Specimens with Memoirs of the Less known British Poets, Vol. 3 by George Gilfillan

G >> George Gilfillan >> Specimens with Memoirs of the Less known British Poets, Vol. 3

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

65 Till tired out with raving loud,
She fell upon the floor:
Sir Charles exerted all his might,
And marched from out the door.

66 Upon a sledge he mounted then,
With looks full brave and sweet;
Looks that did show no more concern
Than any in the street.

67 Before him went the council-men,
In scarlet robes and gold,
And tassels spangling in the sun,
Much glorious to behold:

68 The friars of St Augustine next
Appeared to the sight,
All clad in homely russet weeds
Of godly monkish plight:

69 In different parts a godly psalm
Most sweetly they did chaunt;
Behind their backs six minstrels came,
Who tuned the strong bataunt.

70 Then five-and-twenty archers came;
Each one the bow did bend,
From rescue of King Henry's friends
Sir Charles for to defend.

71 Bold as a lion came Sir Charles,
Drawn on a cloth-laid sled
By two black steeds, in trappings white,
With plumes upon their head.

72 Behind him five-and-twenty more
Of archers strong and stout,
With bended bow each one in hand,
Marched in goodly rout:

73 Saint James's friars marched next,
Each one his part did chaunt;
Behind their backs six minstrels came
Who tuned the strong bataunt:

74 Then came the mayor and aldermen,
In cloth of scarlet decked;
And their attending men, each one
Like eastern princes tricked:

75 And after them a multitude
Of citizens did throng;
The windows were all full of heads,
As he did pass along.

76 And when he came to the high cross,
Sir Charles did turn and say,--
'O Thou that savest man from sin,
Wash my soul clean this day!'

77 At the great minster window sat
The king in mickle state,
To see Charles Bawdin go along
To his most welcome fate.

78 Soon as the sledge drew nigh enough
That Edward he might hear,
The brave Sir Charles he did stand up,
And thus his words declare:

79 'Thou seest me, Edward! traitor vile!
Exposed to infamy;
But be assured, disloyal man!
I'm greater now than thee.

80 'By foul proceedings, murder, blood,
Thou wearest now a crown;
And hast appointed me to die,
By power not thine own.

81 'Thou thinkest I shall die to-day;
I have been dead till now,
And soon shall live to wear a crown
For ever on my brow:

82 'Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few years
Shall rule this fickle land,
To let them know how wide the rule
'Twixt king and tyrant hand:

83 'Thy power unjust, thou traitor slave!
Shall fall on thy own head'----
From out of hearing of the king
Departed then the sled.

84 King Edward's soul rushed to his face,
He turned his head away,
And to his brother Gloucester
He thus did speak and say:

85 'To him that so much dreaded death
No ghastly terrors bring,
Behold the man! he spake the truth,
He's greater than a king!'

86 'So let him die!' Duke Richard said;
'And may each of our foes
Bend down their necks to bloody axe,
And feed the carrion crows!'

87 And now the horses gently drew
Sir Charles up the high hill;
The axe did glisten in the sun,
His precious blood to spill.

88 Sir Charles did up the scaffold go,
As up a gilded car
Of victory, by valorous chiefs,
Gained in the bloody war:

89 And to the people he did say,--
'Behold, you see me die,
For serving loyally my king,
My king most rightfully.

90 'As long as Edward rules this land,
No quiet you will know;
Your sons and husbands shall be slain,
And brooks with blood shall flow.

91 'You leave your good and lawful king
When in adversity;
Like me unto the true cause stick,
And for the true cause die.'

92 Then he with priests, upon his knees,
A prayer to God did make,
Beseeching him unto himself
His parting soul to take.

93 Then, kneeling down, he laid his head
Most seemly on the block;
Which from his body fair at once
The able headsman stroke:

94 And out the blood began to flow,
And round the scaffold twine;
And tears, enough to wash't away,
Did flow from each man's eyne.

95 The bloody axe his body fair
Into four quarters cut;
And every part, likewise his head,
Upon a pole was put.

96 One part did rot on Kinwulph-hill,
One on the minster-tower,
And one from off the castle-gate
The crowen did devour:

97 The other on Saint Paul's good gate,
A dreary spectacle;
His head was placed on the high cross,
In high street most nobile.

98 Thus was the end of Bawdin's fate;--
God prosper long our king,
And grant he may, with Bawdin's soul,
In heaven God's mercy sing!

MINSTREL'S SONG.

