Anna Laetitia Barbauld: Verses about Friend

May never more of pensive melancholy
Within thy heart, beneath thy roof appear,
Than just to break the charm of idle folly,
And prompt for others' woes the melting tear;
No more than just that tender gloom to spread
Where thy beloved Muses wont to stray,
To lift the thought from this low earthy bed,
Or bid hope languish for a brighter day;
And deeper sink within thy feeling heart
Love's pleasing wounds, or friendship's polished dart!

How blest the sacred tie that binds
In union sweet according minds!
How swift the heavenly course they run,
Whose hearts, whose faith, whose hopes are one!
To each, the soul of each how dear,
What jealous love, what holy fear!
How doth the generous flame within
Refine from earth and cleanse from sin!
Their streaming tears together flow
For human guilt and mortal woe;
Their ardent prayers together rise,
Like mingling flames in sacrifice.

Together both they seek the place
Where God reveals his awful face;
How high, how strong, their raptures swell,
There's none but kindred souls can tell.
Nor shall the glowing flame expire
When nature droops her sickening fire;
Then shall they meet in realms above,
A heaven of joy—because of love.

WHO HAD WISHED AT THE NEXT TRANSIT OF MERCURY TO FIND HIMSELF AGAIN BETWEEN MRS. LA BORDE AND MRS. B.

In twice five winters more and one,
Hermes again will cross the Sun;
Again a dusky spot appear,
Slow-journeying o'er his splendid sphere:
The stars shall slide into their places,
Exhibiting the self-same faces,
And in the like position fix
As Thursday morning, eighty-six.
But changing mortals hope in vain
Their lost position more to gain;—

Once more between La Borde and me!—
Ah, wish not what will never be!
For wandering planets have their rules,
Well known in astronomic schools;
But life's swift wheels will ne'er turn back,
When once they've measured o'er their track.
Eleven years,—twice five and one,—
Is a long hour in Beauty's sun:
Those years will pilfer many a grace
Which decks La Borde's enchanting face;
The little Loves which round her fly,
Will moult the wing, and droop, and die:
And I, grown dull, my lyre unstrung
In some old chimney corner hung,
Gay scenes of Paris all forgot,
Shall rust within my silent cot:
Life's summer ended, and life's spring,
Nor she shall charm, nor I shall sing.
Even Cook, upon whose blooming brow
The youthful graces open now,

Eleven years may vastly change:
No more the Provinces he'll range;
No more with humid eyes entreat,
And wait his doom at Beauty's feet;
Married and grave, he'll spend his time
Far from the idleness of rime;
Forgetting oranges and myrtle,
Will drink his port and eat his turtle;
Perhaps with country justice sit,
And turn his back on thee and Wit.

For thee, my friend, whose copious vein
Pours forth at will the polished strain,
With every talent formed to please,
Each fair idea quick to seize;—
Who knows within so long a space
What scenes the present may efface,
What course thy stream of life may take,
What winds may curl, what storms may shake,

What varying colours, gay or grave,
Shall tinge by turns the passing wave;
Of objects on its banks what swarms—
The loftier or the fairer forms—
Shall glide before the liquid glass,
And print their image as they pass?

Let Fancy then and Friendship stray
In Pleasure's flowery walks today,
Today improve the social hours,
And build today the Muse's bowers;
And when life's pageant on will go,
Try not to stop the passing show;
But give to scenes that once were dear,
A sigh, a farewell, and a tear.

ON HIS REVISITING WARRINGTON IN 1789

Friend of those years which from Youth's sparkling fount
With silent lapse down Time's swift gulf have run!
Friend of the years, whate'er be their amount,
Which yet remain beneath life's evening sun!
O when thy feet retrace that western shore
Where Mersey winds his waters to the main,
When thy fond eyes familiar haunts explore,
And paths well-nigh effaced are tracked again;
Will not thy heart with mixed emotions thrill,
As scenes succeeding scenes arise to view?
While joy or sorrow past alike shall fill
Thy glistening eyes with Feeling's tender dew.

