LEWESDON HILL.

LEWESDON HILL,
WITH
OTHER POEMS.

BY
THE REV. WILLIAM CROWE,
PUBLIC ORATOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Χαιρ’ ω πεδον αγχιαλον,

Και μ’ ευπλοιᾳ πεμψον αμεμπτως

Ενθ’ ἡ μεγαλη μοιρα κομιζει,

——χῳ πανδαματωρ

Δαιμων, ος ταυτ’ επεκρανεν.

SOPH.

Farewell thy printless sands and pebbly shore!

I hear the white surge beat thy coast no more,

Pure, gentle source of the high, rapturous mood!—

—Where’er, like the great Flood, by thy dread force

Propell’d—shape Thou my calm, my blameless course,

Heaven, Earth, and Ocean’s Lord!—and Father of the Good!

***

A CORRECTED AND MUCH ENLARGED EDITION, WITH NOTES.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
1827.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Hill which gives title to the following Poem is situated in the western part of Dorsetshire. This choice of a subject, to which the Author was led by his residence near the spot, may seem perhaps to confine him to topics of mere rural and local description. But he begs leave here to inform the Reader that he has advanced beyond those narrow limits to something more general and important. On the other hand he trusts, that in his farthest excursions the connexion between him and his subject will easily be traced. The few notes which are subjoined he thought necessary to elucidate the passages to which they refer. He will only add in this place, from Hutchins’s History of Dorsetshire, (vol. i. p. 366), what is there said of Lewesdon (or, as it is now corruptly called, Lewson): “This and Pillesdon Hill surmount all the hills, though very high, between them and the sea. Mariners call them the Cow and Calf, in which forms they are fancied to appear, being eminent sea-marks to those who sail upon the coast.”

To the top of this Hill the Author describes himself as walking on a May morning.

TO THE
RIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD JONATHAN,
LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH,
WHO, IN A LEARNED, FREE, AND LIBERAL AGE,
IS HIMSELF MOST HIGHLY DISTINGUISHED
BY EXTENSIVE, USEFUL, AND ELEGANT LEARNING,
BY A DISINTERESTED SUPPORT OF FREEDOM,
AND BY A TRULY CHRISTIAN LIBERALITY OF MIND,
THIS POEM,
WITH ALL RESPECT, IS DEDICATED
BY HIS LORDSHIP’S MOST OBLIGED
AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

Jan. 1788.

CONTENTS.

LEWESDON HILL.

Up to thy Summit, Lewesdon, to the brow

Of yon proud rising, where the lonely thorn

Bends from the rude South-east with top cut sheer

By his keen breath, along the narrow track,

By which the scanty-pastured sheep ascend

Up to thy furze-clad summit, let me climb,—

My morning exercise,—and thence look round

Upon the variegated scene, of hills

And woods and fruitful vales, and villages

Half hid in tufted orchards, and the sea

Boundless, and studded thick with many a sail.

Ye dew-fed vapours, nightly balm, exhaled

From earth, young herbs and flowers, that in the morn

Ascend as incense to the Lord of day,

I come to breathe your odours; while they float

Yet near this surface, let me walk embathed

In your invisible perfumes, to health

So friendly, nor less grateful to the mind,

Administering sweet peace and cheerfulness.

How changed is thy appearance, beauteous hill!

Thou hast put off thy wintry garb, brown heath

And russet fern, thy seemly-colour’d cloak

To bide the hoary frosts and dripping rains

Of chill December, and art gaily robed

In livery of the spring: upon thy brow

A cap of flowery hawthorn, and thy neck

Mantled with new-sprung furze and spangles thick

Of golden bloom: nor lack thee tufted woods

Adown thy sides: tall oaks of lusty green,

The darker fir, light ash, and the nesh tops

Of the young hazel join, to form thy skirts

In many a wavy fold of verdant wreath:—

So gorgeously hath Nature drest thee up

Against the birth of May: and, vested so,

Thou dost appear more gracefully array’d

Than Fashion’s worshippers, whose gaudy shows,

Fantastical as are a sick man’s dreams,

From vanity to costly vanity

Change ofter than the moon. Thy comely dress,

From sad to gay returning with the year,

Shall grace thee still till Nature’s self shall change.

