By fiction's shield secure, for many a year
O'er cooler reason held the genius rule;
But lo! Cervantes waves his pointed spear,
Nor fiction's shield can stay the spear of ridicule.
The blameless warrior comes; he first to wield
His fateful weapon in the martial field;
By him created on the view,
Arcadia's valleys bloom anew,
And many a flock o'erspreads the plain,
And love, with innocence, assumes his reign:
Protected by a warrior's name,
The kindred warriors live to fame:
Sad is the scene, where oft from pity's eye
Descends the sorrowing tear,
As high the unhooding chieftain lifts the spear,
And gives the deadly blow, and sees Parthenia die!
Where, where such virtues can we see,
Or where such valour, Sidney, but in thee? Oh, cold of heart, shall pride assail thy shade, Whom all romance could fancy Nature made? Sound, fame, thy loudest blast,
For Spenser pours the tender strain,
And shapes to glowing forms the motley train;
The elfin tribes around
Await his potent sound,
And o'er his head Romance her brightest splendours cast. Deep through the air let sorrow's banner wave!
o'er Spenser's friendless head
Her chilling mantle spread;
For genius cannot save!
Virtue bedews the blameless poet's dust;
But fame, exulting, clasps her favourite's laurel'd bust.
Fain would the grateful muse to thee, Rousseau,
Pour forth the energic thanks of gratitude;
Fain would the raptur'd lyre ecstatic glow,
To whom romance and Nature form'd all good:
Guide of my life, too weak these lays,
To pour the unutterable praise;
Thine aid divine for ever lend,
Still as my guardian sprite attend;
Unmov'd by fashion's flaunting throng,
calm stream of life smooth its meek course along;
Let no weak vanity dispense Her vapours o'er my better sense; But let my bosom glow with fire, Let me strike the soothing lyre, Although by all unheard the melodies expire.
A moment's splendour streaks the skies,
Where ruin marks its course:
Then see how mild the font of day
Expands the stream of light;
Whilst living by the genial ray,
All nature smiles delight.
So boisterous riot, on his course
Uncurb'd by reason, flies;
And lightning-like its fatal force,
Soon lightning-like it dies:
Whilst sober Temperance, still the same,
Shall shun the scene of strife;
And, like the sun's enlivening flame,
Shall beam the lamp of life.
So when stern time their frames shall seize,
When sorrows pay for sin;
When every nerve shall feel disease,
And conscience shrink within;
Shall health's best blessings all be ours,
The soul serene at ease,
Whilst science gilds the passing hours,
And every hour shall please.
Even now from solitude they fly,
To drown each thought in noise;
Even now they shun Reflection's eye,
Depriv'd of man's best joys.
So, when Time's unrelenting doom
Shall bring the seasons' course,
The busy monitor shall come
With aggravated force.
Friendship is ours: best friend, who knows,
Each varied hour to employ;
To share the lighted load of woes,
And double every joy;
And science too shall lend her aid,
The friend that never flies,
But shines amid misfortune's shade
As stars in midnight skies.
Each joy domestic bliss can know
Shall deck the future hour;
Or if we taste the cup of woe,
The cup has lost its power;
Thus may we live, till death's keen spear,
Unwish'd, unfear'd, shall come;
Then sink, without one guilty fear,
To slumber in the tomb.
THOU mouldering mansion, whose embattled side
Shakes as about to fall at every blast;
Once the gay pile of splendour, wealth, and pride,
But now the monument of grandeur past.
Fall'n fabric! pondering o'er thy time trac❜d walls,
Thy mouldering, mighty, melancholy state;
Each object to the musing mind recalls
The sad vicissitudes of varying fate.
Thy tall towers tremble to the touch of time,
The rank weeds rustle in thy spacious courts:
Fill'd are thy wide canals with loathly slime,
Where, battening undisturb'd, the foul toad sports,
Deep from her dismal dwelling yells the owl,
The shrill bat flits around her dark retreat;
And the hoarse daw, when loud the tempests howl,
Screams as the wild winds shake her secret seat.
'Twas here Avaro dwelt, who daily told
His useless heaps of wealth in selfish joy; Who lov'd to ruminate o'er hoarded gold, And hid those stores he dreaded to employ.
In vain to him benignant heaven bestow'd
The golden heaps to render thousands blest;
Smooth aged penury's laborious road,
And heal the sorrows of affliction's breast.
For, like the serpent of romance, he lay
Sleepless and stern to guard the golden sight;
With ceaseless care he watched his heaps by day,
With causeless fears he agoniz'd by night.
Ye honest rustics, whose diurnal toil
Enrich'd the ample fields this churl possest;
Say, ye who paid to him the annual spoil,
With all his riches, was Avaro blest?
Rose he, like you, at morn, devoid of fear,
His anxious vigils o'er his gold to keep?
Or sunk he, when the noiseless night was near,
As calmly on his couch of down to sleep?
Thou wretch! thus curst with poverty of soul,
What boot to thee the blessings fortune gave?
What boots thy wealth above the world's control,
If riches doom their churlish lord a slave?
Chill'd at thy presence grew the stately halls,
Nor longer echo'd to the song of mirth;
The hand of art no more adorn'd thy walls,
Nor blazed with hospitable fires the hearth.
On well-worn hinges turns the gate no more,
Nor social friendship hastes the friend to meet
Nor, when the accustom'd guest draws near the door,
Run the glad dogs, and gambol round his feet.
Sullen and stern Avaro sat alone,
In anxious wealth amid the joyless hall,
Nor heeds the chilly hearth with moss o'ergrown,
Nor sees the green slime mark the mouldering wall.
For desolation o'er the fabric dwells,
And time, on restless pinion, hurried by;
Loud from her chimney'd seat the night-bird yells,
And through the shatter'd roof descends the sky.
Thou melancholy mansion! much mine eye
Delights to wander o'er thy sullen gloom,
And mark the daw from yonder turret fly,
And muse how man himself creates his doom.
For here, had justice reign'd, had pity known
With genial power to sway Avaro's breast,
These treasur'd heaps which fortune made his own,
By aiding misery might himself have blest.
And charity had oped her golden store,
To work the gracious will of heaven intent,
Fed from her superflux the craving poor,
And paid adversity what heaven had lent.
Then had thy turrets stood in all their state,
Then had the hand of art adorn'd thy wall,
Swift on its well-worn hinges turn'd the gate,
And friendly converse cheer'd the echoing hall.
Then had the village youth at vernal hour
Hung round with flowery wreaths thy friendly gate,
And blest in gratitude that sovereign power
That made the man of mercy good as great.
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