1 O! sing unto my roundelay,
O! drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holy-day,
Like a running river be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

2 Black his cryne[1] as the winter night,
White his rode[2] as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

3 Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note,
Quick in dance as thought can be,
Deft his tabour, cudgel stout;
O! he lies by the willow-tree:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

4 Hark! the raven flaps his wing,
In the briared dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the night-mares as they go:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

5 See! the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is my true love's shroud,
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

6 Here upon my true love's grave,
Shall the barren flowers be laid,
Not one holy saint to save
All the celness of a maid:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

7 With my hands I'll dent[3] the briars
Round his holy corse to gree;[4]
Ouphant[5] fairy, light your fires--
Here my body still shall be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

8 Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my hearte's-blood away;
Life and all its goods I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

9 Water-witches, crowned with reytes,[6]
Bear me to your lethal tide.
'I die! I come! my true love waits!'
Thus the damsel spake, and died.

[1] 'Cryne:' hair.
[2] 'Rode:' complexion.
[3] 'Dent:' fix.
[4] 'Gree:' grow.
[5] 'Ouphant:' elfish.
[6] 'Reytes:' water-flags.

THE STORY OF WILLIAM CANYNGE.

1 Anent a brooklet as I lay reclined,
Listening to hear the water glide along,
Minding how thorough the green meads it twined,
Whilst the caves responsed its muttering song,
At distant rising Avon to he sped,
Amenged[1] with rising hills did show its head;

2 Engarlanded with crowns of osier-weeds
And wraytes[2] of alders of a bercie scent,
And sticking out with cloud-agested reeds,
The hoary Avon showed dire semblament,
Whilst blatant Severn, from Sabrina cleped,
Boars flemie o'er the sandes that she heaped.

3 These eyne-gears swithin[3] bringeth to my thought
Of hardy champions knowen to the flood,
How on the banks thereof brave Aelle fought,
Aelle descended from Merce kingly blood,
Warder of Bristol town and castle stede,
Who ever and anon made Danes to bleed.

4 Methought such doughty men must have a sprite
Dight in the armour brace that Michael bore,
When he with Satan, king of Hell, did fight,
And earth was drenched in a sea of gore;
Or, soon as they did see the worlde's light,
Fate had wrote down, 'This man is born to fight.'

5 Aelle, I said, or else my mind did say,
Why is thy actions left so spare in story?
Were I to dispone, there should liven aye,
In earth and heaven's rolls thy tale of glory;
Thy acts so doughty should for aye abide,
And by their test all after acts be tried.

6 Next holy Wareburghus filled my mind,
As fair a saint as any town can boast,
Or be the earth with light or mirk ywrynde,[4]
I see his image walking through the coast:
Fitz-Hardynge, Bithrickus, and twenty moe,
In vision 'fore my fantasy did go.

7 Thus all my wandering faitour[5] thinking strayed,
And each digne[6] builder dequaced on my mind,
When from the distant stream arose a maid,
Whose gentle tresses moved not to the wind;
Like to the silver moon in frosty night,
The damoiselle did come so blithe and sweet.

8 No broidered mantle of a scarlet hue,
No shoe-pikes plaited o'er with riband gear,
No costly robes of woaden blue,
Nought of a dress, but beauty did she wear;
Naked she was, and looked sweet of youth,
All did bewrayen that her name was Truth.

9 The easy ringlets of her nut-brown hair
What ne a man should see did sweetly hide,
Which on her milk-white bodykin so fair
Did show like brown streams fouling the white tide,
Or veins of brown hue in a marble cuarr,[7]
Which by the traveller is kenned from far.

10 Astounded mickle there I silent lay,
Still scauncing wondrous at the walking sight;
My senses forgard,[8] nor could run away,
But was not forstraught[9] when she did alight
Anigh to me, dressed up in naked view,
Which might in some lascivious thoughts abrew.

11 But I did not once think of wanton thought;
For well I minded what by vow I hete,
And in my pocket had a crochee[10] brought;
Which in the blossom would such sins anete;
I looked with eyes as pure as angels do,
And did the every thought of foul eschew.

12 With sweet semblate, and an angel's grace,
She 'gan to lecture from her gentle breast;
For Truth's own wordes is her minde's face,
False oratories she did aye detest:
Sweetness was in each word she did ywreene,
Though she strove not to make that sweetness seen.