These are the beauties of thy woodland scene

At each return of spring: yet some[1] delight

Rather to view the change; and fondly gaze

On fading colours, and the thousand tints

Which Autumn lays upon the varying leaf:

I like them not, for all their boasted hues

Are kin to Sickliness; mortal Decay

Is drinking up their vital juice; that gone,

They turn to sear and yellow. Should I praise

Such false complexions, and for beauty take

A look consumption-bred? As soon, if gray

Were mixt in young Louisa’s tresses brown,

I’d call it beautiful variety,

And therefore dote on her. Yet I can spy

A beauty in that fruitful change, when comes

The yellow Autumn and the hopes o’ the year

Brings on to golden ripeness; nor dispraise

The pure and spotless form of that sharp time,

When January spreads a pall of snow

O’er the dead face of th’ undistinguish’d earth.

Then stand I in the hollow comb beneath,

And bless this friendly mount, that weather-fends

My reed-roof’d cottage, while the wintry blast

From the thick north comes howling: till the Spring

Return, who leads my devious steps abroad,

To climb, as now, to Lewesdon’s airy top.

Above the noise and stir of yonder fields

Uplifted, on this height I feel the mind

Expand itself in wider liberty.

The distant sounds break gently on my sense,

Soothing to meditation: so methinks,

Even so, sequester’d from the noisy world,

Could I wear out this transitory being

In peaceful contemplation and calm ease.

But Conscience, which still censures on our acts,

That awful voice within us, and the sense

Of an Hereafter, wake and rouse us up

From such unshaped retirement; which were else

A blest condition on this earthly stage.

For who would make his life a life of toil

For wealth, o’erbalanced with a thousand cares;

Or power, which base compliance must uphold;

Or honour, lavish’d most on courtly slaves;

Or fame, vain breath of a misjudging world;

Who for such perishable gaudes would put

A yoke upon his free unbroken spirit,

And gall himself with trammels and the rubs

Of this world’s business; so he might stand clear

Of judgment and the tax of idleness

In that dread audit, when his mortal hours

(Which now with soft and silent stealth pace by)

Must all be counted for? But, for this fear,

And to remove, according to our power,

The wants and evils of our brother’s state,

’Tis meet we justle with the world; content,

If by our sovereign Master we be found

At last not profitless: for worldly meed,

Given or withheld, I deem of it alike.

From this proud eminence on all sides round

Th’ unbroken prospect opens to my view,

On all sides large; save only where the head

Of Pillesdon rises, Pillesdon’s lofty Pen:

So call (still rendering to his ancient name

Observance due) that rival Height south-west,

Which like a rampire bounds the vale beneath.

There woods, there blooming orchards, there are seen

Herds ranging, or at rest beneath the shade

Of some wide-branching oak; there goodly fields

Of corn, and verdant pasture, whence the kine

Returning with their milky treasure home

Store the rich dairy: such fair plenty fills

The pleasant vale of Marshwood, pleasant now,

Since that the Spring has deck’d anew the meads

With flowery vesture, and the warmer sun

Their foggy moistness drain’d; in wintry days

Cold, vapourish, miry, wet, and to the flocks

Unfriendly, when autumnal rains begin

To drench the spungy turf: but ere that time

The careful shepherd moves to healthier soil,

Rechasing, lest his tender ewes should coath[2]

In the dank pasturage. Yet not the fields

Of Evesham, nor that ample valley named

Of the White Horse, its antique monument

Carved in the chalky bourne, for beauty and wealth

Might equal, though surpassing in extent,

This fertile vale, in length from Lewesdon’s base

Extended to the sea, and water’d well

By many a rill; but chief with thy clear stream,

Thou nameless Rivulet, who, from the side

Of Lewesdon softly welling forth, dost trip

Adown the valley, wandering sportively.

Alas, how soon thy little course will end!

How soon thy infant stream shall lose itself

In the salt mass of waters, ere it grow

To name or greatness! Yet it flows along

Untainted with the commerce of the world,

Nor passing by the noisy haunts of men;

But through sequester’d meads, a little space,

Winds secretly, and in its wanton path

May cheer some drooping flower, or minister

Of its cool water to the thirsty lamb:

Then falls into the ravenous sea, as pure

As when it issued from its native hill.

So to thine early grave didst thou run on,

Spotless Francesca, so, after short course,

Thine innocent and playful infancy

Was swallowed up in death, and thy pure spirit

In that illimitable gulf which bounds

Our mortal continent. But not there lost,

Not there extinguish’d, as some falsely teach,

Who can talk much and learnedly of life,

Who know our frame and fashion, who can tell

The substance and the properties of man,

As they had seen him made,—aye and stood by

Spies on Heaven’s work. They also can discourse

Wisely, to prove that what must be must be,

And show how thoughts are jogg’d out of the brain

By a mechanical impulse; pushing on

The minds of us, poor unaccountables,

To fatal resolution. Know they not,

That in this mortal life, whate’er it be,

We take the path that leads to good or evil,

And therein find our bliss or misery?

