterprise.
38. Selvaggio. A savage; denizen of the woods (see 1. 45 infra).
The same character figures in Autumn, where he is called (l. 57) “a sad
barbarian,’ (1.59) “a shivering wretch,” and (1.69) “the rugged Savage.’
Indeed the whole passage in Autumn, from 1. 43 to 1. I40, is the germ
, of this second Canto. It will be found extremely interesting to compare
the finished picture with the first study.
43. 272 AVozember steeped, i.e. in the rains of that wet or misty month
(see 1. 437 infra).
69. Minerza £ity of him took. An archaic idiom for ‘ on him.’
Minerva (connected with mens, mind), the embodiment of the thinking
power. She was one of the three leading divinities of ancient Rome,
and the goddess of wisdom and war, i.e. she “guided men in the
, dangers of war where victory is gained by cunning, prudence, courage,
and perseverance.” | v
MOZAS, ZZ. 25–142. 4.25
7o. all the gods that loze the rural womene. Such as Pan, Pales,
Vertumnus, Silvanus, Ceres, &c. For ‘wonne,’ see Glossary. -
7.I. rule the crook. One would have expected “sway,” or ‘rule
with.” •
72. The Muses; a country life naturally instilling poetical ideas into
an intelligent mind. w
73. Of fertile genius. Naturally possessed of great capacity for
development. *
76. or zese, or joy, or grace. The first ‘Or’ is equivalent to ‘either.’
77, 78. His education was of that complete kind which develops the
intellectual, moral, and physical powers.
84. drew the roseate breath, &c. Inhaled the morning air while it
was yet flushed with the red splendours of Sunrise. -
88. Foot-racing is referred to. -
89. zwheeled the chariot, i. e. adroitly deflected its course while the
horses were racing at full speed. This was a favourite Roman exercise;
see Horace (Car. I. I.) –
‘Suntº quos . . . .
e metaque fervidis
Evitata rotis palmaque nobilis
Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos.”
92. the ethereal round. The heavens, with their various phenomena
of stars, meteors, clouds, birds, &c.
94. It was usual, till lately, to speak of ‘the three kingdoms of
nature’—the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral.
95. Scarazzed the globe. Studied the geography of the various states—
political and physical.
98, 99. Studied mental and moral philosophy.
Io'7. Meſºzume's school. The water of lake or river, as well as of sca.
For Milton’s limitation of Neptune’s “sway’ see Comus, ll. 18–21.
IIo. Cp. Goldsmith’s line in The Traveller—
‘The canvas glowed beyond e'en Nature warm.’
II 3. Aygmalion's wife. The original story is to the effect that
Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, made in ivory the image of a maiden
which was of such surpassing loveliness that he became enamoured
of it, and prayed Aphrodite (Venus) to make it live. His prayer was
granted, and he married the maiden.
II.4. with zaried fire. With enthusiasm of a different sort.
II.7. that well might wake Apollo's lyre. Worthy to be sung with the
accompaniment of the best music. Apollo was both the sun-god and
the god of poetry and music.
I42. Zºgypt, Greece, and A’ome. For the history of the rise and progress
426 TAZAZ CAS 7/Z OF /AVDOZAAVCAE.
of the liberal arts and virtues in these countries, see Thomson's great but
neglected and under-rated poem Liberty, Parts II and III.
143. ruins grey. Burns has “ruined castles grey” in his Address to
the Deil.
146. made for Britain's coast. See Liberty, Part IV, 11. 382–388;
also ll. 626–642.
159. the genius of the land. The natural disposition of the people.
160–162. Compare this with the eulogy in Summer, 11. I467–1478.
165, 166. agricultzere . . Äair Queen of Arts / Thomson never
wearies of crying up the rural industries and virtues. In Spring, it is
‘the sacred plough,’ which ‘employed the kings and awful fathers of
mankind’ (ll. 58, 59); and at 1.66 he exclaims—
‘Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough.”
177, either Ziad. Both the East and the West Indies.
180. Britannia’s thunder. So in Campbell's Ye Mariners of
England :
“With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below.’
181, 182. The reference is to the revival of learning that began on
the downfall of Constantinople in 1453. Propontis, now the Sea of
Marmora.
