For the Analectic Magazine.
ON SEEING A PICTURE OF NEWSTEAD PARK, Belonging to a SEAT LATE THE PROPERTY OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD BYRON.* 1813.
FROM scenes like these, that far and wide,
Rise and expand in sylvan pride,
Where fickle man might find in range
From hill to vale, congenial change;
From scenes whose very hues impart
Good and gay cheerfulness of heart,
Could e'er their reckless owner roam,
With guilt and gloom to find a home?
To wander, like the exil'd ghost,
From heavenly fields forever lost,
Doom'd, with Elysium yet in view,
His wayward rovings to pursue,
Where tosses doubt's tumultuous sea
Thy shatter'd wreck, depravity!
Degenerate Gordon! not like thee
Have prov'd thy nobler ancestry.
Nor rambling taste, nor thirst of gain,
From them had wrung their lov'd domain,
Naught lur'd them from their native hall,
But fatal honour's sternest call.
Their only signal to depart,
The beating of a loyal heart;
That, when Culloden's crimson'd bed
Heav'd with the dying and the dead,
Follow'd its guiding beams afar,
Till set in blood the STUART STAR:
While heaven and earth combin❜d to sign
The ruin of that royal line!
* Since sold by his lordship.
Son of the Muse-celestial guide!
Wont to inspire far purer pride-
Son of the Muse, had gold the power
To win from thee thy classic bower,
Of Byron should it e'er be told,
His birthright barter'd was-for gold!
Alas! for thou hast sold yet more
Than fragile dome, or earth-born store;
And Virtue mourns, in early day,
A brighter birthright cast away:
What time delirious passion's bowl,
Dissolv'd thy priceless pearl, the soul!*
O crown'd by heav'n with youth and health,
And mental hoards, and worldly wealth,
Vain the best patrimony's aid ;—
Thy debt on high has ne'er been paid.
Thy means, perverted from the aim
That had discharg'd the loftiest claim,
Guilt's lawless traffick lost for thee
The treasures of futurity!
Yet might it be thy self-thy song
Are causelessly accus'd of wrong;
That tell-tale Fame, though still believ'd,
Has still as constantly deceiv'd;
And thy free soul, unleagued with ill,
Retains its guardian Angel still,
Who, when temptation's fiends assail'd,
Has wrestled for thee, and prevailed:-
If so--the burning blush suffuse,
The bitterest tear bedim the Muse;
To find it false, were cause to rue,
Unequall'd, save--to find it true!
Yet must the mind misgive thy lot,
That lingers on this pictur'd spot;
Gazes its many beauties o'er,
And still returns to number more.
Musing what bliss t'were here to find
A solace for the wearied mind.
When, long sustain'd the various parts
Of public trust, in arms or arts,
Blessing and blest, how fitly here
Might pause from toil a British Peer!
"The pearl of the soul may be melted away."...Moore.
Be welcom❜d by the well-known shade,
Where many a truant prank he play'd;
And taste the fruit and pluck the flower,
Creations of his earlier hour.
From courts and camps, in groves like those, Thy hero, Blenheim! found repose.
To breathe the calm that such inspire,
Would awful Chatham's self retire.
And sacred ever be the shade,
Where, matchless Burke! thy form was laid,
When, pond'ring all thy country's woes,
The genius of Prescience rose,
And spread such visions to thy sight,
As check'd the spirit's hastening flight,
And stopp'd of age the coming night;
Bidding, as erst in Ajalon,
The mental sun not yet go down!
Beside that bright and tranquil stream
How pleasant to recline and dream!
Listening the while its gentle sound
Not even fairy ear might wound,
Nor passing Zephyr dare molest
The sacred quiet of its breast,
In gay translucency complete,
Yet mild as bright--O emblem meet!
The very heaven assign'd the just,
That haunt of beatific trust,
Where no defilement enters e'er,
Seems scarce more fair, more calm, more clear.
Byron! from this and could'st thou pass?
Perchance because its faithful glass
To thy inquiring glance has shown
Features, the contrast of its own.
For other images might find
Access to that distemper'd mind.
The dark wave lashing 'gainst the shore,
The wild cascade's eternal roar,
What scorns, or what maintains control,
Suits the stern habit of thy soul.
Where opes yon vista to disclose Deep blushing how th' horizon glows, 'Twere sweet to watch the sun descend,
Like patriarch or like patriot's end.
The radiance of whose parting light
Gleams far athwart the grave's long night,
And glances to that distant shore,
Where suns arise, to set no moret
Or where that hill's serener brow
O'erlooks the bustling world below,
Wait till that glorious orb arise,
And ride along the nether skies.
A warrior, awful to assail,
With fiery lance and golden mail;
Who, while his own impassive form
Derides of earth and heaven the storm,
Has ireful shafts so swift, so sure,
That mortal strength can ne'er endure;
When that, in vengeance like a God,
O'er scorching realms he proudly trod,
But oftener when he glads the view,
Like as a God in bounty too.
Pouring his flood of life and light,
O'er teeming plains and mountains bright;
Painting each flower with colours gay;
Darting the diamond's sparkling ray;
And making earth her stores unfold
Of ruddy fruit and waving gold.
The holiest heart was e'er bestow'd,
Might hail him on his heavenly road,
And pardon that the pagan knee
Had bent in fond idolatry.
Sweet scene, farewell! Although these eyes
Behold thee but through mimic dies;
Though ne'er my step may wander o'er
To ancient Albion's distant shore;
Yet for this semblance shall my heart
Long bless the imitative art.
But thou whose meed it was to know
The substance of this shadowy show,
At will to visit such a shrine,
With the high consciousness-twas thine;.
Could'st thou-whate'er the Syren call-
From such an Eden fly-self driven ?
Its social bower, its festive hall,
Its lawns, its waters, woods, its all !—
"O how could'st thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven."
The following beautiful sonnet, by the late Dr. Leyden, is the germ of the most poetical part of Graham's Sabbath.
HAIL to the placid, venerable morn
That slowly wakes while all the fields are still;
A pensive calm on every breeze is borne,
A graver murmur gurgles from the rill,
And echo answers softer from the hill;
While softer sings the linnet from the thorn,
The sky-lark warbles in a tone less shrill.
Hail, light serene! hail, holy sabbath morn!
The gales that lately sighed along the grave
Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose,
The rooks float silent by in airy drove,
The sun a mild, but solemn, lustre throws;
The clouds, that hovered slow, forget to move :
Thus smiled the day when the first morn arose.
The following lines, by a gentleman of New-York, appeared some time since in a political paper of that city. We now transplant them to a more congenial soil.
ON REVISITING THE COTTAGE OF ROSA IN EARLY SPRING, AFTER A LONG ABSENCE,
SEVEN summers have flown, and once more do I see
The fields and the groves I deserted so long;
Scarce a bud yet appears on the winter-beat tree,
Nor a bird yet enlivens the sky with his song.
For though spring has returned, yet the chilly wind blows,
And the violets and daisies still hide in the ground;
But one dear little flower, one beautiful ROSE,
Here blooms and here blushes the seasons all round.
Blow gently, ye zephyrs, be genial, ye showers,
Bright and warm be the sky o'er thy dear native vale,
And may no bitter blast ever ravage the bowers
That guard thy fair frame from the merciless gale.
And when the short season of blooming shall end,
Which fate to the children of nature hath given,
May some cherub of beauty, to snatch thee, descend,
And bear thee to bloom in the gardens of heaven.
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