Shades of light transient Loves shall pass thee by,
And glowing Hopes, and Sports of youthful vein;
And each shall claim one short, half pleasing sigh,
A farewell sigh to Love's and Fancy's reign.
Lo there the seats where Science loved to dwell,
Where Liberty her ardent spirit breathed;
While each glad Naiad from her secret cell
Her native sedge with classic honours wreathed.
O seats beloved in vain! Your rising dome
With what fond joy my youthful eyes surveyed;
Pleased by your sacred springs to find my home,
And tune my lyre beneath your growing shade!
Does Desolation spread his gloomy veil
Your grass-grown courts and silent halls along?
Or busy hands there pile the cumbrous sail,
And Trade's harsh din succeed the Muse's song?

Yet still, perhaps, in some sequestered walk
Thine ear shall catch the tales of other times;
Still in faint sounds the learned echoes talk,
Where unprofaned as yet by vulgar chimes.
Do not the deeply-wounded trees still bear
The dear memorial of some infant flame?
And murmuring sounds yet fill the hallowed air,
Once vocal to the youthful poet's fame?
For where her sacred step impressed the Muse,
She left a long perfume through all the bowers;
Still mayst thou gather thence Castalian dews
In honeyed sweetness clinging to the flowers.
Shrowded in stolen glance, here timorous Love
The grave rebuke of careful Wisdom drew,
With wholesome frown austere who vainly strove
To shield the sliding heart from Beauty's view.

Go fling this garland in fair Mersey's stream,
From the true lovers that have trod his banks;
Say, Thames to Avon still repeats his theme;
Say, Hymen's captives send their votive thanks.
Visit each shade and trace each weeping rill
To holy Friendship or to Fancy known,
And climb with zealous step the fir-crowned hill,
Where purple foxgloves fringe the rugged stone:
And if thou seest on some neglected spray
The lyre which soothed my careless hours so much;
The shattered relic to my hands convey,—
The murmuring strings shall answer to thy touch.
Were it, like thine, my lot once more to tread
Plains now but seen in distant perspective,
With that soft hue, that dubious gloom o'erspread,
That tender tint which only time can give;

How would it open every secret cell
Where cherished thought and fond remembrance sleep!
How many a tale each conscious step would tell!
How many a parted friend these eyes would weep!
But O the chief!—If in thy feeling breast
The tender charities of life reside,
If there domestic love have built her nest,
And thy fond heart a parent's cares divide;
Go seek the turf where worth, where wisdom lies,
Wisdom and worth, ah, never to return!
There, kneeling, weep my tears, and breathe my sighs,
A daughter's sorrows o'er her father's urn!

The kindred arts to please thee shall conspire,

One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre.

(Pope)


Amanda bids;-at her command again

I seize the pencil, or resume the pen;

No other call my willing hand requires,

And Friendship, better than a Muse inspires.

Painting and Poetry are near allied;

The kindred arts two sister Muses guide:

This charms the eye, that steals upon the ear;

There sounds are tuned, and colours blended here:

This with a silent touch enchants our eyes,

And bids a gayer, brighter world arise:

That, less allied to sense, with deeper art

Can pierce the close recesses of the heart;

By well-set syllables, and potent sound,

Can rouse, can chill the breast, can soothe, can wound;

To life adds motion, and to beauty soul,

And breathes a spirit through the finished whole:

Each perfects each, in friendly union joined;-

This gives Amanda's form, and that her mind.

But humbler themes my artless hand requires,

No higher than the feathered tribe aspires.

Yet who the various nations can declare

That plough with busy wing the peopled air?

These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food;

Those dip their crooked beak in kindred blood:

Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods;

Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods;

Some fly to man, his household gods implore,

And gather round his hospitable door,

Wait the known call, and find protection there

From all the lesser tyrants of the air.

