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

James Creighton (1736–1791–1819)

317 JAMES CREIGHTON (1736–1791–1819) James Creighton was born in County Cavan and educated at Cavan Grammar School and at Trinity College Dublin. He was ordained into the Church of Ireland and served as curate of Swanlinbar, Co. Cavan. Creighton was a man of strong Christian faith who came under the influence of John Wesley and became a Methodist though he continued (as Wesley intended his followers to do) to be an active member of the Established Church. He lived for a while in London and visited America with Wesley in 1784. Creighton was a prolific writer of pamphlets and sermons as well as of verse, the latter collected in his Poetic Miscellanies (London, 1791). His strong faith and his love for the Irish countryside come together in the poem from which the following extract is taken. from: The Prospect of the Lake Erne, and the country adjacent, from the Hill called Knockninny The morn invites; come then, and let us climb Up yonder Hill that rears its crest sublime: Let us inhale the sweets upon the lawn, View frisking lambkins, and the sportive fawn: And when we gain Knockninny’s utmost height, We’ll feast our eyes with exquisite delight. My friend,1 I know, has taste, and he shall find A copious subject to expand his mind. This day we’ll spend, and chearfully employ, In viewing Nature, and our GOD enjoy: 10 Each blade of grass, each flow’r, each shrub, each tree, Will point us out the hand of DEITY: Their various tints, their uses, and design, Will fully prove the work is all divine! If things minute, with microscopic eye, We closely view; an atom, or a fly; An embryo insect, veil’d within its coat; Or lighter things, which in a sun-beam float: If Vegetation should our mind engross, And we should stop to view a bed of Moss; 20 Or, if the Fluids, rising from the Root, Producing Leaves, perhaps delicious Fruit; i.e. the friend who accompanied the poet on the climb. 1 318 If these, and thousands more, our thoughts engage; The creeping Ivy, and the Mountain-sage;2 The Thistle’s Down, the Petals of the Flow’rs, Where bees sip nectar from ambrosial show’rs: The heath with crimson crown’d; the slender rush; The wild-rose op’ning; and the hawthorn bush. If each of these we study, or the whole, A sweet astonishment shall seize the soul! 30 Their beauty, texture, curious parts combin’d, Afford much matter for a thinking mind: The more we search, examine, and explore, More cause we find to wonder and adore: And, tho’ the use of each we cannot scan, Because beyond the reach of mortal man, Yet still in all, in each, a God we see, To whom, with rev’rence, all should bend the knee. And now, methinks, your mind begins to fill With pleasing rapture, as we mount the Hill: 40 Then let this hillock be our seat awhile, ’Till I shall point you first to sweet Bellisle.3 See there it lies, almost beneath your feet, A most enchanting, lovely, calm retreat: Remote from noise, and from the bustling scene, Where sharpers cheat, and Cits4 are fill’d with spleen; Where flattery cringes with a smiling bow, And perjury succeeds the faithless vow; Where honest worth but rarely meets a friend, And Patriots5 speak but for some private end: 50 Where native blushes (counted now disgrace!) Would seem a wonder on a female face: And whilst the husband pores upon the news, His partner oft frequents the public stews:6 2 See also William Balfour 3 Madden’s 1761 poem on Bellisle (above). citizens or those living in towns. 4 i.e. members of one party in the Irish Parliament. 5 brothels. 6 319 James Creighton —But, stop, my thoughts!—with horror now I start! E’en thoughts of Cities might pollute the heart! Then let us turn our ears to yonder grove, To hear the black-bird, and the cooing dove! Behold that meadow, and the new-mown hay, That lawn, where lambkins sport the live-long day; 60 That splendid dome; that garden with its fruits; Its grapes, and green-house, with exotic roots! See there a clump of trees, and here a brake,7 Which seem down-bending in the placid lake! Then lift your eyes, and for a moment...