Tag Archives: periodical verse

Anonymous, “Damon’s Complaint for Amynta’s absence. In the person of a despairing Shepherd”

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ANONYMOUS

 “DAMON‘s Complaint for AMYNTA‘s absence. In the person of a despairing Shepherd. By a young Lady”

 

AH, hapless fate, and luckless day,
That call’d my lovely nymph away!
O fairest fav’rite of the plain,
Desir’d by all, desir’d in vain;
O thou, my dear, my darling theme,                               5
My morning tho’t, my midnight dream;
Beneath what poplar, or what pine
Dost thou thy slumb’ring charms recline,
While whisp’ring breezes panting play,
And waft the sultry heats away?                                     10
O nymph, return to Damon‘s call,
See! floods of tears in torrents fall!
By which in silence are exprest
The struggling sorrows of my breast.
But ah! how vainly do I mourn,                                      15
And wish my absent Fair’s return!
Perhaps a more deserving swain
Detains her on a distant plain.
Charmer! was all the world my own,
I’d change that world for thee alone!                              20
Lord of my heart, thy love my crown,
With pity I’d on kings look down.
O, then return, no longer stay,
But haste, my fair one, haste away.
Here ev’ry bird, on ev’ry tree,                                         25
Fills ev’ry twig with harmony:
The primrose paints the bank around,
And vi’lets strew th’ impurpled ground:
The tow’ring larks, enchanting, sing,
And gayly smiles the glad’ning spring:                          30
While flocks compleat the rural scene,
And frisk, and ramble round the green.
Beneath yon oak’s expanding shade,
A lovely arbour I have made:
The woodbine, jes’mine, vine and rose,                         35
In various twines the parts compose;
And this I did, O fair ! for thee
To taste the noontide air with me.
Return, return ! thy charms disclose,
O, mistress of my soul’s repose.                                    40
No longer let they Damon sigh,
But songs of joy for tears supply.
Didst thou, my dear Amynta, know
The tort’ring griefs I undergoe,
Pity wou’d, sure, thy heart incline,                                 45
By sympathy to throb with mine.
O, may the Gods thy breast inspire
With some such sympathetic fire!
And, may’st thou then thy Damon bless
In one completed happiness!                                        50
Then shall our fates so close be ty’d,
That nothing can our joys divide:
Thy kisses shall my senses charm;
Thy bliss my breast with bliss shall warn:
Nor, shall I grieve thy griefs to share,                           55
O, fairest of ten thousands fair!

NOTES:

Title Damon’s Complaint for Amynta’s absence A possible reference to John Dryden’s poem, “The Tears Of Amynta, For the Death of Damon. A Song” (1684).

2 nymph “A young and beautiful woman” (OED).

17 swain “A man, youth. Also, esp. in pastoral poetry, a country gallant or lover, wooer, sweetheart” (OED).

27 primrose “A well-known plant bearing pale yellowish flowers in early spring” (OED).

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine (February, 1748), p. 87. [Google Books]

Edited by Ben Koh

Anonymous, “Sonnet, on the Inhabitants of London”

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ANONYMOUS

“Sonnet, on the Inhabitants of LONDON”

In London scarce a bird but may be found:
The sun-ey’d eagle borne on lofty wing,
Linnets that adulate the smile of Spring,
And ravens croaking with portentous sound:

Owls wrapt in dulness, crows tow’rd carrion bound,                            5
Parrots whose squalling notes incessant ring,
Swallows that dare to chatter near a King,
And gabbling geese nice students wish were drown’d:

Mud-haunting ducks that dabble in the street,
Fine birds of paradise with little feet,                                                       10
Peacocks that spread a gaudy-painted fan;
Grain-raking poultry, enemies to flow’rs,
The stork imperious that all things devours,
A phoenix there would be an honest man.

NOTES:

 3 Linnets A type of finch known for its pleasant song with quick trills and tweets; adulate “To flatter in an obsequious or sycophantic manner, to fawn on” (OED).