185. Castalie. A spring on Parnassus sacred to Apollo and the Muses.
186. Zsis. The Upper Thames—the Thames at Oxford. The
reference in the line is to the fame of Oxford University for classical
learning. *
187. old Cam soft-paces o'er the lea. The reference here is to Cam-
bridge University. Cp. Milton’s Lycidas—
“Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow.’—1. Io9.
187—189. These lines were evidently inspired by the pastoral spirit of
Milton’s Lycidas. See more especially of that poem, ll. 23–36; 11. Io9,
IoA ; and 11. I86–189.
I90–192. Cp. Liberty, Part V, ll. 374–377–
“To softer prospect turn we now the view,
To laurelled Science, Arts, and Public Works, ,
That lend my finished fabric comely pride,
Grandeur, and grace,’ &c.
194. the coy sisters. The Fine Arts—Sculpture, Painting, Poetry,
Music, Architecture, &c. +
202. Macenas. A noble Roman, the friend and patron of Horace,
Virgil, &c. Bubb Dodington was ambitious of figuring as the Maecenas
of his time; he is commonly known as the last of the patrons—for the
MOZAS, ZZ. I43-249. 427
most part a degrading class in English literature. (See Summer, Note,
1. 29.)
204. Ömbroken spirits, cheer / An exhortation to his brother-poets
who have not allowed their ardour to cool because of national
neglect.
2O7. toil-creaſed gains, i.e. ‘honestly earned.’
216. Zacant eve [of life]. Free from business and other cares—
excepting only ‘the amusing care of rural industry’ (l. 236). For
the sentiment of the whole stanza ending here, see Liberty, Part IV,
ll. I 177–1186.
217. he chose a farm in Deva's zale. The Latin name of Chester, on
the Dee.
220. ‘Blended the various duties of,’ &c.
222. sided by the guardians of the fold. Accompanied by his
sheep-dogs. The scene here depicted will remind the classical reader
of the Idyl of Theocritus which describes, with a charm simply
inimitable, the visit of Hercules to the farm of Augeas in Elis.
223. ‘Made happy by his presence.’ The fashionable habit of
absenteeism—which has been rather increasing since Cowper (The
Task, Bk. IV, 11.587-590) and Burns (The Twa Dogs, ll. I73–176)
lamented it—deprives our landlords of the happiness depicted in this
and the following stanzas.
229–23.I. Žhe modding car, &c. The harvest-wain, loaded with
sheaves, on its way to the stackyard. (See Autumn, 11. I-3.) The
scene here described is known as “leading the field’—a pleasant part
of the labours of harvest time, which Thomson strangely omitted to
notice in his Autumn. (See that poem, 11. I51–176.)
233. 72'ſſiazz žd/ezzess. The parent of War. Those who wage war
are, agreeably with this view, called ‘honourable ruffians’ (l. 491,
Canto I).
234. this life. Of rural industry. The origin of agriculture is also
traced to heaven at 1. 166 supra.
240–243. References to drainage, irrigation, reclamation, and planta-
tion of the land.
246, 247. These lines are interesting as showing Thomson’s ideas of
the proper relation of Art to Nature.
248, 249. Zºz graceful dance . . . Pazz, Pales . . . ſºlayed. Imitated
probably from Milton, Par. Lost, Bk. IV, 11. 266—268:-
“ Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance
ed on the eternal Spring.’
428 7 H.A. C.A.STZAZ OA' /AVDOZAZAVCAE.
But the figure is a common one in the classical poets, e. g. Hor. Car.
I, 4.
Pan, the great Greek god of flocks and shepherds; Pales, a Roman
divinity of flocks and shepherds; Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers
and spring ; and Pomona, the Roman goddess of the fruit of trees—these
are among ‘the gods that love the rural wonne’ referred to at 1.70 ante.
251. A happy place. Already so described (11. 64, 65 sztára).
261. The line does not contain a contradiction or correction of
traditional report, but accepts it: ‘ as old Fame reports’ is parentheti-
cal ; ‘as’ = ‘so,” “this.”
264. Zo his . . . wish. ‘Up to,” “agreeably to,” &c. Cp. Burns—
“Bless him, thou God of love and truth,
Up to a parent’s wish l’
Prayer for a Rev. AEriend’s Family.
