THE HOP GROUND; IN FOUR SONNETS.

Spring.

THIS balmy air, and yonder brimming cloud,
Which darkening as the sun-light grows intense,
Sets off its rainbow's bland magnificence,
Resuscitate within its silent shroud

The vegetative power, no longer bow'd

Beneath chill winter's sway. A stirring sense,
An irrepressible intelligence

Of gladsome times advancing, thaws the blood
Of nature's leafy tribes. Among their peers

The sprouting hop-plants lift their purple heads,
And warn the hinds, deep in the soil beneath

To drive the poles;-this wither'd forest spreads,
Till all the plot, as if with ported spears,
Stands bristling, waiting each its verdant wreath.

Summer.

BEAUTIFUL plant, sample of natural grace!

Whose bines, untrained, garland with gay festoon
The overbrowing hedge; or by the boor

Of dipping branch uplifted, fair repays

(4)" And hope they will prove fine, and request your future orders,"-erased with the pen.

(5) I am not in the actual employ of Mr North, (who indeed is not a printer,) although 1 frequently attend him for copy, or with proofs; nor is my name "Tipsy Thammus," as he in joke reported it, (vol. V, p. 328,) reversing the order of the two names, and spelling them designedly amiss. THOMAS TIBBSON.

The help, by weaving o'er it with its sprays
A sylvan roof, an awning from the sun

For way-worn traveller, who, with heart foredone,
Casts himself prostrate on the grass, and stays.
A thankful hour. Yet here, blithe pliant thing!
Man does his worst thy mazy flight to stop,
And links thee to a formal sapless prop,

Which thou obedient climb'st-in many a ring
Grappling the staff-then fall thy shoots down trailing,
The uncouth tools of Art with beauty veiling.

Autumn.

OUR vintage-time is come; the merry bands
Of old and young attend the annual call ;
With foliage wound, the hop's supporters fall,
And yield its fruitage to their ready hands-
Clusters devoid of juice-not such as bands

Of sunnier features nurse, where one and all
To the gathering flock, as to a festival,
When the plump grape in luscious ripeness stands.
Yet here the rustic gibe, the heart's light laugh,
The carol from untutor'd throat is heard,
While nimble fingers cull the husky store,
In baskets traversed by a wreathed staff,!
Than which, a nobler thyrsus ne'er was rear'd
By reeling Bacchanal in days of yore.

Winter.

THE grounds are cleared; the uprooted poles are piled
In files of pyramids, a dreary show,
Indicative of coming frost and snow;

And of the hop, which lately cheer'd the wild,
Nought now is extant, but a mass defiled

Of blackening strings, trampled in scorn below.
England no Bacchus boasts, yet we can go
To the grange's low-brow'd hall, where never smiled
His riotous cups, and where we circulate

A nutbrown beverage, flavour'd by the hop,
Drawn bright, and foaming high, for wassail glee,
While Christmas logs are blazing in the grate,

And to old songs and tales, no sullen stop

Is put, but tongues are loud by the good ale set free.

Like children at the approach of one they love,
Rejoicing in her light, the forests spread_
Their wide umbrageous canopies, and cast
Behind a black intensity of shade:

The mountains rear their everlasting heads
Soften'd, and overspread with silver haze,
Far in the depth of night; and gurgling down,
Between its osiered banks, and shadowy rocks,
Here silvery bright, there bough-o'ercanopied,
Prone from its native hills toward the sea
The river gushes onward. Not a sound
Except its stilly murmur meets the ear,
Lulling to peace the woodland solitudes,
Or fitfully, mayhap, the distant bay

Of watch-dog, from the far abodes of men!

Oh Queen! that rulest the nocturnal heaven, Peace dwells for ever with thee !-Tempests roll Their darkness o'er thy countenance serene, And blot thee from the wistful gaze of men,'Tis for a moment only, and the eve Again returning in quotidian round, Restores thee-like a phoenix from its tombIn unextinguish'd glory to our sight. Thou art a thing that passest not away; Thou art a thing that, looking, smil'st on Time, And on the changes of this lower world! But we are frail and fragile-we are men, Children of clay, and creatures of the dust; We are but for a moment, and no more; We are but flowers of a season! now thy face Beams on us, and to-morrow on our graves!

Yet are we not without our bliss below,
Nor is our span, all narrow though it be,
Devoid of wild diversity and change:-
Ah! not the same in features or in thought
Am I, as when, a few swift years ago,
Resting upon this individual bank,

On eves how like to this! from out that shrine
Of forests, and of everlasting hills,

I saw thee, bursting from a ring of clouds,
Deluge, with holy light, the eastern sky.

Where are the visions, that, with ardent mind,
And dreams of high romance, I cherish'd then?
The pleasures I pursued,-the friends I loved?—
Time, like a wizard, hath transform'd them all,
Or, like the rainbow, melted into nought.
It is in vain we would pursue, would sigh
For forms that still elude; it is in vain
We build on hopes, that, like the summer tower,
Rear'd on the thirsty sands, beside the sea,
Foundationless must fall!

