ELEGIES LOCAL, SYMPATHETIC, AND FUNEREAL. ELEGY I. THE TOMB OF SHAKSPERE. A VISION. BY JOHN GILBERT COOPER, ESQ; WHAT time the jocund rosie-bosom'd HOURS The MORN unbarr'd th' ambrosial gates of light, The nightingale no longer swell'd her throat And on the wings of Silence ceas'd to float 40 The God of sleep mysterious visions led In gay procession 'fore the mental eye; And my free'd soul awhile her mansion fled, To try her plumes for immortality. Through fields of air, methought, I took my flight, Through every clime, o'er every region pass'd, No paradise or ruin 'scap'd my sight, HESPERIAN garden, or CIMMERIAN waste. 20 On Avon's banks I lit, whose streams appear To wind with eddies fond round SHAKSPERE'S tomb, The year's first feath'ry songsters warble near, Here FANCY sat, (her dewy fingers cold Decking with flow'rets fresh th' unsullied sod,) And bath'd with tears the sad sepulchral mold, Her fav'rite offspring's long and last abode. Ah! what avails, she cry'd, a Poet's name? To snatch from dumb Oblivion others fame ? Let gentle OTWAY, white-rob'd PITY's priest, 30 For not to these his genius was confin'd, Nature and I each tuneful pow'r had given, Poetic transports of the madding mind, And the wing'd words that waft the soul to heaven: 40 The fiery glance of th' intellectual eye, Piercing all objects of creation's store, Which on this world's extended surface lie; And plastic thought that still created more. O grant, with eager rapture I reply'd, Grant me, great goddess of the changeful eye, To view each Being in poetic pride, To whom thy son gave immortality. Sweet FANCY smil'd, and wav'd her mystic rod, As vassal sprites obey the wizard's charm. First a celestial form (of azure hue flow'd Whose mantle, bound with brede aetherial, Obedient to the necromantic sway Of an old sage to solitude resign'd, With fenny vapors he obscur'd the day, Launch'd the long lightning, and let loose the wind. e He whirl'd the tempest through the howling air, Betwixt the sea-green waves and azure sky. Then, like heaven's mild embassador of love Unlike to this in spirit or in mien Another form succeeded to my view; A two-legg'd brute which Nature made in spleen, Or from the loathing womb unfinish'd drew. Scarce could he syllable the curse he thought, The mongrel offspring of a Witch and Devil. Next bloom'd, upon an ancient forest's bound, On the green carpet of th' unbended grass, 86 Through these the queen TITANIA pass'd ador'd, Journeying to see great OBERON her lord Arm'd cap-a-pee forth march'd the fairy king, Around their chief the elfin host appear'd; The scene then chang'd, from this romantic land, Pale Want had wither'd every furrow'd face, Hors'd on three staves they posted to the bourn Frown'd on the boist'rous waves which rag'd below. 200 |