The Poems of John Dyer

Front matter

Edited by Owen Edwards.

THE POEMS OF JOHN DYER

Edited by Owen M. Edwards, Author of "Wales." Each volume Foolscap 8vo. 2s. Cloth; 1s. paper.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

JOHN DYER, 1701-1757.

John Dyer was born at Aberglasney, a considerable house, in the parish of Llangathen, in Caermarthenshire, in 1700 according to some, in 1701 according to others; more probably in 1701. The register which would have shown the date of his birth has been lost, and I can only learn that he was fifty-six years old when he died in 1757. He was the second son of a solicitor "of great reputation," and from father and mother had English blood. He was educated, first at a country school, then at Westminster School, under Dr Freind. Of his attainments we know nothing. It is likely that he painted and wrote verse at an early age; and he is said to have planned "Grongar Hill" when he was sixteen years old. Before he was ripe for a university, he was called from Westminster to his father's office. Having no taste for the law, he left it on his father's death, soon afterwards. His taste for painting led him to become a pupil of Jonathan Richardson, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Richardson's written work inspired Reynolds, but his teaching would not seem to have matured Dyer's capacity to anything beyond a skilled mediocrity. According to one of his own published letters, the youth, on leaving Richardson, became "an itinerant painter" in South Wales and the neighbouring counties of England. He must have paid visits to London about this time. Savage and Aaron Hill were among his friends. From an epistle by the former, it appears that, like his master, he painted portraits. His character, gentle, amiable, independent and unworldly, endeared him to those whom he met, if it did not attract the literary world.

Probably in 1724, he went, still as a painter, to Italy. He spent two years in Rome and Florence and other cities that were a matter of course. Like some of the next century's poets, whom he faintly but certainly foreshadowed, he was delighted by the riches of Nature, the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and antiquity, which he saw. With a milder rapture than Shelley's, he was happy in sight of the Baths of Caracalla and the Coliseum. He is said to have been more successful with pen and ink sketches than with crayon and oils; but it may be conjectured that his work in colour and line had little but the indirect value of training his eye in a way that afterwards served him as a poet of Nature. To "Clio"—probably the "Clio" whom he is known to have painted—he addressed some trifling "Verses from Rome"; Clio sent back a set of verses of equal merit.

1726, the year of his return to England, was a year of some literary activity for Dyer. It was the year of the publication of Thomson's "Winter."

Savage's Miscellany of that date contained five pieces from Dyer's pen, viz.: "The Inquiry," an unimportant composition that proves his rural contentment; "To Aaron Hill," a complimentary epistle; "An Epistle to a Painter," i.e. to Richardson; "The Country Walk," and "Grongar Hill." As then published, "Grongar Hill" was not significant. In form "an irregular ode," divided into stanzas, it displayed some unattractive Pindarism and the antics of that day. "The Country Walk," the one wild flower of the collection, slender but unique, in manner suggested the turn which was given later to "Grongar Hill." He was again an itinerant painter.

In 1727, "Grongar Hill" appeared in its final shape. The revision had been happy, but somewhat imperfectly inspired. Thus the opening lines are negligent and vague, and "unhappy fate," etc., is indefensible. But when we consider the fitness of the metre, and the skilful presentation of a mood so uncommon in his day, breathing in the first lines, and gracefully completed in the last, we must grant to the poem a very special claim. If we exclude consideration of the age in which it appeared, it has still a charm, if only for the small number of readers who care for all the poetry of Nature. As a product of 1727, it must be allowed that it adds to the strength of a necessary link in the chain of English literature that deals poetically with Nature. It has been praised in English and Welsh, and in the last century was paraphrased in Welsh. The manner of Dyer's work, and the combination of personal fancy with accurate observation, make him a closer relative to Wordsworth than his bulky rival Thomson, who was in many ways far more richly gifted. It is necessary to add, since it has been wrongly located, that Grongar is in Caermarthenshire, and in sight of Aberglasney.

