Anna Seward

“ SONNET LVIII. Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
The Parian Statue, bending o'er the Urn,
The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
It pays Affection's debt, is due concern
To the FOR EVER ABSENT, tho' it mourn
Fashion's allotted time. If Time consumes,
While Life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
Memory shou'd hourly feed;—if, thro' each day,
She with whate'er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish'd Frame,
O! ”

“ SONNET III. WRITTEN AT BUXTON IN A RAINY SEASON.
From these wild heights, where oft the mists descend
In rains, that shroud the sun, and chill the gale,
Each transient, gleaming interval we hail,
And rove the naked vallies, and extend
Our gaze around, where yon vast mountains blend
With billowy clouds, that o'er their summits sail;
Pondering, how little Nature's charms befriend
The barren scene, monotonous, and pale.
Yet solemn when the darkening shadows fleet
Successive o'er the wide and silent hills,
Gilded by watry sun-beams, then we meet
Peculiar pomp of vision. ”

“ Guiding the ductile course of murmuring rills;
Or mark the curtains of the sacred grove
Sink in the vales, or sweep along the hills.
[6] Ah Friend! if round my cell such graces shine,
The Palace of Tiburnian Shades is thine;
She every feature of the Scene commands,
And Empress of its varied beauty stands.
Tho' frequent mists the young Favonius shroud,
Bending his flagging wing with heavy rains,
Yet oft he chases every showery cloud,
Winnowing, with pinion light, th' aerial plains;
Ah! thus from thee let each dark vapor roll,
That rash Ambition gathers on the soul ”

“ Autumn resembling faded age in Man;
Night, with its silence, and its darkness drear,
Emblem of Winter's frore and gloomy reign,
When torpid lie the vegetative Powers;
Winter, so shrunk, so cold, reminds us plain
Of the mute Grave, that o'er the dim Corse lours;
There shall the Weary rest, nor ought remain
To the pale Slumberer of Life's checker'd hours.
[Pg 27]
SONNET XXV. [1] PETRARCH to VAUCLUSE.
Fortunate Vale! exulting Hill! dear Plain!
Where morn, and eve, my soul's fair Idol stray'd,
While all your winds, that murmur'd thro' the glade,
Stole her sweet breath ”

“ TO SALLUST. BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE SECOND.
Dark in the Miser's chest, in hoarded heaps,
Can Gold, my Sallust, one true joy bestow,
Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps,
Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow?
Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought,
Rises, with such resistless influence fraught
As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold,
Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear than Gold.
[Pg 126]
Rome, of this power aware, thy honor'd name
O Proculeius! ”

“ The Heart estranged no anguish can regain.
July 1773.
[Pg 15]
SONNET XIII. Thou child of Night, and Silence, balmy Sleep,
Shed thy soft poppies on my aching brow!
And charm to rest the thoughts of whence, or how
Vanish'd that priz'd Affection, wont to keep
Each grief of mine from rankling into woe.
Then stern Misfortune from her bended bow
Loos'd the dire strings;—and Care, and anxious Dread
From my cheer'd heart, on sullen pinion, fled.
But now, the spell dissolv'd, th' Enchantress gone,
Ceaseless those cruel Fiends infest my day,
And sunny hours but light them to their prey. ”

“ Was honor'd Gray's departed form resign'd;
No tears dissolve the cold Lethean chains,
That, far from busy Life, the mortal semblance bind.
Then, for the bright creations of the brain,
O! do not thou from health's gay leisure turn,
Lest we, like tuneful Mason, sigh in vain,
And grasp a timeless, tho' a laurel'd Urn!
1: Aglaia, the eldest of the Graces.
TO LIGURIA. BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE TENTH.
O thou! exulting in the charms,
Nature, with lavish bounty, showers,
When youth no more thy spirit warms,
And stealing age thy pride alarms,
For fleeting graces, and for waning powers ”

“ TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BLANDUSIA. BOOK THE THIRD, ODE THE THIRTEENTH.
Nymph of the stream, whose source perpetual pours
The living waters thro' the sparkling sand,
Cups of bright wine, enwreath'd with summer flowers,
For rich libation, round thy brink shall stand,
When on the morrow, at thy Bard's decree,
A young and spotless Kid is sacrificed to thee.
He, while his brows the primal antlers swell,
Conscious of strength, and gay of heart prepares
To meet the female, and the foe repel.—
In vain he wishes, and in vain he dares! ”

“ One of these Critics alledges, as the reason why this Lady could not be the destined Bride of Mæcenas, that it would have been as indiscreet in him to have admitted Horace to be a witness of his passion for Licinia-Terentia, as it would have been impertinent in the Poet, to have invaded the privacies of his Patron. It is not necessary, from this Ode, to conclude that Horace had witnessed the tender scene he describes. He might, without any hazard of imputed impertinence, venture to paint, from his imagination, the innocently playful endearments of betrothed Lovers. ”

