The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;
'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep
From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on Ocean, span the sky.1
The high wind made the treble; and, as bass,
The hoarse, harsh waves kept time.2
And on the smallè greenè twistis sat
The little sweetè nightingale, and sung
So loud and clear the hymnis consecrate
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the gardens and the wallis rung.4
But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet, loud musick, out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that, at midnight, should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, Lord! what musick hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such musick on earth.5
1 Byron.
2 Ibid.
4 James I. of Scotland.
When she, I sought, the nightingale replied:
So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung,
That the grove echoed, and the valleys rung;
And I, so ravished with her heavenly note,
I stood intranced, and had no power for thought,
Promiscuously.
5 Isaac Walton, 8. (Ed. 6.).
But, all o'erpowered with ecstasy of bliss,
Was in a pleasing dream of paradise.1
Some hid amongst the leaves, Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves, Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun, Through thick exhaled fogs, his golden head hath run, And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps, To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.2
Matta leur demanda que diable ils vouloient faire de musique, et soutint que cela n'étoit bon, dans ces occasions, que pour des femmes qui avoient quelque chose à dire à leurs amans pendant que les violons étourdissoient les autres, ou pour des sots qui ne savoient que dire quand les violons ne jouoient pas.3
Oft had he changed his weary side,
Composed his limbs and vainly sought,
By effort strong, to banish thought:
Sleep came at last; but with a train
Of feelings true and fancies vain-
Mingling, in wild disorder cast
The expected future with the past.4
Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels,
And make a quagmire of your mingled brains."
1 Dryden (Flower and the Leaf).
2 Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, s. 23.
3 Grammont, 45.
4 Rokeby.
I have no power to love him :
His proud, forbidding eye, and his dark brow
Chill me like dew-damps of the unwholesome night;
My love, a timorous and tender flower,
Closes beneath his touch.1
How sad she looked, and pale, but not like guilt;
And her calm tones-sweet as a song of mercy-
If the bad spirit retained his angel's voice
Hell scarce were Hell.2
Tones so sweet, and of such soft cadence
That the heart heard them.
Did'st thou but know how pale I sat at home,
My eyes still turn'd the way thou wert to come!
And all the long, long night of hope and fear
Thy voice and step still sounding in my ear,
Oh God! thou would'st not wonder that at last,
When every hope was all at once o'ercast-
When I heard frightful voices round me say-
Azim is dead!-this wretched brain gave way
And I became a wreck, at random driven,
Without one glimpse of reason or of Heaven!
For this, resorting to the lonely shore,
Frequent he listens to the billowy roar;
Broods o'er his fate, and, gazing far, bewails
The waves that part him from his native vales;
Or, in some close, sequestered glade retired,
Dreams of past years and pleasures long expired:
There, as in pleasing solace of his pain,
He bids the lute or vocal reed complain,
If chance a stray note's accidental fall
Some long-remembered melody recall,
Then bursts the sigh, then tears in torrents roll,
And grief's insatiate tide o'erwhelms the soul."
2 Ibid.
1 Coleridge (Remorse).
3 Impey's Translation of Vernon's Oxford Prize Poem-" Natale Solum.'
Tho' now this grained face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up;
Yet hath my night of life some memory;
My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left.1
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man: this pernicious slave,
Forsooth took on him as a conjuror;
And gazing in my eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me.
2
Was this a face
To be expos'd against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder,
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning!-to watch poor Perdue
With this thin helm? My very enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have staid that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
In short and musty straw?-alack! alack!
'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all, 3
'Tis pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear
Of tempests and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe;
Then listen to the pleasing tale again,
And, with an eager and attentive ear,
Woo sorrow to delight us.1
Of genius-that power which constitutes a poet
1 Comedy of Errors.
3 King Lear.
2 Ibid.
4 Southey (Madoc).
that quality, without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates.1
Because they know the world, and are at ease,
And, being natural, naturally please.2
I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables, that breath of the sweet South, And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,
That not a single accent seems uncouth,
Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural, Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all. 3
The antler'd monarch of the waste
Sprang from his heathery couch in haste;
But, ere his fleet career he took,
The dew-drops from his flank he shook;
Like crested leader, proud and high,
Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky:
A moment gazed adown the dale;
A moment snuff'd the tainted gale;
A moment listen'd to the cry,
That thicken'd, as the chase drew nigh:
Then, as the headmost foes appear'd,
With one brave bound, the copse he clear'd;
And stretching forward, free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var. 4
Was heard the passing bell to toll,
For welfare of a parting soul;
1 Johnson (Life of Pope).
3 Ibid.
2 Beppo.
4 Scott (Lady of the Lake).
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