It is obvious that Dyer must have been much out of doors. He probably knew South Wales intimately. He had a short, practical experience of agriculture, and a love of animals. At the same time he was not a hearty out-door philosopher. His health was always indifferent, and the Campagna had injured it. He seems to have had an amiable, constitutional melancholy, and must have known the angrier moods of that "sweet enemy"; for, in 1729, he is said to have written his epitaph. He called himself "old and sickly" in middle age; for many years in later life he was deaf; yet remained true to the character which was given to him by Aaron Hill, who says,

"You look abroad serene And marking both extremes, pass clear between."

After the publication of "Grongar Hill," he continued to write verse. Italy lived impressively in his memory. He probably took many notes during his tour, and certainly made a preparatory sketch of "The Ruins of Rome," which was published in its final shape in 1740. Portions of it have been praised by Johnson, Hervey, Wordsworth and others. It is, indeed, a dignified and impassioned meditation. Like "Grongar Hill," it hints at the ampler manner of the next century. In execution it is sometimes tame, and the poet here uses Miltonisms for the first time; but the conception, and some of the thoughts, might well remind us of Shelley. Here, again, Dyer is to be respected as an interesting link, though "The Ruins of Rome" appears less like a finished poem than a first draft by a powerful hand.

In 1740, or at about that time, he married a Miss Ensor; and failing health and, we may surmise, an aptitude of temperament, led him into the Church. He was presented by "one Mr Harper" to the living of Catthorpe in Leicestershire, in the following year. In 1751, he left Catthorpe for Belchford in Lincolnshire, to which he was appointed by Lord Hardwicke, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the recommendation of Daniel Wray, Deputy Teller; and in the same year, Sir John Heathcote presented him to the living of Coningsby in Lincolnshire, and in 1755 to Kirky-on-Bane in the same county, in place of Belchford. He became LL.B., Cantab., by royal mandate, in 1752.

Coningsby Rectory was then his home, which he left seldom and unwillingly. He was probably careful in the performance of his duties, preached fair sermons, and built part of the present rectory. He kept his registers with singular neatness. His poems are more or less clearly impressed by reminiscences of such writers as Spenser, Drayton, Milton, Gray, Appollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, Lucretius and Virgil; he quoted from Columella and Janus Vitalis, and in his leisure must have been mainly occupied with books. There seems to be no reason for believing that he understood Welsh. His letters do not lead us to suppose that he was often afield in his later years: he was unable to tell Duncombe when the swallows had appeared, but was "told they had been skimming about his garden this fortnight." Perhaps Lincolnshire was not altogether consoling to one who had known the Towy valley. His last work was full of reminiscences of Wales. At Coningsby, he was busy with his longest poem, "The Fleece." He composed laboriously; and Akenside, who was giving him medical advice, helped him in the work. It is his biggest effort, and when we consider the subject, his greatest success. A very large proportion of dulness is to be expected from Dyer on wool; but it does not obscure the excellence of his design; even where his thought is rustic, the style is pure; in some places he is nearly grand; in many, felicitous. These isolated lines are characteristic of Dyer at his best:

"Or the tall growth of glossy-rinded beech,"

"No prickly brambles, white with woolly theft,"

"Rolling by ruins hoar of antient towns,"

"Long lay the mournful realms of elder fame In gloomy desolation…"

"Nor what the peasant, near some lucid wave, Pactolus, Simoïs or Meander slow, Renowned in story, with his plough upturns."

Wordsworth found parts of the poem "dry and heavy," and parts superior to any writer in verse since Milton, for imagination and purity of style. It was praised, among Dyer's contemporaries, by Dr James Grainger, a verse-writer in The Monthly Review, and by Gray.

I do not think it necessary to add much size and no light to this volume, by commenting on the numerous proper names of men and places in "The Fleece." I have retained Dyer's spelling—e.g. "Mincoy" for "Minikoi"—almost as it was in the first edition. His abbreviations—as "ev'n" for "even"—have been as carefully as possible preserved, as illustrating Dyer's (and his century's) preferences in rhythm. In Book I. the 72nd and 89th lines have been changed in accordance with Dyer's directions to the printer. In former editions, these lines have been:

" Or marl with clay deep mixed, be then thy choice,"

and

"At a meet distance from the upland ridge."