The tawny Eagle seats his callow brood

High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood.

On Snowdon's rocks, or Orkney's wide domain,

Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the Western main,

The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms

Amidst the gathering clouds and sullen storms;





Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight,

And holds his sounding pinions poised for flight;

With cruel eye premeditates the war,

And marks his destined victim from afar:

Descending in a whirlwind to the ground,

His pinions like the rush of waters sound;

The fairest of the fold he bears away,

And to his nest compels the struggling prey;

He scorns the game by meaner hunters tore,

And dips his talons in no vulgar gore.


With lovelier pomp along the grassy plain

The Silver Pheasant draws his shining train.

On Asia's myrtle shores, by Phasis' stream,

He spreads his plumage to the sunny gleam;

But when the wiry net his flight confines,

He lowers his purple crest, and inly pines:

The beauteous captive hangs his ruffled wing,

Opprest by bondage and our chilly spring.

To claim the verse unnumbered tribes appear,

That swell the music of the vernal year:


Seized with the spirit of the kindly May,

They sleek the glossy wing, and tune the lay;

With emulative strife the notes prolong,

And pour out all their little souls in song.

When winter bites upon the naked plain,

Nor food nor shelter in the groves remain,

By instinct led, a firm united band,

As marshaled by some skillful general's hand,

The congregated nations wing their way

In dusky columns o'er the trackless sea;

In clouds unnumbered annual hover o'er

The craggy Bass, or Kilda's utmost shore;

Thence spread their sails to meet the southern wind,

And leave the gathering tempest far behind;

Pursue the circling sun's indulgent ray,

Course the swift seasons, and o'ertake the day.

Not so the insect race, ordained to keep

The lazy sabbath of a half-year's sleep:

Entombed beneath the filmy web they lie,

And wait the influence of a kinder sky.


When vernal sunbeams pierce their dark retreat,

The heaving tomb distends with vital heat;

The half-formed brood, impatient of their cell,

Start from their trance, and burst their silken shell;-

Trembling awhile they stand, and scarcely dare

To launch at once upon the untried air:

At length assured, they catch the favouring gale,

And leave their sordid spoils, and high in ether sail.

So when brave Tancred struck the conscious rind,

He found a nymph in every trunk confined;


The forest labours with convulsive throes,

The bursting trees the lovely births disclose,

And a gay troop of damsels round him stood,

Where late was rugged bark and lifeless wood.

Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfold!

With silver fringed, and freckled o'er with gold:

On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower

They idly fluttering live their little hour;

Their life all pleasure, and their task all play,

All spring their age, and sunshine all their day.

Not so the child of sorrow, wretched Man,

His course with toil concludes, with pain began;

That his high destiny he might discern,

And in misfortune's school this lesson learn….

Pleasure's the portion of the inferior kind;

But glory, virtue, Heaven for Man designed.

What atom-forms of insect life appear!

And who can follow Nature's pencil here?

Their wings with azure, green and purple glossed,

Studded with coloured eyes, with gems embossed,


Inlaid with pearl, and marked with various stains

Of lively crimson through their dusky veins.

Some shoot like living stars athwart the night,

And scatter from their wings a vivid light,

To guide the Indian to his tawny loves,

As through the woods with cautious step he moves.

See the proud giant of the beetle race;

What shining arms his polished limbs enchase!

Like some stern warrior formidably bright,

His steely sides reflect a gleaming light:


On his large forehead spreading horns he wears,

And high in air the branching antlers bears:

O'er many an inch extends his wide domain,

And his rich treasury swells with hoarded grain.

Thy friend thus strives to cheat the lonely hour,

With song or paint, an insect or a flower:-

Yet if Amanda praise the flowing line,

And bend delighted o'er the gay design,

I envy not nor emulate the fame

Or of the painter's or the poet's name:


Could I to both with equal claim pretend,

Yet far, far dearer were the name of Friend.