266, 267. Vice leads the van, bearing the standard; Corruption
commands the rear. ‘Arrière-ban,’ lit. ‘proclamation made in the
rear’ or ‘to the rear.”
268. mind yourselzes. The motto of selfishness.
276. the noble colour. The flush of righteous anger. This stanza
(xxxi) may be compared with stanzas, vii and viii of the noble
fragmentary Scots ballad Hardyknute, with which Thomson must have
been acquainted :- |
‘The little page flew swift as dart
Flung by his master's arm ;
Cum down, cum down, Lord Hardyknute,
And rid zour king frae harm.
Then reid, reid grew his dark-brown cheiks,
Sae did his dark-brown brow ;
His luiks grew kene, as they were wont
In dangers great to do,” &c.
281. That Zillain Archimage. See Note, Canto I, I. 181 supra.
285. the sisters three. The Weird Sisters, or Sisters of Destiny;
called Moirae by the Greeks, Parcae by the Romans; the Fates. They
were—Clotho, who spun the thread of human life; Lachesis, who
measured it; and Atropos the inevitable, who cut it.
289. &he bard, a little ZXruid wight [Of withered aspect . . . In russet
brown bedžght]. Cp. Milton’s Comus, ll. 619–621—
‘A certain shepherd lad
Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled
In every virtuous plant and healing herb.’
A druid was a priest of the ancient Britons. Here it means a poet who
AVOTES, IZ. 251-385. 429
loved nature and frequented woods. In this sense it is used of Thomson
himself, in Collins's melodious lines to his memory:—
‘In yonder grave a druid lies,’ &c.
292. his sister of the copses. The nightingale; Philomela.
293. He creſt along, zzzzpromisiazg of meieze. The description would
have suited Thomson himself in his later years. He stooped in
walking, was slovenly in his dress; was “neither a Żefit mažre nor a
boor—he had simplicity without rudeness, and a cultivated manner
without being courtly.” (Testimony of Dr. Robertson, Richmond.)
This is the bard of Canto I, St. lxviii, reformed of his one vice.
295. Angels are meant.
303. Zhose wreſched mezz, who will be slaves. The line reminds one
of the chorus of Thomson’s Rule Britannia.
306. Zhrice happy he who, &c. The persuasive poet, happier than
the coercive statesman. -
307-312. The knight on a red horse, emblematic of war; the bard
on a milk-white palfrey, emblematic of persuasion and peace.
3.25. Zhat fatal zalley gay. See its description fully set forth in
Canto I, st. ii, and st. v. -
336. The frail good man. The victim of Indolence.
345. of this aza2/. An archaic idiom ; ‘take advantage of this.’
35I. In purgatorial fires. Cp. Hamlet, Act I, Sc. v., 11. Io–I2.
352. ‘Beneath a spacious palm.”—Canto I, 1.61.
367. With magic dusã their eyne, &c. Cp. Comus—
* Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion. . . .
Her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust.”—ll. I 53–165.
380. The zwary retiarius. Thomson has a note on this: “A
gladiator, who made use of a net which he threw over his adversary.’
He carried the net (rete) in his right hand, and a three-pointed lance
(tridens) in his left. If he missed his aim, by either flinging the net too
short or too far, he at once took to flight, preparing his net the while for
another cast. Meanwhile his adversary (Secutor) followed, and attempted
to dispatch him with a sword, or a ball of lead. (See an account of the
ancient gladiatorial shows in any book of Roman Antiquities.)
383. The weakest line in the poem—“bordering, indeed, on the
ludicrous.”
385. ſounced to and fro. See Spring, 1. 434, and Note. Cp. Savage's
Wanderer, Canto IV—
‘Where [in the net] flounce, deceived, the expiring finny prey.' .
43O 7A/A2 CAS 7TLA2 OA' AAWDO/CAEAVCA.
387. his . . . mail. For the sing. form, cp. ‘Dick, the shepherd, blows
his mail.”—Shakespeare.
398. Azerzzus. A lake filling the crater of an extinct volcano, round
(in circumference about a mile or more), very deep, and girt with high
banks. It was near Cumae, and the Cumaean Sibyl lived near it in
a cave which had connection with the infernal world (see AEneid). The
Cimmerians lived in the perpetual gloom of its banks.