These unimportant changes, and possibly others, had been suggested, as we learn from Duncombe's correspondence, to Dodsley the publisher; but without effect, because the poet died of a consumptive malady in the year of publication, 15th December, 1757, "aged 56," says the register at Coningsby. There he was buried and remains without memorial.

Postscript.—I thank Mr John Jenkins ("Gwili"), the Rev. Arthur Wright, Rector of Coningsby, and the Rev. J. Alex. Williams, Vicar of Llangathen, for their answers to my enquiries concerning the poet.

EDWARD THOMAS.

Note by the Publisher.

The portrait which appears as a frontispiece to this volume is taken from an Edition of Dyer's Poems, bearing the date 1779. There is, however, some doubt as to its being an authentic likeness of the poet.

To the Poet, John Dyer

TO THE POET, JOHN DYER

By William Wordsworth

Bard of the Fleece, whose skilful genius made That work a living landscape fair and bright; Nor hallowed less with musical delight Than those soft scenes through which thy childhood strayed, Those southern tracts of Cambria, 'deep embayed, With green hills fenced, with Ocean's murmur lulled'; Though hasty fame hath many a chaplet culled For worthless brows, while in the pensive shade Of cold neglect she leaves thy head ungraced, Yet pure and powerful minds, hearts meek and still, A grateful few, shall love thy modest lay, Long as the shepherd's bleating flock shall stray O'er naked Snowdon's wide aërial waste; Long as the thrush shall pipe on Grongar Hill!

Grongar Hill

GRONGAR HILL

Silent Nymph! with curious eye, Who, the purple ev'ning, lie On the mountain's lonely van, Beyond the noise of busy man, Painting fair the form of things, While the yellow linnet sings, Or the tuneful nightingale Charms the forest with her tale; Come, with all thy various hues, Come, and aid thy sister Muse; Now while Phœbus, riding high, Gives lustre to the land and sky, Grongar Hill invites my song; Draw the landscape bright and strong; Grongar in whose mossy cells, Sweetly musing Quiet dwells; Grongar, in whose silent shade, For the modest Muses made, So oft I have, the ev'ning still, At the fountain of a rill Sat upon a flow'ry bed, With my hand beneath my head, While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood, Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill, Till Contemplation had her fill. About his chequer'd sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind, And groves and grottoes where I lay, And vistoes shooting beams of day. Wide and wider spreads the vale, As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains round, unhappy fate! Sooner or later, of all height, Withdraw their summits from the skies, And lessen as the others rise: Still the prospect wider spreads, Adds a thousand woods and meads; Still it widens, widens still, And sinks the newly-risen hill. Now I gain the mountain's brow, What a landskip lies below! No clouds, no vapours intervene; But the gay, the open scene Does the face of Nature show In all the hues of heaven's bow, And, swelling to embrace the light, Spreads around beneath the sight. Old castles on the cliffs arise, Proudly tow'ring in the skies; Rushing from the woods, the spires Seem from hence ascending fires; Half his beams Apollo sheds On the yellow mountain-heads, Gilds the fleeces of the flocks, And glitters on the broken rocks. Below me trees unnumber'd rise, Beautiful in various dyes;

