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Monody On The Death Of Dr Warton

by William Lisle Bowles

Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite

Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,

Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,

Now that thine aged eyes are closed in night,

Kind Warton! Thou hast stroked my stripling head,

And sometimes, mingling soft reproof with praise,

My path hast best directed through the maze

Of thorny life: by thee my steps were led

To that romantic valley, high o'erhung

With sable woods, where many a minstrel rung

His bold harp to the sweeping waterfall;

Whilst Fancy loved around each form to call

That fill the poet's dream: to this retreat

Of Fancy, (won by whose enticing lay

I have forgot how sunk the summer's day),

Thou first did guide my not unwilling feet;

Meantime inspiring the gay breast of youth

With love of taste, of science, and of truth.

The first inciting sounds of human praise,

A parent's love excepted, came from thee;

And but for thee, perhaps, my boyish days

Had all passed idly, and whate'er in me

Now live of hope, been buried.

I was one,

Long bound by cold dejection's numbing chain,

As in a torpid trance, that deemed it vain

To struggle; nor my eyelids to the sun

Uplifted: but I heard thy cheering voice;

I shook my deadly slumber off; I gazed

Delighted 'round; awaked, inspired, amazed,

I marked another world, and in my choice

Lovelier, and decked with light! On fairy ground

Methought I buoyant trod, and heard the sound

As of enchanting melodies, that stole,

Stole gently, and entranced my captive soul.

Then all was life and hope! 'Twas thy first ray,

Sweet Fancy, on the heart; as when the day

Of Spring, along the melancholy tract

Of wintry Lapland, dawns; the cataract,

From ice dissolving on the silent side

Of some white precipice, with paly gleam

Descends, while the cold hills a slanting beam

Faint tinges: till, ascending in his pride,

The great Sun from the red horizon looks,

And wakes the tuneless birds, the stagnant brooks,

And sleeping lakes! So on my mind's cold night

The ray of Fancy shone, and gave delight

And hope past utterance.

Thy cheering voice,

O Warton! bade my silent heart rejoice,

And wake to love of nature; every breeze,

On Itchin's brink was melody; the trees

Waved in fresh beauty; and the wind and rain,

That shook the battlements of Wykeham's fane,

Not less delighted, when, with random pace,

I trod the cloistered aisles; and witness thou,

Catherine,[1] upon whose foss-encircled brow

We met the morning, how I loved to trace

The prospect spread around; the rills below,

That shone irriguous in the gleaming plain;

The river's bend, where the dark barge went slow,

And the pale light on yonder time-worn fane![2]

So passed my days with new delight; mean time

To Learning's tender eye thou didst unfold

The classic page, and what high bards of old,

With solemn notes, and minstrelsy sublime,

Have chanted, we together heard; and thou,

Warton! wouldst bid me listen, till a tear

Sprang to mine eye: now the bold song we hear

Of Greece's sightless master-bard:[3] the breast

Beats high; with stern Pelides to the plain

We rush; or o'er the corpse of Hector slain

Hang pitying;--and lo! where pale, oppressed

With age and grief, sad Priam comes;[4] with beard

All white he bows, kissing the hands besmeared

With his last hope's best blood!

The oaten reed[5]

Now from the mountain sounds; the sylvan Muse,

Reclined by the clear stream of Arethuse,

Wakes the Sicilian pipe; the sunny mead

Swarms with the bees, whose drowsy lullaby

Soothes the reclining ox with half-closed eye;

While in soft cadence to the madrigal,

From rock to rock the whispering waters fall!

But who is he,[6] that, by yon gloomy cave,

Bids heaven and earth bear witness to his woe!

And hark! how hollowly the ocean-wave

Echoes his plaint, and murmurs deep below!