 4 portentous “Ominous, threatening” (OED).

 10 birds of paradise A family of birds found throughout the islands of New Guinea which are recognizable by the males’ highly elaborate plumage.

 13 imperious “Exercising a commanding influence; ruling, sovereign, dominant” (OED).

 14 Phoenix A bird in Greek mythology that was characteristically long lived and went through cycles of death and rebirth from its ashes. Also an early symbol of Christianity.

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine (July, 1777), p. 345.

 Edited by Tyler Greer

Michael Bruce, “Pastoral Song”

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MICHAEL BRUCE

 “Pastoral Song”

To the tune of the Yellow-hair’d Laddie.

 In May, when the gowans appear on the green,
And flow’rs in the field and the forest are seen;
Where lilies bloom’d bonny, and hawthorns unsprung
The yellow-hair’d laddie oft whistled and sung.

II.

But neither the shades, nor the sweets of the flow’rs,                              5
Nor the blackbirds that warbled on blossoming bow’rs,
Could pleasure his eye, or his ear entertain;
For love was his pleasure, and love was his pain.

III.

The shepherd thus sung, while his flocks all around
Drew nearer and nearer, and sigh’d to the sound:                                           10
Around, as in chains, lay the beasts of the wood,
With pity disarmed, and music subdu’d.

IV.

Young Jessy is fair as the spring’s early flower,
And Mary sings sweet as the bird in her bower:
But Peggy is fairer and sweeter than they;                                                        15
With looks like the morning, with smiles like the day.

V.

In the flower of her youth, in the bloom of eighteen,
Of virtue the goddess, of beauty the queen:
One hour in her presence an aera excels
Amid courts, where ambition with misery dwells.                                            20

VI.

Fair to the shepherd the new-springing flow’rs,
When May and when morning lead on the gay hours;
But Peggy is brighter and fairer than they;
She’s fair as the morning, and lovely as May.

VII.

Sweet to the shepherd the wild woodland found,                                   25
When larks sing above him, and lambs bleat around;
But Peggy far sweeter can speak and can sing,
Than the notes of the warblers that welcome spring.

VIII.

When in beauty she moves by the brook of the plain,
You would call her a Venus new sprung from the main:                                30
When she sings, and the woods with their echoes reply,
You would think than an angel was warbling on high.

IX.

Ye Pow’rs that preside over mortal estate!
Whose nod ruleth Nature, whose pleasure is Fate,
O grant me, O grant me the heav’n of her charms!                                         35
May I live in her presence, and die in her arms!

NOTES:

Title Laddie A term of endearment for a young male in the eighteenth century. (OED)

1 gowans A general term for white or yellow flowers (OED).

3 bonny “From a Yorkshire dialect meaning “pretty” (Grose); hawthorn A thorny bush or small tree (OED).

6 warbled To sing softly (OED), bow’rs   Shady place within the trees (OED).

14 bower A young ladies room or cabin (OED).

19 aera Archaic form for “era” (OED).

26 lark General term for a bird (OED); bleat The crying of a lamb or goat (OED).

30 Venus Roman goddess of love and beauty (OED).

Source: Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1770), pp. 14-17. [Google Books]

 Edited by Christopher Lara

Richard Cumberland, “Envy”

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[RICHARD] CUMBERLAND

“Envy”

Oh! never let me see that shape again!
Exile me rather to some savage den,
Far from the social haunts of men!
Horrible phantom! pale it was as death,
Consumption fed upon its meagre cheek,                           5
And ever as the fiend essay’d to speak,
Dreadfully steam’d its pestilential breath!
Fang’d like the wolf it was, and all agaunt,
And still it prowl’d around us and around,
Rolling its squinting eyes askaunt,                                                10
Wherever human happiness was found.

