PART, IV.
Henry, O leave, whilst youth is ours,[[30]]
And health leads on the fleeting hours,
O leave awhile the court you grace,
And urge with me the sylvan chase!
Oft, as I bathe in morning’s breath,
Ere wakes the plover on the heath,
Ere the sun robs the woodbine’s smell,
Or dries the fox-glove’s purple bell,
I hear the deep-mouth’d thunder rise;
The monarch of the woodland flies,
Whilst the loud triumphs of the horn
On breezy wings are backward born.[[31]]
His subject mates no succour lend;
What tyrant ever found a friend?
He dies!—the satiate echoes cease;
The forest reassumes its peace.
Now sun-burnt Autumn with his spoils
Diana’s bleeding altar piles:
Again the slaughtering gun is heard,
And wildly screams the parent bird;
All night she mourns her lessen’d brood,
Still views them fluttering in their blood,
With timorous call the rest collects,
And with quick wing their flight directs.
Now the strong buck his rival drives,
And awes with jealous threats his wives:
Slow move the kine to fresher fields;
The hawthorn to the holly yields:
No twittering swallow skims the plain,
No shrite-cock tunes his echoing strain:[[32]]
Dumb are the full-plum’d songsters all,
Save the lone red-breast on my wall;
Thy tender lay, sweet bird, prolong,
And sooth old Winter with thy song!
When wintry mists obscure the skies,
His busy nose the spaniel plies,
Where mossy glades and thickets brown
Tempt the far-wandering wood-cock down:
Stretch thy strong wing, thy flight retake,
Nor trust the inhospitable brake!—
Ah, forc’d from the luxuriant ground,
He mounts, and feels the sudden wound.
So transmeridian Zealand views
Adventurous Europe’s wandering crews:
Fierce hunger eyes the stranger-guest,
And fraud secures the barbarous feast;
Stain’d are the rocks with human gore,
And white with scatter’d bones the shore.
The leveret—but I spare the rest,
I see compassion touch thy breast—
Come then, and whilst the murderous crew
In harmless blood their hands imbrue,
Rous’d to revenge by ravag’d flocks,
Haste we to find the kennell’d fox.
Hark! those preluding cries he hears;
Thick beats his heart with conscious fears.
Some tyrant thus, in luckless hour
Whom fraud or force has rais’d to pow’r,
With throbbing heart and pale eye stands,
And spreads to heaven his harpy hands,
When Freedom’s voice alarms the morn,
And Vengeance winds her echoing horn.
See, with the wind he scours away
Sleek, and in crimes grown old and gray!
Oft has he foil’d our angry pack,
I know his customary track.
Talk not of pity to such foes!
Stern justice claims the life he owes.
No storms arise to screen his flight;
’Tis long till interrupting night;
The breathing South his sentence gives,
And not an hour the caitiff lives!
Through woods, and hills, and vales, and brakes,
Needwood with general transport shakes.
Mark how the pack diffusely spread,
And shew me, if you can, their head!
’Tis here—’tis there—now onward far
Streams down the vales irregular.
As through the furzy brakes they drive
The trembling coverts seem alive.
Thus by the winds o’er bending corn
Loose waves of light and shade are born.
Now winding up yon steep they strain;
Now wheel in silence on the plain:
Again they catch the tainted wind;
No hound disgraceful lurks behind:
All striving with confederate aim,
Their size, their power, their speed the same,
With eager eye and clamorous tongue
In broad career they press along,
Fierce on their victim gathering round—
—He suffers by no single wound!
Thus o’er the azure fields of night
Shoot the quick rays of northern light,
To one bright point converg’d they flow,
And round the silver zenith glow.
So, when a lake surcharg’d by rain
Bursts, and o’erwhelms the sloping plain,
The wond’ring rustic flies, nor knows
Which of its currents fastest flows;
Now here the rattling eddies lead,
Now there they foam along the mead,
Till in a silent pool they stand,
Collected on the hollow land.
Go languid fops, go pedants, waste
Your sneers on joys you cannot taste;
And cloak with many a vain pretence
Cold-blooded fear and indolence!
Warm to each elegant delight,
Ingenious, sensible, polite,
Known to the world you know so well,
Lov’d e’en by those whom you excel,
Meynell, my leader and my friend,
Stand forth! the manly chase defend!
O raise your animating voice,
And cheer the Dian of your choice!
Not her, whose foul Circean draft
’Squires of preceding ages quaff’d,
Unletter’d reveller, whose joys
Were rudeness, turbulence, and noise,
But her, no less of British kind,
Well-bred, intelligent, refin’d,
Of younger years and purer mold,
Chaste as the Huntress Queen of old.
Yes, I am thine, enchanting maid!
Come, in thy decent robes array’d!
O bring thy blithe companion, Health,
Who smiles, and mocks the sluggard Wealth;
And Hope, who spleen and care destroys;
And Rapture scorning tamer joys;
Young Eagerness with kindling eyes;
And Triumph mingling jocund cries!
Come, as thy cheerful train is seen,
Where Foremarke waves his woodlands green;
When hears his vale thy matin song,
And Trent exulting shouts along:
While wait, thy gay return to greet,
Convivial Mirth and Welcome sweet.—
On me, thy humbler votary, shower
The balmy dews of every flower,
Which oft thy curious hand has twin’d
Thy Burdett’s favour’d brows to bind!