Year follows year
To curb the dark rebellion of our souls,
And break our haughty spirits to the yoke,
Until tame beasts of burthen we become,
With degradation satisfied and pleased !-
Thus hath it been, and thus it still must be;
And where the marvel? Can we think to mix
Amid the yeasty turmoil of the world,→

Amid the tribes of guilty and unclean,-
Amid the herd of knaves and hypocrites,-
Of smiling faces,—and deceitful hearts,-
And hope that, by miraculous interpose,
Contamination, like a frighted fiend,

Should fly before our steps, and touch us not?
Or, that the blackening tide which swallows all,
Should, like the Red Sea waves, when Israel's host
Came onward, part its conscious deeps, and bid
Our path lead on in safety 'mid mankind?

We must not look for miracles, and ah!
It is a mighty struggle to subdue
The unwilling spirit to the arts of men,
So selfish and debasing; but, when once
The wheels are set in motion of that car
Which only drives to obloquy, more faint,
Day following day, our opposition wanes,
Till, like the captive to his cell inured,
Our souls become enamour'd of their chains,
And like the Pontic King, we learn to feed
On mortal poisons, and to perish not!

But still, when gazing from this pastoral mount
Upon thy face, so glorious, and so fair,
Methinks, celestial Moon, although my soul
Knows well the windings, and the labyrinths,
The fatal quicksands and obliquities

Of this most unintelligible world;
Although too well my spirit is aware

Of what it must encounter-must endure
What strong temptations must be overcome-
What syren sounds and scenes avoided all-
What dangers shared, and barriers clamber'd o'er-
Although endued with consciousness of these,
I feel no faultering of the heart, and yet,
Methinks the glorious projects of my youth,
Did Fate allow, might still be all fulfill'd,
And are not mere chimeras of the brain.

We know not that the trembling sword o'erhangs, Nor that the yawning precipice is near,

And so we follow on-and so we fall

The victims of our inexperience!

But, were it otherwise, and could we know
The dangers that surround us; could we fecl
The perils that encompass 'tis in vain,

The doom is fixed-the seal impress'd-the waves
Of tumult have pass'd over, and no more
Can we retrace our steps; the past is past,
For ever gone and perish'd; hope alone
Lives in the regions of Futurity;

And if we can amend, 'tis then and there!

Oh for a lonely cottage, far away

From city noise and tumult, far remote
From strife and dark contagion, from the stir
And feverish perturbation of mankind!-

Know ye the site of this my Paradise?
Over the whitened sash, and slated roof,

The woodbine, wreathing its luxuriant boughs,
Would form a verdant net-work; dark green leaves,

VOL. X.

And silver flowers superbly intertwined;
The weedless plot before would shew its bright
And regular diversity of bloom,—

From virgin snow-drop, and the crocus blue,
The earliest daughters of the vernal year,
(What time the wandering cuckoo note is heard,)
To Autumn's latest lingerers, gilly-flowers,
Such as bestrew the Celtie Paradise,-
And lavender, that with its breath perfumes
The saddening, sickening beauties of the year!

Behind, the mountains rearing high their cones,
Would be my neighbours, with their woods and rocks
Precipitous, and ever-foaming streams ;

Now, when the heavens are clear, my gaze would mark
Their pastoral green, o'erspread with snowy flocks,
Their undulations, and their shadows deep,
Making a night of noonday; now mine eye
Would mark what time the clouds are dark, and dew
Like diamonds glisten'd on the summer grass.
The lowering piles break heavy on their tops
Meeting them, and arresting on their flight;
As, in far foreign climes, the albatross,
Deeming itself above terrestrial things,
High in etherial slumber, shrieking wakes
Far, far above the storms, when sudden dash'd
By veering gales, on Cimborazo's peak!

Before, the level champaign far and wide
Would spread its map of forests, and of fields
Of intervening hedge-rows, and green farms
In glorious cultivation; here would stand
The proud steed grazing 'neath a shadowy elm,
And there the mottled kine, amid the grass
With drowsy eye, and ruminating mouths,
Listless reposing.-At far distance seen,
The everlasting sea would bluely spread
Its breast, and shew its islands faintly green,
While, casually mark'd at cloudless noon,
With breeze-expanded wing the vessels pass'd
Like giant sea-birds sailing beautiful
Upon the waters.

What my tasks would be

I may not tell; perhaps the busy world

Would deem them frivolous, and I would not,

So much our tastes and tempers disagree.

But where would stray my fancy? Where would roam

My unsubstantial visions? Mid the depths

Of things that may not be! Of no avail
Are these our speculations, and our hopes,
Are these our wishes; dark reality
Comes like a cloud, and with its ebon hues,
Blots out the land of promise from my sight!

But thou art with me still, all glorious Moon,
Ploughing the azure depths, and looking down
In sanctified benignity on man ;

Down from thy throne thou gazest, and the trees
Bend as in love towards thee, and their leaves
Quiver as with a feeling of delight;

4 K