George Dyer: Verses about Village

Child of the light, fair morning hour,
Who smilest o'er yon purple hill!
I come to woo thy cheering pow'r,
Beside this murm'ring rill.
Nor I alone — a thousand songsters rise
To meet thy dawning, and thy sweets to share;
While ev'ry flow'r that scents the honied air,
Thy milder influence feels, and sheds its brightest dies.

And let me hear some village swain
Whistle in rustic glee along;
Or hear some true love's gentle pain
Breath'd from the milkmaid's song.
Wild are those notes, but sweeter far to me
Than the soft airs borne from Italian groves:
To which the wanton muse and naked loves
Strike the wild lyre, and dance in gamesome glee.

And rosy health, for whom so long
Mid sleepless nights I've sigh'd in vain,
Shall throw her airy vestment on,
And meet me on the plain.
Gay laughing nymph, that loves a morning sky;
That loves to trip across the spangled dews;
And with her finger dipp'd in brightest hues,
My faint cheek shall she tinge, and cheer my languid eye.

Then will I taste the morn's sweet hour,
And, singing, bless the new-born day;
Or, wand'ring in Amanda's bow'r,
Rifle the sweets of May:
And to my song Amanda shall attend,
And take the posie from the sylvan muse;
For sure the virtuous fair will not refuse
The muse's modest gifts, her tribute to a friend.

I.
Where is the KING of SONGS? He sleeps in death:
No more around him press the warrior-throng;
He rolls no more the death-denouncing song;
Calm'd is the storm of war, and hush'd the poet's breath.
Yes! Anderson, he sleeps: but Carron's stream
Still seems responsive to his awful lyre;
And oft where Clutha's winding waters gleam,
Shall pilgrim-poets burn with kindred fire.
Sunk are Balclutha's walls, and shatter'd low
The fort high-beetling, gem of Roman pride;
Sleeps too Fingal, and sleeps th' Imperial foe,
Each in his narrow dwelling doom'd to bide.
Quench'd is the poet's eye — but shines his name,
As thro' a broken cloud the sun's far-darting flame.

II.
Where now DUNBAR? The bard has run his race:
But glitters still the GOLDEN TERGE on high;
Nor shall the thunder storm that sweeps the sky,
'Mid its wide waste, the glorious orb deface.
DUNKELD, no more the heaven-directed chaunt
Within thy sainted wall may sound again.
But thou, as once a poet's favourite haunt—
Shalt live in DOUGLAS' pure Virgilian strain;
While time devours the castle's towering wall,
And roofless abbies pine, low tottering to their fall.

III.
Oh! Tweed, say, does thy rolling stream betide
The patriot's ardour, or the bigot's rage?
In union dost thou distant friends engage?
Or flow, a boundary river, to divide?
If love direct, roll on, thou generous stream,
Thy banks, oh! Tweed, I kiss, and hail thee friend:
But while thy waters, serpent-winding gleam,
Should serpent treacheries on thy course attend,
Thy banks disdainful would I rove along,
Tho' every bard that sings, should raise thee in his song.

IV.
But no, my friend: I read thy candid page,
And catch the fervor of thy generous mind,
Be mine, with chaplets Scotian brows to bind,
While England's bards thy studious hours engage.
The Highland nymph shall melt with England's lay;
And English swains be charm'd with Scotia's song;
Tho' rude the language, yet to themes so gay,
The softest powers of melody belong.
Still Ramsay, shall thy GENTLE SHEPHERD please,
Still, BURNS, thy rustic mirths, and amorous minstrelsies.

V.
When shall I view again with ravish'd sight,
As when with thee, my Anderson, I stray'd,
And all the wonder-varying scene survey'd,
Seas, hills, and city fair from Calton's height?
When hear, (for Scotia's rhymes ah! soon shall fail)
Some Ednam bard awake the trembling string,
Some tuneful youth of charming Tiviot-dale,
Some Kelso songstress love's dear raptures sing?
Language may change; but song shall never die,
Till beauty fail to charm, till love forget to sigh.

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.