13 She said, 'My manner of appearing here
My name and slighted myndruch may thee tell;
I'm Truth, that did descend from heaven-were,
Goulers and courtiers do not know me well;
Thy inmost thoughts, thy labouring brain I saw,
And from thy gentle dream will thee adawe.[11]

14 Full many champions, and men of lore,
Painters and carvellers[12] have gained good name,
But there's a Canynge to increase the store,
A Canynge who shall buy up all their fame.
Take thou my power, and see in child and man
What true nobility in Canynge ran.'

15 As when a bordelier[13] on easy bed,
Tired with the labours maynt[14] of sultry day,
In sleepe's bosom lays his weary head,
So, senses sunk to rest, my body lay;
Eftsoons my sprite, from earthly bands untied,
Emerged in flanched air with Truth aside.

16 Straight was I carried back to times of yore,
Whilst Canynge swathed yet in fleshly bed,
And saw all actions which had been before,
And all the scroll of fate unravelled;
And when the fate-marked babe had come to sight,
I saw him eager gasping after light.

17 In all his shepen gambols and child's play,
In every merry-making, fair, or wake,
I knew a purple light of wisdom's ray;
He eat down learning with a wastle cake.
As wise as any of the aldermen,
He'd wit enough to make a mayor at ten.

18 As the dulce[15] downy barbe began to gre,
So was the well thighte texture of his lore
Each day enheedynge mockler[16] for to be,
Great in his counsel for the days he bore.
All tongues, all carols did unto him sing,
Wond'ring at one so wise, and yet so ying.[17]

19 Increasing in the years of mortal life,
And hasting to his journey unto heaven,
He thought it proper for to choose a wife,
And use the sexes for the purpose given.
He then was youth of comely semelikede,
And he had made a maiden's heart to bleed.

20 He had a father (Jesus rest his soul!)
Who loved money, as his cherished joy;
He had a brother (happy man be's dole!)
In mind and body his own father's boy:
What then could Canynge wishen as a part
To give to her who had made exchange of heart?

21 But lands and castle tenures, gold and bighes,[18]
And hoards of silver rusted in the ent,[19]
Canynge and his fair sweet did that despise,
To change of truly love was their content;
They lived together in a house adigne,[20]
Of good sendaument commily and fine.

22 But soon his brother and his sire did die,
And left to William states and renting-rolls,
And at his will his brother John supply.
He gave a chauntry to redeem their souls;
And put his brother into such a trade,
That he Lord Mayor of London town was made.

23 Eftsoons his morning turned to gloomy night;
His dame, his second self, gave up her breath,
Seeking for eterne life and endless light,
And slew good Canynge; sad mistake of Death!
So have I seen a flower in summer-time
Trod down and broke and wither in its prime.

24 Near Redcliff Church (oh, work of hand of Heaven!
Where Canynge showeth as an instrument)
Was to my bismarde eyesight newly given;
'Tis past to blazon it to good content.
You that would fain the festive building see
Repair to Redcliff, and contented be.

25 I saw the myndbruch of his notte soul
When Edward menaced a second wife;
I saw what Pheryons in his mind did roll:
Now fixed from second dames, a priest for life,
This is the man of men, the vision spoke;
Then bell for even-song my senses woke.

[1] 'Amenged:' mixed.
[2] 'Wraytes:' flags.
[3] 'Swithin:' quickly.
[4] 'Ywrynde:' covered.
[5] 'Faitour:' vagrant.
[6] 'Digne:' worthy.
[7] 'Cuarr:' quarry.
[8] 'Forgard:' lose.
[9] 'Forstraught:' distracted.
[10] 'A crochee:' a cross.
[11] 'Adawe:' awake.
[12] 'Carvellers:' sculptors.
[13] 'A bordelier:' a cottager.
[14] 'Maynt:' many.
[15] 'Dulce:' sweet.
[16] 'Mockler:' more.
[17] 'Ying:' young.
[18] 'Bighes:' jewels.
[19] 'Ent:' bag.
[20] 'Adigne:' worthy.

KENRICK.

TRANSLATED FROM THE SAXON.

When winter yelled through the leafless grove; when the black waves
rode over the roaring winds, and the dark-brown clouds hid the face of
the sun; when the silver brook stood still, and snow environed the top
of the lofty mountain; when the flowers appeared not in the blasted
fields, and the boughs of the leafless trees bent with the loads of
ice; when the howling of the wolf affrighted the darkly glimmering
light of the western sky; Kenrick, terrible as the tempest, young as
the snake of the valley, strong as the mountain of the slain; his
armour shining like the stars in the dark night, when the moon is
veiled in sable, and the blasting winds howl over the wide plain; his
shield like the black rock, prepared himself for war.

