Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

Attain at last thy mountain home,

  And rest, from earthly trammels free,

  With peace, and liberty, and thee!

  Around while faction’s tempests sweep,

  Like whirlwinds o’er the wintry deep,

  And, down the headlong vortex torn,

  The vain, misjudging crowd is borne;

  ‘Twere sweet to mark, re-echoing far,

  The rage of the eternal war,

  That dimly heard, at distance swelling,

  Endears, but not disturbs, thy dwelling.

  But sweeter yet, oh trebly sweet!

  Were those blest paths of calm retreat,

  Might mutual love’s endearing smile

  The lonely hours of life beguile!

  Love, whose celestial breath exhales

  Fresh fragrance on the vernal gales:

  Whose starry torch and kindling eye

  Add lustre to the summer sky:

  Whose voice of music cheers the day,

  When autumn’s wasting breezes sway;

  Whose magic flame the bosom warms,

  When freezing winter wakes in storms!

  Not in the glittering halls of pride,

  Where spleen and sullen pomp reside,

  Around though Paphian odors breathe,

  And fashion twines her fading wreath,

  Young fancy wakes her native grace,

  Nor love elects his dwelling-place.

  But in the lone, romantic dell,

  Where the rural virtues dwell,

  Where the sylvan genii roam,

  Mutual love may find a home.

  Hope, with raptured eye, is there,

  Weaving wreaths of pictured air:

  Smiling fancy there is found,

  Tripping light on fairy ground,

  Listening oft, in pine-walks dim,

  To the wood-nymph’s evening hymn.

  But whither roams the devious song,

  While Thames, unheeded, flows along,

  And, sinking o’er the level mead,

  The classic domes and spires recede ?

  The dashing oar the wave divides:

  The light bark down the current glides:

  The furrowed stream, that round it curls,

  In many a murmuring eddy whirls.

  Succeeding each as each retires,

  Wood-mantled hills, and tufted spires,

  Groves, villas, islets, cultured plains,

  Towers, cities, palaces, and fanes,

  As holds the stream its swift career,

  Arise, and pass, and disappear.

  O’er Nuneham Courtnay’s flowery glades

  Soft breezes wave their fragrant wings,

  And still, amid the haunted shades,

  The tragic harp of Mason rings.

  Yon votive urn, yon drooping flowers,

  Disclose the minstrel’s favorite bowers,

  Where first he tuned, in sylvan peace,

  To British themes the lyre of Greece.

  Delight shall check the expanded sail

  In woody Marlow’s winding vale:

  And fond regret for scenes so fair

  With backward gaze shall linger there,

  Till rise romantic Hedsor’s hills,

  And Cliefdens’s groves, and springs, and rills,

  Where hapless Villars, doomed to prove

  The ills that wait on lawless love,

  In festal mirth, and choral song,

  Impelled the summer-hours along,

  Nor marked, where scowled expectant by

  Despair, and shame, and poverty.

  The Norman king’s embattled towers

  Look proudly o’er the subject plain,

  Where, deep in Windsor’s regal bowers,

  The sylvan muses hold their reign.

  From groves of oak, whose branches hoar

  Have heard primeval tempests roar,

  Beneath the moon’s pale ray they pass

  Along the shore’s unbending grass,

  And songs of gratulation raise,

  To speak a patriot monarch’s praise.

  Sweetly, on yon poetic hill,

  Strains of unearthly music breathe,

  Where Denham’s spirit, hovering still,

  Weaves his wild harp’s aërial wreath.

  And sweetly, on the mead below,

  The fragrant gales of summer blow:

  While flowers shall spring, while Thames shall flow,

  That mead shall live in memory,

  Where valor, on the tented field,

  Triumphant raised his patriot shield,

  The voice of truth to kings revealed,

  And broke the chains of tyranny.

  The stream expands: the meadows fly:

  The stately swan sails proudly by:

  Full, clear, and bright, with devious flow,

  The rapid waters murmuring go.

  Now open Twitnam’s classic shores,

  Where yet the moral muse deplores

  Her Pope’s unrivalled lay:

  Unmoved by wealth, unawed by state,

  He held to scorn the little great,

  And taught life’s better way.

  Though tasteless folly’s impious hand

  Has wrecked the scenes his genius planned; —

  Though low his fairy grot is laid,

  And lost his willow’s pensive shade; —

  Yet shall the ever-murmuring stream,

  That lapt his soul in fancy’s dream,

  Its vales with verdure cease to crown,

  Ere fade one ray of his renown.

  Fair groves, and villas glittering bright,

  Arise on Richmond’s beauteous height;

  Where yet fond echo warbles o’er

  The heaven-taught songs she learned of yore.

  From mortals veiled, mid waving reeds,

  The airy lyre of Thomson sighs,

  And whispers to the hills and meads:

  In yonder grave a Druid lies!

  The seasons there, in fixed return,

  Around their minstrel’s holy urn

  Perennial chaplets twine:

  Oh I never shall their changes greet,

  Immortal bard! a song more sweet,

  A soul more pure than thine!

