Part 31 (1/2)

May never was the month for love, For May is full of floures, But rather Aprill, wett by kinde, For love is full of showers....

Like winter rose and summer yce, Her joyes are still untymelye; Before her hope, behind remorse, Fayre first, in fyne unseemely.

Edmund Spenser (1598) describes a garden in _The Faerie Queene_:

There the most daintie Paradise on ground It selfe did offer to his sober eye, In which all pleasures plenteously abownd, And none does others' happinesse envye; The painted flowres, the trees upshooting hye, The dales for shade, the hilles for breathing s.p.a.ce, The trembling groves, the christall running by, And, that which all fair workes doth most aggrace, The art which all that wrought appeared in no place.

Mountain scenery was seldom visited or described.

Michael Drayton (1731) wrote an ode on the Peak, in Derbys.h.i.+re:

Though on the utmost Peak A while we do remain, Amongst the mountains bleak Exposed to sleet and rain, No sport our hours shall break To exercise our vein.

It is clear that he preferred his comfort to everything, for he goes on:

Yet many rivers clear Here glide in silver swathes, And what of all most dear Buxton's delicious baths, Strong ale and n.o.ble chear T' a.s.suage breem winter's scathes.

Thomas Carew (1639) sings:

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose, For in your beauties' orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray The golden atoms of the day, For in pure love Heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale, when May is past, For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more where these stars s.h.i.+ne That downwards fall in dead of night, For in your eyes they sit, and there Fixed become, as in their sphere.

Ask me no more if east or west The phoenix builds her spicy nest, For unto you at last she flies And in your fragrant bosom dies.

William Drummond (1746) avowed a taste which he knew to be very unfas.h.i.+onable:

Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove, Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own Though solitary, who is not alone, But doth converse with that eternal love.

O how more sweet is birds' harmonious moan Or the soft sobbings of the widow'd dove, Than those smooth whisp'rings near a prince's throne....

O how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath And sighs perfum'd, which new-born flowers unfold.

Another sonnet, to a nightingale, says:

Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours Of winters past or coming void of care, Well pleased with delights which present are, Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers; To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare, A stain to human sense in sin that lowers, What soul can be so sick which by thy songs Attir'd in sweetness, sweetly is not driven Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs?

He greets Spring:

Sweet Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flowers; The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain, The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their showers.

Robert Blair (1746) sings in _The Grave_:

Oh, when my friend and I In some thick wood have wander'd heedless on, Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down Upon the sloping cowslip-cover'd bank, Where the pure limpid stream has slid along In grateful errors through the underwood, Sweet murmuring; methought the shrill-tongu'd thrush Mended his song of love, the sooty blackbird Mellowed his pipe and soften'd every note, The eglantine smell'd sweeter and the rose a.s.sum'd a dye more deep, whilst ev'ry flower Vied with its fellow plant in luxury Of dress. Oh! then the longest summer's day Seem'd too, too much in haste, still the full heart Had not imparted half; half was happiness Too exquisite to last--Of joys departed Not to return, how painful the remembrance!

The great painter of Nature among the poets was James Thomson. He was not original, but followed Pope, who had lighted up the seasons in a dry, dogmatic way in _Windsor Forest_, and pastoral poems, and after the publication of his _Winter_ the taste of the day carried him on.

His deep and sentimental affection for Nature was mixed up with piety and moralizing. He said in a letter to his friend Paterson:

Retirement and Nature are more and more my pa.s.sion every day; and now, even now, the charming time comes on; Heaven is just on the point, or rather in the very act, of giving earth a green gown.

The voice of the nightingale is heard in our lane. You must know that I have enlarged my rural domain ... walled, no, no! paled in about as much as my garden consisted of before, so that the walk runs round the hedge, where you may figure me walking any time of day, and sometimes of the night.... May your health continue till you have sc.r.a.ped together enough to return home and live in some snug corner, as happy as the Corycius senex in Virgil's fourth Georgic, whom I recommend both to you and myself as a perfect model of the truest happy life.

It is a fact that Solitude and Nature became a pa.s.sion with him. He would wander about the country for weeks at a time, noting every sight and sound, down to the smallest, and finding beauty and divine goodness in all. His _Seasons_ were the result.

There is faithful portraiture in these landscapes in verse; some have charm and delicacy, but, for the most part, they are only catalogues of the external world, wholly lacking in links with the inner life.