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, The yellow beech, the sable yew, The slender fir, that taper grows, The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs, And beyond the purple grove, Haunt of Phillis, queen of love! Gaudy as the op'ning dawn, Lies a long and level lawn, On which a dark hill, steep and high, Holds and charms the wand'ring eye: Deep are his feet in Towy's flood, His sides are cloath'd with waving wood, And ancient towers crown his brow, That cast an awful look below; Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps, And with her arms from falling keeps; So both a safety from the wind On mutual dependence find. 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode; 'Tis now th' apartment of the toad; And there the fox securely feeds, And there the pois'nous adder breeds, Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds; While, ever and anon, there falls Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls. Yet Time has seen, that lifts the low, And level lays the lofty brow, Has seen this broken pile compleat, Big with the vanity of state: But transient is the smile of Fate! A little rule, a little sway, A sunbeam in a winter's day, Is all the proud and mighty have Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers how they run Thro' woods and meads, in shade and sun! Sometimes swift and sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep: Thus is Nature's vesture wrought, To instruct our wand'ring thought; Thus she dresses green and gay, To disperse our cares away. Ever charming, ever new, When will the landskip tire the view! The fountain's fall, the river's flow, The woody vallies warm and low; The windy summit, wild and high, Roughly rushing on the sky! The pleasant seat, the ruin'd tow'r, The naked rock, the shady bow'r; The town and village, dome and farm, Each give each a double charm, As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm. See on the mountain's southern side, Where the prospect opens wide, Where the ev'ning gilds the tide, How close and small the hedges lie! What streaks of meadows cross the eye! A step, methinks, may pass the stream, So little distant dangers seem; So we mistake the future's face, Ey'd thro' Hope's deluding glass; As yon summits soft and fair, Clad in colours of the air, Which, to those who journey near, Barren, brown, and rough appear;

Still we tread the same coarse way; The present's still a cloudy day. O may I with myself agree, And never covet what I see; Content me with an humble shade, My passions tam'd, my wishes laid; For while our wishes wildly roll, We banish quiet from the soul; 'Tis thus the busy beat the air, And misers gather wealth and care. Now, ev'n now, my joys run high, As on the mountain-turf I lie; While the wanton Zephyr sings, And in the vale perfumes his wings; While the waters murmur deep; While the shepherd charms his sheep; While the birds unbounded fly, And with music fill the sky, Now, ev'n now, my joys run high. Be full, ye Courts! be great who will; Search for Peace with all your skill: Open wide the lofty door, Seek her on the marble floor: In vain ye search, she is not there; In vain ye search the domes of Care! Grass and flowers Quiet treads, On the meads and mountain-heads, Along with pleasure close ally'd, Ever by each other's side, And often, by the munn'ring rill, Hears the thrush, while all is still, Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

The Country Walk

THE COUNTRY WALK

The morning's fair; the lusty sun With ruddy cheek begins to run, And early birds, that wing the skies, Sweetly sing to see him rise. I am resolv'd, this charming day, In the open field to stray, And have no roof above my head, But that whereon the gods do tread. Before the yellow barn I see A beautiful variety Of strutting cocks, advancing stout, And flirting empty chaff about: Hens, ducks, and geese, and all their brood, And turkeys gobbling for their food, While rustics thrash the wealthy floor, And tempt all to crowd the door. What a fair face does Nature show! Augusta! wipe thy dusty brow; A landscape wide salutes my sight Of shady vales and mountains bright; And azure heavens I behold, And clouds of silver and of gold. And now into the fields I go, Where thousand flaming flowers glow,

And every neighb'ring hedge I greet, With honey-suckles smelling sweet. Now o'er the daisy-meads I stray, And meet with, as I pace my way, ByronCollWksv3p330Sweetly shining on the eye, A riv'let gliding smoothly by, Which shows with what an easy tide The moments of the happy glide: Here, finding pleasure after pain, Sleeping, I see a weary'd swain, While his full scrip lies open by, That does his healthy food supply. Happy swain! sure happier far Than lofty kings and princes are! Enjoy sweet sleep, which shuns the crown, With all its easy beds of down. The sun now shows his noon-tide blaze, And sheds around me burning rays. A little onward, and I go Into the shade that groves bestow, And on green moss I lay me down, That o'er the root of oak has grown; Where all is silent, but some flood, That sweetly murmurs in the wood; But birds that warble in the sprays, And charm ev'n Silence with their lays. Oh! pow'rful Silence! how you reign In the poet's busy brain! His num'rous thoughts obey the calls Of the tuneful water-falls; Like moles, whene'er the coast is clear, They rise before thee without fear, And range in parties here and there. Some wildly to Parnassus wing, And view the fair Castalian spring,

