PARENT of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys ;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those of Truth.
And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;
When virgins seem no longer vain,
And even woman's smiles are true.
And must we own thee but a name,
And from thy hall of clouds descend?
Nor find a sylph in every dame,
A Pylades (1) in every friend?
tain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon, at sunset, with a sensation which I cannot describe."-E.
(1) It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades was the companion of Orestes, and a partner in one of those friendships which, with those of Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Euryalus, Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to posterity as remarkable instances of attachments, which in all probability never existed beyond the imagination of the poet, or the page of an historian, or modern novelist.
But leave at once thy realms of air
To mingling bands of fairy elves;
Confess that woman's false as fair,
And friends have feeling for themselves?
With shame I own I've felt thy sway;
Repentant, now thy reign is o'er :
No more thy precepts I obey,
No more on fancied pinions soar.
Fond fool! to love a sparkling eve.
And think that eye to truth was dear;
To trust a passing wanton's sigh,
And melt beneath a wanton's tear!
Romance! disgusted with deceit,
Far from thy motley court I fly,
Where Affectation holds her seat,
And sickly Sensibility;
Whose silly tears can never flow
For any pangs excepting thine;
Who turns aside from real woe,
To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine.
Now join with sable Sympathy,
With cypress crown'd, array'd in weeds, Who heaves with thee her simple sigh, Whose breast for every bosom bleeds; And call thy sylvan female choir,
To mourn a swain for ever gone, Who once could glow with equal fire, But bends not now before thy throne.
Ye genial nymphs, whose ready tears
On all occasions swiftly flow;
Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears,
With fancied flames and phrensy glow;
Say, will you mourn my absent name,
Apostate from your gentle train?
An infant bard at least may claim
From you a sympathetic strain.
Adieu, fond race! a long adieu !
The hour of fate is hovering nigh;
E'en now the gulf appears in view,
Where unlamented you must lie:
Oblivion's blackening lake is seen,
Convulsed by gales you cannot weather;
Where you, and eke your gentle queen,
Alas! must perish altogether.
ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT VERSES SENT
BY A FRIEND TO THE AUTHOR, COMPLAIN-
ING THAT ONE OF HIS DESCRIPTIONS WAS
RATHER TOO WARMLY DRAWN.
"But if any old lady, knight, priest, or physician,
Should condemn me for printing a second edition;
If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,
May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?"
CANDOUR Compels me, BECHER! (1) to commend The verse which blends the censor with the friend.
(1) The Rev. John Becher, prebendary of Southwell, the well-known author of several philanthropic plans for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. In this gentleman the youthful poet found not only an honest
Your strong yet just reproof extorts applause
From me, the heedless and imprudent cause.
For this wild error which pervades my strain,
I sue for pardon, — must I sue in vain?
The wise sometimes from Wisdom's ways depart:
Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart?
Precepts of prudence curb, but can't control,
The fierce emotions of the flowing soul.
When Love's delirium haunts the glowing mind,
Limping Decorum lingers far behind:
Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace,
Outstript and vanquish'd in the mental chase.
The young, the old, have worn the chains of love:
Let those they ne'er confined my lay reprove:
Let those whose souls contemn the pleasing power
Their censures on the hapless victim shower.
Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song,
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng,
Whose labour'd lines in chilling numbers flow,
To paint a pang the author ne'er can know !
The artless Helicon I boast is youth;
My lyre, the heart; my muse, the simple truth.
Far be't from me the "virgin's mind" to "taint:"
Seduction's dread is here no slight restraint.
The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile,
Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile,
and judicious critic, but a sincere friend. To his care the superintendence of the second edition of "Hours of Idleness," during its progress through a country press, was intrusted, and at his suggestion several corrections and omissions were made. "I must return you," says Lord Byron, in a letter written in February, 1808, "my best acknowledgments for the interest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and I shall ever be proud to show how much I esteem the advice and the adviser."— E.
Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer,
Firm in her virtue's strength, yet not severe —
She whom a conscious grace shall thus refine
Will ne'er be " tainted" by a strain of mine.
But for the nymph whose premature desires
Torment her bosom with unholy fires,
No net to snare her willing heart is spread;
She would have fallen, though she ne'er had read.
For me, I fain would please the chosen few,
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true,
Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy
The light effusions of a heedless boy.
I seek not glory from the senseless crowd;
Of fancied laurels I shall ne'er be proud:
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize,
Their sneers or censures I alike despise.
ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD ABBEY. (1)
"It is the voice of years that are gone! they roll before me with all their deeds."- Ossian.
NEWSTEAD! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome! Religion's shrine! repentant HENRY'S (2) pride! Of warriors, monks, and dames the cloister'd tomb, Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide,
(1) As one poem on this subject is already printed, the author had, origi. nally, no intention of inserting the following. It is now added at the particular request of some friends.
(2) Henry II. founded Newstead soon after the murder of Thomas à Becket. [See ante, p. 15. note.]
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