405. Zouch soul with soul. “Speak from the heart, and touch their
hearts with the sincerity of your appeal.”
4Io. 7?!! #72kling in clear symphony they rung. A singularly expres-
sive line, suggesting by its very sound the peculiar tones of a harp.
Cp. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel— **
‘Till every string's according gle
Was blended into harmony.”—Introd. Canto I.
415–567. The song of Philomelus, contained in these lines, matches
at every point the Song of Indolence in the first Canto. It is as
poetical, as powerful in its appeal, and is animated, of course, by a
higher morality.
423. Cp. Pope’s Essay on Man, Ep. I, ll. 267–28o, ending with the
line which so closely resembles this one—
‘He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.”
See also Spring, 1.854.
426-429. The theory of spiritual evolution here briefly expressed was
the firm belief of Thomson throughout his life. He makes numerous
references to it. See Spring, Note, 11. 374–377; Liberty, III, ll. 68–70;
The Hymn, Note, ll. II.5, II6; and 11. 562, 563 infra.
432, 433. ‘That cosmos excels chaos.’
443. the brighter Žalm. Because excellence in Art is of a superior
kind to excellence in feats of bodily strength, &c., for which also the
palm was given.
448. o'er the 7zations shook her conquering dart. The pilum. Cp.
Milton, Par. Lost, Bk. XI, Il. 491, 492– -
* Over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook.”
449. ‘The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours
And poets sage.’—Aaerie Queene, Bk. I, Canto I, St. ix.
456. cities . . . their towery fronts. “Pherae deckt with towers’
(Chapman's Homer).
460. Great Homer's song. The Iliad. (See Winter, 1. 533, and
Note.) * -
462. Sweet Maro's muse. The poet Virgil. (See Winter, l. 532,
and Note.) Virgil regarded Mantua, on an island in the Mincius, as his
AVOTES, ZZ. 387–655. 43 I
birthplace, but he was born rather at the village of Andes in the
neighbourhood.
463. the AZinciazz reeds. Milton's Lycidas—
‘Thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds.”—ll. 85, 86.
464. Zhe wits of modern time. The poets after the Renaissance.
466. Paradise Lost would not have been written.
467. Stratford-on-Avon is in Warwickshire. Shakespeare would have
been merely a happy and companionable peasant.
468. my master Søenser. Cp. Lydgate’s “My mayster Chaucer’ in
his Prol. to The Falls of Princes. The Castle of Indolence was written
professedly in imitation of Spenser's style. (See Thomson's Advertisement
prefixed to his Poem.) The Mulla was Spenser's poetical name for the
Awbeg, a tributary of the Blackwater of county Cork. It was on the
banks of the Mulla that Spenser read part of his Faerie Queene to Sir
Walter Raleigh in 1589; the friends sat— -
“Amongst the coolly shade
Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore.”
469. the sage historic muse. Clio. . -
471. starry lights of zirtue. See a lengthened description of them in
Winter, 11. 439-540. -
535. The world is poised. The balance of power is preserved.
554. Aesolve / and
557, 558. Zet godlike reason. . . . . Søeak the . . . zword, &c. Cp.
Young's Night Thoughts, I, 11. 30, 31–
‘On Reason build Resolve,
That column of true majesty in man l’
Cp. also Burns's Epistle to Dr. Blacklock—
‘Come, firm Resolve, take thou the van,
Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man ’
562, 563. See Note, Canto II, 11. 426-429 suffra.
580. this fleshly dema. The body. -
614. That lazar-house. See Canto I, St. lxxiii.
639. [Repentance] rejoices Heaven. See Parables of The Lost Sheep,
Lost Piece of Money, &c. “There is more joy in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth,’ &c.
653. dolorous mansion. Purgatory.
655. soft and pure as infant goodness. Cp. the Scripture story of
Naaman the Syrian leper washing away his disease in the Jordan: “And
his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was
clean (2 Kings v. I4).
4.32 7HA. CASTLE OF INDOZAENCE.
