Shall mark his memory with a sad delight!
Still in your hearts’ dear record bear his name;
Cherish the keen regret that lifts his fame;
To you it is bequeathed, — assert the trust,
And to his worth— ’tis all you can — be just.
What more is due from sanctifying Time,
To cheerful wit and many a favor’d rhyme,
O’er his grac’d urn shall bloom, a deathless wreath,
Whose blossom’d sweets shall deck the mask beneath.
For these, — when Sculpture’s votive toil shall rear
The due memorial of a loss so dear —
O loveliest mourner, gentle Muse! be thine
The pleasing woe to guard the laurell’d shrine.
As Fancy, oft by Superstition led
To roam the mansions of the sainted dead,
Has view’d, by shadowy eve’s unfaithful gloom,
A weeping cherub on a martyr’s tomb —
So thou, sweet Muse, hang o’er his sculptur’d bier,
With patient woe, that loves the ling’ring tear;
With thoughts that mourn — nor yet desire relief;
With meek regret, and fond enduring grief;
With looks that speak — He never shall return!
Chilling thy tender bosom, clasp his urn;
And with soft sighs disperse th’ irrev’rent dust
Which Time may strew upon his sacred bust.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE LONGER POEMS
I. THE LOVE EPISTLES OF ARISTÆNETUS
THE Love Epistles of Aristaenetus: Translated From The Greek Into English Metre. Love refines The thoughts and heart enlarges; hath his seat In reason and is judicious.” — Milt. Par. Loft, B.8. London: Printed for J. Wilkie, No. 71, St. Paul’s Church-yard. MDCCLXXI. 8vo.
Pagination. P. [i] half-title. The Love Epistles of Aristœnetus; p. [ii] blank; p. [iii] title; p. [iv] blank; pp. [v] & vi-xii Preface signed H.S.; pp. [xiii] & xiv — xvi; Contents; pp. [I] & 2 — 174 text; pp. [175] & [176] Books printed for J. Wilkie. The Love Epistles of Aristænetus. The Second Edition Corrected. London; Wilkie, 1773, 8vo. Fom Anderson, Sheridan Bibliography, p iv.
2. A FAMILIAR EPISTLE
A Familiar Epistle to the Author of the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers and of the Heroic Postscript to the Public.
“Nunc satis est dixisse, ego mira poemata pango:
“Occupet extremum scabies: mihi turpe relinqui est.” Ars Poet.
A Familiar Epistle. The Second Edition.
London, J. Wilkie. Quarto. [This has a new Preface substituted for that of the First Edition. The title-page is reset. Otherwise, except for two Errata, it is a reprint. The only copy known to me is my own.]
3. VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF GARRICK Verses to the Memory of Garrick. Spoken As A Monody, At The Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. London: Published by T. Evans in the Strand: J. Wilkie, St. Paul’s Church-Yard; E. and C. Dilly, in the Poultry; A. Portal, opposite the New Church; and J. Almon, Picadilly. M.DCC.LXXIX. 4to.
Pagination. P. [1] half-title Verses to the Memory of Garrick (Price One Shilling); p. [2] blank; [Frontispiece by Loutherbourg inserted]; p. [3] title; p. [4] blank; p. [5] Dedication dated March 25, 1779; p. [6] blank; pp. 7-15 Text; p. 16 blank. [Second Issue. The Second Issue is identical with the above except that the word Deference is corrected in the Dedication from Difference, as misprinted in the first issue.]
Verses to the Memory of Garrick. The Second Edition. London: 1779. 4to. [From Sichel Sheridan, vol. II, p. 452. He adds there were “many more editions in the same year.”]
The Airs and Chorusses in The Monody On the Death of Mr. Garrick. Set to Music by Mr. Linley.
FUGITIVE VERSE
NOTE
THE FUGITIVE VERSE has not previously been collected in any edition of Sheridan, only eight of the thirty seven pieces now printed having appeared in Sheridan’s Complete Works (1876). Sheridan’s biographers — Moore, Rae, and Sichel — recovered twenty-five of these poems from MS.; but eight of them had previously been printed in contemporary publications, from which sources — plays, magazines, song sheets, and memoirs — the remaining twelve pieces are also reprinted.
The Political Pasquinades are taken entirely from Moore.
R.C.R.
INTRODUCTION
THROUGHOUT his life, Sheridan had a fondness for turning a verse. In his youth he contemplated a Collection of Poetry by his own hand; but this project, like so many others, never came to maturity. As a writer of vers de Société, or, rather, vers du Théâtre, he had a pretty touch, and a little more. For, as Thomas Gent wrote in his Monody on Sheridan (1821): —
“In careless mood he sought the Muse’s bower,
His lyre, like that by great Pelides strung,
The softening solace of a vacant hour,
Its airy descant indolently rung.”
