The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius

Vain wish! for lo, in gay attire concealed,
Yonder she comes! the heart-inflaming fiend!
(Will no kind power the helpless stripling shield!)
Swift to her destined prey see Passion bend!

O smile accurst, to hide the worst designs!
Now with blithe eye she wooes him to be blest;
While round her arm, unseen, a serpent twines —
And lo, she hurls it hissing at his breast!

And, instant, lo, his dizzy eyeball swims
Ghastly, and reddening darts a frantic glare;
Pain, with strong grasp, distorts his writhing limbs,
And Fear’s cold hand erects his frozen hair.

Is this, O life, is this thy boasted prime!
And does thy spring no happier prospect yield!
Why should the sunbeam paint thy glittering clime,
When the keen mildew desolates the field!

How memory pains! Let some gay theme beguile
The musing mind, and sooth to soft delight.
Ye images of woe, no more recoil!
Be life’s past scenes wrapt in oblivious night.

Now when fierce Winter, armed with wasteful power,
Heaves the wild deep that thunders from afar;
How sweet to sit in this sequestered bower,
To hear, and but to hear, the mingling war!

Ambition here displays no gilded toy,
That tempts on desperate wing the soul to rise;
Nor Pleasure’s paths to wilds of woe decoy,
Nor Anguish lurks in Grandeur’s proud disguise.

Oft has Contentment cheered this lone abode,
With the mild languish of her smiling eye;
Here Health in rosy bloom has often glowed,
While loose-robed Quiet stood enamoured by.

Even the storm lulls to more profound repose;
The storm these humble walls assails in vain.
The shrub is sheltered, when the whirlwind blows,
While the oak’s mighty ruin strows the plain.

Blow on, ye winds! Thine, Winter, be the skies;
And toss the infuriate surge, and vales lay waste.
Nature thy temporary rage defies;
To her relief the gentler Seasons haste.

Throned in her emerald car, see Spring appear!
(As Fancy wills, the landscape starts to view.)
Her emerald car the youthful Zephyrs bear,
Fanning her bosom with their pinions blue.

Around the jocund Hours are fluttering seen,
And lo, her rod the rose-lip’d Power extends!
And lo, the lawns are decked in living green,
And Beauty’s bright-eyed train from Heaven descends!

Haste, happy days, and make all Nature glad —
But will all Nature joy at your return?
O, can ye cheer pale Sickness’ gloomy bed,
Or dry the tears that bathe the untimely urn?

Will ye one transient ray of gladness dart,
Where groans the dungeon to the captive’s wail?
To ease tired Disappointment’s bleeding heart,
Will all your stores of softening balm avail!

When stern Oppression, in his harpy fangs,
From Want’s weak grasp the last sad morsel bears,
Can ye allay the dying parent’s pangs,
Whose infant craves relief with fruitless tears?

For ah! thy reign, Oppression, is not past.
Who from the shivering limbs the vestment rends?
Who lays the once rejoicing village waste,
Bursting the ties of lovers and of friends!

But hope not, Muse, vain-glorious as thou art,
With the weak impulse of thy humble strain,
Hope not to soften Pride’s obdurate heart,
When Errol’s bright example shines in vain.

Then cease the theme. Turn, Fancy, turn thine eye,
Thy weeping eye, nor further urge thy flight.
Thy haunts, alas! no gleams of joy supply,
Or transient gleams, that flash and sink in night.

Yet fain the mind its anguish would forego:
Spread, then, Historic Muse, thy pictured scroll;
Bid the great scenes in all their splendour glow,
And rouse to thought sublime the exulting soul.

What mingling pomps rush on the enraptured gaze!
Lo, where the gallant navy rides the deep!
Here, glittering towns their spiry turrets raise,
There, bulwarks overhang the shaggy steep.