Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)

by Ann Radcliffe

  Just like love!

  And should a sunbeam kiss its leaf,

  How bright the dewdrops would appear!

  Like beams of hope upon a tear,

  Like light of smiles through parting grief!

  And just like love

  DECEMBER’S EVE,

  ABROAD.

  AWFUL is Winter’s setting sun,

  When, from beneath a sullen cloud,

  He eyes his dreary course now run,

  And shrinks within his lurid shroud —

  Leaving to Twilight’s cold, grey sky

  Yon Minster’s dark and lonely tower,

  That seems to shun the searching eye,

  And vanish with the parting hour.

  Dim is the long roofs sloping line,

  Whose airy pinnacles I trace,

  Point over point, and o’er the shrine

  And eastern window’s gothic grace.

  While load the winds, in chorus clear,

  Swell, or in sinking murmurs grieve,

  The Ministers of Night I hear

  In requiem o’er December’s Eve.

  Wide o’er the plains and distant wolds

  I see her pall of darkness flow;

  And all around, in mighty folds,

  Her winding sheet of new-fallen snow.

  Farewell December’s dismal night I

  Appalled I hear thy shrieking breath;

  And view, aghast by glimmering light,

  Thy visage, terrible in death!

  Farewell December’s dismal night!

  DECEMBER’S EVE,

  AT HOME.

  WELCOME December’s cheerful night,

  When the taper-lights appear;

  When the piled hearth blazes bright,

  And those we love are circled there!

  And, on the soft rug basking lies,

  ‘Outstretched at ease, the spotted friend,

  With glowing coat and half-shut eyes,

  Where watchfulness and slumber blend.

  Welcome December’s cheerful hour,

  When books, with converse sweet combined,

  And music’s many-gifted power

  Exalt, or soothe th’ awakened mind.

  Then, let the snow-wind shriek aloud,

  And menace oft the guarded sash,

  And all his diapason crowd,

  As o’er the frame his white wings dash.

  He sings of darkness and of storm,

  Of icy cold, and lonely ways;

  But, gay the room, the hearth more warm,

  And brighter is the taper’s blaze.

  Then, let the merry tale go round,

  And airy songs the hours deceive;

  And let our heart-felt laughs resound,

  In welcome to December’s Eve!

  A SEA-VIEW.

  A BREEZE is springing up. Mark yon grey cloud,

  That from th* horizon piles it’s Alpy steeps

  Upon the sky; there the fierce tempest rides.

  Our vessel owns the gale, and all her sails

  Are full; the broad and slanted deck cuts with i edge

  The foaming waves, that roll almost within it,

  And often bow their curling tops, as if

  In homage. Not so the onward billows;

  For while, with steady force, the vexing prow

  Flings wide the groaning waters, high rise they,

  Darting their dragon-headed vengeance: now

  Baffled they burst on either side with rage,

  And dash their spray in the hard seaman’s face.

  The gale is rising: and the roughening waves

  Show darker shades of green, with, here and there,

  Far out, white foamy tops, that rise and fell

  Incessant. Storm-lights, issuing from the clouds,

  Mark distances upon the mighty deep;

  There, in one gleam, a white sail scuds along —

  Farther, those vessels seem to hang in shade;

  And, farther still, on the last edge of ocean,

  Where fells a paler, mistier sun-light,

  See where some port-town peeps above the tide,

  With its long, level ramparts, turret-crowned;

  There a broad tower and there a slender spire

  Stand high upon the light, while all between,

  Of intermingled roofs, embattled gates,

  Quays, ancient halls and smoking chimneys, — sunk

  Low, and all blended in one common mass,

  Are undiscerned so far. There, all is calm;

  The waters slumber; the anchored keels repose;

  And not a top-mast trembles; —

  While here the chafing billows mount the deck

  Dash through the sturdy shrouds, and with their foam

  Buffet the braced sail. Toward that port

  Our vessel steers, which from the seas and winds

  May soon receive us. —— —

  But ah! while yet we gaze, the vision fades!

  The high-piled ramparts, overtopped with turrets,

  Vanish in shade before the searching eye,

  Which nought but waves and sky can trace o’er all

  The lone horizon! So on Calabria’s shore,

  Where the old Reggio spreads its walls

  Beside the sea, the fairy’s wand, at eve,

  Is lifted — and behold! far on the waters,

  Another landscape rise! Wood-mantled steeps

  And shadowy mountains soar, and turrets from

  Some promontory’s point hang o’er the vale,

  Where sleeps among its palms the hamlet low,

  Hid from the bustling, ostentatious world,

  Deep in the bosom of this silent scene.

  Ah! beauteous work of Fairie! that can paint

  Unreal visions to th’ admiring eye,

  Charming it with distinct, though faithless forms.

  The magic sceptre dropt, behold, they vanish!

  A desert world of water’s only there!

  *

  And thus th’ enchantress on the daily path

  Of Youth attends, known only by her power

  Unseen, and conjures up Hope, Joy and Bliss,

  To dance in the fresh bowers of fadeless spring.