Haste, let the tall ship stem the tossing tide,

That he may leave his cave, and hear no more

The Lemnian surges unrejoicing roar;

And be great Fate through the dark world thy guide,

Sad Philoctetes![7]

So Instruction bland,

With young-eyed Sympathy, went hand in hand

O'er classic fields; and let my heart confess

Its holier joy, when I essayed to climb

The lonely heights where Shakspeare sat sublime,

Lord of the mighty spell: around him press

Spirits and fairy-forms. He, ruling wide

His visionary world, bids terror fill

The shivering breast, or softer pity thrill

Ev'n to the inmost heart. Within me died

All thoughts of this low earth, and higher powers

Seemed in my soul to stir; till, strained too long,

The senses sunk.

Then, Ossian, thy wild song

Haply beguiled the unheeded midnight hours,

And, like the blast that swept Berrathron's towers,

Came pleasant and yet mournful to my soul!

See o'er the autumnal heath the gray mists roll!

Hark to the dim ghosts' faint and feeble cry,

As on the cloudy tempest they pass by!

Saw ye huge Loda's spectre-shape advance,

Through which the stars look pale!

Nor ceased the trance

Which bound the erring fancy, till dark night

Flew silent by, and at my window-grate

The morning bird sang loud: nor less delight

The spirit felt, when still and charmed I sate

Great Milton's solemn harmonies to hear,

That swell from the full chord, and strong and clear,

Beyond the tuneless couplets' weak control,

Their long-commingling diapason roll,

In varied sweetness.

Nor, amidst the choir

Of pealing minstrelsy, was thy own lyre,

Warton, unheard;--as Fancy poured the song,

The measured music flowed along,

Till all the heart and all the sense

Felt her divinest influence,

In throbbing sympathy:--Prepare the car,[8]

And whirl us, goddess, to the war,

Where crimson banners fire the skies,

Where the mingled shouts arise,

Where the steed, with fetlock red,

Tramples the dying and the dead;

And amain, from side to side,

Death his pale horse is seen to ride!

Or rather, sweet enthusiast, lead

Our footsteps to the cowslip mead,

Where, as the magic spell is wound,

Dying music floats around:--

Or seek we some gray ruin's shade,

And pity the cold beggar,[9] laid

Beneath the ivy-rustling tower,

At the dreary midnight hour,

Scarce sheltered from the drifting snow;

While her dark locks the bleak winds blow

O'er her sleeping infant's cheek!

Then let the shrilling trumpet speak,

And pierce in louder tones the ear,

Till, while it peals, we seem to hear

The sounding march, as of the Theban's song;[10]

And varied numbers, in their course,

With gathering fulness, and collected force,

Like the broad cataract, swell and sweep along!

Struck by the sounds, what wonder that I laid,

As thou, O Warton! didst the theme inspire,

My inexperienced hand upon the lyre,

And soon with transient touch faint music made,

As soon forgotten!

So I loved to lie

By the wild streams of elfin poesy,

Rapt in strange musings; but when life began,

I never roamed a visionary man;

For, taught by thee, I learned with sober eyes

To look on life's severe realities.

I never made (a dream-distempered thing)

Poor Fiction's realm my world; but to cold Truth

Subdued the vivid shapings of my youth.

Save when the drisly woods were murmuring,

Or some hard crosses had my spirit bowed;

Then I have left, unseen, the careless crowd,

And sought the dark sea roaring, or the steep

That braved the storm; or in the forest deep,

As all its gray leaves rustled, wooed the tone

Of the loved lyre, that, in my springtide gone,

Waked me to transport.

Eighteen summers now

Have smiled on Itchin's margin, since the time

When these delightful visions of our prime

Rose on my view in loveliness. And thou

Friend of my muse, in thy death-bed art cold,

Who, with the tenderest touches, didst unfold

The shrinking leaves of Fancy, else unseen

And shelterless: therefore to thee are due

Whate'er their summer sweetness; and I strew,

Sadly, such flowerets as on hillocks green,

Or mountain-slope, or hedge-row, yet my hand

May cull, with many a recollection bland,

And mingled sorrow, Warton, on thy tomb,

To whom, if bloom they boast, they owe their bloom!