  Oh Thames in conscious glory glide

  By those fair piles that crown thy tide,

  Where, worn with toil, from tumult far,

  The veteran hero rests from war.

  Here, marked by many a well-fought field,

  On high the soldier hangs his shield;

  The seaman there has furled his sail,

  Long rent by many an adverse gale.

  Remembered perils, braved and past, —

  The raging fight, the whelming blast,

  The hidden rock, the stormy shore,

  The mountain-breaker’s deepening roar, —

  Recalled by fancy’s spell divine,

  Endear their evening’s calm decline,

  And teach their children, listening near,

  To emulate their sires’ career.

  But swiftly urge the gliding bark,

  By yon stern walls and chambers dark,

  Where guilt and woe, in night concealed,

  Unthought, unwitnessed, unrevealed,

  Through lengthened ages scowling stood,

  Mid shrieks of death, and tears of blood.

  No heart may think, no tongue declare,

  The fearful mysteries hidden there:

  Justice averts her trembling eye,

  And mercy weeps, and hastens by.

  Long has the tempest’s rage been spent

  On yon unshaken battlement,

  Memorial proud of days sublime,

  Whose splendor mocks the power of time.

  There, when the distant war-storm roared,

  While patriot thousands round her poured,

  The British heroine grasped her sword,

  To trace the paths of victory

  But in the rage of naval
fight,

  The island-genius reared his might,

  And stamped, in characters of light.

  His own immortal destiny.

  Ascending dark, on uplands brown,

  The ivied walls of Hadleigh frown:

  High on the lonely mouldering tower

  Forms of departed ages lower.

  But deeper, broader, louder, glide

  The waves of the descending tide;

  And soon, where winds unfettered roar,

  Where Medway seeks the opening Nore

  Where breakers lash the dark-red steep,

  The barks of Britain stem the deep.

  Oh king of streams! when, wandering slow,

  I trace thy current’s ceaseless flow,

  And mark, with venerating gaze,

  Reflected on thy liquid breast,

  The monuments of ancient days,

  Where sages, bards, and statesmen rest:

  Who, waking erst the ethereal mind,

  Instructed, charmed, and blessed mankind

  The rays of fancy pierce the gloom

  That shrouds the precincts of the tomb,

  And call again to life and light

  The forms long wrapped in central night.

  From abbies grey and castles old,

  Through mouldering portals backward rolled,

  Glide dimly forth, with silent tread,

  The shades of the illustrious dead.

  Still dear to them their native shore,

  The woods and fields they loved of yore;

  And still, by farthest realms revered,

  Subsists the rock-built tower they reared,

  Though lightnings round its summit glow,

  And foaming surges burst below.

  Thames I have roamed, at evening hours,

  Near beauteous Richmond’s courtly bowers,

  When, mild and pale, the moon-beams fell

  On hill and islet, grove and dell;

  And many a skiff, with fleecy sail

  Expanded to the western gale,

  Traced on thy breast, serenely-bright,

  The lengthening line of silver light;

  And many an oar, with measured dash

  Accordant to the boatman’s song,

  Bade thy pellucid surface flash,

  And whirl, in glittering rings, along;

  While from the broad and dripping blade

  The clear drops fell, in sparkling showers,

  Bright as the crystal gems, displayed

  In Amphitrite’s coral bowers.

  There beauty wooed the breeze of night,

  Beneath the silken canopy,

  And touched, with flying fingers light,

  The thrilling chords of melody.

  It seemed, that music’s inmost soul

  Was breathed upon the wandering airs,

  Charming to rest, with sweet control,

  All human passions, pains, and cares.

  Enthusiast voices joined the sound,

  And poured such soothing strains around

  That well might ardent fancy deem,

  The sylphs had led their viewless band,

  To warble o’er the lovely stream

  The sweetest songs of fairyland.

  Now, breathing wild, with raptured swell,

  They floated o’er the silent tide;

  Now, soft and low, the accents fell,

  And, seeming mystic tales to tell,

  In heavenly murmurs died.

  Yet that sweet scene of pensive joy

  Gave mournful recollections birth,

  And called to fancy’s wild employ

  The certain destinies of earth.

  I seemed to hear, in wakening thought,

  While those wild minstrel accents rung,

  Whate’er historic truth had taught,

  Or philosophic bards had sung.

  Methought a voice, severe and strange,

  Whispered of fate, and time, and change,

  And bade my wandering mind recall,

  How nations rise, and fade, and fall.

  Thus fair, of old, Euphrates rolled,

  By Babylon’s imperial site:

  The lute’s soft swell, with magic spell,

  Breathed rapture on the listening night:

  Love-whispering youths and maidens fair

  In festal pomp assembled there,

  Where to the stream’s responsive moan

  The desert-gale now sighs alone.

  Still changeless, through the fertile plain,

  Araxes, loud-resounding, flows,

  Where gorgeous despots fixed their reign,

  And Chil-minar’s proud domes arose.

