Chapter IX: Letter I: From the Princess Charlotte of Wales to the Lady Barbara (6)

I more than once have heard at night
A song like those thy lip hath given,
And it was sung by shapes of light,
Who looked and breathed, like thee, of heaven.

But this was all a dream of sleep.
And I have said when morning shone:--
"Why should the night-witch, Fancy, keep
"These wonders for herself alone?"

I knew not then that fate had lent
Such tones to one of mortal birth;
I knew not then that Heaven had sent
A voice, a form like thine on earth.

And yet, in all that flowery maze
Through which my path of life has led,
When I have heard the sweetest lays
From lips of rosiest lustre shed;

When I have felt the warbled word
From Beauty's lip, in sweetness vying
With music's own melodious bird;
When on the rose's bosom lying

Though form and song at once combined
Their loveliest bloom and softest thrill,
My heart hath sighed, my ear hath pined
For something lovelier, softer still:--

Oh, I have found it all, at last,
In thee, thou sweetest living lyre,
Through which the soul of song e'er past,
Or feeling breathed its sacred fire.

All that I e'er, in wildest flight
Of fancy's dreams could hear or see
Of music's sigh or beauty's light
Is realized, at once, in thee!

[1] Afterward Duchess of Hamilton.

IMPROMPTU,

ON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS.

_o dulces comitum valete coetus_!
CATULLUS.

No, never shall my soul forget
The friends I found so cordial-hearted;
Dear shall be the day we met,
And dear shall be the night we parted.

If fond regrets, however sweet,
Must with the lapse of time decay,
Yet stall, when thus in mirth you meet,
Fill high to him that's far away!

Long be the light of memory found
Alive within your social glass;
Let that be still the magic round.
O'er which Oblivion, dare not pass.

A WARNING.

TO .......

Oh, fair as heaven and chaste as light! Did nature mould thee all so bright. That thou shouldst e'er be brought to weep O'er languid virtue's fatal sleep, O'er shame extinguished, honor fled, Peace lost, heart withered, feeling dead?

No, no! a star was born with thee, Which sheds eternal purity. Thou hast, within those sainted eyes, So fair a transcript of the skies, In lines of light such heavenly lore That men should read them and adore. Yet have I known a gentle maid Whose mind and form were both arrayed In nature's purest light, like thine;-- Who wore that clear, celestial sign Which seems to mark the brow that's fair For destiny's peculiar care; Whose bosom, too, like Dian's own, Was guarded by a sacred zone, Where the bright gem of virtue shone; Whose eyes had in their light a charm Against all wrong and guile and harm. Yet, hapless maid, in one sad hour These spells have lost their guardian power; The gem has been beguiled away; Her eyes have lost their chastening ray; The modest pride, the guiltless shame, The smiles that from reflection came, All, all have fled and left her mind A faded monument behind; The ruins of a once pure shrine, No longer fit for guest divine, Oh! 'twas a sight I wept to see-- Heaven keep the lost one's fate from thee!

TO .......

'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,
While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
One minute's thought to stray from thee.

Oh! thou becom'st each moment dearer;
Every chance that brings me nigh thee
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,--
I am lost, unless I fly thee.

Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
Doom me not thus so soon to fall
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,--
But that eye would blast them all!

For, thou hast heart as false and cold
As ever yet allured and swayed,
And couldst, without a sigh, behold
The ruin which thyself had made.

Yet,--_could_ I think that, truly fond,
That eye but once would smile on me,
Even as thou art, how far beyond
Fame, duty, wealth, that smile would be!

Oh! but to win it, night and day,
Inglorious at thy feet reclined,
I'd sigh my dreams of fame away,
The world for thee forgot, resigned.

But no, 'tis o'er, and--thus we part, Never to meet again--no, never, False woman, what a mind and heart Thy treachery has undone forever.

WOMAN.

Away, away--you're all the same,
A smiling, fluttering, jilting throng;
And, wise too late, I burn with shame,
To think I've been your slave so long.

Slow to be won, and quick to rove,
From folly kind, from cunning loath,
Too cold for bliss, too weak for love,
Yet feigning all that's best in both;

Still panting o'er a crowd to reign,--
More joy it gives to woman's breast
To make ten frigid coxcombs vain,
Than one true, manly lover blest.

Away, away--your smile's a curse--
Oh! blot me from the race of men,
Kind, pitying Heaven, by death or worse,
If e'er I love such things again.

TO .......

Come, take thy harp--'tis vain to muse
Upon the gathering ills we see;
Oh! take thy harp and let me lose
All thoughts of ill in hearing thee.

