Tag Archives: occasional poem

Phillis Wheatley, “On Recollection”

 PHILLIS WHEATLEY

“On Recollection”

 

MNEME begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine,
Your vent’rous Afric in her great design.
Mneme, immortal pow’r, I trace thy spring:
Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing:
The acts of long departed years, by thee                                    5
Recover’d, in due order rang’d we see:
Thy pow’r the long-forgotten calls from night,
That sweetly plays before the fancy’s sight.

Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours
The ample treasure of her secret stores;                                    10
Swift from above she wings her silent flight
Through Phoebe’s realms, fair regent of the night;
And, in her pomp of images display’d,
To the high-raptur’d poet gives her aid,
Through the unbounded regions of the mind,                           15
Diffusing light celestial and refin’d.
The heav’nly phantom paints the actions done
By ev’ry tribe beneath the rolling sun.

Mneme, enthron’d within the human breast,
Has vice condemn’d, and ev’ry virtue blest.                                 20
How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear?
Sweeter than music to the ravish’d ear,
Sweeter than Maro’s entertaining strains
Resounding through his groves, and hills, and plains.
But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,                                       25
Who scorn her warnings, and despise her grace?
By her unveil’d each horrid crime appears,
Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
Days, years, misspent, O what a hell of woe!
Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.                      30

Now eighteen years their destin’d course have run,
In fast succession round the central sun.
How did the follies of that period pass
Unnotic’d, but behold them writ in brass!
In Recollection see them fresh return,                                           35
And sure ‘tis mine to be asham’d, and mourn.

O Virtue, smiling in immortal green,
Do thou exert thy pow’r, and change the scene;
Be thine employ to guide my future days,
And mine to pay the tribute of my praise.                                    40

Of Recollection such the pow’r enthron’d
In ev’ry breast, and thus her pow’r is own’d.
The wretch, who dar’d the vengeance of the skies,
At last awakes in horror and surprize,
By her alarm’d, he sees impending fate,                                        45
He howls in anguish, and repents too late.
But O! what peace, what joys are hers t’ impart
To ev’ry holy, ev’ry upright heart!
Thrice blest the man, who, in her sacred shrine,
Feels himself shelter’d from the wrath of divine!                         50

NOTES:

1 Mneme The muse of memory; sacred nine The nine muses of Greek mythology.

8 fancy Poetic imagination.

12 Phoebe In Greek mythology, “she was identified with the moon” (Britannica).

21 plaudit “An expression of praise or approval” (OED).

23 Maro Publius Vergilius Maro, or Virgil (70 BCE-19 BCE), “Roman poet best known for his national epic, The Aenied” (Britannica).

28 wormwood “An emblem or type of what is bitter and grievous to the soul” (OED).

SOURCE:  Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, 1773), pp. 62-64.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/GLC06154.pdf

Edited by Markesha Grant

Mary Barber, “Written for my Son, and spoken by him in School, upon his Master’s first bringing in a Rod”

MARY BARBER

“Written for my Son, and spoken by him in School, upon his Master’s first bringing in a Rod”

Our Master, in a fatal Hour,
Brought in this Rod, to shew his Pow’r.
O dreadful Birch! O baleful Tree!
Thou Instrument of Tyranny!
Thou deadly Damp to youthful Joys!                                   5
The Sight of thee our Peace destroys.
Not DAMOCLES, with greater Dread,
Beheld the Weapon o’er his Head.

That Sage was surely more discerning,
Who taught to play us into Learning,                                  10
By ‘graving Letters on the Dice:
May Heav’n reward the kind Device,
And crown him with immortal Fame,
Who taught at once to read and game!

Take my Advice; pursue that Rule;                                15
You’ll make a Fortune by your School.
You’ll soon have all the elder Brothers,
And be the Darling of their Mothers.

O May I live to hail the Day,
When Boys shall go to School to play!                                   20
To Grammar Rules we’ll bid Defiance;
For Play will then become a Science.

NOTES:

3 Birch “A bunch of birch-twigs bound together to form an instrument for the flagellation of school-boys and of juvenile offenders; a birch-rod” (OED).

