The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius

Song was his favourite and first pursuit.
The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand,
And languished to his breath the plaintive flute.
His infant muse, though artless, was not mute:
Of elegance, as yet, he took no care;
For this of time and culture is the fruit;
And Edwin gained, at last, this fruit so rare:
As in some future verse I purpose to declare.

LVIII

Meanwhile, whate’er of beautiful, or new,
Sublime, or dreadful, in earth, sea, or sky,
By chance, or search, was offered to his view,
He scanned with curious and romantic eye.
Whate’er of lore tradition could supply
From Gothic tale, or song, or fable old,
Roused him, still keen to listen and to pry.
At last, though long by penury controuled,
And solitude, his soul her graces ’gan unfold.

LIX

Thus, on the chill Lapponian’s dreary land,
For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the season bland,
And in their northern cave the storms hath bound;
From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound,
Torrents are hurled; green hills emerge; and lo,
The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crowned;
Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go;
And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant’s heart o’erflow.

LX

Here pause, my Gothic lyre, a little while.
The leisure hour is all that thou can’st claim.
But on this verse if Montagu should smile,
New strains, ere long, shall animate thy frame:
And his applause to me is more than fame;
For still with truth accords his taste refined.
At lucre or renown let others aim,
I only wish to please the gentle mind,
Whom Nature’s charms inspire, and love of humankind.

THE MINSTREL; BOOK SECOND

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
Rectique cultus pectora roborant.

    Horat.

THE MINSTREL; OR, THE PROGRESS OF GENIUS.

BOOK SECOND

I

Of chance or change, O let not man complain,
Else shall he never never cease to wail:
For, from the imperial dome, to where the swain
Rears the lone cottage in the silent dale,
All feel the assault of fortune’s fickle gale;
Art, empire, earth itself, to change are doomed;
Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale;
And gulfs the mountain’s mighty mass entombed;
And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloomed.

II

But sure to foreign climes we need not range,
Nor search the ancient records of our race,
To learn the dire effects of time and change,
Which in ourselves, alas! we daily trace.
Yet, at the darkened eye, the withered face,
Or hoary hair, I never will repine:
But spare, O Time, whate’er of mental grace,
Of candour, love, or sympathy divine,
Whate’er of fancy’s ray, or friendship’s flame, is mine.

III

So I, obsequious to Truth’s dread command,
Shall here, without reluctance, change my lay,
And smite the Gothic lyre with harsher hand;
Now when I leave that flowery path, for aye,
Of childhood, where I sported many a day,
Warbling, and sauntering carelessly along;
Where every face was innocent and gay,
Each vale romantic, tuneful every tongue,
Sweet, wild, and artless all, as Edwin’s infant song.

IV

‘Perish the lore that deadens young desire,’
Is the soft tenor of my song no more.
Edwin, though loved of heaven, must not aspire
To bliss, which mortals never knew before.
On trembling wings let youthful fancy soar,
Nor always haunt the sunny realms of joy,