George Dyer: Verses about Death

Now cease the sad complaining strain,
Now hush'd be PITY'S tender sigh,
While Memory wakes her fairy train,
And young delight sits laughing by;
Return, each hour of rosy hue,
In wreathy smiles, and garlands gay,
As when on playful wing ye flew,
When every month was blithe as May;
When young Invention wak'd his mimic powers,
And Genius, wand'ring wild, sigh'd for enchanted bowers.

Then too in antic vestment dress'd,
Pastime would blithsome trip along,
Throwing around the gibe, or jest,
Satire enrhymed, or simple song,
And merry Mischief oft would weave
His wanton tricks for little hearts,
Nor love his tender votary grieve,
Soft were his hands, nor keen his darts:
While Friendship felt th' enthusiast's glow,
Would give her half of bliss, and take her share of woe.

And though around my youthful spring
Many a low'ring storm might rise,
Hope her soul-soothing strain would sing,
And quickly brightened up the skies;
How sweetly pass'd my youth's gay prime!
For not untuneful was my tongue;
And as I tried the classic rhyme,
The critic school-boy prais'd my song.
Nor did mine eye not catch the splendid ray,
That promis'd fair to gild Ambition's distant day.

Ah! pleasing, gloomy, cloister shade,
Still, still this wavering breast inspire!
Here lost in rapturous trance I stray'd,
Here view'd with horror visions dire:
For soon as day dark-veil'd his head,
With hollow cheek, and haggard eye,
Pale ghosts would flit from cold death-bed,
And stalk with step terrific by:
Till the young heart would freeze with wild affright,
And store the dismal tale to cheer a winter's night.

Yet ah! what means the silent tear?
Why e'en mid joy this bosom heave?
Ye long-lost scenes, enchantments dear?
Lo! now I wander o'er your grave.
—Yet fly ye hours of rosy hue,
And bear away the bloom of years!
And quick succeed ye sickly crew,
Of doubts and pains of hopes and fears!
Still will I ponder Fate's unalter'd plan:
Nor, tracing back the Child, forget that I am Man.

Ancient and modern story both proclaim,
How poor the poet's trade, though proud the name;
Shew proud advent'rers, hurl'd from regions bright,
Absorb'd and blasted by excess of light.
Did mighty Homer traffic with his lay?
He sometimes earn'd a dinner for his pay.
Thus liv'd the bard; and how the muse has sigh'd,
When she recorded how the poet died!

In Italy each high-born songster gay
Trimm'd the spruce sonnet, and light roundelay.
Tasso was learn'd, and labour'd much and long,
And Ariosto traded with his song;
Yet, ah! their learned toil how ill repaid!
How mean their earnings from the tuneful trade!
Nor couldst thou, Portugal! thy Camoens save
From pinching want, and an untimely grave.

And did not Chatterton, that child of care,
Still plough in hope, and only reap despair?
And Butler, piper to that laughing age,
Starve before kings, and curse his merry page?
And how in secret Pity droop'd the head,
As pining Otway rested with the dead!

What boots the gentleman, who deigns to write,
Your squire of epigram, and rhyming knight,
Such as with am'rous hearts, and lucky vein,
Penn'd the light song in Charles's merry reign?
Of such could I with ease collect a score,
And throw you in some lords, as many more.
But what mere poetry in trade will do,
Let Spenser tell, and learned Milton too.

Lo! in the BALANCE then of common sense
I weigh the claims of poetry and pence:
And thus the matter stands: whoe'er shall choose,
Clover'd in riches, to invoke his muse,
No hazard runs; perhaps he gains some end;
Pleases himself, his mistress, or his friend;
Still unperplex'd about the cares of life,
Unscar'd by duns, uncraz'd with child or wife,
Verse is a play-thing; houses, monies, lands,
All well secur'd in some right trusty hands;
Half through the day, half through the night may sit,
Play his snug game at chess, or game at wit;
Flaunt with the gay, and revel with the great,
Call Boileau dunce, and laugh at POET'S FATE.
Different his lot, a fortune yet unmade,
Who, as apprentic'd, calls his verse a trade,
Thinking, good easy man, to serve his time
To duteous sentiment, and plodding rhyme;
Then flourish, a bold master-bard, and then,
Reck'ning the honest earnings of his pen,
Fondly expects, his learned labour past,
To sit down snug, and live in peace at last;
As some sat city-squire, releas'd from care,
Steals from the counter to his easy chair.