Ceolwolf of the high mountain, who viewed the first rays of the
morning star, swift as the flying deer, strong as the young oak,
fierce as an evening wolf, drew his sword; glittering like the blue
vapours in the valley of Horso; terrible as the red lightning,
bursting from the dark-brown clouds; his swift bark rode over the
foaming waves, like the wind in the tempest; the arches fell at his
blow, and he wrapped the towers in flames: he followed Kenrick, like
a wolf roaming for prey.

Centwin of the vale arose, he seized the massy spear; terrible was his
voice, great was his strength; he hurled the rocks into the sea, and
broke the strong oaks of the forest. Slow in the race as the minutes
of impatience. His spear, like the fury of a thunderbolt, swept down
whole armies; his enemies melted before him, like the stones of hail
at the approach of the sun.

Awake, O Eldulph! thou that sleepest on the white mountain, with the
fairest of women. No more pursue the dark-brown wolf: arise from the
mossy bank of the falling waters; let thy garments be stained in
blood, and the streams of life discolour thy girdle; let thy flowing
hair be hid in a helmet, and thy beauteous countenance be writhed into
terror.

Egward, keeper of the barks, arise like the roaring waves of the sea:
pursue the black companies of the enemy.

Ye Saxons, who live in the air and glide over the stars, act like
yourselves.

Like the murmuring voice of the Severn, swelled with rain, the Saxons
moved along; like a blazing star the sword of Kenrick shone among the
Britons; Tenyan bled at his feet; like the red lightning of heaven he
burnt up the ranks of his enemy.

Centwin raged like a wild boar. Tatward sported in blood; armies
melted at his stroke. Eldulph was a flaming vapour; destruction sat
upon his sword. Ceolwolf was drenched in gore, but fell like a rock
before the sword of Mervin.

Egward pursued the slayer of his friend; the blood of Mervin smoked on
his hand.

Like the rage of a tempest was the noise of the battle; like the
roaring of the torrent, gushing from the brow of the lofty mountain.

The Britons fled, like a black cloud dropping hail, flying before the
howling winds.

Ye virgins! arise and welcome back the pursuers; deck their brows with
chaplets of jewels; spread the branches of the oak beneath their feet.
Kenrick is returned from the war, the clotted gore hangs terrible upon
his crooked sword, like the noxious vapours on the black rock; his
knees are red with the gore of the foe.

Ye sons of the song, sound the instruments of music; ye virgins, dance
around him.

Costan of the lake, arise, take thy harp from the willow, sing the
praise of Kenrick, to the sweet sound of the white waves sinking to
the foundation of the black rock.

Rejoice, O ye Saxons! Kenrick is victorious.

FEBRUARY, AN ELEGY.

1 Begin, my muse, the imitative lay,
Aeonian doxies, sound the thrumming string;
Attempt no number of the plaintive Gray;
Let me like midnight cats, or Collins, sing.

2 If in the trammels of the doleful line,
The bounding hail or drilling rain descend;
Come, brooding Melancholy, power divine,
And every unformed mass of words amend.

3 Now the rough Goat withdraws his curling horns,
And the cold Waterer twirls his circling mop:
Swift sudden anguish darts through altering corns,
And the spruce mercer trembles in his shop.

4 Now infant authors, maddening for renown,
Extend the plume, and hum about the stage,
Procure a benefit, amuse the town,
And proudly glitter in a title-page.

5 Now, wrapped in ninefold fur, his squeamish Grace
Defies the fury of the howling storm;
And whilst the tempest whistles round his face,
Exults to find his mantled carcase warm.

6 Now rumbling coaches furious drive along,
Full of the majesty of city dames,
Whose jewels, sparkling in the gaudy throng,
Raise strange emotions and invidious flames.

7 Now Merit, happy in the calm of place,
To mortals as a Highlander appears,
And conscious of the excellence of lace,
With spreading frogs and gleaming spangles glares:

8 Whilst Envy, on a tripod seated nigh,
In form a shoe-boy, daubs the valued fruit,
And darting lightnings from his vengeful eye,
Raves about Wilkes, and politics, and Bute.

9 Now Barry, taller than a grenadier,
Dwindles into a stripling of eighteen;
Or sabled in Othello breaks the ear,
Exerts his voice, and totters to the scene.