Furious thereat, the self-tormenting sprite
Drew forth an asp, and (terrible to sight)
To its left pap th’ envenom’d reptile prest,
Which gnaw’d and worm’d into its tortur’d breast.                     15
The desperate suicide, with pain,
Writh’d to and fro, and yell’d amain;
And then, with hollow dying cadence, cries—
“It is not of this asp that ENVY dies;
‘Tis not this reptile’s tooth that gives the smart;                           20
‘Tis others’ happiness that gnaws my heart.”

NOTES:

 6 essay’d Tried.

7 pestilential “Carrying pestilence or epidemic disease, esp. bubonic plague” (OED).

10 askaunt “With suspicion or mistrust” (OED).

12 sprite Spirit.

13 asp “A small, venomous, hooded serpent, found in Egypt and Lybia” (OED).

14 pap Breast (OED).

17 amain “With full force” (OED).

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine (August, 1791), p. 759.

Edited by Louise Noble

“Posthumus,” “The Partridges: an elegy”

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“Posthumus”

 “The Partridges: an elegy. Written on the 31st of August, 1788”

 Ill-Fated birds, for whom I raise the strain,
To tell my lively sorrow for your fates;
Ye little know, ere morn shall gild the plain,
What drear destruction all your race awaits.

While innocently basking in the ray,                                                          5
That throws the lengthen’d shadows o’er the lawn,
Unconscious you behold the parting day,
Nor feel a fear to meet the morrow’s dawn.

Could man like you thus wait the ills of life,
Nor e’er anticipate misfortune’s blow,                                              10
He’d shun a complicated load of strife,
Greater than real evils can bestow.

Ev’n now the sportsman, anxious for his fame,
Prepares the tube so fatal to your race;
He pants already for the glorious game,                                                  15
And checks the lingering hours’ tardy pace.

Raptur’d he’ll hie him, at the dawn of day,
With treacherous caution tread your haunts around,
Exulting rout his poor defenceless prey,
Then bring the fluttering victims to the ground.                             20

Yes! while he gives the meditated blow,
And sees around the struggling covey bleed,
His iron heart a barbarous joy shall know,
And plume itself upon the bloody deed.

For shame! Can men who boast a polish’d mind,                                  25
And feelings too, these savage pastimes court?
In such inhuman acts a pleasure find,
And call the cruel desolation—sport?

Thousands that graze the fields must daily bleed,
Necessity compels—for man they die                                             30
But no excuse necessity can plead,
To kill those harmless tenants of the sky.

By heaven privileg’d they build the nest,
They take the common bounty nature yields,
No property with vicious force molest,                                                   35
But pick the refuse of the open fields.

Then why, if God this privilege has given,
Should we pervert great nature’s bounteous plan?
For happiness is sure the end of heaven,
As well to bird and insect as to man.                                               40

Like us they move within their narrow sphere,
Each various passion of the mind confess;
And joy and sorrow, love and hope and fear,
Alternate pain them, and alternate bless.

Yes! they can pine in grief—with rapture glow                                       45
Their little hearts, to every feeling true:
Like us conceive affection, and the blow
That kills the offspring, wounds the mother too.

Then bid your breasts for nobler pastimes burn!
Let not such cruelty your actions stain!                                           50
Humanity should teach mankind to spurn
The pleasures purchas’d by another’s pain.

 NOTES:

 Author   “POSTHUMUS” appears at the conclusion of the poem followed by “Canterbury.” “POSTHUMUS” is most likely the author’s pseudonym, while “Canterbury” is most likely where the author had lived.

 1   raise the strain Here the phrase means something like “write this poem.” Possibly also an allusion to the hymn “Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain” by St. John Damascus.

 17 hie “To cause to hasten; to hasten, urge on, bring quickly” (OED).

 19 rout “Of a person: to cry out; to roar, bellow, to shout” (OED).

22 covey “A brood or hatch of partridges; a family of partridges keeping together during the first season” (OED).

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 63 (February 1788), p. 824.

 Edited by Amanda Boyer

Anonymous, “Verses, Written by a Young Lady, On the Death of her Father.

