TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND.
Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.
FROM dreams, where thought in Fancy's maze runs mad,
To Reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destined hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,
I keep my assignation with my woe.
O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul;
Who think it solitude to be alone.
Communion sweet! communion large and high !
Our reason, guardian-angel, and our God!
Then nearest these, when others most remote ;
And all, ere long, shall be remote but these :
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger! unacknowledged! unapproved!
Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast: 15 To win thy wish creation has no more :
Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend.
But friends how mortal! dangerous the desire.
Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair Fortune's fountain head,
And reeling through the wilderness of joy,
Where Sense runs savage, broke from Reason's chain,
And sings false peace, till smother'd by the pall.
My fortune is unlike, unlike my song,
Unlike the Deity my song invokes.
I to day's soft-eyed sister pay my court
(Endymion's rival,) and her aid implore,
Now first implored in succour to the Muse.
Thou who didst lately borrow Cynthia's* form,
And modestly forego thine own: O thou
Who didst thyself, at midnight hours, inspire!
Say, why not Cynthia, patroness of song?
As thou her crescent, she thy character
Assumes; still more a goddess by the change.
Are there demurring wits who dare dispute
This revolution in the world inspired?
Ye train Pierian! to the lunar sphere,
In silent, hour, address your ardent call
For aid immortal, less her brother's right.
She with the spheres harmonious nightly leads
The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain,
A strain for gods, denied to mortal ear.
Transmit it heard, thou silver queen of Heaven
What title or what name endears thee most?
Cynthia Cyllene! Phœbe-or dost hear
With higher gust, fair Portland of the skies?
Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down,
More powerful than of old Circean charm?
Come, but from heavenly banquets with thee bring
The soul of song, and whisper in mine ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams
(For dreams are thine) tranfuse it through the breast Of thy first votary-but not thy last,
If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind.
And kind thou wilt be, kind on such a theme; 55 A theme so like thee, a quite lunar theme,
Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair!
A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul *At the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade.
"Twas night; on her fond hopes perpetual night; A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp Than that which smote me from Philander's tomb ! Narcissa follows ere his tomb is closed.
Wces cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train; they tread each other's heel;
Her death invades his mournful right, and claims 65
The grief that started from my lids for him;
Seizes the faithless, alienated tear,
Or shares it ere it falls. So frequent Death,
Sorrow he more than causes, he confounds;
For human sighs his rival strokes contend,
And make distress distraction. Oh, Philander'
What was thy fate? a double fate to me!
Portent and plain! a menace and a blow!
Like the black raven hovering o'er my peace,
Not less a bird of omen than of prey.
It call'd Narcissa long before her hour;
It call'd her tender soul by break of bliss,
From the first blossom, from the buds of joy;
Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves,
In this inclement clime of human life.
Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
For Fortune fond had built her nest on high.
Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume,
Transfix'd by Fate (who loves a lofty mark)
How from the summit of the grove she fell,
And left it unharmonious! all its charm
Extinguish'd in the wonders of her song!
Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear,
Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain
(0 to forget her!) thrilling through my heart.
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy! this group Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise,
As yet unforfeit in one blaze we bind,
Kneel, and present it to the skies, as all
We guess of Heaven! and these were all her own; And she was mine; and I was-was!--most bless'dGay title of the deepest misery!
As bodies grow more ponderous robb'd of life,
Good lost weighs more in grief than gain'd in joy.
Like blossom'd trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there;
Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
And will not the severe excuse a sigh?
Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep.
Our tears indulged indeed deserve our shame.
Ye that e'er lost an angel, pity me!
Soon as the lustre languish'd in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human sight,
And on her cheek, the residence of Spring,
Pale Omen sat, and scattered fears around
On all that saw, (and who would cease to gaze
That once had seen?) with haste, parental haste,
I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid North,
Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the Sun; the Sun
(As if the Sun could envy) check'd his beam,
Denied his wonted succour; nor with more
Regret beheld her drooping than the bells
Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!
Queen lilies! and ye painted populace Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives! In morn and evening dew your beauties bathe, And drink the sun, which gives your cheeks to glow, And outblush (mine excepted) every fair;
You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand,
Which often cropp'd your odours, incense meet
To thought so pure! Ye lovely fugitives!
Coeval race with man! for man you smile :
Why not smile at him too? You share, indeed,
His sudden pass; but not his constant pain.
So man is made, nought ministers delight, But what his glowing passions can engage;
And glowing passions, bent on aught below,
Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale;
And anguish after rapture, how severe !
Rapture ? bold man! who tempts the wrath divine, 140
By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste,
While here presuming on the rights of Heaven.
For transport dost thou call on every hour,
Lorenzo? At thy friend's expense be wise :
Lean not on earth; 'twill pierce thee to the heart;
A broken reed at best; but oft a spear:
On its sharp point Peace bleeds, and Hope expires.
Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her.-Thought
Resenting rallies, and wakes every woe.
Snatch'd ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour! 150
And when kind Fortune, with thy lover, smiled!
And when high-flavour'd thy fresh opening joys!
And when blind man pronounced thy bliss complete!
And on a foreign shore, where strangers wept !
Strangers to thee, and, more surprising still,
Strangers to kindness wept. Their eyes let fall
Inhuman tears; strange tears! that trickled down
From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness!
A tenderness that call'd them more severe,
In spite of Nature's soft persuasion steel'd:
While Nature melted, Superstition raved;
That mourn'd the dead, and this denied a grave.
Their sighs incensed; sighs foreign to the will!
Their will the tiger sucked, outraged the storm;
For, oh! the cursed ungodliness of Zeal!
While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed
In blind Infallibility's embrace,
The sainted spirit petrified the breast
Denied the charity of dust to spread
O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy.
What could I do? what succour? what resource?
With pious sacrilege a grave I stole ;
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