Where they behold a lonely well Where now no tuneful Muses dwell, But now and then a slavish hind Paddling the troubled pool they find. Some trace the pleasing paths of joy, Others the blissful scene destroy, In thorny tracks of sorrow stray, And pine for Clio far away. But stay Methinks her lays I hear, So smooth! so sweet! so deep! so clear! No, it is not her voice I find; 'Tis but the echo stays behind. Some meditate Ambition's brow, And the black gulf that gapes below; Some peep in courts, and there they see The sneaking tribe of Flattery: But, striking to the ear and eye, A nimble deer comes bounding by! When rushing from yon rustling spray It made them vanish all away. I rouse me up, and on I rove; 'Tis more than time to leave the grove. The sun declines, the evening breeze Begins to whisper thro' the trees; And as I leave the sylvan gloom, As to the glare of day I come, An old man's smoky nest I see Leaning on an aged tree, Whose willow walls, and furzy brow, A little garden sway below: Thro' spreading beds of blooming green, Matted with herbage sweet and clean, A vein of water limps along, And makes them ever green and young.

Here he puffs upon his spade, And digs up cabbage in the shade: His tatter'd rags are sable brown, His beard and hair are hoary grown; The dying sap descends apace, And leaves a wither'd hand and face. Up Grongar Hill I labour now, And catch at last his bushy brow. Oh! how fresh, how pure, the air! Let me breathe a little here. Where am I, Nature? I descry Thy magazine before me lie. Temples!—and towns!—and towers!—and woods!— And hills!—and vales!—and fields!—and floods! Crowding before me, edg'd around With naked wilds and barren ground. See, below, the pleasant dome, The poet's pride, the poet's home, Which the sunbeams shine upon To the even from the dawn. See her woods, where Echo talks, Her gardens trim, her terrace walks, Her wildernesses, fragrant brakes, Her gloomy bow'rs and shining lakes. Keep, ye Gods! this humble seat For ever pleasant, private, neat. See yonder hill, uprising steep, Above the river slow and deep; It looks from hence a pyramid, Beneath a verdant forest hid; On whose high top there rises great The mighty remnant of a seat, An old green tow'r, whose batter'd brow Frowns upon the vale below.

Look upon that flow'ry plain, How the sheep surround their swain, How they crowd to hear his strain! All careless with his legs across, Leaning on a bank of moss, He spends his empty hours at play, Which fly as light as down away. And there behold a bloomy mead, A silver stream, a willow shade, Beneath the shade a fisher stand, Who, with the angle in his hand, Swings the nibbling fry to land. In blushes the descending sun Kisses the streams, while slow they run; And yonder hill remoter grows, Or dusky clouds do interpose. The fields are left, the labouring hind His weary oxen does unbind; And vocal mountains, as they low, Re-echo to the vales below; The jocund shepherds piping come, And drive the herd before them home; And now begin to light their fires, Which send up smoke in curling spires; While with light hearts all homeward tend, To Aberglasney I descend. But, oh! how bless'd would be the day Did I with Clio pace my way, And not alone and solitary stray.

An Epistle to a Friend in Town

AN EPISTLE

TO A FRIEND IN TOWN.

Have my friends in the town, in the gay busy town, Forgot such a man as John Dyer? Or heedless despise they, or pity the clown, Whose bosom no pageantries fire?

No matter, no matter—content in the shades— (Contented!—why everything charms me) Fall in tunes all adown the green steep, ye cascades! Till hence rigid virtue alarms me:

Till outrage arises, or misery needs The swift, the intrepid avenger; Till sacred religion or liberty bleeds, Then mine be the deed and the danger.

Alas! what a folly, that wealth and domain We heap up in sin and in sorrow! Immense is the toil, yet the labour how vain! Is not life to be over to-morrow.

Then glide on my moments, the few that I have, Smooth-shaded, and quiet, and even, While gently the body descends to the grave, And the spirit arises to heaven.