After his death Thomas Moore in his Sheridan printed some dozen of his fugitive poems recovered from the MSS. in possession of his son Charles; Fraser Rae recovered a few more from the same source; and from an album bequeathed by Sheridan’s first wife Elizabeth to her friend Mrs. Stratford Canning; while Mr. Walter Sichel surveyed the work of his two chief predecessors, Moore and Fraser Rae, and made further additions from MSS., so that a Sheridan Anthology could be compiled from his Sheridan (1909). To these three sources my debt is great; and above all to Mr. Sichel, for in this Collection I have included all the poems attributed by him to Sheridan, even the few which seem to me, for reasons given, to be spurious, or at least, doubtful. There are five of these: the three songs in The Carnival of Venice were, always accepted as Tickell’s; the “Stanzas on Fire” may be George Tierney’s; and the “Address to the Prince Regent” is an epigram of Rochester’s, slightly adapted. To each of the poems I have added a note on the source of the text, and the reason for attribution. There was a temptation to add two songs from the so-called Drama of Devils which is (in fact) an immature and unfinished adaptation of Suckling’s The Goblins. But as a third, accepted by Moore as Sheridan’s, is a sonnet of Sir Philip Sidney’s, slightly adapted, I have resisted the temptation, since they have a curious familiarity. These, however, are printed in my account of The Foresters, an unfinished opera, which derived ultimately from The Goblins. Another song, supposedly his, from the pantomime of Robinson Crusoe, is printed in the discussion of that piece.
FUGITIVE VERSE
1. MARKED YOU HER EYE OF HEAV’NLY BLUE?
MARK’D you her eye of heav’nly blue?
Mark’d you her cheek of roseate hue?
That eye, in liquid circles moving;
That cheek abash’d at Man’s approving;
The one, Love’s arrows darting round;
The other, blushing at the wound:
2. ANACREONTIC
I NE’ER could any lustre see
In eyes that would not look on me:
When a glance aversion hints,
I always think the lady squints.
I ne’er saw nectar on a lip,
But where my own did hope to sip.
No pearly teeth rejoice my view,
Unless a yes displays their hue —
The prudish lip, that noes me back,
Convinces me the teeth are black.
To me the cheek displays no roses,
Like that th’ assenting blush discloses;
But when with proud disdain ’tis spread,
To me ’tis but a scurvy red.
Would she have me praise her hair?
Let her place my garland there.
Is her hand so white and pure?
I must press it to be sure;
Nor can I be certain then,
Till it grateful press again.
Must I praise her melody?
Let her sing of love and me.
If she choose another theme,
I’d rather hear a peacock scream.
Must I, with attentive eye,
Watc
h her heaving bosom sigh?
I will do so, when I see
That heaving bosom sigh for me.
None but bigots will in vain
Adore a heav’n they cannot gain.
If I must religious prove
To the mighty God of Love,
Sure I am it is but fair
He, at least, should hear my prayer.
But, by each joy of his I’ve known,
And all I yet shall make my own,
Never will I, with humble speech,
Pray to a heav’n I cannot reach.
3. THE KISS
HURRIED seal of soft affection,
Tenderest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of soft connection,
Love’s first snow-drop, virgin kiss.
Speaking silence, dumb confession,
Passions’ birth, and infant’s play,
Dovelike fondness, chaste concession,
Brightest dawn of happiest day.
4. I GAVE MY LOVE A BUDDING ROSE
I GAVE my love a budding rose
My infant passion to disclose;
And, looking in her radiant eye,
I sought to read my destiny:
She breathed upon it — it became,
Mature in form, no more the same,
As when with timid fears opprest.
I placed the rose bud on her breast.
Again she breathed in sportive play,
And wafted all the leaves away;
“And thus,” she cried, “your vows of love
As passing and as light would prove
As this dispersed and faded flow’r;
One sigh expanded it to bloom,
Another sigh and it was gone,
Nor lived one transient fleeting hour.”
5. DAMON TO DELIA
I
ASK’ST thou “how long my love shall stay
When all that’s new is past?”
How long? — Ah, Delia, can I say
How long my life will last?
Dry be that tear — be hush’d that sigh,
At least I’ll love thee till I die.
II
And does that thought afflict thee too,
The thought of Damon’s death?
That he who only lives for you,
Must yield his faithful breath?
Hush’d be that sigh — be dried that tear,
Nor let us lose our Heaven here!
6. DRY BE THAT TEAR
DRY be that tear, my gentlest love,
Be hush’d that struggling sigh,
Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove
More fix’d, more true than I.
Hush’d be that sigh, be dry that tear,
Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear.
Dry be that tear.
Askst thou how long my love will Stay,
When all that’s new is past? —
How long, ah, Delia, can I say
How long my life will last?
Dry be that tear, be hush’d that sigh,
At least, I’ll love thee till I die.
Hush’d be that sigh.
And does that thought affect thee too,
The thought of Sylvio’s death —
That he who only breath’d for you,
Must yield that faithful breath?
Hush’d be that sigh, be dry that tear,
Nor let us lose our Heaven here.
Dry be that tear.
7. ON FIRE
I
IN poets all my marks you’ll see,
Since flash and smoke reveal me.