7 DAMOCLES (fl. 4th Century BCE), courtier of Dionysious I of Syracuse (c. 430 BC-337 BC).  “Damocles, a flatterer, having extolled the happiness of Dionysius tyrant of Syracuse, was placed by him at a banquet with a sword suspended over his head by a hair, to impress upon him the perilous nature of that happiness.  Used by simile of an imminent danger, which may at any moment descend upon one” (OED).

9 Sage “See Locke upon education” [Author’s Note].  An allusion to John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education(1693), a popular treatise on the education of gentlemen in that period.

11 ‘graving Letters on the Dice A playful approach to education using dice with letters on each side.

15 pursue that Rule “Bowing to his Master” [Author’s Note].

SOURCE: Poems Upon Several Occasions (London, 1735), pp. 36-37.  [Google Books]

Edited by Ty Garvin

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Farewell to Bath”

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 

 “Farewell to Bath” 

 

To all you ladies now at Bath,
And eke, ye beaus, to you,
With aching heart, and watry eyes,
I bid my last adieu.

Farewell, ye nymphs, who waters sip                                5
Hot reeking from the pumps,
While music lends her friendly aid,
To cheer you from the dumps.

Farewell ye wits who prating stand,
And criticise the fair;                                                     10
Yourselves the joke of men of sense,
Who hate a coxcomb’s air.

Farewell to Deard’s, and all her toys,
Which glitter in her shop,
Deluding traps to girls and boys,                                         15
The warehouse of the fop.

Lindsay’s and Hayes’s both farewell,
Where in the spacious hall;
With bounding steps, and sprightly air,
I’ve led up many a ball.                                                  20

Where Somerville of courteous mien,
Was partner in the dance,
With swimming Haws, and Brownlow blithe,
And Britton pink of France.

Poor Nash, farewell! may fortune smile,                               25
Thy drooping soul revive,
My heart is full, I can no more—
John, bid the Coachman drive.

NOTES:

Author First attributed to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in The Poetical Works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, published in 1768.  It was subsequently included in a miscellany, Water Poetry:  A Collection of Verses Written at Several Public Places (London, 1771) also under Montagu’s name.  Recent scholarship has challenged this attribution.  See Robert Halsband and Isobel Grundy, eds., Lady Mary Wortley Montagu:  Essays and Poems and Simplicity, a Comedy (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 173.

Title The poem first appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine in July, 1731, as “Lady M. M—‘s Farewel [sic] to Bath.”  Halsband and Grundy note that “Lady Mary’s name was extremely unlikely to be formulated this way” and “the designation fits at least two other ladies” at that time (p. 173).

2 eke “Also, too, moreover” (OED); beaus Attendant or suitor of a lady (OED).

3 watry Archaic spelling of “watery.”

6 pumps Refers to the Pump Rooms that were built adjacent to the communal Roman Baths. They initially operated as changing areas for those going swimming; however, due to how dirty the bathing water became, drinking the water directly from the pumps became the preferred and more accessible way of taking the water. Thus, they became centers of social activity at Bath (“History: The Bath Assembly,” The Bath Magazine [August, 2021]).

9 prating “To talk or chatter; to speak foolishly, boastfully, or to great length, especially to little purpose” (OED).

12 coxcomb “A vain conceited, or pretentious man; a man of ostentatiously affected mannerisms or appearance” (OED).

13 Deard’s Mrs. Deard was an eminent toy shop owner in Bath (Trevor Fawcett, Eighteenth-Century Shops and the Luxury Trade, p. 67)

16 fop See “coxcomb” above.

17 Lindsey’s and Hayes’s Popular assembly rooms in Bath; Lindsey’s was built by John Wood the Elder in 1730 (“History: The Bath Assembly,” The Bath Magazine [August, 2021]).

21 Somerville Possibly a reference to William Somerville (1675-1742) British writer and, later in life, lawyer and country gentleman (Britannica); mien “Air, look, manner” (Johnson).

23 swimming “(Of dancing) to glide along with a smooth or dizzy motion (Johnson); Haws Probably Lady Frances Vane (née Hawes) (1715-1788), who was unmarried in 1731; Brownlow Possibly Eleanor Brownlow, later Viscountess Tyrconnel (1691-1730), who had been in Bath in the early months of 1730 recovering from an illness, but died later that year in September (see Stanley V. Makower, Richard Savage, A Mystery in Biogaphy, p. 193); blithe “Joyous, gladsome, cheerful” (OED).