“ The trust, whether partial or not, that it was in my power so to paraphrase the Odes of Horace, prompted the late Mr. Grove of Lichfield, and the late Mr. Dewes of Wellsburn in Warwickshire, to request that I would undertake the task respecting those whose subjects best pleased me. Not acquainted with each other, the coincidence of their opinion and request was flattering. They were extensively known to be Gentlemen of distinguished virtues, much classic erudition, and poetic taste;
“Blest with each talent, and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live at ease.” ”

“ The plenteous tribute of the Libyan Plains;
Or he, who watches still a rural charge,
O'er his own fields directs the plough,
Sees his own fruitage load the bough;
These would'st thou tempt to brave the faithless main,
And tempt with regal wealth, thy effort should be vain.
I. The stormy South howls thro' the sullen cloud,
Contending billows roar aloud!
The Merchant sees the gathering danger rise,
And sends a thousand yearning sighs
To his dear shelter'd home.—
Its shades receive him;—but the tides
Grow smooth;—the wild winds cease to roam ”

“ People of sense do not, even in their gayest conversation, start from their subject to another of total inconnexion. When the latent meaning in the concluding verses is perspicuously paraphrased, it accounts for the Poet's preference at that period, of trifling to literary subjects. These slight, and often obscure allusions, closely, and what is called faithfully translated, give a wild and unmeaning air to the Odes of Horace, which destroys their interest with the unlearned admirers of Poetry. ”

“ It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky
Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly;
[Pg 138] And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom,
And spreads rekindling light, in all its living bloom.
To-day the Soul perceives a weight of woe;—
A brighter Morrow shall gay thoughts inspire.
Does [2] Phœbus always bend the vengeful bow?
Wakes he not often the harmonious lyre? ”

“ SONNET XIV. Ingratitude, how deadly is thy smart
Proceeding from the Form we fondly love!
How light, compared, all other sorrows prove!
Thou shed'st a Night of Woe, from whence depart
The gentle beams of Patience, that the heart
'Mid lesser ills, illume.—Thy Victims rove
Unquiet as the Ghost that haunts the Grove
Where Murder spilt the life-blood.—O! thy dart
Kills more than Life,—e'en all that makes Life dear ”

“ Bringing each day, at morn, at noon, at eve,
His mild illuminations.—Nymph, no more
Is thine to mourn beneath the scanty shade
Of half-blown foliage, shivering to deplore
Thy garlands immature, thy rites unpaid;
Meads dropt with [1] gold again to thee belong,
Soft gales, luxuriant bowers, and wood-land song.
1: Kingcups. [Pg 46]
SONNET XLIV. Rapt Contemplation, bring thy waking dreams
To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour,
While full of thee seems every bending flower,
Whose petals tremble o'er the shadow'd streams! ”

“ SONNET XXIX. SUBJECT CONTINUED.
If Genius has its danger, grief and pain,
That Common-Sense escapes, yet who wou'd change
The Powers, thro' Nature, and thro' Art that range,
To keep the bounded, tho' more safe domain
Of moderate Intellect, where all we gain
Is cold approvance? ”

“ Translations scrupulously faithful are apt to be stiff, vapid and obscure, from the often irreconcilably different nature of languages, from local customs, and from allusions to circumstances over which time has drawn a veil. In attempting to put the most admired and interesting of Horace's Odes into English Verse, I have taken only the Poet's general idea, frequently expanding it, to elucidate the sense, and to bring the images more distinctly to the eye; induced by the hope of thus infusing into these Paraphrases the spirit of original composition. ”

“ Thus it is that the jealousy People of literary fame often feel of each other, produces the foolish, and impolitic desire of decrying the general pretensions of the Age to Genius. Their narrow selfishness leads them to betray the common cause, which it is their true interest to support. They persuade the credulous Many, with whom envy of superior talents increases their willingness to despise, that Imagination is become enervated ”

“ II. Thus can lust of gold controul,
Tho' the Heart urge a wiser choice,
By force of habit lord it o'er the Soul,
And stifle e'en Conviction's powerful voice.
See, with sighs the Miser yield
The promis'd joys of wood, and field;
Against experienc'd disappointment, try
With Gold to purchase that, which Gold can never buy!
1: The Reader will remember, that in the course of these Paraphrases the design has been avowed of stretching the pictures of Horace upon a wider canvass, of filling up what are so often mere outlines. ”

“ That consciousness makes me indifferent to the expected cavils of illiberal criticism.
Men of letters have often observed to me, that in paraphrasing Horace, my sex would be an unpardonable crime with every Pedant, whether within, or without the pale of professional criticism. It is not in their power to speak or write more contemptuously of my Horatian Odes than the Critics of Dryden's and Pope's time, in the literary journals of that Period, wrote of their Translations from Homer, Virgil, Horace, Boccace, and Chaucer. ”

“ With shutters clos'd, peer faintly thro' the gloom,
That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume,
Rising from their dark pile, an added height
By indistinctness given.—Then to decree
The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold
To Friendship, or the Muse, or seek with glee
Wisdom's rich page!—O, hours! more worth than gold,
By whose blest use we lengthen Life, and free
From drear decays of Age, outlive the Old!
Dec. 19th, 1782.
1: This Sonnet was written in an Apartment of the West Front of the Bishop's Palace at Lichfield, inhabited by the Author from her thirteenth year. ”

