English Poets of the Eighteenth Century · Chapter 21Lady Winchilsea
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Exert thy voice, sweet harbinger of Spring! This moment is thy time to sing, This moment I attend to praise, And set my numbers to thy lays. Free as thine shall be my song; As thy music, short, or long. Poets, wild as thee, were born, Pleasing best when unconfined, When to please is least designed, Soothing but their cares to rest; Cares do still their thoughts molest, And still th' unhappy poet's breast, Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn. She begins, let all be still! Muse, thy promise now fulfil! Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet! Can thy words such accents fit? Canst thou syllables refine, Melt a sense that shall retain Still some spirit of the brain, Till with sounds like these it join? 'Twill not be! then change thy note; Let division shake thy throat. Hark! division now she tries; Yet as far the muse outflies. Cease then, prithee, cease thy tune; Trifler, wilt thou sing till June? Till thy business all lies waste, And the time of building's past! Thus we poets that have speech, Unlike what thy forests teach, If a fluent vein be shown That's transcendent to our own, Criticise, reform, or preach, Or censure what we cannot reach.
In such a night, when every louder wind Is to its distant cavern safe confined, And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings, And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings; Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight, She hollowing clear, directs the wanderer right; In such a night, when passing clouds give place, Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face; When in some river, overhung with green, The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen; When freshened grass now bears itself upright, And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite, Whence springs the woodbine and the bramble-rose, And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows; Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes; When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine, Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine, Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright; When odours which declined repelling day Through temperate air uninterrupted stray; When darkened groves their softest shadows wear, And falling waters we distinctly hear; When through the gloom more venerable shows Some ancient fabric, awful in repose, While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale; When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads, Comes slowly grazing through th' adjoining meads, Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear, Till torn up forage in his teeth we hear; When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food, And unmolested kine re-chew the cud; When curlews cry beneath the village-walls, And to her straggling brood the partridge calls; Their shortlived jubilee the creatures keep, Which but endures whilst tyrant-man does sleep; When a sedate content the spirit feels, And no fierce light disturb, whilst it reveals; But silent musings urge the mind to seek Something too high for syllables to speak; Till the free soul to a composedness charmed, Finding the elements of rage disarmed, O'er all below a solemn quiet grown, Joys in th' inferior world and thinks it like her own: In such a night let me abroad remain Till morning breaks and all's confused again; Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renewed, Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.