| |
| OFT have you seen a swan superbly frowning, | |
| And with proud breast his own white shadow crowning; | |
| He slants his neck beneath the waters bright | |
| So silently, it seems a beam of light | |
| Come from the galaxy: anon he sports,— | 5 |
| With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts, | |
| Or ruffles all the surface of the lake | |
| In striving from its crystal face to take | |
| Some diamond water drops, and them to treasure | |
| In milky nest, and sip them off at leisure. | 10 |
| But not a moment can he there insure them, | |
| Nor to such downy rest can he allure them; | |
| For down they rush as though they would be free, | |
| And drop like hours into eternity. | |
| Just like that bird am I in loss of time, | 15 |
| Whene’er I venture on the stream of rhyme; | |
| With shatter’d boat, oar snapt, and canvass rent, | |
| I slowly sail, scarce knowing my intent; | |
| Still scooping up the water with my fingers, | |
| In which a trembling diamond never lingers. | 20 |
| |
| By this, friend Charles, you may full plainly see | |
| Why I have never penn’d a line to thee: | |
| Because my thoughts were never free, and clear, | |
| And little fit to please a classic ear; | |
| Because my wine was of too poor a savour | 25 |
| For one whose palate gladdens in the flavour | |
| Of sparkling Helicon:—small good it were | |
| To take him to a desert rude, and bare, | |
| Who had on Baiae’s shore reclin’d at ease, | |
| While Tasso’s page was floating in a breeze | 30 |
| That gave soft music from Armida’s bowers, | |
| Mingled with fragrance from her rarest flowers: | |
| Small good to one who had by Mulla’s stream | |
| Fondled the maidens with the breasts of cream; | |
| Who had beheld Belphoebe in a brook, | 35 |
| And lovely Una in a leafy nook, | |
| And Archimago leaning o’er his book: | |
| Who had of all that’s sweet tasted, and seen, | |
| From silv’ry ripple, up to beauty’s queen; | |
| From the sequester’d haunts of gay Titania, | 40 |
| To the blue dwelling of divine Urania: | |
| One, who, of late, had ta’en sweet forest walks | |
| With him who elegantly chats, and talks— | |
| The wrong’d Libertas,—who has told you stories | |
| Of laurel chaplets, and Apollo’s glories; | 45 |
| Of troops chivalrous prancing through a city, | |
| And tearful ladies made for love, and pity: | |
| With many else which I have never known. | |
| Thus have I thought; and days on days have flown | |
| Slowly, or rapidly—unwilling still | 50 |
| For you to try my dull, unlearned quill. | |
| Nor should I now, but that I’ve known you long; | |
| That you first taught me all the sweets of song: | |
| The grand, the sweet, the terse, the free, the fine; | |
| What swell’d with pathos, and what right divine: | 55 |
| Spenserian vowels that elope with ease, | |
| And float along like birds o’er summer seas; | |
| Miltonian storms, and more, Miltonian tenderness; | |
| Michael in arms, and more, meek Eve’s fair slenderness. | |
| Who read for me the sonnet swelling loudly | 60 |
| Up to its climax and then dying proudly? | |
| Who found for me the grandeur of the ode, | |
| Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load? | |
| Who let me taste that more than cordial dram, | |
| The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram? | 65 |
| Shew’d me that epic was of all the king, | |
| Round, vast, and spanning all like Saturn’s ring? | |
| You too upheld the veil from Clio’s beauty, | |
| And pointed out the patriot’s stern duty; | |
| The might of Alfred, and the shaft of Tell; | 70 |
| The hand of Brutus, that so grandly fell | |
| Upon a tyrant’s head. Ah! had I never seen, | |
| Or known your kindness, what might I have been? | |
| What my enjoyments in my youthful years, | |
| Bereft of all that now my life endears? | 75 |
| And can I e’er these benefits forget? | |
| And can I e’er repay the friendly debt? | |
| No, doubly no;—yet should these rhymings please, | |
| I shall roll on the grass with two-fold ease: | |
| For I have long time been my fancy feeding | 80 |
| With hopes that you would one day think the reading | |
| Of my rough verses not an hour mis[s]pent; | |
| Should it e’er be so, what a rich content! | |
| Some weeks have pass’d since last I saw the spires | |
| In lucent Thames reflected:—warm desires | 85 |
| To see the sun o’er peep the eastern dimness, | |
| And morning shadows streaking into slimness | |
| Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water; | |
| To mark the time as they grow broad, and shorter; | |
| To feel the air that plays about the hills, | 90 |
| And sips its freshness from the little rills; | |
| To see high, golden corn wave in the light | |
| When Cynthia smiles upon a summer’s night, | |
| And peers among the cloudlet’s jet and white, | |
| As though she were reclining in a bed | 95 |
| Of bean blossoms, in heaven freshly shed. | |
| No sooner had I stepp’d into these pleasures | |
| Than I began to think of rhymes and measures: | |
| The air that floated by me seem’d to say | |
| “Write! thou wilt never have a better day.” | 100 |
| And so I did. When many lines I’d written, | |
| Though with their grace I was not oversmitten, | |
| Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I’d better | |
| Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter. | |
| Such an attempt required an inspiration | 105 |
| Of a peculiar sort,—a consummation;— | |
| Which, had I felt, these scribblings might have been | |
| Verses from which the soul would never wean: | |
| But many days have past since last my heart | |
| Was warm’d luxuriously by divine Mozart; | 110 |
| By Arne delighted, or by Handel madden’d; | |
| Or by the song of Erin pierc’d and sadden’d: | |
| What time you were before the music sitting, | |
| And the rich notes to each sensation fitting. | |
| Since I have walk’d with you through shady lanes | 115 |
| That freshly terminate in open plains, | |
| And revel’d in a chat that ceased not | |
| When at night-fall among your books we got: | |
| No, nor when supper came, nor after that,— | |
| Nor when reluctantly I took my hat; | 120 |
| No, nor till cordially you shook my hand | |
| Mid-way between our homes:—your accents bland | |
| Still sounded in my ears, when I no more | |
| Could hear your footsteps touch the grav’ly floor. | |
| Sometimes I lost them, and then found again; | 125 |
| You chang’d the footpath for the grassy plain. | |
| In those still moments I have wish’d you joys | |
| That well you know to honour:—“Life’s very toys | |
| “With him,” said I, “will take a pleasant charm; | |
| “It cannot be that ought will work him harm.” | 130 |
| These thoughts now come o’er me with all their might:— | |
Again I shake your hand,—friend Charles, good night.
September, 1816. | |
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| See Notes. |
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