By turns they felt the glowing mind First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Next Anger rush'd; his eyes on fire With woeful measures wan Despair- But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, And longer had she sung-but, with a frown, Revenge impatient rose : He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe! And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien, While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd, Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd, And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate. With eyes upraised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sat retired; And from her wild sequester'd seat, In notes, by distance made more sweet, Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul; And dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels join'd the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole ; Love of peace and lonely musing, But, oh! how alter'd was its sprightlier tone, When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung, Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear, And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand address'd; To some unwearied minstrel dancing; As if he would the charming air repay, O Music sphere-descended maid, Where is thy native simple heart, * The poet here gives expression to the fashionable prejudice, amongst the learned, as to the unapproachable excellence of the old Hellenic and Latin literatures, and, in particular, their poetic superiority. After the age of Shakespeare, Milton, Racine, &c. (crowning the earlier achievments of Dante, Chaucer, Ariosto, and Spenser), such a belief, before incontrovertible, had become an egregious anachronism. Yet towards the end of the seventeenth century a controversy, almost theological in its bitterness, was long maintained between the partizans of the 'Ancients and Moderns;' and Perrault's assault upon the hitherto unquestioned position of the former was resented by Sir W. Temple in the most extravagant apology or rather eulogy ever published. All the most famous wits and littérateurs joined in the fray; the most influentialPope, Swift, Boyle, &c., ranging themselves on the orthodox side. The 'Battle of the Books' was renewed in the middle of the last century, when the Encyclopédistes succeeded to the heretics of the previous age. What was an absurd prejudice in the days of Temple, is, at the present day, an egregious folly. Yet we still hear the term 'classical' (meaning 'of the first class') commonly and entirely appropriated to the old Hellenic and Latin writers! As for the virtues of the ancient sages, so much lauded, they were, according to the facts of history, of a somewhat negative kind. * DIRGE TO FIDELE.* To fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring No wailing ghost shall dare appear, And melting virgins own their love. No wither'd witch shall here be seen, No goblins lead their nightly crew; The redbreast oft, at evening hours, To deck the ground where thou art laid. When howling winds and beating rain Or 'midst the chase, on every plain, The tender thought on thee shall dwell; Each lonely scene shall thee restore; And mourn'd, till Pity's self be dead. An imitation of the dirge sung by Guiderius and Arviragus over the grave of Fidele, supposed to be dead. See Cymbeline. |