The Irish Poet and the Natural World: An Anthology of Verse in English from the Tudors to the Romantics

Edmund Burke (1729–1748–1797)

237 EDMUND BURKE (1729–1748–1797) Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was considerable admiration for Virgil’s Georgics and their vision of unsophisticated, natural life in the countryside; passages of the text were translated or paraphrased into English by May, Ogilby, Cowley, Creech, Temple, Dryden, Pope, Thomson and many ‘gentlemen’. One of the most interesting Irish verse paraphrases is by the young Trinity student, Edmund Burke; the text was printed in Mary Goddard’s Poems on Several Occasions (Dublin, 1748). The text paraphrased is Virgil Georgics II, 458 et seq. As a young man, Edmund Burke was an enthusiastic reader and writer of poetry. He told his friend Richard Shackleton (a schoolfellow from his time at the Quaker school at Ballitore, Co. Kildare) that this passage of the Georgics had always been ‘a favourite part’.1 from: O fortunatos nimium, &c. paraphras’d By a young Gentleman OH! happy Swains, did they know how to prize. The many Blessings rural Life supplies; Where in safe Huts from clatt’ring Arms afar, The Pomp of Cities and the Din of War: Indulgent Earth to pay his lab’ring Hand, Pours in his Arms the Blessings of the Land: Calm thro’ the Vallies flows along his Life, He knows no Danger as he knows no Strife. What tho’ no marble Posts nor Rooms of State, Vomit the cringing Torrent from his Gate;2 10 Tho’ no proud Purple hangs his stately Halls, Nor lives the breathing Brass3 along his Walls: Tho’ the Sheep cloaths him without Colours Aid, Nor seeks he foreign Luxury from Trade; Yet Peace and Honesty adorn his Days, With rural Riches and a Life of Ease. The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke ed. T. O. McLoughlin and James T. Boulton 1 (Oxford, 1997), I, 38. Cast out or reject the ‘cringing’ suppliants from his property. 2 Virgil’s original suggests brass or gold objects captured in battle and displayed on the 3 walls of the house. In the next line, the contrast is between clothes made of plain undyed wool and those made of expensive, coloured wool. 238 Joyous the yellowing Fields, here Ceres4 sees, Here blushing Clusters bend the groaning Trees; Here spreads the Silver Lake, and all around, Perpetual Green and Flowers adorn the Ground. 20 How happy too the peaceful Rustic lies, The Grass his Bed, his Canopy the Skies; From Heat retiring to the Noontide Glade, His Trees protect him with an ample Shade: No jarring Sounds invade his settling Breast, His looing Cows shall lull him into Rest. Here ’mong the Caves, the Woods and Rocks around, Here, only here, the hardy Youth abound; Religion here has fix’t her pure Abodes, Parents are honour’d, and ador’d the Gods; 30 Departing Justice when she fled Mankind, In those blest Plains her Footsteps left behind. … Happy the Man who vers’d in Nature’s Laws, From known Effects can trace the hidden Cause:5 Him not the Terrors of the Vulgar fright, The vagrant Forms and Spectres of the Night; Black and relentless Fate he tramples on, And all the Rout of greedy Acheron.6 Happy whose Life the rural God approves, The Guardian of his growing Flocks and Groves; 40 Harmonious Pan and old Sylvanus join,7 The Sister Nymphs to make his Joys divine. … The happy Rustic turns the fruitful Soil, And hence proceeds the Year’s revolving Toil; On this his Country for Support depends, On this his Cattle, Family, and Friends; For this the bounteous Gods reward his Care With all the Products of the various Year: Goddess of corn and the harvest. 4 Dryden’s translation of these lines reads: ‘Happy the Man, who, studying Nature’s Laws, 5 /Thro’ known Effects can trace the secret Cause.’ In Greek mythology, Acheron was the river of pain. 6 Pan was Greek god of shepherds (and their Panpipes) while Sylvanus was god of forests 7 and uncleared woodlands. 239 Edmund Burke His youngling Flocks now whiten all the Plain, Now sink his Furrows with the teeming Grain: 50 Beauteous to those Pomona8 adds her Charms, And pours her fragrant Treasures in his Arms; From loaden Boughs, the Orchard’s rich Produce, The mellow Apple and the gen’rous Juice. … The languid Autumn crown’d with yellow Leaves, With bleeding Fruit and golden-bearded Sheaves; Her various Products scatters o’er the Land, And rears the...