HEALTH to my friend, and long unbroken years,
By storms unruffled and unstain'd by tears:
Wing'd by new joys may each white minute fly;
Spring on her cheek, and sunshine in her eye:
O'er that dear breast, where love and pity springs,
May peace eternal spread her downy wings:

Sweet beaming hope her path illumine still,
And fair ideas all her fancy fill.
From glittering scenes which strike the dazzled sight
With mimic grandeur and illusive light,
From idle hurry, and tumultuous noise,
From hollow friendships, and from sickly joys,
Will DELIA, at the muse's call retire
To the pure pleasures rural scenes inspire?
Will she from crowds and busy cities fly,
Where wreaths of curling smoke involve the sky,
To taste the grateful shade of spreading trees,
And drink the spirit of the mountain breeze?

When winter's hand the rough'ning year deforms,
And hollow winds foretel approaching storms,
Then Pleasure, like a bird of passage, flies
To brighter climes, and more indulgent skies;
Cities and courts allure her sprightly train,

From the bleak mountain and the naked plain;
And gold and gems with artificial blaze,
Supply the sickly sun's declining rays:
But soon returning on the western gale
She seeks the bosom of the grassy vale;
There, wrapt in careless ease, attunes the lyre
To the wild warblings of the woodland quire;
The daisied turf her humble throne supplies,
And early primroses around her rise.
We'll follow where the smiling goddess leads,
Thro' tangled forests or enamel'd meads;
O'er pathless hills her airy form we'll chase,
In silent glades her fairy footsteps trace:
Small pains there needs her footsteps to pursue,
She cannot fly from friendship, and from you.
Now the glad earth her frozen zone unbinds,
And o'er her bosom breathe the western winds:
Already now the snow-drop dares appear,

The first pale blossom of th' unripen'd year;
As FLORA's breath, by some transforming power,
Had chang'd an icicle into a flower:
Its name, and hue, and scentless plant retains,
And winter lingers in its icy veins.
To these succeed the violet's dusky blue,
And each inferior flower of fainter hue;
Till riper months the perfect year disclose,
And FLORA cries exulting, See my Rose!

The Muse invites, my DELIA haste away,
And let us sweetly waste the careless day.
Here gentle summits lift their airy brow;
Down the green slope here winds the labouring plow;
Here bath'd by frequent show'rs cool vales are seen,
Cloath'd with fresh verdure, and eternal green;
Here smooth canals, across th' extended plain,
Stretch their long arms, to join the distant main :

The sons of toil with many a weary stroke
Scoop the hard bosom of the solid rock;
Resistless thro' the stiff opposing clay
With steady patience work their gradual way;
Compel the genius of th' unwilling flood
Thro' the brown horrors of the aged wood;
Cross the lone waste the silver urn they pour,
And chear the barren heath or sullen moor:
The traveller with pleasing wonder sees
The white sail gleaming thro' the dusky trees ;
And views the alter'd landscape with surprise,
And doubts the magic scenes which round him rise.
Now, like a flock of swans, above his head
Their woven wings the flying vessels spread;
Now meeting streams in artful mazes glide,
While each unmingled pours a separate tide;
Now through the hidden veins of earth they flow,
And visit sulphurous mines and caves below;

The ductile streams obey the guiding hand,
And social plenty circles round the land.

But nobler praise awaits our green retreats;
The Muses here have fixt their sacred seats.
Mark where its simple front yon mansion rears,
The nursery of men for future years:
Here callow chiefs and embryo statesmen lie,
And unfledg'd poets short excursions try:
While Mersey's gentle current, which too long
By fame neglected, and unknown to song,
Between his rushy banks, (no poet's theme)
Had crept inglorious, like a vulgar stream,
Reflects th' ascending seats with conscious pride,
And dares to emulate a classic tide.
Soft music breathes along each op'ning shade,
And sooths the dashing of his rough cascade.
With mystic lines his sands are figur'd o'er,

