The Library | Page 6

greet--the ancient worthies of ROMANCE.
Hence, ye profane! I feel a former dread,?A thousand visions float around my head:?Hark! hollow blasts through empty courts resound,?And shadowy forms with staring eyes stalk round;?See! moats and bridges, walls and castles rise,?Ghosts, fairies, demons, dance before our eyes;?Lo! magic verse inscribed on golden gate,?And bloody hand that beckons on to fate:-?"And who art thou, thou little page, unfold??Say, doth thy lord my Claribel withhold??Go tell him straight, Sir Knight, thou must resign?The captive queen;--for Claribel is mine."?Away he flies; and now for bloody deeds,?Black suits of armour, masks, and foaming steeds;?The giant falls; his recreant throat I seize,?And from his corslet take the massy keys:-?Dukes, lords, and knights, in long procession move,?Released from bondage with my virgin love:-?She comes! she comes! in all the charms of youth,?Unequall'd love, and unsuspected truth!?Ah! happy he who thus, in magic themes,?O'er worlds bewitch'd, in early rapture dreams,?Where wild Enchantment waves her potent wand,?And Fancy's beauties fill her fairy land;?Where doubtful objects strange desires excite,?And Fear and Ignorance afford delight.
But lost, for ever lost, to me these joys,?Which Reason scatters, and which Time destroys;?Too dearly bought: maturer judgment calls?My busied mind from tales and madrigals;?My doughty giants all are slain or fled,?And all my knignts--blue, green, and yellow--dead!?No more the midnight fairy tribe I view,?All in the merry moonshine tippling dew;?E'en the last lingering fiction of the brain,?The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again;?And all these wayward wanderings of my youth?Fly Reason's power, and shun the light of Truth.
With Fiction then does real joy reside,?And is our reason the delusive guide??Is it then right to dream the syrens sing??Or mount enraptured on the dragon's wing??No; 'tis the infant mind, to care unknown,?That makes th' imagined paradise its own;?Soon as reflections in the bosom rise,?Light slumbers vanish from the clouded eyes:?The tear and smile, that once together rose,?Are then divorced; the head and heart are foes:?Enchantment bows to Wisdom's serious plan,?And Pain and Prudence make and mar the man.
While thus, of power and fancied empire vain,?With various thoughts my mind I entertain;?While books, my slaves, with tyrant hand I seize,?Pleased with the pride that will not let them please,?Sudden I find terrific thoughts arise,?And sympathetic sorrow fills my eyes;?For, lo! while yet my heart admits the wound,?I see the CRITIC army ranged around.
Foes to our race! if ever ye have known?A father's fears for offspring of your own;?If ever, smiling o'er a lucky line,?Ye thought the sudden sentiment divine,?Then paused and doubted, and then, tired of doubt,?With rage as sudden dash'd the stanza out;-?If, after fearing much and pausing long,?Ye ventured on the world your labour'd song,?And from the crusty critics of those days?Implored the feeble tribute of their praise;?Remember now the fears that moved you then,?And, spite of truth, let mercy guide your pen.
What vent'rous race are ours! what mighty foes?Lie waiting all around them to oppose!?What treacherous friends betray them to the fight!?What dangers threaten them--yet still they write:?A hapless tribe! to every evil born,?Whom villains hate, and fools affect to scorn:?Strangers they come, amid a world of woe,?And taste the largest portion ere they go.
Pensive I spoke, and cast mine eyes around;?The roof, methought, return'd a solemn sound;?Each column seem'd to shake, and clouds, like smoke,?From dusty piles and ancient volumes broke;?Gathering above, like mists condensed they seem,?Exhaled in summer from the rushy stream;?Like flowing robes they now appear, and twine?Round the large members of a form divine;?His silver beard, that swept his aged breast,?His piercing eye, that inward light express'd,?Were seen,--but clouds and darkness veil'd the rest.?Fear chill'd my heart: to one of mortal race,?How awful seem'd the Genius of the place!?So in Cimmerian shores, Ulysses saw?His parent-shade, and shrunk in pious awe;?Like him I stood, and wrapt in thought profound,?When from the pitying power broke forth a solemn sound:-?"Care lives with all; no rules, no precepts save?The wise from woe, no fortitude the brave;?Grief is to man as certain as the grave:?Tempests and storms in life's whole progress rise,?And hope shines dimly through o'erclouded skies.?Some drops of comfort on the favour'd fall,?But showers of sorrow are the lot of ALL:?Partial to talents, then, shall Heav'n withdraw?Th' afflicting rod, or break the general law??Shall he who soars, inspired by loftier views,?Life's little cares and little pains refuse??Shall he not rather feel a double share?Of mortal woe, when doubly arm'd to bear?
"Hard is his fate who builds his peace of mind?On the precarious mercy of mankind;?Who hopes for wild and visionary things,?And mounts o'er unknown seas with vent'rous wings;?But as, of various evils that befall?The human race, some portion goes to all;?To him perhaps the milder lot's assigned?Who feels his consolation in his mind,?And, lock'd within his bosom, bears about?A mental charm for every care without.?E'en in the pangs of each domestic grief,?Or health or