Sing to me, love!--Though death were near,
Thy song could make my soul forget--
Nay, nay, in pity, dry that tear,
All may be well, be happy yet.

Let me but see that snowy arm
Once more upon the dear harp lie,
And I will cease to dream of harm,
Will smile at fate, while thou art nigh.

Give me that strain of mournful touch
We used to love long, long ago,
Before our hearts had known as much
As now, alas! they bleed to know.

Sweet notes! they tell of former peace,
Of all that looked so smiling then,
Now vanished, lost--oh, pray thee cease,
I cannot bear those sounds again.

Art _thou_, too, wretched? Yes, thou art;
I see thy tears flow fast with mine--
Come, come to this devoted heart,
'Tis breaking, but it still is thine!

A VISION OF PHILOSOPHY.

'Twas on the Red Sea coast, at morn, we met The venerable man;[1] a healthy bloom Mingled its softness with the vigorous thought That towered upon his brow; and when he spoke 'Twas language sweetened into song--such holy sounds As oft, they say, the wise and virtuous hear, Prelusive to the harmony of heaven, When death is nigh; and still, as he unclosed[2] His sacred lips, an odor, all as bland As ocean-breezes gather from the flowers That blossom in Elysium, breathed around, With silent awe we listened, while he told Of the dark veil which many an age had hung O'er Nature's form, till, long explored by man, The mystic shroud grew thin and luminous, And glimpses of that heavenly form shone through:-- Of magic wonders, that were known and taught By him (or Cham or Zoroaster named) Who mused amid the mighty cataclysm, O'er his rude tablets of primeval lore; And gathering round him, in the sacred ark, The mighty secrets of that former globe, Let not the living star of science sink Beneath the waters, which ingulfed a world!-- Of visions, by Calliope revealed To him,[3]who traced upon his typic lyre The diapason of man's mingled frame, And the grand Doric heptachord of heaven. With all of pure, of wondrous and arcane, Which the grave sons of Mochus, many a night, Told to the young and bright-haired visitant Of Carmel's sacred mount.--Then, in a flow Of calmer converse, he beguiled us on Through many a Maze of Garden and of Porch, Through many a system, where the scattered light Of heavenly truth lay, like a broken beam From the pure sun, which, though refracted all Into a thousand hues, is sunshine still,[4] And bright through every change!--he spoke of Him, The lone, eternal One, who dwells above, And of the soul's untraceable descent From that high fount of spirit, through the grades Of intellectual being, till it mix With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark; Nor yet even then, though sunk in earthly dross, Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still. As some bright river, which has rolled along Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold, When poured at length into the dusky deep, Disdains to take at once its briny taint, Or balmy freshness, of the scenes it left. But keeps unchanged awhile the lustrous tinge, And here the old man ceased--a winged train Of nymphs and genii bore him from our eyes. The fair illusion fled! and, as I waked, 'Twas clear that my rapt soul had roamed, the while, To that bright realm of dreams, that spirit-world, Which mortals know by its long track of light O'er midnight's sky, and call the Galaxy.[5]

[1] In Plutarch's Essay on the Decline of the Oracles, Cleombrotus, one of the interlocutors, describes an extraordinary man whom he had met with, after long research, upon the banks of the Red Sea. Once in every year this supernatural personage appeared to mortals and conversed with them; the rest of his time he passed among the Genii and the Nymphs.

[2] The celebrated Janus Dousa, a little before his death, imagined that he heard a strain of music in the air.

[3] Orpheus.--Paulinus, in his "_Hebdomades_, cap. 2, _lib_. iii, has endeavored to show, after the Platonists, that man is a diapason, or octave, made up of a diatesseron, which is his soul, and a dispente, which is his body. Those frequent allusions to music, by which the ancient philosophers illustrated their sublime theories, must have tended very much to elevate the character of the art, and to enrich it with associations of the grandest and most interesting nature.

[4] Lactantius asserts that all the truths of Christianity may be found dispersed through the ancient philosophical sects, and that any one who would collect these scattered fragments of orthodoxy might form a code in no respect differing from that of the Christian.

[5] According to Pythagoras, the people of Dreams are souls collected together in the Galaxy.

TO MRS. .......

To see thee every day that came, And find thee still each day the same; In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tear To me still ever kind and dear;-- To meet thee early, leave thee late, Has been so long my bliss, my fate, That life, without this cheering ray, Which came, like sunshine, every day, And all my pain, my sorrow chased, Is now a lone, a loveless waste.

