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

Anonymous (1754)

249 ANONYMOUS (1754) This strange, unsophisticated poem was an attempt by an amateur poet at a Pindaric Ode – a poem on a lofty theme with rhyming lines of irregular length. It was dedicated to ‘Secretary Belchier’, presumably the author of ‘To the Ortolans’above (1726). The poet, appropriately, put as epigraph to the poem the famous couplet from Pope’s Essay on Criticism: ‘Who ever thinks a faultless Piece to see,/Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er will be.’ from: The Villa: or Glasnevin, a poem Written in imitation of Cowley’s Pindariques,… III Near to HIBERNIA’s grand Metropolis, Does a small well-built Village stand;1 It seems another Fairy-land, Or second Paradise. Here smoothly flows a dimpling Riv’let by, There num’rous lovely Gardens lie; Gardens so charming and so fair, Those of the fam’d Hesperides, (Fabl’d t’have been a Dragon’s care) Were not more beautiful or rare.2 10 Here Appollo strings his lyre,3 (Thou God of verse my song inspire) Here the tuneful Sisters sing, Here the Heliconian spring,4 Fills me with poetic ray, Promp[t]s me to this bold Essay. The dread Idea horror-strikes my soul, i.e. Glasnevin. 1 The mythical garden of the Hesperides (three beautiful nymphs) was guarded by a 2 dragon, Ladon. Apollo was the god of (among other things) music. The reference is probably to the poet 3 and clergyman Patrick Delany (for whose house in Glasnevin, see above: Thomas Sheridan’s ‘A Description of Dr Delany’s Villa’). In Greek mythology, the spring on Mount Helicon was said to be the source of poetic 4 inspiration. 250 When late the gapeing firmament Gave the strong imbred struggling Storm a vent;5 The livid light’nings flash from either Pole, 20 Exploding flame the huge concave o’erspreads And o’er our frighted heads Hoarse rumbling thunders roll; Shot from the bursting skie The vengeful Bolt is seen to fly; Th’impending clouds a deluge pour, And seem as they’d again the world devour. The Current6 swells insuperably strong, With wrathful force, And rapid course, 30 In one promisc’ous throng, Hurls trees, rocks, herds and cottages along. Omnipotence this devastation sent, A prelude to a greater punishment Of the ungrateful Sons of discontent. ... IV Look to the visage of the noon-tide sun: Dublin’s heaven-piercing spires rise; The distant Mountains stop our eyes; Westward they circling run; Into the confines of dull night 40 Protrude their heads and lose themselves to sight: They terminate a wide extended plain, Studded with stately Villas here and there, Delicious Mansions of content, Where never harsh intruding Care Pitches her hated tent. Now turn the glass7 towards the realms of day; The Advertisement at the beginning of the poem explains that the storm described 5 ‘actually happen’d, and did several considerable Damages…’. 6 Probably a ‘Claude’ glass – a small mirror, slightly convex in shape, with its surface 7 tinted a dark colour to assist the traveller or landscape artist who wished to view the countryside as if it were a painted landscape. The viewer would turn his or her back on the real landscape and arrange the Claude glass so that what ‘struck the eye’ in the reflection was ‘picturesque’ or ‘romantique’. } 251 Anonymous A vari’gated prospect strikes the eye, It does in sweet romantique contrast lie: Here we survey the flow’r-enamell’d Meads; 50 There thought-inviting Groves, and cooling Shades; Lo where the fleecy Feeders bleat! The vocal rocks the sound repeat; Yonder the buxom8 Heifer roars, And there we view the lowly Cots, along the stormy shoars. New beauties the delighted sense surprize, See where old Howth props the incumbent skies! See the Masons on the Wall!9 Hark! they to the Lab’rers call! See there the Ships at anchor in the bay! 60 See others putting out to sea! Now they unfurl their sails, And brace them to receive the wanton gales! Before the wind they steer, Now they grow less and less! Now wholly disappear! And there the vast liquid Champain,10 Meets with the azure Vault and closes up the scene! ... obedient, meek. 8 The South Bull wall, built to regulate the 9 tides in Dublin Bay, took nearly 50 years to build; it was finished in 1795. expanse. 10 ...