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ANONYMOUS

“Verses, Written by a Young Lady, On the Death of her Father”

 How short a span of miserable life!
And short the blessings that on earth we know!
Forc’d from a tender and a loving wife,
A husband, and a father’s lost below.

No more with happiness I view the morn,                                             5
No more with joy I tread the well-known walk;
Each place to me is dreary and forlorn,
But think in every thing I hear him talk.

When on each plant I turn my wandering eye,
And on each flower I think I see his shade,                                    10
I often stop, and think my father by;
But he is gone, and left this vain parade.

Of life, that transitory, fleeting thing,
To happier realms of everlasting joy:
He’s couch’d beneath th’ Almighty’s heavenly wing,                            15
And bless’d with happiness nothing can destroy.

NOTES:

 7 forlorn “Pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely” (OED).

13 transitory “Not permanent” (OED).

15 Almighty God, the Creator.

12 Printer’s error, period added to this line.

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 59 (Supplement, 1789), p. 1206.

Edited by Sierra Bagstad

“T.E.,” “To one quoting the common saying Words are but Wind”

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“T.E.”

 “To one quoting the common saying Words are but Wind”

 Words are but wind, you say; but don’t you know,
Wind tears up trees, and houses down doth blow?
Of all the elements, which can you find,
That brings to man such mischief as the wind?
The strongest ships, by the wind’s fury tost,                                       5
Are dash’d to pieces, or else sunk and lost.
Winds force the swelling waves beyond ye strand,
And make the boiling sea o’er-flow the land.
Winds kindle fires, and drive the raging flame
Beyond the pow’r of engines to reclaim.                                             10
Winds whirl the clouds, and cause the earth to quake,
Make mountains walk, trees their old soil forsake.
All other elements may bounded be;
But who can bound ye wind, which none can see?
Fire may be quench’d by water; water may                                         15
By dams of earth be forc’d its course to stay.
Earth may, by art, be rais’d, by art deprest,
As seems to the projecting owner best.
But wind, unruly wind, can by no force,
Can by no art be hindered in its course.                                              20
Oppose firm works, too strong for it to pierce,
‘Twill mount the higher, and become more fierce.
For human power can nothing raise so high,
O’er which the nimble wind can’t soar and fly.
By swelling winds, in her deep caverns pent,                                      25
Our common mother’s breast is rudely rent.
Wind in her stomach makes her open her jaw,
And suck down cities to her spacious maw.
Wind in our bowels makes our vitals crack,
And far exceeds the torture of the rack.                                              30
Air is the region too, where the learn’d say,
Satan has greatest pow’r his pranks to play.
Say then no more, Words are but wind, or air,
Except thou would’st ye two worst things compare:
For there’s a strain of sharp corroding words,                                   35
Wounds deeper, and hurts more than keenest swords.

NOTES:

Title: Words are but Wind A common, archaic saying in England. The earliest citing of the phrase is from Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors (wr. ca. 1594; pub. 1623). The saying also shows up in Jonathan Swift’s satirical work A Tale of a Tub (1704).

5 tost Tossed.

16 deprest Depressed.

36 keenest “Sharp” (OED).

Source: The Gentlemen’s Magazine, vol. 7 (March 1737), p. 181.

Edited by Samantha Rosales

Anonymous, “Thoughts on Life”

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ANONYMOUS

“THOUGHTS on LIFE”

 LIFE! thou dead, deceitful guest!
Precious trifle! ferious jest!
Drawn by thee, we roam below,
Pilgrims, thro’ a vale of woe:
Toiling or by land or seas,                                         5
Strangers to the balm of ease!
Slaves to pleasure, tumult, gain,
O thou bitter–sweet to man!
In thy train, thy belt of friends,
Hope, fallacious fair! attends;                                  10
Hope, a thin, a shad’wy elf!
Hope, true image of thyself;
When against thy pow’r we rise,
Rous’d to rage, to mutinies!
When we aim the fatal stroke,                                 15
Ready to throw off thy yoke;
She the lifted hand arrests,
Fills with food of courts our breasts;
Anew we own our former lord,
To thee, and to ourselves, restor’d.                         20

 NOTES:

2 ferious Variant of “furious.”