24 Britton pink of France Unable to trace.

25 Nash Richard “Beau” Nash (1674-1762), “celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in eighteenth-century Britain” (National Portrait Gallery); largely credited for boosting the social and tourist landscape of Bath in the early 1700s (“History: The Bath Assembly,” The Bath Magazine [August, 2021]).

SOURCE: Letters of the Right Honourable L–y M–y W—–y M—–u, vol. II (London, 1784), pp. 268-269.  [Google Books]

Edited by Chloe Caneday

Aphra Behn, “On a Juniper-Tree, cut down to make Busks”

APHRA BEHN

“On a Juniper-Tree, cut down to make Busks.”

Whilst happy I Triumphant stood,
The Pride and Glory of the Wood;
My Aromatick Boughs and Fruit,
Did with all other Trees dispute.
Had right by Nature to excel,                                             5
In pleasing both the tast and smell:
But to the touch I must confess,
Bore an Ungrateful Sullenness.
My Wealth, like bashful Virgins, I
Yielded with some Reluctancy;                                           10
For which my vallue should be more,
Not giving easily my store.
My verdant Branches all the year
Did an Eternal Beauty wear;
Did ever young and gay appear.                                         15
Nor needed any tribute pay,
For bounties from the God of Day:
Nor do I hold Supremacy,
(In all the Wood) o’er every Tree.
But even those too of my own Race,                                  20
That grow not in this happy place.
But that in which I glory most,
And do my self with Reason boast,
Beneath my shade the other day,
Young Philocles and Cloris lay,                                               25
Upon my Root she lean’d her head,
And where I grew, he made their Bed:
Whilst I the Canopy more largely spread.
Their trembling Limbs did gently press,
The kind supporting yielding Grass:                                    30
Ne’er half so blest as now, to bear
A Swain so Young, a Nimph so fair:
My Grateful Shade I kindly lent,
And every aiding Bough I bent.
So low, as sometimes had the blisse,                                 35
To rob the Shepherd of a kiss,
Whilst he in Pleasures far above
The Sence of that degree of Love:
Permitted every stealth I made,
Unjealous of his Rival Shade.                                                40
I saw ‘em kindle to desire,
Whilst with soft sighs they blew the fire:
Saw the approaches of their joy,
He growing more fierce, and she less Coy,
Saw how they mingled melting Rays,                                  45
Exchanging Love a thousand ways.
Kind was the force on every side,
Her new desire she could not hide:
Nor wou’d the Shepherd be deny’d.
Impatient he waits no consent                                             50
But what she gave by Languishment,
The blessed Minute he pursu’d;
And now transported in his Arms,
Yeilds to the Conqueror all her Charmes,
His panting Breast, to hers now join’d,                               55
They feast on Raptures unconfin’d;
Vast and Luxuriant, such as prove
The Immortality of Love.
For who but a Divinitie,
Could mingle Souls to that Degree;                                     60
And melt ‘em into Extasie.
Now like the Phenix, both Expire,
While from the Ashes of their fire,
Sprung up a new, and soft desire.
Like Charmers, thrice they did invoke,                                65
The God! and thrice new vigor took.
Nor had the Mysterie ended there,
But Cloris reassum’d her fear,
And chid the Swain, for having prest,
What she alas wou’d not resist:                                            70
Whilst he in whom Loves sacred flame,
Before and after was the same,
Fondly implor’d she wou’d forget
A fault, which he wou’d yet repeat.
From Active Joyes with some they hast,                              75
To a Reflexion on the past;
A thousand times my Covert bless,
That did secure their Happiness:
Their Gratitude to every Tree
They pay, but most to happy me;                                         80
The Shepherdess my Bark carest,
Whilst he my Root, Love’s Pillow, kist;
And did with sighs, their Fate deplore,
Since I must shelter them no more;
And if before my Joyes were such,                                        85
In having heard, and seen too much,
My Grief must be as great and high,
When all abandon’d I shall be,
Doom’d to a silent Destinie.
No more the Charming strife to hear,                                 90
The Shepherds Vows, the Virgins fear:
No more a joyful looker on,
Whilst Loves soft Battel’s lost and won.
With grief I bow’d my murmering Head,
And all my Christal Dew I shed.                                             95
Which did in Cloris Pity move,
(Cloris whose Soul is made of Love;)
She cut me down, and did translate,
My being to a happier state.
No Martyr for Religion di’d                                                      100
With half that Unconsidering Pride;
My top was on that Altar laid,
Where Love his softest Offerings paid:
And was as fragrant Incense burn’d,
My body into Busks was turn’d:                                              105
Where I still guard the Sacred Store,
And of Loves Temple keep the Door.

