By whom unhappy Cycnus bled;
By whom the Ethiopian boy,
That sprung from Neptune's godlike bed,
The aged Tithon's, and Aurora's highest joy.
What grand ideas crowd my brain!
What images! a lofty train
In beauteous order spring:
As the keen store of feathered fates
Within the braided quiver waits,
Impatient for the wing:
See, see, they mount! The sacred few
Endued with piercing flight,
Alone through darling fields pursue
The ærial regions bright.
This nature gives, her chiefest boast;
But when the bright ideas fly,
Far soaring from the vulgar eye,
To vulgar eyes are lost.
Where nature sows her genial seeds,
A liberal harvest straight succeeds,
Fair in the human soil;
While art, with hard laborious pains,
Creeps on unseen, nor much attains,
By slow progressive toil.
Resembling this, the feeble crow,
Amid the vulgar winged crowd,
Hides in the darkening copse below,
Vain, strutting, garrulous, and loud:
While genius mounts the ethereal height,
As the imperial bird of Jove
On sounding pinions soars above,
And dares the majesty of light.
Then fit an arrow to the tuneful string,
O thou, my genius! warm with sacred flame;
Fly swift, ethereal shaft! and wing
The godlike Theron unto fame.
I solemn swear, and holy truth attest,
That sole inspires the tuneful breast,
That, never since the immortal sun
His radiant journey first begun,
To none the gods did e'er impart
A more exalted mind, or wide-diffusive heart.
Fly, Envy, hence, that durst invade
Such glories, with injurious shade;
Still, with superior lustre bright,
His virtues shine, in number more
Than are the radiant fires of night,
Or sands that spread along the sea-surrounding shore.
[This poem was printed in the edition of 1760. It differs very
considerably from the manuscript copy. It is there divided into
Strophes,"
," "Antistrophes," and " Epodes." The alterations
are, in general, decided improvements-as, for example, "Strophe
I.," where, in the manuscript, the first five lines are as follows:--
"The crystal spring, above each element,
In use supremely excellent,
Fair in the dome, amid the heapy store,
As stars of heaven refulgent bright,
Far beaming through the obscure of night,
Conspicuous glows the golden oar.'
The printed version, it will be seen, is decidedly superior.
We do not deem it necessary to advert to mere verbal emendations, and shall pass over such changes as appear unimportant. The following antistrophe, which ought to have followed line 17, page 147, has been altogether omitted:
"For from that well of everlasting praise,
The bards may draw perpetual lays,
To honour Saturn's son in lofty strain,
When they to Hiero's wealthy dome,
Majestic pile, and vast, shall come,
Who rules Sicilia's fertile plain,
Blest in his sway. With happy industry
Aspiring he, and bold, delight
To climb each virtue's tree on high,
That flowers with fruit amid the sky,
Rejoicing in the wonderous height.
To him the gods their gifts impart,
Indulgent the harmonious art,
That fires the raptured breast;
When at his cheerful table gay
We form sublime the skilful lay,
To exalt the animated feast."
At page 148, lines 2 to 5 read in the manuscript as follows:
"Clotho, to second life renewed,
The youth by his dire father slain,
With ivory-shoulder bright endued,
Oft fables with a fond surprise."
The word "Sipylian," line 36 of the same page, is "Sicilian" in
TO H. H. IN THE ASSEMBLY.
While crown'd with radiant charms divine,
Unnumber'd beauties round thee shine,
When Erskine leads her happy man,
And Johnstoun shakes the fluttering fan;
When beauteous Pringle smiles confest,
And gently heaves her swelling breast,
Her raptur'd partner still at gaze,
Pursuing through each winding maze;
Say, youth, and can'st thou keep secure
Thy heart from conquering beauty's power?
Or hast thou not, how soon! betray'd
The too believing country maid?
Whose young and inexperienc'd years
From thee no evil purpose fears;
But yielding to love's gentle sway,
Knows not that lovers can betray,
How shall she curse deceiving men?
How shall she e'er believe again?