7 tumult “Commotion of a multitude, usually with confused speech or uproar; public disturbance; disorderly or riotous proceeding” (OED).

10 fallacious “Deceptive, misleading” (OED).

11 Shad’wy elf A “wandering spirit; a devil” (Johnson).

16 yoke “A bond; a mark of servitude; slavery” (Johnson).

 Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine, (December 1744), p. 671.

Edited by Henry Bettencourt

Anonymous, “Ode on the month of May, after the manner of Hagedorn”

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ANONYMOUS

“ODE on the month of MAY, after the manner of HAGEDORN, Book III. p. 146”

“Der nachtigall reitzende lieder”

 THY notes, sweet bird, resounding thro’ the grove,
Proclaim the joyful hours of spring and love.
The lark ascending hails the new-born day,
The feather’d choir now join in vocal lay,
To celebrate great Nature’s holiday;                                                                         5
The swan majestic, with her downy throng,
Now seek the clear translucent wave that flows the woods among.

In pleasant green the earth, with flowers attri’d
Calls forth the nymphs and swains by love inspir’d;
To share the pleasures bounteous Nature yields,                                                  10
The merry sparrow ranges thro’ the fields;
In gentle strains the soft lamenting dove
Bemoans the absence of his wedded love.
From forth his orient bed, in splendour bright,
The God of Day pursues the shades of night;                                                         15
Driving far off each noxious influence:
Prolific beam! thy genial powers dispense,
That every flower, enliven’d by thy ray,
May spread their glories to the face of day.

Mild Zephyr, long estrang’d from Flora’s bed,                                                         20
Impatient seeks the variegated maid,
And wooes her mid enamell’d shades and bowers,
Fost’ring their offspring bright of new-born flowers;
Their odours shed a grateful scent around,
Nor e’er did jealousy their loves confound.                                                             25

Winter’s cold haggard form now disappears,
In foliage green each tree new livery wears,
And every flower awaken’d rears its head;
The gaudy may-bush, flutt’ring in the shade,
Boasts that this month for her alone was made.                                                   30
From rocks stupendous living water flow,
Refreshing thirsty glades, and fields, and woods below.
To thee, fair month, I consecrate the verse,
Pleas’d while thy bounteous gift I thus rehearse;
And ye, thrice happy swains, who now enjoy                                                         35
These temperate blessings with no mix’d alloy,
In you the simple and serene we own,
And learn to fly the vices of the Town!

NOTES:

 Title The subtitle alludes to Friedrich Von Hagedorn (1708-1754), a famous German poet. This poem is modeled after his poem titled “Der Mai” found in the book Oden und Lieder, 3 vol. (1742–52; “Odes and Songs”). This poem begins with the line “Der nachtigall reitzende lieder” which translates as “the nightingale singing softly” (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

5 Nature’s holiday Springtime.

15 God of Day The sun.

9 Nymphs “Any of a class of semi-divine spirits, imagined as taking the form of a maiden inhabiting the sea, rivers, mountains, woods, trees, etc., and often portrayed in poetry as attendants on a particular god” (OED).

20 Zephyr, long estrang’d from Flora’s bed Zephyr is a Greek god of the west wind who is married to Flora. She is a nymph to spring time and flowers. He is the messenger of spring.

29 may-bush “The hawthorn tree, Crataegus monogyna; a branch of this. Also: a construction of hawthorn branches” (OED).

33 consecrate “Dedicated to a sacred purpose; made sacred; hallowed, sanctified” (OED).

36 alloy  “To qualify or diminish (a pleasure, feeling, etc.) by the admixture of something unpleasant; to contaminate or adulterate” (OED).

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine (May, 1786), p. 428.

