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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538594" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Monody On The Death Of Dr. Warton</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite<br>Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,<br>Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,<br>Now that thine aged eyes are closed in night,<br>Kind Warton! Thou hast stroked my stripling head,<br>And sometimes, mingling soft reproof with praise,<br>My path hast best directed through the maze<br>Of thorny life: by thee my steps were led<br>To that romantic valley, high o'erhung<br>With sable woods, where many a minstrel rung <br>His bold harp to the sweeping waterfall;<br>Whilst Fancy loved around each form to call<br>That fill the poet's dream: to this retreat<br>Of Fancy, (won by whose enticing lay<br>I have forgot how sunk the summer's day),<br>Thou first did guide my not unwilling feet;<br>Meantime inspiring the gay breast of youth<br>With love of taste, of science, and of truth.<br>The first inciting sounds of human praise,<br>A parent's love excepted, came from thee; <br>And but for thee, perhaps, my boyish days<br>Had all passed idly, and whate'er in me<br>Now live of hope, been buried.<br>I was one,<br>Long bound by cold dejection's numbing chain,<br>As in a torpid trance, that deemed it vain<br>To struggle; nor my eyelids to the sun<br>Uplifted: but I heard thy cheering voice;<br>I shook my deadly slumber off; I gazed<br>Delighted 'round; awaked, inspired, amazed, <br>I marked another world, and in my choice<br>Lovelier, and decked with light! On fairy ground<br>Methought I buoyant trod, and heard the sound<br>As of enchanting melodies, that stole,<br>Stole gently, and entranced my captive soul.<br>Then all was life and hope! 'Twas thy first ray,<br>Sweet Fancy, on the heart; as when the day<br>Of Spring, along the melancholy tract<br>Of wintry Lapland, dawns; the cataract,<br>From ice dissolving on the silent side <br>Of some white precipice, with paly gleam<br>Descends, while the cold hills a slanting beam<br>Faint tinges: till, ascending in his pride,<br>The great Sun from the red horizon looks,<br>And wakes the tuneless birds, the stagnant brooks,<br>And sleeping lakes! So on my mind's cold night<br>The ray of Fancy shone, and gave delight<br>And hope past utterance.<br>Thy cheering voice,<br>O Warton! bade my silent heart rejoice, <br>And wake to love of nature; every breeze,<br>On Itchin's brink was melody; the trees<br>Waved in fresh beauty; and the wind and rain,<br>That shook the battlements of Wykeham's fane,<br>Not less delighted, when, with random pace,<br>I trod the cloistered aisles; and witness thou,<br>Catherine, upon whose foss-encircled brow<br>We met the morning, how I loved to trace<br>The prospect spread around; the rills below,<br>That shone irriguous in the gleaming plain; <br>The river's bend, where the dark barge went slow,<br>And the pale light on yonder time-worn fane!<br>So passed my days with new delight; mean time<br>To Learning's tender eye thou didst unfold<br>The classic page, and what high bards of old,<br>With solemn notes, and minstrelsy sublime,<br>Have chanted, we together heard; and thou,<br>Warton! wouldst bid me listen, till a tear<br>Sprang to mine eye: now the bold song we hear<br>Of Greece's sightless master-bard: the breast <br>Beats high; with stern Pelides to the plain<br>We rush; or o'er the corpse of Hector slain<br>Hang pitying;--and lo! where pale, oppressed<br>With age and grief, sad Priam comes; with beard<br>All white he bows, kissing the hands besmeared<br>With his last hope's best blood!<br>The oaten reed<br>Now from the mountain sounds; the sylvan Muse,<br>Reclined by the clear stream of Arethuse,<br>Wakes the Sicilian pipe; the sunny mead <br>Swarms with the bees, whose drowsy lullaby<br>Soothes the reclining ox with half-closed eye;<br>While in soft cadence to the madrigal,<br>From rock to rock the whispering waters fall!<br>But who is he, that, by yon gloomy cave,<br>Bids heaven and earth bear witness to his woe!<br>And hark! how hollowly the ocean-wave<br>Echoes his plaint, and murmurs deep below!<br>Haste, let the tall ship stem the tossing tide,<br>That he may leave his cave, and hear no more <br>The Lemnian surges unrejoicing roar;<br>And be great Fate through the dark world thy guide,<br>Sad Philoctetes!