Where are the chords she used to touch? The airs, the songs she loved so much? Those songs are hushed, those chords are still, And so, perhaps, will every thrill Of feeling soon be lulled to rest, Which late I waked in Anna's breast. Yet, no--the simple notes I played From memory's tablet soon may fade; The songs, which Anna loved to hear, May vanish from her heart and ear; But friendship's voice shall ever find An echo in that gentle mind, Nor memory lose nor time impair The sympathies that tremble there.

TO LADY HEATHCOTE,

ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS.

_"Tunnebridge est à la même distance de Londres, que Fontainebleau
l'est de Paris. Ce qu'il y a de beau et de galant dans l'un et dans
l'autre sexe s'y rassemble au terns des eaux. La compagnie,"_ etc.
--See _Memoires de Grammont_, Second Part, chap. iii.

_Tunbridge Wells_.

When Grammont graced these happy springs,
And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles,
The merriest wight of all the kings
That ever ruled these gay, gallant isles;

Like us, by day, they rode, they walked,
At eve they did as we may do,
And Grammont just like Spencer talked,
And lovely Stewart smiled like you.

The only different trait is this,
That woman then, if man beset her,
Was rather given to saying "yes,"
Because,--as yet, she knew no better.

Each night they held a coterie,
Where, every fear to slumber charmed,
Lovers were all they ought to be,
And husbands not the least alarmed.

Then called they up their school-day pranks,
Nor thought it much their sense beneath
To play at riddles, quips, and cranks,
And lords showed wit, and ladies teeth.

As--"Why are husbands like the mint?"
Because, forsooth, a husband's duty
Is but to set the name and print
That give a currency to beauty.

"Why is a rose in nettles hid
Like a young widow, fresh and fair?"
Because 'tis sighing to be rid
Of weeds, that "have no business there!"

And thus they missed and thus they hit,
And now they struck and now they parried;
And some lay in of full grown wit.
While others of a pun miscarried,

'Twas one of those facetious nights
That Grammont gave this forfeit ring
For breaking grave conundrumrites,
Or punning ill, or--some such thing;--

From whence it can be fairly traced,
Through many a branch and many a bough,
From twig to twig, until it graced
The snowy hand that wears it now.

All this I'll prove, and then, to you
Oh Tunbridge! and your springs ironical,
I swear by Heathcote's eye of blue
To dedicate the important chronicle.

Long may your ancient inmates give
Their mantles to your modern lodgers,
And Charles's loves in Heathcote live,
And Charles's bards revive in Rogers.

Let no pedantic fools be there;
For ever be those fops abolished,
With heads as wooden as thy ware,
And, heaven knows! not half so polished.

But still receive the young, the gay.
The few who know the rare delight
Of reading Grammont every day,
And acting Grammont every night.

THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS,

A FRAGMENT.

* * * * *

But, whither have these gentle ones, These rosy nymphs and black-eyed nuns, With all of Cupid's wild romancing, Led by truant brains a-dancing? Instead of studying tomes scholastic, Ecclesiastic, or monastic, Off I fly, careering far In chase of Pollys, prettier far Than any of their namesakes are,-- The Polymaths and Polyhistors, Polyglots and all their sisters.