And thus between extremes I take my stand,
And hold the BALANCE with impartial hand:
The scale, in which the weight's prepond'rance lies,
Wants not my humble mite of sympathies.
The scale that mounts aloft, and kicks the beam,
Claims the poor tribute of my soothing theme;
Counsels, that sad experience can dispense,
And all my little stock of common sense.

From Lomond's light-blue lake, and verdant isles,
Long-winding glens, and rude romantic woods,
And hills, that hide their summits in the clouds,
Light, as a vessel borne by western gales,
I journey'd, musing many a rural theme.
The hours I counted not, as nimble-wing'd
They circling flew, soft smiling, as they pass'd:
Thy mansion, gentle THOMSON! I approach,
The sweet retreat of poesy and love;
Thy friendly converse, and the grateful smiles
Of fair LOUISA, chear me, while around
Thy pratlers play. — 'Oh! may domestic bliss,'
Thus pray'd my soul, 'here fix its lasting seat.'

Then o'er poetic ground with thee I rove,
Scenes fancy-colour'd: bright before me rise
Beauty's rich Garden: soon, a mourner pale,
I tread the Vale of Pity: till the House
Of Ridicule pours forth her wanton tribe.
Soon circling high I climb the mount sublime,
Round whose bold top the muttering thunders roll,
And forked lightnings flash: with tremulous joy
The height I reach: then look triumphant down:
Till Fancy, pointing with her fairy wand,
Calls me to range her wild-enchanted bowers,
'Mid visionary forms, and shadowy scenes.
Enthusiast sweet! Oh, I could wander still
With her, the muse of Spencer, and no less
Of him, who Scotia's fairy regions sung,
From every clime would crop some fragrant flower,
Till Superstition, opening all her stores,
And gazing on me with a mother's eye,
Should bless her fondling's large credulities.

But now from Fancy's magic wilds I go
To Nature's living green: straight I repose
As wont, my head, where I may best survey
The various landscape: full before me rises
A row of well-rang'd buildings, and beyond
A thick umbrageous wood: down the fair vale
The sylvan Teath devolves her rapid stream,
As hastening on to tell the stately Forth,
E'er she commix her stores, how fair a scene
She pass'd at Deanston: on her sloping side
Towers a proud castle, beauteous in decay:
High on the bank it frowns, and still o'erlooks
The modest stream, as seeming yet to boast
Of ancient grandeur. — Here the sated eye
Inquires no farther: thence the moral muse
Pours forth the strain: — 'Ah! thus shall human greatness
Sit like a mourner; thus in ruins ly
All that is mortal.'

Now, once more I seek
Domestic scenes, as tho' to smooth the brow
Ruffled by too much musing: — Stern-ey'd Fate:
Say didst thou doubt my heart's sincerity?
Think, that I did but moralise in song,
A formal minstrel? that, whene'er of death
I ponder, thou resolvest to o'ertake me,
And, with blood-reeking dart, to point my eye
To some fresh victim? 'Mortal here is death.'—
I see! I see! while softly falls the tear;
Yes, Armstrong falls, and pity drops the tear.
Relentless Tyrant! like a vernal flower
I view him fall, thine easy-yielding prey:
Blossom of early genius, blighted soon,
Industry, like a self-destroying insect,
Beating itself to dust; a sacred love
Of Freedom, like the vestal's purer flame,
Sparkling tho' life, that but with life expires:
These tell what Armstrong was; these still proclaim
How Armstrong lives in Friendship's faithful breast.

