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By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned!
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances and the public show?
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polished marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallowed dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dressed,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow;
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground now sacred by thy relics made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee;

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung, Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays; Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart; Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The muse forgot, and thou beloved no more!

THE MESSIAH.

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus, and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more-0 thou my voice inspire,
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard begun:
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies:
The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower.
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!

See, nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring!
See lofty Lebanon his head advance!
See nodding forests on the mountains dance!
See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfume the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply;
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.
Lo! earth receives him from the bending skies;
Sink down, ye mountains; and ye valleys rise;
With heads declined, ye cedars homage pay;
Be smooth, ye rocks: ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold :
Hear him, ye deaf: and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day:
'Tis he the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm the unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wild world shall hear;
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall death be bound,
And hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air;
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand or in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes;
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more:
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,

And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise

Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;

And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear

New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:

To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake;
Pleased the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn!
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabean springs.
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflows thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fixed his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm forever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

JOHN GAY was one of the most intimate friends and constant associates of Swift and Pope, and was the most artless and best beloved of all their circle of wits and poets. He was descended from the ancient family of the Le Gays of Oxford, and was born at Barnstable, Devonshire, in 1688. A number of the years of his boyhood were spent at the free school of his native town, under the instruction of a Westminster scholar, by whom his mind was imbued with a just taste for classical learning; but his father being in reduced circumstances, the future poet was apprenticed to a silk mercer, in London. This step was taken without consulting his taste or temper. The shop soon became his aversion; he was seldom seen in it; and in a few years his master, upon the offer of a small consideration, willingly released him from the terms of his indentures, and left him to follow his own inclinations. Poetry, for which he had already shown some talent, now became his delight; and he resolved that his muse should no longer be neglected. was fortunately introduced to Dean Swift and Pope, both of whom were struck with the open sincerity and undisguised simplicity of his manners, and the sweetness of his temper.

He

In 1711, Gay first appeared as an author, in the publication of his Rural Sports, a descriptive poem, dedicated to Pope. In this early poem he thus indicates his happiness at being emancipated from the drudgery of a shop:

But I, who ne'er was blessed by Fortune's hand,
Nor brightened ploughshares in paternal land;
Long in the noisy town have been immured,
Respired its smoke, and all its cares endured.
Fatigued at last, a calm retreat I chose,
And soothed my harassed mind with sweet repose,
Where fields, and shades, and the refreshing clime
Inspire the sylvan song, and prompt my rhyme.

In the following year Gay obtained the appointment of secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and was warmly congratulated by Pope on his good fortune. He soon after published his Shepherd's Week in Six Pastorals. This work was designed to ridicule the pastorals of Ambrose Philips; but it was found to contain so much genuine comic humor, and so many entertaining pictures of country life, that it became popular, not as a satire, but on account of its intrinsic merit, as affording a prospect of his own country.' TheShepherd's Week' was almost immediately followed by Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, and The Fan, a poem in three books. The former of these productions is in the mock-heroic style, and gives a graphic account of the dangers and impediments to be, at that time, encountered in traversing the narrow, crowded, ill-lighted, and vice-infested thoroughfares of the metropolis. His paintings of city life are in the Flemish style, low and familiar, but correctly and forcibly drawn. The following sketch of the frequenters of book-stalls in the streets, may still be verified :

Volumes on sheltered stalls expanded lie,

And various science lures the learned eye;

The bending shelves with ponderous scholiasts groan,
And deep divines, to modern shops unknown;
Here, like the bee, that on industrious wing
Collects the various odours of the spring,
Walkers at leisure learning's flowers may spoil,
Nor watch the wasting of the midnight oil;
May morals snatch from Plutarch's tattered page,

A mildewed Bacon, or Statgyra's sage:
Here sauntering 'prentices o'er Otway weep,
O'er Congreve smile, or over D'Urfey sleep;

Pleased sempstresses the Lock's famed Rape unfold;
And Squirts' read Garth till apozems grow cold.

In 1713, he produced a comedy entitled The Wife of Bath; but it proved unsuccessful. Lord Clarendon having been about this time ap

1 Squirt is the name of an apothecary's boy in Garth's 'Dispensary.'

pointed envoy-extraordinary to the court of Hanover, Gay relinquished his connection with the Monmouth family, and accompanied him thither as his secretary. This situation was obtained for him through the direct influence of his friends; but the death of the queen, which happened soon after, closed the embassy, and Gay, in 1714, returned to England. Ambitious of court favor, he now wrote a poem on the princess, which was so well received by the royal family that when he brought out his farce, What D'ye Call It, they publicly patronized it. This piece was eminently successful, and the author was stimulated to another dramatic attempt of a similar nature, entitled Three Hours After Marriage. Some personal satire and indecent dialogues in this play, at once sealed its fate; and Gay, being afraid that Pope and Arburthnot would be injured from their supposed connection with it, magnanimously took all the shame to himself." The failure of this play so deeply affected him that he remained oppressed and dejected for some years; but in 1720, he published his poems by subscription, and cleared, by the publication, a thousand pounds. He now embarked extensively in the South Sea stock speculation, and soon lost, by that fatal delusion, his entire property, which amounted to nearly twenty thousand pounds. This serious calamity only prompted to farther literary exertions. In 1724, he brought out another drama called The Captives, the success of which was very moderate; and in two years after he produced a volume of fables, designed for the special improvement of the Duke of Cumberland. The accession of the prince and princess to the throne promised well for the fortunes of Gay; but the only situation offered him was that of gentleman usher to one of the young princesses; and considering this an insult, he at once rejected it.

In 1726, Swift, while on a visit to London, suggested to Gay the idea of a Newgate pastoral, in which the characters should be thieves and highwaymen, and the Beggar's Opera was the result. The variety and spirit of the piece, and the intermixture of song and sentiment with vice and roguery, still render the 'Beggar's Opera,' a favorite with the public; but as the author has succeeded in making highwaymen agreeable, and even attractive, the work can not be commended for its moral tendency. The opera had a run of sixty-three nights, and became the rage of both town and country. Its success had also the effect of giving rise to the English opera, a species of light comedy continued by songs and music, which for a time supplanted the Italian opera, with all its exotic and elaborate graces. Gay wrote a sequel to the Beggar's Opera,' under the title of Polly; but as it was supposed to contain sarcasms on the court, the lord chamberlain prohibited its representation. The poet, therefore, had recourse to publication; and such was the activity of his friends, and the effect of party spirit, that while he realized from the 'Beggar's Opera' only four hundred pounds, 'Polly' produced a clear profit of nearly twelve hundred. Gay passed the remainder of his life with his kind friends and patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensbury, and died at their residence, of an inflammatory fever, on the fourth of De

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