So have I known a hopeful youth Sit down in quest of lore and truth, With tomes sufficient to confound him, Like Tohu Bohu, heapt around him,-- Mamurra[1] stuck to Theophrastus, And Galen tumbling o'er Bombastus.[2] When lo! while all that's learned and wise Absorbs the boy, he lifts his eyes, And through the window of his study Beholds some damsel fair and ruddy, With eyes, as brightly turned upon him as The angel's[3] were on Hieronymus. Quick fly the folios, widely scattered, Old Homer's laureled brow is battered, And Sappho, headlong sent, flies just in The reverend eye of St. Augustin. Raptured he quits each dozing sage, Oh woman, for thy lovelier page: Sweet book!--unlike the books of art,-- Whose errors are thy fairest part; In whom the dear errata column Is the best page in all the volume![4] But to begin my subject rhyme-- 'Twas just about this devilish time, When scarce there happened any frolics That were not done by Diabolics, A cold and loveless son of Lucifer, Who woman scorned, nor saw the use of her, A branch of Dagon's family, (Which Dagon, whether He or She, Is a dispute that vastly better is Referred to Scaliger[5] _et coeteris_,) Finding that, in this cage of fools, The wisest sots adorn the schools, Took it at once his head Satanic in, To grow a great scholastic manikin,-- A doctor, quite as learned and fine as Scotus John or Tom Aquinas, Lully, Hales Irrefragabilis, Or any doctor of the rabble is. In languages, the Polyglots, Compared to him, were Babelsots: He chattered more than ever Jew did;-- Sanhedrim and Priest included, Priest and holy Sanhedrim Were one-and-seventy fools to him. But chief the learned demon felt a Zeal so strong for gamma, delta, That, all for Greek and learning's glory,[6] He nightly tippled "Graeco more," And never paid a bill or balance Except upon the Grecian Kalends:-- From whence your scholars, when they want tick, Say, to be Attic's to be _on_ tick. In logics, he was quite Ho Panu; Knew as much as ever man knew. He fought the combat syllogistic With so much skill and art eristic, That though you were the learned Stagyrite, At once upon the hip he had you right. In music, though he had no ears Except for that amongst the spheres, (Which most of all, as he averred it, He dearly loved, 'cause no one heard it,) Yet aptly he, at sight, could read Each tuneful diagram in Bede, And find, by Euclid's corollaria, The ratios of a jig or aria. But, as for all your warbling Delias, Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias, He owned he thought them much surpast By that redoubted Hyaloclast[7] Who still contrived by dint of throttle, Where'er he went to crack a bottle.

Likewise to show his mighty knowledge, he, On things unknown in physiology, Wrote many a chapter to divert us, (Like that great little man Albertus,) Wherein he showed the reason why, When children first are heard to cry, If boy the baby chance to be. He cries O A!--if girl, O E!-- Which are, quoth he, exceeding fair hints Respecting their first sinful parents; "Oh Eve!" exclaimeth little madam, While little master cries "Oh Adam!"

But, 'twas in Optics and Dioptrics, Our daemon played his first and top tricks. He held that sunshine passes quicker Through wine than any other liquor; And though he saw no great objection To steady light and clear reflection, He thought the aberrating rays, Which play about a bumper's blaze, Were by the Doctors looked, in common, on, As a more rare and rich phenomenon. He wisely said that the sensorium Is for the eyes a great emporium, To which these noted picture-stealers Send all they can and meet with dealers. In many an optical proceeding The brain, he said, showed great good breeding; For instance, when we ogle women (A trick which Barbara tutored him in), Although the dears are apt to get in a Strange position on the retina, Yet instantly the modest brain Doth set them on their legs again!

Our doctor thus, with "stuft sufficiency" Of all omnigenous omnisciency, Began (as who would not begin That had, like him, so much within?) To let it out in books of all sorts, Folios, quartos, large and small sorts; Poems, so very deep and sensible That they were quite incomprehensible Prose, which had been at learning's Fair, And bought up all the trumpery there, The tattered rags of every vest, In which the Greeks and Romans drest, And o'er her figure swollen and antic Scattered them all with airs so frantic, That those, who saw what fits she had, Declared unhappy Prose was mad! Epics he wrote and scores of rebuses, All as neat as old Turnebus's; Eggs and altars, cyclopaedias, Grammars, prayer-books--oh! 'twere tedious, Did I but tell thee half, to follow me: Not the scribbling bard of Ptolemy, No--nor the hoary Trismegistus, (Whose writings all, thank heaven! have missed us,) E'er filled with lumber such a wareroom As this great "_porcus literarum_!"

[1] Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about anything, except who was his father.

[2] Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance.

[3] The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his "_concordantia discordantium Canonum_," and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics.

[4] The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is not a little singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it.

[5] Scaliger.--Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.

[6] It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek, "Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand."

[7] Or Glass-breaker--Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work, published 1682.

* * * * *

POEMS RELATING TO AMERICA

TO FRANCIS, EARL OF MOIRA.

GENERAL IN HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, MASTER-GENERAL OF THE ORDNANCE, CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER, ETC.

MY LORD,

It is impossible to think of addressing a Dedication to your Lordship without calling to mind the well-known reply of the Spartan to a rhetorician, who proposed to pronounce an eulogium on Hercules. "Oh Hercules!" said the honest Spartan, "who ever thought of blaming Hercules?" In a similar manner the concurrence of public opinion has left to the panegyrist of your Lordship a very superfluous task. I shall, therefore, be silent on the subject, and merely entreat your indulgence to the very humble tribute of gratitude which I have here the honor to present.

I am, my Lord, With every feeling of attachment and respect, Your Lordship's very devoted Servant,

THOMAS MOORE.

_37 Bury Street, St. James's, April 10, 1806_.