NOTES:

3 Boughs “An arm or large shoot of a tree, bigger than a branch, yet not always distinguished from it” (Johnson).

6 tast Variant for “taste.”

13 verdant Green.

17 God of Day Helios, Greek god of the sun.

44 Coy Modest.

56 Raptures “Ecstasy; transport; violence of any pleasing passion; enthusiasm; uncommon heat of imagination” (Johnson).

62 Phenix Phoenix. An ancient mythological bird associated with the worship of the sun. “As its end approached, the phoenix fashioned a nest of aromatic boughs and spices, set it on fire, and was consumed in the flames” (Britannica).

105 Busks Popular in women’s fashion as an undergarment during the 16th to early 20th century. “A strip of wood, whalebone, steel, or other rigid material attached vertically to the front section of a corset so as to stiffen and support it. Hence occasionally: the corset itself” (OED).

SOURCE: Poems Upon Several Occasions: with a Voyage to the Island of Love (London, 1684), pp. 19-24. [Google Books]

Edited by Alana Croft

[John Scott], “Verses occasioned by the Description of the Eolian Harp”

[JOHN SCOTT]

“Verses occasioned by the Description of the EOLIAN HARP”

Untaught o’er strings to draw the rosin’d bow,
Or melting strains on the soft flute to blow,
With others long I mourn’d the want of skill,
Resounding roofs with harmony to fill;
Till happy ! now the Eolian lyre is known,                                        5
And all the pow’rs of musick are my own.
Swell all thy notes, delightful harp , O swell!
Inflame thy poet to describe thee well,
When the full chorus rises with the breeze,
Or slowly sinking lessens by degrees,                                              10
To sounds more soft than am’rous gales disclose,
At evening panting on the blushing rose;
More sweet than all the notes that organs breathe,
Or tuneful echoes, when they die, bequeathe.
Oft where some sylvan temple decks the grove,                          15
The slave of easy indolence I rove;
There the wing’d breeze the lifted sash pervades,
Each breath is musick, vocal all the shades;
Charm’d with the soothing sound at ease reclin’d,
To fancy’s pleasing pow’r I yield my mind:                                     20
And now enchanted scenes around me rise,
And some kind Ariel the soft air supplies:
Now lofty Pindus through the shades I view,
Where all the nine their tuneful art persue,
To me the sound the parting gale conveys,                                  25
And all my heart is extasy and praise:
Now to Arcadian plains at once convey’d,
Some shepherd’s pipe delights his fav’rite maid;
Mix’d with the murmurs of a neighb’ring stream,
I hear soft notes that suit an am’rous theme;                              30
Ah! then a victim to the fond deceit,
My heart begins with fierce desires to beat;
To fancy’d sighs I real sighs return,
By turns I languish, and by turns I burn.
Ah Delia haste! and here attentive prove,                                      35
Like me that ‘music is the voice of love,’
So shall I mourn my rustic strains no more,
While pleas’d you listen who could frown before.
Hertfordshire, Nov. 15, 1754.

NOTES:

 Author This poem is signed “R.S”; identified by Emily Lorraine de Montluzin as John Scott of Amwell (1731-1783), a Quaker poet who published a number of poems in the GM between 1753-1758 (“The Poetry of the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731-1800”).

Title EOLIAN HARP “A stringed instrument producing musical sounds on exposure to a current of air” (OED).  Named after Aeolus, the Greek god of wind.  The “description” Scott is responding to appeared in the GM, vol. 24 (February 1754), p. 74.

15 sylvan Of the woods (OED).