And this includes all reasonable ends

Of knowledge or of being; farther to go

Is toil unprofitable, and th’ effect

Most perilous wandering. Yet of this be sure,

Where freedom is not, there no virtue is:

If there be none, this world is all a cheat,

And the divine stability of Heaven

(That assured seat for good men after death)

Is but a transient cloud, display’d so fair

To cherish virtuous hope, but at our need

Eludes the sense, and fools our honest faith,

Vanishing in a lie. If this be so,

Were it not better to be born a beast,

Only to feel what is, and thus to ’scape

The aguish fear that shakes the afflicted breast

With sore anxiety of what shall be—

And all for nought? Since our most wicked act

Is not our sin, and our religious awe

Delusion, if that strong Necessity

Chains up our will. But that the mind is free,

The Mind herself, best judge of her own state,

Is feelingly convinced; nor to be moved

By subtle words, that may perplex the head,

But ne’er persuade the heart. Vain argument,

That with false weapons of Philosophy

Fights against Hope, and Sense, and Nature’s strength!

See how the Sun, here clouded, afar off

Pours down the golden radiance of his light

Upon the enridged sea; where the black ship

Sails on the phosphor-seeming waves. So fair,

But falsely-flattering, was yon surface calm,

When forth for India sail’d, in evil time,

That Vessel, whose disastrous fate, when told,

Fill’d every breast with horror, and each eye

With piteous tears, so cruel was the loss[3].

Methinks I see her, as, by the wintry storm

Shatter’d and driven along past yonder Isle,

She strove, her latest hope, by strength or art,

To gain the port within it, or at worst

To shun that harbourless and hollow coast

From Portland eastward to the Promontory[4],

Where still St. Alban’s high built chapel stands.

But art nor strength avail her—on she drives,

In storm and darkness to the fatal coast:

And there ’mong rocks and high-o’erhanging cliffs

Dash’d piteously, with all her precious freight

Was lost, by Neptune’s wild and foamy jaws

Swallow’d up quick! The richliest-laden ship

Of spicy Ternate, or that Annual, sent

To the Philippines o’er the Southern main

From Acapulco, carrying massy gold,

Were poor to this;—freighted with hopeful Youth,

And Beauty, and high Courage undismayed

By mortal terrors, and paternal Love

Strong, and unconquerable even in death—

Alas, they perish’d all, all in one hour!

Now yonder high way view, wide-beaten, bare

With ceaseless tread of men and beasts, and track

Of many indenting wheels, heavy and light,

That in their different courses as they pass,

Rush violently down precipitate,

Or slowly turn, oft resting, up the steep.

Mark how that road, with mazes serpentine,

From Shipton’s[5] bottom to the lofty down

Winds like a path of pleasure, drawn by art

Through park or flowery garden for delight.

Nor less delightful this—if, while he mounts

Not wearied, the free Journeyer will pause

To view the prospect oft, as oft to see

Beauty still changing: yet not so contrived

By fancy, or choice, but of necessity,

By soft gradations of ascent to lead

The labouring and way-worn feet along,

And make their toil less toilsome. Half way up,

Or nearer to the top, behold a cot,

O’er which the branchy trees, those sycamores,

Wave gently: at their roots a rustic bench

Invites to short refreshment, and to taste

What grateful beverage the house may yield

After fatigue, or dusty heat; thence call’d

The Traveller’s Rest. Welcome, embower’d seat,

Friendly repose to the slow passenger

Ascending, ere he takes his sultry way

Along th’ interminable road, stretch’d out

Over th’ unshelter’d down; or when at last

He has that hard and solitary path

Measured by painful steps. And blest are they,

Who in life’s toilsome journey may make pause

After a march of glory: yet not such

As rise in causeless war, troubling the world

By their mad quarrel, and in fields of blood

Hail’d victors, thence renown’d, and call’d on earth

Kings, heroes, demi-gods, but in high Heaven

Thieves, ruffians, murderers; these find no repose:

Thee rather, patriot Conqueror, to thee

Belongs such rest; who in the western world,

Thine own deliver’d country, for thyself

Hast planted an immortal grove, and there,

Upon the glorious mount of Liberty