To Aurelia

TO AURELIA

See, the flowery Spring is blown, Let us leave the smoky Town: From the Mall, and from the Ring, Every one has taken wing; Cloe, Strephon, Corydon, To the meadows all are gone; What is left you worth your stay? Come, Aurelia, come away.

Come, Aurelia, come and see What a lodge I've dress'd for thee; But the seat you cannot see, 'Tis so hid with jessamy, With the vine that o'er the walls, And in every window, crawls; Let us there be blithe and gay! Come, Aurelia, come away.

Come with all thy sweetest wiles, With thy graces and thy smiles; Come, and we will merry be, Who shall be so blest as we? We will frolic all the day, Haste, Aurelia, while we may: Ay! and should not life be gay? Yes, Aurelia—come away.

The Ruins of Rome

THE RUINS OF ROME

Aspice murorum moles, præruptaque saxa, Obrutaque horrenti vasta theatra situ: Hæc sunt Roma. Viden' velut ipsa cadavera tantæ Urbis adhuc spirent imperiosa minas?"—Janus Vitalis.

["Look at all the walls, the stones dislodged, the vast theatres brought low by the power of decay. That is Rome. And do you see how the very corpse of such a city is still imperial and seems to offer menaces?"]

Enough of Grongar, and the shady dales Of winding Towy, Merlin's fabled haunt, I sung inglorious. Now the love of arts, And what in metal or in stone remains Of proud Antiquity, thro' various realms And various languages and ages fam'd, Bears me remote o'er Gallia's woody bounds, O'er the cloud-piercing Alps remote, beyond The vale of Arno, purpled with the vine, Beyond the Umbrian and Etruscan hills, To Latium's wide champaign, forlorn and waste, Where yellow Tiber his neglected wave Mournfully rolls. Yet once again, my Muse! Yet once again, and soar a loftier flight; Lo! the resistless theme, imperial Rome. Fall'n, fall'n, a silent heap! her heroes all Sunk in their urns; behold the pride of pomp,

The throne of nations, fall'n! obscur'd in dust; Ev'n yet majestical: the solemn scene Elates the soul, while now the rising sun Flames on the ruins in the purer air Tow'ring aloft upon the glittering plain, Like broken rocks, a vast circumference! Rent palaces, crush'd columns, rifled moles, Fanes roll'd on fanes, and tombs on bury'd tombs! Deep lies in dust the Theban obelisk Immense along the waste; minuter art, Gliconian forms, or Phidian, subtly fair, O'erwhelming; as th' immense leviathan The finny brood, when near Ierne's shore Outstretch'd, unwieldy, his island length appears Above the foamy flood. Globose and huge, Gray-mouldering temples swell, and wide o'ercast The solitary landscape, hills and woods, And boundless wilds; while the vine-mantled brows The pendent goats unveil, regardless they Of hourly peril, tho' the clefted domes Tremble to every wind. The pilgrim oft, At dead of night, 'mid his oraison hears Aghast the voice of Time, disparting tow'rs, Tumbling all precipitate down-dash'd, Rattling around, loud thund'ring to the moon; While murmurs soothe each awful interval Of ever-falling waters; shrouded Nile, Eridanus, and Tiber with his twins, And palmy Euphrates: they with dropping locks Hang o'er their urns, and mournfully among The plaintive echoing ruins pour their streams. Yet here, advent'rous in the sacred search Of ancient arts, the delicate of mind, Curious and modest, from all climes resort, Grateful society! with these I raise