685. their scorized day of grace was fast. Cp. the Scots Para-
phrase, X:—
‘How long, ye scorners of the truth,
Scornful will ye remain 2
The time will come when humbled low
In sorrow's evil day,
Your voice by anguish shall be taught,
But taught too late to pray. . . -.
Prayers then extorted shall be vain,
The hour of mercy past.”
697. Auster. The south-west wind, bringing fogs and rains.
698. Cazarus. The north-west wind; ‘frosty Caurus’ in Winter, 1.836.
703. Zhe firsz. Beggary personified. j *
712. 7%e other. Scorn personified. -
721. Brentford town, a town of mezzd. The county town of Middlesex, .
at the mouth of the Brent, a tributary of the Thames. There is a bridge
here over the Thames, leading to Kew. Thomson knew the town well,
but apparently did not admire it. From his description one might infer
—what is quite true—that the town is one long street.
GLOSS ARY
RARE OR OBSOLETE WORDS, AND ARCHAIC FORMS,
THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
*
Agen, again. *
A paid, recompensed; cf. Fr.
£ayer, to pay, to satisfy.
Arrier-ban, probably a French
corruption, from O. H. G. haré,
army, and ban, proclamation :
the order suininoming to military
service. See Murray's AVew
Anglish Dictionary.
Atween, between.
Backening, stepping back.
Bale, evil, destruction; A.-S.
bealtz.
Bate, abate ; Fr. Öažtre, to beat.
Bay, reddish-brown ; O. Fr. Öaz ;
Tat. Öadius.
Bedight, fully prepared ; A.-S.
dihtan, to set in order; Lat.
dictare.
Behoves, befits; A.-S. behöftazz.
Benempt, named.
Beseems, befits. *
Bevies, flocks, companies; Fr.
bezée, a flock.
Bicker, to skirmish; metaphori-
cally of a ‘brawling’ stream.
Bides, awaits; endures.
Blazon, proclaim, blaze abroad;
M. E. &/asezz. Often confused
with F. blasom, a coat of arms.
Blemished, of a livid colour;
O. Fr. bles/n77, to wound, stain.
Boon, bountiful, good ; Fr. bon.
Breme, cruel, sharp. -
+
Brewed, concocted, planned ;
A.-S. bråozwan, to brew.
Cabals, intrigues, secrets; Heb.
gabbāláh, mysterious doctrine.
Caitiff, a wretch, a captive; O.Fr.
caätºf; Lat. captizzas. *
Carking, causing anxiety ; O.Fr.
Áarke, dialect form of charge,
load.
Carle, a sturdy rude fellow, a
churl ; A.-S. ceorl, a freeman,
but of the lowest rank.
Casten, false form for ‘casted.’
Catacombs, sepulchral vaults ;
orig. of the subterranean ceme-
teries lying around Rome.
Cates, dainties; Fr. achał, pur-
chase. Cog. ‘ cater.’
Certes, certainly. -
Chaunced, befell; O.Fr. chaance ;
Lat. cadérºs, -éeme.
Clerks, scholars, the clergy ; Lat.
clericus, one of the clergy.
Contrite, thoroughly bruised
and humbled; penitent; Lat.
térere, to rub.
Crouchen, crouch.
Cunning, dexterous; A.-S. czzzzzzazz,
to know.
Dainties, delicacies;
daintie, agreeableness;
dºg???tas, -ëatem.
Dalliance, pleasant trifling ; cog.
‘dally,” and ‘dwell.’ -
O. Fr.
Lat.
F f
434
GZOSSAAE Y.
Dan, Lord, a title of respect for
monks, &c.; Lat. dominals; Fr.
dom; O. Fr. dams.
Delves, digs; A.-S. delfare.
Delves, dales? given as “deserts.”
Depeinten, depicted; Fr. £eint;
Lat. pictus.
Dispightful, despiteful.
Distaff, A.-S. distaf; properly ‘a
staff provided with flax to be
spun off’ (Skeat).
Draught, a drawing, or plan.
I}rowsyhed, drowsihead, for
drowsiness.
Eath, easy, easily.
Eftsoones, soon after, forthwith.
Common in Spenser.
Eke, V., to join, to increase; A.-S.
&can, to lengthen ; cog, with
Lat. augère.
Eke, conj., also.
Eld, old age.
Emmet, ant; A.-S. amete.
