English Poets of the Eighteenth Century · Chapter 45Joseph Warton
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Ye green-robed Dryads, oft at dusky eve By wondering shepherds seen, to forests brown To unfrequented meads, and pathless wilds, Lead me from gardens decked with art's vain pomps. Can gilt alcoves, can marble-mimic gods Parterres embroidered, obelisks, and urns Of high relief; can the long, spreading lake, Or vista lessening to the sight; can Stow, With all her Attic fanes, such raptures raise, As the thrush-haunted copse, where lightly leaps The fearful fawn the rustling leaves along, And the brisk squirrel sports from bough to bough, While from an hollow oak, whose naked roots O'erhang a pensive rill, the busy bees Hum drowsy lullabies? The bards of old, Fair Nature's friends, sought such retreats, to charm Sweet Echo with their songs; oft too they met In summer evenings, near sequestered bowers, Or mountain nymph, or Muse, and eager learnt The moral strains she taught to mend mankind.
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Rich in her weeping country's spoils, Versailles May boast a thousand fountains, that can cast The tortured waters to the distant heavens: Yet let me choose some pine-topped precipice Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream, Like Anio, tumbling roars; or some bleak heath, Where straggling stands the mournful juniper, Or yew-tree scathed; while in clear prospect round From the grove's bosom spires emerge, and smoke In bluish wreaths ascends, ripe harvests wave, Low, lonely cottages, and ruined tops Of Gothic battlements appear, and streams Beneath the sunbeams twinkle.
Happy the first of men, ere yet confined To smoky cities; who in sheltering groves, Warm caves, and deep-sunk valleys lived and loved, By cares unwounded; what the sun and showers, And genial earth untillaged, could produce, They gathered grateful, or the acorn brown Or blushing berry; by the liquid lapse Of murmuring waters called to slake their thirst, Or with fair nymphs their sun-brown limbs to bathe; With nymphs who fondly clasped their favourite youths, Unawed by shame, beneath the beechen shade, Nor wiles nor artificial coyness knew. Then doors and walls were not; the melting maid Nor frown of parents feared, nor husband's threats;
Nor had cursed gold their tender hearts allured: Then beauty was not venal. Injured Love, Oh! whither, god of raptures, art thou fled?
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What are the lays of artful Addison, Coldly correct, to Shakespeare's warblings wild? Whom on the winding Avon's willowed banks Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe To a close cavern (still the shepherds show The sacred place, whence with religious awe They hear, returning from the field at eve, Strange whisperings of sweet music through the air). Here, as with honey gathered from the rock, She fed the little prattler, and with songs Oft soothed his wandering ears; with deep delight On her soft lap he sat, and caught the sounds.
Oft near some crowded city would I walk, Listening the far-off noises, rattling cars, Loud shouts of joy, sad shrieks of sorrow, knells Full slowly tolling, instruments of trade, Striking my ears with one deep-swelling hum. Or wandering near the sea, attend the sounds Of hollow winds and ever-beating waves. Even when wild tempests swallow up the plains, And Boreas' blasts, big hail, and rains combine To shake the groves and mountains, would I sit, Pensively musing on th' outrageous crimes That wake Heaven's vengeance: at such solemn hours, Demons and goblins through the dark air shriek, While Hecat, with her black-browed sisters nine, Bides o'er the Earth, and scatters woes and death. Then, too, they say, in drear Egyptian wilds The lion and the tiger prowl for prey With roarings loud! The listening traveller Starts fear-struck, while the hollow echoing vaults Of pyramids increase the deathful sounds.
But let me never fail in cloudless nights, When silent Cynthia in her silver car Through the blue concave slides, when shine the hills, Twinkle the streams, and woods look tipped with gold, To seek some level mead, and there invoke
Old Midnight's sister, Contemplation sage, (Queen of the rugged brow and stern-fixt eye,) To lift my soul above this little earth, This folly-fettered world: to purge my ears, That I may hear the rolling planets' song, And tuneful turning spheres: if this be barred The little fays, that dance in neighbouring dales, Sipping the night-dew, while they laugh and love, Shall charm me with aërial notes.—As thus I wander musing, lo, what awful forms Yonder appear! sharp-eyed Philosophy Clad in dun robes, an eagle on his wrist, First meets my eye; next, virgin Solitude Serene, who blushes at each gazer's sight; Then Wisdom's hoary head, with crutch in hand, Trembling, and bent with age; last Virtue's self, Smiling, in white arrayed, who with her leads Sweet Innocence, that prattles by her side, A naked boy!—Harassed with fear I stop, I gaze, when Virtue thus—'Whoe'er thou art, Mortal, by whom I deign to be beheld In these my midnight walks; depart, and say, That henceforth I and my immortal train Forsake Britannia's isle; who fondly stoops To vice, her favourite paramour.' She spoke, And as she turned, her round and rosy neck, Her flowing train, and long ambrosial hair, Breathing rich odours, I enamoured view.
O who will bear me then to western climes, Since virtue leaves our wretched land, to fields Yet unpolluted with Iberian swords, The isles of innocence, from mortal view Deeply retired, beneath a plantain's shade, Where happiness and quiet sit enthroned. With simple Indian swains, that I may hunt The boar and tiger through savannahs wild, Through fragrant deserts and through citron groves? There fed on dates and herbs, would I despise The far-fetched cates of luxury, and hoards Of narrow-hearted avarice; nor heed The distant din of the tumultuous world.