23 Pindus Grecian mountain range that includes Mount Parnassus, home of the nine muses.

27 Arcadian Belonging to Arcadia; ideally rural or rustic (OED).

36 ‘music is the voice of love’ Quoted from James Thomson, Spring (1735), line 569.

SOURCE: The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 24 (November, 1754), p. 525. [Internet Archive]

Edited by Neil Donovan

 

Laetitia Pilkington, “Sorrow”

LAETITIA PILKINGTON

“Sorrow”

 

While sunk in deepest solitude and woe,
My streaming eyes with ceaseless sorrow flow,
While anguish wears the sleepless night away,
And fresher grief awaits returning day;
Encompassed round with ruin, want and shame,                               5
Undone in fortune, blasted in my fame;
Lost to the soft endearing ties of life,
And tender names of daughter, mother, wife;
Can no recess from calumny be found?
And yet can fate inflict a deeper wound!                                              10
As one who, in a dreadful tempest toss’d,
If thrown by chance upon some desert coast,
Calmly awhile surveys the fatal shore,
And hopes that fortune can inflict no more;
Till some fell serpent makes the wretch his prey,                               15
Who ‘scap’d in vain the dangers of the sea;
So I who hardly ‘scap’d domestic rage,
Born with eternal sorrows to engage,
Now feel the pois’nous force of sland’rous tongues,
Who daily wound me with envenom’d wrongs.                                   20
Shed then a ray divine, all gracious heav’n,
Pardon the soul that sues to be forgiven,
Though cruel human-kind relentless prove,
And least resemble thee in acts of love;
Though friends who should administer relief,                                     25
Add pain to woe, and misery to grief,
And oft! too oft! with hypocritic air,
Condemn those faults in which they deeply share:
Yet thou who dost our various frailties know,
And see’st each spring from whence our actions flow,                       30
Shalt, while for mercy to thy throne I fly,
Regard the lifted hand and streaming eye.
Thou didst the jarring elements compose,
When this harmonious universe arose;
O speak the tempest of the soul to peace,                                           35
Bid the tumultuous war of passion cease;
Receive me to thy kind paternal care,
And guard me from the horrors of despair.
And since no more I boast a mother’s name,
Nor in my children can a portion claim,                                                40
The helpless babes to thy protection take,
Nor punish for their hapless mother’s sake.
Thus the poor bird, when frighted from her nest,
With agonizing love, and grief distress’d,
Still fondly hovers o’er the much-lov’d place,                                       45
Through strengthless, to protect her tender race;
In piercing notes she movingly complains,
And tells the unattending woods her pains.
And thou, my soul’s once fondest, dearest part,
Who schem’d my ruin with such cruel art,                                            50
From human laws no longer seek to find
A pow’r to loose that knot which God has join’d,
The props of life are rudely pull’d away,
And the frail building falling to decay,
My death shall give thee thy desir’d release,                                        55
And lay me down in everlasting peace.

NOTES:

9 calumny Slander, “a false statement about a person that is made to damage their reputation” (OED).

16 ‘scap’d Escaped.

25-26 friends… add pain to woe, misery to grief The poet Jonathan Swift, once patron and friend to Pilkington, would after her divorce disavow her and call her “’the most profligate whore in either kingdom.” (History Ireland, vol. 17, no. 2, Mar/April 2009).

39-40 And since no more I boast a mother’s name,/Nor in my children can a portion claim Post divorce Pilkington’s husband assumed all their possessions and disallowed her seeing their children. (History Ireland, vol. 17, no. 2, Mar/April 2009).

49 And thou, my soul’s once fondest, dearest part “Mem. My Husband, who was then suing for a divorce” [Author’s Note].

SOURCE: Poems by Eminent Ladies, vol. II (London, 1755), pp. 255-57. [Hathitrust]

Edited by Carina Thanh-Ngoc DeLorenzo

 

 

Mary Masters, “On Beauty”

MARY MASTERS

“On Beauty”

Sure, Beauty is a Light Divine,
That does with awful Lustre shine;
Rises more strong at ev’ry View,
And does the proudest Hearts subdue.
Where is the Man, that durst defy                                            5
The blooming Cheek and dazling Eye;
The lovely Shape, the winning Air,
And graceful Motions of the Fair?
Stoicks themselves could find no Arms
’Gainst Beauty’s bright tremendous Charms:                          10
This CATO by Example prov’d,
A rigid Stoick, yet he lov’d:
And both his am’rous Sons display’d
Their rival Flames for one fair Maid.
Beauty still triumphs o’er the Schools,                                       15
With all their Philosophick Rules;
She breaks their surest best Defence,
Reason, the feeble Guard of Sense.