Emongst, amongst. -
‘Enmove * in
Emove, move.
Spenser.
Emprise, enterprise.
Estate, state or condition;
property,
Eyne, pl. of eye.
Fain, glad ; A.-S. ſagen, glad.
IFand, found.
E'ay, fairy; O. Fr. fše.
H'ee, a grant of land, payment;
A.-S. fedh, cattle.
Fell, cruel; O. Fr. fel, cruel,
Felly, in a cruel manner.
Fit, an attack, or a turn ; A.-S.
fit, a song, a struggle. Orig.
sense ‘a step.”
Fone, pl. of foe ; A.-S. fºn.
Fray, a contest; shortened form
of ‘affray.”
Fry, fish-spawn; a
persons.
Gallow-tree, from A.-S. galga,
cross, gibbet ; tred, timber.
shoal of
Gear, geer, weapons, clothing,
property; A.-S. gearwe.
Gelid, cold, frozen : Lat. gelidzes.
Genders, produces. .
Glaive, sword; Lat. gladius.
Han, have.
Hight, is or was named ; named :
A.-S. hdzazz, to call, to be called.
Cog. ‘behest.’
Houghs, for ‘hoes.’
Idless, for ‘idleness.”
Immingle, to mingle thoroughly.
Imp, a graft or shoot, a child ;
A.-S. impanz, pl. Never used
jocularly by Spenser.
Inly, inwardly.
Issied, with the accent on the
last syllable; O. Fr. issºr, Lat.
exire, to go forth.
Jot, iota, the smallest letter in
the Greek alphabet.
Junto, a secret alliance, a faction;
Span. ſuzeta; Lat. fuzzcta.
Reen, v., to sharpen.
Rest, for ‘cast.’
Lacquey, a menial; Fr. Jagua?s.
Lad, led. So in Spenser. A.-S.
Zádazz, pret. Zadde.
Ilair, den, retreat ; A.-S. leger, a
bed.
Ilandskip, for landscape. So in
Milton. ‘-scape' is our affix
& -ship,” -
Tank, 'slender; jointed; and So,
flexible. Cog. “link.”
Lazarhouse, a leprosy hospital;
from Lazarus, the name of the
beggar in the parable; contrac-
tion of the Heb. name ‘Eleazar.’
A lazaretto.
Teeches, physicians, healers;
A.-S. Záce, a healer.
Lees, dregs; Fr. Zie.
Ilenient, mild; Lat. Jezziezes,
Soothing.
Libbard, leopard. Chaucer's form
is ‘libart.’
GZOSSAA Y.
435
Tig, to lie; M. E. lºggen, lien. .
Limber, flexible, supple ; from
‘limp.’
Lithe, flexible,
Isoathly,loathsome. Soin Spenger.
Loll, to lounge about; cog. ‘lull.”
Loom, from A.-S. ge-lóma, a tool.
Cog. “heirloom.’
Losel, worthless fellow.
Lout, a lazy clown ; A.-S. liſtant,
to stoop. Cog. “loiter.’
Louting, stooping, bowing. Still
in use in Lowland Scots.
Lubbard, a lubber ; cog. “lob,'
‘lump,’ &c. Cf. Milton’s lubber-
fiend. 4.
Lustyhed, pleasure, enjoyment;
the form in Chaucer is ‘lusti-
heed' (Squieres Tale, 1. 288).
Massy, massive.
TMLeed, reward.
Mell, mingle; O. Fr. mesſer, to
mix. Cog. ‘ medley.’
Mew, lair; from mezws.
Moe, more. Older forms ‘moo’
and ‘mo.’ A.-S. med.
Moil, to drudge ; O. Fr. mailer.
Mold, mould.
Mote, might.
Muchel, much ; Scots “meikle’ or
“muckle.” Chancer “mochel.”
A.-S. mycel.
Nathless, nevertheless,
INſe, nor,
Needments, necessaries.
Noisome, hurtful; ??oy is a con-
traction of azzzzoy.
INoursling, child, pupil.
Noyance, annoyance—found in
Spenser; azzzzoy.
Painful, industrious, taking great
pains.
Palfrey, O. Fr. paleſrei, riding-
horse; Low Lat. Zarazered us,
an extra post-horse.
