INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIRST
TO WILLIAM STEWART ROSE, ESQAshestiel, Ettrick ForestNovembers sky is chill and drear,
Novembers leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen, 5
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trilld the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green, 10
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.
No longer Autumns glowing red 15
Upon our Forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath passd the heather-bell
That bloomd so rich on Needpath-fell; 20
Sallow his brow, and russet bare
Are now the sister-heights of Yair.
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To sheltered dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines, 25
And yet a watery sunbeam shines:
In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnons rill: 30
The shepherd shifts his mantles fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold;
His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel;
A cowering glance they often cast, 35
As deeper moans the gathering blast.
My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild,
As best befits the mountain child,
Feel the sad influence of the hour,
And wail the daisys vanishd flower; 40
Their summer gambols tell, and mourn,
And anxious ask, Will spring return,
And birds and lambs again be gay,
And blossoms clothe the hawthorn spray?
Yes, prattlers, yes. The daisys flower 45
Again shall paint your summer bower;
Again the hawthorn shall supply
The garlands you delight to tie;
The lambs upon the lea shall bound,
The wild birds carol to the round, 50
And while you frolic light as they,
Too short shall seem the summer day.
To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears, 55
And in her glory reappears.
But oh! my Countrys wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise; 60
The mind that thought for Britains weal,
The hand that graspd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine, 65
Where Glory weeps oer NELSONS shrine:
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallowd tomb!
Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart! 70
Say to your sons, Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Whereer his countrys foes were found, 75
Was heard the fated thunders sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Rolld, blazed, destroyed, and was no more.
Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth, 80
And launchd that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britains weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, 85
For Britains sins, an early grave!
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spumd at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself; 90
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Straind at subjections bursting rein,
Oer their wild mood full conquest gaind,
The pride, he would not crush, restraind,
Showd their fierce zeal a worthier cause, 95
And brought the freemans arm, to aid the freemans laws.
Hadst thou but lived, though strippd of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand; 100
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had proppd the tottering throne:
Now is the stately column broke, 105
The beacon-light is quenchd in smoke,
The trumpets silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
Oh, think, how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claimd his prey, 110
With Palinures unalterd mood,
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelld,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till, in his fall, with fateful sway, 115
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britains thousand plains,
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells neer sent around
The bloody tocsins maddening sound, 120
But still, upon the hallowd day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,
He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here! 125
Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said oer Foxs tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost, 130
When best employd, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine; 135
And feelings keen, and fancys glow, -
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mournst they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppressd, 140
And sacred be the last long rest.
Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung; 145
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke agen,
All peace on earth, good-will to men;
If ever from an English heart, 150
O, here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record, that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouchd to Frances yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, 155
And the firm Russians purpose brave,
Was barterd by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonours peace he spurnd,
The sullied olive-branch returnd,
Stood for his countrys glory fast, 160
And naild her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honourd grave,
And neer held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust. 165
With more than mortal powers endowd,
How high they soard above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled Gods, their mighty war 170
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Lookd up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of PITT and Fox alone. 175
Spells of such force no wizard grave
Eer framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.
These spells are spent, and, spent with these, 180
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombd beneath the stone,
Where-taming thought to human pride! -
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. 185
Drop upon Foxs grave the tear,
Twill trickle to his rivals bier;
Oer PITTS the mournful requiem sound,
And Foxs shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry, 190
Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom Fate made Brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen? 195
Rest, ardent Spirits! till the cries
Of dying Nature bid you rise;
Not even your Britains groans can pierce
The leaden silence of your hearse;
Then, O, how impotent and vain 200
This grateful tributary strain!
Though not unmarkd from northern clime,
Ye heard the Border Minstrels rhyme:
His Gothic harp has oer you rung;
The Bard you deignd to praise, your deathless names has sung.
Stay yet, illusion, stay a while,
My wilderd fancy still beguile!
From this high theme how can I part,
Ere half unloaded is my heart!
For all the tears eer sorrow drew, 210
And all the raptures fancy knew,
And all the keener rush of blood,
That throbs through bard in bard-like mood,
Were here a tribute mean and low,
Though all their mingled streams could flow- 215
Woe, wonder, and sensation high,
In one spring-tide of ecstasy! -
It will not be-it may not last-
The vision of enchantments past:
Like frostwork in the morning ray, 220
The fancied fabric melts away;
Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone,
And long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone;
And, lingering last, deception dear,
The choirs high sounds die on my ear. 225
Now slow return the lonely down,
The silent pastures bleak and brown,
The farm begirt with copsewood wild
The gambols of each frolic child,
Mixing their shrill cries with the tone 230
Of Tweeds dark waters rushing on.
Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Thus Nature disciplines her son:
Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day, 235
In plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the Tweed;
Or idly list the shrilling lay,
With which the milkmaid cheers her way,
Marking its cadence rise and fail, 240
As from the field, beneath her pail,
She trips it down the uneven dale:
Meeter for me, by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherds tale to learn;
Though oft he stop in rustic fear, 245
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one, who, in his simple mind,
May boast of book-learnd taste refined.
But thou, my friend, canst fitly tell,
(For few have read romance so well,) 250
How still the legendary lay
Oer poets bosom holds its sway;
How on the ancient minstrel strain
Time lays his palsied hand in vain;
And how our hearts at doughty deeds, 255
By warriors wrought in steely weeds,
Still throb for fear and pitys sake;
As when the Champion of the Lake
Enters Morganas fated house,
Or in the Chapel Perilous, 260
Despising spells and demons force,
Holds converse with the unburied corse;
Or when, Dame Ganores grace to move,
(Alas, that lawless was their love!)
He sought proud Tarquin in his den, 265
And freed full sixty knights; or when,
A sinful man, and unconfessd,
He took the Sangreals holy quest,
And, slumbering, saw the vision high,
He might not view with waking eye. 270
The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scornd not such legends to prolong:
They gleam through Spensers elfin dream,
And mix in Miltons heavenly theme;
And Dryden, in immortal strain, 275
Had raised the Table Round again,
But that a ribald King and Court
Bade him toil on, to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,
Fit for their souls, a looser lay, 280
Licentious satire, song, and play;
The world defrauded of the high design,
Profaned the God-given strength, and marrd the lofty line.
Warmd by such names, well may we then,
Though dwindled sons of little men, 285
Essay to break a feeble lance
In the fair fields of old romance;
Or seek the moated castles cell,
Where long through talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept, 290
Thy Genius, Chivalry, hath slept:
There sound the harpings of the North,
Till he awake and sally forth,
On venturous quest to prick again,
In all his arms, with all his train, 295
Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf,
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard with his wand of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the Genius weave their spells, 300
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half veild and half reveald;
And Honour, with his spotless shield;
Attention, with fixd eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she shrinks to hear; 305
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning upon his own good sword.
Well has thy fair achievement shown, 310
A worthy meed may thus be won;
Ytenes oaks-beneath whose shade
Their theme the merry minstrels made,
Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold,
And that Red King, who, while of old, 315
Through Boldrewood the chase he led,
By his loved huntsmans arrow bled-
Ytenes oaks have heard again
Renewd such legendary strain;
For thou hast sung, how He of Gaul, 320
That Amadis so famed in hall,
For Oriana, foild in fight
The Necromancers felon might;
And well in modern verse hast wove
Partenopexs mystic love; 325
Hear, then, attentive to my lay,
A knightly tale of Albions elder day.