All feel her Force, her Laws obey,
Compell’d to own her potent Sway.                                             20
But ’tis th’ unblemish’d Form I praise,
Where VIRTUE shines with equal Rays!
For Beauty, stain’d, has lost her Pow’r,
And, VIRTUE gone, she charms no more.

NOTES:

2 Lustre “The quality or condition of shining by reflected light; sheen, refulgence; gloss” (OED).

4 subdue “To bring (an enemy, people, territory, etc.) into subjection by conquest or physical force” (OED).

5 durst Past tense of “dare.”

9 Stoicks “One who practices repression of emotion, indifference to pleasure or pain, and patient endurance” (OED).

11 CATO Cato the Younger (95-46BCE), Roman statesman and famous follower of stoicism.  Cato’s intended first marriage to Aemilia Lepida was possibly motivated by love, though she ended up marrying Scipio, to whom she was previously betrothed (Britannica).

13-14 Masters is using Joseph Addison’s popular play, Cato, a Tragedy (1712) as her source here as Addison exercised “considerable literary license” by creating a plot line in which Cato’s sons, Portius and Marcus, vied for the love of a woman named Lucia.  See Nathan Wolloch, “Cato the Younger in the Enlightenment,” Modern Philology, vol. 106, no. 1 (August 2008), p. 67.

Source: Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1733), pp. 60-61. [Google Books]

Edited by Itzel Rodriguez

“C—-s.” “In Ridicule of the Prevailing Rage for Air Balloons”

“C—-s.” 

“In Ridicule of the Prevailing Rage for Air Balloons”

Men have long built castles in the air: how to reach them
Montgolfier has now first the honour to teach them.

How odd this whim to mount on air-stuft pillions!
‘Twill ruin all our coachmen and postillions,
Who, if men travel in these strange sky-rockets,
Will quickly feel the loss in — empty pockets.
And most of them, I fear, must quite despair,                                            5
Like new philosophers, to live — on air.
The scheme’s not novel, ‘faith, for by the bye
I long have thought our gentry meant to fly,
Tho’ hitherto content, instead of wings,
With four stout horses, and four easy springs;                                         10
But now the case is alter’d, for, depend on’t,
If flying once comes up — there’ll be no end on’t.
Our grandfathers were pleas’d, poor tender souls!
“To waft a sigh from Indus to the Poles;”
Whilst our enlighten’d age a way discovers,                                               15
Instead of sighs to waft — substantial lovers:
Montgolfier’s silk shall Cupid’s wings supply,
And swift as thought convey them thro’ the sky.
Nor will their travels be to earth confin’d,
They’ll quickly leave this tardy globe behind.                                              20
Posting towards Gretna formerly you’ve seen us;
The ton will soon be to elope — to Venus:
Hot-headed rivals now shall steer their cars,
To fight their desperate duels — snug — in Mars,
Whilst gentler daemons, in the rhiming fit,                                                  25
Shall fly to little Mercury for — wit.
“John, fill the large balloon,” my lady cries,
“I want to take an airing — in the skies.”
Nimbly she mounts her light machine, and in it
To Jupiter’s convey’d in half a minute,                                                          30
Views his broad belt, and steals a pattern from it —
Then stops to warm her fingers — at a comet.
The concert of the spheres she next attends,
Hears half an overture — and then descends.
Trade too, as well as love and dissipation,                                          35
Shall profit by this airy navigation:
Herschell may now with telescopes provide us,
Just fresh imported from — his Georgium Sidus.
Smart milleners shall crowd the stage-balloon,
To bring new fashions weekly — from the moon:                                      40
Gardeners in shoals from Battersea will run,
To raise their kindlier hot-beds — in the sun:
And all our city fruitshops in a trice
From Saturn daily be supplied with ice.
Albion once more her drooping head shall rear,                                 45
And roll her thunders through each distant sphere;
Whilst, led by future Rodneys, British tars
Shall pluck bright honor — from the twinkling stars.