Suspect me always near Nat Lee.
E’en Blackmore can’t conceal me.
II
In Milton’s page I glow by art,
One flame intense and even:
In Shakespeare’s blaze, a sudden start,
Like Lightnings flashed from Heaven,
III
In many more, as well as they,
Though various forms I shift,
I’m gently lambent when I’m Gay,
I’m brightest when I’m Swift.
IV
In other forms I oft am seen,
In breads of young and fair,
And as the Virtues dwell within,
You’ll always find me there.
V
I with pure-piercing, brilliant gleam
Can arm Eliza’s eye.
With modest soft ethereal beam
Sweet Mary’s I supply.
8. TO THE RECORDING ANGEL
CHERUB of Heaven, that from thy secret stand
Dost note the follies of each mortal here,
Oh, if Eliza’s steps employ thy hand,
Blot the sad legend with a mortal tear.
Nor, when she errs, through passion’s wild extreme,
Mark then her course, nor heed each trifling wrong;
Nor, when her sad attachment is her theme,
Note down the transports of her erring tongue.
But, when she sighs for sorrows not her own,
Let that dear sigh to Mercy’s cause be given;
And bear that tear to her Creator’s throne,
Which glistens in the eye upraised to Heaven!
9. THE GROTTO
I
UNCOUTH is this moss-cover’d grotto of stone,
And damp is the shade of this dew-dropping tree;
Yet I this rude grotto with rapture will own,
And, willow, thy damps are refreshing to me.
II
For this is the grotto where Delia reclined,
As late I in secret her confidence sought;
And this is the tree kept her safe from the wind,
As blushing she heard the grave lesson I taught.
III
Then tell me, thou grotto of moss-cover’d stone,
And tell me, thou willow with leaves dripping dew,
Did Delia seem vex’d when Horatio was gone,
And did she confess her resentment to you.
IV
Methinks now each bough, as you’re waving, it tries
To whisper a cause for the sorrow I feel;
To hint how she frown’d when I dared to advise,
And sigh’d when she saw that I did it with zeal.
V
True, true, silly leaves, so she did, I allow,
She frown’d, but no rage in her looks did I see;
She frown’d, but reflection had clouded her brow,
She sigh’d, but perhaps ’twas in pity for me.
VI
Then wave thy leaves brisker, thou willow of woe,
I tell thee no rage in her looks could I see;
I cannot — I will not, believe it was so,
She was not — she could not, be angry with me.
VII
For well did she know that my heart meant no wrong,
It sunk at the thought but of giving her pain,
But trusted its task to a faultering tongue,
Which err’d from the feelings it could not explain.
VIII
Yet oh! if indeed I’ve offended the maid,
If Delia my humble monition refuse,
Sweet willow, the next time she visits thy shade,
Fan gently her bosom, and plead its excuse.
IX
And thou, stony grot, in thy arch may’ll preserve,
Two lingering drops of the night-fallen dew,
And just let them fall at her feet and they’ll serve
As tears of my sorrow entrusted to you.
X
Or left they unheeded should fall at her feet,
Let them fall on her bosom of snow, and I swear
The next time I visit thy moss-cover’d seat,
I’ll pay thee each drop with a genuine tear.
XI
So may’st thou, green willow, for ages thus toss
Thy branches so lank o’er the slow-winding stream,
; And thou, stony grotto, retain all thy moss,
While yet there’s a poet to make thee his theme.
XII
Nay more, may my Delia still give you her charms,
Each evening, and sometimes the whole evening long,
Then, grotto, be proud to support her white arms,
Then, willow, wave all thy green tops to her song.
10. THINK NOT, MY LOVE, WHEN SECRET GRIEF
THINK not, my love, when secret grief
Preys on my sadden’d heart,
Think not I wish a mean relief,
Or would from sorrow part.
Dearly I prize the sighs sincere,
That my true fondness prove,
Nor would I wish to check the tear,
That flows from hapless love!
Alas! tho’ doom’d to hope in vain
The joys that love requite,
Yet will I cherish all its pain,
With sad, but dear delight.
This treasur’d grief, this lov’d despair,
My lot for ever be;
But, dearest, may the pangs I bear
Be never known to thee!
11. TO ELIZABETH LINLEY
SHALL my Eliza to the woods and trees
Alone communicate her tuneful lays?
Or breathe her rhyme to the unmindful breeze
And be content with Echo’s idle praise?
Oh! let your Sylvio share, my gentlest love.
Let Sylvio share each line that you rehearse.
Or will he hate flowers, elms, sweet bird and grove
Which shall inspire the too unsocial verse.
12. ON HIS WIFE CEASING TO SING
DOES my Eliza cease to sing,
Or tires my love to touch the string?
Behold, she knows with equal skill,
To grace the Muse’s nobler will.
Hear but her voice! amaz’d you’d swear
The soul of Music centres there!
Read but her verse, and you’ll confess
Her song did raise your wonder less:
Oh! soul of harmony that knows
Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Page 60