  At Reason’s touch the airy dream dissolves;

  We gaze, and wonder at such wild delusion,

  Yet weep its loss, and court its forms again.

  Hail, beauteous scenes of Fairie, Fancy’s world!

  Where Truth, so cold and colourless, comes not,

  Or far away in lonely grandeur stands,

  Like the great snowy Alps, whose cloudy shapes

  And aspect stem (deforming the horizon),

  Make the still landscape, spread below, appear

  More green, more gay, more cheering to our view.

  Hail, beauteous scenes of Fairie, Fancy’s world!

  And now, as if the spell had worked again,

  The stormy shade far distant floats away.

  Again the spired city shines in light,

  Peering beyond the waves, here shadowed yet

  By the lingering storm. The pier outstretches

  Its arm to meet us, and the lighthouse shows

  Its column, and we see the lanthorn high,

  Suspended o’er the margin of the tidé,

  The star of the night-wandering mariner.

  Hail, cheering port, first vision of the land,

  Vision, but not illusion, hail again!

  HAYLEY’S LIFE OF COWPER.

  OH speak no more of Fiction’s painted woes!

  Her laboured scenes are colourless and cold;

  Her high-wrought sorrows are but dull repose,

  Beside the tale that simple Truth has told.

  O’er the sad Poet dead shall Pity weep,

  Weep tears of anguish, such as mothers shed

  O’er the poor infant, when its paling lip

  Moves with a last faint smile; when droops the head,

  A
nd the imploring eyes look up once more

  To her, whose fondness can no aid dispense!

  ‘Tis well there is a Higher World, where soar

  The accepted hopes of suffering Innocence!

  WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

  OH! for a cottage on the shady brow

  Of this green Island, where the Channel flows

  With less tumultuous wave, and sends abroad

  The many sails of England to the world,

  And beareth to his home the mariner,

  Who shouts to view the light blue hills, that dawn

  O’er Wight’s gay plains; and soon he spies the woods,

  That shade its shores, and brighter tints of corn

  And pastoral slopes and all their “green delights.”

  Advancing gently, ‘mid the sleepy tide,

  Soon he marks some long-left object clear,

  A lofty watchtower, or some village church,

  Or the white parsonage peeping through the trees,

  To which, when last beheld, he sighed farewell

  With throbbing grief. — These now he hails with joy,

  As he steers onward to the wellknown shore.

  Oh! for a cottage on the breezy cliff,

  That points the crescent of thy harbour, Cowes!

  And bears the raptured glance o’er seas and shores —

  A boundless prospect, tinted all around

  With summer shades of soft ethereal blue! —

  O’er the wide waters rise the far-famed downs

  Of Sussex; while thy forests, Hampshire, vast,

  Spread their dark line, for many a winding mile,

  By the blue waves, till, failing, the sight rests

  Where yon dim hill-tops overlook the main.

  There Purbeck’s summits rise, while broader hills,

  Marking their grey lines on the forest shade,

  Lead back the eye to where Southampton’s vale

  Pours forth th’ abundant wave, and spreads its

  lawns,

  Its jutting slopes, with villas gaily crowned,

  Its sheltered cots, the rough wood’s shade, whence peers

  The village fane ‘mid the high foliage: —

  Southampton’s vale, where lurks the twilight glade.

  Whose ancient oaks their branches stretch austere,

  And half conceal that Abbey’s fretted arch,

  As if to guard from eye and hand profane

  The mouldering stones, whose pious founder once

  Dropped them, green acorns, in this hallowed ground,

  To shelter and adorn the sainted walls,

  Whose long-forgotten sons mused ‘neath their shade,

  Blest thoughts of sure Eternity; and now

  Leave here all that was mortal of themselves.

  Oh! reverence this ground; for it is holy,

  Sacred to pious thought; for worldly grace

  By the high-gifted poet often praised.

  Here winged steps have passed, and brightest thoughts,

  Creative as the sunbeam, have up-flown.

  Here pensive Gray some sad sweet moments passed,

  And breathed a spell that saved these falling walls;

  There walks that solemn vision, telling his beads;

  Where ‘neath the leafy gloom, the Poet’s glance

  Espied him! Still athwart yon vista dark

  Shoots the white sail; still in the sun the waves

  Glitter, as when Gray’s musing abbot viewed them,

  Measuring the moments with his pangs. Oh! pause

  Awhile, and shed a melancholy tear

  To the departed shade of him, who sung

  “The paths of glory lead but to the grave

  Weep o’er the memory of that wondrous Bard,

  That master of the song, whose full-toned harp

  Called round him loftiest themes of Fantasy,

  Whose voice, rolling on the midnight thunder,

  Waked sublimest awe; or played in cadence,

  While the Graces danced; or, still oftener, mourned

  O’er mortal doom and life’s brief vanities,

  While early youth and all the train of joy

  Would leave their sports, listening the strain that bade

  Them woo the languishments of Melancholy.