  High on his gem-emblazoned throne

  Sate kneeling Persia’s earthly god:

  Fair slaves and satraps round him shone,

  And nations trembled at his nod:

  The mighty voice of Asia’s fate

  Went forth from every golden gate.

  Now pensive steps the wrecks explore,

  That skirt the solitary shore:

  The time-worn column mouldering falls,

  And tempests rock the roofless walls.

  Perchance, when many a distant year,

  Urged by the hand of fate, has flown,

  Where moonbeams rest on ruins drear,

  The musing sage may rove alone;

  And many an awful thought sublime

  May fill his soul, when memory shews,

  That there, in days of elder time,

  The world’s metropolis arose;

  Where now, by mouldering walls, he sees

  The silent Thames unheeded flow,

  And only hears the river-breeze,

  Through reeds and willows whispering low.

  Where are the states of ancient fame ?

  Athens, and Sparta’s victor- name,

  And all that propped, in war and peace,

  The arms, and nobler arts, of Greece ?

  All-grasping Rome, that proudly hurled

  Her mandates o’er the prostrate world,

  Long heard mankind her chains deplore,

  And fell, as Carthage fell before.

  Is this the crown, the final meed,

  To man’s sublimest toils decreed ?

  Must all, from glory’s radiant height,

  Descend alike the paths of night ?

  Must she, whose voice of power resounds

  On utmost ocean’s loneliest bounds,

  In darkness meet the whelming doom

  That crushed the sovereign strength of Rome,

  And o’er the proudest states of old

  The storms of desolation rolled ?

  Time, the foe of man’s dominion,

  Wheels around in ceaseless flight,

  Scattering from his hoary pinion

  Shades of everlasting night.

  Still, beneath his frown appalling,

  Man and all his works decay

  Still, before him, swiftly-falling,

  Kings and kingdoms pass away.

  Cannot the hand of patriot zeal,

  The heart that seeks the public weal,

  The comprehensive mind,

  Retard awhile the storms of fate,

  That, swift or slow, or soon or late,

  Shall hurl to ruin every state,

  And leave no trace behind ?

  Oh Britain! oh my native land!

  To science, art, and freedom dear!

  Whose sails o’er farthest seas expand,

  And brave the tempest’s dread career!

  When comes that hour, as come it must,

  That sinks thy glory in the dust,

  May no degenerate Briton live,

  Beneath a stranger’s chain to toil,

  And to a haughty conqueror give

  The produce of thy sacred soil!

  Oh! dwells there one, on all thy plains,

  If British blood distend his veins,

  Who would not burn thy fame to save,

 
; Or perish in his country’s grave ?

  Ah! sure, if skill and courage true

  Can check destruction’s headlong way,

  Still shall thy power its course pursue,

  Nor sink, but with the world’s decay.

  Long as the cliff that girds thine isle

  The bursting surf of ocean stems,

  Shall commerce, wealth, and plenty smile

  Along the silver-eddying Thames:

  Still shall thine empire’s fabric stand,

  Admired and feared from land to land,

  Through every circling age renewed,

  Unchanged, unshaken, unsubdued;

  As rocks resist the wildest breeze,

  That sweeps thy tributary seas.

  V.

  In realms far remote while the merchant is toiling,

  In search of that wealth he may never enjoy;

  The land of his foes while the soldier is spoiling,

  When honour commands him to rise and destroy;

  Through mountainous billows, with whirlwinds contending,

  While the mariner bounds over wide-raging seas,

  Still peace, o’er the peasant her mantle extending,

  Brings health and content in the sigh of the breeze.

  VI.

  And happy, who, knowing the world and its treasures,

  Far, far from his home its allurements repels,

  And leaves its vain pomps and fantastical pleasures,

  For the woodlands where wisdom with solitude dwells.

  With the follies of custom disdaining compliance,

  He leaves not his country false riches to find;

  But content with the blessings of nature and science,

  He pants for no wealth but the wealth of the mind.

  VII.

  The beauties are his of the sweet-blushing morning,

  The dew-spangled field, and the lark’s matin-song:

  And his are the charms the full forest adorning,

  When sport the noon-breezes its branches among:

  And his, sweeter yet, is the twilight of even,

  When melts the soft ray from the far-flashing floods,

  And fancy descends from the westerly heaven,

  To talk with the spirit that sings in the woods.

  VIII.

  In some hermit vale had kind destiny placed me,

  ‘Mid the silence of nature all lonely and drear,

  Oh, ne’er from its covert ambition had chased me,

  To join the vain crowd in its frenzied career!

  In the haunts of the forest my fancy is dwelling,

  In the mystical glade, by the lone river’s shore,

  Though wandering afar where the night-breeze is swelling,

  And waters unbounded tumultuously roar.

  IX.

  I hail thee, dark ocean, in beauty tremendous!

  I love the hoarse dash of thy far-sounding waves!

  But he feels most truly thy grandeur stupendous,

  Who in solitude sits mid thy surf-beaten caves.

  From thy cliffs and thy caverns, majestic and hoary,