And circles trac'd upon the letter'd shore,
Beneath his willows rove th' inquiring youth,
And court the fair majestic form of truth.
Here nature opens all her secret springs,
And heav'n-born science plumes her eagle wings:
Too long had bigot rage, with malice swell'd,
Crush'd her strong pinions, and her flight witheld;
Too long to check her ardent progress strove:
So writhes the serpent round the bird of Jove;
Hangs on her flight, restrains her tow'ring wing,
Twists its dark folds, and points its venom'd sting.
Yet still (if aught aright the Muse divine)
Her rising pride shall mock the vain design;
On sounding pinions yet aloft shall soar,
And thro' the azure deep untravel'd paths explore.
Where science smiles, the Muses join the train;
And gentlest arts and purest manners reign.
Ye generous youth who love this studious shade,

How rich a field is to your hopes display'd!
Knowledge to you unlocks the classic page;
And virtue blossoms for a better age.
Oh golden days! oh bright unvalued hours!
What bliss (did ye but know that bliss) were yours?
With richest stores your glowing bosoms fraught,
Perception quick, and luxury of thought;
The high designs that heave the labouring soul,
Panting for fame, impatient of controul;
And fond enthusiastic thought, that feeds
On pictur'd tales of vast heroic deeds;
And quick affections, kindling into flame
At virtue's, or their country's honour'd name;
And spirits light to every joy in tune;
And friendship ardent as a summer's noon;
And generous scorn of vice's venal tribe;
And proud disdain of interest's sordid bribe;
And conscious honour's quick instinctive sense;

And smiles unforc'd; and easy confidence;
And vivid fancy, and clear simple truth ;
And all the mental bloom of vernal youth.

How bright the scene to fancy's eye appears,
Thro' the long perspective of distant years,
When this, this little group their country calls
From academic shades and learned halls,
To fix her laws, her spirit to sustain,
And light up glory thro' her wide domain!
Their various tastes in different arts display'd,
Like temper'd harmony of light and shade,
With friendly union in one mass shall blend,
And this adorn the state, and that defend.
These the sequester'd shade shall cheaply please,
With learned labour and inglorious ease:
With those, impell'd by some resistless force,
O'er seas and rocks shall urge their vent'rous course;


Rich fruits matur'd by glowing suns behold,
And China's groves of vegetable gold;
From every land the various harvest spoil,
And bear the tribute to their native soil:
But tell each land (while every toil they share,
Firm to sustain, and resolute to dare,)
MAN is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And SOULS are ripen'd in our northern sky.

Some pensive creep along the shelly shore;
Unfold the silky texture of a flower;
With sharpen'd eyes inspect an hornet's sting,
And all the wonders of an insect's wing.
Some trace with curious search the hidden cause
Of nature's changes, and her various laws;
Untwist her beauteous web, disrobe her charms,
And hunt her to her elemental forms:
Or prove what hidden powers in herbs are found


To quench disease and staunch the burning wound;
With cordial drops the fainting head sustain,
Call back the flitting soul, and still the throbs of pain.

The patriot passion this shall strongly feel,
Ardent, and glowing with undaunted zeal;
With lips of fire shall plead his country's cause,
And vindicate the majesty of laws.
This cloath'd with Britain's thunder, spread alarms
Thro' the wide earth, and shake the pole with arms.
That to the sounding lyre his deeds rehearse,
Enshrine his name in some immortal verse,
To long posterity his praise consign,
And pay a life of hardships by a line.
While others, consecrate to higher aims,
Whose hallow'd bosoms glow with purer flames,
Love in their heart, persuasion in their tongue,
With words of peace shall charm the list'ning throng,


Draw the dread veil that wraps th' eternal throne,
And launch our souls into the bright unknown.

Here cease my song. Such arduous themes require
A master's pencil, and a poet's fire:
Unequal far such bright designs to paint,
Too weak her colours, and her lines too faint,
My drooping Muse folds up her fluttering wing,
And hides her head in the green lap of spring.