But, Thomson, let us hear the warning voice:
'— Whatever schemes thy mind may meditate,
Dispatch with well-tim'd zeal; but yet that zeal
Let matron prudence guide: for in the grave
Satire shall dropp the scourge; sage history
Cease to instruct; and rapture-breathing song,
To silence hush'd, delight the world no more.'

Now farewell, summer's fervid sky,
That, while the sun thro' Cancer rides
With chariot slow, and fever'd eye,
Scorches the beach-clad forest sides!
And farewell earlier autumn's sober ray,
Which, the warm labours of the sickle o'er,
Could make the heart of swain industrious gay,
Viewing in barn secure his wheaten store,
What time the social hours mov'd blithe along,
Urg'd by the nut-brown ale, and jolly harvest-song.

What different scenes around me rise!
Now midst a naked scene I roam,
Where the rude haunt in hillocks lies,
Where the rash sportsman frights the grove.
Ah! cruel sport; ah! pain-awak'ning sound!
How hoarse your death-note to his list'ning ear,
Who late, wild-warbled-music floating sound,
Blest the wild warblers of the rising year;
Who, as each songster strain'd his little throat,
Grateful himself would try the soft responsive note.

Yet still in autumn's fading form
The tender melting charm we chace,
(Such as, love's season past still warm
The sober matron's modest face)
Mild-beaming suns, oft hid by fleeting clouds,
Blue mantled skies, light fringed with golden hues,
Brooks, whose swoln waters mottled leaves o'erspread;
Fields, where the plough, its steady course pursues;
And woods, whose many-shining leaves might move
Fancy's poetic hand to paint some orange grove.

Oh! still, for fancy is a child,
Still with the circling hours I play,
And feast on hips and blackberries wild,
As truant school-boy gay;
Or eager plunge in cool pellucid stream,
Heedless, that Summer's sultry day is fled;
Or muse, as breathes the flute, the rural theme,
Such theme as fancy's song may yet bestead;
Or stretch'd at ease will teach the list'ning groves
In tuneful Maro's strains, some rosy rustic loves.

Now bear me to the distant wood;
Or bear me to the silent stream,
Where erst I stray'd in serious mood,
Lost in some rapt'rous dream,
To me, Oh! Hornsey, what retreat so fair?
What shade to me so consecrate as thine?
And, on thy bank, poor streamlet, did I care
For all the spring-haunts of the tunefull nine?
Ah! pleasures, how ye lengthen, as ye fade,
As spreads the sun's faint orb at twilight's dubious shade.

For, Oh! pale stream, how many a tear
I mingled in thy waters slow!
For, mid the blossoms of its spring,
Youth has its tale of woe!
And thus thro' life — for what is human life?
A changeful day, a motley-tinctur'd scene;
How quick succeed the hours of peace and strife!
How sombre tints o'erspread the chearful green!
E'en while faint hope lights up her brightest sky,
She wavers midst her doubts, and learns to heave a sigh.

But, lo! the sun now seeks the west,
And, see! the distant landscape dies—
And, now with anxious cares opprest
I view yon dome arise.
Ah! soon, too soon I give the faint adieu,
And my song sleeps, as fades the cheerful day;
Soon shall the dusky city bound my view,
And hag-eyed Spleen November's call obey:
Ye fields, ye groves, whose every charm could please,
Ye gentle friends, adieu, and farewell, rural ease.

Yet fields, and groves, and gentle friends,
When memory bids, shall re-appear,
Quick, where she lifts her wand, ascend
The long departed year;
The choirs, whose warblings charm'd the youthful spring,
And summer's glittering tribes, and all that now
Of autumn fades, their mingled charms shall bring,
And the full year mid winter's reign shall glow;
While fancy, as the vision'd forms arise,
Shall pencil woods, and groves, and fields, and purple skies.