 Edited by Lauren Page

[Catherine Jemmat], “The Rural Lass”

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[CATHERINE JEMMAT]

“The Rural Lass”

My father and mother, (what ails ‘em?)
Pretend I’m too young to be wed;
They expect, but in troth I shall fail ‘em,
That I finish my chairs and my bed.

Provided our minds are but cheery,                                        5
Wooden chairs wonnot argue a glove,
Any bed will hold me and my deary,
The main chance in wedlock is love.

My father, when ask’d if he’d lend us
An horse to the parson to ride;                                       10
In a wheel-barrow offer’d to send us,
And John for the footman beside.

Wou’d we never had ask’d him; for, whip it!
To the church tho’ two miles and a half,
Twice as far ‘twere a pleasure to trip it;                                 15
But then how the people would laugh!

The neighbours are nettl’d most sadly,
‘Was e’er such a forward bold thing?
‘Sure girl never acted so madly!’
Thro’ the parish these backbitings ring.                          20

Yet I will be marry’d to-morrow,
And charming young Harry’s the man;
My brother’s blind nag we can borrow,
And he may prevent us that can.

Not waiting for parents’ consenting,                                      25
My brother took Nell of the green;
Yet both far enough from repenting,
Now live like a king and a queen.

Pray when will your gay things of London
Produce such a strapper as Nell’s?                                   30
There wives by their husbands are undone,
As Saturday’s news-paper tells.

Poll Barnley said, over and over,
I soon shou’d be left in the lurch;
For Harry, she knew, was a rover,                                           35
And never wou’d venture to church.

And I know the sorrows that wound her,
He courted her once, he confest;
With another too great, when he found her,
He bid her take him she lik’d best.                                 40

But all that are like her, or wou’d be,
May learn from my Harry and me,
If maids wou’d be maids while they shou’d be,
How faithful their sweet-hearts wou’d be.

My mother says, clothing and feeding                                   45
Will soon make me sick of a brat:
But, tho’ I prove sick in my breeding,
I care not a farthing for that.

For if I’m not hugely mistaken,
We can live by the sweat of our brow;                            50
Stick a hog once a year, for fat bacon,
And all the year round keep a cow.

I value no dainties a button,
Course food with our stomachs allay;
If we cannot get veal, beef, and mutton,                                  55
A chine and a pudding we may.

A fig for your richest brocading;
In lindsey there’s nothing that’s base;
Your finery soon sets a fading,
My dowlass will last beyond lace.                                    60

I envy not wealth to the miser,
Nor wou’d I be plagu’d with his store:
To eat all and wear all is wiser;
Enough must be better than more.

So nothing shall tempt me from Harry,                                 65
His heart is as true as the sun:
Eve with Adam was order’d to marry;
This world it should end as begun.

NOTES:

12 John A literary name for a common or working-class man (OED).

17 nettl’d “Teased, provoked, out of temper” (Grose).

20 backbitings “Slanderous or malicious talk about someone not present” (Grose).

22 Harry May refer to a country man, a common name for “a waggoner” (Grose).

23 nag A horse, usually one that is old or sickly (Grose).

26 Nell Usually a name for a prostitute (OED); of the green A euphemism for sex before marriage (Grose).

35 rover “A flirtatious, promiscuous, or unfaithful man; an inconstant lover” (OED).

48 farthing “A former monetary unit and coin of the UK, withdrawn in 1961, equal to a quarter of an old penny” (OED).

53 dainties “Something good to eat, a delicacy” (OED); button “used in reference to something of little worth” (OED).

56 chine “The backbone of an animal as it appears in a joint of meat” (OED).

58 lindsey Alternate spelling of linsey, “a strong, coarse fabric made with cotton or linen, probably originally made in Lindsey, a town in Suffolk” (OED).

60 dowlass A type of coarse linen (OED).

67 Eve with Adam Refers to the biblical creation story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine (November 1750), p. 517.

Edited by Nicole Walker