<br>So Instruction bland,<br>With young-eyed Sympathy, went hand in hand<br>O'er classic fields; and let my heart confess<br>Its holier joy, when I essayed to climb<br>The lonely heights where Shakspeare sat sublime,<br>Lord of the mighty spell: around him press<br>Spirits and fairy-forms. He, ruling wide <br>His visionary world, bids terror fill<br>The shivering breast, or softer pity thrill<br>Ev'n to the inmost heart. Within me died<br>All thoughts of this low earth, and higher powers<br>Seemed in my soul to stir; till, strained too long,<br>The senses sunk.<br>Then, Ossian, thy wild song<br>Haply beguiled the unheeded midnight hours,<br>And, like the blast that swept Berrathron's towers,<br>Came pleasant and yet mournful to my soul! <br>See o'er the autumnal heath the gray mists roll!<br>Hark to the dim ghosts' faint and feeble cry,<br>As on the cloudy tempest they pass by!<br>Saw ye huge Loda's spectre-shape advance,<br>Through which the stars look pale!<br>Nor ceased the trance<br>Which bound the erring fancy, till dark night<br>Flew silent by, and at my window-grate<br>The morning bird sang loud: nor less delight<br>The spirit felt, when still and charmed I sate <br>Great Milton's solemn harmonies to hear,<br>That swell from the full chord, and strong and clear,<br>Beyond the tuneless couplets' weak control,<br>Their long-commingling diapason roll,<br>In varied sweetness.<br>Nor, amidst the choir<br>Of pealing minstrelsy, was thy own lyre,<br>Warton, unheard;--as Fancy poured the song,<br>The measured music flowed along,<br>Till all the heart and all the sense <br>Felt her divinest influence,<br>In throbbing sympathy:--Prepare the car,<br>And whirl us, goddess, to the war,<br>Where crimson banners fire the skies,<br>Where the mingled shouts arise,<br>Where the steed, with fetlock red,<br>Tramples the dying and the dead;<br>And amain, from side to side,<br>Death his pale horse is seen to ride!<br>Or rather, sweet enthusiast, lead <br>Our footsteps to the cowslip mead,<br>Where, as the magic spell is wound,<br>Dying music floats around:--<br>Or seek we some gray ruin's shade,<br>And pity the cold beggar, laid<br>Beneath the ivy-rustling tower,<br>At the dreary midnight hour,<br>Scarce sheltered from the drifting snow;<br>While her dark locks the bleak winds blow<br>O'er her sleeping infant's cheek! <br>Then let the shrilling trumpet speak,<br>And pierce in louder tones the ear,<br>Till, while it peals, we seem to hear<br>The sounding march, as of the Theban's song;<br>And varied numbers, in their course,<br>With gathering fulness, and collected force,<br>Like the broad cataract, swell and sweep along!<br>Struck by the sounds, what wonder that I laid,<br>As thou, O Warton! didst the theme inspire,<br>My inexperienced hand upon the lyre, <br>And soon with transient touch faint music made,<br>As soon forgotten!<br>So I loved to lie<br>By the wild streams of elfin poesy,<br>Rapt in strange musings; but when life began,<br>I never roamed a visionary man;<br>For, taught by thee, I learned with sober eyes<br>To look on life's severe realities.<br>I never made (a dream-distempered thing)<br>Poor Fiction's realm my world; but to cold Truth <br>Subdued the vivid shapings of my youth.<br>Save when the drisly woods were murmuring,<br>Or some hard crosses had my spirit bowed;<br>Then I have left, unseen, the careless crowd,<br>And sought the dark sea roaring, or the steep<br>That braved the storm; or in the forest deep,<br>As all its gray leaves rustled, wooed the tone<br>Of the loved lyre, that, in my springtide gone,<br>Waked me to transport.<br>Eighteen summers now <br>Have smiled on Itchin's margin, since the time<br>When these delightful visions of our prime<br>Rose on my view in loveliness. And thou<br>Friend of my muse, in thy death-bed art cold,<br>Who, with the tenderest touches, didst unfold<br>The shrinking leaves of Fancy, else unseen<br>And shelterless: therefore to thee are due<br>Whate'er their summer sweetness; and I strew,<br>Sadly, such flowerets as on hillocks green,<br>Or mountain-slope, or hedge-row, yet my hand <br>May cull, with many a recollection bland,<br>And mingled sorrow, Warton, on thy tomb,<br>To whom, if bloom they boast, they owe their bloom!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Lisle+Bowles">William Lisle Bowles</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=538594" data-title="Monody On The Death Of Dr. Warton de William Lisle Bowles" data-description="Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite
Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,
Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,
Now that thine aged eyes are closed in night,
Kind Warton! Thou hast stroked my stripling head,
And sometimes, minglin..."></div>
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