  Farewell! thou mighty master, who, with high

  Disdain of vulgar fame, “knew thine own worth

  And reverenced the lyre,” and kept thy still

  Footstep far away from the thronged path and

  Vanity’s dull round. Farewell! thou doff’st

  Thy mortal weeds, and the same strain sublime,

  That moralized th’ unstoried lives and deaths

  Of villagers, is oft repeated o’er thy grave,

  With faltering voice, by those, who walk thy path

  From Eton’s shades to Stoke, and view the scene

  That filled thy youthful eye and charmed thy mind —

  Where, years ago, thy “careless childhood strayed,

  A stranger yet to pain.” —— —

  Now let us leave the vale, thus dedicate

  To memory, sweet and melancholy,

  And trace the landscape o’er yon chalky ridge

  To Portsdown, shielding in its concave all

  That tract of greyer land, that banks the sea.

  On the low point extends the busy port,

  Its forts and ramparts rising o’er the main,

  And wide o’erlooking all its anchored fleets.

  Oh! for the magic pencil of Lorraine!

  To give the soft perspective, where the wares

  Fade to thin air in tints of mildest bine,

  And the dark masts and cobweb-shrouds and lines

  Of spiry shipping trace themselves in light.

  Midway the sails of tarions vessels swell,

  Gliding their silent course; here the swift-winged

  Slant cutter skims the sea; and there the skiff,

  Low on the mighty waters, shows a speck,

  Invisible, but that its tiny sail

  Catches the sunbeam, and, wondrous! tells that

  Human life dwells in the moving atom

  Amidst the waters. While we gaze, each wave

  Threatens to whelm it; and the shores appear

  Too distant for its small and feeble wing;

  Yet on it goes in safety, and displays

  Regular purpose, well-considered rules,

  And skill, which guides its weakness through the strength

  Of waves, o’er pathless distance, to the sheltering port.

  Oh! that the old Spirit of Song

  Would sound his harp from this high aery brow,

  And bid its sweet tones languish, till the Nymphs,

  That dwell beneath its waves, wake at the strain,

  And send up answering music, now scarce heard,

  Now lost, now heard again with wondering doubt,

  Till, rising slow, a clearer chorus swells

  In the soft gale, and makes its voice its own:

  Then, the full sounds float over woods and rocks;

  And then, descending on the wave, retire,

  Die with the ‘plaining of the distant tide,

  And leave a blessed peace o’er all the soul.

  Raise such a strain, O Nymphs! whose spell may spread

  A sweeter grace on all the eye beholds,

  That the fine vision of these seas and shores

  May paint their living colours on the mind,

  With charm so forceful, as Time cannot fade.

  Then Memory with their own truth shall give

  The blue shades of the main, under these dark

  And waving boughs upon the steep; the mast

  Now seen, or lost, in the smooth bay, as choose

  The dancing leaves; the grey fort on the strand,

  Its low, round tower o’ercanopied with elms,

  The pacing sentinel, beneath their gloom,

&n
bsp; Safe horn the noonday sun. Then would she paint

  The slopes, that swell beside thy harbour, Cowes,

  With pasture gay and oft with groves embrowned,

  That amid veiling leaves, half show the villa,

  Gray mimic of a cottage, or the trim crest

  Of some proud castle, falsely old. Thy town

  Would still be seen to climb the craggy bank;

  Thy vale, withdrawing from the sunny bay,

  Would wind beneath these green hills’ shade, where droops

  The sail becalmed, that on Medina’s tide

  Bears the full freight to Newport. Memory then

  Would give these nearer scenes of gentle beauty,

  Those spreading waters and the dim-seen coast,

  Fading into the sky. Then, gentle Nymphs,

  Borne far upon the winds, my song might tell

  Of your sweet haunts, perchance in Indian seas —

  Of them, who dance before the rising sun,

  With songs of joyance breathing spicy gales.

  Methinks, I hear their far-off notes complain:

  “Oh! ne’er yet tripp’d we on the yellow sands,

  That Fame says base the cliffs of English land;

  Never yet danced we on those heights, that send

  Airs from their mantling woods; never yet trod

  The ridges of her stormy waves, nor watched

  The tender azure melt into the green,

  Then deepen to the purple’s changing shades,

  Beneath the sleepy indolence of noon.

  For such delights we ‘ll leave our splendid clime,

  Our groves of cassia and our coral bowers,

  Our diamond-beaming caves and golden beds,

  ‘Broidered with rubies, with transparent pearl,

  And emeralds, that steal the sea-wave’s hue,

  And shells of rainbow-tint, fairy pavilions:

  All but our tortoise cars; they shall bear us

  O’er many a curling surge and chasm deep,

  Farther than where the blended sea and sky

  Hide from our sight the cooler, better oceans.

  That way seek we those temperate islands, now

  Wearing green Neptune’s livery, crowned with oak,

  And terraced with bright cliffs; such Oberon,

  The fairy, told of, to win our music.

  ‘Twas a charmful moon-time, and he perched him

  In a purple shell, he called his mantle,