Balmer, pilgrim ; literally, one
who bore a palm-branch in
token of having visited the Holy
Land.
Passen, pass; “I passen' is a
wrong form.
Pell-mell, confusedly; from Fr.
felle, a peel or fire-shovel, and
mesſer, to mix ; pèle-mêle.
Penurie, penury.
Perdie, weak form of Fr. ſardieu.
Plain, complain ; Fr. Z/aindre.
Pleasaunce, pleasure.
Practised, made; Gr. Tpérra, I
make or do, -
Prankt, adorned: from ‘prink,’
a nasalised form of ‘prick,’ to
trim So as to look spruce.
Pricked, spurred, rode.
Quilt, a coverlet; Lat. czałczła, a
pillow. Cog. ‘ cushion.’
IRabblement, mob. From the
noise of their chattering. Low-
land Scots “raible,” to chatter
(Burns). - -
Rampant, rearing ; Fr. ramper,
to creep up, to climb.
Refel, refute; prove to be false;
from Lat. fallere.
Replevy, rescue; O. Fr. reflezir,
to give back detained goods on
a pledge.
Sable, black, dark; O. Fr. Saôle,
a black furred carnivore.
Saunter, stroll idly. Derivation
unknown ; see Skeat.
Sear, withered, dried.
Sheen,adj.bright; subs.splendour.
Shook, for shaken.
Sicker, sure, secure.
Sir, familiarly “sirrah’; also a
title of respect. Lat. Senzor.
Sleek, to make sleek.
Smackt, tasted, savoured.
Soot, sweet, sweetly. One of
Chaucer’s forms.
Sort, manner. ‘Smiles in such a
sort.”—Shakespeare. +
Spill, Scots for “spoil’; to waste.
436
GZO.SSAAC V.
Spittles, hospitals.
Spred, spread.
Spright, sprite, spirit.
form.
Stark, dead, stiff, rigid.
Store, a number, abundance.
Stounds, hard hours; pangs.
Strook, struck. Used by Shelley.
Sublime, v., to elevate or
ennoble. &
Sweltry, older form of ‘sultry.’
Swink, toil. Cf. Comus, .-S.
swincan, to labour.
Teem, to be prolific ; A.-S. fedm,
a family. Cog. “team.’
Thrall, slave, or bondman. O.N.
th?’al/. -
Tight, neat and trim.
Tinct, tint: Lat. £incázam, dyed.
Trade, matters whether of business
or pastime.
Transmewed, transmuted; cog.
‘mews’ and “moult’: Lat.
ſmutare, to change.
Traunce, trance; Lat. transire,
to go over.
Trippen, to trip.
Tromp, trump, form of which
“trumpet’ is the diminutive.
TJndone, ruined.
Unkempt, uncombed ;
‘unkaim’d '; rude.
Vacant, idle ; Lat. Zacans, -áem.
Vild, vile.
Vulgar, common ; Lat. Z/2t/garis.
Wain, waggon; A.-S. 70&gzz.
Milton's
Scots
Ween, suppose, think. A.-S.
zvénazz.
Weet, know ; from “wit.'
Welkin, sky. A.-S. wolcezz, a
cloud. -
Well-a-day, for ‘well away,” a
corruption of A.-S. waſ là wat a
woe lo woe.
Whenas, when:
Whilom, formerly; A.-S. hwælume,
dat. pl. of hwil, time. -
Wight; a being; A.-S. zväht.
Wis, for ywis, certainly.
Wise, guise, manner, or way;
A.-S. wise.
Withouten, without.
Wonne, dwelling; A.-S. wuzzzazz,
to dwell. r
Wot, from ‘weet,” supra.
Wroke, wreaked.
Y-, A.-S. ge-, sign of past par-
ticiple.
Y-blent, blended.
Y-born, born.
Y-buried, buried.
Y-clad, clad.
Y-clept, named ; A.-S. clepiazz,
to call.
Y-fere, in company; M.E. ſere, a
companion ; farazz, to go.
Y-hung, hung.
Y-molten, melted.
Yode, went.
Yore, long ago; A.-S. gedºra, +
in years past. -
Y-spring, spring.
THE END.
8/8/or.
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