NOTES:

Subtitle Montgolfier One of the Montgolfier brothers; Joseph-Michel (1740-1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier(1745-1799) were pioneer developers of the hot-air balloon and they conducted the first untethered flights (Britannica).

1 pillions “A type of saddle” (OED).

2 postillions “A person who rides the (leading) nearside (left-hand side) horse drawing a coach or carriage, especially when one pair only is used and there is no coachmen” (OED).

14 A slight variation of line 58 from Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard.”

21 Gretna Gretna Green, a Scottish town very close to the border with England, and famously the goal for young English couples seeking a quick marriage without their parents’ permission, due to the difference in Scottish marriage laws (Britannica).

22 ton “Fashion; the vogue” (OED).

37 Herschell William Herschel (1738-1822), a German-British astronomer who, in 1781, discovered the planet Uranus (Britannica).

38 Georgium Sidus Latin for “George’s Star,” Herschel’s initial name for planet Uranus, named for then King of England, George III (Britannica).

39 milleners “A person who designs, makes, or sells women’s hats” (OED).

41 shoal “A place where the water is of little depth; a shallow; a sandbank or bar” (OED); Battersea A neighborhood in south London, much of which extends directly along the River Thames.

43 in a trice “Instantly, forthwith; without delay” (OED).

45 Albion “The nation of Britain or England, often with references to past times, or to a romanticized concept of the nation” (OED).

47 Rodneys George Bridges Rodney (1718-1792), a famous British naval officer (Britannica); tars Sailors (OED).

 SOURCE: The Gentleman’s Magazine (May 1784), p. 367. [J. Paul Leonard Library]

 Edited by Gregory McCulloh

Mary Alcock, “Instructions, Supposed to be Written in Paris, for the Mob in England”

MARY ALCOCK

“Instructions, Supposed to be Written in Paris, for the Mob in England”

Of Liberty, Reform, and Rights I sing,
Freedom I mean, without or Church or King;
Freedom to seize and keep whate’er I can,
And boldly claim my right–The Rights of Man:
Such is the blessed liberty in vogue,                                                  5
The envied liberty to be a rogue;
The right to pay no taxes, tithes, or dues;
The liberty to do whate’er I chuse;
The right to take by violence and strife
My neighbour’s goods, and, if I please, his life;                                10
The liberty to raise a mob or riot,
For spoil and plunder ne’er were got by quiet;
The right to level and reform the great;
The liberty to overturn the state;
The right to break through all the nation’s laws,                             15
And boldly dare to take rebellion’s cause:
Let all be equal, every man my brother;
Why one have property, and not another?
Why suffer titles to give awe and fear?
There shall not long remain one British peer;                                  20
Nor shall the criminal appalled stand
Before the mighty judges of the land;
Nor judge, nor jury shall there longer be,
Nor any jail, but every pris’ner free;
All law abolish’d, and with sword in hand                                          25
We’ll seize the property of all the land,
Then hail to Liberty, Reform, and Riot!
Adieu Contentment, Safety, Peace, and Quiet!

NOTES:

1 Liberty Article 4 of “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” defined “liberté” as “being able to do anything that does not harm others;” Reform “The action or process of making changes in an institution, organization, or aspect of social or political life, so as to remove errors, abuses, or other hindrances to proper performance” (OED).

4 Rights of Man The guiding document of the French Revolution was “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” (1789).  Alcock may also be thinking of Thomas Paine’s two-part book, The Rights of Man (1791/2), written in support of the French Revolution.

5  vogue “Popularity; general acceptance or currency” (OED).

6  rogue “A dishonest, unprincipled person” (OED).

7  tithes “A tenth of annual produce or earnings, taken as a tax (originally in kind) for the support of the church and clergy;…now chiefly historical” (OED).

12 plunder “The action of plundering or taking something as spoil in time of war or civil disorder” (OED).

17 equal Article 6 of “The Declaration” stipulated that “all citizens were equal before the law and were to have the right to participate in legislation directly or indirectly” (Britannica).

20 peer “A member of a rank of hereditary nobility in Britain” (OED).

