Thomas Parnell

“ It is indeed amazing, after what has been done by Dryden, Addison, and Pope, to improve and harmonize our native tongue, that their successors should have taken so much pains to involve it in pristine barbarity. These misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the more their writings were unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry. They have adopted a language of their own, and call upon mankind for admiration. ”

“ And seek the sacred hill, and light to sing;
(Tis known in Jewry well) I'll make my lays,
Obedient to thy summons, sound with praise."
But still I fear, unwarm'd with holy flame,
I take for truth the flatteries of a dream;
And barely wish the wondrous gift I boast,
And faintly practise what deserves it most.
Indulgent Lord! whose gracious love displays
Joy in the light, and fills the dark with ease!
Be this, to bless my days, no dream of bliss;
Or be, to bless the nights, my dreams like this. ”

“ Remote from man, with God he pass'd the days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
A life so sacred, such serene repose,
Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rose;
That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey,
This sprung some doubt of Providence's sway:
His hopes no more a certain prospect boast,
And all the tenour of his soul is lost.
So when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm nature's image on its watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow. ”

“ Mr. Pope is reading a letter, and in the mean time I make use of the pen, to testify my uneasiness in not hearing from you. I find success, even in the most trivial things, raises the indignation of a scribbler; for I, for my what-d'-ye-call-it, could neither escape the fury of Mr. Burnet or the German Doctor; then where will rage end, when Homer is to be translated? Let Zoilus hasten to your friend's assistance, and envious criticism shall be no more. I am in hopes that we order our affairs so, as to meet this summer at the Bath; for Mr. Pope and myself have thoughts of taking a trip thither. ”

“ Ah! say why here do art and nature pour
Their charms conjoin'd in many a varied store;
Why bloom, by Flora's hand adorn'd, my bowers,
Why dance my fountains,and why laugh my flowers?
Along each velvet lawn and opening glade
Why spreads the cedar his immortal shade?
The brooks that warble, and the hills that shine,
Charm every heart, and please each eye but mine.
Though gleams the page by jealous time unroll'd,
Where the long shelves expand their rows of gold,
Tho' their rich leaves the pictur'd missals spread⁠
With knightly tale, and gothic legend fed ”

“ The Poet's page had hail'd her growing fame,⁠
And future Drydens dignified a name,
Of beauty more profuse, and more secure from blame.
One moment linger!—lo! from Venus' bowers
Descends the youngest of the roseate Hours:
She comes in all her blushing beauty borne,
From the far fountains of the purple morn.
Aurora's self! what time her brow resumes,
The bright refulgence of its golden plumes. ”

“ Charm'd by thy voice, I leave my books and bowers,
Well pleas'd with thee to share the social hours,
Secure to find (so close our fates agree) ,
The friend, and such as Parnell found, in thee.
Say (for thou know'st) , how glides the various day,
How time, with thee conversing, steals away.
And oh! recall (too swift our pleasures fly,)
Those kindlier seasons and that softer sky. ”

“ Extends incumbent on the watery plain.
Then arm your host, the doubtful battle try;
Lead forth those frogs that have the soul to die.
The chief retires, the crowd the challenge hear,
And proudly-swelling yet perplex'd appear:
Much they resent, yet much their monarch blame,
Who rising, spoke to clear his tainted fame.
O friends, I never forc'd the mouse to death,
Nor saw the gasping of his latest breath. ”

“ As we rise in our speculations daily, we are grown so grave, that we have not condescended to laugh at any of the idle things about us this week. I have contracted a severity of aspect from deep meditation on high subjects, equal to the formidable front of black-brow'd Jupiter, and become an awful nod as well, when I assent to some grave and weighty proposition of the Doctor, or enforce a criticism of mine own. In a word, Young himself has not acquired more tragic majesty in his aspect by reading his own verses, than I by Homer's. ”

“ Through all the frog the shining javelin flies,
And near the vanquish'd mouse the victor dies.
The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affrights,
Long bred to banquets, less inur'd to fights;
Heedless he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly floundering flashes up the deep:
Lychenor following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe;
Gasping he rolls, a purple stream of blood
Distains the surface of the silver flood;
Through the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And slow the breathless carcass floats along. ”

“ For her how fair the purple morning glows!
Her's the green earth in all its beauty given,
And her's the bright transparent dome of heaven.
Tired nature rests—the sun declines his rays,
Round the warm hearth the evening fagots blaze.
Stretch'd by the cheerful fire, the genial board,
They wish not Russell's wealth, nor Gideon's hoard:
Nor envy they, by summer fountain laid,
The lords of Chatsworth, or of Ragley's shade. ”

“ To copy nature is a task the most bungling workman is able to execute: to select such parts as contribute to delight, is reserved only for those whom accident has blessed with uncommon talents, or such as have read the ancients with indefatigable industry. Parnell is ever happy in the selection of his images, and scrupulously careful in the choice of his subjects. His productions bear no resemblance to those tawdry things which it has for some time been the fashion to admire; in writing which, the poet sits down without any plan, and heaps up splendid images without any selection ”

“ With blushes glows, or shines with lively smiles,
Confirms her will, or recollects her whiles:
Then conscious of her worth, with easy pace
Glides by the glass, and turning views her face.
A finer flax than what they wrought before,
Through time's deep cave the sister Fates explore,
Then fix the loom, their fingers nimbly weave,
And thus their toil prophetic songs deceive.
Flow from the rock, my flax! and swiftly flow,
Pursue thy thread; the spindle runs below.
A creature fond and changing, fair and vain,
The creature woman, rises now to reign. ”

