TO GEORGE FELTON MATHEW.
94 lines✦
weet are the pleasures that to verse belong,And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to viewA fate more pleasing, a delight more trueThan that in which the brother Poets joy'd,Who with combined powers, their wit employ'dTo raise a trophy to the drama's muses.The thought of this great partnership diffusesOver the genius loving heart, a feelingOf all that's high, and great, and good, and healing. Too partial friend! fain would I follow theePast each horizon of fine poesy;Fain would I echo back each pleasant noteAs o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:But 'tis impossible; far different caresBeckon me sternly from soft "Lydian airs,"And hold my faculties so long in thrall,That I am oft in doubt whether at allI shall again see Phoebus in the morning:Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning!Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream;Or a rapt seraph in a moonlight beam;Or again witness what with thee I've seen,The dew by fairy feet swept from the green,After a night of some quaint jubileeWhich every elf and fay had come to see:When bright processions took their airy marchBeneath the curved moon's triumphal arch. But might I now each passing moment giveTo the coy muse, with me she would not liveIn this dark city, nor would condescend'Mid contradictions her delights to lend.Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind,Ah! surely it must be whene'er I findSome flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic,That often must have seen a poet frantic;Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing,And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing;Where the dark-leav'd laburnum's drooping clustersReflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,And intertwined the cassia's arms unite,With its own drooping buds, but very white.Where on one side are covert branches hung,'Mong which the nightingales have always sungIn leafy quiet; where to pry, aloof,Atween the pillars of the sylvan roof,Would be to find where violet beds were nestling,And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling.There must be too a ruin dark, and gloomy,To say "joy not too much in all that's bloomy." Yet this is vain--O Mathew lend thy aidTo find a place where I may greet the maid--Where we may soft humanity put on,And sit, and rhyme and think on Chatterton;And that warm-hearted Shakspeare sent to meet himFour laurell'd spirits, heaven-ward to intreat him.With reverence would we speak of all the sagesWho have left streaks of light athwart their ages:And thou shouldst moralize on Milton's blindness,And mourn the fearful dearth of human kindnessTo those who strove with the bright golden wingOf genius, to flap away each stingThrown by the pitiless world. We next could tellOf those who in the cause of freedom fell:Of our own Alfred, of Helvetian Tell;Of him whose name to ev'ry heart's a solace,High-minded and unbending William Wallace.While to the rugged north our musing turnsWe well might drop a tear for him, and Burns. Felton! without incitements such as these,How vain for me the niggard Muse to tease:For thee, she will thy every dwelling grace,And make "a sun-shine in a shady place:"For thou wast once a flowret blooming wild,Close to the source, bright, pure, and undefil'd,Whence gush the streams of song: in happy hourCame chaste Diana from her shady bower,Just as the sun was from the east uprising;And, as for him some gift she was devising,Beheld thee, pluck'd thee, cast thee in the streamTo meet her glorious brother's greeting beam.I marvel much that thou hast never toldHow, from a flower, into a fish of goldApollo chang'd thee; how thou next didst seemA black-eyed swan upon the widening stream;And when thou first didst in that mirror traceThe placid features of a human face:That thou hast never told thy travels strange.And all the wonders of the mazy rangeO'er pebbly crystal, and o'er golden sands;Kissing thy daily food from Naiad's pearly hands. _November, 1815_.
✦