SOURCE:  Poems, & c. &c. By the Late Mrs. Mary Alcock (London, 1799), pp. 48-49. [Google Books]

Edited by Nadine French

Anna Seward, “Invocation of the Comic Muse”

ANNA SEWARD

“Invocation of the Comic Muse”

Prize Poem at Bath-Easton

 

On this mirth-devoted day,
From these festal bowers away,
In your sable vestments flee,
Train of sad MELPOMENE!
Ye, who midnight horrors dart                                                   5
Through the palpitating heart;
Fear, that flies its shadowy cause,
With hurried step and startled pause;
Straw-crown’d Phrenzy’s glaring gaze,
Chaunting shrill her changing lays:                                             10
Nor let dim-ey’d Grief appear,
Weaving mournful garlands here,
Cypress-buds, and fading flowers,
Wet with cold November’s showers;
Nor with the damp, wan brow, and streaming wound,                   15
Let stern, self-pierc’d Despair her hollow groans resound.

THALIA come, fantastic Fair,
Enthron’d in pantomimic car!
Thine open brow with roses bind,
By morning’s lucid rays entwin’d;                                                 20
Thine azure vest flow lightly down,
And vivid glow thy rainbow zone!
Haste thee, Nymph, with sunny hair,
With varied voice, and jocund air,
Adorn’d with all the laughing grace,                                             25
That decks the sweet bewitching face
Of her, who o’er the knee of snow
Archly snaps young Cupid’s bow;
For O! in that more beauteous maid
Than Grecian pencil e’er display’d,                                              30
Bright from ANGELICA’s unrival’d hand,
Goddess, thy portrait glows, and charms the gazing Land.

Nor let this Delphic Vase alone
Thy all-enlivening influence own;
Exert then still thy magic power                                                     35
To whiten every passing hour
For him, whose taste decided shines
In the fair Priestess of these shrines;
For her, who guides the devious feet
Of Genius to this fair retreat,                                                          40
Her verdant prize extending there; —
Ah still for them, the generous Pair,
Collect thou each idea bright
From Fancy’s shrine of missive light;
From Health, from Love, from Virtue’s ray,                                    45
To gild through life their varied day,
Illume the night, and bless the rising morn,
And with the beams of bliss the golden sun adorn.

NOTES:

Title Comic Muse Thalia, the muse of comedy.

Subtitle Prize Poem at Bath-Easton Seward wrote and performed this poem in 1778, her first  submission to one of Lady Anna Miller’s fortnightly poetry contests associated with her literary salon at Batheaston, a village just northeast of Bath (Claudia T. Kairoff, Anna Seward and the End of the Eighteenth Century, pp. 32-41).

1 mirth-devoted Joyful, happy (OED).

2 bowers “A vague poetic word for an idealized abode” (OED).

3 sable vestments Black clothing (OED).

4 MELPOMENE “One of the nine Muses, patron of tragedy and lyre playing” (Britannica).

9 Phrenzy An archaic spelling of “frenzy,” meaning “agitation or disorder of the mind likened to madness” (OED).

10 lays Poetry, verses.

18 car “A chariot, esp. of war, triumph, splendour, or pageantry” (OED).

24 jocund “Mirthful, merry…light-hearted” (OED).

31-32 ANGELICA “Alluding to a celebrated picture of Mrs. Kauffman’s, THE NYMPHS DISARMING CUPID” [Author’s note].  Angelica Kauffman (1741-1802) was a Swiss painter who live and worked in England from 1766-1781.  She was a founding member of the Royal Academy, and was well-known for her paintings of mythological subjects (Britannica).

33 Delphic Vase A reference to the ancient urn that the Millers brought back from Italy in 1772; contestants for the salon’s poetry prize would submit their poems by rolling them up and placing them in the urn (Kairoff, p. 35).

37 him Sir John Miller, Lady Anna Miller’s husband.

38 the fair Priestess of these shrines That is, Lady Anna Miller.

40 Genius Specifically, poetic genius in the context of the poetry competition.

44 Fancy Poetic imagination.

SOURCE: The Poetical Works of Anna Seward With Extracts from Her Literary Correspondence, Volume 2, ed. Walter Scott (Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne and Company, 1810), pp. 22-24. [Google Books]

Edited by Hannah Mayer