10 Now Foote, a looking-glass for all mankind,
Applies his wax to personal defects;
But leaves untouched the image of the mind;--
His art no mental quality reflects.

11 Now Drury's potent king extorts applause,
And pit, box, gallery, echo, 'How divine!'
Whilst, versed in all the drama's mystic laws,
His graceful action saves the wooden line.

12 Now--but what further can the muses sing?
Now dropping particles of water fall;
Now vapours riding on the north wind's wing,
With transitory darkness shadows all.

13 Alas! how joyless the descriptive theme,
When sorrow on the writer's quiet preys;
And like a mouse in Cheshire cheese supreme,
Devours the substance of the lessening bays.

14 Come, February, lend thy darkest sky,
There teach the wintered muse with clouds to soar:
Come, February, lift the number high;
Let the sharp strain like wind through alleys roar.

15 Ye channels, wandering through the spacious street,
In hollow murmurs roll the dirt along,
With inundations wet the sabled feet,
Whilst gouts, responsive, join the elegiac song.

16 Ye damsels fair, whose silver voices shrill
Sound through meandering folds of Echo's horn;
Let the sweet cry of liberty be still,
No more let smoking cakes awake the morn.

17 O Winter! put away thy snowy pride;
O Spring! neglect the cowslip and the bell;
O Summer! throw thy pears and plums aside;
O Autumn! bid the grape with poison swell.

18 The pensioned muse of Johnson is no more!
Drowned in a butt of wine his genius lies.
Earth! Ocean! Heaven! the wondrous loss deplore,
The dregs of nature with her glory dies.

19 What iron Stoic can suppress the tear!
What sour reviewer read with vacant eye!
What bard but decks his literary bier!--
Alas! I cannot sing--I howl--I cry!

LORD LYTTELTON.

Dr Johnson said once of Chesterfield, 'I thought him a lord among wits,
but I find him to be only a wit among lords.' And so we may say of Lord
Lyttelton, 'He is a poet among lords, if not a lord among poets.' He was
the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley in Worcestershire, and was
born in 1709. He went to Eton and Oxford, where he distinguished himself.
Having gone the usual grand tour, he entered Parliament, and became an
opponent of Sir Robert Walpole. He was made secretary to the Prince of
Wales, and was in this capacity useful to Mallett and Thomson. In 1741,
he married Lucy Fortescue, of Devonshire, who died five years afterwards.
Lyttelton grieved sincerely for her, and wrote his affecting 'Monody' on
the subject. When his party triumphed, he was created a Lord of the
Treasury, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, with a peerage. He
employed much of his leisure in literary composition, writing a good
little book on the Conversion of St Paul, a laboured History of Henry II.,
and some verses, including the stanza in the 'Castle of Indolence'
describing Thomson--

'A bard there dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,' &c.--

and a very spirited prologue to Thomson's 'Coriolanus,' which was written
after that author's death, and says of him,

--'His chaste muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire:
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
_One line which, dying he could wish to blot_.'

Lyttelton himself died August 22, 1773, aged sixty-four. His History is
now little read. It took him, it is said, thirty years to write it, and
he employed another man to point it--a fact recalling what is told of
Macaulay, that he sent the first volume of his 'History of England' to
Lord Jeffrey, who overlooked the punctuation and criticised the style.
Of a series of Dialogues issued by this writer, Dr Johnson remarked,
with his usual pointed severity, 'Here is a man telling the world what
the world had all his life been telling him.' His 'Monody' expresses
real grief in an artificial style, but has some stanzas as natural in
the expression as they are pathetic in the feeling.

FROM THE 'MONODY.'

At length escaped from every human eye,
From every duty, every care,
That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burdened heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love
Can on the ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

* * * * *

In vain I look around
O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we used to walk,
Where oft in tender talk
We saw the summer sun go down the sky;
Nor by yon fountain's side,
Nor where its waters glide
Along the valley, can she now be found:
In all the wide-stretched prospect's ample bound
No more my mournful eye
Can aught of her espy,
But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

* * * * *

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns
By your delighted mother's side:
Who now your infant steps shall guide?
Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care
To every virtue would have formed your youth,
And strewed with flowers the thorny ways of truth?
O loss beyond repair!
O wretched father! left alone,
To weep their dire misfortune and thy own:
How shall thy weakened mind, oppressed with woe,
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe!
Now she, alas! is gone,
From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20