The toilsome step up the proud Palatin, Thro' spiry cypress groves, and tow'ring pine, Waving aloft o'er the big ruin's brows, On num'rous arches rear'd; and, frequent stopp'd, The sunk ground startles me with dreadful chasm, Breathing forth darkness from the vast profound Of aisles and halls within the mountain's womb. Nor these the nether works; all these beneath, And all beneath the vales and hills around, Extend the cavern'd sewers, massy, firm, As the Sibylline grot beside the dead Lake of Avernus; such the sewers huge, Whither the great Tarquinian genius dooms Each wave impure; and proud with added rains, Hark how the mighty billows lash their vaults, And thunder! how they heave their rocks in vain! Tho' now incessant time has roll'd around A thousand winters o'er the changeful world, And yet a thousand since, th' indignant floods Roar loud in their firm bounds, and dash and swell In vain, convey'd to Tiber's lowest wave. Hence over airy plains, by crystal founts, That weave their glitt'ring wave with tuneful lapse Among the sleeky pebbles, agate clear, Cerulean ophite, and the flow'ry vein Of orient jasper, pleas'd I move along, And vases boss'd, and huge inscriptive stones, And intermingling vines, and figur'd nymphs, Floras and Chloes of delicious mould, Cheering the darkness; and deep empty tombs, And dells, and mould'ring shrines, with old decay Rustic and green, and wide-em bow'ring shades, Shot from the crooked clefts of nodding tow'rs; A solemn wilderness! with error sweet I wind the lingering step, where'er the path

Mazy conducts me, which the vulgar foot O'er sculptures maim'd has made; Anubis, Sphinx, Idols of antique guise, and horned Pan, Terrific, monstrous shapes! prepost'rous gods Of fear and ignorance, by the sculptor's hand Hewn into form, and worshipp'd; as ev'n now Blindly they worship at their breathless mouths In varied appellations: men to these (From depth to depth in dark'ning error fall'n) At length ascrib'd th' Inapplicable Name. How doth it please and fill the memory With deeds of brave renown, while on each hand Historic urns and breathing statues rise, And speaking busts! Sweet Scipio, Marius stern, Pompey superb, the spirit-stirring form Of Caesar, raptur'd with the charm of rule And boundless fame; impatient for exploits, His eager eyes upcast, he soars in thought Above all height: and his own Brutus see, Desponding Brutus! dubious of the right, In evil days of faith, of public weal, Solicitous and sad. Thy next regard Be Tully's graceful attitude; uprais'd, His outstretch'd arm he waves, in act to speak Before the silent masters of the world, And eloquence arrays him. There behold, Prepar'd for combat in the front of war, The pious brothers; jealous Alba stands In fearful expectation of the strife, And youthful Rome intent: the kindred foes Fall on each other's neck in silent tears; In sorrowful benevolence embrace— Howe'er they soon unsheath the flashing sword Their country calls to arms; now all in vain The mother clasps the knee, and ev'n the fair

Now weeps in vain; their country calls to arms. Such virtue Clelia, Cocles, Manlius, rouz'd; Such were the Fabii, Decii; so inspir'd The Scipios battled, and the Gracchi spoke: So rose the Roman state. Me now, of these Deep musing, high ambitious thoughts inflame Greatly to serve my country, distant land, And build me virtuous fame; nor shall the dust Of these fall'n piles with show of sad decay Avert the good resolve, mean argument, The fate alone of matter. Now the brow We gain enraptur'd; beauteously distinct The num'rous porticoes and domes upswell, With obelisks and columns interpos'd, And pine, and fir, and oak; so fair a scene Sees not the dervise from the spiral tomb Of ancient Chammos, while his eye beholds Proud Memphis' relics o'er th' Egyptian plain; Nor hoary hermit from Hymettus' brow, Tho' graceful Athens in the vale beneath. Along the windings of the Muse's stream, Lucid Ilyssus weeps her silent schools And groves, unvisited by bard or sage. Amid the tow'ry ruins, huge, supreme, Th' enormous amphitheatre behold, Mountainous pile! o'er whose capacious womb Pours the broad firmament its vary'd light, While from the central floor the seats ascend Round above round, slow wid'ning to the verge, A circuit vast and high; nor less had held Imperial Rome and her attendant realms, When, drunk with rule, she will'd the fierce delight, And op'd the gloomy caverns, whence out rush'd, Before th' innumerable shouting crowd, The fiery madded tyrants of the wilds,