PRESENTING HER WITH A BLUE SATTIN BONNET.
My gift may suit thee, fairy fair,
Thy dear blue eyes, thy flaxen hair.
In this soft tint sweet violets glow,
In this the early harebells blow;
From their young hours stern Winter flies,
And shines the sun in sapphire skies.
Blue o'er smooth seas the halcyons skim;
Minerva's eyes in azure swim;
In plain cerulean Luna stands,
When mild she looks on seas and lands.
If sturdy Whigs desire to see
The stubborn nymph, proud Liberty,
The supple Tory looks askew,
And crowns his forehead with true blue.
Hope from the prism this colour chose,
And blue her robe redundant flows.
So, in the tissue of thy fate,
This tint, so gay and fortunate,
All prevalent, dear child, be seen
To chase the pale forsaken green,
The yellow tinge of jealousy,
And every dim and dismal dye!
And may this hue of summer skies,
Of Wisdom's fair, enlight'ning eyes,
Of vernal harebell's modest bloom,
Of sea-born halcyon's little plume,
Of Tory ribands, Luna's plain,
The vest of Hope, the violet's stain,
Still prove for thee, as years increase,
Emblem of innocence and peace.
READER, if instant thy soul-lighted eyes
Perceive the claims of Genius as they rise,
Welcome this noblest effort of the Nine,
To deck with epic wreath their English shrine,
Since here they rose, to emulate, at length,
The Mantuan sweetness, the Meonian strength,
And our green vales and silver shores along,
Pour'd Eden's grand, imperishable song.
Again, in all their pomp, they strike the lyre,
Rapid, and glowing with primeval fire;
And in the Cambrian's lofty story twine
Each human interest with each grace divine
Of rapt Imagination, when she soars
From common talents flat and glimmering shores,
Her lamp t' illumine at that orbit prime,
Whose fires are quenchless by the floods of time.
Thus, for the glory of the nineteenth age,
The Epic Muse awakes her sacred rage;
In no false ornaments her numbers shine,-
The diamonds sparkle genuine from the mine.
What harmonies our captive ear engage!
What living landscapes glow on every page!
What characters, in Nature's force display'd,
With coy Discrimination's subtlest aid,
In Cimbric regions, and on Indian shores,
Call to the Epic verse the Drama's powers!
O! mark, the thoughts with truth and virtue beam,
Shewing what God shall judge, and Christ redeem;
The asbestos robe which the chaste style arrays,
Impassive shield from Envy's lurid blaze;
Where simple, nervous as in early time,
Where plaintive, touching, and where rais'd, sublime.
If thou rememberest through how many a year Deaf as the grave was found the general ear To Verse, whose fame is now the nation's cause, With scarce one voice appellant from her laws;
1. 13. Asbestos-A vegetable substance, soft and pliant as muslin, and which fire cannot consume,
1. 19. To Verse-PARADISE LOST, which, through the long period intervening between its first publication, in the author's life-time, and Addison's Essays upon it in the Spectator, met little public notice, while his equally beautiful lesser works, Lycidas, Comus, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso, were scarcely known at all, till more than seventy years after his death.
How long the owlish orb of general sight
Found mist and darkness in excessive light;
If conscious of each grandeur and each grace,
The Poet's sun-track thy clear vision trace;
If thy heart throb to see thy native land
Once more the Muse's eminence command;
And if thy spirit, o'er such glorious lays,
Wait not for tardy precedents in praise,-
Then, generous Reader, then, for MADOC claim,
With voice anticipant, the palm of Fame;
And on each leaf, in patriot pride, descry
The bursting germs of immortality!
Such minds, where never Envy's cloud appears, View MADOC buoyant on the tide of years,
Float, like the song, which left the mortal maze
For scenes "where angels tremble while they gaze,”
And, touch'd alike by Genius' solar ray,
Vanquish Oblivion, and maintain the day!
|