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

William Dunkin (1705–1741–1765)

208 The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. Harold Williams, 5 vols, second ed. (Oxford, 1 1965), V, 86. i.e both cities and fields were deprived of their miserable inhabitants and workers. Wide 2 = empty; hinds = labourers. Dunkin is translating the Latin ‘… miseris viduavit civibus urbes, Et campos late cultoribus’. destructive, ruthless. 3 storehouse for arms and ammunition. 4 WILLIAM DUNKIN (1705–1741–1765) William Dunkin, who came from County Louth, was born in 1705. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin, where he was a member of a group of lively young scholars who entertained each other and the Dublin coffee-houses by publishing scurrilous verse satires. He joined the circle around Swift who described him as ‘a Gentleman of much Wit, and the best English as well as Latin poet in this Kingdom’.1 Dunkin’s English verse is certainly ebullient, original and witty and he regularly exploited his classical learning by translating his own English poems into Latin or Greek – or both. He became headmaster of Portora Royal School, Enniskillen in 1746. The poem that follows is on the great frost of 1739–41, and was written in both Latin and English – which partly explains its Latinate vocabulary and syntax. The Frosty Winters of Ireland, in the Years 1739, 1740 Long had the swains with envious eyes beheld The smiling face of better Heaven, and fields A-float with golden grain. At length from Hell A baneful fury twice effus’d her breath Malign, twice, gliding o’er Hibernia’s coast, Her cities widow’d of their mournful tribes, And wide the region of laborious hinds.2 A fell3 infection, (whether through the stroke Of chance, or fate, or vengeful Heaven, (how due To crimes repeated!) and the treasur’d wrath 10 Of God offended,) on the rushing wings Of winds descended, harbinger of death, And desolation. Bellowing aloft The sky gave signal: burst the magazines4 Of elemental war from pole to pole; While nature, sick’ning through the frighted globe, Forgetful of her usual tenour shrunk, As into chaos: such a shock she felt, 209 William Dunkin As when, deluded by the tempter’s wiles, The mother of mankind, amid the gifts 20 Of life immortal, disobedient pluck’d Forbidden fruit, and tasted future death. The vagrant rivers, in their prone career5 Congeal’d, arrested, at the voice divine Horrific stood, and through the liquid lakes And arms of ocean, watry fields admire6 Unwonted burthens. Fiery foaming steeds Bound o’er the polish’d plain,7 and human crowds Securely glide, and glowing chariots fly With rapid wheels. Beneath the glassy gulph 30 Fishes benumb’d, and lazy sea-calves8 freeze In crystal coalition with the deep. The hoary winter, beldam of the year Unteeming,9 inly binds the frigid womb Of all-productive earth. In frequent bands10 The cattle perish, and the savage kind, With each his food; not moisture in the plants Abides, nor verdure in the bladed grass. The seed, committed to the faithless glebe, Belyes the peasant’s hope, and, chilled beneath, 40 Dies unprolific: nor through rigid fields Neglected brambles, horrid, and perplex’d With bryar-vines, and poison-pointed thorns, Alone decay: Vertumnus,11 all thy pride Falls in the stem: the various families, Of rose trees, myrtles, and adopted flow’rs Resign their odour-bearing souls: nor now The cypress rises into verdant cone, i.e. their normal downhill flow. Vagrant = wandering. 5 are astonished at. 6 i.e. the ice. 7 seals. 8 mother (or nurse) of the unfruitful year. 9 great numbers. 10 Vertumnus was the Roman god of the seasons, change and plant growth. 11 210 Nor into head the fashionable box,12 Smit by the frost. In gardens, though immur’d, 50 Or hedg’d, the pear, and apple-tree, late wont From summer-beams to yield a shady dome To noon-tide swain, and to the thirsty lip Nectareous draughts, and blush with orient gold, Promiscuous13 dye. The regal oak in vain Objects14 its boughy shield, encircled thick With lesser subjects of the wood, inur’d To brave the ruins of inclement skies, The threats of winds, and tempests, big with hail, Deep through its fibres, and the triple bark 60 Imbibes the horror keen, and polar bane.15 In vain the birds their plumy coats oppose To Boreal blasts:16 the penetrative cold Pervades their downy limbs, and hearts, transfix’d...