Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (131 page)

George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Shorten Sail

George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe (1691–1762)

LOVE thy country, wish it well,
 
Not with too intense a care;
’Tis enough that, when it fell,
 
Thou its ruin didst not share.

Envy’s censure, Flattery’s praise,
  
5
 
With unmoved indifference view:
Learn to tread Life’s dangerous maze
 
With unerring Virtue’s clue.

Void of strong desire and fear,
 
Life’s wide ocean trust no more;
  
10
Strive thy little bark to steer
 
With the tide, but near the shore.

Thus prepared, thy shorten’d sail
 
Shall, when’er the winds increase,
Seizing each propitious gale,
  
15
 
Waft thee to the port of Peace.

Keep thy conscience from offence
 
And tempestuous passions free,
So, when thou art call’d from hence,
 
Easy shall thy passage be.
  
20

 
— Easy shall thy passage be,
 
Cheerful thy allotted stay,
Short the account ‘twixt God and thee.
 
Hope shall meet thee on thy way.

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

William Collins

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Fidele

William Collins (1720–1759)

TO fair Fidele’s grassy tomb
 
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,
 
And rifle all the breathing Spring.

No wailing ghost shall dare appear
  
5
 
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove;
But shepherds lads assemble here,
 
And melting virgins own their love.

No wither’d witch shall here be seen,
 
No goblins lead their nightly crew;
  
10
The female fays shall haunt the green,
 
And dress thy grave with pearly dew.

The redbreast oft at evening hours
 
Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gather’d flowers,
  
15
 
To deck the ground where thou art laid.

When howling winds, and beating rain,
 
In tempests shake thy sylvan cell;
Or ‘midst the chase, on every plain,
 
The tender thought on thee shall dwell;
  
20

Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
 
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved, till life can charm no more;
 
And mourn’d, till Pity’s self be dead.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Ode Written in MDCCXLVI

William Collins (1720–1759)

HOW sleep the Brave, who sink to rest
By all their Country’s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
  
5
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
  
10
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

The Passions

An Ode for Music

William Collins (1720–1759)

 
WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
 
While yet in early Greece she sung,
 
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
 
Throng’d around her magic cell
 
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
  
5
 
Possest beyond the Muse’s painting,
 
By turns they felt the glowing mind
 
Disturb’d, delighted, raised, refined:
 
‘Till once, ’tis said, when all were fired,
 
Fill’d with fury, rapt, inspired,
  
10
 
From the supporting myrtles round
 
They snatch’d her instruments of sound,
 
And, as they oft had heard apart
 
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
 
Each, for Madness ruled the hour,
  
15
 
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
 
Amid the chords bewilder’d laid,
And back recoil’d, he knew not why,
 
E’en at the sound himself had made.
  
20

Next Anger rush’d, his eyes on fire,
 
In lightnings own’d his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre
 
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woeful measures wan Despair,
  
25
 
Low sullen sounds, his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
 
’Twas sad by fits, by starts ’twas wild.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
 
What was thy delighted measure?
  
30
Still it whisper’d promised pleasure
 
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong:
 
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale
She call’d on Echo still through all the song;
  
35
 
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;
 
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair; —

And longer had she sung: — but with a frown
 
Revenge impatient rose:
  
40
He threw his blood-stain’d sword in thunder down;
 
And with a withering look
 
The war-denouncing trumpet took
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne’er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
  
45
 
And ever and anon he beat
 
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And, though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
 
Dejected Pity at his side
 
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
  
50
 
Yet still he kept his wild unalter’d mien,
While each strain’d ball of sight seem’d bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix’d:
 
Sad proof of thy distressful state!
Of differing themes the veering song was mix’d;
  
55
 
And now it courted Love, now raving call’d on Hate.

With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And from her wild sequester’d seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
  
60
Pour’d through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
 
And dashing soft from rocks around
 
Bubbling runnels join’d the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
 
Or, o’er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
  
65
 
Round an holy calm diffusing,
 
Love of peace, and lonely musing,
 
In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how alter’d was its sprightlier tone
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
  
70
 
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
 
Her buskins gemm’d with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
 
The hunter’s call to Faun and Dryad known!
The oak-crown’d Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen,
  
75
 
Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen
 
Peeping from forth their alleys green:
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;
 
And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy’s ecstatic trial:
  
80
He, with viny crown advancing,
 
First to the lively pipe his hand addrest:
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol
 
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best:
They would have thought who heard the strain
  
85
 
They saw, in Tempe’s vale, her native maids
 
Amidst the festal-sounding shades
To some unwearied minstrel dancing;
While, as his flying fingers kiss’d the strings,
 
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:
  
90
 
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
 
And he, amidst his frolic play,
 
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

 
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
  
95
 
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom’s aid!
 
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
 
Lay’st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
 
As in that loved Athenian bower
 
You learn’d an all-commanding power,
  
100
 
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear’d!
 
Can well recall what then it heard.
 
Where is thy native simple heart
 
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
 
Arise, as in that elder time,
  
105
 
 
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
 
Thy wonders, in that god-like age,
 
Fill thy recording Sister’s page; —
 
’Tis said, and I believe the tale,
 
Thy humblest reed could more prevail
  
110
 
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
 
Than all which charms this laggard age,
 
E’en all at once together found
 
Cecilia’s mingled world of sound: —
 
O bid our vain endeavours cease:
  
115
 
Revive the just designs of Greece:
 
Return in all thy simple state!
 
Confirm the tales her sons relate!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order