For me, my happier lot decrees
The joys of love that constant please;
A warm, benign and gentle flame,
That clearly burns, and still the same;
Unlike those fires that fools betray,
That fiercely burn, but swift decay,
Which warring passions hourly raise,
A short and momentary blaze.
My Hume, my beauteous Hume constrains
My heart in voluntary chains;
Well pleas'd for her my voice I raise,
For daily joys claim daily praise.
Can I forsake the fair, complete
In all that's soft and all that's sweet,
When heaven has in her form combin'd
The scatter'd graces of her kind?
Has she not all the charms that lie
In Gordon's blush and Lockhart's eye;
The down of lovely Haya's hair,
Kinlochia's shape or Cockburn's air?
Can time to love a period bring
Of charms forever in their spring?
'Tis death alone the lover frees,
Who loves so long as she can please.
[We have here a glimpse of those formal assemblies of last century for which "Auld Reekie" was so celebrated; and, thanks to the Poet's admiration of the fair sex, we can see, in fancy, the
beauties of the day-the Erskines, the Johnstouns, the Pringles, the Humes, &c.—threading the mazes of the stately dance. It is much to be regretted that little is to be gleaned at the present day respecting these divinities of the classic and gallant muse of Hamilton. Sir James Hall, second Baronet of Dunglas, married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Pringle, second Baronet of Stitchell. Their daughter, Catharine, married, 1743, W. Hamilton, whose elder brother married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Dalrymple, third Baronet of Cousland, without issue. It is probable, that in these nests of Pringle and Dalrymple two of his beauties were hatched. The verses were printed in the edition of 1760, and differ in no material respect from the MS.]
INTERVIEW OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED
THE GRECIAN AND TROJAN ARMIES.
Now paused the battle (godlike Hector gone),
When daring Glaucus and great Tydeus' son
Between the armies met. The chiefs from far
Observed each other, and had marked for war;
Near as they drew, Tydides thus began:
What art thou, boldest of the race of man?
Our eyes, till now, that aspect ne'er beheld,
Where fame is reaped amid the embattled field;
Yet far before the troops thou darest appear,
And meet a lance the fiercest heroes fear.
Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires,
Who tempt our fury, when Minerva fires!
But if from heaven celestial thou descend,
Know with immortals we no more contend.
Not long Lycurgus viewed the golden light,
That daring man, who mixed with gods in fight;
Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries, he drove
With brandished steel from Nyssa's sacred grove,
Their consecrated spears lay scattered round,
With curling vines and twisted ivy bound;
While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood,
And Thetis, armed, received the trembling god.
Nor failed the crime the immortals' wrath to move,
(The immortals blest with endless ease above),
Deprived of sight by their avenging doom,
Cheerless he breathed, and wandered in the gloom;
Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes,
A wretch accursed, and hated by the gods!
I brave not heaven: But if the fruits of earth
Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth;
Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath,
Approach, and enter the dark gates of death.
What, or from whence I am, or who my sire,
(Replied the chief) can Tydeus' son inquire?
Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay,
So flourish these, when those are past away.
But if thou still persist to search my birth,
Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth.
He spoke, and transport filled Tydides' heart;
In earth the generous warrior fixed his dart,
Then friendly thus the Lycian prince addressed:
Welcome, my brave hereditary guest!
Thus ever let us meet, with kind embrace,
Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race.
Know, chief, our grandsires have been friends of old,
Eneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold;
Our ancient seat his honoured presence graced,
Where twenty days in genial rites he passed
The parting heroes mutual presents left;
A golden goblet was my grandsire's gift:
Eneus a belt of matchless work bestowed,
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glowed.
(This from his pledge I learned, which, safely stored
Among my treasures, still adorns my board;
For Tydeus left me young, when Thebes's wall
Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall.)
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join,
If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline,
My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine.
Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield,
In the full harvest of yon ample field;
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore,
But thou and Diomed be foes no more.
Now change we arms, and prove to either host
We guard the friendship of the line we boast.
Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight,
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight; Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resigned, Jove warmed his bosom, and enlarged his mind;
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