“ Yet who ever exchanged the fascinations of a society in which the polished graces and gentle benevolence of manner were united with refined learning, and the various acquirements of a cultivated taste-, for a lower grade of life, without feeling how much easier it would be to pass at once into perfect solitude; and how sensitive in that delightful and artificial atmosphere the mind becomes to the slightest shock, or ruder breath that it meets with in its altered intercourse with the world. ”

“ Few men have the power of arriving at excellence, but by assiduous toil, and after repeated failures. He who has attained the art of writing well, has previously written much that he would not willingly own; it is no disgrace to Parnell, to allow that these poems are the genuine production of his muse; they are not without some harmonious lines, and poetical passages; but there is nothing in them that can add a single leaf of laurel to his brow, who in his Hesiod, his Hermit, and his Fairy Tale, has given us poems that, in their kind, it would be very difficult to surpass in excellence. ”

“ Now, beauteous Hybla, dress thy flowery beds
With all the pride the lavish season sheds;
Now all thy colours, all thy fragrance yield,
And rival Enna's aromatic field. [6]
To fill the presence of the gentle court
From every quarter rural Nymphs resort,
From woods, from mountains, from their humble vales,
From waters curling with the wanton gales.
Pleas'd with the joyful train, the laughing Queen
In circles seats them round the bank of green;
And "lovely girls," she whispers, "guard your hearts;
My boy, though stript of arms, abounds in arts." ”

“ Breathing each varied grace, thy heart beguile;
Though Mirth and Pleasure kindle on her brow,
Though bright the gleams of love and laughter glow,
Yet thou each soft seductive glance distrust,
And feel that beauty is not always just. ”

“ The Enchanter calls!—the mountain waves its brow,
Through softer vales the obedient rivers flow;
Yon bending arch,where Thames his tribute pours,
Spans the long wave, and weds the opposing shores,
Pleas'd he receives his granite yoke again,
And glides with gentler murmur to the main.
Now in thy calm suburban walks we stray,⁠
Or catch from beauty's lips the warbled lay,
When masque and music close the long declining day. ”

“ The mouse fell thundering, and the target rung;
Prone to the ground he sinks his closing eye,
And soil'd in dust his lovely tresses lie.
A spear at Pelion Troglodytes cast,
The missive spear within the bosom past;
Death's sable shades the fainting frog surround,
And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound. ”

“ As it is, we must be content to know that Parnell added the pleasing qualities of a companion, to the elegant invention of the poet.
"When the poet's fame, as Goldsmith says, is increased by time, it is then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition; the dews of the morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridian splendour." ”

“ Slow creaking turns the door with jealous care,
And half he welcomes in the shivering pair;
One frugal faggot lights the naked walls,
And nature's fervour through their limbs recalls:
Bread of the coarsest sort, with eager wine,
Each hardly granted, serv'd them both to dine;
And when the tempest first appear'd to cease,
A ready warning bid them part in peace.
With still remark the pondering hermit view'd
In one so rich, a life so poor and rude ”

“ The potent warriors of the tabby vest:
If to the dark we fly, the dark they trace,
And rend our heroes of the nibbling race.
But me, nor stalks, nor watrish herbs delight,
Nor can the crimson radish charm my sight,
The lake-resounding frog's selected fare,
Which not a mouse of any taste can bear. ”

“ Rise from their rest (ere the blue morning break
From the fresh heaven, or early breezes wake,
Scattering the glist'ning drops from off the thorn,
Or list'ning in the copse the hunter's horn) ;
And duly as the sun, and day by day,
Tread the same path through life's unwearied way;
Their frugal virtues wisdom's eye admires,
Where prudence guards what industry acquires. ”

“ Gaz'd on each marble shrine, each sacred fane,⁠
Fresh rising (thus it seem'd) , and that lov'd plain,
Where Athens saw her own Minerva reign.
Genius of Greece! what sounds his ear invade,
Breath'd by thy lips from Delphi's depth of shade!
How roll the kindling numbers soft or strong,
In all the awful majesty of song.
What voice prophetic sounds from Cirrha's cave! ”

“ Thro' the pale woods the showers of foliage sweep,
And the rough surge is whitening all the deep.
Now round the social fire, and steaming urn,
O'er fragrant cups the studious lamp we burn;
Or dream of days (ah! why should fate deny!)
Long days beneath Ausonia's golden sky.
On Mincio's banks, at shut of evening hours,
The bee is sleeping in his ark of flowers:
Past are the Julian hills—and lo! the plain
Spreading by soft Adeste's green domain.
Now with the shepherd on Soracte's brow,⁠
Gazing the marble city; now below,
Where Tiber's pale and silent waters flow. ”

“ And, Delia, huntress Delia, shun the plain.
Let those love now, who never lov'd before;
Let those who always lov'd, now love the more.
Gay with the bloom of all her opening year,
The Queen at Hybla bids her throne appear ”

“ Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine:
A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.
In vain to deserts thy retreat is made ”

“ They view me like the last of things:
They make, and then they dread, my stings.
Fools! if you less provok'd your fears,
No more my spectre form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God ”

“ And men embrace the wrong to choose the right.
But thou of force must one Religion own,
And only one, and that the right alone;
To find that right one, ask thy reverend sire,
Let his of him, and him of his inquire;
Though Truth and Falsehood seem as twins allied,
There's eldership on Truth's delightful side;
Her seek with heed—who seeks the soundest first,
Is not of no Religion, nor the worst. ”

“ Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes, and tongue,
Are sure to conquer,—for the rogue is young;
And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,
We call it only pretty Fanny's way.
Let time, that makes you homely, make you sage;
The sphere of wisdom is the sphere of age. ”

“ The book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies ”