Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

  By private gratitude for public worth.

  This monument is raised, here where twelve years

  Meekly the blameless Prelate exercised

  His pastoral charge; and whither, though removed

  A little while to Durham’s wider See,

  His mortal relics were conveyed to rest.

  Bom in dissent, and in the school of schism

  Bred, he withstood the withering influence

  Of that unwholesome nurture. To the Church,

  In strength of mind mature and judgment clear,

  A convert, in sincerity of heart

  Seeking the truth, deliberately convinced,

  And finding there the truth he sought, he came.

  In honor must his high desert be held

  While there is any virtue, any praise;

  For he it was whose gifled intellect

  First apprehended, and developed first

  The analogy connate, which in its course

  And constitution Nature manifests

  To the Creator’s word and will divine;

  And in the depth of that great argument

  LAying his firm foundation, built thereon

  Proofs neyer to be shaken of the truths

  Reveal’d from Heaven in mercy to mankind;

  Allying thus Philosophy with Faith,

  And finding in things seen and known the type

  And evidence of those within the veil.

  DEDICATIOM OF THE AUTHOR’S COLLOQUIES ON THE PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF SOCIETY.

  MEMORY OF THE REV. HERBERT HILL

  Fonnerly Student of Christ Church, Oxford; successively Chaplain to the British Factories at Porto and at Lisbon; and late Rector of Streatham; who was released from this life, Sept. 19, 1898, in the 80th year of his age.

  Not upon marble or sepulchral brass

  Have I the record of thy worth inscribed.

  Dear Uncle! nor from Chantrey’s chisel ask’d

  A monumental statue, which might wear

  Through many an age thy venerable form.

  Such tribute, were I rich in this world’s wealth.

  Should rightfully be rendered, in discharge

  Of grateful duty, to the world evinced

  When testifying so by outward sign

  Its deep and inmost sense. But what I can

  Is rendered piously, prefixing here

  Thy perfect lineaments, two centuries

  Before thy birth by Holbein’s happy hand

  Prefigured thus. It is the portraiture

  Of More, the mild, the learned, and the good;

  Traced in that better stage of human life.

  When vain imaginations, troublous thoughts.

  And hopes and fears have had their course, and left

  The intellect composed, the heart at rest.

  Nor yet decay hath touch’d our mortal frame.

  Such was the man whom Henry, of desert

  Appreciant alway, chose for highest trust;

  Whom England in that eminence approved;

  Whom Europe honored, and Erasmus loved.

  Such was he ere heart-hardening bigotry

  Obscured his spirit, made him with himself

  Discordant, and contracting then his brow,

  With sour defeature marr’d his countenance.

  What he was, in his best and happiest time.

  Even such wert thou, dear Uncle! such thy look

  Benign and thoughtful; such thy placid mien;

  Thine eye serene, significant, and strong.

  Bright in its quietness, yet brightening oft

  With quick emotion of benevolence.

  Or flash of active fancy, and that mirth

  Which aye with sober wisdom well accords.

  Nor ever did true Nature, with more nice

  Exactitude, fit to the inner man

  The fleshly mould, than when she stamp’d on tiling

  Her best credentials, and bestow’d on thee

  An aspect, to whose sure benignity

  Beasts with instinctive confidence could trust,

  Which at a glance obtain’d respect from men.

  And won at once good will from all the good.

  Such as in semblance, such in word and deed

  Lisbon beheld him, when for many a yeax

  The even tenor of his spotless life

  Adom’d the English Church, — her minister.

  In that stronghold of Rome’s Idolatry,

  To God and man approved. What Englishman,

  Who in those peaceful days of Portugal

  Resorted thither, curious to observe

  Her cities, and the works and ways of men,

  But sought him, and from his abundant stores

  Of knowledge profited f What stricken one.

  Sent thither to protract a living death.

  Forlorn perhaps, and friendless else, but found

  A firiend in him ? What mourners, — who had seen

  The object of their agonizing hopes

  In that sad cypress ground deposited.

  Wherein so many a flower of British growth,

  Untimely faded and cut down, is laid.

  In foreign earth compress’d, — but bore away

  A life-long sense of his compassionate care.

  His Christian goodness ? Faithful shepherd he,

  And vigilant against the wolves, who, there.

  If entrance might be won, would straight beset

  The dying stranger, and with merciless zeal

  Bay th^ death-bed. In every family

  Throughout his fold was he the welcome guest,

  Alike to every generation dear,

  The children’s favorite, and the grandsire’s friend;

  Tried, trusted and beloved. So liberal, too,

  In secret alms, even to his utmost means.

  That they who served him, and who saw in part

  The channels where his constant bounty ran,

  Maugre their own uncharitable faith.

  Believed him, for his works, secure of Heaven.

  It would have been a grief for me to think

  The features, which so perfectly expressed

  That excellent mind, should irretrievably

  From earth have past away, existing now

  Only in some few faithful memories

  Insoul’d, and not by any limner’s skill

  To be imbodied thence. A blessing then

  On him, in whose prophetic counterfeit

  Preserved, the children now, who were the crown

  Of his old age, may see their father’s face,

  Here to the very life portray’d, as when

  Spain’s mountain passes, and her ilex woods,

  And fragant wildernesses , side hy side,

  With him 1 traversed, in my morn of youth,

  And ^ther’d knowledge from his full discourse.

  Often, in former years, 1 pointed out,

  Well-pleased, the casual portrait, which so well

  Assorted in all points; and haply since,

  While lingering o’er this meditative work.

  Sometimes that likeness, not unconsciously.

  Hath tinged the strain; and therefore, for the sake

  Of this resemblance, are these volumes now

  Thus to his memory properly inscribed.

  O friend! O more than father! who I found

  Forbearing alway, alway kind; to whom

  No gratitude can speak the debt I owe;

  Far on their earthly pilgrimage advanced

  Are they who knew thee when we drew the breath

  Of that delicious clime! The most are gone;

  And whoso yet survive of those who then

  Were in their summer season, on the tree

  Of life hang here and there like wintry leaves.

  Which the first breeze will from the bough bring down.

  I, too, am in the sear, the yellow leaf.

  And yet (no wish is nearer t
o my heart)

  One arduous labor more, as unto thee

  In duty bound, full fain would I complete,

  (So Heaven permit,) recording faithfully

  The heroic rise, the glories, the decline.

  Of that fallen country, dear to us, wherein

  The better portion of thy days was past;

  And where, in fruitful intercourse with thee.

  My intellectual life received betimes

  The bias it hath kept. Poor Portugal,

  In us thou harboredst no ungrateful guests!

  We loved thee well; Mother magnanimous

  Of mighty intellects and faithful hearts, —

  For such in other times thou wert, nor yet

  To be despair’d of, for not yet, methinks.

  Degenerate wholly, — yes, we loved thee well!

  And in thy moving story, (so but life

  Be given me to mature the gathered store

  Of thirty years,) poet and politic,

  And Christian sage, (only philosopher

  Who from the Well of living water drinks

  Never to thirst again,) shall find, I ween.

  For fancy, and for profitable thought.

  Abundant food.

  Alas! should this be given,

  Such consummation of my work will now

  Be but a mournful close, the one being gone,

  Whom to have satisfied was still to me

  A pure reward, outweighing far all breath

  Of public praise. O friend revered, O guide

  And fellow-laborer in this ample field.

  How large a portion of myself hath past

  With thee, from earth to heaven! — Thus they who reach

  Gray hairs die piecemeal. But in good old age

  Thou hast departed; not to be bewail’d, —

  Oh no! The promise on the Mount vouchsafed.

  Nor abrogate by any later law

  Reveal ‘d to man, — that promise, as by thee

  Full piously deserved, was faithfully

  In thee fulfilled, and in the land thy days

  Were long. 1 would not, as I saw thee Ust,

  For a king’s ransom, have detain’d thee here, —

  Bent, like the antique sculptor’s limbless trunk.

  By chronic pain, yet with thine eye unquench’d,

  The ear undimm’d, the mind retentive still.

  The heart unchanged, the intellectual lamp

  Burning in its corporeal sepulchre.

  No; not if human wishes had had power

  To have suspended Nature’s constant work.

  Would they who loved thee have detain’d thee thus

  Waiting for death.

  That trance is over. Thou

  Art enter’d on thy heavenly heritage;

  And I, whose dial of mortality

  Points to the eleventh hour, shall follow soon.

  Meantime, with dutiful and patient hope,

  I labor that our names conjoin’d may long

  Survive, in honor one day to be held

  Where old Lisboa from her hills o’erlooks

  Expanded Tagus, with its populous shores

  And pine woods, to Palmella’s crested height:

  Nor there alone; but in those rising realms

  Where now the offsets of the Lusian tree

  Push forth their vigorous shoots, — from central plains.

  Whence rivers flow divergent, to the gulf

  Southward, where wild Parana disembogues

  A sea-like stream; and northward, in a world

  Of forests, where huge Orellana clips

  His thousand islands with his thousand arms.

  CARMEN TRIUMPHALE

  FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR 1814.

  From 1809 Southey had started contributing poems and articles to the Quarterly Review and he had become so well known by 1813 that he was appointed Poet Laureate after Walter Scott had refused the post. The following Pindaric ode Carmen Triumphale was written to celebrate his appointment and opens with a respectful salute to the new Poet Laureate’s predecessors, including Dryden and his beloved Spenser. The poem also functions as a new year’s ode and details the Duke of Wellington’s victories in the Peninsular War. While Southey would break with the convention of publishing annual odes on the state of the nation, the convention of abusing the new laureate, which had begun with Whitehead, continued unabated.

  Lord Byron wrote to James Wedderburn Webster: “I have been passing my time with Rogers and Sir James Mackintosh; and once at Holland House I met Southey; he is a person of very ‘epic’ appearance, and has a fine head — as far as the outside goes, and wants nothing but taste to make the inside equally attractive” And Francis Jeffrey wrote: “On the whole, we cannot congratulate Mr. Southey on ‘Carmen Triumphale’; — and, high as our expectations were, when we heard that he had ‘forsworn thin potations, and addicted himself to sack,’ we are now satisfied that this diet does not at all agree with his poetical temperament; and advise him to shake off his foolish bays, and return to his fresh water a speedily as possible. We think very favourably of his abilities, when his head is clear, and divested of these incumbrances; and promise ourselves much and frequent gratification from the sober use of his pen.”

  Lord Byron (1788-1824) was always a severe critic of Southey’s literary talent, sinisterly portraying him in Don Juan as “insolent, narrow and shabby”. Byron was quick to attack Southey after his appointment as Poet Laureate.

  Carmen Triumphale.

  FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR 1814.

  I.

  In happy hour doth he receive

  The Laurel, meed of famous Bards of yore,

  Which Dryden and diviner Spenser wore,..

  In happy hour, and well may he rejoice,

  Whose earliest task must be

  To raise the exultant hymn for victory,

  And join a nation’s joy with harp and voice,

  Pouring the strain of triumph on the wind,

  Glory to God, his song, Deliverance for Mankind!

  II.

  Wake, lute and harp! My soul take up the strain!

  Glory to God! Deliverance for Mankind!

  Joy,.. for all Nations, joy! But most for thee,

  Who hast so nobly fill’d thy part assign’d,

  O England! O my glorious native land!

  For thou in evil days didst stand

  Against leagued Europe all in arms array’d,

  Single and undismay’d,

  Thy hope in Heaven and in thine own right hand.

  Now are thy virtuous efforts overpaid,

  Thy generous counsels now their guerdon find,

  Glory to God! Deliverance for Mankind!

  III.

  Dread was the strife, for mighty was the foe

  Who sought with his whole strength thy overthrow.

  The Nations bow’d before him; some in war

  Subdued, some yielding to superior art;

  Submiss, they follow’d his victorious car.

  Their Kings, like Satraps, waited round his throne;

  For Britain’s ruin and their own,

  By force or fraud in monstrous league combined.

  Alone, in that disastrous hour,

  Britain stood firm and braved his power;

  Alone she fought the battles of mankind.

  IV.

  O virtue which, above all former fame,

  Exalts her venerable name!

  O joy of joys for every British breast!

  That with that mighty peril full in view,

  The Queen of Ocean to herself was true!

  That no weak heart, no abject mind possess’d

  Her counsels, to abase her lofty crest,..

  (Then had she sunk in everlasting shame,)

  But ready still to succour the oppress’d,

  Her Red Cross floated on the waves unfurl’d,

  Offering Redemption to the groaning world.

  V.

/>   First from his trance the heroic Spaniard woke;

  His chains he broke,

  And casting off his neck the treacherous yoke,

  He call’d on England, on his generous foe:

  For well he knew that wheresoe’er

  Wise policy prevail’d, or brave despair,

  Thither would Britain’s liberal succours flow,

  Her arm be present there.

  Then, too, regenerate Portugal display’d

  Her ancient virtue, dormant all-too-long.

  Rising against intolerable wrong,

  On England, on her old ally, for aid

  The faithful nation call’d in her distress:

  And well that old ally the call obey’d,

  Well was that faithful friendship then repaid.

  VI.

  Say from thy trophied field how well,

  Vimeiro! Rocky Douro tell!

  And thou, Busaco, on whose sacred height

  The astonished Carmelite,

  While those unwonted thunders shook his cell,

  Join’d with his prayers the fervour of the fight.

  Bear witness those Old Towers, where many a day

  Waiting with foresight calm the fitting hour,

  The Wellesley, gathering strength in wise delay,

  Defied the Tyrant’s undivided power.

  Swore not the boastful Frenchman in his might,

  Into the sea to drive his Island-foe?

  Tagus and Zezere, in secret night,

  Ye saw that host of ruffians take their flight!

  And in the Sun’s broad light

  Onoro’s Springs beheld their overthrow.

  VII.

  Patient of loss, profuse of life,

  Meantime had Spain endured the strife;

  And though she saw her cities yield,

  Her armies scatter’d in the field,

  Her strongest bulwarks fall;

  The danger undismay’d she view’d,

  Knowing that nought could e’er appal

  The Spaniards’ fortitude.

  What though the Tyrant, drunk with power,

  Might vaunt himself, in impious hour,

  Lord and Disposer of this earthly ball?

  Her cause is just, and Heaven is over all.

  VIII.

  Therefore no thought of fear debased

  Her judgement, nor her acts disgraced.