“ Another Commentator observes, that as the Giants, and Lapithæ, are said to have made the Palace of Saturn shake, so also did Brutus, and Cassius, and afterwards Mark Antony, make all Italy tremble, and that it is Rome itself that Horace would have to be understood by the magnificent Palace of Saturn. Some Critics seek to destroy all the common sense, beauty, and character of this Ode, by denying the allegoric interpretation; and also by insisting that Licinia was the Poet's own Mistress, and not the mistress of his Patron. ”

“ Yet suffer not thy wrongs to shroud thy fate,
But turn, my Soul, to blessings which remain; ”

“ Doctor Johnson has the disingenuousness, in his Folio Dictionary, under the word Sonnet, to cite that Sonnet at full length, as a specimen of Milton's style in this kind of Poetry. Johnson disliked Sonnets, and he equally disliked Blank Verse, and Odes. It is in vain to combat the prejudice of splenetic aversion. The Sonnet is an highly valuable species of Verse; the best vehicle for a single detached thought, an elevated, or a tender sentiment, and for a succinct description. ”

“ When Death, or adverse Fortune's ruthless gale,
Tears our best hopes away, the wounded Heart
Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
The charm of Sympathy; her mutual wail
How soothing! never can her warm tears fail
To balm our bleeding grief's severest smart;
Nor wholly vain feign'd Pity's solemn art,
Tho' we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e'en known to be assum'd, our pains
Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
Than cold Neglect, or Mirth that Grief profanes.
Thus each faint Glow-worm of the Night conspires,
Gleaming along the moss'd and darken'd lanes,
To cheer the Gloom with her unreal fires. ”

“ While o'er the earth, from dim and thicken'd skies,
The flaky snows in white profusion fall,
Then the sylvan chase he seeks;—
Lo! furious from the thicket breaks
The gnashing Boar!—Flies he, or stands at bay,
Into the circling toils the staunch dogs drive the prey.
I. When thro' the clear, and sparkling air,
Fleet the pointed darts of frost,
The filmy nets, now here, now there,
For thievish birds, are lightly toss'd ”

“ The Caspian is a stormy and harbourless Sea—Yet the Poet observes that not even the Caspian is always tempestuous—insinuating, that inevitable as his grief must be for such a loss, it yet ought not to be incessant.
3: The coldness of Armenia is well known, surrounded as it is by the high mountains of Niphates, Taurus, Pariades, Antiaurus, and Ararat, which are always covered with snow.
4: Vesper—alike the Evening and Morning Star—appearing first and remaining last in the Horizon, it ushers in both the Evening and the Dawn. ”

“ SONNET XLIX. ON THE USE OF NEW AND OLD WORDS IN POETRY.
While with false pride, and narrow jealousy,
Numbers reject each new expression, won,
Perchance, from language richer than our own,
O! with glad welcome may the Poet see
Extension's golden vantage! the decree
Each way exclusive, scorn, and re-enthrone
The obsolete, if strength, or grace of tone
Or imagery await it, with a free,
And liberal daring!—For the Critic Train,
Whose eyes severe our verbal stores review,
Let the firm Bard require that they explain
Their cause of censure; then in balance true
Weigh it ”

“ In jargon, like the following, copied from a Review, are the works of Genius perpetually criticized in our public Prints: “Passion has not sufficient coolness to pause for metaphor, nor has metaphor ardor enough to keep pace with passion.”—Nothing can be less true. ”

“ Staying the furious main, delight has cast
O'er my rapt spirit, and my thrilling heart,
Dear as the softer joys green vales impart.
[Pg 98]
SONNET XCVI. The breathing freshness of the shining Morn,
Whose beams glance yellow on the distant fields,
A sweet, unutterable pleasure yields
To my dejected sense, that turns with scorn
From the light joys of Dissipation born. ”

“ Against their noxious blast, their sullen roar,
In vain we pile the hearth, in vain we close the door.
[Pg 145]
The universal lot ordains
We seek the black Cocytus' stream,
That languid strays thro' dreary plains,
Where cheerless fires perpetual gleam;
Where the fell Brides their fruitless toil bemoan,
And Sisyphus uprolls the still-returning stone. ”

“ A kindred nothingness, as to poetic value, ensues. There is, however, a considerable, though not abounding quantity of poetic matter, or essence in Horace; but it bears no proportion to the profusion of those evanescent glories, which will not bear the grasp of another Language. To give that essence in increased quantity, and in the freedom of unimitative numbers, is attempted in this selection. Dryden and Pope translated upon that plan, and hence their Paraphrases have the spirit of original Poems. ”

“ The Poet, however, has used great address and delicacy, making the reflections not particular but general; and he guards against exciting the soreness People feel from reprehension for their prevailing fault, by censuring with equal freedom the opposite extreme. That kind caution insinuated in this Ode, proved eventually vain, as did also the generosity of the Emperor, who soon after permitted Licinius to be chosen Augur;—probably at the intercession of his Favorite Mæcenas, who had married Terentia, a Daughter of that House, and whom Horace calls Licinia in the Ode which is next paraphrased. ”