PART, II.
With what fond gaze my eye pursues,
NEEDWOOD, thy sweetly-varying views!
Satyr, or Nymph, or sylvan God
A fairer circuit never trod!
Charm’d, as I turn, thy pictures seem
The golden fabricks of a dream.
Where Fiction stands with prism bright,
Rays forth her many-colour’d light,
Dyes the green herb, and purple flower,
Gives glittering lustres to the shower;
Then gilds with livelier tints the sky,
Or bends her radiant bow on high.
To scenes so elegantly wild
Fancy, of old, her darling child
From Avon’s flowery margin brought,
And Arden boasts what Needwood taught.[[6]]
Such shades by mazy paths perplex’d,
Where strays the traveller inly vex’d,
Inspir’d the Muse of Spencer’s pen;
The wandering wood, and Errors den,[[7]]
Dwarfs, Palfreys, Dames, and Giants rise
Full on Imaginations eyes!
See, See the Sarazin advance!
The red-cross Knight hath couch’d his lance!
They meet, the Christian wins the field,
And bears away the faithless shield![[8]]
With such companions fond to rove,
I venerate each hill and grove,
To Phœbus as to Dian dear,
And find a new Parnassus here.
Here might the sacred sisters dwell
By pebbly brook, or gushing well:
O let me listen, as they sing,
In some close vale beside a spring,
Whose stream the intruding alder chides,
Where the wild-bee her treasure hides!—
Or sit in high imbowering shade
With Contemplation, heav’n-ey’d maid,
Where the scant sun through branches thin
Chequers the dark green floor within;
Where ev’ry leaf is wisdom’s page,
And each gray trunk a hoary sage.
Nor motion, human form, or noise
This solemn pause of life destroys;
Save where the playful squirrel bounds,
Or ring-dove pours her plaintive sounds,
Or lurking peasant lops an oak
Restraining half his pilfering stroke,
Or with his faggot stoops to rest
Both by his years and burthen prest.
Here, seen of old, the elfin race
With sprightly vigils mark’d the place;
Their gay processions charm’d the sight,
Gilding the lucid noon of night;
Or, when obscure the midnight hour,
With glow-worm lantherns hung the bower.
—Hark!—the soft lute! along the green
Moves with majestic step the queen!
Attendant Fays around her throng,
And trace the dance or raise the song;
Or touch the shrill reed, as they trip,
With finger light and ruby lip.
High, on her brow sublime, is born
One scarlet wood-bine’s tremulous horn;
A gaudy bee-bird’s triple plume[[9]]
Sheds on her neck its waving gloom;
With silvery gossamer entwin’d
Stream the luxuriant locks behind.
Thin folds of tangled network break
In airy waves adown her neck:
Warp’d in his loom, the spider spread
The far-diverging rays of thread,
Then round and round with shuttle fine
Inwrought the undulating line.
One rose-leaf forms her crimson vest,
The loose edge crosses o’er her breast.
And one translucent fold, which fell
From the tall lily’s ample bell,
Forms with sweet grace her snowy train,
Flows, as she steps, and sweeps the plain.
Silence and Night inchanted gaze,
And Hesper hides his vanquish’d rays!—
Now the wak’d reed-birds swell their throats,
And night-larks trill their mingled notes:
Yet hush’d in moss with writhed neck
The black-bird hides his golden beak;
Charm’d from his dream of love, he wakes,
Opes his gay eye, his plumage shakes,
And stretching wide each ebon wing,
First in low whispers tries to sing;
Then sounds his clarion loud, and thrills
The moon-bright lawns, and shadowy hills.
Silent the choral Fays attend,
And then their silver voices blend,
Each shining thread of sound prolong,
And weave the magic woof of song.
Pleas’d Philomela takes her stand
On high, and leads the fairy band,
Pours sweet at intervals her strain,
And guides with beating wing the train.
Whilst interrupted zephyrs bear
Hoarse murmurs from the distant wear;
And at each pause is heard the swell
Of Echo’s soft symphonius shell.
Nor the dread night my mind alarms,—
Night, and her horrors have their charms.
O’er the wide forest oft I roam,
What time the trav’ler, far from home,
Bewilder’d in the pathless brakes,
There his cold bed despairing makes;
And hear the fox with savage bark
Pay distant courtship through the dark;
The owl with fault’ring voice unfold
Her tale, like one who shakes with cold:
And then the alarmed woods resound
Th’ upbraidings of the well-train’d hound,
Who with tremendous tongue arraigns
And haunts the plunderer of his plains.
So cries from earth the life-blood spilt,
So waking furies harrass guilt!
Oft have I through this solemn glade
Of old dismember’d hollies stray’d,
Whose bold bare rugged brows are seen
Thrust through the mantling ever-green;
Tall clustring columns here ascend,
And there in gothic arches bend;[[10]]
Whilst, as the silver moon-beams rise,
Imagin’d temples strike my eyes,
With tottering spire, and mouldering wall,
And high roof nodding to its fall.—
His lantern gleaming down the glade,
One, like a sexton with his spade,[[11]]
Comes from their caverns to exclude
The mid-night prowlers of the wood.—
Through fields of air while pausing slow,
Yon death-bell tells the village woe!
Born on her clouds when Darkness flings
O’er the still air her raven wings,
Ere yet the watery freight descends,
While Heaven it’s purposes suspends,
Night, let me stand in silent trance,
And watch the lightning’s kindling glance:
While, stiff’ning at the imagin’d stroke,
Appears behind a brighten’d oak,
From justice fled to this wild place,
A conscious robber’s gastly face!—
Or fancy views with fear-fix’d eye
A mangled spectre gliding by,
Quick with the flash who seems to wave
His pale hand, beck’ning to a grave!—
And, as the fleeting vision dies,
Loud thunders shake the closing skies.
Night, when rude blasts thy scenes deform,
O place me in the perilous storm!
While the moon labouring thro’ the clouds
By turns her light reveals and shrouds;
Torn from it’s trunk, when whirlwinds bear
The twisted ash aloft in air:
And some vast elm’s uprooted spoil
Ploughs in its headlong fall the soil.
While, as he stalks thro’ groaning oaks,
At intervals the old deer croaks:
And the lean sow with paps drawn dry
O’er rustling leaves trots whining by.—
Then posts across the blasted plain,
Born on the wild storm, Witchcraft’s train,
Aghast with guilt, and shrunk with age,
And yelling with demoniack rage!—
With eyes turn’d back malign and wide
See blood-stain’d Murder silent stride,
A moon-beam’s sudden light expands,
He starts, and hides his crimson hands!—
And now the cauldron gleams afar,
Fir’d by a baneful meteor’s glare,
Around they dance, they pause, and pour
The mischiefs of the midnight hour;
While trembling fiends with wonder gaze,
Stretch their black wings, and fan the blaze!