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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=407922" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>An Address to Poetry</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">While envious crowds the summit view,<br>Where Danger with Ambition strays;<br>Or far, with anxious step, pursue<br>Pale Av'rice, thro' his winding ways;<br>The selfish passions in their train,<br>Whose force the social ties unbind,<br>And chill the love of human kind,<br>And make fond Nature's best emotions vain;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, poesy! O nymph most dear,<br>To whom I early gave my heart,--<br>Whose voice is sweetest to my ear<br>Of aught in nature or in art;<br>Thou, who canst all my breast controul,<br>Come, and thy harp of various cadence bring,<br>And long with melting music swell the string<br>That suits the present temper of my soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O! ever gild my path of woe,<br>And I the ills of life can bear;<br>Let but thy lovely visions glow,<br>And chase the forms of real care;<br>O still, when tempted to repine<br>At partial Fortune's frown severe,<br>Wipe from my eyes the anxious tear,<br>And whisper that thy soothing joys are mine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When did my fancy ever frame<br>A dream of joy by thee unblest?<br>When first my lips pronounc'd thy name,<br>New pleasure warm'd my infant breast.<br>I lov'd to form the jingling rhyme,<br>The measur'd sounds, tho' rude, my ear could please,<br>Could give the little pains of childhood ease,<br>And long have sooth'd the keener pains of time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The idle crowd in fashion's train,<br>Their trifling comment, pert reply,<br>Who talk so much, yet talk in vain,<br>How pleas'd for thee, O nymph, I fly!<br>For thine is all the wealth of mind,<br>Thine the unborrow'd gems of thought;<br>The flash of light by souls refin'd,<br>From heav'n's empyreal source exulting caught.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VI. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And ah! when destin'd to forego<br>The social hour with those I love,--<br>That charm which brightens all below,<br>That joy all other joys above,<br>And dearer to this breast of mine,<br>O Muse! than aught thy magic power can give,--<br>Then on the gloom of lonely sadness shine,<br>And bid thy airy forms around me live.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thy page, O SHAKESPEARE ! let me view,<br>Thine! at whose name my bosom glows;<br>Proud that my earliest breath I drew<br>In that blest isle where SHAKESPEARE rose!<br>Where shall my dazzled glances roll?<br>Shall I pursue gay Ariel's flight?<br>Or wander where those hags of night<br>With deeds unnam'd shall freeze my trembling soul?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VIII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Plunge me, foul sisters! in the gloom<br>Ye wrap around yon blasted heath:<br>To hear the harrowing rite I come,<br>That calls the angry shades from death!<br>Away--my frighted bosom spare!<br>Let true Cordelia pour her filial sigh,<br>Let Desdemona lift her pleading eye,<br>And poor Ophelia sing in wild despair!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IX. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the bright noon of summer streams<br>In one wide flash of lavish day,<br>As soon shall mortal count the beams,<br>As tell the powers of SHAKESPEARE'S lay!<br>O, Nature's Poet! the untaught,<br>The simple mind thy tale pursues,<br>And wonders by what art it views<br>The perfect image of each native thought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>X. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In those still moments, when the breast,<br>Expanded, leaves its cares behind,<br>Glows by some higher thought possest,<br>And feels the energies of mind;<br>Then, awful MILTON , raise the veil<br>That hides from human eye the heav'nly throng!<br>Immortal sons of light! I hear your song,<br>I hear your high-tun'd harps creation hail!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XI </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well might creation claim your care,<br>And well the string of rapture move,<br>When all was perfect, good, and fair,<br>When all was music, joy, and love!<br>Ere Evil's inauspicious birth<br>Chang'd Nature's harmony to strife;<br>And wild Remorse, abhorring life,<br>And deep Affliction, spread their shade on earth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XII </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Blest Poesy! O, sent to calm<br>The human pains which all must feel,<br>Still shed on life thy precious balm,<br>And every wound of nature heal!<br>Is there a heart of human frame<br>Along the burning track of torrid light,<br>Or 'mid the fearful waste of polar night,<br>That never glow'd at thy inspiring name?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ye Southern Isles,* emerg'd so late<br>Where the Pacific billow rolls,<br>Witness, though rude your simple state,<br>How heav'n-taught verse can melt your souls!<br>Say, when you hear the wand'ring bard,<br>How thrill'd ye listen to his lay,<br>By what kind arts ye court his stay,--<br>All savage life affords his sure reward.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIV. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, when great HOMER 'S chiefs prepare,<br>Awhile from War's rude toils releas'd,<br>The pious hecatomb, and share<br>The flowing bowl, and genial feast:<br>Some heav'nly minstrel sweeps the lyre,<br>While all applaud the poet's native art;<br>For him they heap the viand's choicest part,<br>And copious goblets crown the Muse's fire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XV. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ev'n here , in scenes of pride and gain,<br>Where faint each genuine feeling glows;<br>Here , Nature asks, in want and pain,<br>The dear illusions verse bestows;<br>The poor, from hunger, and from cold,<br>Spare one small coin, the ballad's price,<br>Admire their poet's quaint device,<br>And marvel much at all his rhymes unfold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVI. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ye children, lost in forests drear,<br>Still o'er your wrongs each bosom grieves,<br>And long the red-breast shall be dear,<br>Who strew'd each little corpse with leaves;<br>For you my earliest tears were shed,<br>For you the gaudy doll I pleas'd forsook,<br>And heard, with hands uprais'd, and eager look,<br>The cruel tale, and wish'd ye were not dead!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still on Scotia's northern shore,<br>&quot;At times, between the rushing blast,&quot;<br>Recording mem'ry loves to pour<br>The mournful song of ages past;<br>Come, lonely Bard &quot;of other years!&quot;<br>While dim the half-seen moon of varying skies,<br>While sad the wind along the grey moss sighs,<br>And give my pensive heart &quot;the joy of tears!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVIII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The various tropes that splendour dart<br>Around the modern poet's line,<br>Where, borrow'd from the sphere of art,<br>Unnumber'd gay allusions shine,<br>Have not a charm my breast to please<br>Like the blue mist, the meteor's beam,<br>The dark-brow'd rock, the mountain stream,<br>And the light thistle waving in the breeze.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIX. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wild Poesy, in haunts sublime,<br>Delights her lofty note to pour;<br>She loves the hanging rock to climb,<br>And hear the sweeping torrent roar!<br>The little scene of cultur'd grace<br>But faintly her expanded bosom warms;<br>She seeks the daring stroke, the awful charms,<br>Which Nature's pencil throws on Nature's face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XX. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, Nature! thou whose works divine<br>Such rapture in this breast inspire,<br>As makes me dream one spark is mine<br>Of Poesy's celestial fire;<br>When doom'd, &quot;in cities pent,&quot; to leave<br>The kindling morn's unfolding view,<br>Which ever wears some aspect new,<br>And all the shadowy forms of soothing eve;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXI. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then, THOMSON , then be ever near,<br>And paint whatever season reigns;<br>Still let me see the varying year,<br>And worship Nature in thy strains;<br>Now, when the wint'ry tempests roll,<br>Unfold their dark and desolating form,<br>Rush in the savage madness of the storm,<br>And spread those horrors that exalt my soul!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, POPE the music of thy verse<br>Shall winter's dreary gloom dispel,<br>And fond remembrance oft rehearse<br>The moral song she knows so well;<br>The sportive sylphs shall flutter here,--<br>There Eloise, in anguish pale,<br>&quot;Kiss with cold lips the sacred veil,<br>&quot;And drop with every bead too soft a tear!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXIII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When disappointment's sick'ning pain<br>With chilling sadness numbs my breast,<br>That feels its dearest hope was vain,<br>And bids its fruitless struggles rest;<br>When those for whom I wish to live,<br>With cold suspicion wrong my aching heart;<br>Or, doom'd from those for ever lov'd to part,<br>And feel a sharper pang than death can give;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXIV. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then with the mournful Bard I go,<br>Whom &quot;melancholy mark'd her own,&quot;<br>While tolls the curfew, solemn, slow,<br>And wander amid graves unknown;<br>With yon pale orb, lov'd poet, come!<br>While from those elms long shadows spread,<br>And where the lines of light are shed,<br>Read the fond record of the rustic tomb!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXV. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or let me o'er old Conway's flood<br>Hang on the frowning rock, and trace<br>The characters that, wove in blood,<br>Stamp'd the dire fate of EDWARD'S race;<br>Proud tyrant! tear thy laurell'd plume;<br>How poor thy vain pretence to deathless fame!<br>The injur'd Muse records thy lasting shame,<br>And she has power to &quot;ratify thy doom.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXVI. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nature, when first she smiling came,<br>To wake within the human breast<br>The sacred Muse's hallow'd flame,<br>And earth, with heav'n's rich spirit blest!<br>Nature in that auspicious hour,<br>With awful mandate, bade the Bard<br>The register of glory guard,<br>And gave him o'er all mortal honours power.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXVII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Can Fame on Painting's aid rely?<br>Or lean on Sculpture's trophy'd bust?--<br>The faithless colours bloom to die,<br>The crumbling pillar mocks its trust;<br>But thou, O Muse, immortal maid!<br>Canst paint the godlike deeds that praise inspire,<br>Or worth, that lives but in the mind's desire,<br>In tints that only shall with Nature fade!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXVIII. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O tell me, partial nymph! what rite,<br>What incense sweet, what homage true,<br>Draws from thy fount of purest light<br>The flame it lends a chosen few?<br>Alas! these lips can never frame<br>The mystic vow that moves thy breast;<br>Yet by thy joys my life is blest,<br>And my fond soul shall consecrate thy name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Helen+Maria+Williams">Helen Maria Williams</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=407922" data-title="An Address to Poetry de Helen Maria Williams" data-description="I. 

While envious crowds the summit view,
Where Danger with Ambition strays;
Or far, with anxious step, pursue
Pale Av'rice, thro' his winding ways;
The selfish passions in their train,
Whose force the social ties unbind,
And chill the love of hu..."></div>
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